Higher

“IT THAT a bugle-call the veteran Apostle ‘” sounded in the ears of his younger brethren at Colosse when he exclaimed, “If ye, then, be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above.” In whatever way we apply these words, whether as meaning a preparation for heaven, or a clearer view of heaven, or heavenly-mindedness, they still breathe the same spirit of aspiration. Jesus had delivered Paul’s brethren from the sepulchre of sin and corruption. They had risen with Christ! Now, instead of sitting in the gates of the tomb, breathing the chill, dreary atmosphere of the charnel-house, Paul exhorts them to cast away their grave-clothes, and to live as Christ’s freemen, and as the happy heirs to a magnificent inheritance. Look higher! — live higher! These two words seem to condense the grand old man’s inspiring call to his fellow-soldiers in the warfare for Christ.

There is the greatest difference in the world between the “high look” of sinful pride and the high look which every blood-bought heir of glory should fix on his everlasting inheritance. It is not only the privilege, but the duty, of every converted soul to realize to the utmost, and to enjoy, the infinite blessings which flow from a with Jesus. If “Christ liveth in me,” I ought to be a living man, — a rich man, — a cheerful, athletic man, — a holy and a happy man. I ought to enjoy the open vision of Jesus as my Prophet, my Priest, and my King. I ought to be strengthened with all might in the inner man, with long-sutfering and joyfulness. I ought to be filled with the Spirit, and to rejoice with a joy unspeakable and full of glory.

Do the majority of God’s people thus “seek the things that are above,” and live in the higher atmosphere of perpetual fellowship with Christ 1 We fear not. Thousands in our churches are barely alive. Their pulse is

3’2H THOUGHT-HIVES.

feeble. Their joys are few. Their assurance of hope is so scanty that they can only articulate, with a painful hesitation, “Well, I hope that I am a Christian. I think I am converted. If I can only get inside of the gate of heaven I shall be satisfied.” There is no muscle in their faith, no power in their prayer, no ring in their devotions, no inspiration in their example. They see through a glass darkly, and the clouds run low in their spiritual skies.

All this poor, meagre experience is better than — something worse. It is better than sheer impenitence, or rank unbelief. A sick child is better than a dead child; but to make a sick child well is the best of all. What, then, shall these halting, feeble, doubting, and almost useless professors do? Look down? Lie down”? Stay down 1 iVb.’ It is the immediate duty of every one who has been born into Christ to seek the very highest and holiest and happiest life which Divine grace can impart to them. Just what happened to the disciples when they were endowed with the “power from on high” may, in no small measure, be the experience of every Christian in these days who will seeTc a fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost, and make a complete consecration of himself to his Redeemer. What a different man Peter is in the “Acts of the Apostles” from the half-finished, crude, and inconstant Peter in the Book of John! No more denials of his Master now! No more vain boastings and cowardly lies! Peter on the day of Pentecost is as superior to Peter in Pilate’s hall as a stalwart man is superior to a puny, stumbling child. He had now risen with Christ, and into Christ; he had been baptized into a clearer illumination and a more ^oxions possession of the unsearchable riches of Christ. We never hear of his ignominious fall again. He has climbed into the higher life of holy union with his Lord.

Something similar to this has been the experience of tens of thousands of God’s people. They have come to Jesus on their knees, and sought a new baptism. They have begun to clear out the sins that monopolized all the house-room in the heart. They have confessed their guiltiness in dragging out such a half-dead existence. They have sought a reconversion, a new quickening from on high. New light has burst in upon them. New joys have been awakened. They have put on Christ, and are arrayed in a robe of spiritual beauty that is “white and glistening.” In the ecstasy of this fresh consecration they can sing with Charles Wesley, —

“Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all in Thee I find.”

What different men and women they are in the Church of Jesus! How differently they pray! And with what spiritual power they approach the unconverted, and persuade thera to come to the cross!

Payson of Portland had such an experience as this. The great President Edwards tells us, that, after reading a certain passage in God’s Word, he had a fresh baptism from above, and “there came into his soul, and was diffused through it, a new sense of the glory of the Divine Being.” “From that time,” he says, “/ began to have a new idea of Christ, and of the work of redemption, and the glorious way of salvation by him. I had a view, that was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, and of his wonderful grace.” Under this celestial baptism, he tells us that he was in a flood of tears, and wept aloud for joy!

Now this is the true” higher life’ about which so many crude and extravagant things have been written by men of more enthusiasm than theological accuracy. What Payson, Edwards, Kutherford, and Wesley felt, we may feel in our humbler measure. Every child of Christ should covet it intensely. This, too, is what our churches need in this day of apathy and self-indulgence and barrenness. We need the new consecration unto Christ, and the new baptism into Christ. An ungodly world will never be converted by men and women who are barely gasping for life themselves. Brother! sister! get a new hold on

Christ if you would draw sinners from the pit! Let your battle-song be, —

“I have done at length with trifling:

Henceforth, O thou soul of mine! Thou must take up sword and gauntlet.

Waging warfare most Divine!
Oh, how many a glorious record

Had the angels of me kept.
Had I done instead of doubted,

Had I ran instead of crept!”