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." Rom. v. 18, 19. Here we have "offence " cancelled by "righteousness," which must mean evil deeds met by good deeds; otherwise the argument loses its force. In like manner, "disobedience" means faulty action, "obedience" must mean righteous action. And thus we cannot but understand the passage to mean that the active righteousness of Christ is imputed unto us for righteousness.

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But, in the words of Scripture quoted at the beginning of this chapter, it is not the deeds of Christ, but Christ Himself, that is said to be made unto us righteousness-Christ, in all the perfection of His nature, both human and divine. Our vileness consists not so much in what we do, as in what we are. True, our sins are "red, like crimson"-deep in dye, and countless in number. But what are all our transgressions, compared with the fountain of pollution within-that "heart of man," whence every sin in thought, word, or deed, is said to flow? Mark vii. 21-23. Our very existence is sin-a standing transgression-inasmuch as it is one continual departure from the mind of God. Even if this inbred sin

found no vent in the deeds of the flesh, it could not be borne by Him, who is " of purer eyes than to behold evil; who cannot look upon iniquity." Hab. i. 13. What, then, would become of our guilty souls, if we had not the sinless nature of Jesus to cover our inbred sin ?

Christian reader, what a righteousness you have for your Repose-even Christ Himself-the Word made flesh-God manifested in the flesh -perfect God, and perfect man, the Man Christ Jesus! Yet it is not the righteousness of God apart, and of man apart-but that of God and Man in one Christ. We may say that Christ's righteousness, as Man, was divine righteousness; and that His righteousness, as God, was displayed in human righteousness; for He was inseparably God and Man in one Christ. In Christ Jesus the whole perfection of the Godhead was concentrated in the manhood. His acts were not the acts of God alone, nor of Man alone-they were all the acts of one undivided Being, the Man Christ Jesus. Hence every act of His manhood possessed the perfection, and infinitude of the Godhead. The righteousness of Christ, as Man, was as perfect as that which He had, as the eternal Word-or as that, which He has now at the right hand of God. Can any righteousness exceed that of God

manifested in the flesh ? Christian brother, this is the righteousness that you have to repose inthis is the righteousness in which you stand. Christ must be separated into two distinct, unconnected portions -God apart, and Man apart-before His righteousness, as man, can be any thing short of divine righteousness-or His righteousness, as God, not be embodied in His human nature.

The Righteousness of Christ consisted in His holy nature; it was manifested in His doings. He came into the world, that He might present an example of perfect obedience to the will of God. He was "made of a woman; made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law." Gal. iv. 4, 5. And how to redeem them? By keeping that Law, which they had broken, as well as by bearing the penalty, which they had incurred. What a spectacle for men and angels. He, who was God manifested in the flesh, made under the law-keeping the law-magnifying the law! And in this keeping of the Law, on the part of Jesus, the principal feature is the absolute perfection-the infinite holiness-of his nature, by means of which He fulfilled the inherent purity of the law, and was innocent from all transgression. "The law is holy, and the commandment holy,

and just and good." Rom. vii. 12. The law is nothing less than the mind of God, in every thing that concerns man's behaviour, both toward God, and towards his neighbour. It is the expression of God's sense of right and wrong-the morality of God. The moral precepts contained in the Sermon on the Mount, and in other portions of the New Testament, are only commentaries on the Law itself. We cannot suppose that holy men of old considered the law as only forbidding the deeds of sin, and not reaching to the thoughts and intents of the heart; still less could it have been the mind of God that, under the Mosaic dispensation, respect should be had only to the letter, and not to the spirit, of the law. To entertain such an idea is to suppose that God could have had two sets of morals for fallen man -and that the law of His infinite justice could, in one dispensation, brook an imperfect fulfilment of its dues, which, in an after dispensation, was to be set aside. The morality of God is no such bending thing—and therefore it is not scriptural to draw distinctions between the Law and the precepts of the New Testament, and to say that Christians are, for a rule of life, to be guided by the one, and not by the other.

Reader, if you could keep the law, you would

not require any higher righteousness-you would then have the perfect mind of God, the righteousness of God. The righteousness of Christ Himself -the very righteousness in which we stand-is called the Righteousness of the Law. Hear the great Apostle,-"That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." Rom. viii. 4. There can be no mistake on this head, for Paul is here speaking of that righteousness, by means of which a man is justified before God-by which a man is said to be "in Christ Jesus"-and he calls it "the righteousness of the law,” v. 1—4— that righteousness which the law required-even a perfect righteousness-to fulfil which it required that God should send His own Son in the flesh, because no other being could keep it.

It is written, "If there had been a law given, which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law." Gal. iii. 21. It was not any defect in the Law itself, that prevented its giving life; nor yet that any other law could have given life. It was the very holiness of the law, that made it impossible for sinful man to have life through the law. It was weak toward fallen man, as a justifying power-it was weak through the flesh, Ro. viii. 3-it was weak to save