As he realizes the sufferings of Christ in his which evil cannot but languish, and holiness stead, he cannot but conclude that the sin which strengthen;-this is 'newness of life!' required such a costly sacrifice to expiate it, is a thing essentially and utterly abominable; while the view which is presented of the Saviour's disinterested love, cannot but send the lesson home with constraining power to his heart. The thought that a divine Redeemer pitied and loved him so tenderly as to submit to bleed and die for his deliverance, is even more touching than the thought that sin is such an evil that no inferior sacrifice could have atoned for it; and while he looks, therefore, at the cross, his own heart must be pierced with contrition-his own soul melted to penitence, the love of sin killed, and the resolution spontaneously formed to turn from all iniquity. O, there is no fear of the interests of holiness suffering from faith in the free pardon of sin! Clog the justification of a sinner with qualifying conditions, and men may remain dead in sin; for by thus limiting its freeness, you rob it of all power to melt and subdue the heart. But let its unfettered freeness be seen-let sinners perceive that they do not require to labour for pardon, but simply to accept the pardon which a gracious Saviour has already purchased, and their souls will be drawn to Christ with a force of affection sufficient to emancipate them from the tyranny of evil! He 'Talk they of morals, O thou bleeding Lamb, The grand morality is love of Thee!' The believer's union with Christ is thus not only the source of his sanctification, but a stimulant to it. And what his union thus enables and induces him to aim at, his public profession as a Christian pledges him to pursue. He has been baptized into the death of Christ,-nay, 'buried with Christ in baptism;' and in the act of emerging from the mystical waters into the open air of heaven, he has virtually declared that he is washed from the guilt and pollution of sin, that he may henceforward walk in the beauty of holiness. Baptism, indeed, is only a sign of the communicated purity of the Christian; nor is the language of the apostle to be regarded as expressive of an inseparable connection, far less an actual identity, between the outward rite and the spiritual grace. Baptism is called a death unto sin by a common rhetorical figure, in the same way as the elements in the Lord's supper are denominated the body and blood of Christ. Still this sacrament-though only an emblem— is a most impressive one; and by partaking of it, the believer necessarily proclaims his death unto sin, and resurrection to holiness. By giving myself to Christ in a mental act, I do indeed lay myself under invincible obligations to walk with him in newness of life: but by publicly avouching my union with him at baptism, I add the solemnity of a vow to the sacredness of an act of self-surrender. Like the youthful Carthaginian, I swear at the altar of the Lord an eternal and irreconcilable enmity with the devil, the world, and the flesh; and now no compromise may be entered into, no armistice may be negociated! My dismissal from the Church militant to the Church triumphant, can alone be allowed to terminate the contest! THIRTEENTH DAY.-EVENING. That they may adorn the doctrine of God our Nor is a view of his union with Christ as his tal head less sanctifying to the believer, than 1 persuasion of union with him as his substitute. When he looks to Christ as a risen and reigning Saviour, what does he behold but an argument encouragement to newness of life? Is not Christ exalted to give life to his people? Is He et entrusted with the 'well of life?' Is it not dis office to dispense the Spirit-to intercede for people, and to ensure their sanctification? Is not, in short, their life, insomuch that it is t so much they that are alive, as Christ that eth in them? Can such considerations be ther than most purifying, most consolatory? THE leading phrase in this verse-adorn the I feel that I am one with a Saviour thus exalted doctrine of God'-may sound strange to some nd thus occupied, that I am a member of readers. What, they may ask, is it possible to at mystical body through which the Spirit, adorn' the doctrine of God?