present as well as Omnipotent. He, therefore, who acts from the Lord is free. He is perfectly and entirely free. His freedom is unbounded. It is not infinite only because he himself is a finite

creature.

But the moment that a man begins to turn against the stream of the Divine influx, it is evident that that moment his freedom must begin to be curtailed. From that moment he begins to have all that stupendous force against him. He is then like a man rowing a boat against an irresistible wind and tide. He may then fancy he is free, and he may enjoy his fancied freedom, but it is evident that he never can be really free, because he is acting against an omnipotent force. He can never make any real headway against it; and after all his struggles, he must inevitably be always carried along to places and to circumstances to which he does not wish to go. Therefore his apparent freedom is really slavery. "He who committeth sin," that is, he who acts against the Lord, "is always the slave of sin."

But the question may be asked, How is it possible for a man to act against the Lord, and whence does he obtain the power to do so? Does he, as men often fancy, get it from himself? Nothing of the kind. It flows into him from Hell.

We have already seen that every man seems to himself to be acting in freedom, when he is acting according to the dictates of his own affections. And we have further seen that it is the Lord who instils into us every good affection that we have, and so, when we are acting according to a good affection, we are acting in real freedom, because then we are acting from and according to the action of the Omnipotent. Now just as the Lord from above instils into us good affections, so does Hell from beneath instil into us evil affections, which are concupiscences or lusts of various kinds.

When these evil affections flow into us from Hell, they animate us for the time with their own life, and therefore it is then pleasant to us to act according to them. And because it is pleasant, we feel free in so doing. For instance, suppose that there flows into a man the evil lust of getting what does not rightfully belong to him. Then, when the opportunity offers, he will not be ashamed to touch his cap to you and ask for money; or he will take a bribe to do something that it is his duty to do without any bribe at all; or he will gamble in stocks and shares and other property; or he will adulterate his goods; or do slipshod and sham work; or raise his rents unjustly; or in some other way play dirty and mean tricks, in order to possess himself of

what he has not worked for, and what does not rightfully belong to him. And when he has succeeded in gratifying this vile lust, and is walking off with his gains in his pocket, how does he feel? Does he feel like a mean fellow? Does he feel that his manhood and his selfrespect are gone? Does he feel that he has become a slave in any way? A slave! he feels nothing of the sort. So long as he is not found out, he feels just as comfortable within as ever he felt.

Why

is this? It is because he has merely acted according to his own affection the affection or lust of getting what does not rightfully belong to him, and therefore he has a feeling that he has acted in perfect freedom, and, in fact, has gained, in its way, quite a notable victory.

But yet how different is the real fact! The dirty money which he is carrying off is really the price of his freedom, which he has lost by his association with wicked spirits. He is the slave of Hell, and Hell has made him into the mean and degraded being that everybody can see he is, except himself. The Divine words are always true, "Whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin."

You see that if Hell had not injected into the man the lust of getting what does not rightfully belong to him, he would have been sorry to act in such a way, because he would then have clearly seen that in so doing, he would be abusing and degrading himself. But, once animated by that lust, he was as it were compelled to degrade himself by the strong pleasure he felt in gratifying a feeling which was really not originally his own feeling, but was the lust of evil spirits injected into him. Now if that is not slavery there is no such thing.

It follows from what has been said, that every unregenerate man is in a state of slavery-slavery not of the body, but of the mind, which is the vilest slavery of all. It follows that it is only when a man becomes regenerate, that he enters a state of real freedom. It is only in proportion as good affections flow into him that he can act in accordance with those good affections, and thus act freely. And good affections can flow in only in proportion as we become regenerate. Therefore it is only in proportion as we become regenerate that we can be free.

But if all unregenerate men are slaves, what becomes, some one may ask, of the doctrine of free will? To this I reply, that freedom and freewill are two perfectly distinct things. Every man has freewill, but only regenerate men have real freedom. These two things are often confounded, but they ought not to be.

We have already seen something of what freedom is, and that it consists in being led in all things by the Lord. This, in fact, is the definition of human freedom-to be led in all things by the Lord. Let us now inquire, What is freewill? Freewill is a state of mental equilibrium between good and evil, or between Heaven and Hell (T. C. R. 475). The mind of a man is his spirit, and the spirit of every man lives in the world of spirits, which is between Heaven and Hell. During our life in this world, therefore, we are all, as to our spirits, poised between Heaven above and Hell beneath us. The world of spirits, where, as to our spirits, we are all now living, receives influx both from above and from below; from both Heaven and Hell. And the Lord so provides, that while we are there, during our earthly life as to the body, we shall always receive an equal amount of influx from both directions. The result is a state of perfect mental equilibrium. We can always turn with equal ease either way; either to Heaven or to Hell. It does not matter how strongly either of them may pull; the other always draws with equal force. This condition is maintained during the whole of our life in this world. After death it ceases, for then our state is fixed in either Heaven or Hell.

