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TheWay Library › Divine Emblems in the Book of Genesis › Chapter VIII: Emblems from the Story of Joseph

by A. B. Simpson

Chapter VIII

Emblems from the Story of Joseph

Oz beautiful story of Joseph’s life is the

worthy climax of the first book in the Bible, and may well stand as one of the stately and colossal pillars in the portal of the Temple of Divine Truth. It is one of the few blameless lives of the Bible, and stands side by side with Enoch and Daniel in its unblemished loveliness. It is full of the most affecting and practical lessons for our Christian life, and touches at every point our experience of suffering and trial as the children of God, and the great principles of Divine Providence which God is ever working out in each of our lives. And, in the higher realm of typical teaching, it foreshadows the character, and sufferings, the grace and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ with a vividness and power unsurpassed by any of the figures in all this wondrous gallery of divine symbolism.

We shall glance at Joseph’s life and character in both these connections, with respect not only to our Christian life and character, but also to his great antitype, the Lord Jesus Christ, blending both aspects as the changing panorama may require.

Srotton I. — Joseph’s Birth.

He was his father’s beloved son, and so the fitting type of the well-beloved Son of God. Nor should we fear to claim the same place and fellowship in Him, for He Himself has taught us that if we are united to Him, and He abides in us, the love wherewith the Father loved Him is in us also, and we are made accepted in the beloved. It will make our trials easy if we always begin the story of our life like Joseph’s, with this blessed certainty that we are God’s beloved ones. There is something beautiful in the simplicity with which John calls himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” without the faintest consciousness of presumption. So let us press close to the Divine heart, and love will usually get the place it claims.

Seotion II. — Joseph’s Dreams.

The consciousness of his coming destiny was divinely impressed on the heart of the child, and with ingenuous frankness he gave the fullest expression to what must have seemed his extravagant pretensions and expectations; and although rebuked and ridiculed by his jealous brothers, he still persisted in his confidence and testimony. So upon the consciousness of Christ’s early childhood came the foreshadowing of His lofty character and destiny even when but twelve years of age. It forces itself into His precocious questions and confession: “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” And afterwards, even in the face of His enemies, and in spite of their hatred and persecutions, He witnessed invariably to His own divine character and glory until, at last, it cost Him His life. So also to the believer, God unveils, both by His Word and Spirit, the vision of his high calling. Sometimes the veil is lifted higher, and. the soul is permitted to

know enough of the divine plan to prepare it for service, to fortify it against trials and sufferings, and inspire it for sacrifices and triumphs in the cause of Christ. So the great Apostle pressed on with the invincible cry, “I must see Rome;” “Iam sure that I shall come to you in the fulness of the blessing of Christ;” “I know that in nothing I shall be ashamed;” “The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom — “I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day.” So also he says to Timothy: “According to the prophecies which went before on thee, that by them thou mightest war a good warfare.” It was for the joy set before Him that our Master endured the cross and despised the shame, and - we, too, shall overcome as we steadily hold in view our high calling and our immortal crown.

Section III. — Joseph’s Sufferings.

The sufferings of Joseph are pre-eminently typical of the sorrows laid upon his great Antitype, our Lord Jesus Christ. (1.) He was hated and envied of his brethren, because of his testimony concerning himself and his claims to his father’s especial love; so Christ was hated by his brethren, persecuted, rejected, and at last condemned and crucified, chiefly on account of His claim to be the Son of God and, His unfaltering witness to His Messiahship and glory.

(2.) Joseph was sold to his enemies for twenty pieces of silver; and so the Lord Jesus was betrayed and delivered into the hands of the Gentiles by the council of His own nation, and judged and condemned, in spite of the attempts of Pilate to release Him.

(3.) Joseph was separated for many long and lonely years from his fond father, and was really given up for dead; and so Jesus left His Father’s bosom, and even bore the very hiding of His Father’s face and the anguish of His ‘-wrath and judgment on account of sin, and at last died under the dark cloud of divine judgment.:

(4.) Joseph was exposed to the most powerful temptations from the world, the flesh and the devil, but resisted with inflexible fidelity to the will of God and the voice of His conscience; so Satan assailed the Son of God with all the allurements and solicitations of evil, but found nothing in Him. Of Joseph we have no recorded blemish or willful sin, but of Jesus we know that he was “holy, harmless,” undefiled and separate from sinners, “and was tempted in all points like as we are, yet without sin.”

