convince of sin, to awaken the sinner to the covenant of God in Christ. As St. Paul explained yet more fully in the twenty-fourth verse: "The law was our schoolmaster, to bring us unto Christ."

And in Gal. iv. 4 he said: "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law;" that was, subject to the law, and amenable to it; and He did fulfil every jot and tittle of it. "Which of you convinceth Me of sin ?" was the bold interrogation to His worst enemies. And being found perfect, the Creator's honour was vindicated in the creation of man; the One stood to Him in the place of all, in the humanity and in the Divine satisfaction.

"To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." The life of Christ was the price of our redemption; it delivered us from the thrall, from the penalty of sin, from Satan; brought us back to God, having purchased for us the adoption of children.

"And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father." No more alienation, no more of the old spirit of revolt; but filial obedience from love. "Abba Father. Dearest Father." This is Gospel morality - love; nothing can suffice for it, and nothing but this spiritual union with Christ can produce it. It may be called the law of Christ by the power of His Spirit.

-

"Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ." Here the blessings of the Gospel culminate;

God, is heir to.

the child adopted into the Father's family is heir with Christ in all the immunities of heaven. The freedom of the kingdom of God is ours; and we are heirs to all that Christ, as the only-begotten Son of There is no distinction; God receives all in One. Resurrection life is ours, the moral and spiritual glory of God is ours, immortal life is ours; ah, and more than we know of is ours. A world more rich in wonders, mansions more abounding in delights, a body more endowed with power, and a mind more richly fraught than anything we have ever conceived of; in short, a real world in the universe of worlds is ours; not a fallen world, not with fallen creatures; but where all is so holy that God and the Lamb live with the inhabitants of that world

as we shall live with each other. And our power of ranging all worlds will be the same as the celestial visitants to this world, the same as Christ's. And. this is not an ideal religion; it is the truth of the Bible, of the religion of JEHOVAH, and no other is of an economy of life. Enoch and Elijah, and Moses and Elijah, in their descent upon the holy mount, are proof of my last assertion. So sure am I of all these truths of the word of God, that I sometimes long for that moment when I shall awake in a scene

so new.

The exhortation in the fifth chapter was to confirm the Galatians in what the apostle had taught them; and I may apply it to myself, and commend it to my reader after these reflections. "Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. .

"For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith."

He then went on to say: "For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other;" and set forth a black catalogue of the works of the flesh and of darkness, and a bright array of the graces of the fruit of the Spirit-"love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

"If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."

In the last chapter, St. Paul, in the full exercise of Christian charity, wrote: "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted."

And in verse 14: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our JEHOVAH Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

Brethren, the grace of our JEHOVAH Jesus Christ be with your spirit."

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

GOD IN CHRIST, IN THE NAME JEHOVAH.

"That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him."—EPHES. i. 10.

HE four epistles, to the Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and to Philemon, were all written from Rome, in the period between the years sixty-one and sixty-four or sixty-five, only one or two years before the apostle's martyrdom; and hence the maturity of wisdom, meekness, and humbleness of spirit that is in them.

"I therefore, the prisoner of the JEHOVAH, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,

"With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;

66

Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Eph. iv. 1).

"Praying always with all prayer and supplication

in the Spirit,

unto me,

that utterance may be given

to make known the mystery of the

gospel, for which I am an ambassador in bonds" (Eph. vi. 20).

And to Philemon he wrote: "For love's sake I beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ." "There salute thee Epaphras, my fellow-prisoner in Jesus Christ" (Phil. 9, 23).

With this meek and sanctified spirit, the faith of the apostle seemed to grow mighty in proportion; to take, if possible, a more colossal form. The Godhead of Christ was proclaimed by him in even more striking language. He knew Him to be the Creator, eternal, Supreme Being; and instead of persecution, imprisonment, and the prospect of martyrdom shaking his faith, they only strengthened it; thus evidencing to the whole world how stable a thing his hope was, how able to support him the, Foundation on which he stood.

I have shown before the peculiar affection St. Paul had for the Ephesians, and how, as he said, "a great door and effectual was opened to him" (1 Cor. xvi. 8, 9; Acts xviii. and xix.). And hence this epistle, so full of deep doctrine and Christian emotion.

He opens it, as he does all his epistles, by commending his apostleship, and then by a benediction: "Grace be to you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the JEHOVAH Jesus Christ." Thus, as I have said, the name of the Eternal Being, that contained in it, and guaranteed all grace and glory to mankind, like as in all other holy Scripture, was the prefix and affix of all his epistles. But let us ever bear in mind that that title really is, JEHOVAH SAVIOUR MESSIAH. The prefix identifies the Godhead in the flesh, the God-man. It is the