able for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for | expecting sanctification by the direct and immeinstruction in righteousness; that the man of God diate agency of the Spirit, without the use of may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all means, and in particular the diligent study of good werks" "Not more nicely adapted is light to the word. Reliance on the Spirit, and prayer the human eye, or melodious sound to the human for his help, are indeed indispensable; but reliance ear, or atmospheric air to the human lungs, than is presumption, and prayer a vain oblation, when the word, “which is truth,' to the nature and con- the word is not hid in the heart, and kept in stitution of the human mind. Nor, in point of contact with the soul. The province of the divine fiet, can this divine instrument be brought into Teacher is not to communicate any new reveladirect contact with our souls, by being understood tion, but simply to take of the things of Christ, and believed, without leading us to repentance, and reveal them to the soul; and it is superstition love, and new obedience; without informing the or enthusiasm to ascribe to his influence any intellect, renewing the will, quickening the con- light, or experience, or joy, which is without the science, humanizing the temper, and sanctifying warrant of Scripture to support it. The Spirit the life. In consequence, indeed, of our natural adds nothing to what is already in the Bible. depravity we are averse to the truth; and so His influence (let the comparison be made with effectually does this unhappy state of the heart reverence,) is but the telescope which renders visibar up the approach to our understandings, that ble the countless lights in the firmament of revewe require the Spirit to anoint our eyes and lation,-the microscope which discloses to our change our hearts, before we can discern its import wondering gaze the unsuspected glories which and excellence, or experience its moral impres- crowd every portion of scripture. And, as the sion. But still the word contains all the mater- stars of divine truth are shining on in their glory, ials of sanctification, all the doctrines which are and its minor lights and lessons all sparkling in to be believed, all the precepts which are to be the sacred page-though the unaided eye of the obeyed, all the considerations which are to move natural man discerneth them not, so the way in and influence us in the work of holiness. And which alone I can experience their genial heat apart from the study of its contents, we may seek and radiance, and through their assimilating all our life long for the aid of the Spirit, without influence become one with God and Christ and receiving one beam of heavenly light, or one drop my fellow-Christians, is not to turn away my of heavenly comfort! Comparing the soul to the gaze from these spiritual heavens, but habitually wax which is to be impressed, the word is the to observe and contemplate them-adding devout seal which communicates the impression, and the prayer for those enlarged powers of vision which Spirit the heat which prepares the wax for receiv- it is the province of the enlightening and quicking it; and just as it would be absurd to expect ening Spirit to impart! the intended impression to be made on the wax by applying the heat, without also applying the seal whereon the image and superscription are engraved, so it is unwarrantable to expect the Holy Ghost to sanctify the soul, without the study of that divine record which alone contains the materials of edification. The Spirit indeed, like the heat to prepare the wax, must be there; but the word, like the seal to convey the impression, must likewise be there. The one agency is ineffectual without the other; the word is necessary as the means of stamping the divine likeness on the soul; the Spirit as the means of putting the soul in a moral state capable of discerning the glory of the word and of being persuaded by it. And the doctrine, therefore, which every one who desires to be 'one' in character with the Father and the Son, ought habitually to remember and act upon, is, that while the word without the Spirit cannot, the Spirit without the word will not sanctify! Let me, then, guard against the error of FIFTEENTH DAY.-MORNING. 'Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid,' John xiv. 27. 6 WHAT Christ here bequeaths is doubtless the While he can have no true peace; for his conscious guilt | Redeemer confer this dying blessing on his peomust prompt him to regard his judge as his ple. Though it had cost him untold sacrifices to enemy, and to recoil with instinctive dread from acquire it, yet he had acquired it, only that he his presence-even as the untamed inferior ani- might have it to bestow; and when therefore he mals flee from the presence of man. But when gave it, it was with the cordiality of one who ever he is brought to look upon God as a recon- knew that it is more blessed to give than to ciled father through Christ, his suspicions are receive. And what he gave, he gave for ever; allayed, and his confidence excited. His soul for the gifts of Christ' are without repentance !' enters into peace. He realizes the Divine love to The world's gifts concern only the perishable himself, and he loves God in return. God looks body; but Christ's peace is designed for the down on him with the gracious smile of paternal undying soul. The world has nothing to confer, benignity; and he looks up to God with the which is not alike unsatisfying in its nature, and happy confidence of a forgiven child. evanescent in its duration; but the peace of Christ is a well of living water that springeth up into everlasting life. This 'peace' Christ was well entitled to bequeath. It was to procure it that he left his heavenly throne; it was to put himself in a position to acquire it, that he stooped down to the humble and sorrowful estate of man; it was to purchase it, that he paid down the