eousness. But this is not saying that he who minds the flesh may not cease to be carnally minded, and by giving heed to the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus become spiritually minded. We do not argue for the ability of any man to deliver himself from the body of sin and death, but we do contend for the power of the gospel of the grace of God to enable the most abandoned who gives heed to it to become more than a conqueror.

The Saviour's much misunderstood words in John v. 44, 'How can ye believe who receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only,' do not mean that men have not faculties sufficient to credit God's testimony, but that so long as they have regard to the praises of their fellows, instead of seeking the approval of God, they cannot believe on Jesus. But let them have respect to the divine approbation, and the inability spoken of ceases.

Thus it is that those things that are highly esteemed among men, but are abomination to God, are all so many hinderances to the entry into the kingdom of those who would go. No impediment is greater than that which the religious teachers of the people interpose. Themselves the creatures of human pride and ambition, living in the adulations of the populace, their approval comes to be a chief object of attainment with those over whom they exercise their theftuous lordship. 'What says the minister?' comes thus to be with the many the determining question. His doctrine is law. He has only to affirm as 'non-essential' any duty that the Messiah has enjoined to secure the disobedience of those who otherwise would follow the Lord. 'What would be thought of us if we were to disregard our minister's teaching' is a stumblingblock with thousands of thousands. Nor is there deliverance for any in this bondage, save in the counsel of God: Cease from man, for wherein is he to be depended on?

With the ministry of these apostate days, and their dogmata of human inability and non-essentiality, the great and the mighty, the rich and respectable, are for the most part allied. So that very few, if any, can turn to the Lord without finding that their relatives, companions, and employers, think it strange of them that they run not with themselves to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of them. The terms

of discipleship are nothing changed from the day the Saviour said: Whosoever shall confess me before men, him will I also confess before my Father who is in heaven; but whoso

ever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword; for I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes shall be those of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and he that taketh not his cross and followeth after me is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it, and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.' Therefore again, ‘If any

man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.'

Life itself, then, must be surrendered if it stand in the way of one's following the Lord. And this, of course, includes all that life embraces; friends, position, riches, business, pleasures, and prospects. For a man to associate himself with the Lord in the fortunes of his kingdom, he must dis-sociate himself from whatever hinders. Just as those who in the past century espoused the cause of the Stuarts had to surreader everything preventive of their joining the standard of their chosen prince, so must those who would be accounted the followers of the Prince Messiah yield everything that withstands their following him fully-to the death if need be. These obstacles differ in number and degree in different cases; but in every case there are some such preventives, and it is for every one who would live godly in Christ Jesus to begin the march to glory with the most distinct understanding, that it is only as a victor he can wear the crown. It is for each resolutely to face the particular difficulties that oppose his progress, realising that greater is he that is for him than all they that are against him. Timidity is unworthy of faith; all things are possible to him that believeth; there is no just cause of apprehension to the faithful, for it the very nature of christian faith to rely on the power of mnipotence, to ascertain that this power is vouchsafed in the gospel, and to feel that it is pledged to, and is ever present with, the God-trusting soul. Distrustful of self, the believer is strong in reliance on God, so that his language is, 'When I am weak, then am I strong.' 'Who is he that overcometh the world but he that believeth that Jesus is the Christ?' 'This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.'

Thus, dear reader, 'Strive to enter'-take unto you the whole armour of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having overcome every foe, still to stand when the last sound of battle fades from your ear. So shall an abundant entrance be ministered to you into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

ED.

HOW IS THE GOSPEL ADMINISTERED AND

ENJOYED?

THIS question divides Christendom. On opposite sides are ranged the two great parties that have hitherto held the world in subjection. Papists, Puseyites, and Irvingites, teach that the gospel privileges are enjoyed through ordinances alone; hence we have baptismal regeneration, transubstantiation, &c., while Protestants, of almost every name, teach salvation by faith alone; but if we examine the commission given to the apostles, and their acts and writings, neither doctrine is either taught or exemplified. Here is their order: the gospel was preached in order to faith, and faith wrought its legitimate fruits-repentance and obedience to the gospel. The ordi nance of baptism is the first act of believing obedience. But in no case is salvation predicated on faith alone, nor on bap tism alone, but on faith and baptism, hence the Papists are wrong who teach the first doctrine-while the Protestant are equally wrong who teach the latter. The truth lies it the middle course, through faith and ordinance. Marry the two principles together, and you accomplish what neither can separately effect: you administer and enjoy salvation. It is universally admitted that Christianity is enjoyed through certain ordinances; we have prayer, teaching, the Lord's supper, &c., all which combined, form what is understood to be Christianity. What would Christianity be without these? What would it be without prayer, or teaching, or the Lord's supper? Every one would admit it was not Christianity at all. So with the gospel abstracted from the associated ordinances of faith and baptism. In baptism the believer is assured of present salvation, while on the other hand the ordinance without faith is null and void. It cannot impart a renovated nature, but combine the two, and then we have what is most to be desired a present salvation-a spirit purified by the knowledge and obedience of the truth. Dundee.

