ungodly ways of this present evil world? Or, like the Jews, do we allow the Messiah's coming to be to us a mere unpractical doctrine, a commonplace form of words that mean nothing to our hearts? Oh let us beware, then, lest we share their danger, and be found all unprepared when, suddenly, that which we are not looking for does come to pass. Did it need the presence and power of the Holy Ghost to teach and warn old Simeon, and lead him to embrace that infant in the temple? And shall his presence and power be less needed by us, to prepare us for that day of the Lord, which shall come as a thief on all who are not walking in the light?* Shall we not need to have our ears open to the whisperings of the Spirit? our hearts purified as a habitation for that heavenly visitant, that the secret of the Lord may be with us, and that, while the scoffers are saying, "Where is the promise of His coming," + we may, like Simeon, be keeping fast in our hearts the sure hope, knowing that, though the time may be long, the Lord is not slack concerning His promise; that like him we may be found waiting in the house of God; and, like the patient widow, continuing in prayers and supplications, day and night, until the day when we shall be permitted to behold, not a feeble infant in the temple, but to behold Him who loved us † 2 Pet. iii. 4.

* 1 Thess. v.

and died for us, coming to take possession of the throne of His glory; when we shall not say, "Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace;" but when He shall say to every patient, faithful one who loveth His appearing, “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

Is this not a hope worth cherishing? Is there any hope or any joy to be compared to it? Shall we not desire, that He who was for us a man of sorrows shall at length see the travail of His soul, and be satisfied;" that the kingdoms of this world shall at length become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ?

*

When He came the first time, how different was His coming from what men expected, how unready were they for God's way of acting, how blinded to it! And shall it be otherwise when He comes again? Are not God's ways and thoughts always very unlike to our thoughts? His mode of bringing His Son again into this world may be utterly contrary to all that we expect, except the Holy Ghost be dwelling in us as in His temple, preparing us for the mighty actings of God, giving us the needful discernment, that when those things which shall come like the flood on the world of the ungodly, begin to come to pass, we may "look "look up and lift up our heads, because our redemption draweth nigh." +

* Rev. xi. 15.

† Luke xxi. 28.

SECOND SERIES.

XI.

Put ye on the New Man.

....

EPH. iv. 17, 20-32.-"This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind. . . . . But ye have not so learned Christ; if so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus: that ye put off, concerning the former conversation, the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind: and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labour, working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers. And grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evilspeaking, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."

THOSE Ephesians to whom St. Paul wrote had been Gentiles, without the knowledge of the true God, and had only lately been converted to Christianity, and been baptized into Christ. He is shewing them, in this epistle, how entirely different is the condition into which they have come from that in which they had been, and how different all their ways and conduct must be. They were no longer to walk as other Gentiles walked. It was not in some particular things, this or that bad habit, that they were to make a change, but in every thing; they were to put off "the old man, which is corrupt, according to the deceitful lusts;" not some part of it, but the whole old man; and they were to put on the new man, not some new good habits, but "the new man, which, after God, is created in righteousness." any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.”* They were to shew that they were new creatures, having a new life.

"If

Now, we are the children of Christian parents, and were, in our infancy, baptized into Christ: we have never been in the heathen condition in which those Ephesians had been. To us this new condition and new life belong; and is it not well for us to attend to the apostle's exhortation, and see to it, that we are not walking as Gentiles

* 2 Cor. v. 7.

who know not God; that we are indeed putting off the old man, with all its ways and doings; and putting on the new man, the whole new man, in all our ways, and words, and thoughts, and works, manifesting that we are new creatures in Christ.

To assist us in this work, to shew us what it is practically to put off the old man, the apostle goes into some particular examples. He says, Putting away lying, speak every man truth, with his neighbour: for we are members one of another." Here is a motive, which especially belongs to us as Christians: we are members one of another." How very little is this thought of by us: If we did think of it, how different would our conduct be one towards another! In another place, in speaking of us as being set members of one body, each in their place, as it pleaseth God, the apostle says, "That the members should have the same care one of another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.'

Do we really believe that all those among whom we dwell are members with us of one body? that their joys should be our joys, and their sorrows our sorrows? that whatever we do to them, whether it be good or evil, the Lord Jesus * 1 Cor, xii, 25, 26.