ness of self-will lies close to all here-a hidden spectre embraced too often as an angel of light -our own ignorance, fanaticism, or religious pride, glorified as the truth-our own pleasure as the Divine will. And who can tell the grades of darkness from which many Christian people are in consequence never delivered in this world? Their very spiritual sight is blurred; and the light that is in them being darkened, how great is that darkness! But in heaven there shall be no sin-no self-deceit of the conscience, no impurity of the affections, no perversity of the will; the "old man" will have perished in death, and the new man alone survive, "which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him."* Think what a flood of light will come from this cause alone, when the spiritual sight has been purged from every film of self-delusion, and the vision of the Divine falls with unbroken strength on our purified souls. Then indeed shall we see face to face, and know even as we are known.

Let us then, as we would rise to the light of heaven, put away from us now all the works of darkness. Let us live as children of the light and of the day. If the future is to be to us a

* Colossians, iii. 10.

future of light, the change must begin in us here. God must dwell in our hearts by faith. We must walk in light, "as He is in the light." "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.”* The light that is to grow into the perfect light of heaven must be kindled in us now. It may still be but a feeble spark, hardly glowing amidst the more active embers of selfish desire, but the breath of heaven is waiting to fan the feeble flame into a glow that shall shine more and more unto the perfect day. "Now unto Him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen."

* 1 John, i. 6.

166

IX.

GRACE AND FREEDOM IN CHRIST.

GALATIANS, iv. 10, 11.-" Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain."

ERE, as so often, the aim of St Paul is to

HERE,

exalt the idea of religion, and to fix it in its essence to carry the mind away from mere form and ritual to the reality of spiritual truth and life. There is not only an unwonted force, but an unwonted irony, in his words. Not that irony is unfamiliar to St Paul; on the contrary, it plays an important part in his writings, as all who read his epistles with attention must know. But there is something almost harsh here in his tone. The Galatian perverts-to use an expressive modern term-had kindled his indignation. The very strength of the love which he bore to them, and which had once been so warmly

reciprocal, flashes forth in the changed circumstances with a scorn which has a scathing touch in it, which wounds while it pierces.-" Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain."

The words, even if they stood alone, would well deserve attention from their emphasis and point. They come straight from the apostle's heart, and leave no doubt of the intensity of his feeling. But similar words, although without the touch of scorn that marks these, occur more than once in his epistles. In the great Epistle to the Romans, for example, which presents so many points of resemblance to that to the Galatians, he says, in the fourteenth chapter, "One man esteemeth one day above another; another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it."* And again, in the Epistle to the Colossians-a much later epistle in the series-he says further, "Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holiday, or of the new-moon, or Romans, xiv. 5, 6.

of the sabbath days; which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ." *

It is impossible not to feel that there was something vital and important in the thought of the apostle which underlies these sayings. They are quite as emphatic and authoritative as some others upon which we build large conclusions of doctrine. They plainly point to some temptation to which religious people-for the Galatians, even in their perversion, were strongly religious-are liable; some principle to which they would do well to take heed.

It is our present business to inquire after this principle and the temptation connected with it, and to see what good we can get from the apostle's words. Here, as always where they are marked by such a straight personal reference, we will best reach the general principle, and the lesson which it bears to us, by a consideration of the circumstances in which the words were uttered, and the original meaning they were intended to have. What did St Paul mean for the Galatians when he spoke to them with such indignant scorn of their observance of days, and months, and times, and years; and added that he was afraid, in consequence of this, that all his * Colossians, ii. 16, 17.