you, and ye in me"? Of which of them has the Holy Ghost declared, "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit"? And of which of the most glorious of all these glorious ones has the Son ever said to the Father, "As thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us"? Passing then beyond these, our search leads us upwards and onwards into the ineffable light which beams from that bright form, like unto the son of man, enshrined in the excellent glory. There we find the position and rank of the life through which the spirits of redeemed men are created anew in Christ Jesus, and through being born of which, they become sons of God, and brethren of the first begotten from the dead. All we know, therefore, of its order or rank is, that it surpasseth the high-born life of the angels that excel in strength, and that it is a life that well becomes the highest estate of the glorified humanity of the only begotten of the Father. The new man, renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him." “The new man, which after God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth." Of all heavenly beings, the most heavenly; of all godlike creatures, the most godlike. A life whose beauty and glory shall show, in the ages to come, "the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness toward us, through Jesus Christ." A life which, when perfected in the saints, shall satisfy the heart of Jesus, for the unknown pangs of his soul-travail for them. A life which shall satisfy the eternal longings of the great love of the Father, wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins: a life, whose perfect development, in its Christ-like form, shall be the highest and

most glorious expression of the wisdom and power of the all-creating, all-quickening, all-adorning Spirit of God.

6. The inner life has its faculties, its affections, its instincts, after its own kind. It imparts to the spirit of man a new power of perception and of understanding, as it will in due time give to the body a new power of vision. While the natural man discerneth not the things that be of God, and cannot possibly know them, the spiritual or renewed man discerneth all things. We have an unction from the holy one, and we know all things. The new spirit-life has the faculty by which, when fully developed, we shall know as we are known. Therewith know we the Father; therewith know we him that is from the beginning; therewith know we the truth of God, the things not seen, the spiritual and the eternal realities of the life above. The new man is created in knowledge. Knowledge is an element of its essence, as righteousness and holiness of truth are elements of its essence. We are not ignorant that the Holy Ghost is the Great Teacher. The things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God; and we have received the Spirit, which is of God, that we may know the things that are freely given to us of God. Without him we know nothing. Yet the faculty which he instructs is not the faculty of the natural man, but of the spiritual; the organ of vision through which he pours the light of heavenly truth is not that of the old man, but of the new. The inner life also gives to the renewed spirit new powers of affection, as it will give to the resurrection-body new powers of feeling. The carnal mind-the mind of the flesh-is enmity

against God. The mind of the Spirit is the very reverse of this. The new spirit loves God, and that which is of God: love for the divine, the heavenly, and the holy, is an essential element of the new man. Born of him who is love, love is of the very nature of its being. Hence the new-born man is said to have a new heart given unto him, as well as a new spirit put within him. He has the heart of Christ as well as the mind of Christ. All things are new. All the instincts of the spiritual life, or the new man, are in perpetual antagonism to those of the old man. "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other."

7. One brief, solemn lesson, and we have done. The subject is too weighty for detail: it demands rather that we bring out the great practical principle involved in it. Christ is in us. The pure, blessed, precious Christ, who dwells in God's holy presence above, has placed his own life in us. That life which constitutes the glorified manhood of Jesus the wondrous thing that it is—that very identical life- -is flowing in the arteries of our renewed spirits, which animate these bodies. "Christ liveth in me." I am "one spirit with the Lord." Nothing can separate the life in him from the life in us. Its thoughts vibrate through his mind; its affections move his heart; its sorrows and its joys affect his spirit; they are felt by him. Nowhere can we go, or be without him. Everywhere we bear him with us. He thinks, feels, breathes, rejoices, weeps in us. In the new man "Christ is all." Now, what are we doing with and for this inner life—this Christ that liveth in us?

Are we seeking to gratify its desires with the bread of life? to nourish it with the truth and grace, the love and joys, which the Spirit, the great life-giver and life-sustainer, would give to it from the Father's heart and hand? Or, when the living, throbbing, longing, yearning, mystic Christ within our breasts asks bread, do we give it a stone? When it cries for the living Christ above, do we torture it with the scorpion sting of some vile lust? When it seeks fellowship with God, and with his Son Jesus Christ in the light, do we outrage its holy instincts, and mar its joys, by plunging it into darkness through our pursuit of the pleasures of sin? When it thirsts for the living water, from its own sweet fountain in the heart of Jesus, do we thrill it with anguish by giving it the poison of the serpent? Brethren, is it not solemnly true, that no child of wrath on earth or in hell, and that no fallen spirit, can be guilty of sin so black, so base, so hateful, as this? Might not angels weep, might not devils laugh, might not wicked men scoff, at conduct like this? Oh! let us not grieve the Holy Spirit of Christ, that dwelleth with the precious life within us, by neglecting its claims; but let us suffer him to feed and nourish it out of the fulness of grace and truth in Jesus, for which it ever longs, and without which it can never be satisfied.

FAITHFUL WORDS.

BY

JOHN OFFORD,

OF PALACE GARDENS CHAPEL, KENSINGTON.

THE INNER LIFE DEVELOPED.

"My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you."-GAL. iv. 19.

How beautiful in the sight of God is the child of faith, as he stands in his presence in the peerless perfectness of his own spotless Son. Instead of the pollution, the deformity, and the vileness of the flesh, the eye of God rests upon the purity, the comeliness, and the preciousness of Jesus. With what ineffable delight does the Father look upon that matchless robe, in which he clothes every returning wanderer; for it is the one righteousness of his well-beloved Son, the one obedience, in life and in death, of the God-man, Christ Jesus. And how beautiful in the sight of God is the newborn saint, in whom his holy eye beholds the perfect image of his own holy Christ. Turning from the sin, the enmity, and the death inherent in the evil flesh, his loving eye discovers, and his loving heart rejoices to behold, the holiness, the love, and the life inherent in the renewed spirit. We can imagine the emotions which steal through the breast of a human father, as he traces in the features of his firstborn the image of its beloved mother; but who can conceive the mysterious joy of