ment of the most exalted beings. To which questions we are directed to answer, in the words of the apostle, that the blessings themselves, which this mystery reveals, are the unsearchable riches of Christ

-that in its circumstances it throws open a benefit hidden from ages and generations-whilst in respect of wisdom and prudence, to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places is made known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.

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I. The blessings themselves which this mystery makes known are described by the apostle as The unsearchable riches of Christ." The import of this figurative expression is easily gathered from similar passages in the same inspired writer. "We have redemption through his blood," saith our apostle in his first chapter, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace," where the same figure of riches or treasure denotes the abundant grace and goodness of God in the remission of sins. In the second chapter we read, "But God who is rich in mercy, according to the great love wherewith he loved us, hath quickened us together with Christ; that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace, in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus." Here the expression signifies the immense mercy of God in communicating spiritual life to those who had been dead in trespasses and sins. Again, St. Paul speaks of " the riches of the glory of the inheritance in the saints," thereby denoting the unutterable felicity of the heavenly state.

But the term is yet more unfolded, as embracing all the preceding points, when the same apostle thus describes the ends of our Lord's humiliation; "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who though he was rich, yet for your sakes became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich." Indeed, the import of all these passages and many more is

included in the brief, but striking expression, where comparing his own external sufferings with the blessings he was the means of communicating, St. Paul says of himself and his fellow apostles, As poor, yet making many rich."

The term, therefore, in the text is fixed. It denotes the spiritual benefits of the redemption of Christ; pardon and acceptance through faith in his blood, regeneration and holiness by the grace of his Spirit, the hope of a heavenly inheritance purchased by his death and promised to all those who believe in him and obey him-the three blessings these which characterize the gospel, justification, sanctification, eternal life.

These benefits are by a familiar image, termed riches, because they supply all the most pressing wants of man, they satisfy all his highest desires, they administer spiritually and really those aids and that felicity which riches do, or are supposed to do, in an external manner.

Having thus ascertained the fundamental idea, the additional epithet, "Unsearchable," must import that no power of man can trace out fully the abundance of all the various blessings of Christ's redemption. They are like a mine of untold wealth, an ocean of undiscovered extent. The holy Scriptures accordingly speak, not only of the benefits of Christ as riches, but as the hidden treasures of wisdom and knowledge," as "the pearl of great price," as "the treasure hid in a field,” as the unspeakable gift" of the immense love of God.

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Indeed, if we reflect only for an instant on the impoverished, guilty state in which man lay; on the painful and humiliating sufferings of our Lord by which we were redeemed; on the depth of his abasement in taking upon him our nature that he might become a sacrifice for us; on the extent of the love which dictated the enterprise; on the height

of glory to which we are to be elevated, and the un speakably fatal consequences of the condemnation which our sins deserved, we must acknowledge that such blessings as those of redemption are an unfathomable abyss, where we may trace out continually new wonders, and can discover no boundaries, no termination, no adequate measures of comparison.

But the propriety of this language can only be felt by each individual enquirer, as he rightly views that ruined and fallen state of man to which it corresponds and for which it provides. The blessings of Christ are properly called "riches," "unsearchable riches," because man is by nature and practice so wretched and poor; because he has lost by sin all the moral excellencies with which he was endowed at his creation; because he has been stripped of the treasures of divine knowledge, of divine love, of moral uprightness, of divine favor and grace with which he was blessed in his original state of purity; and because he is wandering in darkness, error, misery, vice, apostacy from God-far from happiness and heaven.

It is this view of the state of moral and spiritual poverty in which we lie as sinners, which enables us to discern the incredible riches of the grace of Christ in becoming incarnate and dying a sacrifice upon the cross for us.

If we take only a transient view of sin-as too many do; and as we all once did—if we feel lightly its guilt, its malignity, its just desert; if we see little of the holiness of God and the terrors of his violated law, we cannot enter into the force of the apostle's language. We are not in a position to behold" the glory of the only-begotten of the Father," either in "his grace or truth." It is not in the constitution of the human mind to comprehend such forcible expressions, without having first some preparatory knowledge. We may utter the words, "unsearchable

riches of Christ," as we may utter any other, but they will excite no adequate idea in our minds, they will not convey the apostle's meaning, they will appear tinged with extravagance as used in the present day; and they will at length be evaded and explained away, and some modern and weaker phrases substituted for them.

We must see and feel our own spiritual destitution and danger, in order to discern the "unsearchable riches" of a deliverance from them. We shall then, and then only, understand that those riches are truly and emphatically deserving of the name which can supply such wants as ours. We shall thus discover the propriety, the more than propriety, the beauty of the image. We shall thus stand in the right point of light for viewing this lovely delineation and picture of redemption; that is, we shall contemplate it from the position of our ruined and accountable state, of our vast powers and responsibilities, the awfulness of the wrath which we have provoked, and the eternity of woe which awaited us.

We shall in this way gradually learn to form something of a just judgment on the subject. We shall perceive that the blessings of Christ not only deserve the title of "riches," ""unsearchable riches," but are the only things which merit the name-that they are different and superior to all human and perishable treasures, however over-valued and extolled; of another order, procured at other sacrifices, reaching to ends never contemplated in the case of human wealth, of an abundance and excellency quite their own.

Human riches are earthly and temporal at the best; limited in their supply, uncertain in their bearing upon our happiness; often the source of ruin, and always of danger to the possessor-soon counted up, soon searched out, soon exhausted; at no time essential to our well-being; and diminishing from

every largess to which they are exposed. And man must leave them at last at the stroke of death, which they can neither teach us to evade or over

come.

But the riches of Christ are, like himself, divine in their nature and inexhaustible in their abundance. They suffice for all in all ages and under all circumstances. They are indispensable to human happiness. They bless in the highest sense every child of man that receives of them, and in the proportion that he receives of them. They leave the divine possessor in no respect poorer, whatever he bestows. They are capable of being dispensed to all the millions of the human family in every period; each receiving the whole, as it were, as to his own perception of blessedness, and yet each leaving to all others, the treasure undiminished, unexhausted, new, permanent, eternal.

Such being the excellency of the mystery of the gospel, as to the blessings which it reveals, let us proceed to point out,

II. The surprising discovery which is made in the throwing open of its benefits to mankind. "Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints,” saith the apostle in the text, "is this grace given, that I should preach among the gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and make all men 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 Christ."

In the communication, then, of the blessings of this mystery to mankind, a secret is discovered; a purpose long hidden is displayed; the charm of novelty and unexpectedness is added to benefits in themselves so invaluable. The participation or fellowship in them is a fellowship in a mystery buried, like precious ore in the mine, during unnumbered ages— the field containing it unexplored-the treasures