blindness of their heart;" but now through divine grace feel that they have a desire to the knowledge of his ways. Hear again our Lord's suited promise in John xiv. 26, "I will send the Holy Ghost the Comforter, and he shall teach you all things;" so that the weakness of the creature, either intellectually or morally, can be no hindrance to the entrance of the gospel for it is written, "he taketh the wise in their own craftiness," but the Lord" giveth grace to the humble" (James iv. 6). Solomon also shows the only means of escape from this ignorance (Prov. xxviii. 5), "They that seek the Lord understand all things." Are there any awakened to a feeling of their deadness? such as the Colossians whom Paul addressed (iii. 3); truly encouraging will it be to turn to his epistle in the Romans (chap. vi.), and argue thus, "Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him ;" and then will it be found that all gifts, all grace, all glory, is "for the rebellious also "—and why? but "that the Lord God might dwell among them." That all who are the called according to his purpose, should know him to be "Immanuel " and have the understanding of that great mystery, God manifest in the flesh, "whom to know is life eternal;" being assured that "he who hath begun the good work in you, will perfect it unto the day of the Lord Jesus" (Phil. i. 6). This is indeed the river," the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacle of the Most High" (Ps. xlvi. 4); one sip from which gives to the happy recipient a peace which the world cannot give. And if but one gift, the gift of faith, be such a blessed communication, what tongue can tell the amazing grace of the threefold gift, "faith, hope, and love?" Here it will never be fully known, for 66 we see but through a glass darkly, and know but in part (1 Cor. xiii. 13); but "when that which is in part is done away," and faith be exchanged for perfect possession, then shall be understood the fulness of that declaration, "God is gone up with a shout" (Ps. xlvii. 5), and all interested in that ascension shall live with him, and reign for ever and ever. May we daily live in the anticipation that he will come again and take us to himself, that where he is there we may be also; and as it will be " in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" (1 Cor. xv. 52), we shall thus waiting, with our lamps trimmed, exultingly exclaim, "But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." A PHILIPPIAN. A FEW THOUGHTS ON DEATH. To the poor afflicted saint of God death is not the "King of Terrors," but the Queen of Comforts. To him, like St. Paul, "To die is gain." A two-fold gain; First, a negative, and, Secondly, a positive, gain. 1. Death to the believer is a negative gain. His losses are a gain. Now on earth he often feels the pangs of hunger and thirst, it may be of bodily hunger and thirst—the craving for food without the means of satisfying it. But whether this be the case or not, he assuredly often expe riences spiritual hunger, his soul hungers and thirsts after the living God; but, when death admits him to the mansions of the blessed, he "shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more." Now on earth the sun often beats upon his defenceless head, till he is ready to sink under the burden and heat of the day; but then, "the sun shall not light on him, nor any heat" (Rev. vii. 16). Now his earthly tabernacle is often racked with cruel pains, and his couch watered with the tears of sorrow; but then, "God shall wipe away all tears from his eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away" (Rev. xxi. 4). But, to sum up all. Now he has a body of sin and death-now sin lives in him, works in him, nay, oftentimes seems to reign in him; but death will make him quit of sin for ever. Sin and sorrow he will leave behind him in the tomb. Oh, what a gain will that be! Sin is the root of all evil; so to put off sin must be to put off all that is evil. But 2. Death to the believer is a positive gain. A gain of such magnitude that I cannot venture to speak of it, for it is written, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" (1 Cor. ii. 9). "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he his" (1 John iii. 2). Yes, we shall see him as he is," in the glory and perfection of his Divine nature, we shall be like him, in the glory and perfection of our own." "Then shall we see his face, And never, never sin; Then from the river of His grace, Drink endless pleasures in." Oh, then, Christian reader, why should you fear death when death is such exceeding gain? Let the worlding fear death, for to him it is the gate of hell; but you should rather rejoice, and lift up your head at its approach, for to you it is the door of heaven. Oh! why, I repeat, should you fear to die? Is this world so fair, is life so sweet that you are loath to leave it? or, would you be willing to take up your rest in this waste wilderness, and lose the glories of heaven for the vanities of earth? That were a choice no real Christian could or would ever make. Oh, reader! if your path has been like his whose hand traces these lines, "in the brier and the thorn"-if your path has been "in the footsteps of the flock," you must know and confess that our life on earth is but a living death. Most heartily can I take up the language of a great writer and say, "What a superlatively grand and consoling idea is that of death! radical idea, this delightful morning star, indicating that the luminary of eternity is going to rise, life would, to my view, darken into midnight melancholy. Oh! the expectation of living here and living thus always, would indeed be a prospect of overwhelming despair!" Yea, and does not the poet echo the same sentiment when he sings— "O most delightful hour by man The hour that terminates his span, Without this And why should we pray to be delivered from sudden death, when sudden death is sudden glory? Welcome, thrice welcome, all that tends to bring me more speedily to my Father's house, my Saviour's presence, and my eternal rest. The most that I can say of life is, that it can be endured, the least that I can say of death is, that it is the Alpha of eternal joy and the Omega of earthly misery. "Blessed are they that have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, for they shall have right to the tree of life, and shall enter" through the gates of death, into that city which "hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." "I live to die- I die to live, And live no more to die again: In worlds remote from death and pain. This life I owe to him who died, And rose, and reigns in yonder skies; I triumph through the crucified, And, dead with Christ, with Christ shall rise. "His wondrous death my life ensures; His wondrous rising death destroys; Then let me live and let me die, Liverpool. M. M. "THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD, THE FIRST-BORN OF EVERY CREATURE."