HERE, as everywhere, St. Paul declares that it is the end of all God's acts and dispensations towards men, to make them righteous; to bring them out of that condition which they have chosen for themselves,--the condition of distrust, alienation, sin,--and to bring them into that state for which He has created them, of dependence, trust, union with Him. He is declared, here as everywhere, to be the only Reconciler of His creatures. Here, as everywhere, they are assumed to have no righteousness but His,--none but that which they obtain, by owning Him and confiding in Him. The giving up of His Son, to take upon Him their flesh and blood, to enter into their sorrows; to feel and suffer their sins, i. e. "to be made sin;"--the perfect sympathy of the Son with His loving Will towards His creatures;--His entire sympathy with them and union with them;--His endurance in His inmost heart and spirit of that evil which He abhorred;--this is God's method of reconciliation; by this He speaks to the sinful will of man; by this Ho redeems it, raises it, restores it. The acts which express His Love to man,--the acts by which the Son of God proves Himself to be the Son of man,--these are the means of destroying the barrier between Heaven and Earth, between the Father and the children,--the means of taking away the sin of the world. In each man the sin--the alienation and separation of heart--ceases, when he believes that he has a Father, Who has loved him and given His Son for him; when ho confesses that this Son is stronger to unite him with his Father and his brethren, than sin is to separate them; when he is sure that the Spirit of the Father and the Son will be with him, to resist all the efforts of the spirit. of enmity and division to renew the strife.--Sermons on Sacrifice p. 195.

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