immense price of his own most precious blood. It was his, therefore, by conquest; and consequently his to destine and bequeath. This 'peace' was a legacy worthy of Christ to leave. No bequest could have been bestowed more accordant with the design of his missionmore suited to the exigencies of his followers more desirable in itself! He might have left us riches, for the earth is the Lord's, and the fulaess thereof;' but what could the wealth of a world have done to heal our troubled hearts? He might have loaded us with honours, for 'both riches and honour come of him :' but what could all earth's heraldry have availed to rescue us from the misery of conscious guilt, or the dread of coming retribution? Blessed be his name! he has left us what is far more precious-even a holy peace of heart, which produces real and abiding happiness; which adds relish to the cup of prosperity, and sweetens the bitter draught of sorrow; which keeps the spirit calm in life, and raises it to a holy confidence in the prospect of the grave. Who that knows any thing either of the wretchedness of being estranged from God, or of the felicity of reconciliation, would desire a better legacy! 'Give what Thou canst, without it I am poor; And with it rich, take what Thou wilt away!' No wonder it should be said to those who possess such a legacy, 'Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid!' What, indeed, is there in the world that can reasonably disquiet the man who knows that God is his friend, and heaven his home! Equanimity is confessedly the grand secret of human happiness; and where is equanimity to be found, if not in the breast of him who has the peace of God to keep his heart and mind through Christ Jesus? What are the crosses and cares of the world to him who has cast the burden of all his concerns on the Lord, and feels that they cannot be in better hands? What is death, with all its gloom and ghastliness, to him who has committed his soul to the keeping of Christ, the conqueror of death, and believes that the grave is the road to his heavenly home? The peace-the transient, unstable peace—which the world can alone bestow-the peace which springs from lightness of heart, and briskness of spirits-or from unbroken prosperity or from carnal security, may well give way at the shock of adversity, or the approach of death. But it is amid these very scenes that the believer's peace may be expected, not merely to shine serene, but to gleam with refulgent lustre. It is when the cloud is darkest, that the bow of peace spans it with the most brilliant hues ! FIFTEENTH DAY.-EVENING. This peace' Christ bestowed-not reluctantlyTherefore, being justified by faith, we have peace or sparingly, or only for a season, as the world bequeaths its gifts; but freely, fully, and for ever. with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ,' Rom. v. 1. Not with the grudging repugnance of the IT must be obvious to every thoughtful mind, worldly man who would outlive his heirs if he that nothing short of a perfect righteousness—an could, and who relaxes his hold of the property entire and universal conformity to the divine law accruing to them, only when he can no longer -can bear the scrutiny of a holy God, or form retain it; not with this cold reluctance did the the ground of acceptance in his sight. Yet if able for doctrine, for instruction in may be pe good work the huma ear, or a the wor stituti fact, direc and lov i who can there be anything like dividing with Christ to rely the glory of salvation in this? Yet what is the m to so faith which is indispensable to justification— dience? what? but simply the believing of these things? An immediate result of this faith is 'peace dhe sky, by another with God—actual peace on the part of God d and towards the sinner, and sensible peace in the quaints sinner's own heart. Being justified by faith, by taking we have peace with God.' Peace with God' in precepts the sense of reconciliation on the part of God, is ught in an a self-evident result, or rather accompaniment, of is forth this justifying faith. In fact, it is merely another nen, clean and name for justification, considered as the act of ay attire himself. God: for faith, according to the constitution of is its superlative the new covenant, unites the sinner to Christsuch its infinite suf- attires him in Christ's righteousness-and consenication, that on the quently renders him an object on which God agh wholly external to may look no longer with the anger of an d of Adam may look offended Sovereign, but with the complacency heaven, and onward to of a reconciled Father. not only without tormenting l assurance of an honourable "Peace with God,' in the other and more common sense of peace in the sinner's own conscience, is a less obvious, but equally certain and immedis the sinner to become personally ate, result of justifying faith. It is indeed conthis vicarious righteousness? The ceivable, that God might be at peace with the Bach. Being justified,' says the sinner, and yet the sinner remain in his original by faith. Faith' here means not faith state of painful apprehension and suspense. The act abstractedly considered, nor even faith sentence of condemnation might be actually every thing which God reveals, but faith expunged, and yet the sinner continue ignorant the person and righteousness of Christ-faith of the blessed fact. Such a case is conceivable. clusive of its object. So long as the sinner But happily for us this is not the manner of God' without this faith, it is the same to him as if The fact that his Judge has become his Friend, no vicarious righteousness had been provided- is not kept secret from the sinner who flees to he remains in Adam, and consequently under the Christ for refuge, or left to be ascertained by him guilt and condemnation of sin. But the moment only after his faith has had time to evince its he has this faith, he becomes one with Christ; existence by its fruits. The faith by which he Christ's