reason with themselves. Long have we sought, within and from ourselves, for the establishment of that perfect peace, which we have at last discovered can never be realized, except our minds be stayed on Christ as the Lord our righteousness. But now at length we trust in him. Our failures are very many, our deficiencies great. "We cannot do the things that we would." (Rom. vii.) But what then? The Lord Christ has already performed them for us. Our sins of commission he obliterates by the washing of his blood; our sins of omission he also annihilates, by presenting us with his performance of duty in the place of our non-performance of the same.' And with such a view of Christ's finished work present in the heart, is not its peace established? Assuredly it is. Nor can it be established upon evangelical principles in any other way. But some will presently object-Upon this view of the matter, a supine carelessness may be indulged in without fear. It seems that we need do nothing, for Christ has performed all for us already.' To which we reply, Truly he has performed all for us already according to the testimony of the Scriptures, for "he has made an end of sin, and has brought in an everlasting righteousness." But from hence the enlightened believer does not deduce the inference, that he is not bound to glorify God in his body and spirit which are His. He does not argue, Because the Lord Jesus so fully satisfied the Law for me, as to preclude the necessity of my satisfying its demands myself, therefore it is no more my "reasonable service to present my body a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable to God." Nor does he say, because Christ has overcome the world for me, and tells me to be of good cheer on that account, I am therefore at liberty to be conformed to its evil principles. He only infers, that

amidst all his conscious sins and imperfections in duty, Christ is and ought to be his peace; ever coupling with this conviction, the desire and prayer, to be holy as God is holy, and to be more and more conformed to the image of his Son. Truly the more perfect knowledge of our immunity in Christ from the constraining and condemning power of the Law, does not induce a greater sluggishness in the way of duty. Rather, when the soul is thus set free, it soars heavenward on the strengthened pinions of a more perfect love. And what, it may be asked, constitutes the spiritual fulfilment of the Law in the sight of God? Is it not love? We know that it is So. If love then be increased, as it must needs be, by our more ample perception and reception of gospel grace, how shall our zeal in working become diminished from this cause? The suggestions of such fears must arise, if not from a determined perversion of the truth as it is in Jesus, at least from such a gross degree of ignorance, as indicates too surely an utter unacquaintance with the principles of Gospel sanctification. The believer who is partly under the law and partly under grace, works from the impulse of mixed principles. By the power and constraint of his regenerate nature, he loves God and serves him from a principle of love. On the other hand, being still in a measure under the coercive power of the law, which he endeavours to keep for the purpose of establishing his peace of conscience, he works, not from the constraint of love, but to do good, as he supposes, to himself, and to secure his own mind from disquietude. But the more advanced Christians, and those who are denominated fathers in reference to their knowledge of Christ, having ceased altogether from their own works as affording any, even the least ground of peace, now repose in their conscious

possession of the righteousness of their almighty friend, whom now they love with a more perfect love, (commensurate with their perception of his vast gift,) and desire to serve more unfeignedly and unreservedly, by the entire dedication of themselves, body, soul, and spirit to his service.

But are the fathers whom our Apostle addresses as having known him that is from the beginning, fully satisfied with this highest, last attainment of spiritual knowledge? Do they now consider themselves so wise, that they have nothing more to learn? If questioned, they will say, by no means; for we still "follow on to know the Lord." We do not count ourselves to have attained all that may be known of Jesus. Rather, we reject the monstrous thought, and desire more and more perfectly to "apprehend that, for which also we are apprehended of Christ Jesus." Still we know but in part, and see as through a glass darkly." Our light is bright compared with what it was, but it has not yet reached its noonday splendour. Believing in Jesus, and his finished work wrought out for us, we love him, and rejoice with a joy unspeakable; but our prayer is still for larger manifestations of his grace and love; "that we may comprehend with all saints, what is its breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with all the fulness of God."

15. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the

Father is not in him.

16. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

17. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof : but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

Love not the world," &c. It has been observed by a critical commentator, in connexion with this admonition, that John's exhortation affords a proof that he did not address this epistle to the Jewish Christians in Judea and Galilee for that after the war had commenced with the Romans, it would have been unnecessary to admonish those who were subject to so many evils not to love the world; this caution being suited to persons in easy circumstances and in prosperity, rather than to those whose state of adversity would of itself secure them from being ensnared by the allurements which might be dangerous to others. But such a limitation must be rejected as unscriptural and untrue. The apostle's admonition is of universal application, and alike suitable to Christians in adversity and in prosperity; to love the world, being the natural propensity of the heart, in all circumstances and conditions of human life. And this the believer knows, for he has proved the sin and vanity of his own mind in this particular, and its proneness to over-value the things seen and temporal. Above all, the fathers in Christ are aware of the universal necessity of the admonition, for they are best acquainted with the nature and force of that twofold impulse from without and from within, which threatens, if it be not constantly resisted, to bring the believer into bondage to this present evil world. But how should such an exhortation as this of the Apostle's, be unnecessary to suffering and persecuted Christians? Surely there is a peculiar necessity that such should cease from the love of the world, their very lives, it may be, being in jeopardy every hour. For

the love of life is the love of the world, and the persecuted followers of Jesus may be in danger of counting their lives dear unto them. Truly all are in peril from this affection, which still cleaves to us in our present imperfect state of faith and sanctification; and it must be mortified in us, lest it produce on our part a reluctance to depart and to be with Jesus; an unwillingness to be absent from the body, although by that absence we obtain the presence of the Lord.

The love of the world is a love of very wide extent.. It embraces all the objects of natural desire, for nothing is excluded from its grasp; and it is excited by a sense of the present value of the things that are seen and temporal, without any reference to God as their author. Now it is evident that the world comprises, all that is in the world, the things of the world, and also the persons of the world; although of the latter we are emphatically instructed by our divine teacher, that some are not of the world, even as he himself was not of the world, (John xv. 19; xvii. 14,) and these we are not only permitted, but commanded to love. (John xv. 12-17, &c.) And how awfully does our apostle enforce his admonition not to love the world, by his subsequent declaration, that " if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." These words pierce deeply into the believer's heart, and if made effective by the Holy Ghost, are "quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, dividing asunder the soul and spirit, and judging the thoughts and intents of the heart." How greatly does the child of God fear and tremble, lest the love of this present evil world be found in him. He knows that he has by nature a heart deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and that he cannot himself fathom its hidden guile.

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