(5.) Joseph was accounted guilty of the sin of others, and really suffered innocently, because of another’s wrongdoing; so Jesus “was made sin for us who knew no sin,” and bore “the iniquity of us all.’ He was-crucified under the judgment of human and ecclesiastical law as a criminal, and was so accounted by His own contemporaries and judges. This is the keenest of all humiliations, to be assumed guilty of that. which we utterly abhor. The shadow of sin upon the soul is darker even than its penalty.

(6.) Joseph humbled himself to a lot of the deepest degradation and the most menial drudgery and toil, and did it willingly and with all his heart, accepting his situation with beautiful submission and patience; so Jesus. became not only “the Man of sorrows,” but a man of toil, laboring at His work-beuch, with sweat of brow and weariness of frame like the poorest of men; and, to the end of his life, knowing all the hardships of poverty and want, weariness and homelessness. ‘The Son of Man hath not where to lay His head,” was His uncomplaining cry, “I am among you as he that serveth,” was his chosen place.

(7.) Joseph became the companion of criminals in Pharaoh’s prison; and so our blessed Saviour “was numbered with the transgressors,” crucified between two thieves and accounted a malefactor.

(8.) Joseph was the victim of wicked men, and, in all his suffering, he knew that they were held responsible for their voluntary wickedness; yet he recognized in all his sad experience that it was the will of God using and overruling the passions of men to fulfill His higher ends of benevolence and wisdom. In speaking afterwards of his suffering, Joseph adds no word of reflection or regret; he sees the hand of God in every step, and above every sinful hand. He says, “God sent Me before you, it was not you that did it but God: Ye meant it for evil, but God sent it for good to preserve much people alive.” So the Lord Jesus Christ ever recognized His sufferings and death as the plan of His Father’s wisdom and love, and the chosen path of human redemption, and yet at the same time involving a no less degree of guilt on the part of those who wickedly ministered to His destruction. And so Peter declares in the

beginning of Acts: “Him being delivered by

the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and, with wicked hands,

have crucified and slain.” And so the Lord

declares himself to His earthly judge, “Thou

—couldst have no power at all against me, except

it were given thee from above,” and yet with strange solemnity he adds, in the very spirit of the truth we have just stated, “Therefore he that delivered me unto thee hath the greater sin.”

(9.) The sufferings of Joseph were not lost, but were the means in God’s marvelous providence of saving his house and the whole world from death; and so the type is transcendantly fulfilled in the glory and eternal issues of Christ’s cross and shame, in the salvation of myriads of the redeemed from eternal death. It was this that enabled him on the threshold of that cross to ery, “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” “The hour is come that the Son of Man should be glorified.” “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.”

Turning now to the application of all this to our own lives, we find in Joseph’s sufferings a beautiful example of the spirit a Christian should exemplify under trial and affliction.

(1.) Like Joseph, our sufferings may often come from our own brethren. Many of the bitterest cups oi our lives are put to our lips by the hands of those we love. When men attempt to polish a diamond, they either use another — diamond or diamond dust, and so God has to purify us by the hard attrition of our dearest friends, and often our fellow Christians. Shall

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174 EMBLEMS FROM we not, like Joseph, see His hand above their’s, and take our lesson and hold our victory. ‘

(2.) Like Joseph, we must also expect to be tried, misunderstood, hated, persecuted and wronged by the world. We should not expect less than our Master, “If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you.” The secret of victory lies in the spirit of integrity and an unfailing confidence in God as one that is mightier than the world, and that will “bring forth our righteousness as the light, and our judgment as the noonday.” ‘“Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the keeping of their souls unto Him in well doing, as unto a faithfal Creator.”

(3.) Like Joseph’s, our sufferings will often come to us through the grossest injustice on

the part of men, involving loss, and evenshamefulreproach. The verdicts of public opinion and.

human authority are not always equitable,

and many of God’s dearest children have lived,

long under the ban of the severest injustice. This seems at first to human nature very hard

to bear, and yet the apostle has said it is better ha a

. * f to suffer for well doing than for ill doing. “If

when you do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable unto God. For hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps. Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again: when he suffered he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.”

