(Notes of a Lecture by F. W. G., Plainfield, July, 1897.)

These are the "thoughts" beloved brethren, about which we have been singing (Hymn 330):not small thoughts, and we need divine power to lift us up to them and fill us with them. My intention to night is not an exposition, but rather to take some main points of this epistle, as giving us from a Pisgah height if you like, to look at our inheritance. A mountain upon earth would do to survey Israel's inheritance of old, but no mountain that the earth holds will do for ours. We must be lifted up to heaven, in order to see the range of that. That of course is what we find in Ephesians. It is as we all know, the epistle of the heavenly places. We find in it, therefore, the widest range of outlook that can possibly be. Compared with the other epistles, I may say it exceeds on every side. If you look backward, you find God's purpose from the very beginning; that there are purposes which God had towards us before the world was, before its foundations even. Then again, if you look forward what do we see all the way through, as the last verse of this chapter shows us, but divine " glory in the Church by Christ Jesus, throughout all ages, world without end ! " Think of that glory by Christ Jesus in the Church throughout all ages,-a wonderful thing that. The Church is that in which the glory of God is to be realized in a supereminent way for ever.

Now let us look at what is contained in this,-taking up the main points, and trying to put them together, that they may dwell in company in our minds ; and may God indeed enlarge our hearts to entertain and enjoy them aright. It is the apostle's own prayer here for us, that we might be " strengthened with might by His spirit in the inner man :" for what ? for some wonderful thing, for
some ability to do some wonderful deed ? No, but to take in what God has for us. And beloved, it is perfectly evident that we need power like that,-that, alas, the constant tendency of our souls is either to drop out of God's thoughts, or to impoverish them, so as to make them defective in power and unworthy of Him. What is a common thought among Christians, but that a man's whole necessity is to be saved and go to heaven ? If he gets in at the door, it will be enough ; and his whole life must be spent in the effort; in which, after all, he may possibly fail. As to the angels, why they are far above him, "the angels that excel in strength:" nothing but pride of heart could ever make him think of angels, except as immensely superior to him. It is quite natural for us to look up to them in that way, and as we see in Revelation, and in Romish teachings, even to worship them. But if they are naturally superior to us, all the more has God displayed His grace in taking up such as we are; and that is an immense point. Our weakness, our nothingness, our very sinfulness, these things are not objections to God's wonderful thoughts towards us, but, on the contrary, what we need to take in, in order to appreciate truly the greatness of His grace. We fail to realize God's thoughts at all, unless we take in the poor, insignificant and evil creatures we naturally are. It is in a fallen world that God has shown out, all the resources of His own grace, and th^ excellence of His own wisdom, It is a fallen world in which Christ came as man ; and it is manhood He has taken up; it is the " man Christ Jesus," who is at the right hand of God.

Will you notice here that it is a first necessity that this should be believed, to apprehend the " length and breadth and depth and height ?" The first necessity is that " Christ should dwell in our hearts by faith," that He may dwell there, not that we should catch sight of Him now and then, to lose Him again quickly. We must get Him steadily before us, or we shall never be able to comprehend this that he speaks of. We must be able to keep Him steadily before us, because He is the center of all God's thoughts, and all things were created by Him and for Him.

What does that mean? That means assuredly that God created all things in order that in them there might be displayed the glory of what He is; that He might show forth Himself in His blessed nature; for that is what Christ is, the One in whom He is known; the One in whom alone He is fully displayed or can be.

Now, if we fix our eyes on Christ, at once that brings us into the very center of the scene of glory; the very center of all God's thoughts and purposes. Christ-the Son of God become man-is the divine heart opened fully to us ; in the Cross love and righteousness are displayed in a way that nothing can ever exceed or come up to again. God is manifested–is told out perfectly,- to bind for ever the hearts of His creatures to Him, to bow them in adoration before Him evermore.

But for this we too must come in. We may reverently say that for this we are necessary" to Him. Our part in Him and with Him is part of this display. Otherwise the very glory of the Cross would pale:it would be, if fruitless to bring many sons to glory, shorn of its meaning altogether. For "we" are "made the righteousness of God in Him," and in us are exhibited the "exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness towards us, through Christ Jesus."