Such, then, is the nature of what is called free will. What is called free will is merely a state in which we have perfect freedom of choice between good and evil. This freedom of choice ceases after death, because then our eternal lot is fixed, and there is an end of what is called free will. But freedom is a much wider thing. For example; I might offer a boy an apple and a pear, and I might give him a perfect freedom of choice between them. Here, I might say, is the apple, and here is the pear, and I give you freewill in relation to these two. You cannot have both, but you may have either; whichever you like. But if that was all the freedom I gave him, the boy would not thank me much. If I only gave him freedom to choose the apple or the pear, and did not also give him freedom to eat and enjoy it afterwards, he would not think I had given him freedom enough. "Oh," I might say, "I give you perfect freedom of choice. You may choose whichever you like." Yes, but," he would answer, "what is the use of that if I may not eat it after I have chosen it?"

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It is precisely the same with good and evil, or, what is the same thing, with Heaven and Hell. Freewill enables a man to choose goodness and Heaven, or evil and Hell. Freedom enables him to go on enjoying the one or the other for ever after. When the choice has been finally made, the free will to choose of course ceases. But the

glorious freedom of the children of light and its base imitation in Hell never cease. They are not like the boy's apple or pear, which, once eaten, afford no further enjoyment. But to their respective recipients they afford exhaustless delight for ever.

It is so in Hell as well as in Heaven. The only difference is, that the one is real freedom, while the other is freedom which only appears to its possessors to be real, being, in reality, essential and abject slavery. JOHN FAULKNER POTTS.

THE COMING OF THE LORD, AND THE BLESSEDNESS OF THOSE WHO TRUST IN HIM.

A DISCOURSE DELIVERED BY MR. W. HOLDEN ON THE OCCASION OF THE DEATH OF MRS. J. PITMAN, AT THE NEW CHURCH, HANSON STREET, ADELAIDE, June 12, 1881.

"Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another; and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name. And they shall be Mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up My jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth Him not."-MAL. iii. 16-18.

THE subjects treated of in the internal sense of this 3rd chapter of Malachi are the coming of the Lord to teach the Word in its purity; the execution of judgment upon all who had adulterated and destroyed the truths of the Church; the states of the corrupt members of the consummated Church who had confirmed themselves in evil, and the blessedness of those who trust in the Lord.

The coming of the Lord is a subject of inexhaustible wonder and contemplation. It is very extensively treated of in the Scriptures, and frequently celebrated by the adoring angels in holy songs of joy.

At the time of the Lord's First Advent the human race had sunk to the lowest possible depths of moral degradation short of the irrecoverable, the unredeemable condition of the lost.

"When Jesus came the world to save
From endless death beyond the grave,
Evils the Church had overrun,

Thick clouds had veiled the heavenly sun."

But even then there were those who "looked for redemption in Jerusalem." Even then, in that dismal night, there were those who cried unto the Lord "out of the depths" (Ps. cxxx. 1) of their deep debasement, those whose aspirations found expression in the language of the Psalmist: "I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait, and in His Word do I hope. My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning" (Ps. cxxx. 5, 6).

This preservation of the good of remains with those who fear the Lord has been mercifully provided at the close of every dispensation; and indeed during every period of declension or imminent peril.

When the Most Ancient Church perished by reason of the universal prevalence of direful fantasies and filthy lusts, "Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord' (Gen. vi. 8). When Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed, and "the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace" (Gen. xix. 28), God remembered Abraham, and sent His angels to deliver Lot and his family from the terrible overthrow. When the Israelites, after fully two hundred years of servitude in Egypt, had forgotten even the very name of Jehovah, Moses was wonderfully preserved and specially trained to become their human deliverer, their lawgiver, and their guide through the pathless wilderness. When Elijah the Tishbite fled from the threatened vengeance of that wicked woman Jezebel, and in the bitterness of his despair exclaimed, "The children of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, thrown down Thine altars, and slain Thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away" (1 Kings xix. 10), the heavy load of anguish was removed from his heart by the Divine assurance, "I have left Me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him" (1 Kings xix. 18). And so in innumerable instances in relation to the Church, considered both in its collective capacity and in its least form as existing in the individual human soul, the Divine promises of consolation, encouragement, and hope with which the Word abounds find their realization, the light of the morning bright and beautiful breaks in upon the gloom of night, and the chastened soul offers up the sacrifice of thanksgiving upon the altar of the living and true God.

Our text describes the character of those whom the Lord-the great Searcher of hearts-recognises at His coming as His own: "Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name.”