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LL converted persons are taught by the Word and Spirit of God that their life should henceforth be the pursuit of holiness. The Spirit works within them a divine yearning and longing after perfectness. And all the Word behind them calls and exhorts: "Be ye perfect, as God is; cleanse yourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."

being gone, all thought of retreat goes likewise; the men stand irrecoverably committed to the enterprise ; they must and shall succeed. It was thus Hernando Cortes, landing on the shore of Mexico, burned his ships, and the Spaniards, seeing return to Europe impossible, pushed on to victory.

So, when the believer decides on the Christian life, let him decide irrevocably, let him cut off his retreat, and

Is not the chronic state with most of us an approving the things that are more excellent, without conscientiously doing them; a life saddened and embarrassed by a body of death; a prayer every morning for grace, which seems too often to expend itself in pious breath, instead of embodying itself in pious practice; a struggle for purity, which never seems any nearer a successful struggle or victory; a sincere faith in spiritual perfectness, with a performance that lags miserably behind; a striving after Christian excellence and eminence, along with an earthly-mindedness that disputes every inch of the way?

And this till one believer asks, as if in doubt,

"Tis a point I long to know,

Oft it causes anxious thought,--
Do I serve the Lord or no?
Am I his, or am I not?"

And another, half impatiently,

"Great God, and shall we ever live
At this poor dying rate?"

And yet another yearns sorrowfully,—

"O for a closer walk with God!"

Now, there are one or two thoughts on this subject which we have felt and found helpful, and which may be a stimulus and a strength to others also.

embark on the spiritual life, let us cut the cable and commit ourselves to the spiritual life definitely and for ever. Of the pilgrims of eternity it is written, "Truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned: but now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly." This implies that though abundant opportunity of return to the world offers itself, all such opportunity is rigidly renounced.

While we still toy and dally with the world and the senses, the higher Christian life is for us impossible. The bride becomes a much better wife because of the irrevocable nature of marriage. What God hath joined together she never dreams of sundering. Her heart is given up once for all. Thenceforth she loves and lives for her husband. Even so we should be the spouse of Christ-more holy and happy if we took religion for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, and were done with all halfness and all hesitancy.

This is one advantage, among others, of the Lord's table. It definitely commits the convert, the believer, to the Christian life, and helps him to realise that he stands pledged to Christ and the spiritual life in him.

How does this help us in the pursuit of holiness? Why, in the first place, it saves us from the weakness that attends all vacillation. Free from that moral squint that looks two ways for happiness, the single eye

When a leader of high emprise would inspire himself and his army with determined courage that ensures success, he burns the bridges behind his march, and so cuts off all chance of retreat. All chance of retreat

halting between two, we walk erect and energetic. The heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord. We are dead to sin. We have nothing more to do with idols. The world is crucified to us, and we to it. We have opened our mouth to the Lord, and we cannot go back. The

heart is "united," or unified, and through this oneness and singleness grand spiritual power is gained. The Old Testament saint says, " One thing have I desired;" Jesus Christ declares, "One thing is needful;" the New Testament saint cries, "This one thing I do."

Then, again, this entire consecration to the spiritual life cuts off the occasions of sin; and sin, deprived of use and exercise, weakens and withers. The believer says, I am Christ's, I belong to him, how can I take the members of Christ and lend them to sin? How shall I, being dead to sin, live any longer therein? The intense direction of the Spirit towards heavenly things leaves the earthly and sensual without nourishment, till they fade away in their places. For, while the Spirit of God is the great worker in sanctification, he ever works in us according to the constitution of our souls as God formed them, and according to that constitution one chief way of learning to do well, is ceasing to do evil. "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh." It is by yielding ourselves up to the dominion of God that sin loses its dominion over us (Rom. vi. 13, 14).

Therefore, in the pursuit of holiness and the higher Christian life, once the hand is put to the plough, looking back is fatal.

Another thought on this subject may be put thus: Christianity must become natural to us.

We speak of "putting on Christ." The word may mean such an appropriation of Christianity as that it fits us like a living integument, growing with us, and which we never dream of putting off. A Christianity which has become our own-a living part of us-such Christianity becomes a second nature, and Christ in us a second self.

As no man is thoroughly Germanized, for example, until he thinks in German, so, it may be said, no man is entirely Christianized until he thinks Christianity. If we are continually catching ourselves in some welldefined sin, and then correcting ourselves by the Word of God, we may be Christians in that we are applying to life the principles of the gospel. But we have not attained the freedom and power of the higher life in the Spirit. We are in the state described by a recent Christian philosopher* thus-" Christianity is a thing which we indeed have apprehended, but which has not apprehended us;" it has not yet possessed us with a new instinct so as to become our second nature.

