January 30

Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.

ROMANS x. 4.

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. — MATT. v. 17, 18.

HOW comforting are these words, which form a part of the Sermon on the Mount, in which our Lord sets forth the great principles of his kingdom! He founded redemption upon law as revealed to Moses and the prophets. Christianity thus stands upon the bed-rock of revelation as made before Christ; and the living Church, by its very existence, confirms every "jot and tittle" of the Old Testament. Law is love working out the eternal plan of God; its supreme, serene dominion over all things, material and spiritual, is the eternal repose of the universe. The gospel did indeed displace the types and shadows of the ceremonial only to reveal the grandeur of the moral law, as sunrise dispels the mists only to disclose more clearly the mountains, standing in all their rugged strength. There can in the nature of things be no redemption without law, no mercy without justice, no pardon without a stable throne; only a sound ship can save the wrecked. But Christ's expiatory death exalted the law. God incarnate added to it a glory impossible to be derived from the legal obedience or sufferings of mere creatures. The cross shows the granite foundations of the divine government in greater massiveness than they had before been seen. The heavenly hosts rejoice in obedience, as the planets in their swift courses. Grace and law are parts of the same complete sphere. All the redeemed sing the song of Moses and the Lamb.

Samuel W. Boardman.

But, fixed for everlasting years, Unmoved amid the wreck of spheres, Thy word shall shine in cloudless day, When heaven and earth have passed away.

SIR ROBERT GRANT.