self in the hands of your friends? Thus do occasions incessantly arise for testing the state of your heart, and demonstrating the submissiveness of your will or its insubordination, its conformity with God's mind or its lack of conformity thereto; and thus may you know whether you have that circumcision which is of the heart, "in the spirit, and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God."

2. The motives follow the will; and, in a heart devoted to God, partake of the sanctity and consecration which belong to it. It is true, that the will is influenced by motives; but it is also true, that the will has a prior power of choosing its own motives. Now, ordinarily, men are constrained by a love of money, of pleasure, or of power; or by the necessities and cravings of their physical life. The man of God may be the subject of the same tendencies and incentives so far as they are in themselves lawful and right; but then he will not yield himself up to them blindly or absolutely, as the ungodly do. Rather, will he sift and scrutinize these impulses of his nature, and reject or repress those which the law of God would condemn, and only admit or follow those with which it is in harmony. And then he will subordinate the whole to the supreme, central, and all controlling principle of seeking first the divine glory, and being actuated by love to God. He may, in some respects, do just as others do, engaging in the same acts; but his deepest, and most imperial motive will be wholly different from theirs. What they do to please themselves, he will do to please his God. There are limits beyond which he cannot go with them. While their passions are intense, and their eagerness excessive, he must let his "moderation be known unto all men." He dignifies homeliest acts by the noble and spiritual principle which he makes to underlie them; and while he sanctifies the Lord God in his heart, he finds it easy to carry out, in common daily life, as well as on special and solemn occasions, the well-known apostolic injunction, "Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God." (Cor. x. 31.)

3. The affections participate in the effects of inward holiness. Love is an acknowledged necessity of our existence. It is the sweet aroma of our being; the most powerful spring of our activity; and the very tidal flow of the life within us. If carnally minded, our love will be impure, misleading, dangerous; but if spiritually minded, its great and all satisfying Object will be God himself. And him we can realize and apprehend, and firmly cling to, in Christ Jesus our Lord. To turn to him, as the sunflower

to the sun; to let the incense of our gratitude and intensest heartyearnings ascend to him, as the fresh dew on the morning grass rises to the heavens through the fast warming atmosphere; to fix his image continually before us, as the fond maiden does that of the happy man, whose bride she hopes to be; to talk of him, and think of him, and see him benign and radiant, in dreams and visions of the night; all this is easy and natural to the soul that loves Jesus, and loving him, rejoices with a joy unspeakable and full of glory.

All our wish will be

Closely allied to love is fear; for what we love we fear to lose. And if we love God, we shall fear to offend or displease him; and having that, we need have no fear beside. Where our love and fear centre, thither will our desires ascend. to secure the smile of our Jehovah-Friend; our expectation will be from him; our reward, to know that he hath accepted us. From this feeling will spring both trust and hope. We shall confide with unfaltering affiance in him whom our soul loveth; and feel deeply persuaded that he cannot leave us, or disappoint us, or suffer our hope to perish. We shall have boldness before his presence, and know that, as he liveth, we shall live also. We shall not be dismayed by the prospect of death; or tremble, when we think of judgment. "He hath said and shall he not do it? He hath promised, and shall he not perform?" "In Him we have eternal life." We shall not die, but live, and though we may for a while sleep in the grave, yet will he raise us up again at the last day. "To him be glory and dominion for ever. Amen."

Such, in brief outline, is spiritual religion, called here the "circumcision of the heart." It is produced within us by the power and direct working of the Holy Ghost. The instrument used by

that divine agent is the word of truth. And especially does he employ and apply to our hearts those grand and glorious doctrines which relate to the atoning sacrifice of Christ, to God's readiness to be a father to us and acknowledge us as his children, and to the dread realities of the world to come. Let us again ask ourselves if we possess real, inward and spiritual religion? If not, a mere form and profession will be found in vain; and, after we have done all, our expectation of entering into heaven will be miserably cut off.

