ing much evil, but both attended with awful suffering, bodily and mental. The world, in its whole structure and administration, shows the goodness of God; but it manifests other qualities, so that as we look at it we "behold the goodness and severity of God." It looks as if, from the beginning until now, our world were meant to be a probation, a battle-field. And is not this the very view the Scriptures give of it, a contest between the good and the evil, a triumph and then true peace? "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." Our academic theists were refusing to look at our world under this aspect. Even some of our sentimental Christians were turning away from it. It is a curious circumstance that it is science that has recalled our attention to it. The fool, as he looks at these things, will say in his heart that there is no God; and the proud man will say, "Who is the Lord that we should obey him?" But he who is open to receive the truth, and the whole truth, will discover and acknowledge that we live in a scene in which there is the good, but in which there is also the evil, and in which it is evidently appointed by God that the good is to gain the victory, and “the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth" for it, and "the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption."

But in order to this a new power appears on the earth. And it appears in the person of One who is identified with man, being born of a woman, and bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh, and who

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yet descends from a higher sphere. The first man, notwithstanding his fall, was a great advance on all that had gone before; but the second man was immeasurably more so. "And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit." He is the representative, as he is the administrator, in fact the life, of this new moral power which came down from heaven. He fits in with all that has gone before. There were predictions of him in nature as well as in the Word, - predictions of him already fulfilled, and many more remaining to be accomplished. "Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me)." He comes in the fulness of time into a world which was prepared for him, not in the sense of being ready to receive him, but in the sense of needing him. In conformity with the very nature of our world, with all that had gone before he comes to engage in a struggle; he has to fight a battle with evil, and to gain a victory. He has, in accordance with the whole purpose of God in our world, to show his power by contending with the evil, and thereby conquering and subduing it. "Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed garments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, travelling in the greatness of his strength? I that speak in righteousness, mighty to save. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in wine-fat? I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me." This, in

accordance with the whole past of our world, — a world in which there had ever been the shedding of blood, a world in which there had been sin since man appeared; and here is One, "without father, without mother, without descent,” who has come to bear down all opposition and to remove every evil. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride prosperously, because of truth and meekness and righteousness; and thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies; whereby the people

er

fall under thee."

Closely connected with the work of Christ is another work; the one developing out of the other, as in all the operations of God. It was expedient that Jesus should finish his work, and go away, in order that another Agent might appear, and introduce a new life into our world. That life proceeded from Christ's grave, but is sent down by Christ from heaven. The Spirit takes of the things that are Christ's, and shows them unto us. A new life now manifests itself to us; not sprung from the earth, but descending from a higher region. It comes in silently and imperceptibly; so has life always done, the life of the plant, the life of the animal. "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." It is a reality, as every Christian can testify: "One thing I know,

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This is an

that whereas I was blind, now I see." assuring fact to the man himself, and others might do well to ponder it. "But by what he now seeth we know not." We can tell as little of the manner of it, as we can of the natural life within us, which we feel in every organ of our body; as little of its mode of introduction, as the man of science can of the introduction of life, or sensation, or consciousness. But the appearance of this new life is in analogy with all that has gone before, analogous to the appearance of plant life and animal life and human life; analogous, also, to what has preceded, inasmuch as, while it is something superinduced, it is not independent of what has gone before. The plant contains something higher than dead matter, but gathers up into itself all the properties of inanimate matter; the animal has sensation not in the vegetable, but retains and uses all the qualities of the plant; and man has more than the brute, but retains all the animal endowments. "So is every one that is born of the Spirit." Man has within his compound nature dead matter and living matter and sentient matter, and all his powers of intellect and feeling just as he had before; but he has something higher, controlling, enlivening, and guiding them. It is a new power, yet not separated from the old powers; but grafted upon the old, as the chemical is upon the mechanical, as the vital is upon the chemical, and the mental on the vital. There is no proof that, in historical times, any new species of animal has appeared; but here, in the human period,

There were

But it was

is a new power, suited to the new era. intimations of it in the Old Testament. fully revealed when our Lord "spake of the Spirit which they that believe on Him should receive." We thus see, more clearly than we could before these recent paleontological investigations, that there has been a unity in God's mode of administration on our earth, in all ages. We have new life appearing in the geological ages, and new life in the historical ages. No doubt it all follows laws; that is, order and progression. There was doubtless law in the appearance of species in the geologic ages. There seem to be laws in the operations of the Spirit. It is "like the wind which bloweth where it listeth;" but the wind has laws: so it is with the work of the Spirit in the soul and in the world. But in the case of the appearance of each of these modes of life, we see too little of the arc to be able to describe the whole circle.

We now see clearly the nature of the dispensation under which we live, the dispensation of the Spirit. There is, as there has been, in our earth, a struggle. But the contest is not between element and element, between the brutes and the elements, or between animal and animal. It is first a contest between man and nature, but it has also become a contest between the spiritual and the natural. It is specially a contest between sin and holiness. We see it in the heart of every man in the contest between the passions raging like the sea and the conscience that would restrain them. We see it in