righteousness is put to his account; and he lays hold of Christ's righteousness as his plea to is held to have suffered for his sins when Christ the divine favour, brings him in contact with suffered to have fulfilled the law when Christ truths which assure him of his Father's forgiveobeyed. Not that faith is necessary as a meri- ness, and impart immediate confidence and hope torious addition to Christ's righteousness! Far to his bosom. In the very act of believing the from it! Faith is simply the empty hand that love of God as manifested in the gift and work receives Christ's righteousness: and it is wholly of his Son, he cannot but gather up a confident exercised in giving credit to truths which ex- persuasion of the friendship of heaven. Believpressly exclude all merit and boasting on the ing, as he does, that his Almighty Judge, so far part of the sinner. To believe that I am a lost from being irreconcileable, is full of concern for sinner, and wholly incapable of doing anything his well-being-that divine mercy has originated to purchase acceptance with God-can there be and executed a wise and benevolent plan for his salany merit in this? To believe that my restora- vation-that God himself has actually come down, tion to the divine favour is due, not in any mea- and, in the person of the eternal Son, brought in sure to myself, but wholly to the work done for a righteousness which magnifies the divine law, me by another—can there be any adding to the satisfies the divine justice, and is at once suffirighteousness of Christ in this? To believe cient and intended for the free justification of all that the way to honour God's law both in its who repose on it: believing all this—what can 1 and in its curse, is not to rely on my own the effect on his mind be but to produce peace— to trust to Christ for righteousness-immediate peace? Can his tormenting dread continue after he has admitted these things to be true? Can the voice of love and mercy from Calvary fail to hush the tremblings awakened by the thunders of Sinai?' Nor is even the consciousness of believing essential to his enjoying this peace. This peace flows directly into the soul from the truths believed, and may therefore be experienced in all its tranquilizing sweetness before the sinner has time to make his belief the subject of distinct contemplation. If, indeed, he is conscious of believing, his peace will be thereby confirmed; for this will justify him in appropriating to himself the promise, He that believeth shall be saved;' and still more will it be confirmed, when he is privileged to mark the fruits of faith in his heart and life; for these will assure him that his faith is indeed that which stands connected with the gospel promises. But irrespective of, and antecedently to, any such processes of self-reflection and self-examination, he may, and ought, to enjoy peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ. The source of his peace is not in his conscious faith, or in his conscious holiness, but in the gladdening truths which he believes. And as these truths produce their proper effects on the mind, irrespective of any reflex consciousness of its own operations, so he has only believingly to contemplate them, in order to experience the immediate influence of their consolatory import. 'Blessed,' says the psalmist, 'is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, and unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity!' 'Blessed!' No wonder! To know and feel that the Almighty God is pacified towards him, and that the infinite attributes of power, and wisdom, and justice, are set for his defence, instead of being arrayed for his destruction-what consolation can bear comparison with this? The assurance of God's friendship is no transient emotion which familiarity may render less gladdening! The light of a heavenly Father's smile sheds a steady and abiding satisfaction on the heart; and the man who is blessed with it carries a treasure in his bosom, which may well make the path of obedience sweet, and cause him to drink either his wine or his water with a merry heart! Do I possess this holy peace? If I do, let me be thankful for the blessing, and strive, by constantly looking to the Lord my righteousness,' to retain and increase it. If I do not but why should I not possess it? Is not the Redeemer's righteousness freely tendered for my justification? And will not God be more honoured by accepting me on the ground of that perfect righteousness, than by exacting at my own hands the punishment of my sins? Surely that which satisfies God, may well satisfy me! Surely that which is sufficient to turn away God's anger, and light up his countenance with a smile of reconciliation, ought to impart peace to my conscience, and restore confidence in my heart! SIXTEENTH DAY.-MORNING. And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us,' Rom. v. 5. THE hope here spoken of, as appears from verse 2nd, is 'hope of the glory of God. Of this hope the apostle asserts that it 'maketh not ashamed '— an expression which, though negative in its form, must be held, in conformity with the usage of scripture language, to involve the opposite affirmation, and consequently to mean, that the believer's hope, so far from being a cause of shame to him, is a ground of joy and exultation. Some indeed consider the apostle's meaning to be merely this, that the hope of the Christian will not put him to shame by being eventually disappointed. But this interpretation, though it conveys an important truth, and indicates the superiority of the believer's hope to the fallacious hope of the sinner, seems neither to fall in with the drift of the context, nor to come up to the height of the Christian's privilege. Throughout the passage, the apostle is discoursing, not of the future, but of the present, effects of the graces enumerated by him-faith, patience, experience, and hope. And instead of designing a contrast between the blessed fruition which