Profession alone reminds us of a lighthouse without a light at top. There may be or seem to be, a firm foundation and a graceful tower; there may be a chamber for the lamps, and lamps in the chamber, together with abundance of oil in the rooms below; there may be appointed guardians and managers of the whole; but

what will all this avail, when the winds howl, and the tempests roar, and darkness settles over the foaming deep; what will it avail, when the passing vessel has lost her way, and the deluded mariners despair of their lives: what will it avail, unless the lamps be all lighted and the reflectors be all burnished and bright? Such a tower of darkness would be no lighthouse at all; and spite of its nearness and presence, the hapless vessel might be totally lost. Yet would it be as real a lighthouse, as a Christian professor is a Christian, who, with all the ordinances of the gospel around him, and amid all his observances of piety, has neither the light of spiritual illumination in his understanding, nor the heat of divine love in his heart. Oh! Let us reflect on the most impressive instructions given to those who live in the beacon towers round our coast, and apply it faithfully to our spiritual state, while passing through the present night of our being, and looking for the day of eternity to dawn. It is said to them, and it is said to us, "you are to light the lamps every evening at sun setting, and keep them burning, bright and clear, till sun rising."

VIII.

Jewish Beasonings.

"What advantage, then, hath the Jew? Or what is the profit of circumcision? Much, every way; and chiefly, because they were entrusted with the oracles of God. What then, if some did not believe? shall their unfaithfulness make the faithfulness of God without effect? Let it not be so. But, let God be true, and every man a liar, as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

"But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous, who executeth wrath ? I speak as a man. Be it not so; for then how shall God judge the world? For if the truth of God hath more abounded, through my lie, unto his glory, why yet am I also judged as a sinner? and why not, as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say, let us do evil that good may come ? Just is the condemnation of such.

An

"What then? Have we the preference? Not at all, for we have before charged, both Jews and Gentiles, to be all under sin; as it is written, That there is none righteous, no, not one; there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable, there is none that doeth good, no, not one. opened sepulchre is their throat; with their tongues they have used deceit, the poison of asps is under their lips. Their mouth is full of cursing and bitterness; their feet are swift to shed blood; destruction and misery are in their ways and the way of peace they have not known. The fear of God is not before their eyes.

"Now we know that what things the law saith, it speaks to them that are under the law; in order that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God. Therefore by deeds of law shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law comes the knowledge of sin."—Roм. iii. 1-20. (New Translation.)

THIS is a most perplexing passage, being both intricate in argument and elliptical in expression. It is not, however, difficult to see its

general drift and bearing. The apostle, plainly, is holding a controversy with objecting Jews, who may be supposed to have taken offence at his preceding doctrine. He had affirmed that the Jew would not be saved, simply because he was a Jew, but that he might, spite of his circumcision, be ultimately rejected by God; in which case, also, his condemnation would be all the greater, because of the profession he had made, and the advantages he had enjoyed. Again, Paul had affirmed that the Gentile would not be lost, simply because he was a Gentile, but that he might, notwithstanding his uncircumcision, be ultimately accepted of God, if only he lived up to whatever religious light he possessed or could acquire, and obeyed the voice of conscience within him.

These righteous and reasonable propositions were very shocking to the Jews of Paul's day; who all, with rare exceptions, held the outrageous notion, that it was enough for them to be the lineal descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and to be circumcised according to Moses' law, in order to secure an inalienable lot in the paradise of God, while the poor heathen around must needs perish as utterly outcast and hopelessly reprobate.

Well might such partial judges reply to the apostle's doctrines, "What benefit is there in being a Jew, and what is the use of our circumcision, if the Gentiles may be saved as well as we, and if we may be lost as well as they?" (v. 1.)

His answer is (v. 2.), " Much every way; but principally because to the Jews have been committed the oracles of God." These oracles are all the words of God, spoken to his chosen people by his holy prophets since the world began. They were embodied, as written documents, in the Holy Scriptures. They comprised both history and biography, doctrine and precept, civil statutes and religious ordinances. Nor did they lack predictions and promise, stretching far away into the future, and applying both to the church at large and to every individual servant of God. Such a book as the volume of the Old Testament was not possessed by any other nation under heaven. Nowhere else could wise men and sages, legislators, poets, and prophets, be found at all comparable with the religious chiefs of the Hebrew race. With these, and these only, had God spoken face to face. To them, and to them only, had he revealed his will in verbal messages, and in a full and systematic body of instruction. They had light in their dwellings, while all the rest of the world sat in darkness. They knew God, the one holy and living Jehovah, while other nations were either absolute atheists, or besotted worshippers of idols. They were able