prize of the high calling of God IN CHRIST JESUS!" All outward and accidental Church life is nothing to this. John lay in his Master's bosom. Peter saw his Master's glory on the Mount. But the humblest Christians who can claim living union and communion with their divine Lord, have, in truth, if not loftier at least surer credentials of their high calling. Judas enjoyed an external Church fellowship and Church privilege which fell to the lot only of a select few. Alas! it was of no avail to him. Whereas, the lowliest martyr of the catacombs who had never seen Christ's face in the flesh, but on the tablet of whose forgotten grave 'IN CHRISTO' could be inscribed by loving faithful hands, was a true member of "the Holy Church throughout all the world."

Thanks be to God, there is a glorious inner, real unity dominating all artificial barriers: a sect-mark not of man's device: God's own unmistakable symbolism of holiness of character. There is a golden chain of true Apostolic succession, linking, in indissoluble bonds, men of every varying age and varying ecclesiastical party, who own the distinguishing badge of one of Paul's most loved companions-" Tychicus, a faithful minister in the Lord: "-Puritanism and Anglicanism, Priest and Presbyter, Prelacy and Dissent; names, and times, and schools, as diverse as those of Ambrose and Augustine, Pascal and Fenelon, Luther and Calvin, Martyn and Pattison, Knox and Chalmers. They are worshippers in a great invisible and indi

visible Temple, with this as its superscription-“ One body IN CHRIST." “YE ARE ALL ONE IN CHRIST JESUS." Party and conventional distinctions disappear before the words of the Master-" All Mine are Thine, and Thine are Mine; and I am glorified in them" (John xvii. 10). Well has the object and divine mission of the true Church of God on earth been defined—" to destroy evil, and to assimilate Humanity to God: to penetrate and purify the world, and as salt, preserve it from corruption. It has an existence. continuous throughout the ages; continuous however, not on the principles of hereditary succession or of human election, as in an ordinary corporation, but on the principle of spiritual similarity of character (1 John i. 3). The Apostle Paul asserted this spiritual succession when he said that the seed of Abraham were to be reckoned, not as his lineal descendants, but as inheritors of his faith. And Christ, too, meant the same, when He told the Jews that out of the stones before Him God could raise up children unto Abraham."

"1

How striking is the same Apostle's address, contained in the opening words of his earliest inspired Epistle:"Unto the Church of the Thessalonians which is...in the Lord Jesus Christ'" (ver. 1). Then mark his introductory salutation. How perfect a definition of the House of God below-a body of true

1 Rev. F. W. Robertson on Corinthians, pp. 16, 17.

believers :-" Remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and labour of love, and patience of hope IN OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, in the sight of God and our Father" (1 Thess. i. 3). Here we have, not the poor unity of opinion, or formula, or ritual, but of hope, and affection, and common interest. "It is between Christ and His Church," says old Thomas Brooks, "as between two lute strings; no sooner is one struck than the other trembles." There is a mutual glow and thrill of sympathy between heart and heart :-" And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular" (1 Cor. xii. 26, 27). For ye are all the children of God by faith IN CHRIST JESUS. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one IN CHRIST JESUS" (Gal. iii. 26-28).

The day at least is coming, when the impossibility of the Church militant will become the certainty and triumph of the Church triumphant-" complete IN HIM." In the words of a deceased scholar, as devout as he was learned-" Under Jesus, as universal Regent, harmony will be restored to the universe. The anthem to God and the Lamb begins with saints, is taken up by angels, and re-echoed by the wide creation" (Rev. v. 9-14). Then indeed will the Apostle's ardent

longings regarding true brotherhood be gloriously and literally realised:-"That we may present every one perfect IN CHRIST JESUS" (Col. i. 28). Then will the ideal of a Greater than Paul be reached: for the prayer of the Divine Intercessor Himself will be fulfilled"That they all may be one; as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one IN US" (John xvii. 21).

IN HOC VINCES

X

VIII.

NO CONDEMNATION IN CHRIST.

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are IN CHRIST JESUS."-Rom. viii. 1.

HESE are the opening words of the choicest chapter in St. Paul's great Epistle," the Evangel within an evangel:" that Epistle which Luther graphically calls "the Lord's lantern, illuminating all the pages of Holy Writ." "Thanks be to God," adds the German theologian who quotes the saying, "for this truest bulwark of the Gospel, this most fragrant flower of his evangelical labour, a very amaranth, unfading, immortal.” 1

In our motto-verse, we have the brief but expressive deduction from the whole previous discussion. The Inspired Writer has reached a transition point in his argument; and "no condemnation IN CHRIST," is the golden key by which (if I may so express it) he locks up one compartment of his treasure-house, while, with the same golden key he opens the other,

1 Besser.