confirm the testimony of the Spirit, according to the Levitical law, that in the mouth of two witnesses every word be established.

These passages, thus jointly considered, present the humblest human believer and disciple as a coworker with God the Father, a co-sufferer with God the Son, and a co-witness with God the Spirit. Taken thus together, they suggest the highest dignity and privilege of every child of God. He is lifted to a divine level. His humble work for God is exalted to a work with God; his sacrifice and service is raised to a plane that is higher than angelic ministry. These words of the Scripture hint, if they do not affirm, that the believer is necessary to the completeness and completion of the work of redeeming a lost world. He is a part of a divine mechanism, and, until he drops into his place and co-works with other parts to produce one result, something is lacking to complete adjustment, perfect movement, and ultimate success.

I. How is this work of missions thus a cooperation with God the Father?

We may take the exact thought of Paul, “As though God did beseech you by us." God, like a loving father yearning over a rebellious son, or a sovereign over a revolted subject, beseeches men to be reconciled to Him. But how does He beseech, save by us? How is His yearning brought to the knowledge of the rebel sinner? finds expression in the good tidings of the Gospel,

but good tidings will not bear themselves; they imply messengers, whose feet are shod with the winged sandals of the alacrity of the Gospel, whose hands hold forth the Word of Life, and whose lips send forth words, their errant daughters. The Gospel message needs a voice, and John the Baptist sublimely said: "I am the Voice." Observe, a voice, not a mere sound, but intelligent, articulate, sympathetic, soulful

utterance.

That word, "ambassador," used by Paul, holds in itself a whole body of divinity. It implies an authorized messenger, a representative of a government at a foreign court, with a definite mission and commission, and a specific body of instructions. So long as an ambassador acts within the limits of his instructions, the government which he represents speaks in his words, acts through his acts, and stands behind him with all the power, authority, and resources of a republic or an empire. An insult to such an ambassador is a blow in the face of his sovereign, an outrage upon the whole nation, which the whole government resents; while a respectful hearing accorded to him is an audience given to the monarch whose court he represents. In the ambassador, therefore, his government is virtually present.

So far as the believer teaches God's truth and bears witness to Christ, he is God's ambassador. So long and so far as he keeps within the limits

of his instructions, faithfully speaking God's Word, it is God who speaks in and through him. Behind him stand all the authority and power of the Godhead. And so Christ says to such ambassadors: "He that receiveth you, receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me, receiveth Him that sent Me." He who gives us a hearing hearkens to God, and he who rejects our words turns his back upon God. Not at the last great day, only, but all through the Gospel age, the Judge is saying, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto Me." He would have us remember that, whenever we beseech men to be reconciled to God, God Himself beseeches through us.

Again Paul uses the figures of "building" and of "husbandry," to represent this co-working with God. In both these common forms of labor, architecture, and agriculture, there are the superior and the inferior workmen, and both are essential to the perfect product. In building, the architect and contractor furnishes plan and material; from his brain comes the idea of the structure, from his pencil, the draught in all its details, and from his quarry and shops, the material. But to the com

mon workman are committed all the details of the actual work; he receives the building material, as brought to the ground, he studies and minutely follows the plan, and according thereto puts in place stone and timber. The architect may fur

nish only instructions and material, and may himself never appear in person on the site.

So in husbandry. The owner of the estate projects the improvements, furnishes the implements, and supplies material. His are the soil and seed, the field and crop. But he works the farm through his servants, and may himself never tread the field, plough the furrows, sow the seed, or reap the harvest.

The veil of parable does not hide the truth. God is building up a temple of believers. The plan and work are His; He designs the working plan, He provides the building material, and, when brought to the temple platform, no tool needs to be lifted upon it to fit it to its foreordained place in the great structure. But who are His builders? Paul and other apostles, as wise master-builders, laid the foundation, in Jesus Christ, and you and I are to carry on and carry up the Temple of the Ages.

The centuries go by; God buries workman after workman, but the work never ceases. The world itself is but the scaffolding about the Church of God, made to aid in its erection, but to be torn down and burned up when the cap-stone of God's cathedral is laid.

The whole work is therefore one. Every disciple who faithfully witnesses to God, is one of God's builders. It matters not how prominent or obscure, however great or small in human eyes.

He may be working down in the quarry, where the crude material is hewn and shaped for the building, or in the shops, where the timbers of immortal cedar are gotten ready for the framework, or the beaten gold for the furnishing and garnishing; or he may stand on the platform where the living stones are lifted to their place, builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit, and where the whole building, fitly framed together, groweth into an Holy Temple in the Lord; but, wherever his place and whatever his work, he is building for God and working with God. God has chosen to work by him, and cannot, without abandoning His eternal plan, do without him; and when, in all its final glory, the building stands complete, each workman shall, in beholding its perfection, trace the living stones which his hands have shaped for it and placed in it; and how could it be otherwise ?-he shall share in the glory, as he has shared in the toil! The Divine Architect of the Ages condescends to choose human beings to carry out His thought and plan, according to the pattern shewed in the Mount; and so, reverently, let it be said, God waits for man's co-operation in His temple-building!

We turn to consider, a little more in detail, the agricultural figure: "Ye are God's husbandry," i.e., the product of God's tillage. But Paul says just before, "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase." All our labor of plough