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answered to the Father's holiness in all His ways and His thoughts. The Father's will was exemplified in His walk; He manifested in Himself the Holy Father. Now He prayed that the disciples might be kept by what the Father was in this relationship with Jesus. The Lord was in it, and lived in it; he who had seen Him had seen the Father. As with Israel, He could have said: "Obey his voice, provoke him not; for my name is in him." (Exodus xxiii. 21.) Thus the Father and He were one, not only in nature, but in thoughts, acts, motions, and will. Christ, in His life, was one with the Holy Father.

Christ prayed for His own, that they might be kept by the Father in that name. He was by nature in this place; it was His place upon earth; they needed to be kept there. He had kept them all the time that He was in this world, and now He gave them over to the Father, that He also might keep them, that there might be the same thought, the same purpose, and that

all their words and actions might answer to it; that the expression of their life to all and to all together, might be that of the Lord in His relation to the Father, according to the meaning and value of this name. The Lord will speak soon of the mediatorial means; here, it is the fact that He presents. The disciples should be one -a single vessel of the life, of the thoughts, of the revelation of the Father Himself, as Christ had been. "Father" the name of God in grace in sending His Son, the Son revealing Him as such; and "holiness" according to that which the Father is--this is what should characterise them, and by the power of the Holy Ghost,* all, as a single being, should be only this in the midst of the world; they should represent Christ in His relation to the Father. It is evident that if there were amongst them different thoughts or purposes, they would fail as to this

The Holy Ghost is not the subject here, but He is nevertheless the power that should produce this life in the disciples.

position. The Father and the Son were thus one when the Son was down here; this is what they were to be amongst themselves according to the relation in which Christ had been. It is the name of "Father" that had been given to Him, that He might manifest. it in this world, and, according to His holiness, there was nothing of this world in Him to darken the revelation of what the Father was.

Such was their position; it was not yet their mission. Being such, it was to have Christ's joy fulfilled in them. Indeed, it was the Saviour's joy, as man down here. Infinite grace for them, and in a certain sense for us all. (Compare 1 John i. 1-4.) The sum of all, is that the relation of Son down here with the Holy Father, the name in which He had kept His disciples when He was down here, should be their safeguard directly on the Father's part.

HINDRANCES TO SERVICE.

THE first hindrance to service is being out of communion. Any soil on the conscience breaks communion, and then there is not the enjoyment and support of the Lord's company. The effect of His company is that the service is rendered with a grace and unction which the Lord only could confer. This could not be explained to any one who had not known communion. Communion is first known, when I am so assured of my acquaintance with the Lord, that I am, whatever be the measure of my growth in divine things, enjoying His company at whatever stage in my spiritual history His grace has brought me to. It is not so much the grace that is before me, as the One who has secured the grace to me; so that wherever I am, historically, whether leaving Egypt, in the wilderness, or in Canaan, it is not the stage which I have arrived at, that occupies me, so much as the One with whom I am in company, and who is the source

of it all to me. Communion leads me into His mind and thoughts with regard to the place of blessing which I am enjoying, so that when I serve (for I cannot serve beyond the measure of my own growth), I serve in the vigour and freshness of one in actual association with the Lord in effecting this blessing for me.

God in His

This is the

It is a great thing to be in company with the Lord as to His own feeling, and also His value to service known to me. reason that the one with a smaller measure of truth, is often more effective in the enunciation of it, than one more advanced in knowledge; simply because the former is in company with the Lord, as to His own heart in the work.

Once communion is known, the soul feels, that like the holy anointing oil, there is nothing to be compared to it. It cannot be imitated; and it cannot be regained, if there is a soil on the conscience, until the soil has been removed. One may not always be

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