May we not add "they only"? The foolish prodigal imagines that he can secure greater happiness for himself when no longer curbed by his father's presence and will; such always come to want, and, alas! do not always return quickly to the home where reconciliation and blessing alone are to be found. He is poorly kept who tries to keep himself; and though the pleasures of sin may for a season gratify, they can never satisfy![B]

"Jehovah, the Father, bless thee, and keep thee." It is an individual blessing: and it includes every form of blessing, temporal as well as spiritual —"My God shall supply all your need"; and this "according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus," not according to our consciousness of need. He is able to bless, able to make all grace abound—to so wonderfully abound towards us, that we always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work: He is able to keep—to keep us from falling, to keep us from all evil. And not only is He able, but He has already "blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly things in Christ," and He wants us, His children, to know and to enjoy the love that is the source of all blessing: the love that can never by finite words express its fulness: the love that eternal ages will never exhaust!

"Best of blessings He'll provide us,
Nought but good shall ere betide us;
Safe to glory He will guide us,
Oh, how He loves!"

[B] When we speak of God as a Father we must not forget that He is only such in its full meaning to those who have become His children by faith in Christ Jesus; and that the sad and solemn words of the loving Saviour to the unconverted were, "Ye are of your father, the devil." The prodigal was a backslider: when furthest from home he could yet think and speak of the privileges of his father's house.

THE SECOND PERSON OF THE TRINITY.

The second clause of the blessing is the blessing of the Son, which is not less full and appropriate. Through eternal ages the Son of God, He became, in the fulness of time, the Son of Man. The Brightness of His Father's glory, the Sun of Righteousness, He came to manifest, as well as to speak of, the Father's love. He became the Light of the world, as well as the Lamb of God; but in each aspect doing the will, as well as the work of God, He thus revealed the wondrous love and grace of the Father, and His own perfect Sonship. The Father's will included Christ's glad reception of all who come to Him, His meeting all their need—saving, sanctifying, satisfying, keeping, raising up at the last day—His giving Himself for, and giving Himself to, all those given to Him of the Father.

He is indeed a wonderful Saviour! What light the incarnate Word of God (Who is Light) has thrown on the written Word of God! The law in its legal requirements He has fulfilled, bringing in everlasting righteousness, which is imputed to all those who are indeed in Him. He has also fulfilled the Law in its manifold typical aspects—Himself the Temple, the Priest, and the Sacrifice; Himself the Altar, the Offerer, and the Victim; Himself the Lamp, and the Priestly Trimmer of the lamps (as He is also the whole Vine, and yet the Life of each individual branch of the Vine). Time would fail us to enumerate the various objects and acts of typical service which were all fulfilled in Him. He too is the Bridegroom, from whose wounded side the Bride is being formed; and He is waiting for His Bride, who will soon be caught up to meet Him in the air. The true Solomon is He whose glory we shall share, and not only so, but whose presence will be the ever-satisfying portion of His chosen Bride.

The Bride eyes not her garment, but her loved Bridegroom's face;
I shall not gaze on glory, but on my King of grace;
Not on the crown He giveth, but on His pierced hand:
The Lamb is all the glory of Immanuel's land.

May the Holy Spirit give us more and more to realize the practical bearing of all that is thus revealed of the glory of the Person, and the fulness of the work of our Saviour and King!