It wind in some such way as to come back enrichingly upon himself. If God was worshipped by him, it was with a view to the heavenly issues of devotion; if man was blessed, it was with an eye to the eternal rewards of well-doing. But while up to this time "To Paul to live was self," from the moment that the Saviour confronts him with that Divine eye which is as a flame of fire, you see a wondrous change come over the whole spirit of the man. seems as if, startled by the glory of that light, the reins had dropped out of self's hands, and Christ, taking them up, for ever afterwards the control of all his being was in the Saviour's hand. Recognising in the Divine rebuke the demonstration of his inability to guide himself, he commits for ever the guidance of his soul to Christ. Subdued and melted by the love which crowns a long-suffering most marvellous with a forgiveness most free, he presents his whole being a grateful sacrifice to Christ. Reading in the heaven-lit look of Jesus the engaging pattern of all human goodness, he yields his soul to be transformed into his likeness by the operation of his Spirit's power. Feeling the worthiness of all the Saviour's aims, he accepts them as his own, and now counts it his highest glory to be a "worker together with the Lord." So that you see, piece by piece, the whole principles of his life have been changed. Formerly every motive came from within, now from without and from above. Formerly no course commended itself to his choice save in so far as it promised to further his own well-being, now no course commends itself to him save as it promises to further the cause of the Lord Jesus. Grateful devotion has displaced self-interest altogether; Christ has got the place of self. And you will mark exactly the nature of this change. It does not spring from any mere alteration of his aim; it does not consist in a change of the groove on which his affections run. No; the change reaches deeper than either of these. It consists simply in this, that he has taken himself and merged his whole being in the Saviour. He has taken his will, and sought to blend it with the will of Christ. He has taken his sin and nailed it to the cross of Christ. He has taken all his powers and yielded them to be directed by Christ. He has taken his heart's affections and entwined them round the heart of Jesus, to grow to gether in everlasting gladness. And this consecration is wondrously complete. The body has been yielded as a temple of the Holy Ghost, pure and chaste for its heavenly habitant; his heart has been yielded as a garden of the Lord, which, laved by the Spirit wind, might flow forth with all rich spices; his spirit has been yielded as a harp, which, touched by the Divine finger, might discourse celestial melody. He has ascended to the summit of Calvary as Elijah did that of Carmel, and there, in the presence of all peoples, he has taken first all his bodily powers, everything in his physical frame which could yield him energy or sustain him in his toil; and with these, as with so many stones, he has reared an altar unto God. Then he has taken his heart, with all its affections of contrition, love, gratitude, trust, and devotion, and laid it upon the altar he has built, as his dearest offering and God's most welcome sacrifice. And then he has taken all the glory of his spirit, his genius, learning, his grasp of thought, his strength of will, his keenness of perception, everything that invested him with such influence over men, and has poured these over the whole as a choice libation-a great drink-offering of priceless worth. And when all was thus prepared, and every part of his being inwrought into the matter of a sacrifice-then, in answer to his lowly prayer, the Spirit-fire of heaven has come down, and, like Elijah's fire, burned up the altar-stones, as well as the sacrifice that lay upon them, and licked up all that was poured forth about them, till, as you gaze, you behold his whole being wrapt in one glory-flame of devotion unto Christ; every feature of his character yielding some jutting "spiry point" of devotion's fire unto the Lord. Aye, and you see more than Paul within that glow. "One like unto the Son of man appears in the midst of that sacrificial furnace; and the spirit of Christ and the spirit of Paul are welded together in the sacrificial heat. So that from that hour, "they twain are one." Paul, a living branch of Christ the living stem; Paul, a living limb of Christ the living head; the same life-sap, the same life-blood, fructifying, vivifying both. And this union is so absolute that from that hour you cannot see Paul without seeing Christ as well. Henceforth heavenly presence gleams through his every a act. So that it is not Paul that lives, but Christ that lives in him. It is not Paul that speaks, but the spirit of Christ that moves his utterance. It is not Paul that endures, but Christ's grace that is made sufcient in his weakness. It is not Paul that hopes, but Christ, that is in him, "the hope of glory," He is so facile in Christ's hands that it is the Saviour's will alone that moulds his life. He is the clay on the potter's wheel, wrought by the potter's hand into the potter's device. So that everything about him becomes impressed with the likeness, imbued with the spirit, of the Saviour. He has not ceased to be Paul,-has not lost any of the dignity of true freedom,― has not become a mere machine in yielding himself up to Divine control. Nay, nay, brethren, we never lose by yielding all to Christ. For it is only when we "lose our life" IN Christ that we