were wrought to overthrow the authority by the law. Every great reformation has been, a throwing off of the tyranny by the law. The burden of Paul's letters were exhortations urging the Christians not to lapse into the religion of righteousness before the law. 220 foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ has been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the civilization. The mighty miracles of the Old Testament spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? If ye are led by the spirit, ye are not under the law. The offense of the cross was a life of faith, instead of righteousness before the law. Christ is the end of the law, to every one that believeth, Christ is become of none effect unto you, whosover of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace. The apostles of Jesus Christ were condemned by the powers of the law, charged with turning the world upside down, because they acted on the principle that 28It is right in the sight of God, to hearken more unto God than unto men. They were often arrested and imprisoned and all save one put to death, by authority of the law, 24for teaching against the law and customs which it is not lawful to receive. A life of obedience to the consciousness of truth, and righteousness before the law are not only distinctly different, but they are irreconcilably antagonistic, and contrary the one to the other. Neither a man, nor society can be at peace while trying to serve both, for either they will hate the one, and love the "Gal. 3:1, 2; 4:5. "Acts 4:19. "Acts 16:21. other, or else they will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. 25If it is of grace then it is no more of works, otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it is of works then it is no more grace, otherwise works are no more works. Law has been an insulator to arrest the current of living truth, designed by God to flow from Jehovah through Jesus Christ to men. 26 For this purpose was the Son of God manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, that we henceforth should not be servants to the law, but to Christ. 27The end will come, when he shall deliver up the kingdom to God the Father, because the life in the Son has put down all rule and all authority and power. For the Christ must reign till it has put all enemies under its feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 26Rom. 11:6. CHAPTER VIII T ORDINANCES AND SACRIFICES HERE are two kinds of religious worship. One is of the flesh. The other is spiritual. One is by the inventions of men. The other is from above, it is the grace of God, which was before the world began, as manifested in Jesus Christ our Jehovah. The religion of men is in adoration, in flattery, in ascribing honors to individual deities, in the observance of forms, as ordinances, sacrifices, dogmas, and among those who know nothing of the Scriptures, the bowing down before idols. The actuating motives in all are fear and hope of gain. Their declared purpose is the securing of happy abodes for the spirits of men after death. Their operations are in the works of the law, by the emotions of the flesh. They are selfish. Their standard of morality is the prevailing sentiment for righteousness. Their religion is necessarily in a profession with assumed superiority over those who do not believe as they do. Their faith is a confidence that God will do for them what they assuredly believe he will. As dogmas, ordinances and organizations are taken for Christianity, the word of God is made of none effect by the commandments of men taught for doctrine; and the weak are oppressed by the strong as the life in the flesh commands the people. The disposition to worship and serve visible creations is deeply imbedded in human nature. With the heathen it is idolatry. Among civilized people it is a worship of art, archi tecture, commerce and knowledge, all without reference to the beyond, or sentiments regarding the spirits invisible. The ancient patriarchs, who worshiped Jehovah, expressed their determinations to mortify the deeds of the flesh that their spirits might have dominion, through sacrifices. Moses gave the people laws to make the Israelitic sacrifices object lessons of the natural man slain, and the purity of the life in Jehovah. The prophets protested against the sacrifices because the people attached merit to them, worshiping them as idols, serving the creature more than the Creator. Jesus Christ slew the old man of the flesh, abolishing all forms of worship, declaring that the kingdom of heaven is within men. God's love in men, the love to our fellows as ourselves, as manifested in Jesus the Christ, is the worship of Jehovah commanded by Moses and the prophets, and that which was declared by David to be the chief corner stone of the peace, the prosperity and the safety of any people. No forms are good where it is not supreme, and no forms are to be railed at while ministering to this spiritual growth in men. The human race is the garden of Jehovah. As the hulls drop from ripened fruit, so forms of worship will pass away as men approach the fullness of the wisdom and the power of the immortality of God. The God, the only wise, who only has immortality, dwelling in light unexperienced by men, begat his own life in our flesh and is brooding over the world to bring us into his perfect image. Chilling frosts of unbelief, bigoted, egotistic interpretations of the Scriptures, the hypocrisy of professed believers and the lust of the flesh have checked the growth of grace. But as the worlds came into being despite the surging elemental upheavals, so God notwithstanding all, will work out his great designs in bringing the creature out of nature's darkness and death into the marvelous life and liberty of the sons of God. One vine, Jesus the Christ, came into our true life and we abiding as he did shall come into the same. Because I live, ye shall live also. The worship of Jehovah is the quickening of the divine life in men and not in questions about forms. The human conscience is the soil in which the grace of God grows. The seed is the inspired word. Our heavenly Father's care is the husbandman. Faith is the ripened life of God in men, with power and in love. We are saved by faith, and not by our works in the law. That form of religion, which is compelled to admit it cannot ransom the bodies of men from death and corruption, comes with weak credenda, asking us to consign to its care the interests of our spirits after death in the great beyond. The great triumph of Christianity is that it declares one who by the holiness of his life rose into a glorified body over which death had no power, and his flesh did not see corruption. The salvation of the soul spoken of in the Scriptures is the perpetual and eternal union of the spirits and bodies which makes us men. Men are souls. The disembodied spirits are not men, and what ever their bliss may be it cannot be spoken of as men in Jehovah's salvation. The redemption of men is their souls, bodies and spirits in an everlasting salvation. BAPTISM The baptism of John was a temporary, conventional way of registering the convictions of men. His movement was in recognition of the fact that there was a fullness of divine life in men, that the night was far spent the day was at hand, when men should cease from sinning, put on the armour of |