How marvelous a thing that we should have such a place as this in the purposes of God ! If he had not revealed it, who could have imagined it? Yet, being revealed, how sweet and suitable–how worthy of Him it is! How it fixes our hearts upon Him, and in the contemplation of our part with Him in glory, how they are drawn out to Himself! The world, what a little thing it is, and how this faith in Him overcomes it, lifts us above it! Our portion is in heaven, with Him who is the glory of heaven itself:how shall we debase ourselves by taking up with earth as if it were our home! still more, by following the aims and objects of those upon whom the light of this glory has not dawned!

Now to look at what is before us in the epistle. The first thing the apostle speaks of is God's, purpose as to us as individuals. That which is individual comes before that which is collective and corporate :for the spouse of Isaac must be already "of the kindred." Thus the first thing presented to us in Ephesians is relationship to the Father. We shall find as we go on, relationship with the Son and with the Spirit, and these are implied also in that with the Father; but corporate relationship is another thing. The Church as the body of Christ is related to Christ as man, and as the house of God is indwelt of the Spirit. Father, Son and Spirit are all engaged with us in the activity of divine love, as we well know; and the most intimate relationships in nature which God has instituted (surely that they may be to us the shadow of those higher and more wondrous things) He has taken up to convey to us what we are to the love which has sought and laid hold upon us:father and son, husband and wife, head and body,-these thing speak of relationships the nearest and most inseparable. May we enter into them more in the tender affection and intimacy which they express!

First, we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, which, in contrast with Israel's portion, declares the sphere and manner of our blessings.

Then, as constantly in Ephesians, we are made to realize the absoluteness of the grace by which we have been " chosen in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love," which is His nature. Morally, we must answer to what God Himself is, in order to enjoy His presence.

But then we come to what is simply "the good pleasure of His will," by which He has predestinated us to the position of sons through Jesus Christ. It would not satisfy Him to have us as servants, though servants we shall be of course, for ever:for love is the spirit of service, and service, therefore, the joy of love. In the whole range of the counsels of God, Christ is the Servant of His will, and as such the Spirit of God delights to present Him. The "body prepared'' Him marks Him out as this, and the human " life " which Pie lays down He takes up again, different as the condition may be, that He may serve in it forever. ''Therefore doth My Father love Me," He says, "because I lay down My life, that I may take it again.'' That is the voice of the Hebrew Servant:"I love my Master, I love my wife, I love my children:I will not go out free." The Son of God is the " Servant forever "-

" Serving in the joy of love,"-

the spirit of sonship in its display, as He has shown it to us:"But that the world may know that I love the Father, even as the Father has given Me commandment, even so I do."

Will He ever give that up ? No :He will serve in the joy and glory above, as He served in His sorrow on earth. When He meets His own with the glad welcome of eternity, He "will gird Himself and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them." And when He will, as the "Father of eternity,"-the Bringer in of that which shall abide as fitted to abide, of divine order and supremacy into what will then find permanence in the rest of God,-then it is written, "the Son also shall Himself be subject unto Him that put all things under Him," and the ministry of love will still go on, because the love of which it is the expression will go on.

So, therefore, shall we also serve. We could not lack this likeness to the Servant-Son, we who are to be conformed to His image, sons too and servants,-associates, "fellows," intimates with Him who is "not ashamed to call " us "brethren."

To this we shall have shortly to return, But in the "Kingdom of the Father" the subjects are of course sons. Here it is said "through Jesus Christ," and thus "to the praise of the glory of His grace, in which He has accepted us"-or taken us into favor-"in the Beloved." Here is the relationship in its full sweetness:sons in the Beloved Son, first-born sons in Him who is the Firstborn. So the Church is called in Hebrews "the assembly of the first-born ones" (12:23) "who are written in heaven,"-because Israel are the first-born upon earth. "Accepted in the Beloved"-it is not said "in Christ" exactly, but in all that Christ is for the heart of God.

Now we are told of the inheritance:for " if children, then" we are "heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ." The Son of God is the great " Heir of all things," and here we are made to realize that. It is "the mystery of God's will, according to His good pleasure which He has purposed in Himself that in the dispensation of the fullness of times He would head up "-as the expression really is-" all things in Christ, both things in heaven and things on earth," and then it is immediately added :" in Him in whom we also have obtained an inheritance." How wonderful to be thus " joint-heirs with Christ!"
The apostle prays directly after, that we may know the "riches of God's inheritance in the saints"-a beautiful declaration of a truth of which we may find an illustrative parallel in the case of Israel and by which their land, spite of all their failure, abides for them to-day. " The land shall not be sold forever," says Jehovah to their, "for the land is Mine:" Israel might forfeit it, and as far as they could, they have done so, but the true Owner can never lose His title, nor lose the power to make His title good.