really keep it. Whenever we lay our Isaacs-our dearest things, outward wealth or spiritual powers-upon God's altar, we ever get them back again with added blessings and in more certified possession. The bush may burn with all the fervour and glow of a Divine presence, yet is no twig or leaflet of simple humanity consumed; everything glorified, while nought that is truly human is destroyed. And so there is no loss of freedom in the Apostle. Yea, no life ever manifested more intense individuality, more simple freedom than his. None ever developed with a more unstrained naturalness than his. Yet while this is the case-while, in a true sense of the words, no mere man had ever more individuality than Paul-in another sense, none had ever less. For more and more the spirit of Jesus becomes the dominating, formative principle of his life, till the Saviour seems to originate his every purpose, and fill his every act. So that you cannot find, from his first submission to the Saviour to his last martyr-victory, one important word or act with which Christ has not to do. Sift his life as you will, you cannot get Christ out of it. Take Christ from his motive, and all his energy is gone. Take Christ from his speech, and he is dumb with silence. Take Christ from his strength, and he is a Samson shorn of his locks. Take Christ from his confidence before God, and he is in despair. Take Christ from his own heart, and he is of all men most miserable. Take Christ from his fellow-men, as in them, or wishing to be in them, and he loses at once much of the love, and more of the respect, and all the hope with which he had regarded them. Take Christ from his life, and it is a blank, void of labour, and void of all results. Take Christ from his death, and it gathers afresh all the dismal hopelessness it had lost. Take Christ from his heaven, and there is nought in all the felicities of the better world that can attract his bereaved spirit or soothe it into peace. Brethren, when Christ thus besets him behind and before, is the Alpha and Omega of his being, his inward life, his outward Lord, do you not discern some propriety in his neglect of all the poorer words which suffice to declare the degree of our attachment to the Saviour, and some meaning in the grandly simple word he uses when, summing up his whole being, and, referring it to the Saviour, he declares that "To him to live is Christ"? Perhaps I have dwelt already too long on this first part of my theme, but yet I cannot leave it without suggesting the inquiry, Why such a course as that which is here described is so rare? Why is it that we know so much of what it is to live self, and so little of what it is to live Christ? We know we cannot even be thorough men until our huma nity attaches itself to the pure humanity of Jesus, to be ennobled by its fellowship. We lie under the same obligations as rested on Paul. The Father bends over us with the same infinite tenderness which kindled over him. We are the objects of the conde scension, the work, the atonement, the love of Jesus as much as he. We experience the same wondrous regard from the Spirit of all grace-for whose heart is strange to those tender influences of heaven which woo us to contrition and to a consecrated life? We are surrounded by the same needs for the service such a life would render. Why, then, are we not living so as that we may say, "To us to live is Christ"? Why is that to us to live-even to us Christiansis so predominantly self? Brethren, let this question linger with us all till it rouse a noble discontent with our unworthy lives, and we begin to respond more fervently and lovingly to all the Divine obligations that invest our life. II. But I have to add a few words onThe ground of the hope expressed in the second clause. Happily, the secret of it is not hard to find. It lies in the immediate neighbourhood-even in that relationship to Christ which we have just been study. ing. For these two clauses are not thrown together merely because they form a wellbalanced antithesis, or describe between them, clearly but compactly, the story of his life and hope. No; the two are necessarily connected, the one growing out of the other. The tree of personal life in Christ Jesus bears twelve manner of fruits, and this is one of them, that "To die is gain," Ah! and what a fruit is this! To have the sternest, most painful, most humiliating, most terrible experience of our being, converted into gain; its sting removed, itself transformed into a ministering angel, whose province it is to advance us in our bliss! Brethren, is not such a hope worth seeking? I need not tell you how rare it is; how few can suppress a timorous anxiety about the closing experiences of life, and about its eternal issues; how many must and ought to fear the worst. You all know this well enough. But I rejoice to be able to tell how such anxiety was, in one case at least, altogether lost, and how such fear was, from one soul at least, displaced by a hope full of immortality. For, thank God, there is no mystery about Paul's hope. It was not whispered to him when he was caught up into the third heaven. It was not instilled by some strange and exceptional working of the Spirit of assurance. No; it simply grew up within him as the natural development of conscious oneness with Jesus Christ. How could death, how could anything harm him who was livingly one with the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth? "Lovely and pleasant together in their lives," how could they be, by death or anything else, divided? What was there in all