says,

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When this contradiction comes, consider Him. You endure a little of it; you taste the cup; He drunk it up. When we would escape the cross, faith "Get thee behind me, Satan, for thou savorest not the things that be of God, but the things that are of men,"-in however holy a form this spirit presents itself. "Resist the devil and he shall flee from you: draw nigh unto God, and He will draw nigh unto you." We are weak and liable to get wrong, but "be not weary in well doing, in due season we shall reap if we faint not." There is a reaping time as well as a sowing time; there is a reaching the prize as well as a running the race. The Holy Ghost inspired the apostle to say to the Corinthians, referring to this race, "Knew ye not that they which run run all, but one receiveth the prize; so run that ye may obtain." All professors are running after something; they would say, after heaven, after happiness; and yet how short of heaven! how short of happiness! how short of Christ, is what their eyes are looking after! How many millions of baubles they are content with, and are set down short of heaven, short of happiness, short of Christ! "But one receiveth the prize "-every one whose faith is that which Jesus is the author of and the finisher of. What is the test? That Jesus is the object of it as well as the author and finisher. Three-fourths are sitting down short of Him, therefore He is not the object of their faith. "He that hath the Son hath life;" he must get Him; all is concentrated in Him. Then, so run that ye may obtain." The youths shall faint and be weary, the young men shall utterly fail, because Jesus Christ is not their life; they are commending one another or some other object. But may we be abased and humbled that God' may be exalted in us. "So run that ye may obtain," being the one bride of Christ. This is the "6 one that "receiveth the prize;" the holy Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. "My love, my dove, my undefiled is but one; she is the only one of her mother; she is the choice one of her that bare her. The daughters saw her and blessed her; the queens and the

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concubines they praised her." The Lord lead you into the substance of these things. Amen.

SUMMARY.-Are we so compassed by the witnesses as to be affected by their record? Then " let us,"

in brotherly love and holy agreement, "putting off
the old man," join in the exercises of spiritual life,
as compared to pursuing, digging, seeking, trading,
fighting, fleeing, entering in; all from Christ, and
in looking to Him. But have we salvation at

the end? and are we in the right way? . . . Then,
"let us run"-sometimes walking-but "wait on
the Lord." Religion must not be "in silver
slippers," but against all opposition.
aside "-in gracious tenderness.

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Lay

"Let us run

encourage one another. .. Christ the object, most lovely in His humiliation. . . . His joy and certain prospect (through sufferings of body and soul) was that His own should "be with" Him in glory. . . . Implicit faith caused Him to endure; and looking to Him, may we endure. . . . Now exalted, is He highest in our hearts? .. Awful delusions, flattering titles, are "dung and dross."

To be "found in Him will be all in death.

. .

His joy is to receive His own, and they feel a little of the same. . . . How near we may be to the river to the golden gates! . . . While golden gods are worshipped, He is maintaining His own, their "author and finisher." He will "bring forth the top stone;" He has the keys-"fastened as a nail in a sure place,"-"a sure foundation." Hang, build on Him. But we want daily supplies-in conflicts and "in deeps"-He, "the God of my life!". . . To escape the cross is from Satan.. "So run that ye may obtain ; mere professors stop short; but "one receiveth the prize," the " one" bride of Christ.

SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 23, 1873.

"He that spared not His own Son but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things.”ROMANS Viii. 32.

WHAT an awful description the apostle gives us in the former part of this epistle of the sad state of man by nature. How fallen, how depraved, how ruined, how utterly undone ! And there is no exaggeration in this or any other description God gives us; and hence, could we rightly look on ourselves and others as God has described us, what truly despicable creatures we should appear! Truly like worms of the earth; "less than nothing and vanity," in whom dwelleth no good thing, no, not in one; "there is none righteous, no, not one;" there is none that understandeth," no, not one; "there is none that seeketh after God," no, not one; all lying in darkness, in the deep, till it pleases God to operate in the heart and teach us what we are by nature, and the need we have for Him to take possession of our hearts and to dethrone him that hath dominion there, and Himself to be King of kings and Lord of lords. When the apostle brings these things to a summing up, he says, "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God;" testifying to the fact that, if your mouth be not stopped before God now, the time will come when it will be; for they shall call on the rocks and the hills to cover them and hide them "from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" But no rocks can cover them: the brightness of His coming shall discover their sin, and they shall bow to His righteous judgment against them. But, oh, could we now truly bow to this truth, that "by one man sin entered into the world and death by sin, and so death

passed upon all men for that all have sinned"! Nothing less than the aboundings of the grace of God, reigning

and ruling, can overcome the aboundings of sin; nothing but the grace of God, reigning and ruling, can overcome the reign of sin.

These are revelations the children of men are utterly unworthy of. Who could have conceived such things! Man must have sunk in the garden of Eden under the condemnation of his sin, had it not been for what was testified to the serpent, "Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast of the field. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise His heel." This truth has unfolded more and more ever since, and especially in the proclamation of the Gospel, "through righteousness unto eternal life;" bringing man from the service and dominion of sin-not from its workings in the members, but from the willing. service of it-from the unwillingness to be righteous. Ah! some are ready to say, "We are not unwilling to be righteous." Don't deceive yourselves; there never was any man willing to be righteous but by the grace of God conquering his own will. None are so unwilling to be righteous as the self-righteous. Never was the man in the parable more unwilling to be righteous than when he ventured into the wedding chamber without a wedding garment; and whoever that person may be who is seeking heaven by his merit, he is in no better position than he. The sentence of the King was, "Bind him hand and foot, and cast him into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Has the sentence of the King altered? No; not one jot or tittle. It shall share no better with any of the human race who are so found at the end than with him. But, "there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit;" for "now, being made free from sin and become the servants of God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life;" and that is the blessed result of God's grace taking possession of the heart-the gift of God, not of works lest any man

SO

should boast." And one so favoured as the Apostle Paul could well go on to testify of the vital union of such with Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour; and, that though naturally wedded to the law they are now dead to it, and married to another, that they "should serve in newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter;" and being thus blessed and taught, and having the firstfruits of the Spirit, yet they groan within themselves, "waiting for the adoption, to wit the redemption of the body." And they are encouraged to hope at times concerning these things, "looking for the blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." The earnest desire after and growing feeling of these things is described as walking in the Spirit. O there does seem such tenderness on behalf of God towards them; for, as Bunyan says, they are sometimes obliged to scramble on their hands and knees; sometimes indeed they run, and are sometimes favoured as to "mount up with wings as eagles:" but, perhaps, for the most part they are walking, secured from the lusts of the flesh, feeling the strivings of the Spirit against it, though they feel the lustings of the evil. There is no condemnation for such; no separation finally from the Lord. He who so secures them at the beginning and at the end, also gives them the middle. He tells us, "If we walk after the flesh we shall die," we shall lose our privileges, lose all power to walk in the light of His countenance; but, if we live after the Spirit, the blessed Spirit shows us our deficiencies, and shows us the help laid on "One that is mighty," that God has "exalted One chosen out of the people,' who is without sin, and yet, "being tempted, is able to succour those that are tempted." He helps their infirmities in their petitions. We know not what we should pray for as we ought, and we fear to presume. Do we feel this? We sometimes think, "I should be glad of that, but I know not; I want Thee to teach me; I want Thee to help me. Are we these poor, simple, needy children in the presence of the Lord? You may rely upon it, that the help of His Spirit is known and provided for such.