The land abides, then, His own; and being His own, He can do with it as it pleases Him. If He put Israel into it, who shall refuse His right to do so? And this is plainly declared to be the tenure of their possession. "The land is Mine," says God; "for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me." He gives them no independent right; He entertains them there as guests of His bounty merely; but thus they can never lose this right; of grace, and of grace alone, He can take them up again, as He will do, upon the same terms.

We are not strangers and sojourners indeed:we are sons and heirs. But the inheritance is God's and His title can never pass away. It is all His, even while as sons He puts us in possession. How blessed to know it is so !

Our abodes are in the Father's house; our meat is at His table; in the farthest regions of His everlasting Kingdom distance from Him shall never more be known. Distance would be as death, and there can be no death, -nothing but eternal life and incorruption. Then indeed we shall know what it is to " live and move and have our being in Him," and, eternally dependent, be filled and energized with His eternal might.

Of this the indwelling Spirit is the pledge and earnest. What more simple than that the Spirit of sonship is as such the pledge of the inheritance ? And here already we know-rather, would that we did know-the blessedness of divine power that has laid hold upon us. Indwelt of the Holy Spirit! we easily speak of it; we are familiar-in some sense, too familiar, with an amazing thought, which if we entered into it aright, would fill us with awe and adoration. Our very bodies are indwelt by divinity and held for Christ by the same power that in the beginning brooded upon the face of the waters and produced and nurtured the numberless forms of created life. For us, too, it works even in a higher activity, for more wonderful results and fruit that shall transcend all the glory of that first creation. May we yield ourselves up to Him with absolute and delighted surrender for all His blessed ends to be fulfilled in us !

But we must pass on to another thing-closely connected, indeed, with what we have been considering. For if we are sons of God and heirs of such an inheritance there is surely need of preparation for this. If we are to be companions of Christ, we must be conformed to His likeness. And now we are shown how God has provided for this, by the forth putting of power in answer to the glorious work which Christ accomplished for His people. This the apostle prays that we may know-" what is the exceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who believe, according to the mighty working which He wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead, and set Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might, and every name that is named." There He is set as "Head over all things to the Church which is His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all."
How we are still reminded, when looking at Him in the height to which He is ascended, of our relation to Him !

The body is complement to the Head, who is yet " Head over all things." The Church is the " fullness " of Him who yet "filleth all in all." We are almost alarmed at ourselves when we utter thoughts like these; and yet they are but the repetition of what is uttered here. Let us remember, while we wonder, that all the universe is to wonder at it too. It is the glory of His grace. That we wonder is no wonder.

This power wrought in us when " God for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, " quickened us together with Christ, and raised us up together, and seated us together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." Here is a new condition for us, answering to a new place. "Quickened" is condition; "raised" and "seated" are position. "Quickened with Christ" we are partakers of His life, His nature,-a life which is for us the result of His death, and thus carries with it the virtues of that death:" He hath quickened us together with Him, having forgiven us all trespasses."

In resurrection the man made alive out of death leaves the company of the dead. Here the "with Christ" ceases; but "in Christ," we are where He is, "seated together in heavenly places." He has gone in, our Representative and Forerunner, and we are before God identified with Him-" as He is." There, within the veil, our hope is anchored.

This gives us to be here even now as men who belong to heaven, following that track of light which He has left upon the road He traveled through the darkness of this world. No shadow of death indeed-death as He knew it-darkens that glorious path; but it is through the same world, and in proportion as we grow into His likeness, we realize it in its opposition to God and to us, as He did. We have our " senses exercised to discern both good and evil. Yes, we are to be His companions-His associates; and the discipline, the sorrow, the knowledge of sin and evil, as in a fallen world we learn it, are a necessity for those who are to be with Him thus. Had we not this knowledge, how much should we lack of what He would find in us ! And all the conflict, all the sorrow, is it not worth while, that we should be the better fitted to enjoy that place, and answer to His mind who has chosen us to be with Himself in that amazing place as having part with Him ?

