greatest responsibility-" under law," and took upon Him all the conditions which it prescribed.

But here is the glorious difference,—that where all others had failed and were found wanting He succeeded and was proved sufficient. He fulfilled the Law which convinced all others of sin: He complied with the terms of the covenant of which circumcision was the sign, and so became (what none other had been before) entitled to the blessings promised to obedience. He was emphatically, “THE JUST ONE” -"Who did no sin neither was guile found in His mouth ""The righteous servant" of Jehovah.

2. Not, it is carefully to be noted, that this perfect obedience was rendered and these conditions fulfilled by Him in the power of the flesh. No: though himself without sin, yet (as stated Rom. viii. 3) He was made "in the likeness of sinful flesh," and for this reason-that He might "condemn sin in the flesh :" which He did indeed chiefly when He was offered as "a sacrifice for sin" (ib. margin), when "He bare our sins in His own body on the tree" and

was made a curse for us:" but also by His Circumcision, being as it was in fact the commencement of His sufferings in it-the witness to the desert of sin, and the first shedding of that "precious blood" by which it was afterwards fully and for ever expiated. But that of which circumcision in all others

before Him had only testified the need, was in Him supplied—even that Spirit by which his humanity had been conceived and generated holy (as lately commemorated by us); and in this power it was, as life-a new life originated by Him for men-He rendered, as man, that obedience to the Law for which, in itself, the flesh or human nature had been proved even in its best estate incompetent. This, however, is a Truth which will more properly come before us on a future occasion: and we pass therefore to notice,

III. In the last place, the importance of the present event to ourselves; or the results to us from it, which are two :-and,

1. First,― The event of this day was the commencement of the great work of our "justification," because the commencement of that work of obedience by which the Saviour Christ in "the form of a servant " presented human nature, presented MAN, for the first time since the Fall righteous before God: and so became the Author of redemption which must needs be "by righteousness;" by One who, as without sin, could “make His soul an offering for sin,” and in virtue of the same righteousness recover that which by unrighteousness had been lost. For this is Justification. It is not pardon only, but a legal pardon -a pardon consistent with the utmost requirements

of justice and the fulfilment of the irrevocable sentence of the Law against sin. It is grace, but " grace reigning through righteousness." Life, life eternal; but as the reward of obedience, as is death the wages of sin. As the Lord had long before defined it by His Prophet," By His knowledge (or the knowledge "of Him) shall My righteous servant justify many; "for He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore will I "divide Him a portion with the great and He shall "divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath "poured out His soul unto death." (Isa. liii. 11, 12.)

2. But the Circumcision of Christ is also our Sanctification: not only the undertaking of a work done for us, but the manifestation of a power to work in us the origin to us of a circumcision which is circumcision indeed-even that which is defined in the Prayer of the Collect for this Festival, in which we say, 'Almighty God, who madest Thy blessed Son 'to be circumcised and obedient to the Law for man, Grant us the true circumcision of THE SPIRIT; that, ' our hearts and all our members being mortified from 'all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things 'obey Thy blessed will:' no longer a circumcision outward in the flesh, the witness (as already said) to a need a sign without the thing signified, without an inward grace accompanying: but a "circumcision

made without hands" by a better ordinance-even Baptism—which supplies the need in us as in Christ, and makes us partakers of His grace. As the Apostle compares and at the same time contrasts both in a passage already partly adverted to, Col. ii. 9-12: "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead "bodily. And ye are complete [filled] in him, which "is the head of all principality and power: in whom "also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made "without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of "the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; buried "with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with "him through the faith of the operation of God, who "hath raised him from the dead."

In the power of which risen life, the Christian, as the spiritual man, does as the Church prays-he obeys the will and fulfils the Law of God; as this Apostle distinctly teaches in another place, Rom. viii. 2-4, also before referred to :-" For the Law of the Spirit of (the) life in Christ Jesus, hath made me "free from the law of sin and death," (i.e. the law operating to produce sin and then death, as follows;)

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For, what the law could not do in that it was weak "through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the "likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin "in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might "be fulfilled in us who walk, not after the flesh, but,

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"after the Spirit:"-where that it is not of an imputed righteousness the Apostle speaks, (as some would, explain his words), but of righteousness actual and personal, is evident, not only from the context both before and after, but, from the words "who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." For though it be unalterably true that "the mind of the flesh is "enmity against God for it is not subject to the law "of God neither can be;" (ver. 7. Gr;) and also that this infection of nature doth remain, yea, in them that are regenerated,' as our Church teaches *; it is equally true that "if Christ be in us -by His Spirit indwelling "the body is dead because of sin," as was set forth in circumcision, "but the Spirit is life because of righteousness;" (ib. ver. 9, 10;)-righteousness being as essentially an attribute of the Spirit as sin is of the flesh : so that every regenerate man may say with this same Apostle, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man," while, with him also, lamenting another law" the law of sin which is in his members," (chap. vii. 22, 23;) 'members' which we pray may be continually 'mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts' by 'the circumcision of the Spirit,' but which are not now the subject of renewal, nor will be until that—having been actually subjected to death in consequence of

* Article ix. 'Of Original or Birth-Sin.'