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also reign with Him; if we deny Him, He also will deny us; if we believe not, yet He abideth faithful, He cannot deny himself."

IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT.

"HUMAN wisdom says, 'disengage yourself by degrees from the bonds of sin; learn gradually to love God and live for Him.' But in this way we never break radically with sin, and give ourselves wholly to God. We remain in the dull, troubled atmosphere of our own nature, and never attain to the contemplation of the full light of the Divine holiness. Faith, on the contrary, raises us, as it were at a bound, into the regal position which Jesus Christ now holds, and which in him is really ours. From thence we behold sin cast under our feet; we taste the life of God as our true essential being in Jesus Christ. Reason says, 'Become holy in order to be holy.' Faith says 'You are holy: therefore become so. You are holy in Christ; become so in your own person.' This is perhaps the most paradoxical feature of pure evangelical doctrine. He who disowns it, or puts it from him will never cross the threshold of Christian sanctification. We do not get rid of sin by little and little, we break with it with that total breaking which was consummated by Christ upon the cross. We do not ascend one by one the steps of the throne: we spring upon it and seat ourselves there with Christ, by the act of faith which incorporates us in Him. Then from the height of that position, holy in its essential nature, we reign victoriously over self, the world, Satan and all the powers of evil.”—Godet.

XI.

IDEAL AND ATTAINMENT.

CONCLUSION.

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ture and experience, we would wish to see made real in Christian life. But we are sensible that to live a truth is far more difficult than to expound it. And yet it is to be borne in mind that doctrine is not the measure of experience, but its mould. For example, instead of aiming at self-crucifixion as the goal of our endeavor, we start from it as our point of departure. "I have been crucified with Christ,"* writes Paul. *writes Paul. Here is the doctrinal or judicial fact on which he rests and from which he proceeds. And how constantly is he reiterating it as a truth applying to all. believers without distinction. "Because we thus judge that one died for all, therefore all died." † ta Cor. 5: 15; R. V.

* Gal. 2: 20; R. V.

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