concentrate his affections on the earth, and to limit his desires and thoughts to time, is at once unworthy and degrading; it is to sell his Divine birthright for a mess of potage, and to sink the supreme and eternal interests of his being in the material and the temporal. The things of his aim and affection are the things above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. These words express a very wide and lofty theme, which we cannot exhaust nor adequately survey. Yet they suggest some points of practical importThey are things connected with Christ, and depending on Him; things which He has procured, and which He will bestow; things which have filled the universe with His renown. They are things to be found with Christ and to be sought where He is. Truth and beauty, grace and blessing are from Him who is our "life" and our "hope." Whether the things above " be a fuller glimpse of heaven, a clearer title to it, a higher preparation for it, or a sweeter foretaste of it, Christ, now at God's right hand, is the source and centre of all.

ance.

66

But more particularly, "things above" may be regarded as Divine influence, saintly character, and the heavenly home. Divine influence may certainly be regarded as among the things above. Christ, the conqueror of death, has received gifts for men, and of these, what so high or precious as the unction and influence of the Holy Spirit ? To be led and taught by Him, to be comforted and sanctified by Him, to be sealed and inhabited by Him as living temples of God, may well be the object of the Christian's most earnest desire. The life of God in his soul is here a foreign plant in unfriendly soil, and it will not grow unless it is nourished by heavenly influence. The power of the Holy Spirit is the dew which refreshes and fertilizes the spiritual life without it there can be neither fruitfulness nor progress. How ardently then should we seek this influence,

and what encouragement have we to seek it, in the words of the Master: "If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children; how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?" (Luke xi. 13.) It is only through the Spirit that we can mortify the deeds of the body, and have Him witnessing with our spirits that we are the children of God.

Hence, not less manifestly is a holy character one of the "things above" to be resolutely desired and constantly cultivated by us. This is really the personal point of the petition, that the will of God may be done on earth as it is done in heaven; that the morality of this world may become as the morality of heaven; that here we may gather the principles and features of a character which shall be elements of the glory to be revealed in us hereafter for ever. To be holy is better than to be rich, to be humble is better than to be great, to have the approval of God and the testimony of a good conscience is better than to have the applause of men; to be ruled by the law of the Spirit of life is better than to be covered with the honours of the world. Without holiness no man shall see the Lord, and to seek to perfect it in His fear is to seek of the things which are above.

So also to seek heaven itself, the Father's house above, as the everlasting home of the saints, is to seek the things on high. There the Saviour reveals His presence, manifests forth His glory, and diffuses perennial joy. Heaven, with its service and songs, its intelligence and repose, its resplendence and its love, its brightness and its beauty, its perfection and its permanence, should be the object of joyous thought and aspiration to every child of God. It is a home in which there will be no more temptation, suffering, or sin; and from which there will be no departure for ever. Christ is there before us, our High Priest within the veil, and by-and-by He will say to His disciples, "Come up hither."

Seek then the things above, and set your affections upon

them.

Observe the exercise enjoined by the Apostle. We are not only to seek the things above, but to think on them and fill the mind with them. We are to seek them with ardour, and with an intelligent and loving appreciation of their value -not with a mere passing desire or transient wish, but with a cherished purpose and a holy delight. We are here only for a brief space; but in heaven we shall be for ever: what so good, desirable, and congenial, then, for objects of thought and contemplation, as the things which are above? Look at them by faith; contemplate them with gratitude and love; make them the subject of your growing aspiration and hope. Fill your souls with them, and they will shut out things which are earthly and sensual. In all deprivation, disappointment, or distress, blessed is he who can say in the words of the prophet, "I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation." This is the language of one who seeks the things which are above, and sets his affections upon them. Christians! sursum corda-upwards with your hearts. Amidst the business of the world and the pursuits of time; in your shops, your counting-houses, your warerooms, your farms, your factories, your homes, raise your affections to things above. Every life has its fitting manifestation and corresponding action; if then ye are risen with Christ, "carry yourselves answerably," that He may acknowledge you as His "disciples indeed."

XXVIII.

The Christian's Present Privilege and Future

Glory.

"For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory."-COLOSSIANS iii. 3, 4.

IN

these words St. Paul gives a reason for his exhortation

to the Christians at Colossæ, and with them all others who bear the name of Christ, to set their affections on things above. As if he said, "Cherish in your most earnest thought and warmest love all that belongs to Christ your Saviour, who is now enthroned in glory; for ye died with Him, and your new life is hid with Him in God; and when He who is thus your life shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory. Everything, therefore, in your past deliverance, your present experience, your future hope, requires you to seek and love the things above."

I. The Apostle here asserts the Christian's present gracious privilege: "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." "Ye died;" this fact in relation to all believers is expressed by St. Paul in relation to himself in these words: "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." (Gal. ii. 20.) It was an idea very familiar to him, and meant first and prominently, not his

spiritual condition as dead to the world, but his legal release from condemnation and bondage, and, out of this liberty, his obligation to live a new life unto God. He was a debtor, a sinner under condemnation; but as Christ died for sinners, he regarded himself as having died with his Lord, so that law had no further hold on him for past guilt and shortcoming. He rose with Christ free from the burden of the curse and bondage of sin, to a new position of freedom and hope. It is so with every sinful man who commits himself to the Saviour; the Sun of righteousness rises upon him, and by His gracious beams quickens him into a new and joyous life. Death does not involve destruction: it may be the very way to life in new forms of attraction and beauty. The seed corn does not germinate or sprout until it dies. All nature in winter time seems dead; the flowers in the garden, the trees in the forest, the grass in the field, give little evidence of life; but this apparent death is in order to life with new freshness, verdure, and beauty, in the succeeding spring. Many analogies in nature tell us that death, or what appears to be such, instead of being for destruction, may be for a new birth an entrance into another and higher life. So the Christian is crucified with his Lord, dies with his Lord, that he may come forth another man, with new desires, pursuits, and hopes, to inherit a new destiny. In the eye of God's righteous government, every believer in Christ dies and rises with Him; dies to the past, and arises to live anew. The old union which bound him to law and its solemn sanctions is dissolved, and a new union with Christ is formed, which binds him to God, holiness, and heaven. How precious and blessed must that life be which issues from such a death and deliverance! It is the highest life which man can live, and touches all the highest relations of his being. It connects him consciously and joyously with God and eternity. Its action is spontaneous, springing from within, from