ioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself.”1

We need not wonder that to many these great promises appear but as beautiful dreams. He that looks upon his own weakness, or considers what has been going on upon the earth since the beginning of the world, or who reflects how slowly and imperceptibly Christ is formed in the heart, may well doubt whether it will ever be that His enemies shall all lie prostrate at His feet. The apostle Peter tells us that in his days there were scoffers who said, "Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." 2 But, God be thanked! we build this hope of ours neither on what our eyes see, nor yet on the thoughts of our own erring minds; for we know that

We perish, if in our own might

To wage the war we try;
But One ordained for us to fight
Can all our foes defy.

And if you ask me, Who is this?

I answer, Christ our champion is.

He fights and, says the apostle, reigns until He has put all enemies under His feet; and by mentioning death as the last of these, he comprises under them all the things that still hinder the image of God in human nature from acquiring the mastery over what is hostile and obstructive. And when the battle has been fought out, and all things have been subdued unto Him, then will He demit His regal office, in order that He alone, in whose behalf His wars were waged, may become all in all. Who can measure what these words express? it is an ocean without a shore: "He will be all in me, and He will be all in all."

Lord, in the ocean of Thy love

Be all my rebel passions drowned;
And not a wish Thy frown to move
In my regenerate heart be found.

1 Philip. iii. 20, 21.

2 Peter, iii. 4.

Let every pulse throb thanks to Thee,
And every breath an anthem be!

Oh let my eye, wherever bent,'

In all things see Thy glory shine;
My ear in every day's event

Discern a harmony divine;

And may I feel that, far and near,

Where'er I am, Thou, God, art here.

Such was our song in the days of our infirmity here below; but when God shall be all in all, will not what we once sang have become reality? There have been reflective Christians who, in lofty flights of the spirit, have told us what they thought of that plenitude of graces which is to be poured out upon us at the time of the full harvest. But this I venture not to do, because holy Scripture itself speaks upon the subject only in emblems, and thereby gives us to understand that the things are of a kind of which the mind may perchance have a boding sense, but which it cannot comprehend, and on which it scarcely dares to think. When it calls Him who is "the brightness of the Father's glory," our "elder brother"— when it promises that we shall be like Him,-do I rightly understand what this signifies? When it promises that there will no longer be any difference between my knowledge and His knowledge, or between what I am, and what He is, able to do, does it mean that He will reserve nothing for Himself? This is certainly the prospect which the Scriptures always present afresh, and from some new point of view, to the child of God, and from the magnitude of which he recoils. When, as their great High-priest, He prays for His disciples, and says, "Father, I will that they also, whom Thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which Thou hast given me." And "the glory which Thou hast given me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one."1When He says, "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me on my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in His throne."2-When the apostle 1 John, xvii. 22, 24.

2 Rev. iii. 21.

avers, "Then shall I know (God) even as also I am known (of Him)."-I scarcely dare to utter the words, and yet I cannot be mistaken as to their meaning. Do they not tell us that we shall be made to resemble the Son of God in all respects? Is it not a fellowship in everything which He, the First-born, promises to those whom He purposes to exalt to sonship with Himself? And yet if He did not shrink from the deep abasement of assuming human flesh and blood, and entering into fellowship with us in our abject state, surely we need not wonder that it is now His good pleasure to make us partakers of all His greatness. I might even say we can look for nothing else. Oh what a noble text is that which tells us that "both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one; for which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren, saying, I will declare Thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee"! He has dignified poor human nature, and given to it what He received from the Father, and has thereby made us sons of equal rank with Himself yet all through grace, and grace alone. For that reason it is that He will remain the Head through all eternity. No doubt we shall be like Him, yet on that very account we shall owe Him, and Him alone, a debt of gratitude. "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich."2 For this, therefore, we shall through all eternity give thanks unto Him, the Prince of life, who has gone before us on the path of suffering, in order to bring many sons unto glory.3 When permitted to sit beside Him on the throne on which He has been set by the Father, we shall never cease to sing the hymn, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing."4

In every body where there is a head there must also be diversity among the members. Although, therefore, it might

1 Heb. ii. II, 12.

3 Heb. ii. 10.

2 2 Cor. viii. 9.

4 Rev. v. 12.

seem at first as if, when God is all in all, no one of these could differ from another, in reality this is not the case; for just as the Prince of life travelled to glory by a path of His own, so likewise must the sons whom He purposes to conduct to glory with Him. And it is a path which none of them can forget. They have been trained in different schools, and have entered the sanctuary by different doors. There is, in fact, an eternal centre of spirits emitting innumerable rays, and on some particular one of these does every spirit reach that centre. For this reason, when congregated there, they shall all take part in the same halleluiah, and yet each with a voice and tone peculiar to himself.

Almighty God, in whose hand it is to acquit or to condemn, I cannot but acknowledge Thy full and perfect right to condemn me; and yet Thou hast awarded me an inheritance so great that I scarcely dare for very shame to lift my eyes towards it. I should praise and thank Thee through eternity, even though the place allotted me were on the remotest confine of Thy holy land, or only at the threshold of Thy heavenly temple. But Thy Word distinctly tells me that Thou wilt draw me to Thy heart, that Thou wilt seat me on Thy throne, and make me a copy of the brightness of Thy glory. Oh give me faith sufficiently great and powerful to grasp so inconceivable a promise; and in seasons of weakness vouchsafe to me a glimpse, though it be but into the outward porch, of that glorious place to which I shall one day be exalted. At such a thought how does this little earth, with all its mighty woe, recede far, far behind me!

Here dwell for ever joy and light.
The soul is clad in raiment bright

Of spotless purity.

Like kings we sit on thrones, and wear

Immortal chaplets, fresh and fair,

While changeless time rolls by.
Oh happy they that day who see,
When all and in all God shall be!

66.

E saw a new Neaven and a new Earth.

Earth was for thee too strait, impatient throbbed thy heart;
Now thou hast room enough, for now with God thou art.
Yes, room which to explore, if thou shouldst enterprise,
Time and eternity itself will not suffice.

REV. xxi. I. "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea."

Α ANOTHER of

NOTHER of the apostles writes: "The fashion of this world passeth away.' " 1 The old earth will pass away in order to give place to the new, which shall continue for ever. How much of the old will remain we do not know, and can only conjecture. It is, however, certain that beneath its outward rind a resurrection germ is contained, just as there is in our earthly body. The fleshly mass, which by the afflux and deflux of its particles is undergoing continual change, does not constitute the body's real substance. There is within a spiritual type and germ, which finds it hard to spring and shoot forth as it ought through the coarse outward crust formed of the dust of the ground. Even the erect stature of the human body plainly shows that its inhabitant is of a different rank from those who inhabit other bodies. But how strait and coarse is this crust in which he is confined! We see revealed in the wondrous fabric called the eye the tremblings of the slenderest string which is touched in the recesses of the breast. How would it be were every member of the body such a mirror of the soul as the eye at present is?

Yes;

And now we learn that there is to be a resurrection. and this resurrection the spiritual germ in my body, which already labours to shoot forth into view, will undergo. It will 2 Gen. ii. 7.

1 1 Cor. vii. 31.