But we must still go on ; for there is much still before us; and at best we can only hope for a few distinct thoughts and some linking together, of glories that cluster around us as we consider the place we have with the glorious First-born among many brethren. The connection of sons with heirship we can understand, and the link of a common nature-of common experiences-with fitness for intimate companionship with Christ above:" If children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ:if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together."

We have to go on further now, as led by the apostle here; for we are, with all this members also, of His body. The Church is the body of Christ:it is that now. Is it a mere time relationship to the blessed Head we have in it ? No, surely that cannot be. Relationship to Him so near, so intimate, and given us by divine grace, must surely be eternal. As He says of our abode with Him in heaven, "If it were not so, He would have told us." He has, in fact, told us quite differently, as we shall see in a little time.
What is the thought as to the Body of Christ ? It is a figure, of course, but what does the figure mean? Taken as it is from nature, we go to nature to learn the significance of it. In Corinthians we have it dwelt upon at some length, and the natural analogy is developed for us. A human body is an organism. It is the union of parts that are different from one another, and yet planned and joined together for a common end. Were the parts not different, they would not serve the common purpose. The organs are different; their functions are different; the purpose is but one. There is individuality in each part; each does a work which no other part can do; but none is able to subsist alone :each is dependent upon the rest, each lives for the rest, and not for itself merely; to seek its own would mean prostration and death. The whole is served by the individual; and the individual also is served by the whole.

Such is the body of Christ also; in which the members are linked to one another, so that "if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it," and we are linked together by our differences and our needs. Our insufficiency as individuals is met by the ministry of others to us, to whose deficiencies we in turn may be used to minister. We are members of one another. We are meant "in love" to "serve one another."

All are under the Head, the glorious Head, and to serve the purposes of the Head, with whom we are united by the living Spirit:" he that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit." And notice in this connection that the Church is never spoken of as being in heaven. It is a heavenly thing, but not yet in heaven. Although so many of the members of it have passed away from earth, that there are far more in heaven than on earth now, yet the Body of Christ is uniformly spoken of as on earth and not in heaven. Only when the Lord takes us away together will the Church at last be there where she belongs.

For the body is the instrument of the Spirit, and the link, in our present condition, with earth no less. And we are thus the instruments and representatives of our Lord on earth,-expressly here to represent Him on it, as He was here to represent the Father. So He Himself declares. Earth is for us the sphere of service, and the Church the instrument for the representation of the Lord on earth in the meantime of His absence. Thus we can understand why the Body of Christ is seen as on the earth alone.

How blessed is such a thought and yet how solemn ! How it brings home to us the thought presented in the third chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians, where we have a different statement from that of the twelfth, our bodies being said to be the members of Christ. Are we to take that in connection with the other thought ? I verily believe so. It is just a carrying out as it were of the other, speaking in such terms as it would seem impossible to mistake. What does it mean-our bodies as members of Christ ?-our hands and feet. First, we belong to Him, He claims us as His representatives, the exponents of His will, to be in the activity of His love down here, the expression of it in the time of His absence. Look a little further and you will see in the sixth chapter something that will help us also:" Habitation of God through the Spirit," as we are, our bodies are here said to be temples of the Holy Ghost. God will have the body. He says I am aiming at the body-the lowest part of what man is," though he that is joined to the Lord is "-not one body, but-" one spirit." Yet God most emphatically claims the body. It is plain it is through the body we are linked to this scene. Losing the body, we are out of this scene. The body links us with the place of service. The body is the missionary of the mind. It is that by which the will of the mind is shown-the servant of that will. What about the body of Christ then ? When Christ claims these members of ours as His members, when he claims the body as His temple, He claims us in our very lowest part, but in that which connects us with this scene, a scene of misery, but in which is the display of His grace, and in which the activities of His grace are going on. The living expression of the activity of His grace, of His mind upon earth that is part of what the body of Christ means. We are to be hands and feet for our absent Lord.

