unsaved. You have no delight in the Lord. You have never seen the Lord God merciful and gracious. I remember the two coverings of the tabernacle. There was the gorgeous cloth of blue, mingled with gold, covering the place where God's holiness, God's righteousness, God's grace, God's love all reigned for the salvation of Israel. I remember what was over the cloth of blue and gold. There was the badger-skin over it. The ordinary eye-the stranger-the foe outside never saw that inner garb of cloth of blue, and adorning of gold. Do you understand this? What I want to say is, that the carnal mind, the natural man, the sinner in his sin, has never seen the Lord Christ. Oh, sinner, have you to-day seen the Lord passing by, "forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin," by no means clearing, but saving the guilty, through not clearing the Son of His own love? Oh! let me, through the Word, throw back the outer covering from over the glory of the Lord, and reveal to you the Lord Himself-Jesus, who gave His life a ransom for the guilty.

Ah, poor desolate one, how tenderly I could address you. You are saying, "Some have all they want, and I have nothing; nothing in my domestic circle; I am not happy in my nearest ties, I am not happy in my home, or in my children, or in my business, or in my profession; I am not happy in my religion even; I feel as if marked of God to be destitute and desolate." Ah, poor sinner, if thou wert the Queen, and without the Lord, thou wouldst not be happy. Thou fanciest if thou wert happy in thy business, home, and children, thou wouldst be happy indeed. But it is not so. It still would be" There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked; none, none. But behold the Son of God as dying for the wicked, and the wicked, on believing, have at once a ground of delight, and are no longer treated by God as such.

I have said I do not like additions to the Word;

when the Lord says, "I came not to call theri ghteous," man must needs put in the word "self," and say he came not to call the self-righteous! If that be the case, melancholy plight we are all in. For there is not a sinner living but is full of self, aye, of self-righteousness too. Ah, no; He came not to call the righteous. Why? Because there are none "righteous" to callno, not one. He came to call the sinner, yea, the selfrighteous sinner, if you will. He died for the guilty. And now He comes to you, by His servant, to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance. Oh, may the Master of Assemblies just now teach each sinner to say-If that be the Gospel, then how suited it is for me, for I am not righteous; if anything, I am selfrighteous!" It is a gospel for you! The self-righteous are lost, the self-righteous are sinners, the self-righteous are guilty.

He came to save the "lost," He came to reconcile the " sinner," He came to "put away sin," He came to die for the "guilty." Behold, then, the Gospel of our salvation! Oh, believe me, if you see it, and can take it, and embrace it, you have now, this very hour, the first gleam of that delight of which we have spoken. Blessed gleam! to spread endlessly and infinitely; and blessed Lord, source of that gleam!

ADDRESS XIV.

ANOTHER COMFORTER.

"And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."—JOHN xiv. 16, 17.

I HAVE this morning, beloved people, a burden on me, and I know not how better to relieve myself of it than by laying it down in your midst. I would, however, that you, too, may have it—may feel its weight, and know its meaning. It relates to the promised indwelling and assigned work within us of the Holy Spirit.

There are thousands, not unbelievers merely, but true Christians, who have never, with real Scriptural intelligence, looked to this. They do not, of course, deny the doctrine of the Spirit, nor do they designedly slight it; but not seeing it, they do not know it or enjoy it rightly. They take rank, as to their knowledge or experience, with such saved ones as the dying malefactor, who knew little or nothing as to the wondrous letter of the actual person of the Spirit, or of His presence in us.

This is truly a burden on one's soul. I repeat it,

I speak not now of the unconverted, for what can they know of the indwelling of God the Spirit within them? but of saints, the disciples of the Lord Jesus, who yet need to learn what are the words of the Lord Jesus respecting it.

Did not the Lord say, not as a mere figure, or as a make-believe, but as a divine truth, a wondrous fact, that "He," the Holy Spirit, whom He would send, "dwelleth with you, and shall be in you"? Mark, "dwelleth with you, and shall be in you." Wonderful word! dwelleth, not as a mere truth, or principle, or influence-but Himself, personally, in us. Oh, who can think of it with sufficient wonder? and who can mourn too much over the darkness that yet beclouds it?

The question of the Holy Spirit, as it regards us, finds its root in John xiv., where the Lord said to His disciples, "I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever." Could words be more simple, or more explicit? The marvel is, how any one can escape their meaning. He, the Lord, had been a comforter, but was about to withdraw from those whom He had comforted. He was about to go to His Father, and so be no more in person with them; but He would pray the Father, who would give them another Comforter, who would be instead of Himself, and who would never leave them as did the Lord, but would "abide with them for ever. " Was this a new promise? If not new, the words of the Lord have no meaning. If new, what different thoughts we ought to have of it, or of the truth it reveals-to those cherished in the old time by such saints as Eve, or Noah, or Abraham, or Isaiah, or David. Believe me, there was special meaning in this word of the departing Lord, that "He shall abide with you for ever." To abide, does not mean a visitation merely, or an occasional indwelling. This other Comforter was not to be as a wayfaring man, or

one who tarried only for a night. He was to be no stranger friend, no mere visitor for an occasion, but a true resident- a constant guest. Oh, who of us knows this as we might, or duly marvels at the grace and love it displays!

The highest thought which some believers have of the Holy Ghost is, that He deals with them from afar, or that He works upon them from heaven. But no, it is not said, He shall abide in heaven, though He is in heaven, but “He shall abide with you;" nay, that "He shall be in you." The Lord's words show that there was to be, as it were, an exchange of places-that He who had been here was going to the Father, and that the Spirit, who was with the Father, was to take His place here with the Church, which exchange did occur at the ascension, and at Pentecost. Is it not in utter ignorance of this that not a few Christians are ever looking for some undefined impulse, or influence, or baptism, to come from afar from heaven shall we say, supposing the Holy Ghost to be still there, not knowing or living in the power of the blessed words, "He shall be with you, and in you ;" and again, “He shall abide with you for ever."

Let us not be misunderstood. With the Church in the wilderness, and even after, as in the days of David, Solomon, and others, the Holy Ghost did so descend. The scene of His operations, as it is now with the ascended Lord, was in heaven. From heaven, therefore, He wrought His mighty deeds and wonders in the time of old. It was by the power of the Spirit that Sampson carried away the gates of Gaza; by the the same power David slew the lion and the bear. It was by the Spirit of God that Solomon had his wisdom; David, also, and all the prophets. But this promise brings in a new thing regarding the Spirit. The Lord, in person, was going away; the Spirit, in person, would come. The Lord, in person, was going to pre