alone is excellent; his glory is above the earth and heaven."* But it becomes us to search with diligence into the connecting part of this passage, and then we shall discover that it is not only strictly grammatical, and has its proper substantive to agree with each of the adjectives all, but that it is rich in meaning, and throws an additional lustre on the truth as it is in Jesus.

The question is-To whom or to what is Christ all, and in whom or in what is Christ all. He is not all to the believer, since he is made up of two distinct principles, as opposite to each other as "two contending armies "the flesh and the spirit, the old man and the new; and surely there is nothing in Christ that suits with corrupt nature! for he has himself declared, that except a man be born again he cannot discern spiritual objects--he cannot see the kingdom of God. Neither is He in all or in

* Psalm 148.

+ Cant. 6.

every part of the believer: for then we should always act perfectly right, and never even conceive an impure thought.

But Christ is all to the new creature, and dwells as the soul in the body in every part, in all the new creature, or the new man, which will be found, on examining the whole passage, to be the proper antecedent to both the words all. "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge, after the image of him that created him: where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but [where] Christ is all, and in all.”

By supplying the passage with this little relative where, which is most certainly understood, we find it an antithesis to the former where, which most certainly refers to the new man, that holy thing (if I may call it by the same name which Gabriel calls

its great Creator) which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.

All created beings require support and nourishment suited to their various natures; and they receive gratification and pleasure from objects around them: and as the natural life is supported by bread, and as the old man, which is "corrupt with his deeds," is gratified by sensual objects, sensual pleasures, and desires suited to the flesh; so the new man, the hidden man of the heart, feeds on Christ, the Bread of life.

Christ is an object exactly suited to the faculties and desires of the new creature:

"His flesh is meat indeed, and his blood is drink indeed!" His person is an assemblage of all glories, beauties, and perfections; and

* Ephes. 4.

the new man is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him: knowledge, so much cried down, is here said to be the medium of renewing or supporting the new creation. "In knowledge of him standeth our eternal life." The Lord Jesus gives eternal life to as many as the Father hath given him; and he says this is life eternal, to know him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent. The love of Christ, as many from experience can say, "is better than wine;"* and this love is to the new creature a source of delight and consolation; a feast of fat things full of marrow; of wine upon the lees well refined. The righteousness of Christ, that work which is "honourable and glorious."† The sacrifice and death of Christ: oh the delight in contemplating the virtue of his sin-atoning blood, this overflowing fountain of purity! The power of his resurrec

* Cant. 1.

+ Psalm 111. .

tion, the prevalence of his intercession; in short, all of Christ, the very Paschal Lamb of which the Israelites were to eat every part, with the head, and the legs, and the purtenance thereof, is food for his spiritual Israel in the present day.

How highly, then, should we value the ministers of Christ, who, as stewards of these mysteries, bring forth this bread and wine to the people; who are holding forth the word of life; who preach "Christ amongst us, the hope of glory!' When this subject is well known to the child of God, he will be able more easily to account for what passes within him at different times. This hour he is privileged with feasting on Christ: he finds the love of Jesus so shed

L

* This is the marginal reading, Coloss. 1. 27.; and it will appear, by the next verse, that it was Christ preached amongst them which was their hope of glory, and not Christ in them. Christ is indeed formed in his people, Gal. 4. 19.; but their hope of glory is as an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that (into Christ) which is within the vail.