-to embellish, by ured without measure on the Head, freely human comment or human practice, the pure and abundantly circulates,-that indissolubly perfect truths of the gospel-the truths which, aited to him, I have continual access to his ful-instead of needing the foreign aid of ornament, , and am sure of being ultimately made to are in his glory:-why this is to live in a in far removed above the world of sin and th, this is to breathe an atmosphere in are 'when unadorned, adorned the most?" To 'To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, Yet there is a sense in which it is practicable | eyes of the brethren, but the homely and every to 'adorn' the doctrine of God. The design, let day duties which pass under the eye of the world. it be remembered, of 'adorning' an object is not Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own so much to add to its intrinsic value or beauty, as masters, and to please them well in all things; to commend it to the admiration of beholders; not answering again, not purloining, but showing and to this it is by no means essential that the all good fidelity, that (thus) they may adorn the thing which recommends, should be superior, or doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.' even equal, to the thing recommended. A fine scholar may obviously reflect credit on his teacher, and so recommend him to others though the attainments of the pupil fall greatly below those of the preceptor. And in like manner a Christian may shed lustre on the lessons of the gospelbear living witness to its hallowing and gladdening influence—and thus commend it to the admiration and acceptance of others; even though the best illustration he is able to offer, whether by his lips or by his life, come immeasurably short of its intrinsic excellence and glory. In this verse, however, there is more to surprise the reader than the terms in which it is expressed. Who are the persons whom the apostle expects and requires to ‘adorn' or recommend the doctrine of God? Are they persons whose stations or offices invest them with peculiar facilities for influencing their fellow-men? Men of rank, who occupy a position in society whence all may behold their virtues? Ministers of Christ, whose office furnishes them with constant opportunities of expounding the principles, and exemplifying the spirit of the gospel? Martyrs, who lead the van of the Christian host, and are necessarily ‘a spectacle, to men and angels?' Not at all! It is of persons of a very different class that the apostle speaks; it is of the mean, not the mighty of this world; the despised, not the exalted; the rude and unlettered, not the polished and erudite; it is bondmen and bondwomen: individuals belonging to the humblest class of society! 'Exhort servants,' says he to Titus, 'that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.' But the most startling thing still remains. In what way are these humble persons to recommend the gospel? Is it by services and sacrifices of a peculiarly sacred kind? Is it by much prayerfulness, by strict sabbath-keeping, by zeal and liberality in supporting schemes of Christian usefulness? So most readers would have expected! Yet how different is the fact! Not a word does the apostle drop about purely religious duties, indispensable as these doubtless are. He speaks exclusively of duties of an entirely opposite class. The Christian's ornaments,' according to this passage, are not the sacred, but the secular virtues; not the shining services which draw the Nor is it difficult to discover substantial reasons why an apostle should thus single out persons of humble station as the adorners of the gospel, and specify common duties as those on which its honour is chiefly staked. It is to be remembered, in the first place, that persons of humble station form the great majority of Christians. Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, and the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, and things which are not, hath God chosen, to bring to nought things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence.' And would it not, then, be to rob the great mass of Christians of a noble privilege, if only the great and powerful were capable of adorning the doctrine of God—if no services were fitted to recommend the gospel but such as require wealth, and leisure, and high accomplishment to perform them? Blessed b God, there is no such exclusiveness in gospe privilege! The peasant has it in his power less than the peer, to shed around him the savou of Christ. Servants! ye are not precluded from reflecting honour on the name of your Redeemer Children of the poor! ye are not shut out fror the high distinction of being fellow-workers wit God. Not one man upon the earth, howeve narrow his sphere or scanty his substance, bɩ may do something for God-but may have h lowly condition exalted, his homely employmer ennobled, by the lustre of a pure and virtuot life! Let it be also remembered, in the second plac that a faithful discharge of common duties tel more powerfully with the world in favour religion, than any observance of the offices piety. Worldly men are not surprised to fin Christians giving themselves to sabbath-keepin and other sacred services; neither do they believ that strictness of religious profession requires an great strength of principle, or affords any securit for honesty and diligence in the ordinary affai of life. How mightily then must it tend to cor vince them, that Christian principle is more tha a name-is really a thing of power-when