G M.

THE ABRAHAMIC COVENANT.-Gal. iii. 17.

PERHAPS, in the experience of every intelligent Christian, there is a time in which the Old Testament scriptures are apt to be underrated. That time is generally the first stages of the process through which the mind passes in obtaining clear views of the gospel. That stage passed, and the Old Testament will be as highly prized and deeply studied as the New.

Extreme fondness and exclusive regard for the New Testament are no sign of superior knowledge. They are, indeed, an indication of clearness, but it is a shallow clearness. In order to depth and comprehensiveness, the whole book must be made an object of study. Young Christians just opening their eyes, as it were, to the beauty and simplicity of the New economy, need careful teaching on this point.

It may be laid down as a maxim, that our study of the New Testament has been but artificial if it has failed to lead us to the Old. To understand in any good degree the one, we must not be ignorant of the contents of the other. Without some acquaintance with the Old Testament, how meagre, for example, would be our knowledge of the writings of Paul?

Thus many questions at first sight appearing to belong, as it were, to the one, in reality belong to both parts of revelation, what is said in the one tending to illustrate and confirm what on the same subject is said in the other. Take as an instance, what is usually called the Abrahamic Covenant. Some think this peculiarly an Old Testament theme, yet Paul identifies it with the gospel. His grand argument with the Judaisers is, that he was in harmony with Abraham, but that they were not.

In illustration of the above, the following remarks on the nature and import of the 'Abrahamic covenant' are submitted to the reader. The sum of these is this, that it was an arrangement graciously given by God to Abraham, in which He promised to be his God, and the God of his seed; to make him the progenitor of the Messiah; to give him the land of Canaan, and ultimately the whole world, for an inheritance.

Observe, we have designated it an arrangement. This conveys a somewhat different meaning from that implied in the word covenant. A covenant is an agreement between two parties on mutual terms, i.e., each party having an equal share in proposing the terms which constitute the basis of the agreement. In this sense God never made a covenant with man. Man never had any share, either in framing or in laying down terms of agreement with God. In all the transactions recorded in the Scriptures, which God has been pleased to enter into on behalf of man, this has rested entirely with God himself. In them all God appears before us as a Sovereign; and, not merely treating with His subjects, but graciously making known to them what He is willing to be and to do to them. They may or they may not fall in with this, but they cannot alter it. When, therefore, we apply the word covenant to God's dealings with man, we must be careful to bear in mind this limitation.

As serving to confirm these remarks, it may be noticed that the Greek word answering to our word covenant' is σvvēкn, a word which is not once found in the Greek Scriptures, either of the Old or of the New Testament, díaonкn being invariably used; thus giving us unquestionably to understand that the arrangements which God has given to man, in whatever respect they may resemble, are not to be esteemed as of the same nature as 'agreements on mutual terms between man and man.'

It makes it more difficult to obtain a correct conception of the distinction here referred to, from there not being an exact equivalent in English for diatheekee. Will, or Testament, sometimes gives the meaning; but only when dialŋŋ has this application. Perhaps Arrangement, Plan, Institution, most nearly convey the proper meaning.

These remarks on the nature of the covenant serve to prepare our way for ascertaining its import-the things covenanted, the things arranged or instituted by God to Abraham. This we chiefly learn from the book of Genesis. In chap. xii., after having told him to leave his native country for one which would afterwards be shown him, God promises to him on this wise I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing, and I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. Though not specially mentioned, this promise implies all that was afterwards promised to him. God acted in this according to the plan which is observable throughout revelation, i.e., in presenting us at the outset with all that afterwards He intended to reveal. For example, the first intimation, touching salvation, made to man after the fall, contains in embryo all that afterwards is revealed regarding it. And thus God's promise to Abraham is a development and explanation of that given to Adam. When God promised to make of Abraham a great nation and bless him, it was in order to his being the progenitor of the Messiah-the SEED of the woman-through whom alone he could be made a blessing to the

nations.

The first part of the covenanted blessing, then, was, that Abraham should be the progenitor of the Messiah; and in harmony with this, rather in order to it, the promise of making of him a great nation. The Messiah must come out of some nation; and that one behoved to be taken under God's peculiar care, educated, and made the depository of those truths and forms of thought which, according to infinite wisdom, here seem to be necessary to the world's enlightenment and subjugation to Messiah's reign, when the time arrived that He should come. Hence a Nation was provided-the nation which was to spring from Abraham.

But a nation implies a country; hence the references to one in the intimations afterwards made to Abraham. Gen. xiii. 14–17. 'Lift up now thine eyes and look from the place where thou art, northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward, for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.' &c. Thus the land of Canaan for an inheritance came to be regarded by the descendants of Abraham as a leading element in the covenanted blessing. It, indeed, in many respects, absorbed it all. It