us? Let us honestly ask ourselves which has the preponderating influence in our lives, the flesh or the spirit? There are many whose lives are apparently altogether carnal, utterly and entirely devoid of anything spiritual; and are there not many others, like this Church in Pergamene, not perhaps altogether given up to licentious habits, but allowing some carnal or worldly lust to creep in and gain an influence over them? And whatever it may be, whether luxury, or sloth, or worldliness, or intemperance, or incontinence, or any other of the manifold deceits of the world, the flesh, and the devil, God speaks to us all from this passage in His word, and says, "Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and I will fight against them with the sword of my mouth."

Yes, "or else." It is an inevitable alternative. Repentance, or else judgment, retribution, punishment. And now is the time for repentance, not hereafter. There is not a vestige of foundation, either in Scripture or in reason, or in the eternal and immutable nature of things, for the hope that there will be room for repentance after death. The sentence then will be, "He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still." As we are when death finds us, so shall we be hereafter and for ever; our characters unchanged, and our fate irreversible. And, brethren, the time is short. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." Let us then change now, while change is still possible. Let us repent of our grievous sins and wasted lives

while yet there is room for repentance, lest He who is now a loving Saviour become a just and avenging Judge, and He who is now a merciful and sinpardoning God, turn to be our enemy, and fight against us; and oh, my friends, "how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation," and offend so loving and merciful a God?

"These things saith the Son of God, who hath His eyes like unto a flame of fire, and His feet are like fine brass; I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first." REV. ii. 18, 19.

N our Lord's earthly life there was one special feature in which His Godhead manifested itself; viz., His wonderful power of discerning and knowing the inward thoughts of men. And this divine prerogative was not

less remarkable than His power of healing and working miracles. It was perhaps a more striking evidence of His divinity, one even more likely to produce conviction and allegiance than the more brilliant exhibitions of that divine power. Some few favoured mortals seem to possess, often in quite a remarkable degree, the faculty of reading the thoughts and discerning the motives of others; but with men this faculty always has a limit; it must of necessity

sometimes be baffled and deceived. With Jesus of Nazareth it was different. In Him this power of spiritual perception was unbounded, unlimited, quite infinite, and therefore quite divine. It was the exercise of this miraculous power that converted Nathanael, when Jesus said to him, "Before that Philip called thee, when thou wast under the fig-tree, I saw thee;" and immediately the answer is evoked, “Rabbi, thou art the Son of God; thou art the King of Israel." It was this that so greatly astonished the woman of Samaria when the unknown stranger spoke to her of her five husbands, and she at once replied, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet;" and her testimony to the men of the city was, “Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ?" It was this that so often baffled His enemies and defeated their machinations, when "Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?" or, when "He perceived in His spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, and said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?" It was this that so filled the disciples with a sense of awe and reverence, that their testimony just before His death was, "Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee; by this we believe that thou camest forth from God." To them Christ's omniscience was even a greater proof of His coming from God than His omnipotence.

And this divine attribute, so marvellously exhibited in His earthly life, is still exercised by Him in His life above. Still He carries on His work of searching

and sifting the thoughts of men, of penetrating the secret springs of their actions, and weighing their motives in the balance; still those eyes, which when on earth could pierce the veil of flesh, are always directed upon the sons of men, and there is no escape from them; for "all things are naked and open unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do." Nor is this function confined to the personal Son of God in heaven, but it belongs also to the impersonal Word, the spoken and written revelation of God. See Heb. iv. 12: "For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." And as from time to time we listen to the word of God we need ever to remember that "these things saith the Son of God, who hath His eyes like unto a flame of fire."

But there is another attribute mentioned in the text, and one which we ought to keep in view equally with the former-"and His feet are like fine brass." There has been much discussion as to the meaning of this epithet; but probably the reference is to the unwearied strength and endurance of the Son of Godthat strength which equips Him for the task of continually walking to and fro among the churches, and stamping down the seeds of error and unbelief as well as that of subduing His enemies under His feet. And this function is as necessary for the work of Christ as that of searching the hearts of men; the two offices go together-omniscience and omnipotence.