The Saviour accordingly adds (verse 24), "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it." Hence also the call of Jesus to all who come after Him to count the cost-in other words, calmly and solemnly to consider whether they are resolved, in the strength of Divine grace, to make every earthly sacrifice to which they may be called in the discharge of their duty to Him. The Lord Jesus makes it manifest that this is His meaning, when, after adducing an illustration from what is the dictate of common prudence in natural things, He says, "So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath (in holy humble purpose, should so great a sacrifice be demanded), he cannot be My disciple." (Luke xiv. 33.) This may seem a hard saying, but it is that of Him who testifies, "Heaven and earth shall pass away; but My words shall not pass away." (Luke xxi. 33.) He who made these declarations knew perfectly how essential a spirit of self-denial would be to faithfulness to His cause in our fallen world, and how disastrous the consequence of the absence of this would prove in future ages.

The truth of this proposition has been abundantly illustrated and confirmed, both in its positive and negative aspects, in the past history of the visible Church and in that of individuals. It will be found on enquiry, that those who have been most distinguished for faithfulness, have all been characterised by self-denial. Was Abraham so distinguished for faithfulness that he has been denominated the father of the faithful? He was remarkable also for his self-denial. He manifested this when, at the call of God, he left his kindred and his native country, and went out, not knowing whither he went. He showed this also when, though the elder and the superior, he said to his kinsman Lot, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren. Is not the whole land before thee? Separate thyself, I pray thee, from me; if thou wilt take the left hand, then I will go to the right; or if thou depart to the right hand, then I will go to the left." He showed this also when after his return from the slaughter of the kings, loaded with immense spoils, he bound himself by an oath to the Most High God, the possessor of heaven and earth, not to take from a thread to a shoe-latchet of the spoils, but delivered all up to the parties whom the marauding kings had robbed of their property. Did God himself bear witness to Moses as a servant who was faithful in all His house, in all committed to his charge in the house of God? He was also signally distinguished for the exercise of self-denial. He greatly preferred the glory of God and the salvation of Israel to his own personal and family aggrandisement. What a notable proof of this is furnished in the argument embodied in his reply to the God of Israel, when the Lord threatened to consume

Israel as a people for their heinous sins, and promised to make of him a great nation. With what shame may this notable example of selfdenial, as recorded in the thirty-second chapter of Exodus, and the fourteenth chapter of Numbers, cover self-seekers in the Church, who seek their own things, their own honour, ease, and wealth, more than the glory of God. The rapid degeneracy of the primitive Church is easily accounted for by the cause which existed among professing Christians in the days of the Apostles themselves for the charge, "All scek their own, and not the things which are Jesus Christ's." (Philip. ii. 21.)

Again, was Paul eminently characterised by fidelity, as may be seen in his resistance to Peter, when he was to blame in his expostulation with the Galatians, and by zeal for the preservation of purity of communion in the Church at Corinth, in the exercise of due discipline on an offending member? He was no less distinguished for the degree of his self-denial. How striking his words, "But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ." (Philip. iii. 7-8.) And again, "Behold I go bound in the spirit unto Jerusalem, not knowing the things that shall befall me there: save that the Holy Ghost witnesseth in every city, saying that bonds and afflictions abide me. But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy (which he could not expect to do without being faithful), and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus." (Acts xx. 22, 23, 24.) It was in connection with this that he had such a triumphant end, expressed in these words, "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith." (2 Tim. iv. 6, 7.) But above all, the faithfulness of the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, was combined with unparalleled self-denial. Hence his words, "Not my will but thine be done;" and the assurance, "I honour my Father, and ye dishonour Me;" "I seek not mine own glory;" and again, "He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory, but he that seeketh the glory of him that sent him, the same is true." Nor was it ever possible for anyone to exercise self-denial once to be compared with the display of this which He gave when, "though He was rich, for our sakes He became poor;" when, "though He was in the form of God, and thought it not robbery to be equal with God, He made Himself of no reputation;" and when, "though the prince of life, He became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross."

But there are not only such distinguished instances of self-denial in

witnessing for the cause of God, there is also abundant proof in the records of inspired and uninspired history, that one leading duty, to which the whole succession of witnesses have been called under all dispensations, has been the exercise of this grace. Moreover, this in many cases was demanded to the utmost that men can sacrifice of a temporal kind, even to life itself. It is further manifest, that by shrinking from making these extreme sacrifices they must have failed in fidelity to the great trust committed to them as God's witnesses in the earth. Of these, Daniel and his companions are notable instances. The former bore open testimony against the presumptuous edict of the monarch of the Medo-Persian Empire, in which it was decreed, that "Whosoever should ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of him, should be cast into the den of lions." In the exercise of a vigorous faith, Daniel lifted up an explicit practical protest against this daring attempt to suspend the worship of the God of heaven, at the hazard of his life. He did so by going into his house, after he knew that the writing was sealed, and "his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a-day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime." Might he not have fulfilled the demands of conscience and of duty at such a crisis, by continuing to pray mentally? Or might it not have been enough to pray in secret? Or at least, might he not have left his windows shut in his chamber? No. As a known, public, consistent worshipper of the only true God, and a witness for his claims to daily homage and his supremacy over all men, he would have failed in duty by any such compromise, and it is plain his enemies concluded, from the known inflexibility of his character in religious matters, that he would not swerve an iota, or try thus to elude the execution of the decree. Neither, had he so far complied with or seemed to countenance the unhallowed mandate, would his name have been embalmed as it has been in the inspired record, nor would the glory of the God of Israel have been so displayed as it was in the sight of the heathen. Fidelity to the cause of God has often been tested by what appears to men a very small point.