the contingencies of the eternal future that could separate him from the love of Christ? What if hell rouse all its storms of deadliest hate, and beat into Paul's little bark its waves of overwhelming might, till it seemed impossible to ride above the flood? He need not fear, for Christ is "with him in the ship," and though for a while in his slumber He may permit them to spill their fury, yet will He rise to bid them into peace, and to constrain them with a great calm to bear him safely to the other side. What if the Jordan of death gather all the force of its swellings to dispute his passage and bar his entrance to the better land? This man need not fear, for he is in the company of the great High Priest, whose feet will touch, and touching will divide, death's deepest waves, and lead the way dry shod to the Canaan of everlasting rest. And what if death enrobe itself with all its gloom, and with the grave for its throne-chamber, and all the powers of corruption as its attendant ministers, mock him with the display of its seeming omnipotence? Paul need not fear even this last great enemy, for he is a member of Christ's body, and flesh, and bones, and livingly linked to Him who brake death's strongest bars and overthrew his old supremacy. And how can a limb be left when the head ascends, or a "bone be broken" of the conquering Christ? Thus sharing the victory of Jesus over the last experiences of earth, he will rise with the impetus of his old devotion, and the attraction of the nearer presence of the Lord to meet him on high. The gates that threw wide ope their doors to let the King of Glory enter, will renew their welcome to his earnest follower. The throne has room enough to yield a seat near Him he loves. One with Christ in his earthly travail, he will be one with him in his heavenly triumph as well. And then, "for ever with the Lord," his soul will settle in the peace of that blessed home, lost in beholding the ever-expanding future of glory that attracts his gaze-lost still more in the eternal contemplation of those features of the Redeemer's countenance, in whose expression the infinite mysteries of the Divine feelings are interpreted by blending with the gleam of simple human affections. Ah, brethren, this is the grand Gospel hope the "hope full of immortality". the hope that alone can keep the soul in perfect peace, and fill it with a joy that passes understanding. This is the hope that Jesus brings into the midst of this dark world the great blessing he gives his followers, the great heritage of the Church in every age. Have we got it? Have we set about getting it? Oh, let us not lightly esteem it, or deem it easily gained! It is a wondrous thing that the little heart of man can cherish a hope so high. Evidently such a hope can only rest on some equally wondrous fact which transpires in our present experience. And I beg you to mark in Paul the natural and sufficient groundwork for this hope. When nothing else could bear the weight of such a hope, the living union of himself with the Divine Christ- -a union of mutual affection and mutual ingrowth into each other-can easily, does properly, sustain a hope like this. Brethren, have we a similarly buttressed foundation on which to build a hope? We must not trust to flimsy feelings. We should not rest on remote experiences. If one with Christ-if he livingly incarnates himself afresh in us-then let us rejoice in anticipating the everlasting issues of such a union. But if we are not united to the Saviour, let us feel we have no right to cherish the anticipation of the slightest bliss. And yet at the same time remember that Christ longs to be united with us; that he stands at the door and knocks, desirous to be admitted to our heart; that he still lingers in our midst, desirous of finding some Bethlehem-Ephratah soullittle in its own esteem among the thousands around it-in which to be formed Glasgow. afresh the power of a hope of glory. Who of us will yield the Saviour a heart-home in which to live and reign? Who of us will thus respond to the Divine love, to which we owe so much? Oh, let us all do so. Let us all, brethren, offer the prayer of a Paul-like man,-" Lord, take my heart, for I cannot give it thee: Lord, keep my heart, for I cannot keep it for thee." Let us offer this prayer, and the entrance of Jesus will be its grand amen; and from this hour, kindling with the freshness of the Divine inspiration, we shall be able in some measure rightfully to say,-"To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." MARVELLOUS DISSOLVING VIEWS. BY THE REV. JOHN COX. WILL the reader fix his eyes on the broad surface of one page of God's Holy Word, and there behold a series of dissolving views calculated to excite wonder, nourish hope, and call forth loud praises to the God of salvation ? The first object to be seen is a man of stern countenance, repulsive manners, and harsh speech. He is engaged in a barbarous work, and he does it right willingly, even exceeding his commission. Two persons are in his hands, upon whose bare shoulders many heavy strokes have just fallen, and this man is thrusting them with violence into the inner prison-into the worst cell of all, where all was bad. See, he puts their feet in the stocks, in order that all the night long they may remain in torture. Having accomplished this cruel work, he retires to his room, throws himself upon his bed, and is soon in a profound sleep. This is the second view. After doing the work of the evil one, he lies down, and sleeps in security. Many, alas, everywhere, are doing the same