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as I contemplate this marvellous portrait, my heart is ravished with its surpassing loveliness, and I could continue to gaze upon it with wondering delight; but, oh! as I compare it with my own poor, stunted, shrivelled self, I start at the contrast; the glance of its meek and holy eye strikes dead the very thought of perfection in the flesh, and the loveliness of its lowly mien inspires the thought, "I count not myself to have attained." Where shall we look in this generation for the moral excellency, the knowledge, the self-governance, the patience, the godliness, the brotherly kindness, the love? Where shall we discover the bowels of mercies, the gentleness, the humbleness of mind, the meekness, the goodness, the long-suffering? Exist they on this earth in their beautiful proportions in any saint or minister, in any parent or child, in any master or servant? Have they ever existed? Yes; our eyes have seen them; for "the life was manifested" in all its purity and beauty. It was embodied in human flesh. It breathed, and thought, and loved, and suffered, and rejoiced, and wept on this earth. For three-and-thirty years it was shown to men, in the sweetness of its childhood, in the loveliness of its youth-time, in the vigour of its manhood, and each in fullest perfection. And then it was all laid on the altar of God, that the fire of his holiness might feed thereon, and that its rich fragrance might thenceforth for ever ascend up before the face of God on behalf of us sinners. And as we look for the counterpart of all this in ourselves, and see the features of the holy life within us marred by the pollution of sin, we may well shrink from ourselves into the covert of that ascending fragrance,

that God may still look upon us only in his beloved Son. Not that the holiness of the Christ-life can be corrupted; for "that which is born of God sinneth

As the bright sun-beams, which reveal the dust floating in the air, pass undefiled through its myriad particles; so the holy life, which reveals the evil of the flesh, receives no taint from the flesh. And as the sunlight, which struggles through the dense November fog, though darkened thereby, gathers none of its impurity; so the inner life, which ceaselessly struggles with the flesh, though dimmed and dulled thereby, still retains its essential and incorruptible pureness. For that which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit; and these are contrary the one to the other. They can exist together in the same person, and strive one with the other in the same soul; but they cannot mix; they must remain eternally distinct.

III. We have space only to present one motive. It is, that Jesus desires that his life should be developed in us. He loves to see the fruit of his own Spirit developed in his saints. He bids us resemble himself in love, meekness, kindness, and purity. Yet he utters no threat of judgment, he speaks of no final separation from himself. His appeal is to those hearts into which he has poured the life of his own soul, through the travail-pangs of that sorrow which was even unto death. Now, shall we do him wrong, and grieve his blessed Spirit which he has placed within us to cherish his life there? or shall we seek to yield a loving response, in obedience to the desire of his heart? Lord Jesus, henceforth and evermore do thy good pleasure in us!

FAITHFUL WORDS.

BY

JOHN OFFORD,

OF PALACE GARDENS CHAPEL, KENSINGTON.

THE FOOD OF THE INNER LIFE.

"The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."-GAL. ii. 20. THE life of the creature cannot be a self-sustaining life. Dependency is an essential and unchanging law of its being. It must ever derive its sustenance from a source outside itself. This truth holds good of every kind of life in the universe of God. Called into existence by the will of the Creator, it can be kept in being by his power alone. Of him, as the first cause-through him, as the sole supporter-and to him, as the great end-are all things: to whom be glory for ever and ever! The new-creature life forms no exception to this immutable truth. High, holy, blessed as is that life, it is, nevertheless, dependent life. One element of its perfectness is the instinct of its nature to cling to its living head. Did it possess the remotest tendency or disposition to turn from him, that tendency would incline to destruction; that disposition would be fraught with death. It is the glory of the creature to hang upon the Creator; and it is the special glory of the new creature that it shall maintain intimate, indissoluble, and everlasting connection with its source. The

condition of dependence on another is, therefore, no defect of the new man; nay, rather, it is the very law of its being, by means of which it shall attain unto, and be maintained in, its highest state of perfection; for perfection, in degree and in development, can only be reached and held by union with, and dependence on, Christ the Son of God. This truth had its perfect unfolding in the Lord Christ himself, as the pattern of the heavenly life revealed on earth. In him the life had its full development, displaying all its features in their individual and combined loveliness. The principles of the new life were diffused in all their full, rich, holy vigour through his whole inner being. Yet he was dependent on God; for he thought, felt, spake, and acted at the will of his Father, under the guidance and power of the Holy Ghost. Speaking in the spirit of prophecy, he says unto God the Father, "Thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God." And in asserting the fact of our entire dependence on himself for spiritual life, and for the sustenance of that life, he says, "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me." He who subsisted in the form of God, and who deemed it no matter of robbery (or seizure), but a matter of right, to be equal with God, emptied himself by taking upon him the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. Doubtless, as God, he could have revealed his Godhead glory to the eyes of men through his humanity; and he might so have wrought

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in his manhood frame, as to allow no sign of weakness to be felt or seen therein; but he emptied himself and being found in fashion as a man, he became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. He merged his will into the will of the Father; hid in his heart the law of the Father; yielded himself to the guidance of his Spirit; and thus suffered his ear to be wakened morning by morning to hear as the instructed One. As Son of God in human flesh, he received his humanity from the Father, by the power of the Holy Ghost-he was sent by the Father-he lived by the Father; and at his command laid down his life and took it again;-from first to last, the holy, obedient, dependent, and, therefore, perfect man. And as Jesus lived by the Father, even so do renewed men live by him. Hence the eternal law that establishes the relation of the creature to the Creator, is in strict agreement with the apostle's word, "The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." Paul not only had life, but he sought to live that life. He felt that Christ lived in him for a purpose; even that he might think, feel, speak, act, and walk as a new man. He could not have longed for Christ to be formed in other saints, had the inner life remained undeveloped in himself. But whence did he draw those supplies through which his life was fed and strengthened; through which its features were unfolded and matured according to its original pattern? Our text is the answer to this great question. As the Holy Ghost, in regenerating Paul, implanted in him the eternal life from Christ, so in maturing that life, he ceaselessly replenished his

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