in God's favour, and needed only to serve God in love. Similarly, when he is newly created in Christ Jesus, and living in the Paradise of God's perfect love, he needs only to follow the promptings of that love, and all his works are good.

(23) Therefore it may be said twofoldly, with equal truth: "Good religious works never make a good religious man; but a good religious man makes good religious works." And conversely. Thus everything, for good or for evil, depends on the person. The good tree will bring forth good fruit. Let the person, then, or character, be made right through faith, and the life will be right.

(24) But without faith, the person cannot be made good. Works, of themselves, are only artificially connected with the person, whereas they should spring from the person's renewed life.

(25) All this explains sufficiently, why in one sense we must repudiate works, while in another sense they may not be repudiated. They are, not a cause, but a consequence of true goodness.

(26) The above is true, not only of man's duty towards himself, in the mastery and proper use of his own bodily nature; but also of his relations to others, of his duty to his fellow-men. In short, we ought to serve one another in love, even as Christ, for love of all, became servant of all.

(27) The Christian man, then, may well be content with his faith, which gives him all that is in Christ, and constrains him, loving as Christ loved, to live for others as Christ lived.

(28) All such service is obviously the service of perfect freedom; even as Christ was free, and yet, in

free love, gave Himself for all mankind. We submit, like Christ, to restrictions for the sake of others; like Him, and for His sake, we render ourselves in sacrifice, and yet are free.

(29) Hence we may readily distinguish between true works and false works. Those are false, which have, as their motive, any thought of self-aggrandisement, any thought of attaining merit before God; those are true, which are wrought in love, the love that seeketh not its own.

(30) In conclusion, the Christian man lives, not in himself, but in Christ, and for others. "Behold, this is the genuine, spiritual, Christian freedom, which makes the heart free from all sins, laws, and commandments; which excels all other freedom, as the heaven the earth. Which may God grant us truly to understand and maintain! Amen."

It is unnecessary to trace the essential elements of the Christian Ethic through the details of this great argument. They shine conspicuous in all its course, almost in every sentence. Grace, faith, the abounding joy of faith, and an abounding love, working itself out in loving service, all for Christ's dear sake-this was surely a message worth recovering from the accretions of age-long superstition, worth proclaiming to a world that else must die in its wickedness.

3. LUTHER'S New Testament.

Perhaps Luther's supreme testimony to his fellowcountrymen was his gift of the Scriptures, in their own German tongue, and especially of that New Testament, in whose teachings he himself had found his spiritual freedom.

There were many pre-Lutheran German Bibles. The German, however, in which they were rendered was not such as the people, at least in Luther's time, either spoke or properly understood, and the translation was not from the original, but from the Vulgate. It is one distinguishing merit of Luther's Bible, that not only was the translation based on the original, but its language was the language, used in common daily life, of those that needed it the most, 'the common people.' Or, to speak more precisely, whereas the local German dialects differed greatly, and not one of them was of any commanding importance, Luther, partly by adopting a common German, as distinct from the dialects, and partly by giving it a vigorously idiomatic style of his own, made it, by his Bible, the inheritance of his fellow-countrymen.

It was in the latter part of 1521, while Luther was under friendly detention at the Wartburg, that he set to work on the New Testament, and, though working carefully, yet pursued the work so earnestly, that the translation was completed in three months, and by September 1522 it was published.

Accompanying the text was a series of Prefaces, or Prologues, to the several books. Most of these were very slight, but there was one of such exceptional importance, wrought hot from Luther's recent struggles, that it claims special attention. It was translated into Latin by Luther's friend and henchman, Justus Jonas, who frequently rendered such service to Luther and Melanchthon. Further particulars concerning it will be found in the third part of the present work, in connection with the great crisis in Wesley's experience. As is there stated, it is given

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complete in the Appendix, together with the tractate on 'Freedom' lately considered.

This PROLOGUE TO ROMANS consists of two parts the one an introductory account of the leading ideas of the Epistle, and the other a series of brief summaries of the contents of the chapters.

The first part is an interpretation of the words Law, Sin, Grace, Faith, Righteousness, Flesh, ́and Spirit, as used by the Apostle.

Luther well says that Law is not to be taken merely as meaning definite and rigid commands, but is to be interpreted as God's claim on the conscience generally. The illumination of the soul, as regards right and duty, is intended, by whatever means it may be conveyed. But the all-important consideration is that the Law, as thus understood, is not literalistic; it is wholly spiritual, concerning mainly the motives of the heart. A good motive, constituting a good work, involves the heart's love for the right, which makes the fulfilment of duty joyous and free. "So now accustom thyself to the statement, that doing the work of the law is a very different thing from fulfilling the law."

If the Law is so spiritual, so searching, it inevitably reveals man's Sin. By Sin is meant, "not only the outward work in the body, but all the activity that is astir with it, namely, the motive of the heart. Note also that the little word 'do' should mean, when man altogether plunges and is carried away into sin. For no mere outward work is in question, if man is quite carried away, with body and soul. And Scripture especially looks into the heart, and on the root and main source of all sin, which is unbelief in the innermost heart."

By Grace, and the gifts of grace, are meant the favour of God, or His merciful goodness, and the bestowal of Christ as a Saviour, with all the attendant gifts of the Spirit. The Grace that prompts the bestowal of the gifts is one and indivisible, unlike the gifts themselves, which are not altogether fulfilled in us, so long as the conflict with our evil nature lasts. But the grace, or favour, of God, into which we come by faith, remains inviolable, so long as we truly believe. Faith is to be carefully distinguished from mere belief, or opinion, which may be ever so orthodox, and yet have no power over sin. Faith is operative, it is practical, it is an energy, by which our whole being becomes transformed. Faith, therefore, though entirely different from 'works' of effort or merit, is nevertheless a living principle that must always work.' Works that are truly 'good' belong to a true faith, as inevitably as brightness and glow belong to fire. Such faith is inwrought by the Spirit.

Righteousness, then, is the result (not the reward) of faith. But, though it is man's privilege, and wrought in man, it is God's righteousness, and this in a twofold sense. God counts man's faith for righteousness, as being a stedfast belief in the grace of God that brings salvation; and He works, through man's faith, the effectual operation of the same grace, constraining man to give God glory, and to every man his due.

By the Flesh is meant, not merely the bodily nature of man, with its appetites and desires, but "the whole man, his body and soul, his understanding and all his mind; for the reason that it all lives and moves in him according to the flesh." Thus (Gal. v. 20) even heresy and hate are called fleshly works.