"according to tho good pleasure of his will." Like the potter with his clay, God bas a right to choose his own idea of humanity, 2. In God's great love. God's will i~ always holy a.nd a.lwa.ye gra.cious. If, therefore, anything depends solely on his will, it. is sure to be done in the best possible wa.y, and in the wa.y that brings most good to his crentures. Instead of fee.ring God's free choice, we ought to rejoice in it, seeing that it is always determined by love. It is love that leads God to design for mankind so glorious a destiny as was conceived before the foundation of the world. IV. THE METHOD OF REALIZING THE IDEA. 1. Through grace" freely bestowed on us." God does not call us to a high vocation without giving us the means whereby to fulfil it. As he first ordained the future destiny, he alone can now give us power to accomplish it. 2. Through <Jhrist. Christ is the greatest gift of God's grace. By our faith in Christ we receive God's grace. Christ, as the Beloved of God, brings us into the blessings of God's love.-W. F. A. Ver. 7.-Bedemption. I. WHAT IT MEANS TO us. "Onr redemption" is here in apposition with "the forgiveness of our trespasses." The phrases mutually explain one another. 1. The i,dea of forgiveness explains that of redemption. (1) Redemption is a setting free. Sin is a bondage. The guilt of sin is the burden of an unpaid debt. When we are forgiven the debt is cancelled and the yoke broken. (2) Redemption is a recovery. The redeemed man is not merely a captive liberated; he is a prisoner restored to his country and his home. Sin banishes us from God. Forgiveness restores us to the home of our souls in bringing us back to co=union with God. 2. The idea of redemption explains that of forgiveness. Such forgiveness as amounts to a redemption cannot be a mere withholding of penalties. It·must be (1) positive-giving us the status of free, restored souls ; and (2) personal-a reconciliation between man and God. II. WHAT IT COST CHRIST. Redemption implies payment. The redeemed is recovered by means of a ransom. The cost of the Christian redemption is the blood of Christ. Unfortunately, the expression," the blood of Christ "--or even the mutilated expression, "the blood "-has been used by some so ignorantly and coarsely,that many persons have come to turn from it with disgust. It would seem that some so-called evangelical people attach as much efficacy to the charm of the word" blood," repeated without any intelligent idea, as the most superstitious Roman Catholics ascribe to what they believe to be real blood in the sacred chalice. On the other hand, we must not explain away the.expression by saying that it simply means the death of Christ, or why was not the word "death ".used ? And did not Jesus say that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood? According to a venerated Hebrew idea, the blood was life. The shedding . of the blood, therefore, was the giving of the life. If Christ's blood is a ransom, that means that Christ gave his life and himself as a ransom. The value of such a ransom must be just the value of such a life. How well pleasing to God must be the obedient yielding up of himself by Christ I How persuasive to us in drawing us out of the power of sin should the same sacrifice be I III. WHENCE IT ORIGINATED. We are redeemed "according to the riches of his grace," i.e. of God's grace. 1. Then it is God who first plans our redemption and desires our forgiveness and provides the means for our restoration. 2. The motive of redemption is pure grace. It is not that we have a right to be restored, as Englishmen would claim a right to be set free from ignominious slavery in a foreign land; nor that we shall be worth so much to God when restored as to compensate him for the cost; but simply that, freely loving us, he mercifully delivers us. 3. The ~ce of God is replete with wealthy resources. There are men whose favours are so poverty- stricken that they are not worth having. God's grace is rich enough to provide the necessary ransom for our redemption. Christ our Ransom is given to us as the greatest gift from the treasury of Divine grace.-W. F. A.
Ver. 10.-The consummaUon of all thinga. We have in this bold, sweeping picture of the great onward movement of the universe a solution of the most ambitious questions of philosophy. What is the meaning of the ever-changing flux and rush of all things? and whither does it tend? It is, says St. Paul, a progress towards organic unity. Can any thought be more modem or more in accordance with strict science? St, Paul recognizei the all-important point, too often ignored in o.ncient philosophy, 66 THE EPISTLE TO THE ·EPHESIANS. [dlt. I, 1-23,