Now we maintain again that this rectifying medium must be the person and work of the Savior. In other words, we must make the truth of God's love, truth" as it is in Jesus," and then, at one and the same time, we shall know how ample is the love, and be guarded against abusing it. When we observe that God loved us so well as to give his Son to death for us, we perceive that the immenseness of this love leaves imagination far behind in her least-fettered soarings. But when we also observe that love, so unheard of, could not advance straight to the rescue of its objects, but must wait, ere it could breathe words of forgiveness to the fallen, the outworkings of a task of ignominy and blood; there must vanish, at once, the idle expectancy of a tenderness not proof against the cry of despair, and we must learn (unless we wilfully close the mind against conviction) that the love of a holy, and righteous, and immutable Being is that amazing principle, which can stir the universe in our behalf during the season of grace, and yet, as soon as that season have terminated, resign us unhesitatingly to the ministry of vengeance. Thus, take the truth of God's love out of Jesus, and you will dress up a weak and womanish sympathy, which cannot permit the punishment of the disobedient. But, on the other hand, take this truth" as it is in Jesus," and you have the love immeasurable in its stature, but uncompromising in its penalties; eager to deliver the meanest who repents, yet nerved to abandon the thousands who die hardened; threat ening, therefore, the obdurate in the very degree that it encourages the penitent and when you thus contrast truth" as it is in Jesus," with truth as it is out of Jesus, you will more and more recognize the power and the worth of the expression, that the Ephesians had been taught "as the truth is in Jesus."

We might employ this kind of illustration in regard to other attributes of God. We might show you that correct and practical views of the truths of God's faithfulness, God's holiness, God's wisdom, are only to be derived from the work of redemption; and this would be showing you that truth must be truth as it is in Jesus," if we

would acquaint ourselves with the character of God. But we wave the further prosecution of our first head of discourse, and ask attention to a few remarks which have to do with the second.

We divided truth into two great departments; truth which relates to the character of God, truth which relates to the condition of man. We proceed, therefore, to affirm, in reference to the condition of man, that truth, if rightly understood, or thoroughly influential, must be truth" as it is in Jesus." We find it admitted, for example, in most quarters, that man is a fallen being, with faculties weakened, if not wholly incapacitated for moral achievement. Yet this general admission is one of the most heartless, and unmeaning things in the world. It consists with the harboring pride and conceit. It tolerates many forms and actings of self-righteousness. And the matter-of-fact is, that man's moral disability is not to be described, and not understood theoretically. We want some bold, definite, and tangible measurements. But we shall find these only in the work of Christ Jesus. I learn the depth to which I have sunk, from the length of the chain let down to updraw me. I ascertain the mightiness of the ruin by examining the machinery of restoration. I gather that I must be, in the broadest sense, unable to effect deliverance for myself, from observing that none less than the Son of the Highest had strength enough to fight the battles of our race. Thus the truth of human apostacy, of human corruption, of human helplessness-how shall this be understood truth and effective? We answer, simply through being truth

as it is in Jesus." In the history of the Incarnation and Crucifixion we read, in characters not to be misinterpreted, the announcements, that man has destroyed himself, and that, whatever his original powers, he is now void of ability to turn unto God, and do things well-pleasing in his sight. You do not, indeed, alter these truths, if you destroy all knowledge of the Incarnation and Crucifixion. But you remove their massive and resistless exhibition, and leave us to our own vague and partial computations. We have nothing practical to which to appeal, no

