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in paradise. God Almighty grant that we may all for ourselves both seek and know the truth, and that "these words" being planted deeply in our hearts, our anxious desire may be to communicate a knowledge of them to all around us, and to hand them down to our children's children to the latest generations.

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SERMON XXIV.

CONFORMITY WITH CHRIST.

ROMANS vi. 5, 6.

"FOR IF WE HAVE BEEN PLANTED TOGETHER IN THE LIKENESS OF HIS DEATH, WE SHALL BE ALSO IN THE LIKENESS OF HIS RESURRECTION: KNOWING THIS, THAT OUR OLD MAN IS CRUCIFIED WITH HIM, THAT THE BODY OF SIN MIGHT BE DESTROYED, THAT HENCEFORTH WE SHOULD NOT SERVE SIN."

"WHAT shall we say then?" abruptly asks the apostle in the first verse of the chapter before us : "What shall we say then? shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?" If the whole world lies so completely under the curse of the lawif "Christ died for the ungodly"*-if salvation be of faith only, so that "to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness”†— if "where sin abounded, grace did much more abound"—if, in one word, man is wholly lost, grace alone can save him through faith, and * Rom. v. 6. † iv. 5. ‡ v. 20.

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that "faith is the gift of God"-" then shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?"-" God forbid!" exclaims the apostle with holy indignation, and then by a course of illustrative reasoning he proceeds to show that it is impossible that these great peculiar doctrines of Christianity can be so perverted by any who truly embrace them. He argues that every believer in Jesus Christ is crucified with him, and dead with him; and "How shall we who are dead to sin live any longer therein ?" "We are planted together in the likeness of his death, and therefore we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection:" "buried with him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life."

Throughout the whole passage St. Paul takes a symbolical or mystical view of the circumstances connected with the death and resurrection of our Lord, and shows that they are typical of the great change which must be found in every renewed man. That as Christ was crucified, died, was buried, rose, and ascended into heaven, so must we be crucified and die with him to the world and sin, so must we arise to newness of life, and so must we in heart with him ascend to the heavens where he dwells. As without this conformity to Christ we can have no interest in his salvation, nor possess any well-founded hope

of eternal life, let us approach the subject with due reverence, earnestly craving the divine influence of that Holy Spirit by whose aid alone we can understand the deep things of God.

It is then asserted here that THE BELIEVER MUST BE CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST: "Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him."* Even in the days of his personal ministry our Lord taught this doctrine: "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." As Jesus himself went forth from the devoted city bearing his cross, even so must all his faithful followers tread in his steps. "As he suffered without the gate, let us go forth therefore unto him, without the camp, bearing his reproach." This figure denotes that the disciple of Jesus must be a mortified and selfdenying person; devoted to the service of his Master, and willing to walk in that path of suffering and sorrow in which he has gone before. But in the text, and in some other passages, the metaphor is considerably strengthened.. We are. taught that we must not only bear a cross after the Saviour, nor simply follow him to Golgotha, like the daughters of Jerusalem, but that we must be nailed to the tree, and with him be cru-. cified ! St. Paul declares of himself, "I am

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crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And again, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is CRUCIFIED unto me, and I unto the world." And of all believers he says, "and they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." It is thus that we are taught that the world can be overcome, and the flesh, or indwelling sin, mortified only by a process so slow and painful, that it may be compared to the torture of crucifixion. Sin and corrupt affections cleave to us so tenaciously, that to subdue and root them out is like "plucking out the right eye," or "cutting off a right hand." They are natural to us; and how difficult is it to repress nature! They are habitual, and we are the creatures of habit; and when long indulged, who can, in his own strength, conquer an evil habit? There is only one method of subduing our corrupt propensities-they must be crucified! We must, as it were, nail them to the cross of Christ-we must suffer with him-we must be stretched on the cross, desiring to slay every sin, and to be insensible to every temptation. Imbued with the mind which was in Christ Jesus, conformed to him in suffering, constrained by his love, and assisted by that Holy Spirit which he has pur

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