minion, but it is taken away by the Spirit of Christ; not entirely destroyed, as to its being, but as to its ruling power-dethroned in the judgment, there seen as it is exceeding sinful, exceeding dangerous-dethroned in the conscience : the believer no longer under the law, but under grace, is freed from condemnation-dethroned in the will: "not my will, Lord, but thine be done"-dethroned in the heart, " I hate all evil thoughts, but thy law I do love: O what love have 1 unto thy law"-dethroned in the life, crucified with its affections and lusts, by the power of the cross of Jesus. It is not quite dead, but it is put to a lingering death, kept upon the cross, dying daily. And thus the sin, which is pardoned through the blood of Christ, is conquered by the arm of Christ, as it is written, " He will subdue our iniquities," and faith in his promised help keeps them under, subdues them effectually, so that they do not reign in the mortal body to obey them in the lusts thereof. Take an instance of this triumphant faith. Whatever the natural man can set his heart upon, or

seek his happiness in-the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life, Moses was enabled by the Spirit of Christ to overcome. " By faith, Moses when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompense of the reward." What but almighty grace could have given him such a complete victory? He gained entire dominion over sin, even when it came to tempt him with all the pleasures, and riches, and honours of the world. He was made strong in faith: Christ ruling in his heart brought every high thought into subjection to himself: so that Moses not only resigned all his temporal advantages for Christ's sake, but what natural men account a great paradox, he chose reproach, poverty, misery, rather than give up his interest in Christ. This is the victory which still overcometh the world,

even our faith. The New Testament furnishes us with such another instance of Christian heroism in the apostle of the Gen. tiles. He gives us an account of his own experience, and by what means he was now no longer under the law, but under gracea sinner saved from the sentence of the brok. en law, and from all hope of being made righteous by his own personal keeping of it : " I through the law, says he, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God, &c." Once he was alive without the law, when he thought proudly of his own good life, that concerning the law he was blameless, but when the commandment came in the power of the Spirit, then it slew him, and killed all his former legal hopes. What he had trusted in before for life, he now found to be unto death. And Christ, faith in Christ, was the only means by which he saw he could live unto God, by his grace and to his glory. By this faith he then experienced the power of the crucified and risen Jesus: I am in Christ, says he, crucified with him, truly and spiritually dead to sin, to self, to the

world, by the virtue of his cross: nevertheless by the same faith in the same Jesus, I live, the Spirit of life in him has quickened my spirit. He has given me a new birth into the spiritual world, and has brought me to live upon the fulness of Jesus, as really now by faith, as I hope to live upon him by sense in heaven. " Yet not I," I neither had it of myself, nor do I continue it by any act of my own, " but Christ liveth in me. And although I seem to live outwardly like other men, yet the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, depending upon him every moment for fresh supplies of his Spirit, to keep me in union and communion with the Father and the Son, and thereby he gives me to feel in my heart some of the blessings of that love of God in Christ, which surpasseth knowledge. It is this that purifies my soul, and sanctifies my life. Blessed, for ever blessed be his name, who thus loved me, and gave himself for me.

Such were the heroes of Christianity. They fought the Lord's battles, and in the

power of his might they subdued sin: they obtained dominion over it through faith in Jesus. And the same faith in the same Jesus is still mighty through him to obtain as great victories. The truth of his promise, the faithfulness of the promiser, the strength of his arm to fulfil his promise; these did not fail Moses, nor Paul-never did-never can fail any believer. Thus speaketh the Lord unto them-" Sin shall not have dominion over you"-having pardoned it by my blood. I will subdue it by my Spirit: trust me, you shall find strong faith an overmatch for strong sin, because it fights in the strength of Jesus, to whom all things are possible, and who must reign till he hath put all his enemies under his feet. And sin and death shall be no more. Say, it is a besetting sin, this only gives more employ. ment for faith, and for the power of Jesus. It may be a sin of constitution, breaking out into wrath and passion, that the man has no government of himself. But the spirit of Christ can make him a new creature, and can enable him to put off the old man with