It can never be something which we only need at last, when we come to die, and having exhausted the gifts of the natural life we are warned to prepare for another. No; it must be ours now if we would enjoy it then. It must be the pith of our common labour, and the inspiration of our daily happiness, if we should have its joy at last, and finally enter into its fulness in the presence of God—at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

"Now the Lord of Peace Himself give you peace always by all means. The Lord be with you all." Amen.

IV.

LAW AND LIFE.

GALATIANS, vi. 7.-"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."

THERE is a great order of justice in all lives -an underplan of equity upon which life as a whole is built up-judgment being laid to the line and righteousness to the plummet.* The traces of this divine measurement are not always discernible. There are many confusions, and what may seem great injustice, in individual cases. There are lives which seem never to have fair-play. Accidents of birth, or of physical or mental organisation, have disordered them from the first, and left them without their share of moral opportunity. I know of no greater mystery in nature than such lives, which have had no chance of good, and scarcely any

* Isaiah, xxviii. 17.

E

capacity for it. But this, like all other mysteries, must be left to God. He will deal fairly in the end, we may be sure, with such lives, and not judge them above what they are able to bear. They are safe in God's love, if any are. His pity reaches to the depth of all human frailty. But taking moral life as a whole, it is plainly dealt with on a plan of rigorous equity. Opportunity and capacity are given, and service and fruit are demanded in return. A great law of righteousness is seen working everywhere, and bringing forth results after its kind—of good unto good, and evil unto evil-notwithstanding all appearances to the contrary.

For the present, it is this element of law in life which is our subject. It is not well for the Christian mind to dwell exclusively upon the mere goodness or clemency of God, and still less to make such goodness any excuse for the poor, weak, and vacillating endeavours which we sometimes make to do what is right in His sight. The apostle never makes such allowance for himself or others; and in the text, he has laid down, in a figure indeed, but in a figure so intelligible that the plainest mind may follow it, the law of moral order of action and reaction which never fails in human life.

"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." His argument in the passage is, that every man must answer for himself and his own doings to God. The shadow of responsibility is never away from us-not even in the clearest sunshine of the Divine love. The fact that every thing we do bears its natural consequence is not at all touched by the higher evangelical fact, so often elsewhere expressed by him, that it is "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us.' Give all force to this higher fact. If it were not for the Divine mercy, we should not only be, but remain, miserable sinners, "without God and without hope in the world." But the other fact is not the less true-not the less universal; and for the present we will do well to follow his line of thought in this respect.

"

The spiritual or evangelical tone of mind is apt at times to overlook the sterner side of human life. It delights itself with the great possibilities of Divine grace, and the immense changes from evil to good which are not beyond its scope. But the Divine order is nevertheless a fact, and it is highly important that we should not de

* Titus, iii. 5.

ceive ourselves regarding it. Should we deceive ourselves, God is not mocked. His laws are not altered by our self-deception. They work out their issues with undeviating certainty. Every man is only what he is really before God, and his life is all along only what he makes it, with or without God's grace and help in doing so "for every man shall bear his own burden."* No one can share with another the moral realities of his life, whatever these are. Our cares and sorrows-such accidents of trouble as come to us from without, and at times weigh heavily upon us-others may share and help us to bear.t But we must bear alone the results of our own conduct. We must reap the harvest which we have sown, and eat the fruit of our own doing. The issues of our free will are our own and no other's; and we need never try to shift this burden, if it prove a burden, upon another. We must stand before God carrying the freight of our own deeds, and receive according to these deeds done in the body, whether they be good or evil.

* Galatians, vi. 5.

+ Ibid. vi. 2: "Bear ye one another's burdens." The apostle indicates the distinction of the two cases by a distinctive expression. His expression in verse 2 is Bápŋ; in the 5th verse φορτίον.