sin; the price of redemption; the merit of obedience; the efficacy of faith; "the kingdom, and the power, and the glory."

Once more I ask, can we hope to share in Christ, if we are not conformed to Him? Will faith save us, if we do not live the life of faith? Will our Lord own us, if we serve mammon, will He give us an inheritance in heaven, if we love the world?

Pilate said unto the Jews, "Behold the man!" Christians, behold Him carefully; for He "left us an example that we should follow His steps." Behold how He came; "not to do His own will, but the will of Him that sent Him;" how He thought it His meat and drink, His support and pleasure, "to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work;" how He renounced all ambition, despised all pleasures, discarded all comfort, crushed every tender affection, and encountered weariness and contradiction; and endured unmeet companions, and

patiently underwent insults and persecution, and bore the most dreadful tortures; all, all, with this one object in view, "Father, not my will, but thine be done!" And if our hearts be changed by the power of true faith, we shall be animated and guided by a portion of that same spirit which was bestowed upon Him without measure. Sin will become hateful to us, even whilst our human infirmity makes us still sensible of its strength; holiness will be the object of our exertions, heaven of our hopes, Christ of our love.

Oh, how cold, how dead are our affections to the love of Christ. How dim our view of the fulness of redemption through Him alone! How faint our efforts to apprehend Him by faith, and to be conformed to Him in spirit!

May He " open our eyes to see the wondrous things of His law;" of that law whereof the Lord hath said to Him, "Thou art my Son, this day have I be

gotten thee." May He open our hearts to receive Him by a lively faith, “a faith which worketh by love." May He “direct our feet in the way of peace," and "purify us to Himself, a peculiar people zealous of good works."

SERMON XI.

THE PERFECT LAW OF LIBERTY.

ST. JAMES i. 25.

The perfect law of liberty.

νόμον τέλειον τὸν τῆς ἐλευθερίας.

THE perfect law of liberty! There is certainly somewhat in this expression worth our consideration, for the usual definition of a law is "a sacrifice of liberty." Man, in a social state, surrenders a portion of his natural liberty, for the attainment of peace and security; and there can be no question that all human laws, however necessary and beneficial, are so many restraints upon liberty. Nay, even with

respect to the divine law, to that dispensation especially called "the law," it must be admitted that it partook of the same character; since St. Peter speaks of it, as imposing a burden too heavy for the impatience of human nature'.

The Gospel itself also, to which St. James plainly refers, presents, at first sight, a system of moral restraints far more strict than any former code what

Many indulgences, permitted by all other legislators, are absolutely forbidden by Jesus Christ; many duties, of an irksome and fatiguing, and often of a painful and dangerous nature, are required by Him, which had never been exacted by the most severe teachers of religion or philosophy. With what propriety, then, can that law, which appears to demand and to forbid so much more than other laws, be called "the law of liberty?" With the greatest.

1 Acts xv. 10.