sins and as to myself, which I cannot but bring before you, as bearing on this subject: "Whatsoever is not of faith is sin." (Rom. xiv. 23.) If there is faith, it will manifest itself by works. If a soul knows that it has forgiveness of sins, and knows also as to the old man, that he was crucified, dead and buried "with Him," will it not manifest these truths in its life on earth? Let it be, then, in this connection (as it surely is) God's solemn word to us, Whatsoever is not of faith is sin" -sin from the bondage of which Christ died to deliver for "he that is dead is freed from sin."

us;

Let us remember, then, what Paul's gospel contained; let us remember too the blessed deliverance it brings to all who accept it. Have you faith in God about your sins? and also about yourself? A soul is not established who has not bowed in faith to both these truths which we have had before us. But the apostle prayed for these Romans that they might be thus established, and his concluding words sound to us to-day as fresh as when he uttered them first: "Now to Him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel." They come home to us; for we see all around that souls are not established according to this blessed gospel. Its deliverance is not accepted and acted on, and so its joy cannot be known. May we listen then to his words afresh, and may they be fulfilled in us all: "Now to Him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith; to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Amen." H. C. A.

8

THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER.

IT is most important for us to remember, that all that which is the power of death in the unbeliever is the hindrance and blight of the fruit-bearing power of the believer's life, to which the energies afforded us in the divine Persons apply themselves. This is brought out into full light, with its specific remedy, in the graciousness of God in this parable. There is the case of the fowls of the air, the stony ground, the sowing among thorns, and in the good ground, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold. The first of these we know is the power of Satan-the power of death. soul.

There is no life in the sown in the unbroken soon as it is sown; he

When the word of it is heart, the devil takes it away as holds it in unremoved death. The Word is the power of life. "Of His own will begat He us by the Word of truth, that we might be the firstfruits of His creatures." It is indeed the lie of the devil, by which he brought in death, and holds men in it-in which he is a murderer; so, on the other hand, by the truth of God are we made alive.

But there is one (Himself indeed the Word) who is specifically the quickening power, even the Son of God. "The second Adam is the quickening Spirit." He then who vindicates from this state of death, and makes alive, is the Son of God. The Son of man sows the seed, but it is the Son of God which quickens. "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil." It is the special distinctive character of His Sonship, that He quickens

with divine power, as indeed none else could. (Compare John v. 21, 24, 26.) This is most explicit; and no one acquainted with Scripture can have failed to recognize this power of life in the Son of God as distinctly representing His power and character. He declares Himself, "I am the resurrection and the life;" and this by His word, "Lazarus, come forth." The results of this we shall not follow; but we have the Son of God, by the Word, destroying the works of the devil in the state and power of death. This is the first case of the parable. That which is in Him is the opposite power, which overcomes the evil case mentioned; and a man brings forth thirtyfold, for being really alive he must increase and bring forth fruit.

But there is another case put, not apparently desperate, but equally destructive-the receiving the word into shallow ground. There was no root. It was received superficially; it speedily "sprang up because it had no deepness of earth;" it had no searching process of power in which it entered into the conscience and quickened the inner man. It rested in the natural affections and understanding, which are after all the flesh; it is received merely by the natural feelings, and therefore immediately acts, and with joy, since it reaches not the conscience; and the same natural feelings were of course as speedily acted on by trouble and persecution, and "immediately they are offended." (Compare Mark iv.) This, then, is all merely the flesh, and comes to nothing. To this we know how uniformly the Spirit is opposed. "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other." 'They that are after the flesh mind the things of the flesh; and they that are after the

Spirit, the things of the Spirit." "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds," &c. It needs not to multiply passages of Scripture to show the opposition of these two; but we must observe we have here in the Spirit the antagonistic power which overcomes the flesh; and assuming a man to be alive, still does so. “The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit;" hence we know that this case is still the natural man, and that the things of the Spirit are what he has never received, though affections or intellect may have been moved or delighted with the marvellous plan of redemption. But the same point holds good in a believer; that is, we find when men do not walk in the Spirit, of course they are profitless and low in their state. It is in mortifying the flesh by the Spirit that the fruits of the Spirit find comparatively free growth -it produces sixtyfold. This, then, is the contrast here -the flesh and the Spirit; and we find in it that the fairest form of the flesh, the apparently joyful reception of the Word of the kingdom, whether it be in affection or intellect, comes to nothing; whatever it be occupied on, it is but "the desires of the flesh and of the mind."

The third case, compared with other Scriptures, is equally clear, I think. The hindering power is declared directly: "the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the lust of other things." (Compare Mark iv.; Luke viii.) Now the world, and the love of it, we continually find opposed to the Father. "All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." "Love not the world, neither the things of the world; if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not

in him." The hatred of the world to the Son showed that it was not of the Father; and the children were not of this world any more than the Father, as allied to Him, even as Christ the Son was not of the world.

Every one familiarly and spiritually acquainted with the Gospel of John must have noticed the opposition between the world and the Sonship of Christ; one being associated with the Father, and the other directly opposed to the glory of the Father, in the great question of that Sonship in which it alone was known. Our Lord thus concludes the whole presenting of His work and His people to the Father: "O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me." The whole chapter illustrates the question. Now we shall hence well understand the opposition between the two, and how "He who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil world," closes that statement by saying, "And I have declared unto them thy name, and I will declare it, that the love," &c. But in the believer, even when not only quickened, but in the Spirit exercising himself to mortify the deeds of the body, who recognizes at once the evil of the flesh (though we are little aware how subtlely and widely its beguiling and deceiving influence is spread, how fair a form inbred selfishness may assume), and in whom, in an ordinary sense, the flesh is habitually in a measure mortified, how often do we find the world holding a prevailing power and recognized title over the judgment or habit, and the fruitfulness, comparatively speaking, utterly marred!

"Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples." Let us then recog