the behold its professors discharging, with all good | fidelity, the various duties of their station and callings! Let a worldly master be made to see that his Christian servant is, of all others, the one who most sacredly watches over the interests of his purse and property: or let a worldly parent be made to perceive that of all his children, the one who is most given to his Bible is also the one who is most dutiful to himself; and how shall either of them be able to resist the inference, that Christianity is indeed a thing of high worth and holy efficacy? To excel in attention to duties of a purely sacred kind, may perhaps be the surest way to recommend ourselves to the admiration of our fellow Christians; but the way to advance the credit and esteem of our religion in the world, is to show all good fidelity in the relations of common life-to be firm to our word and faithful to our engagements, and to evince in all things an inflexible adherence to the law of rectitude and kindness. A faithful discharge of common duties is also, in the third place, the best test of the actual presence and power of religious principle. It is not in the sanctuary, or under the public eye, that character is most undisguisedly disclosed. In public, men occupy an open stage, where they are tempted to play a part and exhibit themselves to the best advantage. It is only when they retire behind the scenes when they return to the workshop or mingle in the family, that their minds, as well as their persons, appear in an dress. It is comparatively easy to preserve the semblance of piety when surrounded by the dly, or exposed to the excitement of sacred rvices. In such scenes and employments there is a charm which precludes the access of temptaton, and enables the hollow professor not only to impose on himself, but to pass muster with others as a genuine saint. But it is otherwise amid the ures, and crosses, and petty annoyances of comten life. Amid the tear and wear of every-day ocations, a man's temper is put to a severe tot; nor is it possible that an assumed character can be long preserved, when every hour brings provocations to fretfulness-facilities for acting fraudulently-opportunities of advancing one's own interest at the expense of his neighbours. The apestle James describes the person who offends t in word as a perfect man,' that is, a man whose character has all the completeness which arises from the predominance of Christian principle: and the same may be said of every one who, amid the manifold temptations of his daily pation, rises superior to the impulse of evil, and drns his religion in all things. Ought it not to be added, in the last place, that the example of Christ stamps a peculiar value and honour on the duties of common life? We do not exhaust the amount of honour which our Lord put on the station of the lowly, when we recal the fact that, in relinquishing his glory for humiliation, he took on him the form of a servant. His marvellous condescension in this respect was followed up by the diligent discharge, for thirty years together, of the duties of a humble sphere. Large as was the portion of time allotted by him to the performance of his sacred function as God's messenger, larger far was that which he devoted to the humble duties devolving on him as a son, a brother, a neighbour, a friend, a subject. And why was this, if not to show that this class of duties possessed in his eyes a very high importance, and was to be supremely binding on his followers? O, if He who is the Christian's exemplar, deemed it befitting to spend the greater part of his life in fulfilling the obligations and offices belonging to the lowly condition in which he was born and reared, how grievously must they mistake their Christian vocation, who reckon the duties of their ordinary callings beneath their notice-who disparage them as secular things which afford no scope for the culture of spiritual-mindedness—or who conclude that they sufficiently adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour, when they merely display a flaming zeal for Christian truth, and a high esteem for Christian ordinances! FOURTEENTH DAY.-MORNING. • Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure,' Phil. ii. 12, 13. But THE grand privilege of the Christian dispensation is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the souls of believers. Under the Jewish economy, though God dwelt with men on the earth, the symbols of his presence were restricted to a local temple. During the period, too, of Christ's residence in flesh, the Divine abode was in a visible sanctuary-the temple of Christ's human nature. when the Redeemer ascended to his kingdom, and received, as one reward of his mediatorial work on earth, the right of dispensing the agency of the Holy Ghost, a new and more comprehensive economy was ushered in. God, instead of any longer confining the manifestation