Is that to be only just for the present time ? When the Body is grown, as Scripture expresses it, " into the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," is the purpose then fully served ? Is the service implied at an end forever, just when the Body has reached perfection ? And in heaven is there to be nothing any more but rest ? -at least cessation from the activities of which the body is the expression ? Surely not. Have we not seen already that we are to be forever the associates of Christ, forever His fellows ? Have we not seen that His service is never to cease,-His activity never to be at an end ? How blessed to realize that the Body of Christ, up in heaven, will be the fullest and most intimate expression in the creature, of the Lord's own activity, fitted for the accomplishment of His own thoughts and purposes, the members to do His will! trained as I have said already and disciplined and grown up together into maturity,- the Body and Head making "one man" complete. Surely that is not a temporary purpose which is served, but an eternal one; it is not to vanish at the moment of its completion. The body of Christ is not to be laid aside any more than our body is; the body is never to be laid aside; and Christ's "body prepared Him" still implies service, in heaven as on earth. Is it not the same with this other which He has molded and fashioned for Himself, to be the instrument of His own will ? And this connects with our first thought:those are above all to carry out His purposes of love and grace and goodness who are " fellows " of the Servant-Son.

But we are not only members of His body, the Church is viewed also as the house of God. And, as in the Body we are in relationship to Christ, so as the house we are in relationship to the Spirit. It is " the habitation of God in the Spirit." Those in whom the Spirit dwells are the temple even now of God, as we are told in Corinthians. And in this epistle we are told that the Church is "growing into a holy temple in the Lord." What is the temple for? for God's worship and praise, and the display of Himself that man may adore Him in it! What is God going to do in us? is it not to display the exceeding riches of His grace? In the prayer with which we began, you find, I think, some of the effects of this. There it is stated that "from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, every family"-so it should be translated- " every family in heaven and earth is named." That would take in the angels and all. Angels are sons of God, as we know, but not by redemption. Christ " taketh not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham He taketh hold. Yet here from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, " every family in heaven and earth is named." Can we not understand this? Surely if already by creation angels are sons of God, yet the new character of God displayed in redemption must affect this relationship. The Father is known in how much nearer and tenderer way when all that He has done for men is realized. They can say, "This is our Father too;" and the arms that are stretched out to encircle others will be felt as encircling themselves also.

Thus we can understand the expression. And if God be known better in the grace of redemption, we are told here distinctly also, that " to the principalities and powers in heavenly places is known by the Church the manifold wisdom of God." And again, at the end of the prayer before us the apostle ascribes "unto Him glory in the Church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages :"-literally, " through all generations of the age of ages." What is this but to declare the Church eternally the temple of God ?

This ought to be plain, and it shows how God has purposes in the Church that reach out far beyond the Church itself. We can see the place it has in that eternal display of the glory of God which is the happiness to the full of all His creatures. It makes it simpler to realize the grace that lays hold of such as we are, while it cannot possibly make less glorious the grace itself, which thus contemplates the multitudinous hosts of God's glorious universe. We can say

" Jesus, He passed the angels by "

all the more for knowing that in another sense He did not pass them by at all, but that they will own forever adoringly how they have been enriched by that which is the salvation of others, and not their own.

But we have not even here reached the end. If the Body is to be an expression of the living activity of the blessed Head, there is yet something left out by this as expressing, as He desires, what we are to Him personally -to His heart. But He could not leave this out; He has expressed it, and in the tenderest way that the human ties which He has created can give it expression. The Church is not only the Body of Christ but His Bride :that relationship which speaks of what, in the creative design of God, speaks of unique affection and personal consecration. One man for one woman, one woman for one man, was (as seen in Adam and Eve) the primeval law of marriage. And at the very beginning of the earth's history the first man and woman typified, as Scripture assures us, the mystery of Christ and the Church. Yea, " Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water, by the Word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing." Thus will it be and thus abide for Him. And the human tie here as elsewhere must only be too feeble to express all that is meant by this. If there is a title that speaks music and gladness, it is that of the Bride. On earth the music dies and the freshness fades. In heaven all is undefiled and incorruptible and unfading. The Bride of Revelation seen at the commencement of the thousand years, had just put on her pure white robes; but at the end of them she is still " as a bride adorned for her husband." And the heart of her Husband will be well satisfied with her. The " eyes that are as a flame of fire" will search her through and through only with delight. " Behold," He will say, "thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee."

At last, at last! " He will see of the travail of His soul, He will be satisfied." How well may we be, as we look on to this!