We add that the law of God, which has been given for the regulation of our conduct, is a wonderful compendium of truth. There is not a single working of wickedness, though it be the lightest and most secret, which escapes the denouncements of this law; so that the statute-book proves itself truth by delineating, with an unvarying accuracy, the whole service of the father of lies. But who knows any thing of this truth, unless acquainted with the law as expounded and fulfilled by Christ? Christ in his discourses expanded every precept, and in his obedience exhibited every demand. He, therefore, who would know the truth which there is in the law, must know this truth "as it is in Jesus." He moreover, who would not be appalled by this truth, must view it as it is in Jesus." Know ledge of the law would crush a man, if unaccompanied by the consciousness that Christ obeyed the law in his stead. So that truth as it is in Jesus," this is knowledge, and this is comfort. And finally-for we must hurry over ground where there is much which might tempt us to linger-look at the context of the words under review, and you will find that truth" as it is in Jesus," differs from that truth as it is out of Jesus, in being a sanctifying thing. The Ephesians were "taught as the truth is in Jesus," to "put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts." Hence-and this after all is the grand distinction-truth, "as it is in Jesus," is a thing of the heart; whereas truth, as it is out of Jesus, is a thing of the head. Dear Brethren, ye cannot be too often told that without holiness " no man shall see the Lord." Hebrews, 12, 14. If no vigorous process of sanctification be going on within, we are destitute of the organs by

the characters in which truth is graven on the Savior: and therefore, though we may read it in books and manuscripts, on the glorious scroll of the heavens, and in the beautiful tracery of forest and mountain, we can never peruse it as written in the person and work of God's only and well-beloved Son. The mortification of the fleshthe keeping under the body-the plucking out the offending right eye-the cutting off the offending right handthese, so to speak, are the processes of tuition by which men are taught "as the truth is in Jesus." Sanctification conducts to knowledge, and then knowledge speeds the work of sanctification.

We beseech you, therefore, that ye strive, through God's grace, to give yourselves to the business of putting off the old man. Will ye affirm that ye believe there is a heaven, and yet act as though persuaded that it is not worth striving for? Believe, only believe, that a day of coronation is yet to break on this long-darkened globe, and the sinews will be strung, like those of the wrestlers of old, who saw the garlands in the judges hands, and locked themselves in an iron embrace. Strive-for the grasp of a destroyer is upon you, and if ye be not wrenched away, it will palsy you, and crush you. Strive-for the foe is on the right hand, on the left hand, before you, behind you; and ye must be trampled under foot, if ye struggle not, and strike not, as those who feel themselves bound in a deathgrapple. Strive-there is a crown to be won-the mines of the earth have not furnished its metal, and the depths of the sea hide nothing so radiant as the jewels with which it is wreathed. Strive--for if ye gain not this crown

Alas! alas! ye must have the scorpions for ever round the forehead, and the circles of that flame which is fanned by the breath of the Almighty's displeasure.

Strive then, but strive in the strength of your risen Lord, and not in your own. Ye know not how soon that Lord may come. Whilst the sun walks his usual path on the firmament, and the grass is springing in our fields, and merchants are crowding the exchange, and politicians jostling for place, and the

voluptuous killing time, and the avaricious counting gold, "the sign of the Son of Man," Matthew, 24: 30, shall be seen in the heavens, and the august throne of fire and of cloud be piled for judgment. Be ye then persuaded. If not persuaded, be ye alarmed. There is truth in Jesus which is terrible, as well |

The writings of St. Paul, occupying, as they do, a large portion of the New Testament, treat much of the sublimer and more difficult articles of Christianity. It is undeniable that there is a great deal made known to us by the Epistles, which could only imperfectly, if at all, be derived from the Gospels. We have the testimony of Christ himself that he had many things to say to his disciples, which, whilst he yet ministered on earth, they were not prepared to receive. Hence it was altogether to be expected that the New Testament would be, what we find it, a progressive book; the communications of intelligence growing with the fuller opening out of the dispensation. The deep things of the sovereignty of God; the mode of the justification of sinners, and its perfect consistence with all the attributes of the Creator; the mysteries bound up in the rejection of the Jew and the calling of the Gentile; these enter largely into the Epistles of St. Paul, though only faintly intimated by writers who precede him in the canon of Scripture. And it is a natural and unavoidable consequence on the greater abstruseness of the topics which are

handled, that the apostle's writings should present greater difficulties to the Biblical student. With the exception of the Book of Revelation, which, as dealing with the future, is necessarily hard to be interpreted, the Epistle to the Romans is probably that part of the New Testament which most demands the labors of the commentator. And though we select this epistle as pre-eminent in difficulties, we may say generally of the writings of St. Paul, that, whilst they present simple and beautiful truths which all may understand, they contain statements of doctrine, which, even after long study and prayer, will be but partially unfolded by the most gifted inquirers. With this admission of difficulty we must join the likelihood of misconception and misapplication. Where there is confessedly obscurity, we may naturally expect that wrong theories will be formed, and erroneous inferences deduced. If it be hard to determine the true meaning of a passage, it can scarcely fail that some false interpretation will be advanced, or espoused, by the partisans of theological systems. If a man have error to maintain, he will turn for support to

