but rescued souls. He erected monuments, but they were to the glory of God. He did not carve his own name on the rocky shore, but he engraved that of his Lord on the hearts of the people. While conflicting with want, and struggling with misery, he planted churches; while sinking under reproach and obloquy, he erected the standard of the Cross among barbarians, and, far more hopeless enterprise ! among philosophers; and having escaped with life from the most uncivilised nations, was reserved for martyrdom in the Imperial queen of cities!

209

CHAP. XII.

SAINT PAUL'S HEAVENLY-MINDEDNESS.

TRUE religion consists in the subjugation of the body to the soul, and of the soul to God. The Apostle every where shows, that by our apostasy this order is destroyed, or rather inverted. At the same time he teaches, that though brought into this degraded state by our own perverseness, we are not hopelessly abandoned to it. He not only shows the possibility, but the mode of our restoration, and describes the happy condition of the restored, even in this world, by declaring, that to be spiritually-minded is life and peace.

He knew that our faculties are neither good nor evil in themselves, but powerful instruments for the promotion of both; active capacities for either, just as the bent of our character is determined by the predominance of religion or of sin, of the sensual or of the spiritual mind. Saint Paul eminently exhibited, both in his example and in his writings, this spiritual mind. He was not only supremely excellent in unfolding the doctrines, and inculcating the duties, of Christianity; he was not only equal in correctness of sentiment, and purity of practice, with

those who are drily orthodox, and superior to those who are coldly practical; but "he perfects holiness in the fear of God." He abounds in that heavenly-mindedness which is the uniting link between doctrinal and practical piety; which, by the unction it infuses into both, proves that both are the result of Divine grace; and which consists in an entire consecration of the affections, a voluntary surrender of the whole man to God.

This disposition the Apostle makes the preliminary to all performance, as well as the condition of all acceptance. This it is which constitutes the charm of his writings. There is a spirit of sanctity which pervades them, and which, whilst it affords the best evidence of the love of God shed abroad in his own heart, infuses it also into the heart of his readers. While he is musing the fire burns, and communicates its pure flame to every breast susceptible of genuine Christian feeling. Under its influence his arguments become persuasions, his exhortations entreaties. A sentiment so tender, an earnestness so imploring, breathes throughout them, that it might seem that all regard for himself, all care for his own interests, is swallowed up in his ardent and affectionate concern for the spiritual interests of others.

The exuberance of his love and gratitude, the fruits of his abundant faith, breaks out almost in spite of himself. His zeal reproves

our timidity, his energy our indifference. "He dwells," as an eloquent writer has remarked, "with almost untimely descant," on the name of Him who had called him out of darkness into his marvellous light; that name which we are so reluctant to pronounce, not through reverence to its possessor, but fear of each other, ever sounds with holy boldness from the lips of Paul. His bursts of sacred joy, his triumphant appeals to the truth of the promises, his unbounded confidence in the hope set before him, carry an air not only of patience but of victory, not only of faith but of fruition.

Whoever desires more particularly to compare this spirit of Divine power manifested by the Apostle, with the opposite spirit of the world, let him carefully peruse the eighth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. After describing the strong and painful conflict with the malignant power of sin in the seventh chapter, with what a holy exultation does he, in the opening of the eighth, hurry in, as it were, the assurance that "there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." It somewhat resembles that instant, I had almost said that impatient, mercy of God in the third of Genesis, which seems eager to make the promise follow close upon the fall, the forgiveness upon the sin; to cut off the distressing space between terror and joy, to leave no interval for despair. God, who is so patient when

he is to punish, is not patient when he is to save. He delays to strike, but he makes haste to pardon. "After the first offence," says Bishop Jeremy Taylor, "God could not stay from redeeming ;" nor could Paul stay from proclaiming that we are redeemed. The Apostle, like his Creator, loses not a moment to comfort the soul which he has been afflicting.

In this divine effusion we at once discern the difference between natural weakness and superadded strength; between the infirmities which are fortified by the assistance of the Spirit, and the sensual mind, which not only is not but cannot be subject to the law of God; between him who not having "the Spirit of Christ is none of his," and him in whom "Christ the spirit of life dwells;" between him who, if he yield to the pleasures of sense, shall die, and him who, through the Spirit mortifying the deeds of the body, shall live.

It is worth observing that he does not make the line of demarcation between the two classes of characters to consist merely in the actual crimes and grosser vices of the one class, and the better actions of the other. It is to the sensual and the spiritual mind, the fountain of good and evil deeds, to which he refers as the decisive test. This radical distinction he further conceives to be a more obvious line of separation than even any difference of religious opi