If such, then, is our Pisgah outlook as Ephesians gives it to us, well may we look and look, until the prospect possess our souls. This is what the apostle prays for us in effect, in the passage which we have taken for our text:" that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith, that, being rooted and grounded in love, ye may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Notice here how thoroughly he would have us survey the wondrous prospect. " Breadth and length and depth and height"-he would have us comprehend all. Nor will he allow a single one to be excluded as if incompetent. His prayer is " that we may be able to comprehend with all saints." Alas, all saints have not much comprehension, have they ? but God says to all His people, do not hide yourselves from these things; do not refuse to enter into the deep things of God; do not shut out the brightness of it from your hearts. Therefore "all saints," is God's thought, that is what He would have, that is what His book is before us for and open to us all, to fill our hearts with. We are to " comprehend with all saints," -"with all saints." How much we suffer because of that intolerable division (which is still among ourselves, however little openly,) into clergy and laity:a few people on the top to throw fragments of food to people round, who cannot draw near as they can, or get very much, except as they choose to dole it out to them. But God would have all His word for all His people; and none are excluded, save by their own neglect.

Let us look on to the fourth chapter and see how this is worked out there. Christ has gone up into the heights of glory, having been down into the depths, in the unutterable humiliation of the cross, and learned by personal experience every step of the way down there. Now, gone up as Man, He fills all things. So that you can find no place of which He has not in some way knowledge. Having gone up now, the Risen Man, as Head of the Church He has given gifts to men, according to the fullness of that so painfully acquired wisdom. " He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and- some pastors and teachers"-mark now, for what:" for the perfecting of the saints "-that is the first thing. The saints are looked at individually there, and they are to be perfected-not some particular class of saints, not the special gifts, but the saints as such-"for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Would you not think that the order there would be reversed, and that it would say, "for the work of the ministry, for the perfecting of the saints ? " But no :it is to be read the other way. And that means that the whole of the saints are in their turn and measure to be ministers, if the body of Christ is to be edified aright.

Think of the apostle's words to the Hebrews:" when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again." To be taught once, was all right; but the very work of a teacher is to enable his scholars in due time to do without him, not to keep people all the time at school to them. Are they never to have learnt, so as to be out of school ? Alas, spiritually that seems seldom thought of,-still less, that every Christian school ought to be what is called a " normal school "-a school to turn out teachers. Yet every bit of truth we learn is in our responsibility to communicate to others according to opportunity.

Is it not the lack of the consciousness of this, that deprives us largely of the faculty of learning even? At least, with the consciousness of responsibility and desire to communicate, truth will be learnt more painstakingly, more fully. Every one understands that a teacher must be up in his subject. While on the other hand, there is nothing like the attempt to teach, to make us conscious of our own deficiencies. But this in the end is a most helpful thing, while the reflex influence of every hearty, honest endeavor to help another with the truth will make it more practical and helpful to ourselves also. " He that watereth shall be watered himself" is the divine rule which secures such blessing.

Do let us remember, then, that we are to seek to " comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height," and remember also that "Christ dwelling in the heart by faith "-the abiding consciousness of what He is-is the necessary basis of all such knowledge. See also what it leads on to :" that, being rooted and grounded in love"-God's nature-"we may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height, and to know the love of Christ that surpasseth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fullness of God."

Blessed, wondrous knowledge indeed, and as he directly tells us, the power is working in us by which it may be gained. Not learning, not cleverness, not mental capacity, can be this to us. It is the Spirit of God who alone is competent. It is He who is with us to lead us into all truth; and not the special teachers merely, but with every member of the Body of Christ! If we do not exclude ourselves, then, from it, we cannot be excluded.

But if we forget what God has put thus within our reach, there is one who certainly never does forget it. And who is this ? why, the devil. Solemn it is to see that we cannot close this epistle of the heavenly places without finding that we have foes that would deprive us of it. We have thus to stand against the wiles of the devil, and to put on the whole armor of God to resist his attacks. What! let the people of God enter into their possessions ? Let them realize the riches that are theirs in Christ? That would mean to let them escape from the dominion of the things that pass and perish, to be molded by the thoughts of God, and be the expression of the mind of Christ in a world that is dying for the lack of Him. That means fullest blessing to themselves, blessing to souls around them, glory to Christ our Lord ! Therefore they shall not, if Satan can keep them out of it. And the book of Joshua is the typical expression of the conflict which must be waged, if we are in fact to possess ourselves of what is our own. May the Lord energize us for the inevitable struggle with foes that we can only conquer in the might of the Lord! To be holy we must be heavenly. To be victorious over the world, our faith must enter into the unseen things. The Lord accomplish this in us all, in accordance with His desires for us, and for the glory of His holy Name!