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passages of Scripture, of which, the real sense being doubtful, a plausible may be advanced on the side of his falsehood. If, again, an individual wish to persuade himself to believe tenets which encourage him in presumption and unholiness, he may easily fasten on separate verses, which, taken by themselves, and without concern for the analogy of faith, seem to mark out privileges superseding the necessity of striving against sin. So that we can find no cause of surprise in the fact, that St. Peter should speak of the Epistles of St. Paul as wrested by the "unlearned and unstable" to their own destruction. He admits that in these Epistles are some things hard to be understood." And we consider it, as we have just explained, a necessary consequence on the difficulties, that there should be perversions, whether wilful or unintentional, of the writings. But you will observe, that, whilst St. Peter confesses both the difficulty and the attendant danger, he gives not the slightest intimation that the Epistles of St. Paul were unsuited to general perusal. The Roman Catholic, when supporting that tenet of his church which shuts up the Bible from the laity, will appeal confidently to this statement of St. Peter, arguing that the allowed difficulty, and the declared danger, give the Apostle's authority to the measure of exclusion. But certainly it were not easy to find a more strained and far-fetched defence. Had St. Peter intended to infer, that, because obscurity and abuse existed, there ought to be prohibition, it is altogether unaccountable that he did not lay down the inference. A fairer opportunity could never be presented for the announcement of such a rule as the Roman Catholic advocates. And the mere finding, that, when an inspired writer speaks of the dangers of perusal, he gives not even a hint which can be tortured into sanction of its prohibition, is, in itself, so overpowering a witness to the right of all men to read the Bible for themselves, that we wonder at the infatuation of those who can appeal to the passage as supporting a counter-opinion. You will observe that whilst St. Peter speaks only of the writings of St. Paul as presenting "things hard to be understood," he extends to

the whole Bible the wresting of the unlearned and unstable. So that, when there is wanting that chastened, and teachable, and prayerful disposition, which should always be brought to the study of Scripture, the plainest passages and the most obscure may be equally abused. After all, it is not so much the difficulty which makes the danger, as the temper in which the Bible is perused. And if St. Peter's statement prove any thing, it proves that selections from Holy Writ, such as the papist will allow, are to the full as fraught with peril as the unmutilated volume; and that, therefore, unless a man is to read all, he ought not to read a line. We cannot but admire the manner in which the apostle has expressed himself. If he had specified difficulties; if he had stated that it was upon such or such points that St. Paul's Epistles, or the Scriptures in general, were obscure; those who are disposed to give part, and to keep back part, might have had a ground for their decision, and a rule for their selection. But since we have nothing but a round assertion that all the Scriptures may be, and are, wrested by the unlearned and unstable, there is left us no right of determining what is fit for perusal and what is not fit; so that, in allowing a solitary verse to be read, we run the same risk as in allowing every chapter from the first to the last. Thus we hold it clear to every candid inquirer, that our text simply proves the necessity of a right temper to the profitable perusal of the Bible. It gives no such exclusive characteristic to the writings of St. Paul, as would warrant our pronouncing them peculiarly unsuited to the weak and illiterate. If it sanction the withdrawment of any part of the Bible, it imperatively demands the withdrawment of the whole. And forasmuch as it thus gives not the shadow of authority to the selection of one part and the omission of another; and forasmuch, moreover, as it contains not the remotest hint that danger is a reason for shutting up the Scriptures; we rather learn from the passage, that free as the air should be the Bible to the whole human population, than that a priesthood, sitting in assize on its contents, may dole out fragments of the word, or keep it, if they please, undividedly to themselves.