eternal? We are taught that "out of the heart are the issues of life." But "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." We require a new heart, then,—different from the heart which our Lord describes as the seat of murder, adultery, and other evils, and which is our life before regeneration. This is the life which may be truly called our own, and this is the life that must be lost, if we would find life eternal. We must part with all our evils. As the Lord is present with us in His Word, His Word must be our guide; His truths, the stones with which we build our spiritual house; His love, the cement that binds them together. If we attend to this, our house will rise to a heavenly altitude, and we shall always find security in the tower of our strength, Jesus Christ our Lord.
December Ninth.
THE THREE EXCUSES—I . THE PURCHASED LAND.
"I have bought a piece of ground, and I must needs go and see it; I pray thee have me excused."—Luke xiv. 18.
THOSE who are bidden to the great supper, relate, in the first instance, to the Jews; for they are always the first that are called; as it is written: "Tribulation and anguish upon every man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile. But glory, honour, and peace to every man that doeth good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile, for there is no respect of persons with God ." (Rom. ii. 9-11.) The reason why the Jews are first bidden is, because they were in possession of the very means whereby they
