gospel; a new life had come to them in union with Christa life which was hid with Him in God. Therefore they were bound to mortify every evil propensity, and to crucify every principle and passion which sinfully connected them with their former history. St. Paul had in the previous chapter condemned asceticism and mere bodily penance as, in spiritual things, utterly valueless. Now he shows how the true end is to be secured, and holiness manifested. The injunctions which he gives are just as necessary and as binding now on all Christian men, as they were in the Apostle's day. Human nature is still the same, as deceitful and depraved as of old, and the exhortation to mortify the earthly members and to put off sin is applicable to all.

man.

There must be the resolute mortification of the flesh. "Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth.” We are to deaden them, to do what in us lies to kill them,not the members or parts of our physical bodies, but the elements and powers, appetites and passions, of the fleshly nature the members, so to speak, of the old unrenewed The language is to be understood metaphorically, just as when our Lord tells us to cut off the right hand, and to pluck out the right eye. He does not mean that the body itself is to be actually maimed, but that the passions which abuse the body, and use its members for sin, are to be resisted and destroyed. They are upon the earth; they are earthly and of the earth, having their sphere of existence and exercise on the earth. They receive their sole supply of enjoyment from that which is earthly, and tend to bind the soul, with all its nobler powers, to the earth, and to clog it with sensuality; these are to be mortified and slain. The supplies, so to speak, must be cut off; the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, must be subdued; and from the energies and sources of the new life a crucifying or deadening force must be brought to bear on the passions

and propensities of "the old man.” The process of mortification may be painful; our Lord's language, and the very words of the Apostle, here imply as much. Yea, we know that it is so; but we also know that it ought to be done. "Are ye not carnal," says St. Paul to the Corinthians," and walk as men?" Men, as fallen creatures, are carnal; but those who have a new life, hid with Christ in God, ought not to be carnal. Is it for them to bind or bound their affections and desires by the pleasures of sense or the perishable property of time? Is it for them to pamper their bodily appetites, or to give themselves to excesses of sensual and selfish indulgence? A sensual Christian; a selfish follower of the self-denying Saviour; a carnal son of God; a worldly heir of eternal glory,—the terms are palpable contradictions. The disciple of Christ must crucify the flesh. There must be resistance day by day to the motions of sin and to the appetencies of the old unrenewed man. The process of crucifixion may be slow as well as painful. The passion which we had thought was slain may appear again and again, requiring vigorous resistance. But the issue is certain to him who fights in the strength of his Lord, and the old man will finally and for ever die.

Toward this promised and desirable end there must be also the earnest renunciation of all sin. "Now ye also put off all these." The verb is imperative, and the exhortation is emphatic. Ye also, in common with all true disciples of the Lord. Put them off, lay them aside, abandon them. All these every sin condemned, every vice mentioned, renounce them all. Cast off the slough of iniquity, that the new life may appear in vigour and grow in beauty. This is not salvation by works, as some might say or suppose, but the working out of God's salvation freely given. It is not salvation by works; but it is a work without which we cannot be disciples of Christ, and cannot be saved. In our

circumstances, and in our day, perhaps, Christians are not so much in danger from sins of sensuality and gross indulgence as from sins of selfishness and covetousness. Many do not seem to think that the new life in Christ has any connexion with their tempers or their tongues. They forget that malice and evil speaking, avarice and envy, are as really against the law of Christ as breaches of the sixth or seventh commandment of the moral law. Hence there are numerous failures, and many characters very imperfect. The Son of God requires in all His followers the resistance and avoidance of evil in all its forms. Let victory be sought for, prayed for, and aimed after, and it will be secured, for we are no longer under the law, but under grace.

XXX.

Spiritual Renewal in Christ, the Source and Ground of Holiness.

Seeing that ye have put off the old man; with his deeds; and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free but Christ is all, and in all."-COLOSSIANS iii. 9—11.

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HE Apostle was most earnest and anxious that the prac

THE

tical exhortation which he had given should be observed and obeyed; and having introduced it by one argument, he now follows it by another. The first argument is-" Ye died with Christ, and have now a life hid with Him in God; therefore mortify your earthly members: " the second argument here is the result of that life in Christ-"Seeing that ye have put off the old man, and have put on the new, seek to perfect holiness in your life." As if St. Paul had said, "Remember your new life in Christ-that new joys inspire you, that new hopes cheer you, and that new principles have been implanted in you: leave, therefore, the things which are behind, and lift your thoughts, desires, and energies to the development and adornment of that renewed nature which has been graciously given you." Thus, in varied phraseology, the Apostle would surround the Christian disciples with the highest motives to holiness-specially dwelling

on the Divine privilege which they had realized in their union to Christ, and the spiritual change which had thereby passed on them.

I. Every Christian is the subject of a change, fitly expressed in the words, "Ye have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man." The terms used are easily understood. The "old man" refers to the degenerate nature with which we come into the world,-the nature originally pure, and in the image of God, but spoiled by sin; and its deeds" are the practical outcoming and operation. of this degeneracy. On the other hand, the "new man" is the new nature, for the creation of which God has provided in the gospel of His Son. "If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature." This grand change takes place in the heart, and is perfected in the history of every true disciple of the Lord. The "old man" is the natural unconverted self, the personification of our sinful condition; while the "new man is the new and holy principle of life which comes to us through the redemption of Christ and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. The "old man " is put off, and the "new man is put on there is an act of repudiation, and an act of reception and investment, both going together as making up the spiritual change which every child of God experiences.

This change is Divine in its origin. The "new man is from God, and is created by Him "after the image of Him that created him." The Apostle does not say "that created you," but "that created him," evidently referring to the new regenerate manhood. All creation throughout the universe is of God, and of Him alone, in every department of His dominion. He created man a living soul, and made him in His own likeness, after His own image. Through man's sin and fall, the glory of that image was lost, and none can restore it but the Creator. It is not the result of human skill, or the issue of self-development, but the work of God by