lips which agony had parted,- -"My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" and then, to show that that spirit could not be forsaken, those lips closed for ever in strains of Faith, "It is finished: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit"; so, with all who would lead his life of Faith, and amid the outward forms and shows of things live true to the hidden spirit and secret purposes of God, the outward man perishes, and the outward life discourages, and the inner man of faith and spiritual endurance must be renewed from day to day, and only through looking not to things which are seen, but to the things which are unseen, if they are pressed they are yet not in straits, if they are perplexed, they are yet not in despair, if they are persecuted, they are yet not forsaken,—if they are cast down, they are yet not destroyed, - and that if they bear about with them the suffering and the dying of the Lord Jesus, it is, that in his strength, and by God's blessing, the life also of the Lord Jesus may in some degree be worthily imitated, and represented in their mortal frame. It is remarkable that in this passage St. Paul, speaking of the persecution and sufferings he endured for the sake of his children in the Faith, uses the very same sort of language which, when used by the same Apostle in reference to Christ, a speculative Orthodoxy interprets into the Doctrines of Atonement and Vicarious Death. He was 66 continually delivered up to death, that a divine life might be communicated to them"; "all his sufferings were for their sakes," "and death worked in him that life might work in them";- he was willing to meet affliction and death, if he could only thereby accomplish his mission, and impregnate them with Christian life, knowing that he who raised up the Lord Jesus would raise up him also, and present him together with those whom he had begotten in Christ." Then, at least, would his trust in the Truth, and the Love in which he administered it, be justified by God. And the source of all this spiritual confidence, and the source too of all the strength that any spirit has, not in sufferings alone, but in prosperity's most favored hour, and amid the bloom and life of the most blessed affections, is derived from that inward eye which "looks through the things that are seen and temporal, to the things that are unseen and eternal." Affliction,-mental distress, the pangs of pain and death; these indeed may be seen and witnessed, and dread and awful they are; yet when most lingering, they pass like a dream, and are among the things that are gone for ever; - but the unseen purpose of God into which the spirit entered abides for ever, a wreath of unfading glory for the now sainted head of Meekness and patient Trust. And does not Prosperity itself require us to enter into the unseen spirit and purpose of God as much as, perhaps even more than, Affliction, which brings its own warnings and spiritual suggestions with it? What, but this blindness to the unseen purpose of the spirit of God, turns many a life of outward blessings into the deepest miseries of a burdened existence, and takes away that inward peace, that life of the soul SECTION IV. THE iE TWO REDEMPTIONS; OF SOUL, AND OF BODY. CHRISTIAN ON EARTH HAS OBTAINED THE ONE, AND LOOKS THIS SPIRITUAL REDEMPTION MAKES FOR THE OTHER. A SELF-CONTRADICTION, FOR ΤΟ LIVE IN CHRIST IS TO BE DEAD TO SELF AS CHRIST WAS DEAD. CHAPS. V.- VII. 1. V. 1. FOR we know that if our earthly tent-house were dissolved, we have a mansion from God, a house not 2 built with hands, eternal in the heavens. And therefore we sigh, desiring to put on over us our house which is 3 from Heaven; if indeed, when putting it on, we shall not 4 be found disembodied. For we in this tabernacle do sigh, being burdened, not that we desire to be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now he that hath wrought us for this selfsame end is God, he who also hath given to us the pledge of His 6 spirit. Wherefore, always of good courage, and knowing that when at home in the body we are absent from the 7 Lord, for we walk by Faith, not by sight, 8 good courage, and are willing rather to be 9 body, and to be at home with the Lord. we are of exiles from the Therefore also we are zealous, whether at home or exiles, to be well 10 pleasing to him. For we must all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that each may receive for the things that he hath done in the body, whether good or evil. 11 Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men, and are made manifest to God, and I trust also are 12 made manifest in your consciences. For we are not recommending again ourselves unto you, but are giving to you an opportunity of glorying on our behalf, that ye may have power against those who glory in appearance, 13 but not in heart. For if we are in an ecstasy, it is for 14 God; and if we are sober-minded, it is for you. For the love of Christ constrains us, discerning this, that if one died 15 for all, then did they all die, and he died for all, that the living should no longer live to themselves, but to him who 16 died for them, and was raised up. Wherefore we from creature. henceforth know no one after the flesh: though we have even known Christ after the flesh, but now know we him 17 no longer. So that if any one be in Christ, he is a new The old things have passed away: lo, all 18 things have become new. But all things are from God, who hath reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ, 19 and given to us the ministry of reconciliation. So that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not reckoning their trespasses to them, and having committed 20 unto us the doctrine of reconciliation. For Christ then we are ambassadors, as though God did beseech you through us; we in Christ's stead do entreat you, that ye 21 be reconciled to God. For he hath made him who knew no sin, to be a sin-offering for us, that we might become the justified of God in him. VI. 1. WE then as fellow-laborers also exhort you, that ye |