Christ suffering as the representative of his people, is one with them, and they are one with him. In what he went through they went through. Hence, Paul says believers were crucified with Christ, and baptised into his death. This death he declares to have been "the declaration of the righteousness of God," which God required as the basis of the work of reconciliation and forgiveness (Rom. iii. 24-26).

Christ having died, God raised him from the dead to a glorious existence, even to equality with Himself. This was the essential point of the scheme, as appears from 1st Corinthians xv. 17, 20: "If Christ be not risen YOUR FAITH IS VAIN, ye are yet in your sins. But now is Christ risen from the dead;" and being raised, he constitutes the "one name given under heaven whereby men may be saved" (Acts iv. 12). If Christ had been a personal transgressor, the law of sin would have kept him in the grave, and the scheme of salvation would have miscarried at its vital point. The way of salvation conld not have been opened through him ; a dead Saviour would have been no ark of refuge— no life-giver to the mortal sons of

men.

But Christ, after suffering the natural penalty of disobedience in human nature, having been raisedfrom the dead to live for evermore, he is "the Saviour of all such as come to him." He has life for bestowal by his own right. "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life; and this life IS IN HIS SON. He that hath the Son hath life. and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life" (1 John v. 11, 12). Life is deposited in him for our acceptance, on condition of allying ourselves to him, yea, on condition of our entry into him, and becoming part of him; for Paul says of those who are in Christ, "We are members of his body, and of his flesh, and of his bones," and the aggregate of such are designated "the Bride, the Lamb's wife,"-"His body, the church."

Divine wisdom, which is foolishness with men, has provided a means whereby we get the benefit of the result achieved in Christ. Baptism in water is the ceremony by which believing men and women are united to Christ, and constituted heirs of the life everlasting which he possesses in his own right. This will be demonstrated more particularly in the 17th lecture. Meanwhile, we quote Paul's words: "As many of you as have been baptised into Christ have put on Christ" (Gal. iii. 27). Entering into Christ, we are made one with him, and become heirs to the privileges of the position which he has established in himself, after the analogy of the woman who, at her betrothal, obtains a prospective title to that which belongs to the man to whom she is betrothed. In the first Adam, we inherit death without the possibility of retrieving our misfortune, so long as we remain connected with him. In the last Adam (who, however, it must always be borne in mind, ascended to the last Adam position from the first Adam state), we obtain a title to eternal life. Hence the words of the apostle Paul: "As in Adam, all die; so in Christ shall all be made alive," that is, the "all" of whom he is speaking, viz., believers of the truth, as may be seen by the context-(1 Cor. xv. 22, 23), and only those who are found worthy at the judgment-seat. He is speaking here of being made alive immortally, not of mere resuscitation of mortal life to judgment, of which many will be the subjects who have never been Christians, but who are among the responsible unjust by reason of their privileges.

By nature we are in Adam. By the gospel and baptism we pass out of Adam into Christ. This is God's appointment; and we cannot be saved except by compliance with His appointments.

Natural virtue will avail nothing, because, in itself, it is related only to the present, and establishes no right in respect of future existence. Those who are trusting to it, are

building their house upon a foundation of sand. There is only one name given under heaven whereby men can be saved; and if we refuse to put on that name, and thus reject Christ, "who is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Corinthians i. 30), there remains nothing for us but the utter worthlessness of our own mortality, which without redemption will perish for ever under the just condemnation of Him who hath already passed the decree in prospect: "whosoever hath not,

N the religion of Christendom,

IN

the devil figures almost more prominently than God. If we have found Christendom astray as to the nature of man, it will not be wonderful if we find it astray on the subject of the devil, with which, scripturally, man has so much to do. Let us look into it a little.

