beside the cross, when the world's life was to be won, without a friend.

All this we must bear in mind, if we would understand the expression, "I sanctify Myself." He was sanctifying and consecrating Himself for this, — to be a Witness to the Truth, a devoted one, conse crated in His heart's deeps to die, loyal to Truth, even though it should have to give, as the reward of allegiance, not honors and kingdoms, but only a crown of thorns.

3. The self-sanctification of Christ was for the sake of others." For their sakes."

He obeyed the law of self-consecration for Himself, else He had not been man; for that law is the universal law of our existence. human But He obeyed it not for Himself alone, but for others also. It was vicarious self-devotion-that is, instead of others, as the Representative of them. "For their sakes," as an example, “that they also might be sanctified through the truth."

Distinguish between a model and an example. You copy the outline of a model; you imitate the spirit of an example. Christ is our Example; Christ is not our Mode.. You might copy the life of Christ-make Him a model in every act- and yet you might be not one whit more of a Christian than before. You might wash the feet of poor fishermen as He did; live a wandering life, with nowhere to lay your head. might go about teaching, and never use any words but His words, never express a religious truth except in Bible language, have no home, and mix with publi cans and harlots. Then Christ would be your model; you would have copied His life, like a picture, line for

You

line, and shadow for shadow, and yet you might not be Christlikę.

On the other hand, you might imitate Christ, get His Spirit, breathe the atmosphere of thought which He breathed, do not one single act which He did, but every act in His Spirit; you might be rich, whereas He was poor; never teach, whereas He was teaching always; lead a life, in all outward particulars, the very contrast and opposite of His; and yet the spirit of His self-devotion might have saturated your whole being. and penetrated into the life of every act, and the essence of every thought. Then Christ would have become your Example; for we can only imitate that of which we have caught the spirit.

Accordingly, He sanctified Himself that He might become a living, inspiring Example, firing men's hearts, by love, to imitation, - a burning and a shining Light shed upon the mystery of Life, to guide by a spirit of warmth lighting from within. In Christ there is not given to us a faultless essay on the loveliness of selfconsecration, to convince our reason how beautiful it is; but there is given to us a self-consecrated One: a living Truth, a living Person; a Life that was beautiful, a Death that we feel in our inmost hearts to have been Divine; and all this in order that the Spirit of that consecrated Life and consecrated Death, through love, and wonder, and deep enthusiasm, may pass into us, and sanctify us, also, to the Truth, in life and death. He sacrificed Himself that we might offer our selves a living sacrifice to God.

II. Christ's sanctification of His people: "That they also might be sanctified through the truth."

To sanctify means two things. It means to devote, and it means to set apart. Yet these two meanings are but different sides of the same idea; for to be devoted to God is to be separated from all that is opposed to God.

Those whom Christ sanctifies are separated fron two things: From the world's evil, and from the world's spirit.

1. From the world's evil. So in verse 15: "I pray not that Thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that Thou shouldest keep them from the evil." Not from physical evil, not from pain; Christ does not exempt His own from such kinds of evil. Nay, we hesitate to call pain and sorrow evils, when we remember what bright characters they have made, and when we recollect that almost all who came to Christ came impelled by suffering of some kind or other. For example, the Syrophenician woman had been driven to "fall at His feet and worship Him," by the anguish of the tormented daughter whom she had watched. It was a widow that cast into the treasury all her living, and that widow poor.

Possibly Want and Woe will be seen hereafter, when this world of Appearance shall have passed away, to have been, not evils, but God's blessed angels, and ministers of His most parental love.

But the evil from which Christ's sanctification sepa. ates the soul is that worst of evils-properly speaking, the only evil — sin; revolt from God, disloyalty to conscience, tyranny of the passions, strife of our self-will in conflict with the loving Will of God. This is our foe, our only foe, that we have a right to hate with perfect hatred, meet it where we will, and under

whatever form, in church or state, in false social max. ims, or in our own hearts. And it was to sanctify or separate us from this that Christ sanctified or consecrated Himself. By the blood of His anguish, by the strength of His unconquerable resolve, we are sworn against it; bound to be, or else sinning greatly, in a world of evil, consecrated spirits.

2. The self-devotion of Christ separates us from the world's spirit.

Distinguish between the world's evil and the world's spirit. Many things which cannot be classed amongst things evil are yet dangerous as things worldly.

It is one of the most difficult of all ministerial duties to define what the world-spirit is. It cannot be identi fied with vice, nor can unworldliness be defined as abstinence from vice. The Old Testament saints were many of them great transgressors. Abraham lied; Jacob deceived; David committed adultery. Crimes dark surely, and black enough! And yet these men were unworldly-the spirit of the world was not in them. They erred and were severely punished; for crime is crime in whomsoever it is found, and most a crime in a saint of God. But they were beyond their age; they were not of the world. They were strang ers and pilgrims upon earth. They were in the midst of innumerable temptations from within and from without, seeking after a better country, that is, an heavenly.

Again, you cannot say that worldliness consists in mixing with many people, and unworldliness with few. Daniel was unworldly in the luxurious, brilliant court of Babylon; Adam, in Paradise, had but one companion that one was the world to him.

Again, the spirit of the world cannot be defined as

consisting in any definite plainness of dress or peculiar mode of living. If we would be sanctified from the world when Christ comes, we must be found not stripping off the ornaments from our persons, but the censoriousness from our tongues, and the selfishness from our hearts.

Once more, that which is a sign of unworldliness in one age is not a certain sign of it in another. In Daniel's age, when dissoluteness marked the world, frugal living was a sufficient evidence that he was not of the world. To say that he restrained his appetites, was nearly the same as saying that he was sanctified. But now, when intemperance is not the custom, a life as temperate as Daniel's might coëxist with all that is worst of the spirit of the world in the heart. Almost no man then was temperate who was not serving God; now, hundreds of thousands are self-controlled by prudence, who serve the world and self.

Therefore, you cannot define sanctification by any outward marks or rules. But he who will thoughtfully watch will understand what is this peculiar sanctification or separation from the world which Christ desired in His servants.

He is sanctified by the self-devotion of his Master from the world, who has a life in himself independent of the maxims and customs which sweep along with them other men. In his Master's words, “A well of water in him, springing up into everlasting life," keeping his life, on the whole, pure, and his heart fresh. His true life is hid with Christ and God. His motives, the aims and objects of his life, however inconsistent they may be with each other, however irregularly or feebly carried out, are yet, on the whole, above, not