v.] COMPLETED IN THE DIVINE is in Anselm's thought something fatalistic or mechanical, as if the Divine perfection was bound to a certain cycle in creating, the thought of S. Paul rises to the majesty of a moral world—a subordination of will to will, the will of the finite to the Supreme. He does not conceive of the failures of some wills, in the former series of creations, as compensated by the success of other wills at a later stage. He appeals to every Christian to fit himself by grace for that which Christ has prepared for all who will follow Him. 6 moral 177 The gathering together of all in Christ' must be preceded, then, by a moral working in each, not as remedial only but according to the measure of every part.' Here is a wonder that angels might desire to look into.' No thought of ours can adequately ▲ Perfect realize that marvellous future of the Jerusalem creation. which is above,' completed at last by 'just' inhabitants from this lower sphere, and joined by the hosts of God.' Not until the myriads of the sanctified on earth shall be completed, and the last of the 'redeemed from among men' shall have gone up on high, will the Apocalyptic vision be realized'and I saw the New Jerusalem descend from God, as a Bride adorned for her Husband,'-the great Eph. v. 32. mystery of Christ and His Church.' Not until the moral world is accomplished will the elements of the old creation be removed, and the atmosphere of alternate decay and birth here below be superseded by that ethereal light in which we shall for ever 'live and move and have our being.' N And then shall He Who sitteth on the throne proclaim, 'Behold, I make all things new.' 'And there shall be new heavens, and new earth, and there shall be no more sea;' for the first heavens and the first earth shall be passed away.' LECTURE VI. καιροὶ χαλεποί. I. TIMES OF THE TRANSITION. (A.D. 61-69.) 2. DIFFICULTIES IN THE SEPARATION FROM JUDAISM. 3. PROVISIONS MADE BY S. PAUL FOR THE EMERGENCY. 4. CO-EXISTENCE NOW OF THE OLD CREATION AND THE NEW. III. Principles of association among Christians (I. Timothy). Not opposed, historically, to secular government. LECTURE VI. TIMES OF THE TRANSITION. 'In the last days perilous times shall come.'- -2 TIM. iii. 1. I. State of the Church world Apostle's 1. FROM his prison on the Palatine, S. Paul had leisure not only to review his own work for Christ, but to contemplate as from a watch-tower the progress of the new life which was pervading the moral and the chaos of the nations. We must again survey We must again survey the during the scene with him, and re-visit in thought the course imprisonhitherto traversed. We thus shall best learn, first ment. the nature of the crisis; next how it had been so long averted; then how S. Paul met it; and finally that which concerns its adjustment afterwards, and till now. Great changes had passed over the Churches, and over the Empire, since the Apostle's mission had begun, changes that must be watched more closely than has thus far been necessary. The state of the world and the advance of the Gospel must be looked at together, as in some wise acting and re-acting on each other, during the various social phases of that generation which we must try to understand. difficulties All Christians had from the first expected, as Increasing Christ had foretold, times of the extremest difficulty of the times. to come before the fall of Jerusalem and the open |