ing thought of his creed and life-to retain, as in the original," heavenly places IN Christ"? It is in Him that we live in this "land Beulah." It is in Him we are bathed, so to speak, in the glory of the heavenly atmosphere, that atmosphere replete and luminous with His presence ;-" We walk in the light, as He is in the light" (1 John i. 7).1

While thus magnifying "the unsearchable riches of Christ," let us at the same time join with the Apostle in tracing all these up to the love of God the Father. 'Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus

1 Dr. Eadie, in his scholarly commentary, has the following excellent observations on the phrase to which we have just been making reference. "It does not denote heaven proper, but is the ideal locality of the Church on the earth as the kingdom of heaven '— above the world in its sphere of occupation and employment. . . . 'The heavenly places' are IN CHRIST. Union to Him brings us into them. His glory is their bright canopy, and His presence diffuses joy and hope. . . . Our life, resurrection, and enthronement follow one another, as in the actual history of the great Prototype. But this 'sitting with Jesus' is as spiritual as the life, and it indicates the calmness and dignity of the new existence. The quickened soul is not merely made aware that in Christ, as containing it and all similar souls, it is enlivened, and raised up, and elevated; but, along with this, it enjoys individually a conscious life, resurrection, and session with Jesus. It feels these blessings in itself through its union with Him. It lives, and it is sensible of this life; it has been raised, and it is aware of its change of spiritual position. Nay, it feels itself in the meantime 'sitting with Jesus,' not solely because of its relation to Him in His representative character, but because of its own joyous and personal possession of royal elevation, purity, and honour :-' He hath made us kings' (Rev. i. 6). What is more peculiar to the spirit in this series of present and beatific gifts shall at length be shared in by the entire humanity. The body shall be quickened, raised, and glorified, and the redeemed man shall, in the fulness of his nature, enjoy the happiness of heaven" (pp. 135, 136).

Christ who hath blessed us." "It hath pleased THE FATHER that IN HIM should all fulness dwell" (Col. i. 19).

THE FATHER! that precious Name and word which specially belongs to the Gospel dispensation. Not the God of a false and a harsh theology, armed alone with the thunderbolt ;-some grim Avenger delighting to exact terrible retribution; or else some mythical Phantom existing in cold, unsympathetic, unpitying isolation; but the Living, personal "God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away" (1 Pet. i. 3, 4). Nay, how near is His paternal character and love brought to us from the region of the abstract and ideal! "My Father, and your Father" (John xx. 17). "All things are yours," says Paul, in that triumphant passage which we may well call the charter of the believer's privileges, "All are yours, . . . and ye are CHRIST's, and Christ IS GOD's" (1 Cor. iii. 21, 23). The Holy Spirit, moreover, the third Person of the blessed Trinity, is represented, in a subsequent portion of the epistle from which the verse preceding this meditation is taken, as associated with the Father and the Son in covenant for our salvation; "For through Him" (i.e., Christ) "we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father" (Eph. ii. 18). God the Father pours the anointing oil of the Holy Ghost on the head

of the true Aaron; and the sacred unguent flows down to the very skirts of His garment. Each of His people are thus made participators and recipients of " abounding grace;" yea, the lowliest and humblest receive the

most.

That Father-God IN CHRIST is further revealed, as waiting, and willing, to bless us with "ALL spiritual blessings." He gives us, so to speak, a blank cheque, saying, 'Fill it up as you please; fill it up, not for a few things, but for all things;-pardon, peace, grace, holiness, strength for daily duty, light for perplexing paths, comfort in sorrow, support and victory in death.' "My God," says the Apostle in another passage we shall come subsequently to consider, (giving glory to the Father; and yet, too, seeming as if he never could mention the Father's love apart from that of the Son and his interest in Him); “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus" (Phil. iv. 19). It reminds us of the gushing river of Ezekiel's Temple-vision, bordered with trees of unfading leaf and perennial fruit; and regarding which it is said "Everything lives whither the river cometh." But while it issued out "from under the threshold of the house," it flowed by "the south side of the altar" (of sacrifice)—(Ezek. xlvii. 1). Or, it recalls John's kindred Apocalyptic figuration-strikingly suggestive alike of the Father's love and the Son's sacrificial offering the "pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God

AND OF THE LAMB" (Rev. xxii. 1). It brings to remembrance a yet diviner word of Truth and Inspiration from the lips of One more infallible than the chiefest and most favoured of prophets and apostles. He who is emphatically "the Christ of God," thus speaks in the Great Prayer preceding the agony"Now they have known that all things whatsoever Thou hast given Me are of Thee. And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them, that they may be one, EVEN AS WE ARE ONE (John xvii. 7, 22).

VI.

LIFE IN CHRIST.

"For the law of the spirit of life IN CHRIST JESUS."-Rom. viii. 2.

"Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God (lit.) IN JESUS CHRIST our Lord."-Rom. vi. 11. "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through" (or rather, IN) "JESUS CHRIST our Lord"-Rom. vi. 23. "As in Adam all die, even so IN CHRIST shall all be made alive."-1 Cor. xv. 22.

D

EATH and LIFE:-Death by nature,-life by grace; dead in sin,-alive unto God;death in the first Adam-life in the second Adam; this is the reiterated theme of these varied passages.

It is God's plan to bring life out of death. Nature reads it in her yearly parable: "Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit" (John xii. 24. The Apostle recognises, in the believer, a double death; and in each case there is the new resultant life. He dies to the law: "Now we are delivered," says he, "from the law; that being dead wherein we