known in reality what a Christian was.

Observe, that

this question seems very shocking when put before us in this plain form. Yet it is very much the same feeling in reality which many entertain now, when they look upon Christ's death as affording an allowance for a more imperfect life than would formerly have been required; when they think of the Gospel as laying down a less strict rule of conduct than the law. Is not this really to ask, Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Since Christ has died for us, and God has so declared His mercy towards us, may we not safely be less perfect than if He had not thus shown forth His readiness to pardon us? Now it is plain, that any one who thus feels must be very far from the condition of those, who, having been reconciled to God by the death of His Son, are saved through His life; that is, through His Holy Spirit new making their hearts to fit them for His kingdom. Of this salvation by the Spirit of Christ they can know nothing at all. Yet this work of the Spirit is the most important thing in the whole matter. Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we, who are dead to sin, live any longer therein? The Apostle answers for himself, and for all true Christians: When we received our pardon for sins past, through Christ, we understood at once that we stood bound in receiving it not to commit any fresh offences. God declares all the past forgotten. Shall we, then, bring it again before His remembrance, by doing again the very same things for which we were once before condemned in justice, and forgiven only in mercy. Shall we not strive to forget it too, to put it utterly out of our sight, to be, as it were, dead to it?

Let all the evil of our

past lives be buried in the grave with Christ. He has arisen, and a new day has dawned upon us, and our lives should be new also to become it. We are unfit to walk with Him in the light of the Sun of righteousness, if we still long for the excesses of the past night. If they are buried to rise no more, then we ourselves, freed from their weight, may rise with Christ ourselves lightly and happily. If we be dead with Christ, if we have laid aside all the sins of our nature, as He did its mere bodily weaknesses and temptations when He died once for all, then we may safely believe that we shall live with Him, the spiritual with the spiritual, the immortal with the immortal, freed from the evils and sufferings of this earth, as we have put off its sin, and living only to God, and therefore destined of necessity to live for ever, and to live in perfect happiness.

Before our redemption we were the slaves of sin; that is, that though we knew right from wrong, and though our reason approved of the one and condemned the other, or, in other words, though we were living under a law, whether of reason or of God's word, yet still that principle in us, whatever we call it, which makes us act, was not in agreement with reason and conscience; our desires, lusts, inclinations, call them by what name we choose, were turned towards evil; and what we like, that in the long run we are sure to do. This, then, the Apostle calls being the slaves of sin; that is, liking and doing things which we would rather not do and like; being, in a manner, in a diseased state, when our appetite for those things which best nourish a healthy body, was lost and gone. From this condition the Gospel message was intended to deliver us; and our difficulty in understanding this

part of the Epistle consists very much in this, that we look upon ourselves as Christians, and yet find ourselves very much in the same state now as mankind are described to have been before the coming of Christ. But in truth, as far as regards a very large proportion of mankind, they are redeemed and yet not redeemed; they are redeemed so far as this, that nothing is wanting to complete their redemption but their own taking part in it. But they are not redeemed in fact, because they have not taken part in it, and therefore they are still actually the slaves of sin, and living under the law ; that is, constantly needing the restraints of the laws of men, and the laws of God, requiring to be kept from some things by the fear of earthly punishment, whether of the laws or of public opinion, and from other things by the fear of God's judgment; that is, by the fear of hell. Therefore when St. Paul speaks of Christians as being freed from sin, and dead to the law, he speaks of those who are redeemed actually; of those who are not the slaves of sin, because their tastes, their inclinations, their affections, are really turned to what is good; their appetite is become sound and healthy;of those who are dead to the law, because they have no need of it, but are a law unto themselves; for who needs to be threatened with punishment for doing that which he has no wish or inclination to do, or for leaving that undone which it is the great pleasure of his life to be engaged in.

Such a state is clearly one of entire freedom from sin, a state of grace and of happiness, a state in which the spirit is willing, and the flesh is obedient; in which the body and soul and spirit are all at peace and harmony with one another, and with the Spirit of God.

ΙΙ

And into a state so blessed it was the object of Christ's death to bring us. This, perhaps, may seem not at first sight easy to understand, and the less so, because, as I said before, Christ has died and we profess our belief in Him, and yet do not find ourselves in this happy condition. But it always seems to me one of the most useful things in the study of the Scriptures, to contemplate those bright pictures of perfection which they hold out to us; because, though far brighter than any thing which is or ever has been realized in the world, they are not brighter than what may be realized; and because, most assuredly, the more habitually we place them before our eyes, and strive to come up to them, the nearer we shall come to realizing them.

We must never forget that with the death and resurrection of Christ the gift of the Holy Ghost is essentially connected. We are reconciled to God by the first, but we are saved by the latter. "If, when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more being reconciled shall we be saved by His life;" that is, as I said before, by His ever living and acting upon our hearts by His Spirit. By the former all past sins are wiped away, we are considered as men fresh born, with a new life before us, for which new hopes, new principles, and new desires are needed. These the Holy Spirit gives, the Spirit of Christ, as it is written, "the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." But if we are not visited by this quickening spirit, if we gain no new hopes nor new principles, our new life is but the old one acted over again; we build again the things that were destroyed; we are living as heretofore under the law; that is, serving God through fear or with a painful effort, not because it is our de

light to serve Him; and the law as heretofore worketh death; for the principles which it supplies, those of fear, and an approbation of good without a relish for it, are too weak to struggle with success against temptation, and our practice is in fact evil, and thus we are enslaved by sin, and the fruit of it is our ruin.

The whole of the seventh chapter, then, is taken up with this part of the subject, the insufficiency, namely, of a knowledge of right and wrong, which the Apostle calls the law, to make us good in our practice; it does not furnish us with motives powerful enough to make us throw off the yoke of sin and lead a life of goodness; it points out to us the bad state in which we are placed, but it does not deliver us out of it. And it is to this condition, of a knowledge of right and wrong without a love of the one and a hatred and distaste for the other, that in his forcible language he says we are now dead through the death of Christ: we have nothing farther to do with it, it is no longer the system under which we are placed; God has done what the knowledge of right and wrong could not do; He has not only enlightened our understandings, but turned and enlivened our hearts; His Spirit has given us the victory, and enabled us not only to approve of what is right, but to act according to it; we are delivered from sin and death, because we walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. This is what the eighth chapter begins with, and it goes on very naturally to say, that here is the proof of our being really redeemed, if we are delivered from sin, and walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit; whereas, on the other hand, if we are not freed from sin, but still walk according to it, it is plain that we are not redeemed; that we are just in our