and grace of Christ by the perishing, miserable observances founded on the traditions of men; and we see how the only plea for these austerities, "a show of wisdom," is indignantly refuted by the apostle as being a perversion of every principle on which it was based-the filial worship of God, genuine humility, and the proper honour and care of our mortal bodies.

Such is the system of the "man of sin." Such the dangers which we have been tempted to incur in our own church from a leaning to that apostacy. It is in the strong light of our apostle's argument that the magnitude and reality of the evil is distinctly to be discerned. They who see the error only in its developments, in some of its branches and effects, may consider it rather as a folly, a novelty, or a weakness, than a fundamental departure from Christ. But those who follow our apostle will see in it a terrible denial of the very life of gospel doctrine. It is, therefore, that the least innovation on the doctrines, language, discipline, or usages of our reformed church is in this state of things so alarming. All is at stake; a tendency towards Rome is at the bottom of such changes; her main corruptions are defended and palliated. And we may judge of the ultimate length to which all would speedily come, by the state of the Church of Rome before our eyes for twelve centuries.

But we hope for better things; the delusion, we trust, is passing away; and the glory of Christ's sole

sacrifice and mediation, obscured for a time, will shine forth more brightly, as we hope, than ever; and men will stand aghast a few years hence at the almost incredible prevalence of such tendencies and opinions amongst any of a body of clergy who had in common subscribed the Articles of our church, by which these superstitions were so unmistakingly con

demned.

LECTURE XXVI.

THE GOSPEL METHOD OF SANCTIFICATION.

COL. iii. 1-4.

1. If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

2. Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth.

3. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.

4. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

THERE is scarcely any contrast in the Bible more remarkable than between the close of the second

chapter of this Epistle, and the beginning of the third. In the second, all was darkness, false principles, Mosaic ceremonies, merit of works, worship of angels, human philosophy, affected humility, arrogant intrusion, vain conceit, pretended wisdom, a depriving of the mortal body of its indispensable and appointed nourishment; accompanied with the apostle's condemnation of the three classes of corruptions at Colosse into which these evils had divided themselves.

But in the beginning of our present chapter, a blaze of light breaks forth; we have a rising with Christ, the right hand of God, a heavenly taste, affections attracted to things above, the Christian dead to the world and a worldly religion, his life hid in God, a hope of appearing with Christ at the second ad vent in his glory.

Here is the true Gospel; here are "the grace and truth which came by Jesus Christ;" here are light, joy, a filial spirit, love, gratitude, a holy disposition of heart; all the principles by which the blessed Spirit begins and carries on sanctification in the soul.

For the subject of these verses, as we have already intimated, is the true method of our sanctification as enjoined in the Gospel, in contrast with saint-invocation and its attendant abstinences and superstitions. For our apostle opposes our rising with Christ to those false methods and vain exercises of devotion. He opposes the body of holiness

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to the shadow, the solid doctrine of the Lord Jesus, to the puerile lessons of superstition; the fulness and completeness of Christ as Mediator, to the mediation of angels; the "increase with the increase of God," to inflated conceit; in a word, heaven to earth, Christ's religion to man's.

Nothing in Scripture so dark as those thickening clouds which hang over and obscure the Gospel ; nothing so bright, so holy, so exalted as Christ shining out without a cloud as "the Sun of righteousness."

This is the only scriptural method of meeting fundamental errors as to the mediation of Christ, or any other corruptions of the Gospel. We must prepare for their rejection, as the apostle doth, by the exposition of the full glory of the Gospel in the particular points threatened. This exposition must be mixed with overflowing tenderness, love, sympathy, prayers. Having done this, we must give solid reasons for rejecting the errors themselves. Lastly, we must go on, with St. Paul, and show the true method of the Holy Ghost in carrying on man's sanctification and salvation.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things that are above, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God.

The real secret of God's method of sanctification lies in the acting upon our resurrection with Christ which we profess. We must imbibe fully all the blessings centering in his person and works; we

must follow Christ in heart and mind, in meditation and communion, in ways of worship and prayer, to that right hand of God, where he sitteth in power and glory, as our complete and perfect Redeemer, Intercessor, Mediator, Forerunner, Head, till he shall" come again to receive us to himself."

In all this, St. Paul proceeds on what he had stated as to our resurrection with Christ by the faith of the operation of God. This superseded circumcision, the Mosaic ceremonies, meats and drinks, &c., and opened a wide and free access through Christ only to all the blessings of the Gospel. This rendered circumcision a beggarly element, branded as impious and abominable all worship of saints and angels; and made abstinences and traditions contemptible. For we are actually risen with Christ from the grave and death of sin," through the faith of the operation of God who had raised him from the dead;" and this blessing rested on a full provision for "the forgiveness of trespasses" in the blood of Christ; on the "blotting out of the legal handwriting which was against us," and on " the triumph over principalities and powers" accomplished by Christ alone upon the cross.

This, then, is the beginning of real, vital, effective Christianity, a rising with Christ from the tomb; a quickening of the soul dead in trespasses and sins; a life of spiritual feeling, knowledge, faith, love; an actual" translation from the power of darkness into the kingdom of God's dear Son."