(4.) Like Joseph’s, our sufferings may be aggravated and prolonged by the neglect and ingratitude of others, and even those whom we have most kindly befriended. The fellow prisoner whose release Joseph predicted, forgot him the moment he returned to his place and escaped his own misery, and left Joseph languishing in his neglected prison for years, when one word would have set him free. So our hearts will often ache at theinhumanity of men and the ingratitude of friends. Oftentimes we shall find our best services unappreciated and

unrequited, and shall even be cruelly stung by

those we have benefited or even saved. How much suffering there is even among God’s chil-

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drt which one aan would Bed ‘or ‘the

smallest sacrifice would prevent. But we must learn to endure and to wait, to render every — ministry unto God, rather than to men, and accept our recompense not from Hamer peatea q tude, but from our Master’s righteous hand. Pca How exquisite the answer of the great Christian Br soldier who, when parched with thirst after a: a bloody battle, was handed a cup of water by his attendant, and as he was about to hold it to his famished lips, he saw the hungry eyes of a wounded enemy looking at the water. ‘Hastening sa Tea to his side he handed him the cup, but the man instead of taking it made a’ sudden feint, and — then by a quick sieauieey tried to strike his.

- noble benefactor with a death wound in return

for his love. The brave officer sprang back and saved his life, but his attendant, with fierce indignation raised his sword and was about to

bury it in the body of the miscreant. But the good man held him back, took his sword from

his hand, disarmed the wounded enemy, and

then handing the cup of water to his attendant,

THE STORY OF JOSEPH. itt

x quietly added: “Give it to him all the same.’” So let us love and bless.

(5.) The hardest ingredient in suffering is: often time. A short, sharp pang is easily borne,, but when & SOIrow drags its weary weight. through long monotonous years, and day after day returns with the same dull routine of ho pe-Tess agony, the heart loses its spring, and - without the grace of God is sure to sink into ‘the very sullenness of despair. Joseph’s was a. long trial, and. God often has to burn His: lessons into the depths of our being by thefires of protracted pain. “He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver,” but He knows how long, and like a true goldsmith He stops the fires the moment He sees His image in the glowing metal. “Let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, want-. ing nothing!” “The God of all grace who hath called us unto His eternal glory by Jesus Christ, after that ye have suffered awhile, make you perfect, establish, strengthen, settle you;,

to Him be glory forever and ever, amen. (6.) Like Joseph, let us meet our sufferings in a spirit of courageous cheerfulness and make the best of them. Joseph might have given up and said, “There is no use trying; everything is against me,” as many,a young man is tempted in adversity to do. But Joseph went into Potiphar’s kitchen, not to repine and fret, but to be bright and useful and do his very best; and he so succeeded that before long he had ‘the highest place in the household. And then, when the scene was changed from the kitchen to the prison, Joseph again, instead of giving up in sullen despair, and feeling that there was no use trying, resolved to make the best of this — position, and so succeeded that ere long he was chief of the prisoners. Wherever he found himself he did his best, and having succeeded in a pantry and a prison he was ready for a palace and a throne. The man who cannot succeed in a trying position is not fit for an easier one. ‘This lesson of Joseph’s life takes hold, as no other in the Scriptures, of the practical questions that meet every man, and especially every young man, in the battle of life.

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POF es & Age (7.) Like Joseph, we shall find it indispensable in the time of trouble to retain our integrity as a jewel above all price, and keep the conscience so pure that by well doing we shall be able to silence the ignorance of foolish men and give the devil no place for his assaults upon our faith. Joseph’s heart would surely have been crushed, if, in the dark hour he had been compelled to say like his brothers afterwards, “I have been verily guilty, therefore this distress has come upon me.” If we have been guilty in anything let it be quickly rectified, and it shall be forgiven, and then, with a pure conscience and a true heart, we can stand against all the storms of trial.

(8.) The support of Joseph in his trial was the confidence and consciousness of the Divine presence and the constant assurance which sprang from his early faith that God’s hand was overruling all his life. There can be no doubt that in these dark hours his early dreams ever shone like a pole star of hope upon the midnight sky, and “for the joy set before him, He endured the cross and despised the shame.”