of himself to a sensible or local habitation, vouchsafed to make the souls of believers his dwelling-place. And to the operations of the antagonist influence? In now the brotherhood of the saints, and not any truth, our incapacity to distinguish the movematerial fabric—the worshippers, and not the ments of the Spirit from the workings of our own walls which enclose them-constitute his temple. minds, is an inevitable result of the method which 'Know ye not that believers are the temple of the Divine agent vouchsafes to adopt in sanctifyGod, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in ing us—the method of actuating and guiding our them?' faculties, rather than overbearing them, or dispensing with their co-operation. And this method of influencing us, instead of lessening, serves mightily to enhance, the honour conferred on us by the residence of Deity in our souls. It shows that the Eternal Spirit sets a high estimation on the constitution and laws of our nature. It shows that he will not do violence to our faculties-even to save our souls! He will use them as his instruments, but he will not force them! He will honour them, by employing them as his ministers; but he will not put on them the dishonour of employing them without our own concurrence! The object of the Spirit, in dwelling with his people, is to form, maintain, and perfect the life of holiness in their souls. He finds his temple full of defilement, with strange fire on its altar, and the tables of the money-changers in its court; and his gracious purpose in visiting it, is to purge it of its pollution, and consecrate it anew into the sanctuary of God, so that the bleating of the sheep, and the lowing of the oxen, and the din of the traffickers, may give place to the holy ministry of praise, and prayer, and good works! In effecting this blessed transformation, the Spirit deals with man as a free agent—not forcing him, or even leaving him to remain an inactive spec- It cannot occasion surprise that the apostle tator, but engaging, stimulating, and directing should adduce this grand privilege of Christians, the exercise of his rational powers. He anoints as a persuasive to personal diligence in working our eyes, that we may understand the things of out our own salvation. Why, the very thought Christ; he renews our will, that we may comply of such an august presence within us, must ten with their dictates, and have a taste of their to put the soul in a pious frame! King Solomon sweetness; he quickens our conscience, that we when presiding at the dedication of the temple may nicely discern, and promptly decide, between was so overwhelmed with the thought of Jeho the competing claims of Christ and sin; he puri- vah deigning to abide between the cherubim, tha fies and elevates our affections, that, turning he exclaimed, 'But will God in very deed dwel away from the broken cisterns of worldly good, with men on the earth? behold, heaven an we may seek and find our happiness in God. In the heaven of heavens cannot contain him; ho a word, he so takes of the things of Christ and much less this house that I have built!' Can # shows them to our souls, as to render them vital, feel less overawed, when we realize the presen influential, operative principles-the very aliment of the Eternal Spirit in these polluted hearts and sustenance of the spiritual life. ours? That God has come to us, instead As the Spirit, in sanctifying us, thus 'worketh' requiring us to go to him!—that he is myster by means of our rational powers, and not inde-ously about us and within us-watching us, cou pendently of them, his presence and operations selling us, striving with us; that, go where v are indistinguishable from the proper and inde- may, do what we please, we cannot escape fro pendent action of our own minds. The fact of him; but are either led by his Spirit, or el his indwelling and influence is known in no other grieving and resisting his Spirit!-how soler way, than the omnipresence of Deity in creation nizing, how searching such a consideration! hc is known—from faith in the Divine testimony, fitted to rebuke every rising of unholy desi and observation of the effects produced. But is and to hush every pulse of sinful passion! It this glorious privilege, on this account, the less however, the thought of the Spirit's co-operatio certain, or the less valuable? Is it necessary rather than of his indwelling, that forms the ch that we should discern the Spirit by any peculi- incentive to holy living. Indeed, a sense of I arity of immediate sensation, in order to be per- holy presence would only fill the soul with d suaded that he is with us and within us, and that may, were it unattended with an assurance of 1 he is mingling his operations with our own Almighty help. Happily, this is not our situ government of our will and affections? Who tion! The infinite Spirit abides with us, pretends to be