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This subject bears on the question of our communion. What is communion? It is not so much our telling out before God what we are as to ourselves; it is the rather our telling out before God what Christ is. In communion we participate with God as it were in the delight which He feels in Christ; in our measure we delight as He does in the fulness that dwells in Him. And the scene of such communion is not here—it is where Christ is, in heaven. There, in the true sanctuary, our Divine Head is seated before God, in divine perfectness, for us. We are as He is perfect in His perfectness, complete in His completeness-well-pleasing to God for His sake. In such scene is perfect rest and peace. As in the holiest, Aaron, through the blood, was at perfect rest before the Divine holiness, so we who, through the blood of Jesus, are made nigh, are where sin and sorrow and death have no placehaving been left outside, where the Sacrifice for sin once and for ever has been made.

But, oh! the fulness of the Head, and the Comforter, and the walk, and the life, and even the communion with God, where Christ now is-all make way for the promise, "I will come for you." "And surely I come quickly." We shall not always be separated from our Head-not always here! We are to be with Him in glory. But we must be first gathered. And the very next thing we have to expect is, that all the members of the body will be gathered to the Head. "I go away," He said; "and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you to myself, that where I am, there ye may be also." Lord HIMSELF will come. And then, having received us to Himself, when He appears in His glory, we also shall appear with Him in glory. "Even so come Lord Jesus; come quickly."

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ADDRESS XVII.

GRACE: WHAT IS IT?

"By grace ye are saved."-Ep. ii. 5.

THESE words, form a parenthesis, having its place in the midst of the most wondrous truths, relating to our oneness with Christ Jesus, and the way in which God hath saved us.

It was not after we were made alive to our condition as sinners that He came in and saved us, but when we were dead in sins.

It was in the condition of "dead in sins" that He found us, when we had no thought of Him, or had any love for His name. This He did in and by Christ. We have died—had our doom for sin-in His death on the tree. And as He was raised again from the dead, we are quickened together with Him, and are raised up together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. As death on the tree closed the door for ever on the trespasses and sins for which He died, and as His open grave showed a life without sins, so are we freed from sins, and our life is hid with Christ in God.

But it is not with the truths in the midst of which these words stand that I would now treat, but with the words themselves, which declare on what ground it is that God can and does give so great a salvation, viz., that it is simply and only on the ground of grace. But, oh, how little do we understand what God's grace is! And how slow are we to perceive that grace is for the sinner, simply and solely as a sinner

as one utterly DEAD, without any particle of merit to recommend him to Divine favour! We are apt to introduce something between the grace of God and the unmixed sinfulness of man. This robs grace of its true character. Were there any merit in the sinner, it would prevent the exercise of grace. If he merited salvation, salvation would no longer be a gift, but a right which he could claim. If the slightest atom of desert or merit come between the sinner and eternal life, that life is no longer a gift. In such a case, God would be the debtor and man the creditor, and not man the debtor and God the Giver.

But who can tell what grace is ? Or who can describe Divine love? I sometimes try to solve the question, "Why did God love man?" I know that God's nature is perfectly pure, and that He loves what is pure, and holy, and good. But man was not pure, or holy, or good; man was depraved and corrupt. God loves what is gracious and grateful in His creatures. But man was ungracious and ungrateful. And, moreover, God loves those that love Him. But man

did not love God. The sinner in his natural, carnal mind, never loves God, but is enmity against Him. Why, then, did God love the sinner? That He did love him, and does love him, is plain as revelation can make it. To say that God does not love the sinner until the sinner loves God, is a lie against Him-a doctrine of the devil. It is one of the hardest stones which have to be hammered out of our hard hearts. That God loves the sinner as he is, is the Gospel. Anything less could not meet his case, seeing he is "corrupt according to the deceitful lusts," and, in his very essence, enmity against God."

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We may learn a little of what grace is in God, by seeing what it is in man. And we may know, in some measure, how it affects the sinner who receives it, by a glance at its effects as produced by one person on another. Let me suppose a case in illustration.

I had long wished to be the bearer of life to some condemned cell. My wish was granted me. It was on a Tuesday that a poor sentenced criminal was to be hanged. He was within one day of the fatal drop. But on the Monday, all unexpectedly, I was summoned to take him his life! I had succeeded in obtaining a reprieve a paper signed by our gracious Sovereign, giving him back his forfeited life. This, as I have said, is what I had long wished for. So wonderful a privilege was it to be in a position to give life!

My first thought was, Where is the train that can bear me swift enough to the cell? I dreamt not of delay. Delay appeared cruel; until, at the very threshold of the prison, I bethought me thus-How can I tell him?. The news will kill him. The man will die if I tell him, so great will be the revulsion. He has died, so to speak. He is dead in law. And he is already in the bitterness of death. So, with his life in my hand, I stand before the victim in his cell. His face is wan. His knees feeble. His vacant eyes have no tears, but are red, and look as if, with dry, hot grief, they had burned down into their sockets. Melancholy picture! She who owned him as her husband had just been carried out from the last separation-still, and seemingly a corpse, unconscious of the strange, last kiss which a murderer had impressed on her lips. The expectant orphans, after their wretched farewell, were crying over the yet motionless form of their mother.

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My poor man, can you read ?” Yes," was the reply. But fearing to break the good news to him too suddenly, I added-" Would you like your life?" "Sir," he responds, "do not trifle with me." "But life is sweet-is it not ?" Sir, I would rather you would not speak to me." "But would you not like me to procure your life?" "It is of no use; I'm justly condemned. I'm a dead man." "But the

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Queen could give you your life." He looks inquiringly at me, but is silent.

"Can you read this ?"

And now those hot eyes are directed down upon the paper. As he intently reads, putting my arm around his shoulders, I 66 say- There, my poor man; there is your life!" No sooner had I uttered the words than, as I expected, he dropt down at my feet. feet. There he lies, as it were, dead! It was more than he could bear. Ah, you who are cold and dubious about God's work, this is something for you. How often of late, when you have seen the revulsion of mind in poor sinners when first getting a glimpse of Christ, of life, have you cried out, "Excitement! it's all excitement." Out upon this charge of excitement! What! when a man to whom a reprieve is announced, granting him a few more short years of natural life, falls down as dead, may not a sinner, who finds he is not to be lost, is not to be damned, but that now, on believing, he is saved-he has Christ, and heaven and everlasting life-I say, may not he weep? Yea, cry? Cry for joy; and be, as it were, in a swoon of love a half delirious ecstacy of life. Would to God that thousands, like my poor prisoner, were so overwhelmingly affected as to fall as dead with joy at the far more momentous and glorious announcement which I bring you to-day.

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But now, revived, he asks "Sir, who sent me this?" "The Queen sent it.” Why did the Queen send it to me?" "I cannot say. It was grace in her-her act as sovereign. It pleased her to do it." "What have I ever done to the Queen?" "Nothing, but break her laws." "Could I see the Queen?" 66 Why do you want to see the Queen?"

At this the tears are in his eyes. What a sight! How refreshing to those hot sockets-those weary eyes! Ha! yes; tears! What a tale they tell! A new life is coming! Hail to that life! Dear saved sinners, you understand me? He repeats, "could I see the Queen?" "What for?" "I don't know; but if I may -why, I would fall at her feet. I would embrace her

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