the same issues have to be apprehended from them, so that warning is necessary now as in apostolic times; for how many are puffed up by the fleshly mind!

The accompaniment of these principles, and the necessary result of this seductive process, is described by a fourth participle" not holding the Head." The spurious humility and the worshipping of angels, fostered by an unhallowed curiosity and a presumptuous self-sufficiency, lead the soul away from Christ. Severance from Him as the living Head and Lord of life was the sad result. This shows the evil and destructive influence of these errors, and of all systems which have any tendency to derogate from the authority, office, and honour of the Saviour as the Head of the Church. He is the source of light, growth, and holy power; and individual adherence to Him can alone constitute life and salvation. To worship angels is to dishonour Him; to insist on rites and ceremonies as essential to godliness and safety, is to depreciate the value of His redemptive work; to seek the intercession of spiritual beings, and to trust in their influence, is to dethrone Him from His Headship, and to cast off the bond which binds us to Him in life and love for evermore. Thus assuredly would be lost the recompence of the reward. The Apostle could have said nothing more condemnatory of the false teaching, than to show that it virtually proposed another Mediator, which came between the soul and Christ, or drew its confidence away from Him. There can be no spiritual life, there can be no salvation, there can be no abiding peace, but in communion with Him who is the living Head. All so-called refinements, speculations, or developments of thought and opinion, which have any tendency to turn away the mind from Him, or to shake our trust in Him, or to diminish our estimate of His personal glory as the only begotten Son of God, or of His perfect work as the one Mediator between God and man,

are to be resisted and renounced as perilous to the highest interests of our being. On apostolic authority we are to be afraid of all doctrine which dims the light of Christ, the only Sun of righteousness, or deadens to the soul the influence of His cross. Many errors may be held, and some aspects of the truth may be misconceived or doubted, while the spiritual life of the soul is not injuriously affected; but if Christ Jesus is our life and our hope, then any system or opinion which lowers the soul's estimate of His worth, or darkens to it the brightness of His glory, or neutralizes in its experience the efficacy of His redeeming love, is dangerous and to be dreaded. We cannot tell how much truth must be held in order to salvation, or how much error may be received without endangering its possession; but that there is a vital and essential connexion between the truth of God in Christ and the soul's welfare is abundantly evident from apostolic teaching everywhere. Hence we are to strive for the faith once delivered to the saints, and to maintain it with all firmness and fondness, as a sacred deposit given us by God for our safety and happiness.

XXV.

The Divine Source of Spiritual Jucrease.

"Not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God."-COLOSSIANS ii. 19.

THAT

HAT religious teacher was to be shunned, whatever his position or pretensions, who did not hold the Head. The influence of his system or teaching could only tend to draw the trust and love of men away from the Saviour, to their own discomfiture and destruction, and was therefore to be resisted. It is not difficult, from the portion of this epistle which we have already considered, to understand what St. Paul means by holding the Head. It is possessing and grasping the truth about the person and work, the government and influence, of the Son of God as the Saviour of men and the Lord of the Church, and so growing up into Himself. Many profess and call themselves Christians, who yet do not hold the Head, in the full apostolic sense of the terms. Remember what has already come before us. He only holds the Head, who sees in Christ the image of the invisible God, who worships Him as the author and end of all creation, who knows that in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, who believes that in Him is the fulness of the Godhead bodily, who finds in Him, through

His blood shed on the cross, the pardon of sin and reconciliation to God, and who cherishes Him in his soul as the only hope of glory. The man who worships angels, or prays to saints, or trusts in rites and ceremonies for salvation, introduces a new mediatorial system, severs himself by his own act from the Fountain of life and blessing, and abides not in Christ, in whom alone is life eternal. vast the importance, then, of holding the Head.

How

I. It is proper, and it will be profitable, to consider a little more closely the position which Christ Jesus occupies in relation to the Church. He is the Head, the Lord, the Master, the primal source of life, authority, and influence. In the eighteenth verse of the first chapter He is called the Head of the Church; but the connexion here is somewhat different, and there may not be the repetition of the same ideas. "And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God." The similarity of sentiment between what is expressed here and what the Apostle writes to the Ephesians is remarkable: "From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love." (Eph. iv. 16.) The one passage helps to throw light on the other. There is no authority like that of Christ to the Church, and none having any relation to it approaching His. Its life is from Him-the life of the individual members, for each one lives by union to Him, and the life of the body as an organic whole, that body of which He is the Head, and which is His fulness. He alone is supreme, the Alpha and the Omega; the only King of truth, and therefore the only true King of men. Even on the human side, and in reference to the visible kingdom of Christ on earth,

it is derogatory to Him to speak of any man-be he emperor, king, or pope-as head of the Church. The Church has no head but Christ. He and His disciples make up one mystical body; and all things requisite to make them His fulness flow from Him. He may well be called the Head of the Church, for He has founded it; in truth, He is Himself its foundation. From eternity Wisdom's delights were with the sons of men, and in the fulness of time the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among men. In the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God the foundation of the Church was laid; and in the laying of it every moral interest in the universe was consulted, and every moral claim established, so that here alone the hearts of men and the hope of the Church can safely rest. It is a foundation against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. But not only is Christ Jesus the foundation of the Church; He also forms it, and may on this account be called its Head. He draws men as living stones to Himself, and by His Spirit places them in position on the foundation. The plan, the dimensions, and the character of the Church are all His own; the Divine building rises under His supervision, and as the centuries roll on its magnitude and majesty are more clearly seen to the honour of His name. Christ subdues and wins souls to Himself by the power of His grace, gives them an interest in His love, makes them partakers of the Divine nature, and joint-heirs with Himself, through the washing of regeneration, thus gradually upbuilding a church to show forth His praise. There would be no church if He did not form it, if He did not by grace take the "lively stones" from the quarry of nature, and fit them for a place in the great spiritual temple; so that in truth He is its living and only Head.

And as its Head He fills it as His body with His presence, His Spirit, and His power. It is only through His