The theology of Christendom places the devil in juxtaposition with God. As the one is presented for worship as the source and embodiment of all good, so the other is held up for detestation and dread, as the instigator and promoter of all evil. Practically, the one is regarded in the light of the good God, and the other as the bad god. It is the polytheism of paganism in its smallest form and the philosophy of the ancients embodied in names and forms supplied by the Bible. Good and evil are regarded as separate essences, and each attributed to the control of a separate being. Instead of having a god for war, a god for love, a god for thunder, a god for fire, a god for water, and so on, down the whole list of nature's phenomena, modern theology confines the ruling powers of the universe to two agencies, with whom respectively it leaves the contest of good and evil-God and the devil-a contest in which they measure strength in what would appear to be a somewhat equal encounter.

is

We have looked at Bible teaching concerning God. It is appropriate now to consider what it teaches about the devil, for there is a Bible doctrine of the devil, as there is a Bible doctrine of God. And it certainly is not less important to know the truth about the one than it is to know the truth about the other. The doctrine of the devil has as intimate a bearing upon the truth of Christ as the doctrine of God. This may be a surprising proposition at first; but on due investigation it will become apparent from two separate points of view., First, the orthodox point of view. From this, the devil is seen in large proportions. He occupies the first position in the scheme of religion. He is the principal figure in the picture. He is the great enemy from which our immortal souls are supposed to stand in need of being delivered. He enters largely into Methodistic outpourings, hortatory or devotional. He is the great nightmare, the great object of terror, the great fowler, with net-snare, exerting his utmost cunning and device-which are something superhuman-to entrap souls. Cruden describes him as "a most wicked angel, the implacable enemy and tempter of the human race

deadly in his malice, surprisingly subtle, possessing strength superior to ours, having a mighty number of principalities and powers under his

ness.

command. He roves, full of rage, like a roaring lion, seeking to tempt, to betray, to destroy us, and to involve us in guilt and wickedIn a word, he is an enemy to God and man, and uses his utmost endeavours to rob God of His glory and men of their souls." Common belief assigns something like omniscience to the evil being thus described; he is regarded as universally at work, alike active in England and America, and all other parts of the globe at the same time, and exerting his seductive arts in millions of hearts at once. He is also believed to be, in some sense, omnipotent, achieving his behests by a power superior to nature, and certainly more successfully than God in the mutual strife for human souls; since hell, according to tradition, receives a far larger proportion of the earth's inhabitants than find their way to the celestial city.

If this be the truth about the devil, it is of the first importance to know it; for how can we mentally adapt ourselves to our spiritual exigencies if we ignore the very first relation we sustain, in our exposure to assault and capture at the hands of an unseen, but potent and untiring, malignant foe? A denial of this truth-if it be a truth -is a mistake of the first magnitude, and cannot fail to imperil the soul thus deluded, unless indeedwhich no one believing the Bible can maintain-it is a matter of indifference whether a man know the truth of the matter or not. We must presume every orthodox believer will estimate the doctrine at its inherent value, and maintain that it is of vital consequence for a man to believe in the peril from which Christ came to save him.

From the second point of view, the doctrine appears in the same light of essential importance, though the picture seen is different in hue and outline. Assuming for the moment that there is no such being as the devil of orthodox belief, but that the devil is something occupy

"

ing an entirely different relation to the universe and ourselves from that assigned to the infernal monster of Christendom, it is equally important that we understand this, as it is that we accept the popular doctrine of the devil, if that is the truth. How this is will presently appear. No one acquainted with the teaching of the New Testament will dispute, that it is necessary to understand and believe the truth concerning Christ. James, speaking of himself and those who were Christ's, says "Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth (James i. 18). Paul, describing the spiritual cleansing to which obedient believers of the truth are subject, styles it "a washing of water by the word" (Ephesians v. 26). Christ also says to his disciples: "Ye are clean through the words I have spoken to you" (John xv. 3), and to the Jews who were disposed to be his disciples: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free (John viii. 32). Now, this truth is styled "the word of the truth of the gospel" (Colossians i. 5), "by which men are saved" (1 Cor. xv. 2).