shall crown the Christian's expectations, and the disappointment in which the hope of the sinner shall issue, his object is to show, that the universal tendency of hope to fill the heart with joy and the mouth with exultation, is experienced by the believer, no less than by those whose hope is directed to other and inferior objects. In short, his assertion that 'hope maketh not ashamed,' is but a reiteration, in another form, of what he more unambiguously teaches in the second verse, when he declares it to be one of our Christian privileges, that we 'rejoice in hope of the glory of God.' So much is it the property of hope to exhilarate its possessor, that moral writers have often, and most justly, cited the pleasure connected with it as a striking proof of the Divine benevolence to man. To Hope belongs the happy power of lighting up the present with radiance borrowed from the future. It is the wealth of the indi tinctness in his views, or some feebleness in his desires, or some wavering or weakness in his faith, if he does not feel himself warranted, from the very first, to 'rejoice in hope of the glory of God.' gent, the health of the sick, the freedom of the captive. It is our flatterer and comforter in youth; it is our flatterer and comforter in years which need still more to be flattered and comforted. Nor indeed can misery well be the inmate of any bosom which is warmed by its Hope, however, in common with peace, joy, glow! No man can be truly wretched till he and the other graces which spring up in the has come to the end of his hopes! But if even believer's heart the moment he embraces the gosearth-born hopes, however unsubstantial and pre-pel, is capable of increase and confirmation. carious, are fitted, by the law of our nature, to cheer the heart and gild the path of life, how sweet! how enlivening! must be the hope which anticipates and antedates the future inheritance of the saints. What an alleviation amid the sorrows of life, to be able to realize eventual admission to a world where all tears shall be wiped away! What a solace under the burden of conscious sin, to be able to behold in the distance the kingdom which is as 'sinless' as it is 'unsuffering!' Such a hope as this stretches along the whole path of existence, and may well maintain the soul in calm and unbroken serenity, whatever be our outward lot. It brightens the scenes around us, by bringing down upon them the reflected radiance of the fairer scenes beyond! It cheers a gloomy present, by drawing on the expected delights of a glorious future! It makes us forget the ruggedness of the ground we walk upon, by taking off the eye from our light afflictions, which are but for a moment,' and fixing them on the exceeding and eternal weight of glory! Nor can this hope ever be dashed by any doubt of the capacity of its object to fulfil our expectations. Celestial blessedness is not one of those things which hope, prone as it is to high-colour its objects, can gild with over-brilliant hues! The glories of heaven are ineffable and inconceivable! Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him! He who is privileged to cherish this lively hope, must possess in it 'an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast' to retain him firm and serene amidst all the tempests and troubles of life! This blessed hope, being based on the promise of God, and produced by faith in the mediation of Christ, may and ought to be cherished by the believer the moment he embraces the gospel. As soon as faith relies on the truth of the Divine promise, hope ought to wait for the enjoyment of it. The believer's title to heaven rests not on any thing in himself, but solely on the finished work of his Saviour; and never, therefore, can he acquire a better title than that with which he is invested on his first reception into the family of And in truth, there must be some indis Though his title to heaven be complete from the first, his perception of it may become clearer. Whatever tends to convince him of the reality of his union with Christ, and his consequent interest in all the blessings of Christ's purchase, must equally tend to give new force and vividness to his hope of glory: and as he grows, therefore, in experience of the fruits of faith, he cannot but gather fresh and ever-increasing evidence of his title to the celestial inheritance. In an especial manner is 'the love of God which is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost,' a confirmation of this hope. The knowledge that a living friend has remembered me in his will, may warrant me to indulge the hope of eventually receiving the legacy: but how much must it tend to strengthen this hope, if I am daily receiving fresh proofs of my friend's continued love to me! Such love I cannot but interpret into an assurance that my friend will not revoke the deed he has made in my favour. And can the believer draw a less cheering inference from his experience of the love of God? Nay, the man who has the love of God shed abroad in his heart, has more than an evidence of his acceptance: he has the seal of that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of the future inheritance he has the meetness for heaven, no less than the title to it: and it is impossible that he should not abound in the hope which maketh not ashamed! Let it be remembered, however, that the 'good hope through grace' is not produced, but only confirmed, by this and the other fruits of faith. Its sole foundation, from first to last, is the mediation and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ, and none but Christ, is the beginning' of the believer's confidence the anchor of the believer's hope! Nor is the fresh glow of expectation which warms his heart as he grows in conscious meetness for the final glory, a new feeling, but simply a reinforcement of that blessed hope which gladdened his downcast spirit when he first discovered the Bible to be — true, And in that charter read with sparkling eyes, |