ways high above man's ways: "His ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts."

God had an only begotten Son. Him He gave, that He might become Son of man, the anointed of God. Man! did he bring in that Christ into the world? No: men, with wicked hands, crucified and slew Him. They did what they could to send Him out of the world, when He had come into it without their leave, and had stayed in it a good bit longer than they liked. And, mark it, this matter whereof He speaks had no place in Eden, did not lie, was not found, in that field which was given to man. Man ought not to have touched the forbidden tree, then would he not have died. But death was the end of all

that man could see, so as to reap it by disobedience.

Having a new life, resurrection and glory were not fruits that grew in nature's barren soil. But God, to please Himself, introduced the seed of the woman, this Christ of whom we speak, as the One by whom and for whom He could go on with the earth, after Adam and Eve had altogether failed in the Garden of Eden; saying: "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." And that He, the Christ, might, as Son of man and the Woman's Seed, not be alone in His glory, He had to die. For,"except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it bringeth forth much fruit.” Well! death, the wage due to our sin, He freely took, in obedience to the thoughts of God. He was crucified, died, and was buried, that God might be able to be just while justifying us poor sinners; and He has said, that He reckons us crucified, dead, and buried, as to our old man, together with Christ; and that we are to reckon ourselves so likewise. But His taking of His life again, His rising from the grave, His going up into heaven, His being blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places, was part of what pertained to the second Adam, and had no place in the portion of the first. Now, no man can go beyond what is human in thought. And it was God, and not man, from whom that thought and that way came forth of believers being quickened together with Christ.

Christ was buried in the sepulchre in the garden. But He could see no corruption. And He who had power to

lay down His life, had power also to take it again; for this commandment had He received of the Father. Well, on the first day of the week, He awoke, was quickened while in the grave; and, therefore, all that ado outside, of earthquake, of sepulchre door-stone rolled away, etc.; He was quickened-and, says our text, "we were quickened together with Him."

The act and fact and moment of the Lord Jesus Christ's taking His life again, is not sufficiently thought of by us. It ought to be looked at in and by itself. The Roman Catholic religion (religion of fallen human nature) pictures to us a Christ a-crucifying, and gives us images of wood, stone, and ivory out of all number of a human figure on the cross. Öf eternal moment to us is the fact, that the Christ of God was crucified, has been crucified, because He bore our sins in His own body on the tree. But, as Paul tells us 1 Cor. xv., His death was nought, if He did not rise from the dead; we are yet in our sins. But Christ is risen from the dead; and He left the grave empty, save of those grave-clothes which have since, as has His cross on which He was hung, and our sins also, passed away; never more to be found. God honours the Christ who was crucified, the Christ who was buried, but is alive again. Now, if I had to prove, as saith Paul, 1 Cor. xv., the forgiveness of sins, I point to the One that is risen: and might, in a figure, say," Turn to the grave; it is empty. He left there nought but the grave-clothes." But this is not enough when the question comes as to God's way of blessing us" quickened together with Christ." Then I have to turn neither to the guarded, imprisoning tomb where the body of the Lord lay; nor to the empty tomb, He being gone up on high; but I turn in thought to the tomb burst open now, for He is just alive from among the dead; and because He is therein, and because God gives testimony in the scene; the guards are fled, and the disciples are being drawn, by various means, thereunto. Oh, it is a blessed thought! that blessed One taking His life again; that One, who was all God's joy, and God's delight, quickening into life afresh, as Son of man, in the tomb. Blessed in itself! and blessed to us, because it is written of us-"quickened together with Him."

The life He took, is that of which He has communicated to us, as He did to Paul and to these Ephesians: and, therefore, as that life which He gives to us believers is of that life which He took when He awoke from death, it can be said, and it is said, "quickened together with Him." Saul! where was he when Christ awoke in the grave? These wicked Ephesians! where were they at that time? Both were dead in sins. Well, when Christ had called them, and given them of that life which He took, they were no longer looked upon by God according to the old man, but according to the new man. By reason of the old man in us, Christ has been crucified, dead, and buried. But He took life anew, and has given to us of that life, of a life which the old man had not; and God looks upon us as vessels in which it dwells, a life inseparable from the source whence it flows; a life in us which enables Him to say to us, enables us to say of ourselves that believe, "Quickened together with Christ." The root, the germ, the incorruptible seed of all blessing is in this life. And I pray you, reader, to mark, that the moment the Spirit, through Paul, has said, 'Quickened together with Christ,' He makes a pause,-marks a bar, so as to shut this off from all the consequences of it. For, however blessed and important these consequences of life possessed are, they are not the life itself, but consequences of it. Therefore, the moment He has said, "quickened together with Christ," He makes a pause,-introduces a parenthesis, which seems to be a mark, to mark off what He has just said from that which follows after it: "quickened together with Christ (by grace ye are saved)." Ay! if quickened together with Christ, then we are saved in, and inseparably from, Him. And that is the best part of what God has to give us.

