there simply told, -that, instead of having to seek afar or among remote and impracticable places for the rule of life, this rule brought from heaven to their door now stood within reach of one and all of them. The same could have been said of a law anterior to that of Moses, even the law of the heartthat voice within the breast, which is heard in the homestead of every human conscience; and gives forth lessons that serve, in part at least, for the guidance of all men. And the law of Moses, though brought from the heights of the upper sanctuary, might be said, as far at least as viewed in the generalities of its ethical system, to have placed itself in the hearts of those who heard it— responded to in all its great unchangeable principles by the light and the law of every man's conscience-thus finding a voucher, as it were, for its own truth and authority in every bosom—and in virtue of this its ready introduction to the innermost recesses of our moral nature, of the prompt and familiar recognition which it meets with there, so establishing and so accrediting itself as the rightful inmate of humanity all the world over, as both to warrant and explain the saying, that this word framed though it was in the highest heavens, and thence brought down to the earth we live in, still this word is in thy heart. And then as to the ritual and the positive of this great religious directory, though it could awake no consenting testimony from within, and could therefore meet with no internal evidence to welcome or to own it-yet

enforced as it was by every demonstration of authority from without, by the smoke and the thunder, nay by the voice and all those signals of a present Deity, which convinced and overawed the thousands of Israel—we may well believe that the book written by Moses, and which recorded all the precepts whether ceremonial or judicial or moral, that were delivered to this great prophet in the converse which he held with God, and which also described all the usages and forms of their earthly service, conformably to the pattern showed him in the mount, by which were represented the ministrations of the upper sanctuary, or things of the tabernacle in the heavens that this book, in all its contents, would be deferred to by the Hebrews of old, as the rightful and authoritative directory both of their solemn worship, and of their every-day conduct: And being read at stated seasons by the priests to the people, as well as read by parents to those children whom they were strictly charged to teach diligently in the statutes of the Lord, it might well be said of this word that it was in their mouth as well as in their heart. They had not to go abroad, as sages of old are said to have done, when they travelled in quest of wisdom. They had neither to search for it as for hid treasure in the depths of the earth, nor to pluck the secret from unseen or mysterious altitudes beyond the sky. It had been brought down from thence to Sinai; and imparted to Moses; and placed by him in a volume of little room within the each and reading of every man; and so, passing

into the hearts and homes of all the people, the word of life was thus made nigh unto them.

But the law has not given life-neither that law of the heart which is of universal obligation, its voice having been heard all the world over; nor that law of a written revelation proclaimed in the hearing of a special nation, to whom were committed the oracles of God. Be it the one or the other law, there is not a man who liveth on the face of the earth who has not fallen short of its righteousness. It has proved the ministration of a universal death and that because of a universal disobedience. It is not that the law fell short; but that man, the subject of the law, fell short. The rule cf righteousness as given to him at the first was perfect. It is because of defects and deviations from that rule, that ruin, a universal ruin, has come upon our species; and another righteousness had to be devised, on the basis of which man might recover the blessings which he had forfeited, and be reinstated in that favour with God from which he had fallen. Such is the design of the gospel, or of that righteousness of faith which the gospel has made known to us; and our enquiry now is into the nature of that common property which has been claimed for this last as well as for a former revelation-insomuch that Paul could reiterate what Moses had substantially said before him-"But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from

above;) or who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead). But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach; That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

For our better understanding of these remarkable verses, and more especially of the two parentheses which are peculiar to this passage, there being no trace of them in the parallel passage of the older scriptures-let me state, in a few words, what may be termed the two great steps or stages of that redeeming process, by which man has been restored to that place of relationship with God which he now occupies. Man by transgression had done dishonour to the law of God; and we may learn or estimate the magnitude of the outrage, from the magnitude of the steps which were taken for repairing it—even that the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity, had to descend from heaven; had to put on the shroud of humanity; had during the whole period of a sinless yet suffering life, to sustain a mysterious conflict with the temptations and infirmities of our nature; and, finally, had to take upon Himself the whole burden of the penal infliction to have been otherwise discharged on a rebellious world, by bowing down His head unto the sacrifice: And thus as the fruit or final object of His descending movement, was He

delivered for our offences. But this is not the whole amount of the boon He has achieved for us. There is something a great deal more than the cancelment of our debt, or blotting out of the sentence that was against us in the book of condemnation. He not only suffered, but he served. He not only absorbed for us the penalty of a wretched and undone, but He earned for us the reward of a blissful eternity. He who, to use the language of Daniel, "made an end of sins," also did more; "He brought in an everlasting righteousness." In other words, He not only worked out our legal release from the torments of a hideous and everlasting hell, He made good our rightful inheritance among the triumphs and the felicities of heaven-not only annulling but reversing our condition from that of the outcasts of a hopeless condemnation, the children of a wrath that was to come, to that of the expectants and the heirs of a coming glory. We are not able to discriminate among the various passages of His history, between the endurance by which he bore the chastisement of our peace, and the obedience by which He won for us the prize of immortality. But there is a real and substantive distinction between these two services-a distinction recognised in Scripture-between the pardon by which we cease to be reckoned with as sinners, and the justification by which we are reckoned and dealt with as positively righteous. And as the event of His death is clearly set forth as related to the one, that death being an atonement for sin-so