-CoLos. i. 15. WHATEVER may be the apparent difficulty in expounding any portion of God's word, we may rest assured that the difficulty is apparent only, and that, under the unction, teaching, and guiding of the Holy Ghost, we sooner or later are led into the breadths, lengths, depths, and heights of the mysteries of the kingdom of God; and by "comparing Scripture with Scripture," thus have our heart and the eyes of our understanding enlightened. And, I would observe, the greater the mystery, and the more incomprehensible to man's finite judgment, the plainer and more simple is the truth as it is written in God's most holy and unerring word. For instance, what can be a greater mystery than that "God was manifest in flesh," that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, should come forth from the Father's bosom, and say, "Lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me;" a body hast thou prepared for me?" &c. What can be a greater mystery than the "three that bear record in heaven, and that these three are one?" and yet these things are as plainly written in the Scriptures of truth, and shine still brighter on the Spirit-taught soul than the natural sun on the earth at mid-day, however clever blasphemers may endeavour to explain them away. As the text that I shall endeavour to expound is a short and comprehensive one, there is no 66 reason that I should cut it into heads and tails, into divisions and subdivisions, but will proceed at once to take up the words as the Holy Ghost has written them, namely, in the first place, "The image of the invisible God." Who, then, is the image of the invisible God? The preceding context tells us that it is "God's dear Son, in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins." And who is the Son of God? At the fourth verse of the fourth chapter of Galatians we read, "When the fulness of time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law," so that the glorious Son of God was made "in the likeness of sinful flesh," who "being in the form of God, and thinking it no robbery to be equal with God, made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant." We plainly see, from the preceding Scriptures, that the form of God is to be seen in the man Christ Jesus, "being the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person" (Heb. i. 3), so that we could not possibly have a more correct likeness of Jehovah than in the person of our Lord Jesus Christ; for how could it be otherwise, when Jehovah himself formed him and created him, as it is written, "the first-born of every creature?" or creation, as the Greek word is rendered (Rev. iii. 14), where our Lord is called "the Amen, faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God." Having thus arrived at the second part of the text, I would inquire how is Christ the first-born of every creature, or of all creation. In the first place, it is said (Prov. viii. 25), "Before the hills was I brought forth, whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting" (Micah v. 2). Some people say he was brought forth in God's thoughts; be it so, it amounts to the same thing; for, whether God does a thing or thinks, it is already done in his sight; for the bringing forth of Christ and his Church, in him, the work of creation, the work of grace in the heart, the work of Christ, and the work of mediation, the act of election, and the act of reprobation, the reception of his own sheep into glory, and the casting of the goats into hell, yea, all the transactions of a past eternity, a time state, and a future eternity, is but one ETERNAL NOW in his eyes who is "ETERNAL, immortal, invisible," and "who calls things that are not as though they were." Thus, then, the Lord Jesus Christ is the first-born of every creature, as he was brought forth from everlasting. 66 But some will say there is a difficulty in the following context, where it is written, FOR by him were all things created," &c. (ver. 16), so that it appears to imply that the Lord Jesus was actually existing in human nature when the world was made, "he being the first-born of every CREATURE." But the difficulty vanishes when the Holy Ghost leads us rightly to divide the word; for then we shall see that, although the conjunction "for" follows, it does not of necessity imply that the world was created by Christ as he existed in our nature, but that "by HIM all things were created," which does not necessarily include his human nature, inasmuch as that he was a person before "He took on HIM the seed of Abraham." That he was Jehovah no one can doubt, for the act of creation is an act of Jehovah, but that he was indeed the Word (not incarnate), the Christ of God, as well as Jehovah Christ, is not believed by many, although it is expressly said (Eph. iii. 9), that "God created all things by Jesus Christ," and who is Jesus Christ but the Son of God? what besides? the Son of Man; even that Son of Man who said, "What, and if you should see the Son of Man ascend up where He was ་ me more speedily to my Father's house, my Saviour's presence, and my eternal rest. The most that I can say of life is, that it can be endured, the least that I can say of death is, that it is the Alpha of eternal joy and the Omega of earthly misery. "Blessed are they that have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb, for they shall have right to the tree of life, and shall enter" through the gates of death, into that city which "hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it for the glory of God doth lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof." "I live to die- I die to live, And live no more to die again: In worlds remote from death and pain. This life I owe to him who died, And rose, and reigns in yonder skies; I triumph through the crucified, And, dead with Christ, with Christ shall rise. "His wondrous death my life ensures; His wondrous rising death destroys; Then let me live and let me die, To Him who lived and died for me; Liverpool. M. M. “THE IMAGE OF THE INVISIBLE GOD, THE FIRST-BORN OF EVERY CREATURE."-Colos. i. 15. WHATEVER may be the apparent difficulty in expounding any portion of God's word, we may rest assured that the difficulty is apparent only, and that, under the unction, teaching, and guiding of the Holy Ghost, we sooner or later are led into the breadths, lengths, depths, and heights of the mysteries of the kingdom of God; and by "comparing Scripture with Scripture," thus have our heart and the eyes of our understanding enlightened. And, I would observe, the greater the mystery, and the more incomprehensible to man's finite judgment, the plainer and more simple is the truth as it is written in God's most holy and unerring word. For instance, what can be a greater mystery than that " God was manifest in flesh," that the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, should come forth from the Father's bosom, and say, "Lo, I come in the volume of the book it is written of me;" a body hast thou prepared for me?" &c. What can be a greater mystery than the "three that bear record in heaven, and that these three are one?" and yet these things are as plainly written in the Scriptures of truth, and shine still brighter on the Spirit-taught soul than the natural sun on the earth at mid-day, however clever blasphemers may endeavour to explain them away. As the text that I shall endeavour to expound is a short and comprehensive one, there is no |