"IN THIS OVERCOME."

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How earnestly should we seek to make this great salvation our own! We think of the words of the Latin hymn, that made our own stern moralist, Johnson, burst into tears:

"Quærens me, sedisti lassus;

Redemisti, crucem passus :

Tantus labor non sit cassus.'

In the vision of the New Atlantis, Bacon, setting forth his ideal city, tells how anciently, when St. James brought Christianity to the people of Renfusa, there was discerned a luminous pillar, "and on the top of it was seen a large cross of light, more bright and resplendent than the body of the pillar.” The Roman emperor saw, or thought he saw, amid the crimsoned clouds of evening, the cross, with the legend, "In this overcome." Both the philosopher and the emperor meant the same thing. They meant the healing, quickening, regenerating power of the cross of Christ. In that cross we overcome; its legend is still for us, ἐν τούτῳ νίκα. In the cross we may overcome the temptations of an alluring world, and the danger of a selfish and ignoble life; may overcome the dark whispers of the evil heart of unbelief; may overcome the natural fear of death which so deeply shades most human spirits. If a legal righteousness could alone be ours; if our only hope of attaining to heaven rested on our freedom from sin, and our discharge of duty,—not alone would the vast arrearage of dues disquiet me, but I should

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THE BLESSEDNESS OF REDEMPTION.

have no absolute security that in the future I should not deeply fail. Some few men there may be who flatter themselves with the notion of absolute or comparative sinlessness; but these are not the most tried, nor yet the most honest, of mankind. What we need is not a religion that will satisfy an infinitesimal minority of moral philosophers, but the multitudes who are conscious of the bitterness of evil passions and wayward wills, who feel no security against their own relapses into error, and know that their trust must be, not in themselves, but in One almighty to compassionate and save. When that great burden is rolled away at the foot of the cross which none of us have been able to bear, then with cheerfulness and alacrity of soul, out of exceeding gratitude, we may aim at the Christ-like life which the law was powerless to prompt, and which, unaided, we could never have attempted. Oh, the happiness of one who realises that forgiveness is fully his; that he goes forth a freed man into the world, to live henceforth in the holiness taught by love; that this forgiveness has the imperial sanction of the justice of God; that in the pardon secured by the cross the perfections of infinite justice are vindicated; and that this justice itself is pledged to his future happiness! When we have done all, we are still unprofitable servants. We still cling, with the desperate tenacity of men within the real peril of the precipice, to the atoning work of the Saviour. We still plead His precious death; we

THE LAMB OF GOD.

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still rely solely on that blood of Christ which is the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. When the destroying angel went through the land of Egypt by night, he spared all those who, with simple obedience and faith, had spread the blood upon the lintels of the doorways. With such a faith, with such an obedience, let us plead that precious blood. It is our hope. Without it we are lost. So will the destroying angel pass us by. Our names will be in the Lamb's book of life. In that wailing, passionate Christendom has rested her

cry, in which for ages all in the Redeemer :

"O LAMB OF GOD, THOU THAT TAKEST AWAY THE SINS OF THE WORLD, HAVE MERCY UPON US.”

THOSE who take up the study of religion in a careful and thoughtful spirit, finding in it not only a duty, but a study and a delight, will seek to grow familiar with the mind of the Spirit as revealed in Holy Writ, to view it in those multiplied aspects in which it is susceptible of being viewed, and to systematise its teachings for their own minds. It will be remembered how the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews exhorts us that, leaving the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, we should go on unto perfection, not laying again the foundation. It is an ill sign

when we are content to dwell for ever in these first principles, and are loth to remember that we must not only grow in grace, but in knowledge. It is not sufficient that we should dwell on the central truths of religion; we should seek to embrace, so far as we can, the whole circle of doctrine. We shall best learn if we seek to learn as little children, and are content, in an attitude of humble, submissive thoughtfulness, to listen to Him who spake as never man spake. The Scriptures themselves tell us how we must seek to

WE MUST TAKE HEED TO ALL THE COUNSEL of God. 133

We must

understand the Scriptures: we must search them; we must compare spiritual things with spiritual. Other texts teach us the method and the spirit with which we should so search and so compare. We must take heed to all the counsel of God. observe the proportion of faith. It is the neglect of these rules which has caused nearly all the schisms and heresies in the world. Men have fixed their attention exclusively on a part instead of the whole counsel of God. They have taken up exclusively with certain articles of faith, instead of seeking to realise the whole proportion of faith. Now it is possible, so to speak, to set doctrine in array against doctrine, and text against text. Thus there are passages which speak of election; there are others which as certainly speak of free will. There are passages which contain the most fearful denunciations against extreme sin, the sin of backsliding, the sin against the Holy Ghost: on the other hand, there are passages in which forgiveness and redemption are proffered without any conceivable limit. A one-sided nature would incur injury, and lasting injury would be done to the truth itself, by dwelling exclusively on any one of these aspects of divine things. We may be very sure that all the declarations of inspiration are true, and that these truths cannot be mutually destructive, or even antagonistic. We hold each pair of truths, satisfied that they can be reconciled, that they are perhaps different sides of the same truth, and that they pre

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