God grant

But it was a blessed word that Mary heard. that you and I may hear something like it. He looked on her, who looked once on a fair, unstained creation, as it passed in its plan of beauty from its Creator's hand, and He pronounced that word, which from that hour, He had never pronounced upon fallen creatures,-"She hath chosen a good part." And He added that which He did not write on Eden, and which belongs to nothing but what Christ has and Christ gives,―to Him, and peace, and heaven,— "Which shall never be taken away from her."

XXIX.

Grace for Grace.

"And of His fulness have all we received, and grace for grace."JOHN i. 16.

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WE are to lay it down as a first broad principle,without which we can build up nothing,-that God has treasured up everything for His Church in Jesus Christ. There was a plenitude in Him, as He walked this earth, of which everybody, whoever came in contact with Him, was made perfectly conscious,—a word for every need,—a look that spoke all sympathies,—a solution of all doubts,— a cure for all evil. It was not that every grace was in Him, but it was that it was in Him up to the culminating point,-wisdom perfect, love manifold, power radiated. Everything about Him was instinct with the greatness of its own intensity. It hardly needed to be told us that "He had the Spirit without measure."

When He went up to heaven, not only all things filled Him, but He filled all things;-He was the very "fulness of Him that filleth all in all." Whatever is beautiful, whatever is holy, whatever is grand, whatever is wonderful, gathered itself and centred itself in His one holy person. And remember, this was all human "fulness,”the "fulness" of a Man, in a Man, for a man. "It pleased the Father that," in the Man Christ Jesus, "should all fulness dwell."

And it was a "fulness" made to communicate itself. Hence the distinction. "The first man Adam was made a living soul;" he had simply life in himself, he could not impart it. "The last Adam was made a quickening (ie., a life-giving) Spirit;" He lives to emit the life He has. Upon that Head, the oil is poured, and it runs down to the farthest members, to "the skirts of His clothing." All the light of the universe is collected into that Sun, and "His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and His circuit unto the ends of it; and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof."

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God has nothing for you

Take two elementary truths. out of Jesus Christ. He has provided for you abundantly; but as jealously, He has deposited it all in His Son, "that all men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father." If you have ever failed of any promised good, it is because you have not sought it sufficiently, and with sufficient exclusiveness, in the Lord Jesus Christ. And you never will find real good,—peace, strength, righteousness, truth, life,―till you are content to look for it all, and to look for it only, in Christ.

While equally, whatever you can possibly want is there, and there for you,—a righteousness, an abundance of righteousness which you may put on, which you may use, which you may make yours, to cover you, and to present you before God,—and a Spirit, a spirit of all wisdom to guide you, of all comfort to cheer you, and of all purity to refine you, which you may drink in, to your heart's content, from that fountain:—and a life, which you may not only live, but by transmitting, may make others live, and which you may derive from that living One, for He is the life of every living thing, "because He lives, we shall live also.” But then, secondly, it is plain that all this emanation

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from Christ, pre-supposes that you are in some connection with Him. There must be an avenue through which all the "fulness" shall flow out into your being; there must be a relation in which you stand to Him. Now that relation must be union; that union of which our Holy Communion presently will be the pledge, the symbol, and the way. There must be a oneness between your heart and Jesus, such a oneness as that by which the sap of the vine flows into the branches,- secret, deep, spiritual,—the work of His own power,-recognized, felt, acted, eternal.

But now we are to pass on to the character of that communication by which we receive, of the "fulness" of Christ, "grace for grace."

These are words of suprising condensation, and short for this very end that we may carry them the better in our hearts; but need some explanation and some quiet thought, in order that we may remember them intelligibly and to good purpose.

There are three senses, I believe, in which they may be taken, of which the last which I shall mention, is perhaps the most grammatically correct. Still, if you leave out any one of the three, you will miss the completeness of the whole intention,-" grace for grace.'

The first interpretation of them connects itself with those words in the fourth chapter of the Ephesians,"Unto every one of us is given grace, according to the measure of the gift of Christ;" and the lesson which we are to take is this,-that the grace in the believer is not only dependent upon the grace which is in Jesus Christ; but that it is in a certain proportion to it;—the more He has, the more we have also, by an eternal correspondence and similitude;-" grace for grace."

Now I need not say that the measure of Christ's grace

being always infinite, and therefore always the same, this acceptation of the passage must mean practically, not that according as the grace in Christ actually is, but that according as we believe it to be, and see it to be, so will our supply of that same grace be; which gives us at once a personal, and yet not a selfish reason for always putting Christ higher and higher in our thoughts;-I say not selfish, for though it be to our great benefit, yet that benefit is again to His glory, and the final end of everything determines its character; therefore I say not selfish.

Take, then, worthy and lofty views of Christ, and then by the same act, you are increasing your own mercies; because if you raise one term in a proportion, you necessarily elevate also the other.

Say, for instance, you desire very much any particular power or attainment in the divine life. Observe, trace, honor, meditate on, magnify, that special trait in your Lord and Master. As, to your eyes, it goes up in Him, as it comes out more saliently to your view, it will enlarge itself within you. God, pleased with that additional honor laid upon His Son, will make it so. The higher the wellhead, the fuller the stream will run. As your soul fills itself out of His, you will understand, by a secret incommunicable process, what that is,—" grace for grace."

The second sense of the passage belongs to the work of grace in the heart, and to the relation in which one grace, or one degree of grace, stands to another. This may be sub-divided into two parts.

First, there must be a certain grace in a man to enable him and to prepare him for another grace. Without this setting, this second re-action, no "grace" will be "grace" indeed.

There must be a grace to precede grace, and