"If ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law," says Scripture. It is plain that if to be under the law were the means of Christian holiness, it would have said, " If ye be led by the Spirit, ye are under the law," rather than, "ye are not under the law."

But men are blinded. Though they constantly take up the commandments, repeat them, and teach them, yet they say they are not under the law! How could persons be more under the law than when they adopt the language of the Ten Commandments as the expression of their own relationship before God ? It is done by Christian people at the present day as really as by the children of Israel themselves. For persons to say that while acting and speaking thus they are at the same time not under the law, is evidently to cheat their souls in a fearful manner. What is meant by being under the law ? It is acknowledging myself under that rule as what God has given me-the rule by which I have to live. If a person were to use the law for the purpose of convincing an ungodly man of his sins, that is not to be under the law. But if I take up the ten words, and ask God to enable me to keep each, this is to confess myself under the law.

Then, may I break the law ? God forbid. Such an alternative could only emanate from one who understands .little indeed of the grace of Christ. All admit that the law is good and righteous. The question is whether the God who gave the law to Israel has given the same to Christians as the rule by which they are to live ? I deny it. He gave it to Israel. What He has given to the Church is Christ. Christ is unfolded in the whole word of God; and what the Christian has to walk by is the entire word of God, and so taught as to manifest Christ. The law kills, but the Spirit gives life. In Exod. 20 God gives to Israel the law, and tells them that He was the God that brought them out of the land of Egypt and out of the house of bondage. One might show from this how we too are delivered out of our bondage. This is quite grace, as far as it goes. But the moment you put Christians under the law as that which they have to walk by, like an Israelite of old, you are doing the very evil that the epistle to the Galatians was intended to correct, and what the Holy Ghost says those led by the Spirit do not. " If ye are led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law." So men are doing at the present time-taking up the language of the commandments that were intended for Israel, and undertaking them as the directory of their own obedience to God every day. Yet they are obliged to explain away a great deal of the law; for instance, the Sabbath day. They keep, and very properly, the Lord's day; and I keep it too. But I deny it to be the Sabbath day, and maintain that the first day and the seventh day are not the same thing. Scripture always contrasts the first day with the seventh. The one is the first, the other is the last day of the week. The first day is a new thing, altogether apart from the law. People think that the keeping of a seventh day is the important thing. But this is not what God says, but the seventh day; and we are not at liberty to alter Scripture. This is not hearing the law, but destroying it. Who gave any man liberty to change the for a-when the change makes an all-important difference ? Let us beware of tradition, and seek to understand the word of God.

The denial that the law is the Christian's rule of walk is far from impairing holiness. The Holy Ghost brings in a deeper character of holiness than was even asked in the Ten Commandments. When our Lord said, "Except your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees," He did not mean righteousness imputed to us, but practically true. The Christian has a righteousness that is real. It is true that we become the righteousness of God in Christ, but that this is the only righteousness of the believer, I dispute. The Holy Ghost produces a real work in his soul, founded upon the work of Christ-separation from the world, devoted-ness to God, obedience, and love; and all these things, not merely according to the Ten Commandments, but according to the will of God as it was fully displayed in Christ. If any man hold that because the Lord kept the law, He did nothing else, one pities him. The keeping of the law was a small part of His obedience; and we are called to be like Christ in His devotedness to God at all cost. A first principle of practical Christianity runs thus:"If when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God." This is a thing quite unknown to the legal system. In the Ten Commandments we find, if a man obeyed his parents he should live long on the earth. That this is not the principle on which God now deals is most evident; for we have all known most obedient children taken away in early days. Am I denying that there is an important spiritual truth for me to gather from that very word? Quite the contrary. The apostle Paul himself refers to this promise, not, it seems to me, as a motive why a Christian child should obey its parents, but as the general indication of God's mind. It was the first commandment with promise. The spiritual instincts of true Christians, let me add, are beyond their system; and although they are doctrinally under the law, they desire to walk in the Spirit. I have not a single unkind feeling against those who maintain that state of things. But the Spirit of God does speak of it as a very great error and peril. What we have to do then is to understand the mind of God, to give utterance to it, and obey. "If ye be led by the Spirit, ye are not under the law." The Jews were. Whenever we see the people of God in Scripture under the law, it always means Israel. If a man now puts himself in a Jewish position, he takes upon himself that responsibility. In his faith he may be a Christian; but in outward forms and ordinances he is at least half a Jew. We ought to seek that they may be Christians, and nothing else-to have done with that which covers and obscures the character of Christ, and for which they have to pay the sad penalty either of carelessness of life, or of having their hearts cast down and doubting, instead of enjoying the liberty with which Christ has made US free.-From Lectures on Galatian, by W.K.