WINDINGS OF THE RIVER,

CONTINUED.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Christ the Light of the Soul.-In this world, partial, as through a glass darkly. In the Celestial world, supreme, entire, unmingled, universal.-The single eye, and the Spiritual body.

We are told of a Brahman in India, whose faith makes it an article of religious duty to abstain from eating the flesh of animals, who one day met an Englishman exhibiting a microscope. The Englishman, to convince the Brahman of the absurdity of his superstition, would show him that he could not help eating the flesh of animals, even though he lived upon vegetables alone. He therefore persuaded him to look through his microscope at a piece of fruit or vegetable production, which formed part of the Brahman's daily food, when to the horror of the man he beheld whole herds of living creatures detected by the power of the instrument, and demonstrating the falsehood of his Pagan theology. He was so indignant at the sight, that he seized the microscope and trampled it under foot, breaking it in pieces, thinking perhaps that he had thus destroyed the evidence in nature against him. So the sinful heart may be tempted to think that by keeping away from the light, or shutting the light out, it may keep quiet in the persua

sion of its own goodness and security. And so a man in the indulgence of anything that is wrong avoids the light, and would destroy the evidence. But a man whose desire is that Christ should rule supremely in his heart and life, a man whose eye is single to Christ, will be willing and desirous to have Christ's eye single upon him, and everything open to Christ's inspection and the trial of the truth. When this is the case, the whole body will be full of light; there will be very few causes or occasions of darkness.

There being this reliance of the soul on Christ, this singleness and fixedness of purpose in divine things, this breathing of the soul after him, will lead to great and persevering intensity in prayer, and the Holy Spirit will be vouchsafed, and God will shine into the heart, so that it will be full of light without any darkness. Purity and disinterestedness of motive is the first and most important thing, the very spring of light, the spiritual atmosphere, that not only surrounds, but permeates the being, and renders it transparent, so that the light, as it were, goes through and through it. With this singleness and fixedness of purpose and purity of motive, there will be great simplicity of mind, and an intuitive discernment of light and knowledge. The insight of the soul into divine things will be spontaneous. He that is spiritual judgeth all things, for the Spirit that dwells within him searcheth all things, even the deep things of God. His soul is as different from that of a natural man, as a palace with windows is dif ferent from a subterranean dungeon. Simple love to Christ, and fixedness of the heart on Him, make the soul transparent, for heavenly light to enter, and dwell in every part.

This, certainly, is the meaning of that text, If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. Single, that is, simple, undivided, sincere, and straight to its object. But what is that object? Single to what? What can it be but Christ, the source of duty and of light?

Single to Christ, and not looking askant to earth and self. Single to the Source of light. Or, if we take it in the connexion, which is an argument and command not to lay up treasure on earth but in heaven, for where your treasure is there will your heart be also, and if your heart be fixed on that treasure, that is, if your eye be single to that, then your whole body shall be full of light;-take it in this way, and the matter is just as plain as before. For what is heaven, and what is your treasure there, but Christ, and what are you to seek but Christ? Still, nothing but Christ, so that the meaning of the passage is perfectly plain, and it is not possible to hide or darken it. This singleness commanded is fixedness of the soul on God, on heaven, on Christ; a supreme regard to his will, and to your duty to him, and to those things on which he commands you to fasten your affections. This is to have the eye single; and having this, you are sure of the promise that follows, fulness of light.

The light promised is in reference to God, spiritual things, and our duty. The evidence of such things will be seen and felt in all its irresistible power and fulness. There shall be such light, as to overcome doubt, and produce assurance. He that will do God's will shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, shall see, recognise, and know it without mistake, in some measure as God knows it; it will appear to the soul that is born of God as it appears to God. It will be a clear transparency of truth, producing a knowledge and conviction heartfelt and unassailable in the inmost being. He that believeth hath the witness in himself; and God gives to the believer in Christ the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him, the eyes of their understanding being enlightened, that they may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the Saints. Open thou mine eyes, says David, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law. God

answers this prayer, and he causes the soul to behold still more wondrous things out of the gospel. He shines into the heart with the light of the knowledge of his glory in the face of Christ. The Spirit takes of the things that are Christ's and shows them to the soul. It is light upon the attributes of God, especially as manifested in the cross and person of the Saviour; and it is light on the ways of God to man, and on every part of truth and providence disclosed in the book of revelation, and on God's government of the world, as seen in the light of revelation. Thus filling the souls of believers with truth and grace, God makes them meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. It is an inheritance in light; that is one of its titles; no night there, nor darkness, nor any need of candle, nor light of the sun. God makes his people meet for that inheritance, by making them now children of the light. Ye are all the children of the light and children of the day; we are not of the night, nor of darkness. For ye were sometime darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord; walk as children of light. And God accomplishes this by setting before the soul the Lord Jesus Christ, and causing it by the Spirit to behold in the glass of faith the glory of the Lord, and thus to be changed into the same image from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. It is a ministration of glory.

Christ being thus the central luminary, in which the soul sees all things, and from which it draws all wisdom and knowledge, it is like the angel standing in the sun, a position, in which there are no shadows. In this position the light from Christ falls on all things. The nature of sin is seen in it, the character of mankind, the justice and certainty of the opposite awards to the righteous and the wicked, all the relations of theology towards man as well as towards God. We have an unction from the Holy One, says the Apostle, and know all things; and he that is thus spiritual, occupying this spiritual position in Christ,