laid up for him at His feet. Oh, what love he had to the person of Christ!

His desire to depart was not that he might obtain his crown, but to be with Christ-it was not his throne, it was Christ-it was not his heaven, it was Christ. This was the summit of his hope, the goal of his desire, the mark in which all his hopes centred, and this love made him long to bring others to that Christ, who came from heaven to die for man, who emptied Himself of His glory, and took on Him the form of a servant to suffer and die for us.

There is a certain sense in which we are at home in the body" here, but oh, how frail a tent! have a house eternal in the heavens.

There we

Paul wanted to be with Christ; he knew what a surpassing blessing that was. Some had had Christ with them on earth in personal presence, and they had seen deep mysteries, but it was not like being with Him in the glory.

It seems to me, brethren, that to our Lord one of the most painful things connected with His personal presence on earth was that though with His people, all their tears were not wiped away, nor their sorrows hushed. Here Christ could only weep with those that wept. Above there, tears, woes, conflicts, and temptations are all scattered; now that He is exalted, it is impossible that tears, pain, or sorrow, should be where He is. Oh, to dwell, to be with the risen Christ is indeed "far better."

Paul had no doubt. Many people tell you it is presumption to suppose you can know. Paul knew well; he had full assurance.

Again the longing was ever present; he had always a

longing for his element, he was not weary. Depend upon it, when the Holy Spirit gives the desire to be with Christ, He puts the hands, feet, and tongue all in motion to work for Him here.

And now, lastly, what was the ground of St. Paul's assurance? for he had not one particle, not a shadow of warrant which may not be the portion of any child of God. He tells us. "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." (2 Tim. i. 12.) "I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and 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.) His conscience was sprinkled with blood, His Lord's word pledged; and he was persuaded that neither life nor death could separate him from His love. And so amidst all his workings, blessings, and employments, he could not help being in "a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better." May the Lord grant us all to know this strait for Christ's sake!

XVI.

An Address for the New Year.

"As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him."-COLOSSIANS ii. 6.

I

HAVE selected this precious passage of God's word

as our Watchword for the New Year, and I do so in prayerful earnest hope that our souls may drink very deeply into the wondrous grace and glory which it unfolds to us, and that we may be comforted, strengthened, encouraged, supported, and excited to aim at the attainment of higher Christian life and experience, while from time to time we sit down under the shadow of this richly-laden bough of the tree of life, and find its fruit

sweet to our taste.

The words contain and express four things.

1. The undoubted privilege and portion of every real child of God," we have received Christ Jesus the Lord."

2. The means whereby this wonderful receiving of Christ Jesus the Lord is attained unto and realised in the soul. The word therefore expresses it, "Ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord."

3. Follows an exhortation and a command, grounded upon the fact of our having received the Lord Jesus Christ, namely, "Walk ye in Him."

4. Lastly, our text clearly implies the invariable proportion and analogy between the measure in which our faith receives and realises Christ Jesus the Lord, and the power and character of our walk, as ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in Him.”

First, then, here is expressed the undoubted privilege and portion of every real child of God, "ye have . . . received Christ Jesus the Lord." Remember the Apostle is addressing himself to men and women of like passions with ourselves. The people of Colosse, to whom he writes, were he himself brings the witness-poor, faulty, needy. In chap. i. 21, he reminds them that formerly "they were alienated, and enemies in their minds by wicked works;" but that notwithstanding this, and as a set-off against all their failures, ruin, sinfulness, emptiness, bankruptcy, condemnation, they had "received Christ Jesus the Lord!" Not merely His precious blood to wash them, His justifying righteousness to cover them, His Holy Spirit to teach them, His exalted name to shelter and adorn them, His boundless fulness of grace and glory to supply and satisfy them; but more than all, and above all, His own glorious self, to be their everlasting possession, their inalienable portion, their divine inheritance. They had received Christ Jesus the Lord to dwell in their hearts for evermore, to be for them, and not against them, and never to leave them nor forsake them; ye have... received Christ Jesus the Lord." Why, the mere utterance of these words seem to amaze and dazzle the understanding. The mind

cannot grasp the length and breadth and depth and height of this unutterable, inconceivable, and stupendous possession. "Ye have . . . received Christ Jesus the Lord." Oh, thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift! Thanks be to God for commended and manifested love, in the gift of His own dear Son, the pledge and earnest to our faith and hope that He will "with Him also freely give us all things." Beloved children of God,

we have... received Christ Jesus the Lord;" in whom "it pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell;" in whom, as in a treasury, all is laid up that the love of God could provide, all that the fulness of Christ could contain, all that the power of the Holy Ghost could impart, all that the need of our poor souls could require for time or for eternity. In Him we have been made "partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light." In Him we have been made "meet to be partakers of the inheritance." In Him we are delivered "from the powers of darkness;" and in Him translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. "In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins." (See Col. i. 12-14.)

Called by a faithful God into the fellowship of His Son Christ Jesus the Lord, ye have received Him. Thanks be to God for the unsearchable riches of Christ. In the preceding chapter we find the Holy Spirit most careful to enlighten our understandings as to who and what He is, and what He has done, who has been thus bestowed, and received by every child of God. He is "the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature; for by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be