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Make the transition, my brethren, from death unto life, by simply laying hold on the gospel offer of reconciliation. After placing your full reliance upon this, then run with all your might on that heavenward path of righteousness and purity and love which leadeth unto the upper paradise. First trust in the Lord, and then be doing good. A workman to whom a tool is indispensable-you would never bid him work for the tool, but you would put the tool into his hand and bid him work by it. Faith is the alone spiritual tool, by which you can accomplish any right spiritual preparation. How can I love God-how can I maintain the gentleness of my spirit, under provocations the most artful and the most galling-how can I keep up the serenity of the inner man, while the voice of calumny is abroad; or a visible alienation sits upon every countenance; or plans misgive and prospects lowr and look dreary on every side of me; or, forsaken by all that is sweet and soothing in human companionship, I have nought to lean upon but God as the friend whom I have chosen and heaven as the home of my fondest expectations? The answer of the New Testament is—' Only believe— all things are possible to him that believeth.' This is the tool for all the high moral achievements of Christianity; and thus it is that your being now in Christ, with a present freeness from condemnation, forms an essential stepping-stone to your walking no more after the flesh but after the Spirit.

But-mark it well, my brethren. This distinction between the consequence and the cause, though it gives to the obedience of a believer its

proper place, does not make that obedience less sure. What the worldly or hypocritical professor thinks to be faith, is nought but fancy or something worse, if it be not followed by the walk of godliness. It is just as true as if your virtue were the price of your salvation-that there will be no salvation for you, if you have no virtue. There will be a personal distinction between those in the last day who stand on the right, and those who stand on the left of the judgment-seat; and the distinction will be, that, whereas the one abounded in good, so the other abounded in evil deeds done in their body. All that we have said was not with a view to supersede the moralities of practical righteousness, but to set you on the proper way by which to arrive at them. The ultimate design of the gospel economy is to make those who sit under it zealous of good works; and the reason why we should like the sense of your deliverance from guilt to be introduced even now by faith into your bosoms, is, that we esteem it the only instrument for reviving within you the love of God, or for causing to break forth upon your visible conduct the efflorescence of all that is virtuous and pure and praiseworthy.

To conclude my remarks upon this verse which has detained us so long, I would have you to be aware of this most important consideration—that the same believer who is represented here as walking not after the flesh, is the very individual who would take up the soliloquy of the last chapter; and have full share and full sympathy, with the toil, and the conflict, and all the inward bitterness

The

because of sin, that are represented therein. same man who feels the motions of the flesh, walks not after the flesh. The same man who is harassed with the instigations of sin, resists and refuses to follow them. He who was burdened, even to a sense of wretchedness, with the hateful presence of his wayward and licentious desires, would not submit to their tyranny; and while kept in a state of constant vigilance and alarm because of the warring elements in his bosom, yet does he so fight as that the evil which is in his heart shall not have the mastery over his conduct-So that, amid the opposing tendencies and inclinations which beset his will, still his walk is the walk of new obediencenot being after the flesh but after the Spirit. "Every man is tempted," says the apostle James, "when he is drawn away of his own lusts and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin, and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death." The believer is often so tempted, and even to his own sad grief and humiliation may he have described the previous steps of this process; but never is the process so finished as to terminate in death. He struggles against sin, and he prevails over it. There may be a sore and a desperate contest in the inner man; but the result of it is a body kept under subjection, whose hands are made the instruments of righteousness, and whose feet are found in the way of all God's commandments. Take my brethren the patent and accessible way that lies so openly and so invitingly before you. Wash out your sins even now in the blood of God's everlasting covenant. Come and

taste of the sure mercies of David. Receive the forgiveness of your sins; and, when delivered from the weight and oppression of your guilt—that sore spiritual palsy, then arise and walk. Tidings of great joy should make you joyful; and the tidings wherewith I am fraught are of that remission from sin which I now preach unto you, and which may be preached to every creature under heaven. The effect it had on believers of old was an instantaneous joy; and so should be the effect on all now who believe the same gospel. And joy my brethren carries a vigour and an inspiration along with it. There is a might of practical energy in the impulse which it communicates; and it is when the heart is enlarged thereby, that the feet run with alacrity in the way of all the commandments.

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LECTURE XLV.

ROMANS, viii, 2.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death."

Ir is of great importance for the understanding of this verse, that you be made acquainted with the two different senses that belong to the word law. At one time it signifies an authoritative code, framed by a master for the regulation and obedience of those who are subject to him. And so we understand it when we speak of the law of God, whether by this we mean His universal moral law or any system of local and temporary enactmentssuch as those which were embodied for the special government of the Jews, and have obtained the general denomination of the Mosaic law or the ceremonial law. According to this meaning of it, it stands related to jurisprudence-established by one party who have the right or the power of command, and submitted to by another party on whom lies the duty or the necessity of obedience. The laws of the Medes and Persians-the laws of any country-and, in a word, any rule put forth by authority and enforced by sanctions, whether it has issued from the Divine Governor, or from those who have the reins of civil or political authority upon earth -All are expressed by the same term and in the same sense of the term. But there is still an

other and very frequent meaning of this word,

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