counsels of God. There is a man at the right hand of God, to whom the Church can be united as His body by the Holy Ghost.

Such a heavenly standing could not possibly exist before; the body could not be before the Head, to which it was to be united, had taken his place, such as it had been prepared for Him in the counsels of God. There was not before a glorified man in heaven to whom the Church could have been united.

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If we consider the Jews, the thing is still more intelligible for other reasons. They had prophecies and mises. Christ was to be presented to them. Till they had rejected Him, God, ever faithful, could not set them aside to establish any thing else which denied their privileges, blotting out all distinction between Jew and Gentile a distinction which the Jew was bound carefully to maintain. The crucifixion of Jesus has put an end to all that. There is no Jew in heaven. But man having completely failed in his responsibility, and the Jews having rejected the one in whom the fulfilment of the promises had been presented to them, God, before fulfilling them, as He will do, has revealed the hidden mystery which was connected with the heavenly glory of the Son of man, that is, with the body united to Him, gathered during the rejection of Israel—a body which was to be manifested in glory with Him, when He should, in His sovereign grace, resume his dealings with Israel upon earth: "for blindness, in part, has happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.' Israel, unfaithful as men, have lost all title to the enjoyment of the promises, by the rejection of Him in whom they were to have this enjoyment. They were, after all, children of wrath, as others; but that will not hinder God from fulfilling His promises. He cannot be unfaithful to His promise, whatever the unfaithfulness of man may be. His gifts and calling are without repentance; and the blindness of Israel is only temporary. It is what Romans xi. teaches; as the Lord also has said to them, "Your house is left unto you desolate till ye shall say, Blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord." But here is the perfect wisdom of God. Israel having rejected the

Christ when He came to present Himself to the nation, they are without remedy. It will be the sovereign grace of God which will reinstate them in the enjoyment of the promises, according to the word, as poor sinners. Israel, under chastening, and kept for that day, abides without the true God, and without a false God, according to the prophecy of Hosea ii; and God, during this interval, brings in the fulness of the Gentiles, displays His multiform wisdom in the calling of the Church, a hea venly people, established not on promise but on perfect accomplished redemption, and accomplished through the act by which Israel placed themselves under condemnation. But it was not only that man and Israel had been fully tried. God had also displayed His wisdom in His ways with both-His power, His patience, His mercy, His government in man and according to the conditions of His holy law, by promises and by miraculous interventions, by chastenings and blessings, by righteous judgments, by the most tender care and the most magnificent providences. Even a world swallowed up in the mighty waters had borne witness, in disappearing before His judgments, to the ways of God with man upon earth.

Angels had seen these things, they had seen the wisdom and power of God in exercise in his ways with men on the earth.

The Church was to supply quite a fresh manifestation of the depths of the counsels and wisdom of the infinite God they adore.

The demonstration of the inability in which man was found to profit by the ways of God, furnished the occasion of it.

There remains yet one thing to which I would call the attention of my reader; it is, that until Christ was glorified, the Holy Ghost could not come down to form the Church upon earth; for the object of His testimony, the heavenly glory of Christ and the redemption accomplished by His means, was yet wanting. The Holy Ghost was not yet1 [given], because Jesus was not yet glorified. The word "manifold" (Eph. iii. 10.) is remarkable—-ñoλʊñoιKiλos—much variegated.-Ed.

The expression

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was not yet," which is the simple and exact

We shall see with what clearness the word of God presents the Church to us as quite a new revelation of that which had no existence before, save in the eternal counsels of God, and that these counsels of God predestinated for her an existence outside the course of ages.

The writings of Paul, who was chosen to bear this testimony and to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, a ministry which was connected with these truths, are full of this doctrine, bringing into prominence this glory of Christ which was beyond all that the prophets had said;-thus 1 Tim. iii. 16. Having spoken of the Church in a passage already quoted, he naturally turns to the truth of which the Church was the pillar-this mystery of godliness. A Messiah, the fulfilment of the prophecies, was not a mystery; but a Christ such as the apostle presents Him in verse 16, had never been known before:-"God manifested in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." Certain elements found here were connected with Messiah upon earth, because this same Messiah, ascended up on high, must come down again to fulfil the promises made to the Jews; but such things as a whole had never been presented to faith.

