His disciples here below, and at length so change their vile bodies as that they might be fashioned like unto His glorious body-So that, delivered alike from the presence and penalty of sin, every barrier may be removed, and every hindrance may be done away to unexceptionable admittance within the limits of the sanctuary that is above.

Behold then the very nice adaptation to our state as sinners, of that gospel economy whereby the legal economy has been suspended and superseded-because to our condition, as the wretched outcasts of a violated law, it brought no relief, and could bring no restoration. Under the former dispensation, every sin, however trivial, and though urged to it by the besetting propensities of a constitution marred and vitiated since the fall, plunged us more hopelessly than ever in guilt and in moral helplessness. Under the present dispensation, we are not without sin; but the sin of infirmity is not like the sin of wilfulness, unto death-and there has been a sacrifice provided, in the faith of which if we make daily confession we shall have daily forgiveness. So long as we are in these accursed bodies, it is impossible ever to venture off from any other foundation for our acceptance before God, than the perfect righteousness of Christ; and the very sin of our nature has the effect to remind us of our dependence, and to keep us closely and tenaciously thereupon. But, meanwhile, though vexed and annoyed by the instigations of the flesh, we are armed with a resolution and a strength and an

affection for what is spiritual, that shall abundantly secure our not living after the flesh; and on the generous mind of the new-born Christian, the daily infirmities which he has to lay at the throne of grace, so far from working an indifference to moral righteousness, only shame and stimulate him the more to the vigorous prosecution of it. And the knowledge, that, though the infirmities of his flesh will be pardoned, yet that if he live after the flesh he will die, this is to him as direct and urgent excitement, as ever bore with practical effect on the legal aspirants after a reward and an acceptance of their own. And thus are the comfort after sin on the one hand, and the impulse to renewed holiness on the other, most admirably blended in such a way, as best to suit those who are weighed down with a corrupt materialism, yet are furnished with power in the inner man to war against and at length to overcome it; and the disciple who is thus employed can, at one and the same time, draw comfort from the saying, that if any man sin we have an advocate with the Father-and derive the energy of a practical impulse from the saying, that "if any man sin wilfully, after that he hath received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful lookingfor of judgment and fiery indignation that shall devour the adversaries."

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LECTURE LIII.

ROMANS, viii, 13–15.

"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."

VER. 13. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live.'

And in like manner as the threatenings under the law and the gospel may be compared with each other, so may the promises or the rewards. By the former dispensation, he who fell into an act of disobedience was adjudged to die; and by the latter, he who by living after the flesh lived in a habit of disobedience was in like manner to die. It is well that we are liberated from the rigid and unbending economy of the law; for thus we are set free from the fears, and the scrupulosities, and in fact the utter and irretrievable despair, which would have paralysed the whole work of obedience. But it is also well, that, while the economy of the gospel has achieved our deliverance from these, it still lifts as loud a testimony on the side of righteous

ness, and is actuated by as determined a hostility against all sin-so as to set all its honest disciples upon a most resolved and persevering opposition. to it. Had law been the arbiter of this contest, they never, in the vile bodies wherewith they are encompassed, they never could have obtained the meed or the honour of victory-each error being an irrecoverable defeat-each infirmity being a deathblow to their cause. And therefore it is well that they now fight under the banners of another umpire, who can see, amid all the frailties of the old and the natural constitution, that there is rising and strengthening apace a force of moral resistance against the urgencies of corrupt nature, which is gradually undermining its ascendancy, and at length will overthrow it. The man who has been endowed with this force from on high, is ever reminded by the frailties that are within of his daily need of Christ's propitiation; and would give up the battle in despair, had he not the righteousness of Christ to build upon. Yet he never forgets that the battle is his unceasing occupation-that the gospel which has discharged him from the penalties of a law that he is ever falling short of, has not discharged him from this warfare-that his business is so to strive against all the corruption which is in him, as to make unceasing approximation to the purity and perfection of this very law; and that though now exempted from the threat, if ye fail in one jot or tittle thereof ye shall die-the threat is still against him and against all in full operation, that if, casting

off the authority of the law, ye give yourselves up to your own heart's desire or live after the flesh shall die.

ye

Now the like analogy and the like distinction may be observed in the promises or rewards of the gospel, when compared with those of the law. The apostle says of the law, that it is not of faith, but the man that doeth this shall live; and he saith in our text of him who hath embraced that gospel which supersedes the law, that if a man through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body he shall live. There is a doing to which death is annexed with as great certainty under the one economy as under the other. And there is also a doing to which life is annexed with as great certainty under the one economy as under the other. The do this and live' of the former dispensation, however, is a condition which has long been violated; and which, in our present tainted materialism, we never can attain unto; and which therefore, instead of indicating to us a practical avenue to heaven, is like a flaming sword that guards and bars in every way our access thereunto. The mortify the deeds of the body and live' of the latter dispensation, is a condition again which might be rendered; which every believer in the grace and righteousness of the Lord Jesus will be enabled to perform; which from this moment we should set ourselves forward to for the purpose of making it good—and so exhibit in our history as direct a practical impulse taken from the hopes of the gospel, as any servant from the pros

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