them, by the spirit that lives in their writings? They accompany you in your solitude, they cheer you on your bed of sickness or of pain, and go before you to light up with a torch of heaven's own kindling your passage to the skies. You almost hear their assuring and comforting voices, when standing on the shores of the eternal world, as if wafted to you over the dark gulf that stretches between you and their blessed abode.

In that world of light and purity, what raptures shall we feel as we review the wonders of divine grace accomplished in us here? Step by step we shall then be able to trace the progress of the great work which has made us meet for that happy abode. It is said that Christ will come "to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired in all them that believe." They will all appear as so many reflex images of his own glorious excellencies, whose transforming power and grace has made them "all glorious within, and their covering of wrought gold." "With joy and rejoicing shall they be brought, they shall enter into the king's palace." Each will have his own tale to tell of the method by which the self-same thing was wrought in him, and the wisdom, patiit disclosed. Each will vie with ence, and mercy the other in the expression of glowing admiration and adoring love. "Marvellous," they will say, "are thy works, Lord God Almighty just and true are all thy ways, O King of Saints! Thou hast done all things well."

4. The doctrine of Christ's imputed righteousness for justification, must be dwelt upon for the comfort and establishment of the souls of believers. It is, as it has been truly said, "the article of a standing or falling church." At present it by no means occupies the prominent place in the teachings of Christendom to which it is entitled. But the Apocalypse, which carries us forward to a period still future, assures us it will be universally recognised and proclaimed. A voice will be heard, saying "Let us be glad and rejoice, for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints." A singular expression surely, and denoting that, besides the holiness of christians in themselves, they are justified by the righteousness of Christ, through their mystical and vital union to him. It is the bridal dress; which the Apostle Paul observes, is unto all, and upon all them that believe in which he was ever desirous of being found; and which he terms elsewhere, "the putting on of Christ:" "So that," as Mr. LOCKE observes, "to God, now looking on them, there appears nothing but Christ. They are, as it were, covered all over with him, as a man with the clothes he has put on." Thus may I be arrayed, and then with joy at the last day shall I lift up my head!

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DISCOURSE IV.

SPIRITUAL CONFLICT.

"So fight I, not as one that beateth the air; but I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection: lest that by any means, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a a castaway.— 1 Cor. 9, 26, 27.

THE Apostles have already been presented before us as models of christian experience, whom all christians in that respect are found to resemble. The features of resemblance have been traced in the mode of their obtaining forgiveness, justification with God, and the sanctification of their nature; as well as in the actual possession of the blessings themselves. By this internal similarity and conformity they are, as it were, moulded together,―cemented into a spiritual brotherhood; and the divine unity or oneness of the whole christian church is thus secured.

In speaking of the process of their sanctification, it was observed that a double course is pursued by them in relation to it. The object is a further reduction of evil in their nature, and a further advancement in righteousness and true holiness. In aiming at this reduction of the evil that is in him, the christian appears as a combatant, his antagonist being found in his own bosom. Such is the light in which the Apostle here represents himself to us as a pattern. "So fight I," he says, "not as one that beateth the air :" not as opposing a phantom, but encountering a real enemy;—and this enemy or object of assault, he proceeds to tells us, was his own remaining evil nature. "I keep under my body, and bring it into subjection, lest by any means, when I have preached to others I myself should be a castaway :"-a rejected candidate for the prize after which I aspire, of glory, honour, immortality and eternal life. It is not, therefore, of his public conflicts as an Apostle that he here speaks so much as of his private and more personal ones, for the purpose of obtaining greater proficiency, and the final approval of the Great Judge. In this respect let us contemplate him as our model, and limit our attention to this one great and important feature of the christian lifethe spiritual conflict of the believer in Jesus.

I. We must offer, however, some preliminary remarks for the purpose of explanation.

1. Observe, then, first, that the christian is repre

sented as possessed of two opposite natures or different principles of action; the one obtained by his first birth and connexion with the fallen Adam, the other by his second birth and connexion with the second Adam, the Lord from heaven. These are described in the writings of the New Testament by various names, with which all the readers of that book must be familiar. Sometimes we read of them as their old and new man: "the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts," and "the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." At other times they are referred to as their "outward man which perisheth, and their inward man which is renewed day by day." The epithets, however, by which they are most frequently designated and distinguished are those of the flesh and the spirit. "The flesh," observes the Apostle to the converts of Galatia, "lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary the one to the other, so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." Where, by what he says of the spirit, it is clear that he does not intend the soul of man in distinction from the body, but the spirit of regeneration in the elect. For of what other spirit can it be predicated that it lusteth against the flesh, and is contrary to it; and bears the fruits, as it there follows, of love, joy, peace, meekness, goodness, faith? To which the works of the flesh, or sinful