we made no successful efforts to escape from it. Our minds served the law of God and confessed its excellence, but our flesh served the law of sin; and it was evident that the flesh was stronger than the mind, because our actions were according to the flesh, and not according to the mind. Immediately after this part of his epistle, St. Paul adds, almost in the words of the text, "There is, therefore no condemnation to those that believe in Christ Jesus, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." How like is this to what he had said before, "Sin shall not, or rather, will not have dominion over you, for you are not under the law but under grace." He means, that so long as we only knew our duty and thought that we ought to follow it, that we did not follow it, but that as soon as we loved it, then we followed it without an effort. Grace then makes us love our duty, and so takes the place of the law; we want no law to make us eat and drink so long as our bodies are in health; the natural appetite comes instead of the law, and how much surer and better does it accomplish its purpose. So it is with our souls, when they have gained a spiritual appetite for their food; the law is dead to them then, and their own

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inclination is far better than the law. Apostle says, that they who are in Christ Jesus have this spiritual appetite given them, that they love God, and, as being now the sons of God, whatsoever the Father doeth, that do his sons likewise: their seed remaineth in them and they cannot sin because they are born of God. But how was this wonderful change to be brought about? or how can we who are evil be thus made to love good things? The Apostle will tell us this also: "God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righhteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." There is much contained in these few words, no less indeed than the whole substance of the Gospel. Christ was in the likeness of sinful flesh, and as such he died but he was the Son of God also, and therefore he rose again. He put himself in our place, he died, therefore, as we were all destined to die; but because he rose, that was a sign that sin was conquered, and that we all should rise to life also. But he rose, because of the divine Spirit within him; and, in order to enable us to rise, the same spirit, though in far inferior measure, is given also to us. So then, because Christ died, we are forgiven;

because Christ rose, we have the Spirit of God given to us also, that we may rise as he did. And how does the Spirit act upon us, but by taking of the things of Christ, and showing them to us? It points out Christ dying for us, that we might live; it points out God opening his arms to receive us, forgiving all our sins, and calling us no longer servants but children, heirs of his own kingdom, of his own immortality, of his own holiness. Thus showing to us the infinite mercy and love of God, it awakens an answering love in our own bosoms; and holding out such a glorious prospect of our becoming hereafter the sons of God in glory and happiness and holiness, as we are already regarded by him with the affection of a father, so we strive to purify ourselves even as he is pure; and the glorious hope thus set before us, throws into the shade all earthly hopes and desires that might before have engrossed us. But more than this, the Spirit helps our infirmities, and works a secret change within us, without which the love of God and the glories of his kingdom would have been offered to our eyes in vain. Of this more hidden work of the Spirit we know nothing more than this, how we may work together with it, and how we may judge of its reality. The first is by watchfulness and prayer; and we may judge of

it by seeing its fruit in our holy lives, and in our pure and heavenly tempers. But as to the manner of its action, that we can no more tell than how God keeps us alive. Our bodily life and our spiritual life are alike derived from the self-same Spirit; but we are also in both respects fearfully and wonderfully made, and it is a vain presumption to try to look into ourselves for any other purpose than the practical one of seeing what is wrong, that we may endeavour to correct it.

So then, if sin shall not have dominion over those who are not under the law but under grace, under which of the two are we most of us living? I am afraid it cannot be under grace, for our lives and tempers bear but little marks of it; it must be then under the law. Yes, although the temple has been destroyed for more than seventeen hundred years, though the sacrifices are no more, and the ceremonies of the law of Moses are not, perhaps, even known by name to many amongst us, still we are living under the law. We are living under a system of fear and bondage, feeling a yoke upon our necks which we dislike, yet are afraid to shake off altogether. So we evade it as much as we dare, gladly laying hold of every excuse to persuade ourselves that it does not

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forbid what we wish to indulge in, and paying it only so much obedience as we do not think it safe to refuse. And therefore the law worketh wrath; that is, all they who so deal with God as with a hard master, disputing with him to the letter of the bond, and having no pleasure in doing his will; of them also God will on his part demand the uttermost farthing; he will say to them, "You knew or thought that I was an hard master, and to you I shall be found such; for I will deal with you in your own spirit; I will demand of you, since you think my service a task, whether you have fulfilled that task? since you feel towards me like slaves, have you rendered me a slave's obedience ?" "Christ is become of none effect to you," says St. Paul, " as many of you as would be acquitted by the law; ye are fallen from grace." Christ is the Saviour of those who love God, and who hate their own sins; not of those who cling to their sins, and fear and dislike God. My brethren, when we read about the law in the New Testament, let us not think that it does not concern us now; that it relates only to circumcision and to the rites and ceremonies of the Jews, which we do not practise; and that therefore we cannot be under the law. We can be, and too many of us are, under