same.

whatever tends to awaken those images and associations, from which it is the business of Christianity to cleanse the fancy. With these are to be classed the books, the pictures, the representations, the dress, the societies, the places which provoke the The miserable excuse that such things are uttered only to excite laughter; or that such books or scenes are designed to deter from vice, cannot be sustained for a moment. The dry moral is no palliation, as it is no remedy for the detailed exposition of the vices, frequently accompanied with levity and jokes, which preceded it.

I need not observe how completely these apostolic cautions affect generally, novels, tales, stage-plays, races, and tumultuous assemblies; to say nothing of a thousand other arguments against these methods of "making provision for the flesh to fulfil the lusts thereof."

The apostle adds, lie not one to another; and more fully to the Ephesians with a reason subjoined: "Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour; for we are members one of another." The ninth commandment prohibits this, amongst all other ways of "bearing false witness against our neighbour."

The almost total want of truth in heathen and Mahomedan society-the craft, deceit, insincerity, prevarication, concealment-are too palpable before our eyes. Where the God of truth is unknown, the duty of speaking truth, also, as flowing from his

divine attributes, must be unknown. How widely, also, various measures of this sin of our fallen nature appear in christian youth, from childhood, and through all the grades of subsequent life, I need not say. We should, therefore, watch against every approach to it. Lying counteracts the gift of speech, saps the foundation of human intercourse, and overturns the first principles of morals. Sincerity, a perfect conformity between our words and our intentions, is the primary character of the "new creature in Christ Jesus."

5. For our apostle assigns, lastly, a powerful motive for all this duty of mortification.

Seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds, the old Adam-the fallen nature-the corrupt, blind, rebellious, polluted tendencies of our depraved heart; the flowings forth of the defiled. fountain of original sin; the whole body and mass of the sins of the flesh and spirit in our unawakened and unrenewed state; all the members, in a word, of the old man which are upon the earth.

In all this exhortation, the apostle seems still to keep in view the main occasion of the Epistle. The false teachers boasted of their discipline as not sparing man's body; as refusing it even necessary nourishment; as enforcing abstinence, and celibacy, and solitude; as combating all ease and satisfaction, and putting in practice a difficult and extreme selfdenial. They commended all this with a show of wisdom before men, a pretended humility of soul

which had recourse to the worship and mediation of angels, an effort to go even beyond the express commands of God, and to aim at an absorption of all human passions and feelings in divine contemplation.

The apostle, in opposition to all these beguiling pleas, describes the true and effective mortification which the Gospel enjoins, and which springs from the quickening power of Christ raising men from the death of sin, and carrying them up with him, in heart and affection, to heaven.

Having done this, he shows, in the verses we have been considering, that it is the members of the old man that are to be mortified, and not the necessary support of the animal frame; that it is fornication, lasciviousness, and filthy communication, that are to be put away, and not meats and drinks; that it is covetousness, with its idolatry, that is to be renounced, not outward conveniences for the body; that it is all the black malignant passions that are to be killed, and not the external and indifferent things which perish with the using; that it is lying that is to be watched against, and not mere outward courtesies; that all this is to be done, not with a VOluntary humility and worshipping of angels," not with an "intrusion into things not seen," not with a "mind vainly puffed up" with its own inventions, not with "a shew of wisdom" without the reality; but by a genuine and filial humility which submits to God's revelation, a true worship of the only Me

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diator, a lowliness of mind which dares neither to take from nor to add to the revealed mysteries of the atonement and intercession of the Son of God; a real wisdom which acquiesces in the wisdom of Christ; and seeks, by rising with him from an earthly and debasing system of self-invented traditions, to derive strength for really mortifying the old man with its members and lusts.

LECTURE XXVIII.

THE NEW MAN-CHRIST ALL AND IN ALL.

COL iii. 10, 11.

10. And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.

11. Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free; but Christ is all and in all.

WE now enter upon a most important part of our Epistle. The former verses related to mortification of sin; these, to the life of holiness. The former, to negative sanctification; these, to positive; the former, to the "putting off the old man;" these, to

Isa. i. 16, 17.

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the putting on of the new man; the former, to the ceasing to do evil;" these, to the "learning to do well."

The apostle's words, in these weighty verses, will require us to consider what we are to understand by the expression, the new man-what by the abrogation of all distinctions of nation and birth with respect to him—and what by the description of the proper centre and source of his life, wherever he is found, Christ all and in all.

1. St. Paul here still pursues his argument drawn from the Christian's burial and resurrection with Christ, as the grand remedy for all the disorders and errors at Colosse. He varies, however, the figure. In allusion to the white garments with which the primitive converts, having first laid aside their heathen vestments, were wont to be arrayed, he exhorts them to "put off the old man with his deeds, and to put on the new man." Christians should no more dishonour God and disgrace religion by any of the vices and passions of their natural state, than a courtier should insult his prince by appearing before him in squalid and ragged attire.

But this is not enough-this is negative merely. The Christian must also actually array himself in the white and becoming dress of his new character and relation; as a courtier would not only abstain from insulting his prince by wearing defiled and mean garments, but would also be studious to attire himself, when approaching his presence, with the