"And not only so, but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement."

In the whole passage from the commencement of this chapter, we have an account of the new feelings that are introduced by faith into the heart of a believer. The first is a feeling of peace with God, of whom we could never think formerly, if we thought of Him aright, but with the sensations of disquietude and terror. The second is a feeling of exultation in the hope of some glory and enlargement that are yet unrevealed-whereby we shall attain such an enjoyment in His presence, and in the view of His perfections, as we can never reach in this world. The third is a feeling of exultation, even in the very crosses and tribulations of our earthly pilgrimage, from the process which they give rise to in our own characters-a process that manifests a work of grace here, and so serves to confirm all our expectations of a harvest of glory and blessedness hereafter. And indeed how can it be otherwise, the apostle reasons. hath already given us His Son, will He not with Him freely give us all things? He hath already evinced His regard by sparing not His well-beloved -but surrendering Him to the death of a sore and

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heavy atonement for us, at the time that we were adversaries. And now that He has done so much in circumstances so unlikely, will He not carry on the work of deliverance to its final accomplishment when circumstances have changed?-when we who at one time stood afar off, have now drawn nigh; and when He, who at one time shuddered with very apprehension at the dark vale of agony before Him, has now burst loose from His imprisonment, and finally escaped from the grief that was put upon His soul-has now a work of grace and of gladness to carry onwards to its full consummation? It is thus that the believer persuades himself into a still more settled assurance of the love of God to him than before; and whereas, in the second verse he only rejoiced in the hope of the glory of God as it will be revealed to him in future-he, in this eleventh verse, expresses a present rejoicing in this same God-delighting himself even now in the assurance of His present regard; and approaching Him with affectionate confidence even now, under the sense of a present reconciliation.

The apostle in this passage makes use of such terms, as are expressive of a gradation in the feelings of him who has admitted the faith of the gospel into his mind-each rising above the other, and marking an advance and a progress in Christian experience. It is well, in the first instance, to be set at rest from all that turbulence and alarm which conviction stirs up in the sinner's restless bosom-so as that he has "peace with God through Jesus Christ

our Lord." But it is better still, when he can not only look at God as disarmed of all enmity towards him-but draws near unto Him, in the confidence of a positive favour and friendship towards him, which will afterwards appear in some glorious manifestation. "By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." And it argues a still higher strength and steadfastness of feeling, when it can maintain itself under visitations, which, to flesh and blood, would be otherwise overpowering. "And not only so, but we glory in tribulation also." And lastly, when there is both the positive experience of a gift in hand, even the Holy Ghost shed abroad upon us; and the resistless consideration that He who reconciled sinners by death, will, now surely that they are reconciled, fully and conclusively save them, seeing that He is alive again-does the apostle, upon the strength of these, carry forward the believer to a still higher eminence in the divine life, where he can not only see afar off to the glorious regions of immortality and be glad; but where, in foretaste as it were of the joy of these regions felt by him now, he is glad in a sense of the already possessed friendship of God, glad in the intercourse of love and confidence with a present Deity.

There is much, we think, to be gathered from the consideration, that joy in God forms one of the exercises of a Christian mind-a habit or condition of the soul into which every believer is or ought to

be translated-a spiritual eminence that may be gained, even in this world, and where the heart of man may experience a relish, and imbibe a rapture, which the world most assuredly knoweth not. To feel as if you were in the company of God-to have delight in this feeling-to triumph in God as you would do in a treasure that had come into your possession-to dwell upon Him in fancy and with fondness, just as one friend dwells on the pleasing remembrance of another-to reach the extacies of devotion, and find that the minutes spent in communion with the heavenly and unseen witness, are far the sweetest and the sunniest intervals of your earthly pilgrimage-to have a sense of God all the day long, and that sense of Him in every way so delicious as to make the creature seem vain and tasteless in the comparison-to have His candle shining in your heart, and a secret beatitude in Him of which other men have no comprehension-to bear about with you that cheerful trust in Him, and that cherished regard to Him, which children do to a father whose love they rejoice in, and of whose good-will they are most thoroughly assured-to prize the peaceful sabbaths and the sacred retirements, when your soul can wing its contemplation toward His sanctuary, and there behold the glories of His character, at the very time that you can exult in confidence before Him -thus to be affected towards God, and thus to glory and be glad in Him, is certainly not a common attainment; and yet we do not see how any

true saint, any genuine disciple can be altogether a stranger to it. "Rejoice evermore," says the apostle of the New Testament; and "the Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice," says the venerable patriarch of the Old. It is easy to walk in the rounds of a mechanical observation. It is easy to compel the hand to obedience, against the grain and inclination of the heart. It is very easy to bear towards God the homage of respect, or fearfulness, or solemn emotion; and to render Him the outward obeisance, and even something of the inward awe of worshippers. It is somewhat natural to feel the dread of His majesty, or to be visited by a sense of His terrors, or to be checked by the thought of His authority and power. And, under the weight of all this impressive seriousness, it is even somewhat natural and easy to pray. But it has been well remarked, that praise is not so natural, nor so common, nor withal so easy as prayer -that delight in God is a rarer and a loftier condition of the soul, than devoutness of feeling to God-that the sigh of repentance may be heard to ascend towards Him in many cases, while the singing of the heart towards Him may only break forth in very few-that to cultivate with God as a matter of duty, is a habit of far greater frequency, than to do it as if by the impulse of a spontaneous feeling-So that to serve Him as a master to whom you are bound in the way of obligation, is more the tendency of nature, than to serve Him as a friend to whom you are bound by the willing affec