the entering ever deeper and deeper into the secrets of Redeeming Love:-soaring ever higher and higher to the heights of His revealed glory. The Song of heaven will be a true Excelsior-a "Song of degrees." Like the well-known Parabolic assymtotes of the mathematician (to adopt Addison's beautiful and appropriate simile), the saint in glory will be always approaching nearer and nearer the Infinite perfection, although feeling the utter impossibility of that ever being reached. Jesus the Great Shepherd will lead His people from steep to steep on the everlasting hills, and as they survey the ever-widening prospect, He will say to them, as He did to Nathaniel of old, "Ye shall see greater things than these!"

Who, indeed, can form the faintest conception, in this lower world and imperfect state, of all which this wondrous mystical union involves, in its connection with "Things to come"? Saints becoming one IN CHRIST for ever. His ransomed people, not so much constellating around Himself as their great central orb; He 'resting them' in His love, and joying over them with singing (Zeph. iii. 17): but rather like the dewdrops exhaled by the morning sun, absorbed in the sun itself; not the living stones rising tier on tier, but rather those enshrined and incorporated in the Great Eternal Temple; according to the words of the Apocalyptic vision-words best left in their own mysterious indefinite grandeur-"I saw no temple therein for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb

are the temple of it" (Rev. xxi. 22).

glorified together."

They are

They are glorified in Him, and He is glorified in them. It is the Dove of the Psalmist

"its wings covered with silver and its feathers with yellow gold," no longer hastening its escape from the windy storm and tempest, but sinking out of sight IN the clefts of the Rock,-folding its pinions in the perfected bliss of everlasting rest and everlasting love IN HIM!

Yes, wonderful climax this in our motto-verse, where the Apostle, rising in his eagle flight from perch to perch, from altitude to altitude, defies "things to come," the cycles of Eternity-ever to separate Him from "the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

"Then across the border river:

From His presence nought can sever :
We shall sing His praise for ever!"

If

If the consciousness of being "IN CHRIST" on earth be supremest happiness, what will it be to be IN CHRIST in glory, and that for "the ages of the ages!" even here, amid falling shadows and interrupted converse, the assurance of an Invisible Presence evokes the testimony-" Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us by the way" (Luke xxiv. 32):— what will it be to sit at a Banqueting Table where, unlike the earthly one, there can be no "vanishing out of sight!" If the few wavelets of Divine love be precious as they break on the earthly shores, what will

it be to be launched on the Infinite ocean of Redeeming love, listening to its everlasting music,—and enabled in some feeble measure to comprehend (but even then, oh, how feebly !), the height and depth, the length and breadth of the love of God IN CHRIST! Then, at least, shall Paul's prayer be fulfilled: the glorious consummation of the motto-words which head this chapter, and on which, page after page in this volume, we have been dwelling,-"That they may also obtain THE salvation which is IN CHRIST JESUS with eternal glory!"

IN PACE.

XXIX.

AM I IN CHRIST?

"Know ye not your own selves, how that JESUS CHRIST is in you, except ye be reprobates.”—2 Cor. xiii. 5.

"Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is IN CHRIST JESUS."-2 Tim. i. 13.

UR previous meditation might appropriately have formed the conclusion of this Volume:

the eternal union and communion of the

believer with an ever-living Lord in heaven.

But there is one all momentous practical question which seems still to demand the special consideration of every reader. How do I know that all this wealth

of present bliss and everlasting glory is mine?

IN CHRIST?

Am I

The entire verse from the Apostle's 2nd Epistle to the Corinthians, of which the first words above quoted are a part, distinctly state that there are certain data by which this personal problem may be accurately solved. To express it differently, there are certain plain, palpable tests and characteristics furnished in Holy Scripture, by which we can approxi

mately, at all events, determine our relation to God, and our warrant to say in the language (we have often quoted) of him who thus penned his own monogram— "I know1 a man IN CHRIST.”

Surely we may say, in premising, of supremest importance to each of us is the answer to that question. 'Out of Christ,'-outside the clefts of the Rock-we are exposed to the fury of the storm. "Out of Me" (apart from Me), says the Saviour Himself, "ye can do nothing" (John xv. 5). Nor can there be any neutral ground-any possibility of compromise here. An old writer tersely expresses it, "Halfway to Christ is a dreadful place." On the other hand, we have written to little purpose in the preceding pages, if we have failed to set forth the glorious converse; alike the freeness of the Gospel invitation, and the inviolable security and peace to be found IN CHRIST. With Him (in Him), we are safe for time, safe for eternity. It was the presence of the Ark in the Wilderness of old -the symbol of the Jehovah-Angel's presence-which guaranteed Israel's safety. When the Ark moved, they moved; when the Ark rested, they rested. The prayer of Moses is very remarkable. It was not, ‘Take us 'safe to Canaan': but rather (if we may venture to give his petition a Gospel rendering)—to be, IN CHRIST ; -within the shadow of the Pillar-Cloud by day, and the Fiery Column by night:-"If THY presence go

1 "I know," not 'knew,' as in our authorised version.—See Alford's Greek Testament in loc.