SERMON X.

THE HIDDEN LIFE, OR LIFE IN GOD.

COLOSSIANS iii. 3.

Your life is hid with Christ in God.

THE two first chapters of this epistle set before us the most exalted views of the person and office of the Saviour, being intended to establish the Colossians in the simplicity of the faith, against some teachers that had even then risen up to seduce them. The Apostle points out very clearly the nature of their interest in Christ, in whom they were complete, in whom there was a fulness of salvation. "As, therefore," says he, "ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him; rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." He then directs their attention particularly to the spiritual design and import of baptism: "buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him, through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead."

At chapter the third he commences those exhortations which arise out of the views he had been inculcating: "If ye then be risen with

Christ”—or, according to the frequent use of the particle «, since ye are risen with Christ, as he affirms of them in chap. ii. 12. By faith they were assured that they had risen with Christ— the benefit of his resurrection was theirs by union with him-believing in him, they could look to it as the pledge of their rising to newness of life. If, then, they valued their interest in Christ, if they lived in the exercise of faith, they must be consistent, and show that consistency by following the Saviour in his exaltation, and “ seeking those things that are above"-by "setting their affections on things above, not on things on the earth." Such is the sum of that newness of life, to which the christian is called in faith.

But with an apparent contradiction, the Apostle goes on to observe: "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." He had but just now asserted, that they were risen with Christ, and yet he tells them they are dead. They were dead to the world, to sin, and to the flesh, but alive unto God. Again, it may be asked, how does this agree with the experience of a true christian ?--Does he not still find himself harassed by the remains of sin, and oppressed by various afflictions; and how can he be accounted dead to the world and sin?-Does he not mourn under distressing convictions of sinfulness, and weep before God for his guilt and his indifference to the best interests? How then can he be said to have risen with Christ? This contradiction can only be explained by a right understanding of

the nature of our union with Christ, and in what sense all that Christ has done is become ours. Spiritual life is hid with Christ: in its communication to the believer it is limited, and obscured, manifested only in part. But though it be imperfect in us, it is full and complete in him, our head; through whom all that come to him shall at length attain to the entire participation of it. "Your life is hid with Christ in God; when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory."

We have already considered the general characters of the christian life-that it is a life of acceptance with God, a life of grace in the soul, a life of glory begun; that this life is with Christ, being enjoyed by union with him, secure in his possession, laid up in him as the covenant head, and to be perfected by him in glory. We have yet to consider, that this life is a hidden life, HID with Christ, and that IN GOD. These two points we shall find more than sufficient for the present occasion. May the Spirit of God enlarge our hearts, to receive and to comprehend some portion of that which passeth knowledge.

I. The christian life is a HIDDEN life.

1. It is hid from the world. They know nothing of its nature or its character. They cannot judge of its excellency till they are partakers of it. When mere natural men give their opinion on the subject of religion, they form their estimate

of it by that which is the least important part. And from the same cause the christian is sometimes disposed to cultivate exclusively those portions of it which are most esteemed by others, but have the least to do with his own eternal salvation.

The Author of this life, as to his real office and character, is hid from the world. When Christ appeared in it, the world knew him not. They knew not the excellence of his moral character; much less of his spiritual, or of his divine character. He was despised and rejected of men, no wonder his religion was so. If they hated the master, they would hate his disciples also: they could not judge of the principles and motives of their conduct, nor of the actual nature of the change they had experienced, therefore they despised their profession. Christ himself had been vilified, and his disciples were hated of all men for his name's sake.

It was impossible they should have mistaken the character of Christ, if they had known what true religion was; and they were much less likely to estimate duly that lower standard which appeared in his followers. "He is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." The believer's life of grace is "the hidden man of the heart;" 1 Pet. iii. 4: it is within, inwardly cherished and promoted by the operations of that Spirit who