Truly, this salvation is of the Lord God alone. And as man never dared to say to God, "I have sinned, and Thou must bear the penalty," so he never hit upon such a thought as this, "if God quickened in the grave His Son whom we had crucified, we will share all that is His!" But what man never thought of, what, if he had said, it would have been awful blasphemy on his part, both in the one case and the other, that was God's

thought and plan. Man had sinned; God manifest in the flesh should bear the penalty; and the reward and glory which He should win for this service, He would freely share with all His disciples: For they should be quickened together with Him.

II.

COLOSSIANS II. 13.

"And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath He quickened together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses."

The

The Epistle to the Ephesians presents us with the doctrine of "ye in Me" (John xiv. 20), if I may so say; that is, the doctrine of the believer's being blessed in Christ Jesus as being hidden as being hidden by God in Christ. privileges which go along with being in Christ being the special object of that epistle-when it speaks of the quickening of a believer together with Christ—the mind has that subject brought before it, as connected with the character and date of the first blessing of having association with Christ in His life, as taken anew after He had borne our sins in His own body on the tree. The Epistle to the Colossians gives us rather, "I in the Father" (John xiv. 20); and accordingly, as it seems to me, when we have the quickening together with Christ spoken of in it, it is more in that connection. Ordinances and man's doings were being plied by Satan on the Colossians, as things necessary to make their salvation complete, to make their blessing perfect and secure. Such a thought was worthy of Satan; to Paul and the Spirit of God it seemed to be nothing short of calling into question the Sonship of Jesus, and all the counsels, plans, and thoughts of God the Father about that Son. The present day is a day in which the busy energy of man's flesh lends itself, in many places, to Satan in this way; and in Romanism, Puseyism, and a good many other "isms," which are but the expression of the workings of the flesh, it is held and taught that there is an "unless ye do" this or that (in addition to having Christ for sal

a

vation), ye cannot be saved. This evil may have tw phases of it; the one (as in Colossians), the being subjec to ordinances; and the other (as in Galatians), the sub jecting of the flesh to rites and ceremonies; but, in both cases, it is, in essence, the same thing. The flesh in u is accredited, man honoured, and worldliness sanctioned and so the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost dishonoured discredited, and contemned.

Satan is very crafty; he hates Christ with a perfect hatred; and hates those who stand upon Christ as the foundation for His sake. If he cannot injure Christ in His own person, he is glad in any way to show his own hatred against Him, and to mar His honour in His people. He will attack them, and Christ's honour in them, in foundation and superstructure. Is a soul brought into peace, and at rest, to the praise of God's grace and mercy, upon Christ? Satan sees it, and his spite is kindled. He knows the self-righteousness of our flesh, he knows the love of man for having something to do; he does not like that hanging, that dependance of ours, upon what is above in Christ; he would like to have us occupied for rest with something round us in that world which is enmity against God. Some one comes to the place where such are, no one may know whence or why, and sets forth most beautifully the great work which God has done in Christ, and all the wondrous benefits connected with it; and that all man has to dc to get the benefit, is to observe a rite (as circumcision, etc.), or some ordinance, a sabbath-day or a moon. O how little a

The Epistle to the Romans gives a sketch of all God's dealings with man, from the creation of the world down to the end. In chapter vi. we have very much the same doctrine as in Ephesians ii. and in Colossians ii. In Romans vi. the same doctrine is handled as displaying one part of God's ways among many others. In Ephesians ii. this way is taken up separately (in connection with the aim of the whole of the epistle in which it is here found), as showing the privileges of the believer in Christ. In Colossians, it is the same doctrine, with this addition that the person, glory, and position of Christ, in whom the blessing is, being considered, it is clear that every element of the world, the flesh, and the devil, is shut out from having any place in the salvation; because they could have none in Christ as He now is, and He is our salvation.