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perhaps expressed myself too warmly; but I humbled myself before the Lord, and determined by the grace of God to get the victory. Lord, let me not forget my vows." January 1st, 1858.“Preached last evening at Wesley,' and closed the old year and commenced the new in a comfortable state of mind. Renewed my covenant with God. O, how love I Thy law! it is my meditation all the day.' At this time I begin to be very sensible of the decay of my natural powers,-memory, hearing, sight, etc.; but more assured that I have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.' The word of God is more precious than ever, sweeter than honey and the honeycomb.'" 1861.— "Began my old plan of reading the Scriptures, four chapters each day. Directed and encouraged by the following passages:determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified;'Whatsoever is not of faith is sin;' There failed not aught of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel; all came to pass;' For me to live is Christ.' Also, Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God;' Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you;' Be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.""

-'I

The regard for truth and righteousness tested and found strong at the beginning continued in power within him, and became "stronger and stronger." Convinced that the great object of proclaiming and hearing all Gospel truth is righteousness and goodness, he sought to ever experience the Christian life in himself, and to persuade and exhort all others to the same. He abhorred untruthfulness, unfairness, and meanness in any one, but especially in the professor of religion; and high was his indignation, and severe his rebuke, wherever he discovered it. Accustomed in his youth to the exercise of self-denying charity, he continued to give ungrudgingly, and was still found devising liberal things for the benefit of others when his last sickness seized him. That sickness was a prolonged one. It was a gradual decay of nature, which brought down the physical and the mental powers together. In the course of it he read the Bible very frequently, saying that "the Word of God was more precious to him than ever; and that he was treasuring it up before his sight should fail, that he might have it within him, and meditate on it day and night." To Ireland his mind frequently wandered, and he spoke of it in language of loving and earnest interest. To an aged friend he answered the inquiry, "Is all well?" by replying, "It is well; it is well; God is my salvation!" On his last day he was in the spirit of

prayer, and frequently said, "May my last end be peace." The word "children" was heard, as if he was interceding for the salvation of his family. And with this spirit of grace and supplications on him, he passed away to the perfected bliss and righteousness of heaven,-to the holy redeeming God to whom he had dedicated, and for whose glory he had spent, his regenerated life. He died in Walsall, Monday, October 12th, 1868,

THE CHRISTIAN LIBERTY ACHIEVED:

OR, THE LAW OF THE SPIRIT OF LIFE MAKING FREE FROM THE LAW OF SIN AND DEATH. AN EXPOSITION OF ROMANS VIII. 1-4. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, [who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.] For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.”

It is manifest that the "therefore now" (äpa vûv) of the text does not introduce an inference from the immediately preceding argument, -which would not warrant any such conclusion,-but one grounded on the previously affirmed effectiveness of the Gospel to accomplish that for believers which the law never could accomplish for its hearers. The justifying ground of this discharge from condemnation had been set forth in the third chapter. (Verses 21-26.) The principle upon which it proceeds had been illustrated in the fifth chapter. (Verses 12-21.) The persons to whom it is extended, and the new life of which they become the participators, had been specified in the sixth chapter. (Verses 1-11.) The reason why the law could not accomplish for its hearers that which this new life in Christ does achieve for believers, had been stated in the assurance that "sin shall not have dominion over you; for ye are not under the law, but under grace." (Rom. vi. 14.) The impotence of the law to liberate from sin, which had been stated in the fifth verse of the seventh chapter, had supplied the theme for illustration down to the end of that chapter; and the power of the Gospel to effect this very thing, which had been. distinctly stated in a parallel proposition in the sixth verse, and with an eye to which the Apostle had penned the joyful exclamation, "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord," (verse 25,) is now resumed in the statement that "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."

It may be well also to note that the “for” (yàp) of the second verse does not direct attention to that which is the ground of the believer's freedom from condemnation, as some have supposed,* but the proof. The fact that Jesus had been raised up from the dead, by the glory of the Father, was in proof that He had completely expiated sin, and been fully "justified" from it; (Rom. iv. 25; vi. 7;) and the fact that we also have been raised up from the death of sin by His quickening Spirit is equally in proof that we have been fully justified in Him. If the condemnation had remained, the regenerating Spirit could not have come. But the regenerating Spirit has come; therefore, it is clear, the condemnation has been removed. "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus: for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Let us notice, more particularly,

I. This law of sin and death from the power of which Christian believers obtain deliverance in Christ.

It will be observed that the Apostle does not speak of two laws, one of sin, and another of death, but of the one law of sin and death. Not that the two things are one, but that the one "law pervades them both, and binds them together by a naturally invincible bond. By the one man "sin entered into the world, and death by sin." (Rom. v. 12.) "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." (Ezek. xviii. 4.) "Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death." (James i. 15.) "Sin hath reigned unto death." (Rom. v. 21;) and by death is its dark dominion sustained. (Eph. ii. 1-5; iv. 17-19.) The one law, which pertains equally to both, is that of mutual perpetuation: a law which renders it for ever impossible that the sinner can of himself so recede from his fallen position as to regain the possession of innocence and peace; and which evermore impels him onwards and downwards in the fearful descending circle of transgression and punishment. It is a law such as that neither sin nor death can ever terminate it, or transform either its fellow or itself; and under the power of which fallen man, if no aid from without be afforded him, must be an everlasting sinner, enduring everlasting punishment, or death.

