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closes this most instructive and affecting epistle. The subscription with his own hand was a token of love, and also a guard against the false and spurious epistles which soon began to be disseminated*— remember my bonds. He here for the third time mentions his chains, not from distrust or dejection, but that the Colossians might remember what he had been suffering for the Gospel now for four years, might know that he felt as a man all the hardships he was willing to endure for Christ, that he" was an ambassador in bonds," and was "filling up that which was behind of the sufferings of Christ for his body's sake which was the church;" and that his firm and undaunted constancy, and full persuasion of the truth of the Gospel which he had preached, should confirm them in their faith, render them constant in enduring persecutions for the same cause, and induce them to pay the more willing and affectionate regard to the whole of his epistle. concludes with praying that grace might be with them; or in the more expanded language of his 2 Cor. xiii. Epistle to the Corinthians, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.”

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And with what prayer can we close our instructions so appropriate as this! It is grace that we all

* There was one which pretended to be an epistle of his to the Laodiceans, among a multitude of others; of which an account may be seen in the critical writers on the New Testament, Lardner, J. Jones, H. Horne, and others.

need, ministers and people; grace to illuminate; grace to teach; grace to strengthen; grace to bless. If we have but larger and larger measures of the grace and free favour of God through our dying and rising Mediator, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, we shall want nothing else for living, whilst life lasts, unto the Lord, and when we come to die, for dying unto the Lord-so that for us "to live may be Christ, and to die gain."

LECTURE XXXV.

CONCLUSION.

WE have completed our course of lectures on this instructive and most important epistle, and have endeavoured to adapt the apostle's argument to the errors of the times in which we live. The grand fundamental doctrine of the mediation of Christ we have found to be the centre-truth insisted on, in opposition to the idolatry and superstition of saintmediation and endless petty observances; and we have aimed at following step by step our apostle's method in resisting the pretences of similar corruptions in our own day.

Some general remarks may, in conclusion, be expected on the whole epistle, with a view to a practical application of its doctrine and spirit to the heart and conscience, more especially of those who are ministers of our apostolical church, in such a critical period as the present.

I. We may observe, then, that the practical end in view of Christianity, as appears from this epistle, is love to God and man, devotion, meekness, preparation for heaven. This is its object. The Christian has more than enough to do with his own heart and his interior walk with God; and he turns not aside to controversy, except as compelled by fidelity to Christ in the station he occupies. His element is prayer, separation of affection from the world, watchfulness over his motives, the study of his Saviour's love, and the experience of his grace, the imitation of his character, and anticipation of his second coming.

Christianity is a heavenly thing; the life of God in the soul of man; a new creation; the reduction of a wayward fallen creature to the obedience of his Maker, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; the love of God again become, as in Adam at his first creation, the master-affection of the soul. This spirit of Christianity is lowliness of heart; its "life is hid with Christ in God;" its joys and conflicts are unknown to the world; its fellowship is with the Father through the Son, and by the grace of the Holy Ghost; its

fruits are "bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; its centre, devotion; its hope, heaven.

The Christian goes forth from his closet to the performance of his family and social duties, and the business and bustle of life with fear and trembling; he knows the real difficulty of preserving the inward power of grace; he knows the danger of being "moved away from the hope of the Gospel ;" he knows the snares of Satan, and "the enticing words" of human wisdom; he knows that a man may be a theologian, a controversialist, a preacher, a partizan, a professor of the purest form of religion, without being a mature, consistent Christian. He is glad, therefore, to return to privacy, to his Bible, his Saviour, the study of his heart, prayer, confession, praise, longing after larger measures of the Holy Spirit, and of the wisdom and holiness which he vouchsafes.

Here then is the end in view of Christianity as deduced from the epistle before us-" the peace of God keeping the heart"-the will subdued to God's will-obedience the fruit of internal principle; a growing "meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light;" the soul attracted more powerfully towards "things that are above," as faith brings them more vividly within the view, and he beholds Christ more intensely, "sitting at the right hand of God.' In this spirit, the humble Christian descends into the valley of the shadow of death, fearing no evil, because "Christ is his all," and he believes that "when

Christ who is is life shall appear, then shall he also appear with him in glory." Thus, "death is swallowed up in victory."

Allow me, then, to ask, is this our view of the character and temper which Christianity is intended to form? If we do not agree with St. Paul in this, we can agree in nothing else. Religion must be a living principle. The "carnal mind is enmity against God;" the new and spiritual mind reposes in him. If we understand not this fundamental point, let us earnestly pray that "the eyes of our understanding" may be opened, that we may know what it is that Christianity designs to do in us, and what it must do, if we are to be saved.

II. But we may learn, further, from our Epistle, in what manner this high end of Christianity is produced, and how it stands connected with the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel.

For the Christian is one, as our apostle teaches us, who is " risen with Christ" from the death and tomb of sin; he has been rescued from the "power of darkness, and translated into the kingdom of the Son of God's love;" he has the true "circumcision of the Spirit;" he has "put off the old man with his deeds." He is "reconciled to God through the blood of the" mysterious "cross;" and has "redemption through that blood, even the forgiveness of sins."

Here are the principles of the new life in the soul

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