love. And as you take the pardon from his gracious hand, think of the agonies and blood of his beloved Son, through whom alone it has come to you, and this will at once fill you with love to God, and the deepest abhorrence of your sins.

In the same simple manner you come to enjoy all the other blessings of those who are on the way to heaven. As it is by faith in the death of Christ that you receive the free forgiveness of your sins, so by faith in the same glorious truth you enter into peace with God. "Christ was made sin for us," for you, "that we," that you "might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. v. 21. To know this, is it not enough to give you peace? You have no righteousness of your own---you have nothing but sin. But without perfect righteousness there can be no peace. Well, Christ took your sins, and has given you his righteousness and his peace, so that you can now say, Jesus is my peace- -Jehovah is my righteousness--"in the Lord have I righteousness and strength." Eph. ii. 14; Jer. xxiii. 6; Isa. xlv. 24.

To enter into the family of God is also most simple and plain. Mark well what the word of God teaches you on this important matter. "As many as received him (Christ) to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name." John i. 12. "Ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus." Gal. iii. 26. Could you desire it more clearly set before you than it is here? You become a child of God by believing in Jesus, lifting up your heart like the prodigal and calling him Father. Jer. iii. 19. Thus God owns and receives you as a son or a daughter ---then he invests you with all the family rights and privileges of his children---clothes you with the best robe---puts a ring on your finger and shoes on your feet, rejoicing over you as one that was lost but now is found. Luke xv.

With regard to the last thing stated there can now be no difficulty. You will surely now see that you cannot be a believer in the love of God to you, manifested in the sufferings and death of his own Son---that you cannot have forgiveness, and peace, and sonship, without knowing that you are on the way to heaven. Oh! are you now then upon the way? Have you now entered by the door---the love of God? Does the peace of God now fill your soul, and "keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus?" Then bear in mind that there are others still far from it---without God, and without Christ---on the way to endless despair, and for whom this door is open---for whom there is yet room on this way. Oh! let your earnest cry be to your Heavenly Father on their behalf, and let your heart, and lips, and life plead with them on God's behalf, and thus you will cause joy in heaven over many who, like yourself, were lost, but may thus be found.

J. M'D.-A.

EPISTLE TO THE GALATIANS.

Practical Exposition.-No. IV.

Ch. 1, ver. 6-7.-"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ."

HAVING addressed the Galatian converts in that remarkable manner which we have already considered, Paul proceeds to point out faithfully the dangerous position which they now occupied. He had been informed of their state-they stood before his mind's eye on the brink of a precipice, wavering between a return to steadfastness and a tremendous fall. His eye affected his heart. Like the mother's rapid glance as it informs her of her child's imminent peril, Paul's knowledge of the position of the churches in Galatia filled him with an irrepressible desire for their rescue. At present we have to do with the objects of his solicitude, seen in their truly dangerous state of mind.

1. They were BEING removed. Calvin's remark is important here, as corrective of the translation before us. "By using the present tense, he appears to say that they were only in the act of falling." Paul's words bear that they were under the influence of those who sought to take them from their steadfastness, and that this influence was taking effect in some measure upon them. They were not yet removed-they were only feeling the force of the false arguments with which they were so incessantly plied, so as to be drawn to the borders of error, and to be hesitating whether or not they should cross the line. How incalculably important the opportunity seized by the all-wise Spirit of God for this epistle! Permitted to endure the force of temptation so far as to convince them of their own weakness and entire dependence on their God, they are not left without effective aid in the moment of real danger. How instructive to observe the wisdom and love of our Divine Guide in this case of the Galatians. How easily might my believing reader find many parallel instances of heavenly faithfulness in his own history. Times when you were plied with temptation-when the poison was on the very eve of gaining fatal entrance-when you hesitated as to how you should believe, and how you should act-when your soul bent to the power of error and all but gave way, and yet your kind Shepherd provided all that was necessary to deliver you from the destroyer. The fearful character of the position which the Galatian converts occupied, appears further when we consider,

2. That they were removing FROM CHRIST. The meaning of the Apostle's words, which seems by far most accordant with the scope of his Epistle, is that followed both by Luther and Calvin. "I marvel that ye are so soon being removed from Christ who called you in grace. The Apostle's words, considered by themselves, may be understood otherwise, and so as to mean that they were being removed from Paul, or from God; and the ultimate force of the

O! how

sentence would be much the same though we were to adopt these meanings. They could not be removed from Paul's doctrine without also being removed from God, and from Christ; but it appears more in accordance with the general drift of Paul's general argument to regard them as being removed from Christ. He says afterwards, "If ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing;" and again, "Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law." Here then lay the depth of the abyss over which they wavered-separation from Christ-death, spiritual and eternal, summed up in one word-SEPARATION. deeply must Paul have felt as he penned those words, "removed from Christ." How remarkable the contrast! He had left them living branches of the true vine-budded and blooming promising rich and eternal fruitfulness-already the insidious ligature of error was fastening around them-it was threatening to eat into the vitality of their faith, and to separate them from Jesus. It was no time for soft, and soothing,and compromising words-they must know that they were being removed from Christ. Truly we may learn a weighty lesson from these words of Paul. Separation from Christ is here seen to be associated with the apparently simple fact of submitting to be circumcised. How many most plausible things might be said in its favour-"It had been commanded of God—it had been practised for ages-how could any one be saved, and not obey this command." Such might be some of the arguments of those who now sought the hearts of the Galatians, and yet they sought nothing less than their separation from Christ. This is not seen on the surface, it is only seen when you look to the principle involved. That principle was salvation by circumcision and not salvation by CHRIST. Nor must we forget that the very same spirit is at work now, that sought to ruin the Galatians then. How many still say, "it is not enough to believe." Various are the additions invented various are the portions of scripture appealed to as justifying these proposed "conditions" of salvation; one principle characterises all---the principle of salvation by something else than Christ; and therefore the soul that is entangled by them is separated from him.

