which they are wishing for themselves, that there is salvation in no other way—that there is no secure standing for man, except in the willing death of Jesus Christ.

I believe that the original condition of man, and then the fall, and then the redemption, are only so many consecutive distinct steps in that mighty plan which is now in progress, and which may continue to be so for ever, by which God would train up a creature for a real participation in His own holy and blessed nature. I cannot conceive that a creature such as man will be when that purpose is accomplished, could have been made at once, or in other words, that such a production is within the province of creative power. I believe that holiness is an acquirement which can only be made by the co-operation of the creature's own personal will, for it is a habit, and not a mere capacity, and thus belongs not to the first creation, but to the second, which requires the consent of the creature.

And here lies the difference between the nature of the First, and the nature of the Second Adam. They are both of them the same human nature; but that nature, as held by the First Adam, was pervaded and ani

mated by the principle of self-gratification; whilst, in the keeping of the Second Adam, this animating principle is slain, and its blood shed out, and its place occupied by the Spirit of God.

Let us here observe, that the human nature itself is distinct from the individual personalities that may be placed or planted in it. It is the medium through which they know, and feel, and act. They are responsible for the use which they make of it, but they are not responsible for the condition in which they find it. Its condition is their trial, and they have to take hold of God's strength to use it aright; but they are not it-they are separate from it, and are individually responsible for the use which they make of it, being indeed entrusted each of them with the charge of it, both for their own education, and also for its purification and perfecting.

We may conceive of the nature as of a great organized medium of intelligence and feeling, having in it an element or germ of every thing in creation, so that it has an attraction for all things, and a capacity for understanding all things, and sympathizing with them, and enjoying them-and we may

conceive of the individual minds placed in it as put, in consequence of their connection with it, into a state of active and living communication with external things, from which impressions are continually flowing in upon them, so that they are tempted to feel themselves, as it were, the centres to which all things tend, and to whose gratification all things are subordinated. Here then we see the trial of man-for although he knows that he himself and all other things belong to God, and are in their right place only when in subjection to His will, as their true and rightful centre, yet there is a continual tendency in his nature, leading him to make himself the universal centre. This is that principle of self-gratification which through the nature as its life-blood-it is a living cord, attached to the hearts of all men, by which, whilst it remains alive, the devil has influence with them or over them.

And as the goodness of the Second Adam consists in slaying this living principle, and receiving the Spirit of God in its room, so the goodness of the first Adam consists in restraining it, or giving it a direction apparently conformed to the will of God. But there is much evil connected with this latter

condition of goodness, for besides being a state of bondage, which it always must be, there is a continual danger of a man's deceiving himself with regard to it, and yielding to the evil principle, whilst he is quite unconscious of doing so. Thus so long as God appears to him only as a Giver of gifts, and as his Protector and Guardian, in the enjoyment of these gifts, this principle will not lead him directly to oppose God, or refuse Him honour, for he may acknowledge God in this character, and give Him the honour attached to it, whilst in fact he is only using God's ministry for his own ends, and thus continuing to make himself his centre; and consequently in this state of things the rebellion of his heart may remain undiscovered even to himself, and he may really think himself a worshipper of God, whilst he is in fact his own god. And therefore as it is desirable for man, that he should be placed in circumstances which will bring to light the evil which is in him -so it is desirable that God should be manifested to him, as a With-holder and Forbidder, as well as a Giver and Guardian, for thus His claim jars with the evil principle, and brings it to light and action.

And thus God dealt with Adam to discover him to himself. For the fall did not put the evil thing into his nature, it only discovered it. Neither did the fall consist in the existence of this evil tendency in his nature, for he might have resisted it. The fall took place when he yielded to the tendency-it took place when he, being in the knowledge of what God's will was, deliberately chose what was opposed to it.

This

was the surrender of the nature to the devil, so that what before was only a tendency, became now its allowed character and condition.

But as this tendency really existed in the nature originally, it is evident that it could only have been by sacrificing it, and shedding out its blood, that Adam could have walked with God in the spirit of a child, giving obedience to His law of liberty, and finding it not grievous, and that any obedience which he rendered without such a sacrifice, must have been comparatively only external and literal, and not spiritual; so that even in the original state, it was only through death that man could spiritually have come to God or obeyed him—and it was only by the voluntary shedding out of the proper life-blood of the nature, on the part of the