broken and his flesh withered, it can be said to him, "As a prince hast thou power with God and with men, and hast prevailed." He gets a blessing: God calls him "Israel." Yet God refuses to reveal His name, Is He to reveal His name as a wrestler-a position into which He has been forced, so to speak, by Jacob? "Wherefore is it," He says, "that thou dost ask after my name? And he blessed him there." There is no peaceful, quiet knowledge of God's marvellous grace. He is God's strong man, through the wrestling; but God must weaken the flesh. And He will pass the soul, where the flesh is not broken, sooner or later, through this discipline.

"Israel"-most

It was a blessing to get such a name as marvellous grace, and get a blessing that came to a halting saint; he halted all the days of his life; and God refused to reveal His name. Not so in the case of Abraham. "I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect," He says to Abraham. “And he left off talking with him, and God went up from Abraham." Here we find peaceful communion; and Abraham can intercede for others, instead of wrestling for himself. (Chaps. xvii. xviii.)

After this it is we find God saying to Jacob, "Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there; and make there an altar unto God, that appeared unto thee when thou fleddest from the face of Esau thy brother." (v. 1.) Here He begins, if one may so speak, to volunteer; and He passes over what we have been considering, as if nothing had happened. 'You had to flee' (He says) 'from the face of Esau, I promised you blessing; get back to this place, and there raise an altar.'

"Then Jacob said unto his household, and to all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments: and let us arise and go up to Bethel: and I will make there an altar unto God, who answered me in the day of my distress, and who was with me in the way which I went." (vv. 2, 3.)

Rachel had carried her father's strange gods along with her. (Chapter xxxi. 19, 30-35.) Jacob remembers this now, though he had paid no attention to it before. Into what a mixed state had he got! One never knows how far we may go when we do not trust in God. But there is now the discerning of clean and unclean. That which results, after all the discipline, is the consciousness of the love and faithfulness that had followed him all the way which he went. "And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods which were in their hand," &c. (vv. 4, 5.)

Here he is, after all the discipline, after all the trial, worshipping God, as the faithful God who had answered him in the day of his distress, and had been with him in the way he had gone. The moment God had put him under the discipline, He said, "I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest." And Jacob says, 'He has been with me; yes, He is the God that, while we have failed in the way, has been with us all the way.'

"And God appeared unto Jacob again, when he came out of Padan-aram, and blessed him. And God said unto him, Thy name is Jacob: thy name shall not be called any more Jacob, but Israel shall be thy name: and He called his name Israel." (vv. 9, 10.) This is a great while after the wrestling. Jacob has got rid of all his strange gods, and he is meeting God where God can reveal Himself, and give him the new name of "Israel." He does it now as if He had never done it before. I know nothing,' He says, 'of the supplanter, you are now strong with God.'

“And God said unto him, I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins; and the land which I gave Abraham and Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land. And God went up from him in the place where He talked with him.” (vv. 11-13.) That is just what He had done with Abraham.

He is not making him halt, not wrestling with him now. Nor does he hide His name now. 'That is the name,' He says, 'in which I can reveal myself in all peaceful confidence.' And He goes up from him.

Jacob has his "Beth-el." God had spoken to him from the top of the ladder, but now He comes down. "And Jacob set up a pillar in the place where He talked with him, even a pillar of stone: and he poured a drink-offering thereon. And Jacob called the name of the place where God spake with him, Beth-el." (vv. 14, 15.) It is not a half-fearing, half-worshipping, "How dreadful is this place," &c. He had been a "supplanter;" his name, as a man, was "Jacob;" but God will not give it him. "Israel" is God's name for him. He had taken advantage of his brother Esau, a rash, unbelieving man-not at all a lovely act; but the history gives the reason; he valued his father's blessing (prophetic blessing), yet he listened to his mother's advice; he hearkened to her, and went and feigned to be Esau. Now that was not trusting God. He who made Isaac bless him, and say, "I have blessed him, yea, and he shall be blessed;" He who made Jacob bless the sons of Joseph, "crossing his hands" (chap. xlviii.), was perfectly able to accomplish that which He had spoken. He has revealed Himself as "God Almighty," and Jacob is able to name the place "the house of God."

What results to us in instruction from all this is, that the Lord is dealing with us-not merely giving blessing in the land of Canaan, nor yet the joy consequent on that (that which he did to Abraham when separated from Lot), there is another thing, as it regards the way, our individual conduct, and individual character; namely, that thus the Lord deals with us, to chasten and break down the flesh, in order that He may manifest Himself in peaceful communion. When we are able to look at, and weigh things, as that we have had to do with God about them, in the knowledge that He was dealing with us in His faithful love, it is done in settled

peace; but every idol is put away. We may, like Peter, have real love for the Lord, and be sincere; or, like Jacob, really value the promises; but where the flesh is not judged, there must be this breaking of it down. Sometimes it may be at the very starting, sometimes on a death-bed, sometimes through circumstances in the way; but, sooner or later, the flesh must be judged, whether it is judged quietly or judged painfully. In Jacob we see confidence in the flesh, a leaning on the flesh for the attainment of God's promises, and, in the way, all sorts of discipline, though there is blessing at the end. There may be a trusting the faithfulness of God about the promises-faith in the promises, joy in the promises, and yet, in place of leaning upon the power of God for their accomplishment, a use of unholy means which entail chastisement and sorrow: 66 Be not deceived," says the apostle; "God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. He that soweth to the flesh shall of the

flesh reap corruption." (Gal. vi. 7, 8.)

66

am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest." Jacob had this at the very outset; he had faith as to the end, and yet he could not count on God for the way. God's sufficiency and the good-for-nothingness of the flesh must be learned peacefully, if walking with God; painfully, if we were walking our twenty-one years in a carnal way. Jacob could not be at Beth-el in peace, until he had learned this lesson of "no confidence in the flesh." And he never had forced home upon his conscience until then the fact of his having false gods in his company (not that he loved idols). But there we see most peaceful, most happy self-judgment before God. The means God uses are very various; but the thing must be done. He cannot be at Beth-el with His child, until He has emptied him of confidence in the flesh.

The Lord give us to trust Him, not only for the end, but also for the way.

349

THINE EYE, IS IT SINGLE?

A WORD ON SERVING.

"If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."-MATT. vi. 22.

Ir a child has been habitually heedless of its father, and taken no pains to get acquainted with his thoughts and wishes, one can readily foresee that that child, in presence of a difficulty, would be in no position to understand what would please its father. There are things God leaves in generalities for the testing of individual condition of soul. Suppose, instead of the child just referred to, the question to be one of a wife in relation to her husband; would not a wife, with the feelings and mind of a wife, be able, in all probability, without a moment's hesitancy, to know what her husband would desire, and that even though he had never expressed a will on the subject ? Now you cannot escape this testing, and God, moreover, will not let His children escape it. "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light."

As for an easy and comfortable way of knowing God's will, as one might have a receipt for this or that, there is no such thing, of knowing it, I mean, without reference to our own state of soul.

He

Again we are frequently of vastly too great importance in our own eyes, and deceive ourselves in supposing that there is a "will of God" at all, in such or such a case. may have nothing to say to us about it. The evil is in our having set ourselves at work. God's will may be that we should quietly take a less prominent place.

Again: we are searching at times after "the will of God,"