For, let it be remembered, that a man in the very act of sinning dies; or, being already dead, plunges into a still deeper death. It is true indeed that our first parents did not die, as to their bodies, in the day they sinned, and that they did not then

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Or rather, in death, év Tê baváry. Death is not simply a dark, destructive shadow which closely follows in the track of sin, but the terrible atmosphere in which it for ever moves, and by which its fearful power is sustained.

cease to be, as moral and accountable creatures. But did they possess no higher life than animal life; and no better being than that of intellectual power and moral accountability? Is there not a life, properly pertaining to man, for the maintenance of which the sacrifice of this mortal body would be but of trifling moment? Else for what was it that "the noble army of martyrs" bled and burned? Did they not die in defence of life-of life pure, noble, holy, blessed, and immortal? Or what meant the Wisdom of God when He affirmed, "He that findeth his life shall lose it; and he that loseth his life for My sake shall find it"? (Matt. x. 39.) Is there not a life of conscious innocence and of blessed fellowship with God which ought to be esteemed far above all possible advantages which can attach to that which is merely sensuous and secular? And did not Adam, in the act itself of sinning, die in respect of that life? Every man, left altogether under the dominion of the law of sin and death, must of necessity, from the very hour in which he first offends against the law of his moral nature, carry about with him everywhere and for ever, a consciousness of "dead works." (Heb. ix. 14.) For by what means can he rid himself of the shame and guilt of his transgression? The guilty deed can neither be recalled nor put away; and therefore, so far as the law of sin and death is concerned, and so far as man's own power of shaking himself free from its grasp extends, he must be guilty, and his conscience must be a guilty conscience, for ever: he is without ability to win back for himself that life of joyous innocence in respect of which, in the day in which he sinned, he died.

In that day too he became "alienated from the life of God." (Eph. iv. 18.) The Holy Spirit of God, the Fountain of all true. moral and spiritual life to the creature, could no longer dwell, nor have any further fellowship in life, with one who had resisted His grace and sinned against His law; and could not return till the violated law had been vindicated and the iniquity purged. The result of necessity was that the "law in the members," having prevailed against the "law of the mind," now assumed the mastery, and by that very usurping lordship became also the medium and instrument of the "law of sin." The law of the mind, dishonoured, humiliated, and cast down into the dust, could thenceforth only put in a feeble and ineffectual protest against the usurpation. It can indeed still affirm its right, and, when stimulated into activity by the law of God, it can press its claim with importunity. But it is sustained by no comforting consciousness of Divine approbation; is aided by no fellowship in the Divine life; is inspired with no courage and power by the assured nearness of Divine succour; but is rendered "feeble, spiritless, and faint " by the remembrance of past defeat and the

burden of past guilt. What wonder then that "the flesh," eager for the objects of its desire, which are everywhere close at hand, soliciting its indulgence, should maintain a perfect mastery, and bring the whole man more and more completely under the power of sin? What wonder that the man, even while honestly protesting his admiration of the law of God, as being "holy, and just, and good," should nevertheless have to confess with shame that he himself is "carnal, sold under sin?" or that he should be constrained to add, "That which I do, I allow not;...but what I hate, that do I."

For the direful law not only detains the sinner prisoner, but ever impels him onward in his evil course. The beginning of sin, as well as of "strife," which is but one of its manifold developments, is "as when one letteth out water," (Prov. xvii. 14,) the tendency of which is still to widen the breach and to enlarge the area of destructiveness. "Every act of sin tends to repeat itself, and to render the whole man more vicious. Each sinful indulgence yields an ever-diminishing amount of gratification, though the passions which demand it are ever growing in tyrannic strength;" and, with increasing force, incite the wretched man to seek it yet again. Then, too, "by the repetition of a vicious act, moral power is diminished; but as more moral power is required to resist the augmented power of the passions which prompt to the repetition of that particular act, the likelihood that it will be repeated is increased, as well as that the surplus force of the passions will be expended in the performance of other vicious acts. Thus, like an error admitted into the early stage of a calculation conducted by geometrical progression, and which goes on repeating and enlarg ing itself at every step of the reckoning, till the unit soon swells into millions, there is not merely a tendency in evil to perpetuate itself, and so to become unalterable, but to multiply itself with a rapidity which defies calculation." It is under the dominion of this retributive law that "evil men and seducers wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived; " (2 Tim. iii. 13;) that there are those, even in this life, who sink so low that even their "mind and conscience" become defiled, (Titus i. 15,) their conscience being" seared with a hot iron," (1 Tim. iv. 2,) till, being "past feeling," they "give themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness;" (Eph. iv. 19;) and "that a voice from within has often pronounced the evil character unalterable, long before the voice from without has confirmed the sentence with authority in the fearful words, 'He that is unholy, let him be unholy still.'" Regarding merely the law of sin and death,

• Dr. Harris," Man Primeval," page 133. †"Ibid., pp. 284, 285.

‡ Ibid.,

p. 133.

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