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from them their self-vindicatory and God-accusing pleas. There is nothing to compel a man to sin, but his own free choice. Nor is this fundamental maxim opposed by the apostle in the quotation we have given. He was not writing to metaphysicians, nor to those who were excusing themselves on the ground of alleged necessity to do evil. He is merely referring to a plain matter of fact, and makes use of familiar and popular language. What he intends to say is simply this: that our remaining evil propensities sometimes set aside our more fixed and habitual purposes and desires of good ;-our cherished, characteristical, prevailing aims and wishes are occasionally interfered with, temporarily supplanted and frustrated by other dictates and impulses, to which our wills are sometimes subject. So that we can not do the things that we would: "i.e. what we most purpose and desire in our habitual thoughts and feelings, we are hindered from accomplishing, because our will is sometimes perverted, betrayed, entrapped and for the time enslaved by other and evil influences. The case therefore put, appears to be this:-Spiritual principles in the Christian are prevalent, commanding, and advancing; but they are still liable to interruption, to check, to hinderance, to disadvantage, and to occasional frustration from the opposing forces of sin just as an army may be superior in every respect, may have an advantageous position, may be gaining territory, gradually reducing its foe, and moving on towards complete and final conquest; and yet be occasionally harassed, checked in its progress, and in some instances enfeebled and baffled. The Christian knows and feels it to be thus. From conviction, choice, and taste, his mind is made up to

godliness.

He feels an overpowering constraint to He shudders at the thought of making it a question, whether he shall be so or not.

be holy.

It is the aim and scope of his life-his steadiest purpose, the object of his liveliest and profoundest interest.

It

is the absorbing desire, the commanding passion. "Whom have I in heaven but thee, there is none upon earth, that I desire beside thee." O that my

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"O how

ways were directed to keep thy statutes." I love thy law." These are the genuine indications of his habitual purpose and desire. And yet he is equally certain that this prevalent habit is broken in upon and disturbed by feelings of a contrary order. He feels that he is sometimes so far overwhelmed and driven from his loved and chosen track, as to begin to doubt whether he be not the victim and the slave, rather than the antagonist of the evil affections that have led him astray. He is conscious of being often injured, foiled, and beaten in the skirmish. He knows that he has not unfrequently to lament his failure, disadvantage, frustration of hopes and wishes, disappointments, wounds and losses. "He cannot do the things that he would." Does this point require to be more largely elucidated? Illustrations abound, drawn from the practical and experimental sources of a Christian's own feelings. He feels convinced of the necessity, becomingness, the loveliness and blessedness of a humble and contrite mind before God. Ardently does he desire and much does he labour for it. And yet how often, and how quickly do feelings of pride, vanity, and self-sufficiency gain an entrance, and sometimes an ascendancy! He loves and longs for conformity to the law of God. He "hungers and thirsts after righteousness." It is

his "meat and his drink to do the will of his Father in heaven." He aspires and strives "to be holy as God is holy." He pants to bear and to reflect the image of his God. And yet the felt stirrings of evil, the deep movings of inward corruption, constrain him to exclaim: "Woe is me, I am a man of unclean lips." "Behold I am vile!" He is persuaded that prayer, praise, reading the word of God, meditation, the services of the sanctuary, are means of glorifying God which constitute his privilege and honour, and feels that they are the life and joy, the guard and strength of the spiritual man; and yet through the aboundings of a worldly spirit, they sometimes appear uninviting and uninteresting, they are neglected, they are approached with reluctance, discharged with coldness, and leave no refreshment or savour behind them. He gazes with admiration and gratitude upon the character of his heavenly master, and is, so to speak, overpowered into the act of consecrating himself to the service and honour of him, to whom he is so indebted and whom he so loves; and yet how often does he detect himself in supplanting this generous and disinterested attachment by an unworthy and grovelling selfishness, and sacrificing his master's honour to his own narrow and carnal interests! He desires to be "spirituallyminded," assured that it is "life and peace," and, that without it, "it is impossible to please God; and yet he is often obliged to confess that he is "yet carnal and walks as men." Such are the contradictions, such the mortifying failures, and such the militant and harassed course of the Christian. cannot do the things that he would."

"He

The case we put may be observed in all the varieties of genuine piety, and in all the gradations of christian experience. The aim to glorify God is discernible in the deepest and bitterest self-humiliations, and indeed gives them origin, meaning, and intensity. "My state of being," writes the excellent Thomas Adam, "continuance in it, and every thing relating to it, is ordered by God in such a manner as he knows will conduce most to his own glory in my happiness and salvation; and yet I am conscious to myself of a settled adherence to my own choice, and a perpetual struggling against what he wills and ordains. What ground is here for humiliation! What further proof do I need of my corruption? And what a jest is it to think of setting up on the stock of a little morality or outward decency of behaviour, while this accursed root of impiety remains in us!".

I find that the chief ingredient of duty, the one steady invariable principle of true holiness, without which all I do is nothing, yea, no better than sin, has hitherto been much wanting: namely, a prevailing regard to the glory of God."...." I know I cannot, and if I might, I would not, be happy in any other way than by the love of God and his perfections, conformity to his will, desire to enjoy him, and assimilation to him in a will to all goodness. Yet I do not pay a sacred supreme regard to the will of God: I do not set it up as the mark I am aiming at in every thought, word, and action; nor embrace it steadily, instantly, cheerfully; nor live upon it as the food of my soul. I know why I am not happy." But whilst in these self-condemnatory expressions we perceive predominating regard for God, we likewise trace in the loftiest and warmest aspirations of

godly affections, a sense of hindrance, difficulty, and failure. But for this, Baxter's effusions would be seraphic. "In thee I expect my true felicity and content. To know thee, and love thee, and delight in thee, must be my blessedness, or I must have none. The little tastes of this sweetness, which my thirsty soul hath had, do tell me that there is no other real joy. I feel that thou hast made my mind to know thee, my heart to love thee, my tongue to praise thee, and all that I am and have to serve thee. And even in the panting languishing desires and motions of my soul, I find that thou, and only thou, art its resting place; and though love do now but search, and pray, and cry, and weep, and is reaching upward, but cannot reach, the glorious light, the blessed knowledge, the perfect love, for which it longeth; yet by its eye, its aim, its motions, its moans, its groans, I know its meaning, where it would be, and I know its end.

My displaced soul will never be well, till it come near to thee, till it know thee better, till it love thee more. Wert thou to be found in the most solitary desert, it would seek thee, or in the uttermost parts of the earth, it would make after thee. Thy presence makes a crowd a church; thy converse maketh a closet or solitary wood or field, to be akin to the angelical choir. The creature were dead, if thou wert not its life; and ugly, if thou wert not its beauty; and insignificant if thou wert not its sense. The soul is deformed which is without thine image and lifeless, which liveth not in love to thee, if love be not its pulse, and prayer and praise its constant breath. The mind is unlearned, which readeth not thy name on all the world. He dreameth, who doth not live to thee. Oh! let me have no other