able to discriminate between the merely to show us the plagues of our own hear diabolical suggestions of Satan, and the spontane- but to vouchsafe us his aid in effecting a cu ous workings of his own corrupt nature? And And knowing this, how can we ever lack eith why should we expect to be wiser with reference the inducement or the ability to cleanse ou selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord?' True, we are weak, and the work given us to do is arduous; but can we doubt of accomplishing it, when He is with us to lend his co-operation-the Almighty power! Though he is free and sovereign, are we not authorized to expect the helps of his grace, whensoever we realize and feel our dependence on his agency; and, therefore, to enter apon every incumbent duty, however difficult, with the heaven-taught resolution, I will go in the strength of the Lord God!' The host of Isel, though but a handful compared with the armies of the aliens, never hesitated to join battle, when they knew that the ark of the Lord was jamong them and need we shrink from encountering our spiritual foes-even though their name be legion-when He who dwelt above the ark by a visible symbol, dwells in us by his Spirit? Why refuse to stretch forth the withered hand, when He commands, who issues healing virtue with the command? Why decline to work out r own salvation, when it is GOD that worketh us both to will and to do of his good plea zandon us. Nor is the persuasion of this glorious and preat help a stronger incentive to diligent, than it to anxious effort, in fulfilling our mission as ristians. While it persuades us to work out our salvation,' it equally persuades us to work it twith fear and trembling. The expression ar and trembling,' may possibly refer to the to which believers are exposed, of forfeiting losing the aid of their mysterious visitant, by sibility to their privilege, or misimprovet of it. It is a fearful consideration, that the vine agent is susceptible of offence; and that, e will not work in us against our will, so he y be constrained, by our neglect or perversity, spend his gracious offices, or even wholly When the threatened destrucof the Jewish temple drew nigh, there was d from its recesses a mysterious sound, as of hing army, and a voice saying, 'Let us deat hence! A similar departure of its occupant By be expected, when the temple of the Holy is defiled; when impure thoughts are aiged; when duty is neglected; when lukeness takes the place of zeal; and worldliof piety. Surely such a consideration may fll us with fear and trembling,' and selfny. Tremble, O my soul! lest thou shouldst Ire thyself in such an awful calamity! Help O my God, to woo the Spirit to stay, instead tempting him to depart! Whensoever carnal worldly desires creep over my soul, so as to i endanger my spirituality of mind, let me abhor and resist them as a sacrilegious profanation of the sanctuary! And whensoever, on the contrary, I am favoured with an experience of pious emotions-of peculiar tenderness of conscience-of ardent love for Christ-of burning indignation against myself for my unworthiness of his love; let me detain and sanctify the solemn impressions-regarding them as that fine climate of the soul, where the work of the spiritual husbandry may be most effectually advanced-as auspicious gales of Divine influence, to which I should spread every sail, that I may be smoothly wafted onward to Immanuel's land! FOURTEENTH DAY.-EVENING. Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me,' John xvii. 17, 20, 21. WHILE 'the Holy Ghost who proceedeth from the Father and the Son,' is the great agent in regenerating and sanctifying the soul, it is important to remember, that in accomplishing the gracious work he employs the intermediate instrumentality of the word. His method is to take the things of Christ as exhibited in the gospel, and show them to the soul. He enlightens us, but it is by means of the truth contained in the word. He persuades us, but it is by means of the arguments and motives revealed in the word. He instructs, commands, promises, threatens, importunes, stimulates, and actuates, but only through the moral suasion and native influence of the truth. Accordingly, while our Lord recognises the necessity of divine influence, by praying in behalf of his disciples that the Father would sanctify them, he equally declares the necessity of the intermediate instrumentality, by adding, Sanctify them through thy truth-thy word, which is truth.' Nor is the word-and especially that part of it which by way of distinction is called the truth the truth respecting the person and work of Christ, unadapted to this important office. the contrary, it is admirably suited as a moral means to purify the soul and ameliorate the character, being indeed framed and fitted by infinite wisdom for this very end. "All Scripture being given by inspiration of God, is profit |