this fair creation. They would look with sadness and perhaps with holy indignation on the disobedient and guilty creature, so that a moral disunion and distance resulted between man and the unfallen beings of the universe. Our Lord Himself has told us that when one of this world's sinners repents, and returns to God, there is joy in heaven among the angels over him as one brought back again to the holy brotherhood of the universe. There is a sense, therefore, in which angels and heavenly powers may be affected by the grand reconciliation. They may be established by it, in their loving allegiance to God, beyond the reach of sin. By the fulness which dwells in Christ all fear of falling may be banished from these holy spirits, and holiness confirmed in their characters for ever.

We may try to reach this truth by another line of thought. All creation subsists in Christ Jesus, since all things are by Him and for Him. He is "before all things, and by Him all things consist." But Christ is the Great Reconciler. For this great purpose all fulness dwells in Him, and all creation, fallen and unfallen, must in some way be affected by that which is His peculiar work, and which gives Him His special mission as the Christ-Emmanuel, God with us. The fulness that dwells in Him as Lord of all is the foundation of His reconciling work, so that in some way and in some sense it must affect the condition of all beings and all things. What a sublime idea is thus given us of the Saviour's redemptive work! This world of ours bore the footsteps of the Incarnate God, that here He might accomplish a work, and achieve a triumph over hell and sin, which would affect the destinies of the whole moral universe, and be felt for ever in heaven.

We may safely say, then, with regard to this reconciliation, that it includes, with much more, doubtless, that is too high for us, the following truths :—

1. Sinful creatures on earth are reconciled to God in Christ. For the degenerate and guilty children of men there is a Reconciler and a way of reconciliation, so that wrath is turned aside and friendship restored. "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." In this way, with infinite fulness of grace, man can be brought back to God, and find acceptance with Him.

2. Sinful and sinless or unfallen creatures are reconciled to each other and brought together again in Christ. The discord and disunion which sin introduced into the moral universe are overcome by the Lord Jesus, and reunion effected by His mediation and the fulness of grace and truth which dwells in Him. When men are reconciled to God in Him, they become united with all throughout the universe who love Him. There is joy amongst the heavenly hosts over one penitent sinner reconciled; angels become ministering spirits for the saints of God; and all true disciples of the Son of God come in Him "to an innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly and church of the firstborn which are written in heaven." Thus Christ is the personal centre and bond of union to all holy beings everywhere, and in Him the sinful and the sinless become reconciled.

3. Sinless and unfallen creatures are brought nearer to God, in Christ, and through His reconciling work and His infinite fulness of grace are confirmed for ever in their loyalty and love. We know that "the principalities and powers in heavenly places" learn from the Church "the manifold wisdom of God;" and that "the angels desire to look into the things connected with the sufferings and the glory of Christ. Hence they are intensely interested in redemption and in Christ the Redeemer and Reconciler; for in Him they have views of the Divine nature, character, and

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The glory of the Him, and unites

glory, which they never had before, and which they can nowhere else obtain. It must then be a fact that the great and triumphant work in which Christ Jesus was glorified through suffering also brings them nearer to God, and gives them a higher and closer participation, so to speak, of the Divine glory, so that they actually realize, though in a very different way from us, the results of the grand reconciliation. The gloom which sin had thrown over the whole face of the moral creation is dispelled, and a new attraction in the presence of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" binds them to the throne of God. God-man brings all holy creatures around them to the Eternal King and to each other with a bond which never existed before. Thus all things in heaven and on earth feel the effect of man's reconciliation, and the celestial hosts are pervaded and thrilled by the harmonizing and confirming influences which flow forth from the infinite fulness that dwells in the Lord Jesus. Men receive the special reconciliation, and angels look on in adoring admiration, and raise louder hallelujahs to the King of glory. "It seems designed for the Redeemer's more consummate glory, that the perpetual stability of the heavenly state should be owing to Him, and to the most inestimable value of His oblation on the cross; that it should be put upon His account, and be ascribed to the high merit of His pacificatory sacrifice that they continue in obedience and favour for ever." How marvellous then the power of His death, "the virtue and fragrancy of a sacrifice sufficient to fill heaven and earth with its grateful odour, and whose efficacy can never decrease to all eternity!"*

* Howe's Living Temple, part ii., chap. x., sect. 6.

X.

The Nature and Issues of Reconciliation.

"And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath He reconciled, in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy and unblamcable and unreproveable in His sight: if ye continue in the faith grounded and settled, and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard.”— COLOSSIANS i. 21-23.

THE

HE Apostle now turns to the Colossians, applies to their special case the reconciliation of which he had spoken, and refers to the personal benefit they had themselves received. St. Paul had in previous verses of this chapter spoken of Christ's relation to the Father, to the universe, and to the Church, and now he proceeds to speak of His relation to men individually in emancipating them from the bondage of guilt, and giving them the prospect of glory. The words here used of the Colossians are equally applicable to others--to all who have received the gospel-and exhibit three different states or stages of man's spiritual history, the past, the present, and the future, in the condition, experience, and hope of every true disciple of Jesus Christ.

I. The Christian's past condition: "You that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works." In this language the Apostle describes the condition of the Colossians before they had heard and received the gospel of the Son of

God the same is emphatically true of all heathen nations where there is no light of Divine revelation. But the words are applicable to the natural condition of all men. In the "natural man," the unregenerate moral condition of every man, there is a principle of alienation from God, and of separation from Him. The idea is that of belonging to a different community or kingdom, morally and spiritually at a distance from God. Man's spirit, formed for God, and fitted to hold converse with Him, is now naturally averse from Him, in a state of alienation brought about by sin. No sooner was our first father guilty and disobedient, than he fled from the presence of his Maker in the garden of Eden, and shunned the converse which in innocence had been his delight. This alienation is spiritual death; for the soul cannot possibly realize its true life away from God, or in opposition to Him; and opposition is the direct result of alienation. The spirit of alienation is that of hostility: “alienated and enemies in your mind." The disposition of the alienated is enmity, and the seat of this enmity in man is the seat of thought and feeling. The hostility may not be always avowed or apparent, but it is in the mind. If we are voluntarily and wilfully separated from one to whom we owe allegiance and love, hard thoughts of him to justify ourselves will soon be indulged, and enmity towards him will arise in our hearts. It is so, for instance, in the case of a wayward and rebellious son towards his father. The father may be kind, considerate and loving; but the son, viewing him in the light of his own unfilial and sinful conduct, soon comes to hate him with the bitterness of a foe. Men may profess to like an ideal God, a Deity of their own imagining; and they may profess to worship him in the temple of nature, and to offer him some religious homage. But the God of the Bible, the God of grace and holiness, the God who claims their supreme affection, and the constant obedience even of