efficiency in the work depended upon Divine interposition. His triumphs he ever gratefully ascribed to the agency of God, and the co-operation of that agency was the grand invocation of his most earnest prayers. "I have planted, Apollos watered," &c. However perfect the adaptation of the Gospel and its ministry to the graud end they have in view-that end is never reached apart from the action of the Almighty. This is a truth radiant in every part of the Bible, and this is a truth, the conviction of which has ever deepened in the experience of every true Gospel minister in proportion to the arduousness of his efforts and to the length of his experience. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord."

Another thing implied in the heart's desire of the apostle

is

Thirdly A conviction that this interposition of God is to be obtained by intercessory prayer. He believed in the efficacy of intercessory prayer in attaining the required agency of Heaven. Hence he prays for others: "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man." Hence he calls for others to pray for him and his apostolic coadjutors; "Brethren, pray for us, that the word of God may have free course and be glorified." The power of intercessory prayer is seen in the entreaties of Abraham for the men of Sodom, and in Moses for the rebellious Israelites. I know not how it influences the Almighty, nor why it should; but I know that it has, and it does, and that it must be employed if human labor in His cause is ever to be crowned with efficiency. Here then is a true patriot-a man who aims at the highest good of his countrymen-its salvation; and who seeks that end, not only by promoting the Gospel, but by invoking the co-operation of God. The true patriot is a man of prayer. Never did David the king of Israel act more truly a patriot's part than when he breathed this

prayer to heaven:-"Let the people praise thee, O God; let all the people praise thee. Then shall the earth yield. her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us. God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him." The apostle's patriotism

II. RECOGNIZED THE CHARACTERISTIC EVILS OF HIS COUNTRY. Three evils he indicates in these verses :-corrupt zealotism, ignorance of Christianity, and self-righteousness. Here is

First Corrupt Zealotism. "I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge." He. himself had been a Jewish zealot. "After the most straitest sect of our religion I lived a Pharisee." He was, therefore, qualified to pronounce a judgment upon it. The zeal he saw his countrymen everywhere manifesting, in connection with the mere letter and ritual of their religion, he regarded as utterly worthless. Zeal in itself is a noble passion, an important element in every undertaking-in the study, the senate, the Church. There is not much success where it is not. But when it is dissociated from intelligence, it is fraught with evils. Zeal, when directed to wrong objects, such as in efforts to pander to the depraved passions of our nature, or in working out ungodly enterprises, is "zeal without knowledge." Zeal, when directed to right objects in wrong proportions, is "zeal without knowledge." He who is more zealous for the things of the body than things of the mind, things of time than things of eternity, or who is more earnest for the letter than the spirit of Christianity, more solicitous for the interest of a sect than for the well-being of a soul, acts from an ignorant zeal. Zeal, when it cannot assign an intelligent reason for its action, is "zeal without knowledge." The man who acts from a religious feeling uncontrolled by reason, is a fanatic doing violence to his nature. This "zeal without knowledge" was one of the cardinal evils amongst the Jews They crossed sea and land to make proselytes, rather than to make saints. They were far more anxious about the casket than the jewel, about the externalities of religion than the

realities of truth. Knowledge and zeal should always be associated. The former without the latter, is a well-equipped vessel on a placid sea without the propulsion of steam, billow, or breeze. It may look beautiful as it sleeps on the blue wave, and glistens in the sun, but it can do nothing; it is all but motionless, it will never navigate the ocean, or do the world's business. The latter without the former, is like a bark on the billows with propulsion and no rudder; it may drive on against wind and tide, but it is in jeopardy every hour. Both combined, is like a goodly ship trading from port to port at will, steering clear of dangers, coping gallantly with hostile elements, and fulfilling the missions of its masters. Here is

Secondly: Ignorance of Christianity. "They being ignorant of God's righteousness." By "God's righteousness," here, we understand not that personal rectitude of His character, which in Him is absolute and incorruptible, and which is the standard of excellence throughout the universe, but that merciful method by which He makes corrupt men right. What is that method? Here it is in Paul's own language : "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit."

The intervention of Christ-the Gospel-is the method. This method makes men righteous, causes the righteousness of the Lord to be fulfilled in them. It does something more than getting the sinner pronounced as right by his Maker, reckoned as right in the court of heaven-it makes men right! right in themselves, and right in all their relations to society, the universe, and God. Justification is not merely pronouncing men just, but making them just. It is a moral reality, not a legal fiction. The Gospel is a right-making power. It redeems from all iniquity, and teaches men to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. Of this method of making men right, the Jews were "ignorant." Ignorance of this is evermore ruinous to man's immortal interests.

Men perish for the lack of this knowledge. In the case of the Jew it was not only ruinous, but culpable. They had the means of knowledge. Their old Scriptures told them in every variety of form that it was by the knowledge of the Messiah that God would justify, make right the nations; that the grand end of the Messiah was to establish judgment→→ rectitude on the earth. Here is

Thirdly: Self-Righteousness. "They went about to establish their own righteousness." They considered their own righteousness to consist in their patriarchal descent, and their conformity to the letter of the law. This was their righteousness. In this they gloried as that which distinguished them from all the nations of the earth, and avowed this as all-sufficient to meet the righteous claims of Heaven. The apostle himself once felt this to be his glory. "If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more. Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee." The Pharisee in the temple was a type of the leading religious sect in Judea, and his language is expressive of its spirit: "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. Here is

Fourthly Gospel rejection. "Have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." This is the grand result of all other evils, and the crowning sin of all. They have not submitted to the righteousness of God. As if the apostle had said, "This is the lamentable fact in their history, this is their ruin." They not only rejected the personal ministry of the Messiah during His sojourn here, but now when His Gospel is preached to them by His apostles, they will not accept it. They refuse the only Physician that can heal their diseases; the only liberator that can break their fetters, the only priest whose sacrifice will atone for their guilt, whose intercessions can make their peace with Heaven.

Such are some of the evils which Paul as a patriot

discovered and deplored in his country. He is no friend who is blind to my faults, and flatters me for virtues I have not; and he is no patriot who shuts his eyes to his country's crimes, and pours into her ears the most fulsome eulogies. Such spurious patriotism is common; it rings in the songs of our laureates and their imitators. It streams in the frothy utterances of the smaller men who occupy seats of office in Church and State. It drops in copious flow from the pen of those hireling scribblers whose journals live by flattering the vanity of a nation's heart. The strains of such bards, the speeches of such officials, the articles of such writers, might lead a stranger to infer that Great Britain was innocent of every crime, the paragon of excellence, and the model of nations. Call not this patriotism; call it moral obliquity, national egotism, servility, or what you will, but call it not true love of country. The parent who has true love for his children will not only be charmed with their virtues, and delighted with their prosperity, but grieved to the core at their vices, and intensely alive to their sufferings and mishaps. The apostle's patriotism

III.

HIS

PROPOSED THE RIGHT METHOD FOR SAVING COUNTRY. "For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." Three great facts seem to be implied in this verse.

First: That righteousness is essential to the well-being of the people. The apostle's strong desire is that his brethren should be saved; that is, made happy here and hereafter; and his language throughout the chapter, and through a large portion of the epistle, implies that righteousness was essential to that end. There is no true happiness without righteousness. This is his conviction-a conviction which the theology of the Jew would bind him to accept, and which he did accept; for the apostle takes it for granted that they were struggling after this righteousness as a grand desideratum. And what thoughtful man will deny the harmony of this conviction with Eternal truth? All the social, political, religious, moral evils' under which all men and nations groan, spring from the want