But those who

one and a stimulus to follow the other. have sinned and suffered and learnt this knowledge, will be raised into a far loftier moral position than was possible to a merely innocent being. For the conflict with sin, and the suffering consequent on that conflict, calls forth the noblest and most godlike qualities-selfdenial, self-sacrifice, love, mercy, long-suffering, gentleness, patience, temperance, faith; all those qualities, in fact, which conform the possessor of them to the moral image of God, and which received their most perfect illustration in Jesus of Nazareth.

Without the existence of sin, and consequent evil, these qualities could never have been manifested, but must have remained unknown, so that even God Himself could never have been manifested to His creatures.

It was therefore necessary, not only as the essential condition of the creation of free agents, but for the future preservation of beings like the human race, and also for the manifestation of God Himself to them, and to all other created intelligences besides, that evil should be fully manifested and experienced; and in thus permitting its existence, and in accomplishing its destruction after it had been fully developed, the Creator is able to raise all created intelligences to a moral height that could never otherwise have been attained; a height so vast, and so full of glory and joy unspeakable, that those who have borne the brunt of the conflict, and have triumphed, like their Leader, over sin and suffering during the period of the world's probation, are said to be inheritors of all things' throughout eternity, and for ever taken into indissoluble union with God Himself.

We may indeed conceive that even those spiritual beings spoken of as the angels or messengers of God, however great their intelligence or vast their power,

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yet, if without any such moral education as has been supplied to them,-firstly, by the beginning of evil in the fall of their mighty fellows, and then as witnesses and intimate sympathizers of the terrible conflict between good and evil in the human race,—must ever have remained at the very lowest stage of moral being.

That these mighty intelligences are most intimate sympathizers with the human race, and are also being educated by its sin and suffering, is very clearly implied by certain passages of Scripture. Thus, speaking of weak or childlike Christians, Christ says, 'Their angels do always behold the face of My Father which is in heaven' (Matt. xviii. 10), as if each one of the people of God had a special angel associated with him, or her, in their spiritual conflict and daily life, guarding and directing them. This is also affirmed by the Apostle. Are they not,' he says, ministering spirits sent forth to minister unto them who shall be heirs of salvation ?' (Heb. i. 14). If so, how mighty the interest, how deep the sympathy! Such beings must be fellow-sufferers with the beings they guard, watching with the intensest anxiety the conflict which, to their unsealed vision, must be terrible indeed.

So, again, the Apostle asserts that the principalities and powers in heavenly places are being taught by the people of God on earth the mystery hid in God and the manifold wisdom of God' (Eph. iii. 9, 10). 'Which things,' says another Apostle again, the angels desire to look into (1 Pet. i. 12). It is remarkable, also, how the heavenly host are spoken of as rejoicing over the birth of Christ, and saying, 'On earth peace and good will toward men' (Luke ii. 14); as if they, like the disciples of Christ (Acts i. 6), anticipated the immediate triumph of good, and were then ignorant of the yet to be developed 'mystery of iniquity,' and of the nineteen centuries

of evil, in which sin and suffering should rise to a height which they had never attained before.

But was there no other way in which to reveal that knowledge of God which is eternal life, but through the incarnation and death of the Son of God?

Without doubt, every detail of that knowledge could have been revealed so as to be intelligible to human reason; but of what use would it have been to have done so had it appeared to men to be only impossible foolishness? Knowledge it might be in itself, but it would be no knowledge to those who could not receive it, and who, like the savage on first hearing of some of the results of modern science, would reject it as absurd.

The declaration of God's will and of the nature of sin and righteousness, had indeed been in part declared under the law, and yet how few of those to whom it was declared, received it, and how much less would they therefore have received that deeper knowledge which is 'life eternal.'

'If there had been a law which could have given life, verily righteousness had been by the law' (Gal. iii. 21); but, says the Apostle again, 'If righteousness come by the law, then is Christ dead in vain' (Gal. ii. 21).

Christ came to give men life; that is to say, to unite them to God by restoring in them the moral image of God, or, in a word, to save His people from their sins (Matt. i. 21), and redeem them from all iniquity' (Tit. ii. 14).

Yet had there been any other way by which this life, or righteousness could have been attained, that way, as the Apostle insists, would have been adopted by God, and He would not have resorted to so awful an alternative as the death of His only-begotten Son. The human race was suffering from the terrible moral disease of sin, which would surely and swiftly destroy it.

There was but one way in which it could be healed and restored

to moral health, and that was by the incarnation and suffering of the Creator Himself.

By this we are therefore most explicitly taught, that just as some things are in their very nature impossible, so it was impossible for God to redeem the human race, but by the agency of the Word made flesh,' and that 'there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby they can be saved' (Acts iv. 12).

It is equally clearly taught that the redemption from the power of sin of even a single human soul, subjected to the full influence of the evil of the world, is no light matter. It is a process requiring time, and involving a terrible conflict, and the suffering of great tribulation, so that the Apostle declares that the righteous scarcely are saved (1 Pet. iv. 18), words which imply that, however assured the result may be, yet that its ultimate attainment, even to the eye of omnipotence, is opposed by vast obstacles.

It is indeed impossible, in the very nature of things, to raise a man from the lowest depths of sin to the greatest height of holiness, instantaneously, as by a miracle. The Spirit of the Lord may gird a Samson with the strength of a thousand men, or he may exalt the mental perceptions and faculties in a similar way. He may reveal in an instant of time mysteries so stupendous, as to be beyond all utterance, or finite comprehension; and He may gird the spirit of a martyr with strength to rejoice amidst the agonies of a cruel death. In a word, He may create or destroy a world, or suspend the forces of physical nature, but He cannot, in a moment, by the mere utterance of His will, and absolutely without any moral agencies whatever, make a wicked man holy, and change one who is full of hatred, pride, envy, malice, covetousness, and deceit into a being full of love, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, faith, and temperance. Could He have effected such a result

without moral agency, or by any other moral agency than that of Christ, then is Christ dead in vain.'

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In this may be perceived the distinction between that which is physical and material, and that which is spiritual. A spirit may control matter, and possess a body such as men have now, but such a body is not the spirit itself, but the habitation, and means of expression and manifestation of the spirit. The spirit is that which loves and hates, wills and desires; and between it and that which is material, there is manifestly nothing in common or interchangeable. If, then, the spirit of a man is changed, so that he comes to hate what he loved and love what he hated, that change cannot be effected by material influences, but wholly and entirely by moral influences; in other words, by the knowledge. of the truth, or by circumstances having a moral effect on him in connection with that truth, such as sickness, affliction, misfortune, and death. It is only by such influences that his eyes can be opened to perceive the evil of sin and the value of righteousness, his pride crushed, his heart emptied of covetousness, malice, and selfishness, and his spirit made meek and lowly.

This is not contradicted by the most wonderful and instantaneous conversions on record, as, for instance, that of Saul the Pharisee. His conversion itself was the result of the moral effect produced on his mind by the striking manifestation of Christ which he witnessed; and not only did the very knowledge of, and acquaintance with Christ and Christianity which he had attained in unbelief, form no small part of his spiritual education after he had come to regard it in its true light, but his whole after-life was a spiritual growth, in which he was always pressing forward to the mark for the prize of his high calling,' seeking to win Christ and to be like Him, if, as he said, by any means he might attain to the resurrection from among the dead.' From first to