exemplifications, that may be given us of this twofold announcement. It might be rendered clearer to you, perhaps, by a short paraphrase. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, by sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for a sinoffering-so as thereby to condemn sin in the flesh. And this he did, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.'

You will observe here, that the first step, was to make ample reparation for the injuries sustained by the law; and so by satisfying its rights, making a full vindication of its righteousness. Ere the sinner could be operated upon so as to be transformed, the law which he had broken, it would appear, behoved to have compensation for the outrage done to it. There was a need be that the threatened penalty should not be arrested, but have its course-that it should break forth into the open and manifest discharge, which might announce to the world both the evil of sin, and the truth and justice of that God who had uttered His proclamations against it: And there seems to be a further, though perhaps to us an inscrutable propriety, in the chastisement of our peace having been borne by one, who bore our nature-in the Son having been sent, under no other likeness then the likeness of sinful flesh-in humanity having had to suffer the vengeance which humanity incurred. And though it required the strength of the Godhead to bear the burden of our world's atonement-yet seemeth there to have been, in order to the

effect of this great mystery, some deep necessity that we cannot fully penetrate, why it should be laid on God manifest in the flesh, and who took not upon Him the nature of angels, but the nature of the seed of Abraham.

And so the incarnate God suffered for our world. For this purpose, did He become flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone. There were laid upon Him the iniquities of us all; and from the intelligible symptoms of a sore and cruel agony, that even the divine energies of His nature did not overbear, may we conclude that the ransom has been fully paidand so the worth and authority of the law have been fully magnified.

And this, it would appear, is an essential step to our sanctification. There behoved to be this satisfaction rendered to the law, ere they who had transgressed it could be turned to its love and its willing obedience. That law which was written on tables of stone, had to be appeased for its violated honour, ere it was transferred into the fleshly tablets of our heart, and became there the spontaneous and emanating principle of all goodness. The blood of remission had to be shed, ere the water of regeneration could be poured forth; and so the Son of God came in the likeness of sinful flesh, and became a sin-offering, and sustained the whole weight of sin's condemnation-And, after ascending from the grave, had that Holy Ghost committed unto Him, who was not given in abundance to men till the Son of man was glorified -and it is under the power of this mighty agent, that all who put their trust in Him, are

enabled to walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

Thus historically, the atonement by Jesus Christ took place, before that more abundant ministration of the Spirit, which obtains under the economy of gospel-And so also personally, a belief in that atonement has the precedency to a sanctifying op‐ eration over the sinner's heart. Not till we accept Jesus Christ as the Lord our righteousness, shall we experience Him to be the Lord our strength. Not till we put faith in that blood by which our guilt is washed away, shall we be free to love the Being whom before we were afraid of. Nor till pardon is made known, shall we be loosened from the bonds of despair, or at least of callous indifference —And it is only through a pardon which is sealed by the blood of divine expiation, that to peace with God we can add a practical and purifying sense of the holiness of God. It is thus that a belief in the propitiation, is as sure to regenerate as it is to reconcile; and the knowledge that Christ was condemned in the flesh for our offences, is that which gives impulse to that heavenly career, in which we walk no longer after the flesh but after the Spirit.

We read in one epistle of the ministration of condemnation and the ministration of righteousness. The former is that which takes place under the law, when its denunciations have their course; and, as all are guilty, all are liable to the tremendous penalties of guilt. The apostle says of this ministration, that it is glorious; and glorious certainly in the exhibition which it gives of the Godhead—

of that sacredness which admits of no stain, and would recoil from the most distant approaches of evil-of that pure and lofty throne, whence every award comes forth with authority inflexible-of that rectitude which will not hold compromise with iniquity at all, and, rather than suffer it to draw near, will send out flames from the awful sanctuary of its habitation to burn up and to destory it-of that jealousy, which, like a consuming fire, spreadeth abroad among the hosts of the rebellious, so that not one shall remain a monument of God's connivance at that which He utterly abhors—of a dread intolerance for moral evil, even in the slightest shades and degrees of it, so that, rather than deign one look of acceptance to sin, every sinner must irrevocably perish. In all this, says the apostle, there is a glory-yet there is another ministration, even one of righteousness, which excelleth in glory. It is that which takes place under the gospel; and under which all the former glory is kept entire, nay enhanced into a brighter manifestation. For there too, is the Law made honourable; and there the Lawgiver is evinced to be inflexibly just, and jealous of the authority of His government; and there the sacredness of Heaven's jurisprudence is made to shine forth, if not in the punishment of sin, at least in the atonement which has been made for it; and there the vengeance due to guilt appeareth more strikingly than before, by its transference from the head of the sinner to the head of the illustrious Substitute, who trembled and suffered and died in his stead. The glories of truth and of holiness are more highly illustrated under our new economy than un

VOL. XXIII.

der the old one, and with this additional glory which is all its own-that there merey sits in benignant triumph among the now vindicated attributes of the Godhead; and sinners, who else would have been swept away into an eternity of pain and of deep oblivion, are transformed anew into the righteousness which they had lost, have their place again in the family of God-a part among the hallelujahs of the unfallen.

Let me conclude with two practical observations. In the first place see, how, in order that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, it is not enough that we walk as spiritual men. The more spiritual in fact that you are, the greater will your sensibility be to the remaining deficiencies of your heart and temper and conversation-the more oppressive will be your consciousness of the weight of your still unquelled carnality-the more affecting will be your remembrance, every evening, of the slips and the shortcomings of the day that hath past over you-So that if you only had to do with the law, and if its righteousness were the condition of your acceptance with God-you, though making daily progress even unto perfection, would, by every new addition to your spiritual tenderness, be only aggravating your despair. There behoved to be a daily remembrance of sin; and this, if unmixed with faith in the great propitiation, would leave you heartless and hopeless as to all the purposes of obedience. So that to the last half-hour even of a most triumphant course in sanctification, you must never lose sight of Him on whom has been laid the condemnation of all your offences-the confessions