blessed rest of our great Example, let it be our constant, anxious inquiry how far we are promoting the object for which we were sent into the World. The irreverence of the age has of late years invented a favourite phrase to denote the self-chosen business of many a misspent life,the self-imposed object of many a rebellious will. The foolishness, or the waywardness of many a man; his impatience of authority,-or his instability of Faith, has delighted to arrogate to itself the pretence of having a "mission." When will such persons learn that there can be no "mission" where a man is himself both the sender and the sent?

But a work, a definite work assigned to us by GoD,-this we all doubtless have. Is it fairly in the way of being ever "finished ?" How stands the great business of our lives, at this instant, with you and with me? O my soul, there are but twelve hours in the Day; and the Day is wasting apace. Should we not more often bethink ourselves that "the Night cometh, in which no man can work?"

A

dieth no more.

DEATH TO SIN.

ROMANS Vi. 9-11.

Knowing that CHRIST being raised from the dead Death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto Sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto Sin, but alive unto God through JESUS CHRIST our LORD.

On this day we sing a new Song, like the redeemed in Heaven: for behold to-day all things are become new. If Christmas Day is the birthday of the new Creation, the work of renewing the face of the Earth is not completely achieved until to-day,-when CHRIST is seen at early morning standing in the Garden, like Adam in Paradise, the head of a new family!

Who ever took part in this day's Anthem, without being sensible of the calm tone of triumph in those words,-"CHRIST being raised from the dead, dieth no more. Death hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He died, He died unto Sin once: but in that He liveth, He liveth unto God?"... The language in itself is not difficult, and might be passed by

A a

with a few words of Christian exultation, but for the short sentence which follows, Doubtless CHRIST "dieth no more." The powers of Hell did their worst when they procured His death. But they were the losers by the encounter. "He that hath the power of Death, that is the Devil," was in fact destroyed by the death of CHRIST. The bruising of the heel of the Son of Man was none other than the occasion of bruising the head of "that old Serpent, which is called the Devil and Satan." And the dominion which Death, (not Sin but Death), had over Him, lasted only for three days;-from the evening of Good Friday to early in Easter Day. For so long, Death was permitted to claim the Body of the Son of GOD, because He had willingly taken on Himself the penalty of Sin,-(the death of the Body,) and given Himself to be an Atonement for us. But Death had no right in Him; and, after His own voluntary yielding to it, had no more dominion over Him, nor can have any more." In that He died, He died unto Sin once for all."

Let us try to make that expression (" He died unto Sin") plainer to ourselves. We, by nature, live unto Sin: that is, our disposition and will incline us to it. Never, in that sense, did our

SAVIOUR CHRIST live unto Sim. He could only be said to live to it, in the sense of having willingly undertaken to bear the burthen of Sin for us. He had undertaken this obligation by taking on Himself our Human life: to this obligation He died when once He paid the penalty of Death.” lo But what may well make us thoughtful, is the use the Apostle makes of this doctrine; the practical lesson he draws from it. He immediately adds, Likewise reckon yeħalso-your-selves to be dead indeed unto Sin, but alive unto GOD, through JESUS CHRIST Our Lorb?”noiniar it To understand the meaning of this, we must call to mind what S. Paul had said a little before in the same chapter Know ye hot," (he asks,) that so many of us as were baptized into JESUS CHRIST were baptized into His death? Therefore we are buried with Him by Baptism into death that like as CHRIST was raised ap from the dead by the Glory of the FATHER, even so we also should walk in newness of life. In our Baptism we are made partakers of CHRIST'S death for the inward and spiritual grace of Baptism, (as every child knows,) is "a Death unto Sin and a new Birth unto Righteousness." The very outward act of Baptism figures Death, especially when performed in the Eastern

manner, by dipping the whole person in water, so that he seems to be buried, and to rise again! But the spiritual act is always the same, a renouncing of the carnal life, and a taking in exchange of the spiritual;-a surrender of ourselves to Ilim who is alive from the dead, that we may be taken out of the old life, whose end is death; and placed in the everlasting life of Grace. More even than that. There is the unseen and mysterious, but real, grafting into the Body of CHRIST,-the true Sacramental union of our nature with our LORD's glorified human nature; whereby we become very "members of His Body, of His flesh and of His bones!"

To return then to the language of our Easter Anthem: "Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto Sin, but alive unto God." We, in partaking of CHRIST's death,—(and that death of His, remember, was the penalty of the Sin of the whole World,) die thus to the penalty, through God's mercy. Our bodies remain so far subject to the penalty of death that they must once die: but our souls are already made partakers of that new life in Him which gives them the right to be clothed again with the body; and that body renewed and glorified for His sake...