In this higher state we are " dead to sin," not merely in a legal way, but also in the way of feeling. In the access of the Spirit which he experienced, the late Dr. Duncan, of the Free Church, declared that sin lost for him its power to tempt. The body of sin is destroyed. The life is killed out of it by the cross of Jesus. fetters of sinful habit are broken, and the soul set free to serve God. "The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes us free from the law of sin and death."

* Harless on Christian Ethics.

The

We get not only a justified footing, but a sanctified force. We are endowed with a robuster spiritual health, which no longer merely fights with the disease of sin, but refuses to catch the infection of evil-throws it off by its own exuberance of vitality. Oh! is not this exactly what we all long for, and need more and more? Power to be good, power to do right—not by constraint, but willingly-not for wrath but conscience' sake-spontaneously, naturally, pleasantly.

If it be said this state is only for heaven, or at soonest for millennial glory, we reply, This very state seems contemplated by Christ and Christianity as for the present life and every day. In the writings of the practical Paul, as well as of the more speculative John, it is everywhere supposed that the believer may even here, and now, get a life in Christ that is spiritually efficient. One says, "Be filled with the Spirit, live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit." The other says, "He that is born of God doth not sin, cannot sin, because he is born of God." It is not sinless perfection which is thus aimed at-that, indeed, is reserved for heaven-but a life so entirely given over to the Spirit, a heart so naturalized and acclimatized to the gospel, that the man lives and moves in an element of faith and atmosphere of love, bringing forth the fruits of holiness without forcing.

A recent infidel poet derides Christianity as a religion that merely forbids and restrains. Now, even if we could only point to its ascetic power of self-control, curbing and quenching the grosser appetites, we could point to a very good thing. But the Church ought to show so much spontaneous living, kindly, natural piety and positive charity as to furnish a triumphant refutation. Christianity should become natural. Sin is unnatural. Grace restores the native and normal state once more. Christianity, as a second nature, a restored image of God in the beauty of holiness, is the aim of the gospel and the realized spiritual life.

By these remarks the believer is pointed to two great principles which would help forward the higher Christian life: the one, the irrevocable committing of ourselves to the spiritual life with whole-hearted consecration; the other, an habitual living in the Spirit as the soul's element, so as to gain a natural, living, spontaneous piety.

We have not indicated as yet the usual helps, such as prayer and watchfulness. He who neglects these, while indulging loftier speculations, will possibly fall into sin, as the rapt star-gazer puts his foot in the mire. This is written for Christians, and Christians know they cannot attain to anything good without prayer and watching, which are just the right and left hands of this enterprise. Now learn a parable of the telegraph wires. The wires draw their subtle force from the skies-from the fires of heaven; but they must lean on earth, and touch the earth at points along their course. Lo, at every point where they touch earth, they are carefully insulated, to keep the ethereal element or power from being drawn off and lost. So be

covenant is, that those same laws which were a "ministration of death, written and engraven in stone" (2 Cor. iií 7), under the old covenant, should be written in the hearts of the people of God (Heb. viii. 10). Do we not wish them to be written in ours?

It is acknowledged by every one that all the rest of the ten commandments are "moral," and therefore binding on every one at all times. It is binding always on every one not to profane God's name, not to commit murder, not to steal, not to covet. These things are right, not merely because they are commanded, but of their own nature; and therefore these laws can never be changed. Now, the command to do our own work in six days, and to keep the seventh day holy, is placed in the midst of these unchangeable laws. Can any one believe that, if it were not to last as long as the world lasts, it would have been placed by God among the unchanging laws of the ten commandments? By its being so placed, it is in fact revealed to us that the keeping of one day in seven as holy to God is a thing right in its own nature. And experience confirms this. For this law is found to be in accordance with the constitution of man, and necessary to his wellbeing both of body and soul. For every law which enforces homage to God is also ordained in mercy to man. First, then, it is in accordance with our bodily constitution. It is found that more work can be done in the long-run by resting one day in seven than by working all seven days alike. Mr. Bagnall, an iron-master, whose firm employed from fifteen hundred to two thousand work-people, gave the following evidence in 1841 before a committee of the House of Lords. Having stated that the stoppage of furnaces on Sundays had become almost general, and that his own had been so stopped for two years all but a month, he was asked,—

"What has been the result of your own experience?"

He replied, "We have made rather more iron since we stopped on Sundays than we did before."

"To what do you attribute the large make?" "To the men's having a day's rest. We have made more iron since."

"You mean that your workmen, labouring for

six days with one day of rest, make more iron than if they were worked incessantly without a day of rest?"

"We have found it so."

