of church discipline. It is to be observed that Christ gave Peter no keys which He gave not to the other apostles, as we learn from His own words in Matt. xviii. 18. And certainly Christ does not place Peter in authority over the other apostles, nor give him any power that he could transmit to his successors, whereby they might open and shut paradise as they please, nor can I believe that the authority here spoken of is special, local, and temporary.

But whilst to the Christian Church (and by the Church is meant the company of the faithful of all climes and creeds who are lovingly united to Christ, who is the Head), our Lord has given power to exclude and to receive into her different associations, let us remember that the keys are the keys of the kingdom of heaven. "The highest thing granted here consists in Peter's having a promise that he would be enabled to execute with purity the sentence of heaven itself in the affairs of the Christian society." But if what is loosed on earth is loosed in heaven, and what is bound on earth is bound in heaven, the keys of the kingdom of heaven are powerless. Against the power of Him Who has the key of David, and Who openeth and no man shutteth, and shutteth and no man openeth, there is no resistance. To understand, to practise this word of Jesus, we must have our spirit enlightened, quickened, the temple of the Holy Ghost. He that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself

is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord that He may instruct him! But we have the mind of Christ. If we would exercise spiritual authority, we must have the Divine revelation to us-not "the flesh and blood revelation, but the Heavenly Father, Who alone can reveal spiritual things to the spirit of man." Who is to receive confession of sin-the priest set apart for the office? No! "Confess your faults one to another." "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of weakness, considering thyself lest thou also be tempted." Am I able to fulfil these apostolic injunctions? Have I such spiritual love and life as to win others to confess their faults to me, and to be able to restore an erring member of Christ's Church? Am I so living in Christ and with Christ as to be loosing on earth what is loosed in heaven, and binding on earth what is bound in heaven? I am persuaded what Christians need to look at is the quality of our own spiritual life. Oh, to allow the Lord Jesus so to educate us spiritually as to attain fitness for the higher responsibilities of the Christian profession.

Many years ago a splendid hall was erected in one of the large towns of England. Before that magnificent building was raised, the architecture was most wretched-since, it has gradually risen, and now most favourably compares with other large towns. That

one building served to elevate the standard and improve the taste of the whole community. Reader, it is exactly thus with spiritual life. If the tone of your piety be good, if your spiritual life is high, and your conduct is adorning the doctrine of God your Saviour in all things, much, very much will be built upon you. Where you are, there will be blessing-your presence in a sick room, a shop, a home, a Sunday school, a Christian association, will raise the standard, silently, unconsciously perhaps, but none the less surely will you be elevating the spiritual building, and bringing upon yourself the blessing and the promise which the Lord Jesus first spoke to his Apostle Peter.

V.

Christian Cross-Bearing.

"From that time forth began Jesus to shew unto his disciples how that he must go unto Jerusalem and suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day," etc., etc.-MATT. xvi. 21—28.

HIS is the first time that the Lord speaks to His

TH

disciples openly and plainly of His sufferings and death. Previously He had hinted that His would be a suffering path, and that those only who were prepared to take up their cross could follow Him; but now and henceforth He begins to speak with plainness. Wonderful scene must this have been ! Simply and calmly did Jesus Christ shew unto His disciples what would cost Him agony, anguish such as none had known or could know, and a death of shame and cruelty.

"O suffering Friend of humankind,
How as the fatal hour drew near,
Came thronging on Thy holy mind,
The images of holy fear-

Gethsemane's sad midnight scene,
The faithless friends, the exulting foes,
The thorny crown, the insult keen,

The scourge, the cross-before Thee rose."

Christ's

Jesus said, "Must go." "My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work." "Lo, I come, in the volume of the book that it is written of Me, to do Thy will, O Lord." "He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross." “must” implied earnest desire, burning love. It was not the "must" of the bound captive, but of the wellbeloved son who freely gave Himself up to suffer and to die. As His holy heart felt what should be, there was no shrinking back. And He who could say, "I have power to lay down My life, and to take it up again; no man taketh it from Me" began to show unto His disciples how He must suffer. The disciples, through Peter, had just acknowledged the Divinity of Jesus. What a proof, the depth of which they little sounded, was their Lord now giving of His Divinity! Foretelling the place of His suffering, the multiplicity of His sufferings, the instigators of His sufferings, the mortal termination of His sufferings. And not for His own sake, but for theirs, did Jesus thus show how He was to suffer. Deep grief is quiet; great souls are silent about their sufferings. But Christ knew that the minds of His disciples needed to be prepared for what should happen to Him. Still