thing, though not exactly in the same way. As we look on that rugged countenance and burly form, over which slumber has spread its potent spell, we feel glad to think that he, and such as he, must needs be thus quiet some part of their time; but feel sad to think what a hurricane such sleepers will raise around them when they awake. The sleep of this man is deep; the songs of those whom he so cruelly treated are echoing through the prison; the cheerful melody, so unusual in that dismal place, awakens all the wretched inmates, who wonder much what these ill-used Jews can have to sing about. But the sleeping jailer heeds them not. As we gaze at him we seem almost to hear his deep heavy breathing. But hark! what crash is that? The ground shakes and quivers beneath our feet. Every door flies open, and many a pair of heavy fetters fall clanking from sore and weary limbs on the stony floors. The sleeper starts now, and with one bound leaves his couch and rushes through the open door of his chamber that door which he had so strongly bolted before he lay down. He reels on amidst the vibrations of the earth, finds every door opened, every prisoner at liberty. He is horror-struck. A sense of his responsibility rushes over him; his life is forfeited if the prisoners escape; disgrace and death star him in the face; or perhaps he supposes that the released prisoners will ki him; so he resolves to kill himself. See him in this third view, rushing made to hell. In a moment he will slay himself, and his soul will be for ever lost His sword is unsheathed, and he is summoning all his strength to bury it dee in his own heart. But he is stopped-a voice_reaches him from the inner prison, "Do thyself no harm: we are all here." How did that mysterious, illused prisoner know what he was going to do amidst the darkness of that shaking prison? Surely God had told him. It may be that the alarmed man thought of this; and that the same God who spake to his servant was now speaking to his enemy. Take another view of him, as trembling before God. "He called for a light, sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down." The iron-hearted man bows down like a reed before the terrors of God. And now behold him breathing out desires after salvation. 'WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED?" bursts forth in tremulous tones from his agonized heart. As if he had said, "I heard yesterday that the Pythoness said, 'These men are the servants of the most high God, who shew unto us the way of salvation.' O sirs, show me that way. What must I do? I am bewildered, despairing, and hopeless; yet I beseech you in mercy tell me what I must do to be saved!" How strange that this dullsouled pagan should thus utter words which thousands of hearts in all ages have felt and repeated! God's light was shining in him, disclosing his guilt and misery, and so he gave utterance to the great thought of the human soul whenever brought into real contact with the holy God. Next see him listening to the Gospel. Yes; look and learn how to hear God's word, and how to treat his precious truth. O for many such hearers as this man was! "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," was the immediate response to his inquiry. There was no hesitation, no limitation. Fully and freely was the good news proclaimed; and then, with tender love and burning zeal, the messengers of Christ "spake unto him the word of the Lord." What was that word but that "God is in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them"? As he listened, he ceased to tremble, and began to hope. "What!" said he, "will that God whom you worship, and whom I now feel to be Almighty, holy, and terrible in his wrath, WILL HE FORGIVE ME? not impute my many trespasses, but bury all my fearful past out of sight, and wrap my guilty soul around in a robe of Divine righteousness? Has God made that Saviour whom you preach to be sin for me, that I may be made the righteousness of God in him? Is this the way of salvation and is it all for me?" 66 Even so," said the messengers of God; "believe these facts about Jesus, trust in this wondrous person, rely on his atoning blood, you shall be saved." cross. And now let us take one more view of this man; behold him gazing on the Oh! how glorious it appeared to him, how real, how precious! a beacon-light shining over a stormy ocean, and then a safe harbour to his tempesttossed spirit. It is the power of God to him he feels it; he looks, and is healed. 66 Now there are no more dissolving views. This one object abides before the eye of the saved man. He must continue ever gazing on that cross. "Looking unto Jesus" must be his life business now. As he still looks, what blessings and joys come around him! What a change takes place in his feelings, his character, and conduct! 66 He rejoices, believing in God." That God before whom he trembled is his friend; he knows it, and he loves him now. He joys in God through Jesus Christ, by whom he has received the atonement." Nor he alone; his family share his bliss. They, no doubt, all clung round him in his wild fright and agony. They stood by his side while he listened to God's word so lovingly presented. The same Almighty Spirit wrought in all, and now they are a happy family, gathered beneath the shelter of the cross, singing under the shadow of the Almighty. And see, he that had nothing to do for his salvation, is doing much now he is saved. See like the Eunuch, he professes the Lord in baptism who has saved him. The believing, rejoicing household are all baptized. They enlist |