paradise-where righteousness will be the alone recreation, and the service of God be the very cordial and nutriment of the soul. And how is it possible, we again ask, that there can be any other way to such a habitation there, than the way here of aspiring and progressive holiness? What other education can fit us for such an eternity as thisbut the education of virtuous discipline, and guarded purity, and determined watchfulness against that sin wherewith the sacredness of the upper regions can have no fellowship? If heaven above would recoil from all contact with the pollutions of the world that is below, then surely, we who are aspiring toward that heaven, should keep our assiduous distance from them. The way of the disciple here, should be as distinct and as distinguishable from that of a child of this world, as the places are in which they will spend their eternity; and if it be through the way of sin that the one reaches his abode of death and condemnation, so surely must the other keep on the way of holiness, ere he can reach the abode of life everlasting.

Ver. 23. It is of importance here to remark the contrast which the apostle expresses in this verse, as to the manner of these two successionshow it is, on the one hand, that death follows in the train of sin; and how it is that everlasting life follows in the train of holiness. He had before likened the transition from the one state to the other, to a transition from the service of one master to the service of another master. And he before told us that he had done so, on a principle of accommodation to the yet remaining carnality of their

feelings and conceptions upon the whole subject. They were still infected with the spirit of legalism. They were still most familiar with the illustration of work and wages; and, accustomed as they were to the transition of a bond slave from one master to another, they could readily seize on that comparison-by which Paul urged upon them their emancipation from the authority of sin regarded as their old tyrant, and their allegiance to righteousness regarded as their new and lawful superior. But he now adverts to a difference between the two services, which it is of importance for us all to apprehend. The death that comes after sin comes as the wages of sin. Everlasting life, coming though it must do after holiness, comes not as the wages of holiness. It is a gift. On this footing must it be received at the last; and on this footing must it now be looked forward to by the expectants of immortality.

I

As to the first of these successions, namely sin and death as the wages of sin,—the very term wages, is expressive of the one, as being the fit remuneration of the other. We are thereby informed of death being rightfully the punishment of sin, or being due to it in the way of desert. have already endeavoured to show, that there is nothing in the tyranny of sin over the affections, that can at all exempt us its helpless slaves, from the condemnation to which sinners are liable-that the very strength of our inclinations to that which is evil just makes us the more atrocious, and therefore the more punishable—that had the necessity in question been a necessity against the will to do

wickedly, there might have been cause shown why sentence of death should not be passed against us; but when that necessity just lies in the very bent and determination of the will towards wickedness, then is it a circumstance of aggravation, instead of an apology, for our transgressions against the law of God. Let no man say because of the depravity of his own heart, and the unresisted ascendancy of sin over it, that he is tempted of God. The fact is that he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed; and the death, which is laid upon him as a penalty, is as much the natural as it is the penal effect of his own conduct. In being enveloped with the atmosphere of hell on the other side of the grave, because of his character on this side of it, he is simply filled with the fruit of his own ways he is just reaping that which he has sown. And as necessarily as anger disquiets, and envy corrodes, and avarice chills, and inordinate desire shakes the spirit into phrensy-as necessarily as the fierce or malignant passions of our nature, like so many tormentors' whips, serve to scourge or to agonise-so necessarily, as well as meritoriously, does their entrance into hell hereafter, follow in the train of all the iniquity that is unrepented of and unturned from.

And as hell is just the place suited naturally for sin, so heaven is just the place that is naturally suited for holiness. But while hell is both naturally and meritoriously the place for sin-heaven is naturally only and not meritoriously the place for holiness. Heaven is not so earned by man. It is given to him.

And you should advert to the dis

tinction so palpably, here held out by the apostle -that whereas death is rendered to the sinner on the footing of wages that are due to him, eternal life is rendered to the believer on the footing of a gift that is simply and freely bestowed upon him.

But mark in the first place that the circumstance of heaven being a gift, does not supersede the necessity that there is for holiness going before it. It may take away from the merit of holiness; but it does not take away from the need of holiness. The man who comes to the marriage feast must have on the marriage garment; though it is not the simple act of putting on that garment, which entitles him to a seat among the guests. His title there is simply the invitation that he has gotten; and yet it is quite indispensable that he comes suitably arrayed. He may not be able even to purchase the requisite vestments; and should these too have to be provided for him-should even the very dress in which he comes have to be given to him, as well as the entertainment that is set before him after he does come-It may both be true, that without the dress he could not have been admitted; and also, that, poor and defenceless outcast as he was, he owes nothing whatever to himself that all had to be given; and he, ere he could partake of that feast by which heaven is represented in the New Testament, had to be clothed by another's wealth as well as regaled by another's bounty.

Now this is just the way in which the everlasting life, that none can obtain without being holy, is nevertheless a gift. It is of grace and not at all of works. It is all of grace from the first to the

last-for the very holiness is given; and while of all sin it may be said that it is our own, because drawn away to it of our own lusts and enticed-of holiness it may be said that it is not of ourselves, but that good and perfect gift which cometh down. from above.

And as eternal life being a gift, does not supersede the need of holiness-so holiness being a gift, does not supersede the need that there is for your own stirring, and your own painstaking, and all the diligence both of your performances and your prayers. Still the progress is just as has already been set forth to you, from such small doings as you are able for at the first, to your growth in grace and in holiness afterward. And yet, even for the small doings, an influence from on high must have been made to rest upon you. It is by power from heaven that the work is begun; and it is by power from the same quarter that the work is carried forward, even unto perfection. In other words you cannot pray too early. Turn me and I shall be turned, may be a most pertinent and a most availing cry even at the outset of your conversion. You cannot too soon mix up dependence upon more grace, with diligence in the use of all the grace that has already been imparted. When you do whatever your hand findeth to do, you are only stirring up the gift that is in you; and if faithful in turning to account all that you do have, and watchful and prayerful for more, it is thus, that, from the more rude and literal services which you are enabled to render at the outset of your new obedience, you are conducted to the higher attain