that worketh not, but believeth on Him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness.

"Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,

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Saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered.

"Blessed is the man to whom the JEHOVAH will not impute sin."

In the fifth chapter the apostle triumphs in the doctrine he had taught. "Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our JEHOVAH Jesus Christ." And then he went on to show the completeness of the doctrine of Christ. "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.

"God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

"Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.

"We also joy in God through our JEHOVAH Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." That is, the satisfaction for sin had been made; the relative name had received its fulfilment, and was explained.

"Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.

"If by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.

"Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

"For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous."

Can anything be more comprehensive and plain ? The fall of man was perfect and complete in all its bearings, and his nature was restored by Divine virtue, by priceless blood, by Christ. I am thus extracting this because it is not what St. Paul wrote only; it is what Christ called him to write-the truth of God.

The sixth chapter of Romans is one of the most explicit of the apostle's teaching. He takes us away from death to life, from the dominion of Satan into the realm of light and eternal life.

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What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein ?"

His argument is clear and bold. We are dead to the old nature, delivered from it; we have come out from it, and have nothing to do with it. If we are living in sin, and the servants of sin, we have not undergone that change at all. same explicit fact: "Whosoever the servant of sin." And so His propound the same standing fact. ness of God" upon a believer, and "the works of the devil," are incongruous to each other; they do not and cannot exist together.

Christ taught the committeth sin is apostle went on to "The righteous.

"Know ye not, that so many of us as were bap

tized into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death." That is, our sins died with Christ; that the old nature, or, as the apostle calls it in another place, “the old man," became virtually extinct in Christ's death. He has now no rightful dominion over the human family. His power is subjected to Christ; and if we come determinately and boldly into this new estate, believe in Christ, and act willingly and reciprocally with Him, we shall overcome sin-which is Satan-altogether. Christ will finally change this vile body into the likeness of His own glorious body. Now, mark the apostle's strong argument, for his doctrines are not received as they should be: "Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death." Immersion was at that time the form of baptism; therefore he says, that as the convert went down and was submerged in the water, so his old nature was submerged in the death of Christ; and that as he came up out of the water, so in the resurrection of Christ he also ascends in likeness with Him. "That like as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father "—by the holiness of the Godhead that dwelt in Him-" even so we also should walk in newness of life.

"For if we have been planted together in the likeness of His death "-That is, spiritually joined together by the death of sin, in the death of Christ. The word seems to bear an antecedent meaning, taking us back to the covenant of grace of a past eternity, when we were by "the Word" so spiritually chosen in Him-" we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection.

"Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with Him"-condemned, put to death--" that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin."

Our original nature is blotted out, that which we inherit by nature is atoned for. There is now no necessity of our nature that we should live in sin: if we do so, we do it willingly, because we do not like that self-denial, self-abasement, and spiritual conflict that can alone preserve us holy in Christ.

"For he that is dead is freed from sin.

"Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him;" live eternally, as the next verses explain.

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Knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over Him.

"For in that He died, He died unto sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God.

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Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our JEHOVAH."

The apostle's reasoning and earnest persuasion to holiness, in the remainder of this chapter, are worthy of his delineation of doctrine. I would fain insert it here, but I must beg my reader to read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it for himself. The exhortation closes with a solemn fact and a glorious assurance: "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our JEHOVAH." The relative name came home to the apostle's inmost soul; it was the prefix and the affix of all he taught.

The reasoning in the seventh chapter is deep and striking. The apostle says, that as a woman is bound by the law to her husband as long as he liveth, but is loosed from that law when he is dead; so "ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." This was the way of true obedience that the philosophers of Greece and Rome had never heard of. If we would know how inadequate their system of ethics was, St. Paul again explained himself, as he did in the end of the first chapter: "For when we were in the flesh"-under the law" the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.

"But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." Who would not flee for their lives from the sword of the law to the Fountain of holiness and of life? Out of whom the motions of sin will work to bring forth fruit unto death.

But then this instructor in righteousness turned to another phase of his subject, and said: "What then, is the law sin?"-worse than worthless?-"God forbid. No, for I had not known lust except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet." What a tender, enlightened conscience he had been a persecutor and a murderer, but now he finds he had been covetous also.

Now mark the remarkable confession of the man. He who had been brought up at the feet of Gamaliel,