We must hold fast to our faith and hope, or we

cannot overcome the billows of sorrow. We must ever recognise the hand of infinite love in all our trials, and never for any instant listen to the devil’s whisper, “The Lord has brought us hither that he might destroy us.” This was the cowardly cry of a wicked king, but faith’s answer ever is “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble: therefore we will not fear, though the earth be removed and the mountains be cast into the midst of the sea.” “The Lord God is with me, therefore have I set my face like a flint, and I know that I shall not be ashamed.” We may not see now the outcome of the beautiful plan which God is hiding in the shadow of His hand; it yet may be long concealed; but faith may be sure that He is sitting on the throne calmly waiting the hour when with adoring rapture we shall say, “All things have worked together for good.”

(9.) Like Joseph, let us be more careful to learn all the lessons in the school of sorrow, than we are anxious for the hour of deliverance. There is a “need be” for every lesson, and

yee when we are ready, our deliverance will surely come, and we shall find that we could not have stood in our place of higher service without the very things that were taught us in the ordeal God is educating us for the future, for higher service and nobler blessings; and if we have the qualities that fit us for a throne, all earth and hell cannot keep us from it when God’s time has come. We cannot see it now, but shall surely find in God’s “afterwards” the benefits and the necessity of the disipline which His patient love has held us to so strictly, and yet so wisely, in the experience of life.

Seotion 1V. — Joseph’s Lxaltation.

The startling suddenness and transcendent greatness of the change which passed over Joseph’s life in a few hours, seems almost too romantic to be true, but such transitions are not so sudden as they seem. Joseph had been quietly prepared for all this through the preceding years, and had learned his lessons so well that the mere outward circumstances of his promotion were much less to him than they seemed to others. He recognized in his new position simply a divine call to new service, a situation requiring new duties and divine support, and proceeded to fulfill his new responsibilities with the same simple fidelity as he had shown in his humbler positions. While virtually the raler of Egypt and the entire world, he used his high trust as a place of service, and went throughout the whole land of Egypt with the same painstaking care as one of his humblest subordinates. The change that came to Joseph was sudden and complete. His prison was exchange for a palace; his shame for the highest honor; his position of degredation for one of authority and prominence, and his lonely suffering life for a happy home and the fellowship of a beloved and noble wife and family; while as the years rolled on all that was lost was restored, the broken ties of home were healed, his dear father and fond brother were given back to his arms, and the very brothers that had betrayed him were reconciled to his affections and made to see the sin and folly of their crime in a manner so wonderful and delightful that it took out of the past every bitter memory and painful sting, and turned the saddest trials he had known into the sweetest blessings of his life and others. And the scene closes with that which to him was the highest of all enjoyments, the opportunity of returning good for evil, ministering to the happiness of those he loved, cherishing and nourishing his father’s house and his brethren with all the riches of his glory, and seeing them and the entire world blessed and even saved through the ministry of his suffering life. Surely this was, indeed, a transformation of suffering into glory and blessing. All this was the type of Christ’s exaltation, and the pledge of our reward.

(1.) It foreshadows the exaltation of Jesus, after the shame and suffering of the cross, to the resurrection life and heavenly glory upon which he entered.

(2.) The relation of Joseph to Pharoah suggests the mediatorial office of Jesus Christ with the Father, administering as he does the government of the universe, and having all things delivered into His hands. Pharoah answered every petition that came to him with the message, ‘Go to Joseph!” and so we have access unto the Father through Him, and receive the riches of grace and the blessings which we need and claim. All the treasures of Egypt were in Joseph’s hands; all the store, which saved and fed the famishing people, was given out at his orders; and so “it hath pleased the Father that in Christ should all fulness dwell,” “and of His fulness have we received grace for grace.”

(3.) Joseph was virtually ruler over the land of Egypt and the entire world, and so Christ has been invested with like power in heaven and in earth. He is established “far above all might and dominion, and every name that is named, both in this world and that which is to come, and is head over all things to the church.” Let us ever remember, when we look at the forces around us and our bitter trials, that

“*He everywhere hath sway,
And all things serve His might;

His every act pure blessing is,
His path unsullied light.”

