before us the distinction between the two parts of the Christian nature-when he says, that with the mind I myself serve the law of God, and with the flesh the law of sin. But ever remember, that it is the part of the former to keep the latter under the power of its presiding authority. The latter, on this side of death, is ever present with us; but for all that, it may not prevail over us. It may often be felt in its hateful instigations; but it must not on that account be followed in the waywardness of its devious and unlawful movements. Were there no counteracting force I would serve it; but, with that force in operation over me and because I am under grace, sin may have a dwelling-place but it shall not have the dominion.

When the matter is taken up as a matter of humiliation, then it cannot be too strongly insisted upon, that it is I who am the sinner; that to myself, properly and primarily, belongeth all that is vile and worthless in my constitution; that, even at the very time I am brightening into the character of heaven, I am ever reminded by the conscience within me of an inherent depravity that is all my own; and, even though this corruption is fast dying towards its final and complete disappearance, yet that it is under the power of an influence that cometh all from another. He who can say that by the grace of God I am what I am, may in fact have reached a lofty eminence of that ascent which reacheth unto perfection; and yet with truth may think and feel, that, in himself, he is altogether void of godliness. The shame of his original nature still adheres to him; and, although it be

fast giving way to the ascendant power of another and a nobler nature, yet, knowing whence it is that he hath derived both its being and its growth, the graces and the ornaments of the spiritual life are but to him a matter of gratitude, and not at all of glorying.

On the other hand, when, instead of being taken up as a topic of humiliation it is taken up as a topic of aspiring earnestness, it cannot be too strongly urged on every Christian, that he should be able honestly and heartily to say of himself, I desire after holiness-in very sincerity and truth it is the fondest aim of my existence, to be what I ought and to do what I ought-for the furtherance of the same would I pray and watch and keep my unceasing post both of vigilance and exertion—I take the side of all that is good and gracious in my constitution; and against whatever still adheres to me of the unrenewed and the carnal, do I feel an utter and irreconcilable enmity. His mind is with the law of God; and though the tendencies of his flesh be with the law of sin, yet, sustained by aid from the sanctuary, does he both will and is enabled to strive against these tendencies and to overcome them.

It is under such a feeling of what he was in himself on the one hand, and such an earnestness to be released from the miseries of this his natural condition upon the other, that Paul cries out in the agonies of his internal conflict-" O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death!" And I would have you to mark how instantaneous the transition is, from the cry

Evil is present himself for its

of distress to the gratitude of his felt and immediate deliverance" I thank God through Jesus Christ my Lord." This we hold to be the exercise of every true Christian in the world. with him; and he blames none but hateful and degrading instigations. But grace is in readiness, not to sweep away this evil as to its existence, but to subdue it as to its prevalency and power; and while he blames none but himself for all that is corrupt, he thanks none but God in Christ for all that is gracious and good in him. To use an old but expressive phrase, his soul is ever travelling between his own emptiness and Christ's fulness; and like the apostle before him when urged with any temptation, he recurs to the expedient of beseeching the Lord earnestly that it might depart from him. And the answer to this petition is remarkable. It does not appear that the temptation was made to depart from him; but it was deprived of its wonted force of ascendancy over him. It was not by the extirpation of the evil, but by the counteracting strength of an opposite good, that the apostle was kept upright as to his walk, in the midst of all the adverse and corrupt tendencies of his will. "I will make my grace sufficient for thee," was the Lord's answer to him. It was not that he did not still feel how in himself he was weak. The weakness of nature remained; but in that weakness I will perfect my strength, says the Saviour. And so it is we believe to the end of our days. There is a felt distinction between the weakness that is in ourselves, and the

ength that cometh upon us from the upper sanc

tuary. Even Paul was doomed to the consciousness that he had both a flesh and a mind-the one of which would have inclined him wholly to the love and to the law of sin; and with the other of which he kept the corrupt tendency that still abode with him in check, and so maintained a conduct agreeable to the law of God. Like him, my brethren, let us have no confidence in the flesh, and like him let us rejoice in the Lord Jesus; and so shall we be enabled to serve God in the Spirit— realising that comprehensive description which he gives of a Christian when he says, "We are of the circumcision, who serve God in the spirit, and rejoice in the Lord Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh."

322

LECTURE XLIV.

ROMANS, viii, 1.

"6 There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

THE term 'now,' may be understood in two senses -one of them a more general, and the other a more special. It may be understood as it respects the present economy of the gospel. Now, since that economy has been instituted-now, since the first covenant has passed away, and the second has been substituted in its place-now, that Christ hath borne the vengeance of the law upon His own person, and, having thus disposed of its threatenings against the guilty, can now address the guilty with the overtures of a free pardon and a finished and entire reconciliation-Now is it competent for sinners to embrace these overtures; and there is now no condemnation to those, who, having so complied with them, are in Christ Jesus. It is thus that the term now may be made to respect the current period in the history of God's administration-the reign of grace under which we at present are, in contradistinction to the former regimen of the law which has been superseded.

Or it may be understood more specially, as referring to the present moment in the history of an individual believer. He is now freed from condemnation-not as if the sentence of acquittal were still in dependence, but as if that sentence had al