I have not then the smallest hesitation in taking the passage as I find it, and regarding it as descriptive of the Apostle’s own sense of shortcoming before the standard of the law, at the very time of his most peaceful, Christian experience. I wish I had time to follow out the subject, and show how in the midst of his conflict a hallowed peace was flowing into his soul: but that I must leave to another day. But you must not wait till next Sunday, seeking peace, and finding none; you must remember at once that, though you fail, the Lord Jesus Christ never does. You must remember at once that it is with especial reference to this very struggle that we are taught that ‘the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin.’ You must remember at once that in the midst of all your difficulties you have a living Advocate at the right hand of God; and therefore at once, with God’s holiness as your standard, God’s atonement as your righteousness, and God’s Spirit as your guide, notwithstanding all shortcomings, you may say as St. Paul did in the midst of his struggle, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’ GRACE. ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.’—ROM. vii. 25. ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Jesus Christ, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.’—ROM. viii. 1. I HOPE that your study of this passage during the week has confirmed the conclusions at which we arrived last Sunday,—that St. Paul was speaking of himself, not of another; and that he was describing his experience at the very time he wrote the Epistle. I trust also you have seen from his words that the Lord had opened his eyes to discover the holiness of the law, and changed his heart, so that with his whole soul he loved it. I hope also that it has been clear to you that this exclamation, ‘Oh, wretched man that I am!’ was the expression of his profound humiliation, under the painful sense of his own shortcoming when measured by the high standard of the holiness of God. Now, I believe that if, instead of adopting some artificial standard of our own, we aim at the perfection of God’s holiness, as taught in the Word of God and exhibited in the life of the Son of God, we are sure thus painfully to feel the contrast between what we are and what we ought to be. Of course if we measure ourselves by ourselves we may be easily satisfied; but then we know we are not wise, and our satisfaction may be nothing more than delusion. But if we bring ourselves to the test of perfect, spotless, eternal holiness, and honestly look into the workings of our own fallen heart, I cannot imagine why we should shrink from such words as those in our confession, ‘We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.’