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“THE STORY OF JOSEPH. 185

(4.) The marriage of Joseph, after his exaltation, has been applied by some interpreters to the gathering of Christ’s church to Himself in the heavenly places. It was not during His life of shame and suffering, but after His ascension, that He established the church, and her true place with Him — even in the present dispensation — the place where she should ever recognize herself as sitting, is by His side in glory. This also is part of His glory, and is to be His eternal joy, the church of His love and the partner of His nature and His throne.

(5.) The years of plenty, and then the years of famine which followed them, seem to foreshadow: the first, the dispensation of grace which is now proceeding; and the second, the time of tribulation which is coming upon the earth before the end, out of which He “shall gather His people to meet Him in the air.” It was during this time of famine that Joseph’s brethren came to him and were reconciled. And so it shall be during the days of tribulation that Christ’s brethren after the flesh, the Jews shall recognize Him, repent of their sins, and

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3 $ Ry be restored to His friendship and blessing, and! afterwards share with Him in their own separate national life, as in Egypt of old, the blessing of His millennial kingdom. This is to be one of the crowning glories of the once rejected Nazarene that “they shall look upon Him they have pierced, and shall mourn,” and shall be reconciled to the Messiah that they delivered to the Gentiles, and that God has made such a. blessing to the Gentiles, as He made Joseph of old. This whole story, therefore, is the picture. in some degree at least, of the millennial times,. and, no doubt, the fulfillment will bring out. many resemblances and correspondences which. we cannot now foresee.

The story of Joseph is not only a picture of Christ’s exaltation, but is to us the pledge that the trials we endure for Christ shall “work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Ina little while the trials of the present will be exchanged for glories and enjoyments which will make us ashamed that we ever murmured or shrank in the brief ordeal, which was only God’s beneficent school to educate us for our kingdom. This is the chief lesson of Joseph’s life, to teach us the outcome of sorrow, innocently, bravely, and triumphantly endured, according to the will of God. Té cannot harm us, and the recompense is beyond our highest thought. An ancient monarch found on ascending to the throne from which a usurper had long excluded him, that one of his faithful adherents was lying in a prison because he had dared to dispute the tyrant’s claim, and had been true to his exiled master through years of bondage. The victorious king commanded the noble captain to be brought into. his presence and the chains struck from his. limbs. He then ordered an attendant to weigh them in his sight and then bring from the palace treasures bag after bag of gold, and weigh them on the same scales. Then turning to his faithful friend, he said: ‘“You have worn. these chains for me, now you shall have their weight in gold; you have languished in a prison for me, now you shall have a palace, and all your sufferings shall be rewarded by their exact equivalent in riches and honor.” And so for us “it is a faithful saying, if we be dead with

Hin, we shall also live with Him; if we suffer,

we shall also reign.”

Section V. — The Grace displayed in Joseph’s Life and Character.

Higher far than all his glory, is the glorious fact that he used it only for others. The crown of Joseph’s character, like his greater Antitype, is love. He stands ever as the highest type of Jesus, our suffering, forgiving brother, and our gracious and benignant Lord.

(1.) We see the beneficence of Joseph’s spirit

‘in his kindness, even in his humiliation, to those

about him. He ministered to his suffering fellow prisoners. And so Chrict went about continually doing good, and all who are like ‘Christ will live to use every station as an opportunity of service, and leave behind them even in the vilest and meanest place, only memorials of blessing. 4

(2.) We see, next, his graciousness in the use he made of his exalted power. Not for himself

did he hold the sceptre of Egypt, but for ae

= people he served and saved. The abundance that came to his care was simply regarded as a trust for others, and husbanded for the time of their need. So Christ has been exalted to the right hand of power, not for His own selfish magnificence and enjoyment, but that He might be a Prince and a Saviour. So he has received all the fulness of the Father that He might give it to the race for which He died. His heavenly life is as unselfish as His earthly, and could we behold Him now, it would still be the ministering priest, the girded servant, the gracious and ever-willing benefactor of all who need His help and care. He is not an Oriental despot, but a loving, toiling, ever accessible friend; never perplexed, never overwhelmed with any difficult situation, never preoccupied, but ever ready with open ear and heart and hand to hear our ery and help our need. “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Seeing that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, the Son of God. For we have not an high priest that cannot be touched with the feelings of our infirmities, but was in all points” tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” Like

our exalted and beneficent Master, so must we

also ane our place of privilege and blessing for service and for others. We are trustees and —

stewards of the manifold grace of God, and the more fully we receive, the more fully we must gdlearn that “It is more blessed to give than to poe” and that the very condition of keeping

our blessing is that we shall “be a blessing.”