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As to the Church, the thing is true in a still more absolute manner. This is what the apostle says of it (Eph. iii. 9-11.)—" And to make all see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus

translation of the passage, shows to what a degree the presence of the Holy Ghost upon earth, come down from heaven and dwelling in the Church, was a reality for the Apostles, and filled their mind, as, to them, the whole of the idea of the Holy Spirit, for indeed He was there. This is evidently not a question as to the existence of the Holy Ghost as a person; but since He was now come down and that His presence was upon earth, in consequence of the redemption and the glory of Christ-this presence was to them the Holy Ghost. The same expression occurs in Acts xix. We have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost. They had been told by disciples of John the Baptist that the Lamb of God would baptize them with the Holy Ghost, and what they said to Paul was, that not only they had not received Him, but that they did not know whether He was yet.

Christ to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known, by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God according to the eternal purpose which He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Impossible to get any thing more absolute than "hid in God." This mystery of the Church, hid in the depths of His counsels did not get disclosed. Nor did she exist in fact till that. It is "now" that unto the principalities and powers is made known, by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God. They had seen His patience, His power, His government, but never a heavenly body upon the earth united to His Son in Heaven. Thus God could set aside, for the time, the course of his earthly government to enter into relationship with a heavenly people. This passage is very clear on this point, that the Church neither existed nor was revealed before. Up to that time it was a mystery hid in God, who having established it in his counsels, was testing man under His government, before creating a heavenly system, based upon an accomplished redemption in union with the second Adam in heaven. It is important that the reader should get very clearly in his mind the teaching of this passage. The object of the apostle is to show that the Church is a new thing. There had been other means to show forth the wisdom and ways of God-earthly means. -Now heavenly powers saw in the Church a kind of wisdom quite new. Not only the Church had had as yet no existence, but it had not been revealed before its existence; it had been a mystery hid in God. This last point is confirmed by other passages which we will quote; but it is well to develop the first point by the teaching of the end of chapter ii.

The truth of the union of Jews and Gentiles in one body-the Church-is established as the consequence of the cross in verses 14 and 15, in the most formal manner -the middle wall of partition, established by God Himself and absolutely binding, had been broken down only by the cross; and by means of this also they were both reconciled in one body-those who were afar off and those who were nigh. Then they had been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets; that is, the Church could only exist after the cross had rendered

possible the union of Jews and Gentiles; the enmity of man against God having been manifested, the enmity of his nature-Jew or Gentile-and the Jews having lost all title to the enjoyment of the promises, grace received in a sovereign manner both the one and the other according to the eternal counsels of God, for a better inheritance. God having been manifested in the flesh, and having set things on the footing of eternal realities outside all earthly economy or dispensation, and received up into glory, having acquired a people which was associated to Himself according to the election of God, purposed before the foundation of the world to share this glory as His bride and his body.

To return to the revelation of this mystery. Speaking of the Church—the body of Christ (Col. i. 26), —the apostle calls it, "The mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to His saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." For the Jew, Christ is the accomplishment of the glory; but Christ present in Spirit becomes the hope of heavenly glory for those in whom He dwells.

Thus, also, in the epistle to the Romans,-"Now to Him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest," etc.

The more the Epistles of Paul or of Peter are examined, the more examples we shall find of the contrast between the hopes and election of Jews and Christians-only Peter never treats the subject of the Church-and the more we shall find the eternal election of the Church brought into light (Eph. iii.), this mystery is also called the mystery of Christ; for indeed, before, it was Christ an individual man, and not Christ the Head of a body spiritually united to Him; and the Apostle declares that it was by a special revelation that it had been made known to him (verses 3, 4, 5), the knowledge of a mystery which in other ages was not made known unto the "This union would have been a sin before the rejection of Christ, before the cross.