material that, under the circumstances, was possible the hardest and the most intractable. What is written on parchment or on paper may be erased, or wiped out by a sponge or by other means, but what is written on such a material as stone is well-nigh unalterable, except by breaking or defacing the stone. But in contrast with this is the writing of the Spirit. His writing is not on stones, but on the fleshly tables of the heart. It is not so many hard, unalterable precepts, but it is the sense of sin as an evil, defiling thing, and the love of the Eternal Son of God who has humbled Himself to come down from heaven to be in the Virgin's womb-to be a little childa despised man-to all appearance a crucified malefactor, and afterwards a Risen and Exalted Saviour, having on His throne of glory a heart of sympathy for every feeble, tempted, struggling member of His body. This is the writing of the Spirit on the heart. It is the impression upon each Christian's heart of the history, and love, and character, and promises of Jesus. In addition to this there are promises of positive, actual, ever-present assistance in all temptations; so that Christians may, through the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the body. In addition to this, there are Sacraments which are not like the ceremonies of the law, mere outward signs, but are channels of grace instituted and blessed by Jesus Himself, that by one of them.

men may be grafted into Him as the true Vine, and so have His Life flowing into them as long as they continue in Him, and by the other He may dwell in them, and they in Him, according to His wondrous saying: "He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and I in him." And surely, if Christ be in any effectual way IN a man there must be life in that man as the opposite to death, and there must be righteousness in that man as the opposite to sin and condemnation.

Here it may be asked, and it may be profitable to consider the question somewhat fully: Was there no Spirit of God given under the Old Testament? Assuredly there was; the Spirit of God "spake by the prophets," as we confess in our creed every Sunday. Again, David prays, "Take not thy Holy Spirit from me," which he could not have done unless he had had in some way, or for some purposes, God's Holy Spirit vouchsafed to him. Again, there were righteous men under the “ministration of condemnation," and there could not have been this in a fallen world like ours unless there had been some measure of the Spirit given. We must also remember that, as there was the ministration of life at times and in a certain measure under the Old Testament, so there was the ministration of death under the New. The example of the fall of Judas Iscariot is far more terrible than that of the fall of any Old Testa

ment character; far more appalling to think of, for instance, than the fall of Solomon.

Again, there was very swift vengeance taken upon Ananias and Sapphira. Contemporaneously, too, with the clearer revelation of eternal life in the New Testament is the clearer revelation of eternal death.

When St. Paul delivered certain men to Satan that they might learn not to blaspheme, the sentence seems to imply a far more permanent and terrible cutting off from God than the destruction of the rebels in the wilderness. So that there is condemnation under the Gospel just as there was righteousness under the law; but the condemnation in the one case, and the righteousness in the other, are exceptional. Their existence does not undo the force of the Apostle's comparison in calling the one the "ministration of condemnation" and the other the "ministration of righteousness."

Again, was the law entirely condemnation? Was there no forgiveness under it? Far from it; for the whole system of burnt offerings. and sacrifices was with a view to the forgiveness of the persons who offered them. The High Priest was said to make once a year atonement "for all the people before the Lord for ALL their sins." What then was the difference? Why this enormous difference, that the more enlightened in the law and character of God a Jew was, the more unsatisfactory the atone

ment by the blood of slain beasts must have been to him; the clearer must he have discerned that there was some further meaning in it, and that it pointed to some future and more effective cleansing; whereas, the more enlightened the Christian is in the law and character of God, the more implicitly does he trust in and rest upon the one Atonement effected by the Son of God, and the more clearly does he see that it is all-sufficient, and that there can be nothing to supplement it and nothing beyond it; though he sees that there may be sacraments to apply it and to assure him that he has a part in it, and to enable him the more effectually to plead it?

The difference between the two dispensations is wonderfully brought out in the commentary of St. Chrysostom on this very place.

"The one killeth, the other giveth life; and what doth this mean? In the law he that hath sin is punished; in the Gospel he that hath sin cometh and is baptized, and is made righteous, and being made righteous he liveth, being delivered from the death of sin. The law, if it lay hold on a murderer, putteth him to death; the Gospel, if it lay hold on a murderer, enlighteneth, and giveth him life. And why do I instance a murderer? The law laid hold on one that gathered sticks on a Sabbath day, and it stoned him. The Gospel takes hold on thousands of homicides and robbers, and bap

tizing delivereth them from their former wicked life. This is the meaning of "the Spirit giveth life." The former, i. e., the law, maketh its captive dead, from being alive; the latter, the Gospel, rendereth the man it hath convicted alive from being dead. For (the Saviour says), "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden," and He said not, I will punish you, but "I will refresh you." For in Baptism the sins are buried, the former things are blotted out, the man made alive, the entire grace written upon his heart as it were a table.

The former dispensation then was, notwithstanding the life that was undoubtedly at times apparent in it, the ministration of death; this is the dispensation of the Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of life.

Now this is to be borne in mind all through our reading of the Old Testament.

We read in the Old Testament of the saints of God in those times being allowed in things which would at once cut them off, not only from being SAINTS under the New Testament, but from being recipients of its blessings and grace in any sense. Compare, for instance, the book of the Judges with the Acts of the Apostles. The book of the Judges records the earliest years of the law; the Acts of the Apostles gives us the earliest years of the Christian Church. But what a difference in the leading characters in the one and in the other. The