A selfish Christian is as inconsistent and impos- 3

sible as a selfish Christ. We, too, are come to our kingdom for such a time as this. Years of famine are coming to the souls around us; in a little while they shall be perishivg for eternal bread; they need our prayers, our help; and even although they may not know it now as we do, yet the day is coming when they shall reap the blessings of our faith and our foresight.

Let us be true to our trust, and thus worthy to

stand with Joseph and his greater Master, as the dispensers of God’s blessings to a dying world. (3.) The pre-eminent picture of Christ’s heart is seen in J oseph’s relation to his brethren, and his wise, and yet tender, forgiving love. In the wronged and injured brother we see the Saviour, and his rejection by those for whom he died. In the long years of indifference and forgetfulness that followed, we behold a picture of the patience that waits while men go on in callousness and hardness of heart. In the — troubles that at last overtook them and brought them unconsciously to their injured brother for help, we see how God at length compels the obdurate heart by bitter trials to come to Him, even though it may not yet know Him. In the position of those brethren at the feet of Joseph, unknowing, fet not unknown, we see the sinner whom Christ is drawing to Himself, but who yet does not even know that He is drawing, but is just driving on in some blind course of desperate heedlessness. In the wise and even stern discipline through which Joseph gradually brought them to reflection and the recollection of their sin, and awakened in their breasts the slumbering voice of conscience, we see the

“exquisite process through which the Holy

Ghost convicts the hardened heart of the sinner,

and lets its own memories and convictions

gently prepare it to receive His mercy. In the

deep tenderness that Joseph held in check through all this long ordeal, we see the love

that Christ often hides under His sternest discipline and longs to pour out upon our breast

when we are ready to receive it. *

At length the hour of reconciliation comes;

and as in our case, so it begins with Joseph, and not with the guilty brothers. God is the first to meet us in reconciliation, and it is His love that awakens our trust, and His grace that

-quickens our heart into grace. How fully

Joseph forgives; how tenderly “hg meets the

men that had so pitilessly sacrificed him; how

generously he insists that they shall forget and

forgive themselves; how he tries to banish —

every painful memory; how he receives them to his very heart and home, and feasts with them in the absence of all other guests; and how royally he provides for them and theirs, sharing with them his wealth and glory, and sending

s

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for them to dwell with him amid the abundance
of the land and in its fairest region.

All this is infinitely more realized in the love of Jesus, who has been more cruelly wronged. He draws with wiser, tenderer influences of love and power. He it is who says “I will heal their backslidings; I will love them freely for mine anger is turned away.” Not only does he forgive, but he forgets; not only does he save from wrath, but He receives us to His friendship, feasts us at His table, feeds us with His own very life, shares with us His riches and glory, and takes us to be with Him where He is in all the riches of His kingdom and inheritance.

As we have already suggested, this will receive a léral fulfillment bye and bye in the — actual seed of Jacob, the literal brethren of Jesus, but it is also fulfilled in the forgiveness and reconciliation of every heart that has learned to know Himasa ‘friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” Have we learned to know Him by this tender name and this exquisite type, and shall we realize with a sweetness unknown before, and reflect upon others, in our turn, like Him, the meaning of these lines?

Yes, for me, for me He careth,
With a brother’s tender care;
Yes, with me, with me He shareth

Every burden, every fear.

Yes, o’er me, o’er me He watcheth,
Ceaseless watcheth night and day:

Yes, e’en me, e’en me He snatcheth
From the perils of the way.

Yes, in me, in me’’He dwelleth — Lin Him, and He in me;

And my empty soul He filleth,
Here and through eternity.

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