We have seen then the true position of the Galatians, and the terrible character of the danger with which they were surrounded. Our attention is next turned to the Apostle's reasons for surprise that they had come to occupy such a position. He says, "I marvel." Let us examine particularly his reasons for astonishment.

3. So soon. It is supposed to have been not more than two or three years from the time he had left them that he thus wrote. This might well excite his wonder. His words were yet ringing in their ears-all the lively associations excited at the mention of his name were yet fresh: strong indeed might be the effort made to turn them round, but it argued most shameful shallowness to be wavering before it already.

4. Called you by grace. Here lay the greatest cause for surprise. How had Jesus called them? By grace, kindness, compassion, divine generosity and love. What could induce them to think of forsaking this? Had Jesus appeared to them in Paul's preaching as a hard master, calling them to bondage, or even asking for their service on pain of death, it might have been some palliation of their hasty wavering; but how different was the case. He had appeared to them in the glory of propitiated justice, and of free unbounded love. All as they were "the chief of sinners,” he had taken them freely to his fold, and transformed them from heathenism by the power of truth and perfect love. O! they had turned from the fountain of living water, hesitating whether to exchange it for broken cisterns of man's devising, which held no water at all. This astonished Paul, and so may it astonish every one who witnesses men turning from the freeness of divine love to their own miserable "conditions" of salvation. Suppose two persons at once seeking the attention of a man. One is his injured father with outstretched arms of compassion, beseeching him to enjoy his love, and be blessed and moved only by its influence-another is a haughty master promising him a reward if he shall work for it. Would it not be astonishing if he should hesitate between the two?

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5. To another gospel, which is not another. Some difficulty is felt as to the literal meaning of the Apostle's words in this verse; but as to the real and general force of them there can be none. He means that they had been tempted to go over to that which was nothing but a perversion of the gospel of Christ. This was the full amount of the movement by which they had been unsettled and placed in danger. 'The gospel of Christ" was the good news of an anointed Saviour; the doctrine which had been set up in opposition to it was nothing but a system fitted to unhinge their minds, and overturn in them "the truth as it is in Jesus." How striking this description! How perfectly adapted to prove a key to unlock all the sophisms of the false teachers! GOOD NEWS-well, that is something. Good news of an anointed deliverer to those who could do nothing to save themselves. There is substance in these news--there is a Saviour in them---a Saviour perfecting his work, and bringing free love like an ocean of life around guilty men. That is a real blessing. Turn to the other and behold the contrast. "You must be circumcised or you cannot be saved." Well, what is in that? Weigh it--sift it---apply it to the lips of a dying soul---lay it to the wound of a broken heart---place it on the death-bed pillow; what does it amount to? A diversion from Christ---THAT IS ALL. Oh! how perfect the folly that could hesitate between the river of living water, flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb, and this miserable delusion. Well might the Apostle be astonished. Alas! that such hesitation should be so common even at this distant and highly favoured day!

In closing this part of our exposition, let me entreat my reader

to study this most important portion of divine truth, with special application to the situation of his own soul. No portion of that truth can be more important. On the one hand, it places a gracious Saviour God as he really is, and on the other the God imagined by the world. To the one or the other you must be leaning in your soul. O! be careful to see clearly that it is not to the latter. Both may be called God, or Christ, or Saviour, while they are as much different as selfishness is from love---as an idol is from Jehovah; and while the worship of the one is as far different from that of the other, as hell is from heaven. If your final decision is not quite made on the right side, "choose ye this day whom ye will serve." J. K.

LET US PRAY.

I would remark,

1. That secret, social, and public prayer is the privilege and duty of all men. The man sins, and he sins most heinously, who does not give himself to prayer.

2. Prayer, however, to be acceptable unto God, must be offered up in the name of Christ Jesus. John xvi. 23.

3. Prayer offered up in the name of Christ Jesus is prayer poured out of a soul that is believing in the name of Christ Jesus. Prayer, then, is not the father of faith; it is faith's first-born child. Unbelieving prayers cannot surely be grateful incense to a faith-requiring God: "without faith it is impossible to please God." Heb. xi. 6.

4. Prayer, then, is not the exercise by which the soul is to pass into the blessed state of justification and peace. Were any man so to describe it as to lead those who understand him to suppose that they are to pray that they may enter into safety; he would be sacrilegiously tearing off from the head of faith the crown which God has put on it; and he would be instrumental in introducing confusion and anarchy among the duties which God has made binding upon the sinner and the saint. There is a lovely gradation and order in our duties, which God has most wisely appointed, and which cannot with impunity be marred. Just as there is a lovely order in the letters and words of the "Lord's prayer;" so that, if they were entirely disarranged and huddled into a little chaos, it would cease to be useful to us: so, there is a finely graduated scale, a regularly constructed series of duties prescribed by God, which cannot be broken up and disturbed without imminent hazard to the heaven-mounting soul. Prayer must not pre-occupy faith's place, or presume to be the first step of that series of exercises over which the ascending soul has to pass. Faith must be foremost, and lead us on and up to prayer; or prevailing prayer will be unattainable, and faith itself never be reached. Rom. x. 14.

It is "the prayer of faith" which God delights to honour. Now nderstand clearly what this "prayer of faith" is. It is not prayer