the enemy, would have frustrated the Divine plan, and have reigned over a vassal universe which, upon the fortunes of its Redeemer, had staked and lost its all. "But now is Christ risen from the dead." "The rising God forsakes the tomb; the tomb in vain forbids his rise "—and in that rising all humanity lives; the strong man armed is crippled in all the resources of his authority. "Because Christ lives, we shall live also." The pledge of final and complete triumph is in that broken seal and forsaken grave. "He is declared to be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the dead." Moreover, there is the Saviour's prevalent and perpetual intercession: “Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." There is a power in his pleading, backed as it is by the fact of his accepted propitiation, which is resistless. And the asking is perpetual. He does it through the lips of tens of thousands of his followers. Wherever the sacramental host gathers, wherever the believer's closet is pitched, wherever the lips of childhood lisp "Thy kingdom come," in their bright, happy faith, which is the symbol of the faith that prevaileth everywhere there is the intercession which he accepts and adopts, adding to it the fragrant incense of his own advocacy. He does it himself in heaven. The "Ask of me" finds its continual answer there. He shows his finished work. He pleads for the fulfilment of the covenant. He asks that the glowing prophecies may receive their accomplishment, that all heaven and all earth may witness that he has overcome principalities and powers, and "makes a show of

them openly," and that so the completeness and universality of his dominion may be assured to the universe of God.

Brethren, can he plead in vain ? The asking is perpetual. There is no pause in that ceaseless intercession. The ages roll on, generations of men flourish and fade, dynasties are established and uprooted, nations pass away as the foam upon the crest of the wave, there comes a shadow upon the youth of the ocean, and a tremor of age upon the everlasting hills; but through all change, and through all ages, the smoke of the incense which comes with the prayers of saints ascends up before God out of the angel's hand. And then there is Christ's perpetual enthronement: "This man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; from henceforth expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." The holy hill of Zion, upon which he is set as King, is a heavenly, not an earthly mountain. From the triumph on the cross, and the triumph in the sepulchre, he ascended to the perpetual triumph on the throne. His ascension was the last royal fact in the series-Prophecy, Advent, Expiation, Resurrection, Empire. And it is our Immanuel, who is thus exalted King of kings and Lord of lords. He did not drop the body as he entered into the cloud of ascension. The humanity to which he had stooped, which he had worn, in which he had suffered and triumphed, shared the glory as it had shared the agony and shame. And it is our Jesus, ours still, ours always, who sits on the right hand of power, and who wields the sceptre of the worlds.

We may rest here. Christ risen-Christ interceding Christ enthroned. Then bring your offerings, and offer your prayers, and consecrate yourselves and your service, for you are enlisted on the winning side. Cease your labour, disorganize your societies, despond hopelessly and for ever, if you believe in a dead Christ. The enemy will overthrow you; the fiends will be too many for you; the world's woes will mock you to relieve them-if you have any misgiving on this matter. But if you have a living faith in a living Jesus, God with God as man with men; if you know and feel that you are working, not so much to win the world from sin, as to win the world for Christ; if you realize the fulness of that promise, whose music is louder than the din of the tempest at its wildest"Lo, I am with you alway; even unto the end of the world"-then you can subdue kingdoms, and stop the mouths of lions, and quench the violence of fire, and turn to flight the armies of the aliens, and confront an embattled world, and dare the fiercest demons of the pit and of the flame.

XXVIII.

THE MEETNESS FOR THE INHERITANCE,

"Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light.”—CoL i. 12.

YOU

OU remember that the Apostle Paul, in his magnificent argument for the resurrection, recorded in the fifteenth of Corinthians, makes use of this remarkable expression, to which the hearts of believers render their attesting witness: "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." indeed would be the condition of our race, if us of our hopes of immortality.

Sad

you bereave

The allotment of death would become an unmitigated evil; all earthly hopes and enterprises would close darkly in the inevitable sepulchre; the wailing would shriek out from vacant hearths and homes, "Man lieth down and riseth not ;" and he, who was but yesterday rejoicing in his widespread kindred, to-morrow would be bereft of love and hope, a solitary mourner over many tombs. But “life and immortality” have been "brought to light by the gospel." A new and glorious illustration has flashed upon the purposes of God; the voyage of life is no longer a hopeless peril; the grave is not the goal of being; there is nothing to hinder the perfection of existence; the

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worms batten on the clay, but the manhood of the man, indestructible and undecaying, may grow up into the Deity for ever. The special ground of the Apostle's thanksgiving in the chapter before us is this anticipation of a future and blessed existence. He expresses it variously, and we meet with it as "the hope which is laid up for you in heaven "-"the hope of the gospel "— "the hope of glory"-" the inheritance of the saints in light." For this inheritance he regards all events of time, all dispensations of providence, as fitting the believer; and to acknowledge and to celebrate this riches of God's grace, he calls upon the church for its exulting praise.

In connection with this passage, our thoughts may very profitably dwell upon the following idea :

The preparation necessary for a future and blessed state of being.

There is far more alliance between this world and the next than we are apt sometimes to imagine. By the infidel the present life is talked about as a mere parenthesis between two eternities, bearing no affinity to either; a brief history of abortive plans and aimless being; a day of strife and storm, emerging from eternal night and hasting rapidly to be engulfed in the same unbroken darkness. Even by many who would shudder at the ravings of scepticism, and who deem themselves sound in the faith, there is recognised no direct and personal connection between the present and the future. Indeed, it may be doubted whether any of us are sufficiently alive to the thought that this life is not merely a state of probation, but of discipline; that in all our words and works we are scattering seed