still: that sin of self-will it is which hinders sinners from giving themselves up to God; and that sin must be broken through, or religion is a mockery and a dream. Oh my friends, say to yourselves once for all, I was made in God’s likeness; and therefore His will, and not my own, I must do. I have no wisdom of my own, no strength of mind of my own, no goodness of my own, no lovingness of my own. God has them all; God, who is wisdom, strength, goodness, love; and I have none. And then, when the fearful thought comes over you: “I have no goodness, and I cannot have any. I cannot do right. There is no use struggling and trying to be better. My passions, my lusts, my fancies are too strong for me. If I am brutish and low, brutish and low I must remain. If I have fallen in Adam, I must lie in the mire till I die—” Then, then, my friends, answer yourselves: “No! Not so. Man fell in the first Adam: but man rose again in the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. I belong no more to the old Adam, who fell in Paradise. I belong to the New Adam, who was conceived without sin, and born of a pure virgin, who lived by perfect faith, in perfect obedience, doing His Father’s will only, even to the death upon the cross, wherein He took away the sins of the whole world. And now for His sake my original sin, my fallen, brutish nature, is forgiven me. God does not hate me for it. He loves me, because I belong to His Son. My baptism is a witness and a warrant, a sign and a covenant between me and God, that I belong not to old Adam of Paradise, but to the Lord Jesus Christ, who sits at God’s right hand. The cross which was signed on my forehead when I was baptised is God’s sign to me that I am to sacrifice myself and give up my own will to do God’s will, even as the Lord Jesus did when He gave Himself to die, because it was His Father’s will. And because I belong to Jesus Christ, because God has called me to be His child, therefore He will help me. He will help me to conquer this low, brutish nature of mine. He will put His Spirit into me, the Spirit of His Son Jesus Christ, that I may trust Him, cry to Him, My Father! that I may love Him; understand His will, and see how good, and noble, and beautiful, and full of peace and comfort it is; delight in obeying Him; glory in sacrificing my own fancies and pleasures for His sake; and find my only honour, my only happiness, in doing His will on earth as saints and angels do it in heaven.” XLII. GOD’S COVENANTS. I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.—GENESIS ix. 13.