individuals placed in it, that a way could have been opened for its veins being filled with the life or Spirit of God.

Considering the matter in this light, I feel constrained to regard that original condition of man, as only preparatory to the dispensation with which it has pleased God to follow it and his fall from it, as an opening up up; of a way for the accomplishment of what was behind in the purpose of God towards him, by placing him under a higher dispensation. Adam by the fall ceased to be upon trial; he had been tried and had been found wanting, he was therefore no longer on trial, but under sentence. In fact, whilst things continued thus, there could be no trial for him,-for he had no longer good and evil to choose between. He had unfitted himself for trial, for by his disobedience, he had surrendered up the nature with which, as its Head, he had been entrusted, to the power of the devil, who now entered into it, and took possession of it, confirming the selfish tendency in it, thus shutting out God, and making it impervious to light and truth, as well as subject to sorrow and death, so that any individual henceforward living by it, must have lived away from God.

Had things been permitted to remain in this state, with regard to the nature, the introduction of any more individuals into it, beyond the two already in it, would, in the free judgment of our consciences, have been an unrighteous appointment-for they would have been subjected to evil, not only without having merited it, but also without the prospect of benefiting by it. At any rate, they could not have been considered in a state of probation, for they could not have had any power of extricating themselves from the evil influence under which they were placed, and of uniting themselves to God.

But God did not permit things to remain in this state-He lifted man out of the falland again put him on trial. And He did this, not by any act of authority doing away with the sentence of sorrow and death, which He had himself pronounced on him; nor by any act of power, unmaking the fallen nature, and making it anew in its unfallen state-which would have been an avowal that the first part of man's history had been such an entire failure that it could not be made subservient to his future well-beingbut by making an advance on the original ground, and by converting penalties in

to purifying processes, and by introducing within the nature itself a counterbalancing power, which the individual persons planted in it might take hold of, and so doing might pass through the sentence laid on the nature on account of the perversion, submitting to it as righteous judgment, and finding it a price to buy wisdom, being taught by it to shed out the blood of the old nature, and yield it to God to be filled with his eternal life.

And observe, that as the fall had come by an individual, who was the First Head of the nature, sacrificing the will of God to selfwill, so this restoration and counterbalancing power came into the nature by another individual, its Second Head, in all things sacrificing self-will to the will of God. That other individual was Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, who though not personally manifested for four thousand years, yet en. tered into the nature immediately after the fall, and commenced his great work of the new creation, by bringing his Spirit close to all the individuals of the nature, striving in their consciences, and enabling them to join themselves to him, and in his strength to accept their punishment, and to sacrifice their self-will to the will of God. Wherever

this is done, the work of Christ is accomplished, that is, the new nature is formedfor the new nature, or the new creation, is nothing else than the old nature purged of the corrupt life-blood of self-will, and filled with the will of God instead. But this can only be accomplished by the individual persons planted in the nature, actually taking part with the Spirit that has come to their deliverance, and consenting themselves to the needful sacrifice. And thus we are called to be fellow-workers with God, in our own salvation-and we are warned by the tears of Jesus, that, whilst we refuse this, the love of God cannot save us. Responsibility is thus the character of the whole process-for we have in fact two natures, between which we may choose, and therefore the corruption of the old nature is no excuse for our walking in sin, because we have another nature in which we may live without sin.

Before the fall, both the good and the evil seem to have been at a greater distance from man, they seem to have carried on their contest for him, as it were, on the outside of his nature, rather influencing him through it than entering into it. But now the nature has itself become the scene and ground of

the contest. Both God and Satan have entered it, in the persons of Adam and Christ. And they have entered it, not as dividing it between them, but each affecting, and influencing, and seeking to obtain dominion over the whole race. And every man has the proof of this to his own experience, in the fact that he is in circumstances which he could not be in if he belonged only to one of them he feels both the temptation to sin, through the devil, and the responsibility of being able to resist it by the help of God. He is under the sentence of sorrow and death, because of his connection with Adam

-and he is called to repent and to turn to God that he may live for ever, which call comes to him only through his connection with Christ.

Thus every man has, in his present state of trial, three distinct wills within him, of which he is himself conscious,-first, the will of God striving with his conscience; second, the will of Satan or self ruling in his members; and third, the elective will, in his own personality, which determines with which of the other two wills he shall side. This last will, though it has this peculiar prerogative, is yet never itself the dominant will, it only chooses which of the other two shall be