itstlf. Truth is to the soul what light ls to the body. It is natural for men to love the day, unnatural for them to shun it. In a right and healthy state we should love truth simply as truth, whatever else it be. 2. Christian trnth is peculiai·ly attmctiuc. Scientific truth is beautiful, philosophic truth is valuable; but the truth of the crospel has far deeper attractions, because it contains revelation of the love and fatherh~ of God, of the grace and goodness of Christ, of the redemption of the world, of the way of alvation, of the heavenly rest, et.o. S. Truth slumld be welcomed with love. We cannot accept it to any a,lvantage until we love it; for (1) love opens our eyes to a sympa- thetic under:;tanding of it, and (2) love saves us from a cold, barren acceptance of it, and helps us to receive it profitably. II. IT 16 AN EVIL HEART THAT PBEVE1''TS MEN FROM RECEIVING THB LOVB OF THB TBtJTB. St. Paul traces back the bad condition of those who reject the love of the truth to the fact that they "had pleasure in unrighteousness." 'l'he pleasures of sin cannot exist side by side with the love of the truth. Evil hates the light (John iii. 19). Moral corruption has no sympathy for the lofty thirst for truth of a pure soul. Hence it may be concluded that indifference to truth is a sign of moral evil. The corrupt life is a false life, and its departure from truth reveals the baseness of the character beneath. This is why the rejection of the truth is culpable. Intellectual doubt is of quite a different character. Indeed, it often arises from genuine love of truth, while self-satisfied orthodoxy is often quite indifferent to verifiable facts, preferring respectable error to painful truth. II!. THE PENALTY OF REJECTING THB LOVB. OF THB TRUTH IS INCAPACITY TO KNOW TRUTH FROM ERROR. God punishes men in this condition by sending "them a working of error, that t.hey should believe a lie." This is an awful fate. Truth is too precious a pearl to be cast before swine. They who do not love it shall not have it. Liars become incapable of knowing truth. The habit of indifference to truth so grows upon some people that the whole idea of truth becomes obscure and meaningless to them, and they ask with Pi late, half bewildered, half scornful, "What is truth?" Is not this a veritable destruction-the spiritual eye blinded and burnt out by the fires of falsehood and unrighteousness; the highest intellectual faculty, that of grasping truth, killed by C01Tuption and falsehood? God save us all from this hideous doom 1:- W. F. A. Vers. 13, 14.-The Divine work of salvation. We are to be thankful to God for the happy spiritual prospects of our fellow-Christians, because they all ~pring from hie good purpose and work. The most striking characteristic of the description before us is its attributing the whole process from beginning to end to the will and action of God. L THI: BEGINNING. 1. .fo initial Divine choice. This dates back to the dim ages of an awful antiquity. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. In the beginning was the Word. In the beginning God chose his people for himself. Salvation is no after-thought coming in to redeem the failure of creation. It was all planned from the first. When God ma.de man he foresaw sin and determined on redemption. Each one of us is thought of by God from the first. We come into the world to fulfil vocations which God designed for us wh1;n he first planned the universe. 2. .A present Divine call. The choice would be of no use if it were not rna<le known to us. But when the time for executing God's great design has arrived, he makes it sufficiently known for us to be able to follow it. He calls by the preaching of the gospel. The gospel, then, ill an invitation. It is ~ood news, but only for those who will accept the invitation. Thill new gospel came to bid men fulfil an ancient destiny. 'l'he late_st work accomplishes the oldest thought of God. II. 'IRE PBOCEl!8. 1. Sanctijkation of the Spi,rit. This is the Divine side of the process. Prior to it is the great atoning work of Christ. But that work is done for us that we may receive the Spirit of God as its fruit. Now we are looking at the work of God in us. God purifies and consecrates his people by an inspiration of his own Spirit. No safety is possible to the guilty, no glory to the unholy. 'l'he cleansing process must come before the great end can be reached. 2. Belief of the truth. This u our side of the proceBB. It is useless for us to wait for our sanctification and for the baptism of the Holy Sl'irit which ill to produce it. It will not come without our active reception of it. There is oo magic about the process of the dP.ecent of the Holy Ghost. on. 11. 1-17.J THE SECOND EPISTLE TO THE THESSALONIANS. '9
J t comes on certain conditions being fulfilled by us. (1) 7'ruth is the vehicle that con~eys. it into our hearts. (2) Faith is the door ID our hearts that opens to receive 1t. III. THE Y.ND. 1. Salvation. Take this word in the largest, roundest sense, u deliverance from all evil. It is painfully true that in our greatest joy e.nd thankful- neRs we have to recollect that e.t best we are plucked as brands from the burning. No blessing ce.n be enjoyed till the awful ruin into which our souls were all of them sinking through our great and dreadful sin has been stayed. 2. Glqry. Balntion is the bei,:inning of God's work in us; glory is the completion of it. We ce.n have no glory while we are in the mire of sin and wretchedness. But when we a.re delivered, God will not leave us like drowning men on a barren rock, saved from present destruc- tion indeed, but with dreary future prospects. He will not have ended his work with us till he has exalted us into the region of his own glory.-W. F. A.