Descending from these general intimations to particulars, we find

that the word of the truth of the gospel, designed to cleanse and save men, consists of "the kingdom of God and those things that concern our Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts xxviii. 31), elsewhere styled "the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ" (Acts viii. 12). From this it follows, that for a man to believe the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation (Rom. i. 16), he must believe the truth concerning Jesus Christ. In view of this, let the reader ponder the following testimonies :—

"For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might DESTROY THE WORKS OF THE DEVIL" (1 John iii. 8).

"Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he (Jesus) also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might DESTROY HIM THAT HAD THE POWER OF DEATH, THAT IS THE DEVIL" (Heb. ii. 14).

Is it possible to believe the truth concerning Christ, and be ignorant of the nature of the devil that he was expressly manifested to destroy with his works? It is unnecessary to answer the question. It is necessary to put it for the purpose of showing that the doctrine of the devil in whatever form the truth of the matter may be found to exist) is so far from being an unimportant matter, that it is one of the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, ignorance of which argues a fatal want of knowledge in relation to the first of divine principles. The doctrine of the devil is not an "advanced" subject, but bears upon the most elementary aspects of divine truth. The idea that it is otherwise is due to the obscurity arising from tradition and an imperfect translation of the Scriptures. The sense of the thing, alone, would indicate the importance of the subject; for how can a man be in a state of enlightenment in relation to divine things, who is ignorant of a matter So vastly affecting the relation of man to God, on whichever side the truth may lie?

Now, we make bold at once to assert that the popular doctrine of a personal devil has no foundation whatever in truth, but is the hideous conception of the heathen mind, inherited by the moderns from the mythologies of the ancients, and incorporated with Christianity by those "men of corrupt minds," who, Paul predicted, would pervert the truth, "giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils (1 Tim. iv. 1). In taking this position, we are not unaware that apparent countenance is given to the doctrine in the Scriptures. Nay, it is because of this circumstance that it becomes worth while to attack the monster conceit, in order that conscientious minds, overshadowed with the nightmare of theology, may see that, as in other instances, the apparent sanction accorded by the Scriptures to a false doctrine is no sanction at all,

but arises from a misconstruction under educational bias, of certain allusions to other agencies altogether.

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In the first place, there are certain general principles which exclude the possibility of the devil's exist ence. "The wages of sin is death (Rom. vi. 23). "Sin entered into the world, and DEATH by sin (Rom. v. 12). This is an eternal principle; death and sin are inseparable. "God ONLY hath immortality" (1 Timothy vi. 16); and He bestows it on the principle of obedience. Disobedience, which is sin, in every case He visits with death. Therefore, the angels which kept not their first estate, were cast down to hell (the grave), and reserved under chains of darkness (the bonds of death)-(Jude 6, 2 Peter ii. 2, 4); therefore Adam was sentenced to return to the ground (Gen. iii. 19); therefore Moses was prohibited from entering the promised land, and condemned to die (Deut. xxxii. 48, 52); and, therefore, Uzzah was slain for harmlessly (humanly speaking) saving the ark from a fall (2 Sam, vi. 6, 7); therefore "the man of God that came out of Judah" was torn by a lion for turning back to eat bread with another prophet, in disobedience to a divine command, under the sincere impression that in so doing he was obeying the commands of the Almighty (1 Kings xiii. 1, 25). An immortal rebel is an impossibility. With God is the fountain of life (Psalm xxxvi. 9). No one can steal a march upon Him, so as to retain life and power in rebellion.

"In

an

His hand is the life of every living thing" (Job xii. 10), and He cuts away the life that is lifted against Him; He consigns all disobedience and sin to death. Will it be suggested that God has made exception in case of the devil? The Bible devil is a sinner (1 John iii. 8): therefore the devil cannot be immortal. God is no respecter of persons, whether of men or angels. God is not double in His modes of