The three companions of Daniel are corresponding instances of fidelity at the utmost hazard. On being summoned into the presence of an infuriated despot, with such an amount of power, to human view, at his command, and confronted with the seven times heated fiery furnace, into which they were to be cast if they obeyed not his wicked command to fall down and worship the golden image which he had set up, another opportunity is vouchsafed them, at a certain signal, to fall down before the statue, but they stand erect and unmoved as witnesses against idolatry, and for the exclusive claim of the God of Israel, the only living and true God, to religious homage. Hearing in faith the

command, "Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve," they set at nought the command of the idolatrous earthly king. Might they not have once bowed down before the idol god, as Naaman pleaded to be excused in doing occasionally to please his master, and keep his place at court? Or might they not have done so with some supposed mental reservation? No. They could not have done this without belying their character, and also betraying the cause of God in the sight of the heathen. We all know with what firmness they spoke "O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. BUT IF NOT, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up." We admire this heroism, this notable example of self-denial. But how many who admire the pattern shrink from copying it, even in some trifling sacrifices!

From the Apostle's graphic description of the sufferings and sacrifices of Old Testament saints, in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews, it appears that these illustrious men were only notable samples of a whole host of witnesses who were called to suffer the loss of all things-of property, of home, of earthly comforts, and of life too-in resisting from age to age the tide of defection from the cause of God, and those who, now in one way and now in another, deviated from His pure Scriptural worship. The abettors of evil courses being an overwhelming majority of the professors of religion, and so mad on the practice of evil that they would brook no opposition, so that those who testified against their wickedness "were tortured, not accepting deliverance;" "had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, yea, moreover of bonds and imprisonment: they were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheep-skins and goat-skins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (of whom the world was not worthy :) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth."

Nor was fidelity to the cause of God tested by less degrees of selfsacrifice under this dispensation of grace. No adequate estimate can be formed of the amount of heroic constancy displayed by the primitive Christians in the terrible conflict with heathenism during the ten Pagan persecutions. Thousands, in fidelity to the cause of truth, refused to purchase exemption from death in the most cruel forms by the slightest concession to idolatry, or the least denial of the truth as it is in Jesus. It is impossible fully to realise the severity of the tests to which the fidelity of the witnesses against Popish abominations and in behalf of truth and Scriptural worship was put by the persecutions of Rome for

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ages. The privations and self-denial with which their testimony was maintained is emphatically described in Scripture by prophesying in sackcloth, and represented by a woman driven to seek refuge in the wilderness to grapple with all hardships there, and confronted with a savage monster ready to devour her offspring. In the language of the Spirit, "Here (in a remarkable degree) is the patience and the faith of the saints." "Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus Christ."

And scarcely have the proofs of fidelity to the cause of God been less, in sacrificing all that is most dear to man, under the persecutions waged by the Man of Sin against Protestants since the Reformation, in nearly all the kingdoms of Europe. By despotic civil rulers, at the malign instigation of Antichrist, their blood has been made to flow as water in France and Spain, in Bohemia and the Netherlands, and in many other places; and though these horrid cruelties may be forgotten by men in these days, the record of their sufferings and sacrifices is on high; and if the place of some in heaven shall be more distinguished than that of others, it shall be occupied by the many thousands who at that period loved not their lives unto the death in defence of the cause of God. The majority of our readers are familiar with the records of the sacrifices and sufferings of the Covenanters-during the twenty-eight years of fierce Prelatic persecution waged against the excellent of the earth -in contending for Bible truth and Scriptural worship against the semi-popish dictates of Laud and his coadjutors, propagated by the sword, under the sway of the dregs of the now extinct race of the Stuart dynasty, as so many pigmy Mohamets. The echo of the heroic deeds of self-sacrifice and sufferings in this struggle against such odds in the best of causes at that time has scarcely yet died out on the mountains and hills of our beloved country. Nor have they ceased to have an animating influence on those who are raised up from time to time to contend for that truth and purity in the Church of God, which are her distinguished glory, against the inroads of error in matters of faith and of human inventions in the worship of the living God.

Though in later times the witnesses have not been called to manifest their fidelity by resisting unto blood, striving against sin, nor to submit to bonds and imprisonments, or confiscation of goods, it has not been without self-denying sacrifices of various kinds that a faithful testimony for the cause of God has been maintained in Scotland. No small portion of the spirit of self-denial was required in the stand which the first Seceders made against the tide of defection which had set in in full flood, and went on increasing, in the Church of Scotland. Though the merest handful, confronted by a host, faith in the goodness of the cause in which they had embarked led them to make every