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measure, for the more His fulness is communicated to His people the more His glory is revealed. Remember the glory of God is the revelation of His fulness. It is like the glory of the sun; you cannot look on the glory of God, but you can see it manifested according to the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus. He asks that according to the riches of God's glory they may be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man—the new-born dwelling-place of the Holy Ghost. "That Christ may dwell in their hearts by faith.”

Now, I am an old man, and you will let me add something to what has been said upon that subject of Christ dwelling in the hearts of His people. Christ dwells in every member of His body absolutely and for ever. The apostle has no idea of praying that Christ might dwell in His people. That was Christ's prayer in John xvii.—“ I in them." Yes, even though it be the little toe of the body; for the head cannot say to it, "I have no need of thee." No, brethren, Christ does dwell always in all the members of His mystical body; but it is quite a different thing His dwelling in the hearts of those in whom He dwells. Oh! we do not feed sufficiently upon His promises. We starve our souls. We take a truth, and we say, "There it is; Christ dwells in me, and I am comfortable." That is abusing the precious promises of God. Go into His promises. Go into the heights and depths of His love. Think of the purpose of God concerning you, and that He dwells in you. If you believed it fully you could not live as you do. I do not think it possible that a man who believes, really believes, not only professing to-day and forgetting to-morrow, or till the next day; but the man that lives upon and enjoys

the effectual indwelling of God in grace now, and is anticipating the prospect of His indwelling of glory hereafter, could live in the world as many professors do— enjoying their worldly dinner-parties, their theatres, and their doubtful amusements and Sunday entertainments. Shame upon them! Such men are not thinking of and do not believe that which the apostle here puts before us. Again he prays that they may "be rooted and grounded in love." There was a precious word that fell from one of our brethren when he described the love of Christ as being the good soil into which the heart is to be rooted if we are to comprehend the love of Christ. Get down into THAT, and if you believe what He tells you, you will do so. You have the inexhaustible love of Christ to grow up with into Him, who is the Head. And being rooted there? According to the richness of the soil will be the fruit of the tree. "Grounded" also upon the Rock of Ages as their foundation. Believer, grow into the temple of the living God. Built up together, built up with all saints; for they must all be there before the temple is consummated, and when the top stone is laid, then will be seen God's masterpiece-The labour in love of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost for well-nigh six thousand years, and we do not know how much longer, upon which all His almighty grace has been expended, all His patient longsuffering, all His unchanging love, all His fulness been bestowed, and all highly manifested.

Brethren, the God of glory is building His temple; no power can resist effectually its progress. If kingdoms interpose they shall be swept aside. The trials of this life are only chiselling and polishing the stones for that temple, and the providences and the circumstances of

time are but the scaffolding around it. When it is completed, and the last living stone inserted, the scaffolding shall be taken down, and angels and men and the whole universe shall behold the habitation of God, His holy temple in the Lord. Its complement, all saints; its dome, the immensity of deity; its aisles filled with everlasting light; its anthems sung by all redeemed hearts and voices; the monument to eternal ages of God's everlasting love, its walls salvation, and its gates praise. Brethren, when the mere shadow of that dwelling-place was erected in the wilderness, though only constructed of boards and curtains, "the glory of the Lord filled" the place. When the temple of Solomon was finished, God's glory filled the temple. Notice how God adapted Himself to the circumstances of His people. He tabernacled with them in the wilderness when they were wandering, and He dwelt with them in the temple when they were settled in the land. What then shall be the glory of the living temple of the eternal God? Measure its breadth, length, depth, height, and circumference of glory by the price by which it was redeemed, and the fulness with which it shall be indwelt. Then you shall fully know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge, and "comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and be filled with all the fulness of God."

II.

The Death-Bed of Jacob.

"I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord "-GEN. xlix. 18.

THE

HE hand of death was upon Jacob when he spake these words which you see above, in the closing scene of his life. He is surrounded by his children. Hallowed memories of the past are crowding upon him, and bright visions of the future are opening upon his gaze. He seems to pause and take breath awhile: "I have waited for Thy salvation, O God!" May we die the death of the righteous, and may our last end be like his.

We find from his history that his was a wayward, wilful life, and that he brought very much trouble upon himself by reason of his inconsistency and unbelief. Many a thorny pillow he made for himself; many a dark and tangled path he sought out for himself. Remember how he confessed this when he stood before Pharaoh.

We read in the 47th chapter-and I do not know a more splendid passage in the Bible-of a noble scene. Just picture it for a moment.

There stands the hoary

headed Patriarch, worn down by years, and the mighty King of Egypt summons him to his presence, and asks

him, "How old art thou?" And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage ”— the pilgrimage broken up into years, you observe, and the years broken up into days; and not an hour of one of those days but God had watched him, and had borne with him in all his wanderings-"The days of the years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty years; few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage."

And then the brave old man blessed the king, for we read, "And Jacob blessed Pharaoh." How grand a man of God is after all! There was no crown upon his brow but the crown of grace. in his veins but the royal blood of Heaven. The King

There was no royal blood

of Egypt was a very small person in the presence of Jacob-a very small person. Perhaps he felt it. And now on his dying bed (Genesis xlviii. 15) see his confession: "God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk." How happy he would have been if he could have said, "Before whom I have walked." But if we trace his history, we clearly see how very little of God was in it, so far as Jacob himself was concerned, but how much of God was in it so far as the Great God in His faithfulness and truth and tender mercies to Jacob was concerned: "God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day."

That was the bargain he made with God at Bethel. "If God will be with me and give me food to eat, then God shall be my God." Ah! God did much better for him than "the God which fed me all my life long unto

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