after newness of life. There is
but one Being who can make a change in our position in regard to God,
and there is but one Being who can make the change by which man shall
become a 'new creature.' The Creative Spirit that shaped the earth
must shape its new being in my soul; and the Father against whose law
I have offended, whose love I have slighted, from whom I have turned
away, must effect the alteration that I can never effect--the
alteration in my position to His judgments and justice, and to the
whole sweep of His government. No new birth without Christ; no escape
from the old standing-place, of being 'enemies to God by wicked
works,' by anything that we can do: no hope of the inheritance unless
the Lord and the Man, the 'second Adam from heaven,' have come! He
_has_ come, and He has 'dwelt with us,' and He has worn this
life of ours, and He has walked in the midst of this world, and He
knows all about our human condition, and He has effected an actual
change in the possible aspect of the divine justice and government to
us; and He has carried in the golden urn of His humanity a new spirit
and a new life which He has set down in the midst of the race; and
the urn was broken on the cross of Calvary, and the water flowed out,
and whithersoever that water comes there is life, and whithersoever
it comes not there is death!

IV. Last of all, no Christ without faith.

It is not enough, brethren, that we should go through all these
previous steps, if we then go utterly astray at the end, by
forgetting that there is only one way by which we become partakers of
any of the benefits and blessings that Christ has wrought out. It is
much to say that for inheritance there must be sonship. It is much to
say that for sonship there must be a divine regeneration. It is much
to say that the power of this regeneration is all gathered together
in Christ Jesus. But there are plenty of people that would agree to
all that, who go off at that point, and content themselves with
_this_ kind of thinking--that in some vague mysterious way, they
know not how, in a sort of half-magical manner, the benefit of
Christ's death and work comes to all in Christian lands, whether
there be an act of faith or not! Now I am not going to talk theology
at present, at this stage of my sermon; but what I want to leave upon
all your hearts is this profound conviction,--Unless we are wedded to
Jesus Christ by the simple act of trust in His mercy and His powe