This agrees with that saying of our Lord, "The Sabbath was made for man." The weekly rest is found also to be good for the cattle which share man's labour. At a Social Science Congress in Dublin, Mr. Bianconi, the great coach and car proprietor, stated that since he had left off running his cars on Sundays, his horses were able to travel more miles in six days than they had before done in seven. At the time of the infidel French Revolution there was an attempt to do away, not only with the Sabbath-day, but with the system of weeks altogether, and to divide time into portions of ten days. But the system did not work, and they had to come back to the week of seven days, which, from the time of the creation, God had appointed for us by the changes of the moon, and then had sanctioned in his written Word.

And as it has been found by experience that the weekly rest is good for men's bodies, and that worldly business prospers better by being put aside every seventh day, so we may appeal to the experience of all Christians whether the keeping of that day holy is not also for their spiritual good. We all know that but for it we should be in the greatest danger of being drowned and overwhelmed by the business of this world, and of having our spiritual life quenched altogether; whereas, when God enables us to use the Lord'sday well, our hearts are refreshed, and we carry a better spirit with us into all the concerns of the week. We say, then, that the experience of men proves that the holy keeping of one day in seven is good both for body and soul. And this confirms us in what we had been already taught by finding this commandment in the midst of the ten -namely, that the consecration to God of one day in a week is a part of the moral law, being a thing unchangeably right of its own nature, and not merely right because it is commanded.

A still further confirmation of this is given by the fact of a weekly rest having been ordained from the beginning of the world. For this is certainly the impression which an unsophisticated person would receive from reading the following

words in the second chapter of Genesis :"Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." The writer had been giving an orderly account of what God had done on each successive day, and having arrived at the seventh day, he said: "And he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it." Out of the joy of his own rest, he blessed the day on which he rested, and gave to man to partake of his joy. It is unreasonable to treat as an objection to this that Moses had to instruct the Israelites about the Sabbath at the time the manna was given in the wilderness. The Israelites had been a people of slaves, and no doubt their taskmasters gave them no Sabbaths, and they had become brutalized by their bondage. But when God had set them free, he gave them his Sabbaths again. This institution of the Sabbath from the beginning of the world agrees perfectly with the fact that the Sabbath is suited to the nature of man. If it is good, not only for Israel but for mankind at large, it is only natural that, as it was ordained from the beginning, so it should continue to the

end.

But there are persons who tell us that this command is done away by Christ. It would indeed be a wonderful thing if Christ, the Son of God, had struck out one of the ten commandments. Therefore let us see.

First of all, our Lord Jesus Christ said: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil" (Matt. v. 17). And after saying this, he gave a few examples of what he meant. Thus, he said that the commandment to do no murder would be broken even by a passionate word; and that the commandment not to commit adultery would be broken by an impure look; and, moreover, that it would be broken even by what had been allowed by Moses-namely, putting away their wives by giving them a writing of divorcement. Thus our Lord, instead of destroying the law,

at least for one thing,

"fulfilled" it; which means, that he completed it, he brought it up to the full perfection of what it was intended to be, and applied it, not only to men's actions, but even to their words, and looks, and thoughts. Apply the spirit of this teaching to the fourth commandment. Shall we conclude from it that Christ came to destroy that commandment; or rather, that he would carry it far beyond the mere outward letter, and would have us, not merely to rest in body, but also in thought and in spirit, from the occupations of the six days?

But then, it is said by some that our Lord's own example is so much against the strict keeping of the Sabbath-day, as at least to prepare men's minds for its being laid aside altogether. Our Lord was certainly accused by his enemies of breaking the Sabbath-day. But as, when the Pharisees called him a gluttonous man and a friend of sinners (meaning that he encouraged them in their sins), they were dreadfully wrong, so it would be no wonder if they were wrong in calling him a Sabbath-breaker. No doubt, our Lord rebuked that frivolous mode of observing God's laws (straining out a gnat but swallowing a camel) which destroys the vitality and power of what it professes to observe; but this was in the interest of the Sabbath, and not against it. Thus our Lord defended his disciples against condemnation as though they had been thrashing and winnowing corn, when, having nothing better to eat, they had simply rubbed out the ears of corn in their hands, that they might eat the grains-an excellent example, if any were wanted, against any one forbidding the use of a knife and fork on Sundays! Again, our Lord healed the sick on the Sabbath-day. Now, if any one were to object to carry a sick man to the hospital on the Sabbath-day, or on that day to send out the life-boat to a shipwrecked crew, it would be quite to the point to say that our Saviour never omitted to do a work of mercy because it was the Sabbath-day. But our Lord, in justifying himself to the Jews for healing the sick on the Sabbath-day, never said or hinted that the Sabbath was about to be done away, but that the Sabbath was not really broken by what he did. He reminded them that they did not omit to circumcise a child when the eighth day from the birth fell on a Sabbath-day;