and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven."

The Scribes and Pharisees were the persons whose influence over their Jewish brethren was the greatest. The Scribes were the literary men of their time, who sat in Moses' seat, and interpreted the law according to their own erroneous opinions. The Pharisees, on the other hand, were held in the highest esteem, not only for the doctrines which they taught, but for the marked sanctity of their outward deportment. They made clean the outside of the cup and the platter. None more scrupulous than they in the observance of mere outward forms, while they were all the while utter strangers to that truth and purity in the inward parts which the law of God imperatively requires. Against such formalists and hypocrites the Faithful and True Witness pronounces the most solemn condemnation, and He warns all His followers that unless they should attain a better, a purer righteousness than the Scribes and Pharisees, with all their boasted purity, had attained, they could in no case enter the kingdom of heaven. The word righteousness here is plainly to be understood both as denoting that justifying righteousness which forms the ground of our acceptance before God, and that holiness of heart and life which is indispensable as a preparation for the everlasting enjoyment of God. Both in the matter of justification and sanctification, our righteousness must exceed the righteousness of

the Scribes and Pharisees. If we would enter the kingdom of heaven we must excel even these men who stood the highest in the estimation of their Jewish countrymen.

The attainment of a righteousness so pure, so complete as to meet the demands of the law and the justice of God, has, since the fall, been the grand object after which man has been constantly aspiring. His language has ever been "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" The law of God demands a perfect obedience ere we can either find acceptance with God or be fitted to dwell for ever in His presence. As long as the infinitely great, and holy, and just God exists or wields the sceptre of the universe, this law must ever retain its original purity, unsullied as the Lawgiver Himself. When, therefore, man had trampled under foot those righteous statutes which bound in holy and harmonious subjection the whole intelligent creation to its God; there remained only a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which certainly awaited him as an adversary of God. Before a reconciliation could be effected between rebellious man and his justly offended

Creator, it was necessary not only that an atonement of infinite value should be made for sin, but that the whole law should be obeyed, and the injury and dishonour which had been done by sin to the character of God and the rectitude of his government should be repaired. These righteous requirements no human being, no angel, nay not even the highest archangel, could possibly satisfy. But the Son of God in His infinite mercy presented Himself as the surety of His people, consenting to obey in its fullest extent the law which they had broken, and to suffer in all its unmitigated severity the punishment which they deserved. He became, in short, "the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth."

The necessity of such a righteousness as that which Christ hath brought in to our acceptance with God, and our entrance into heaven, Jesus Christ points out, not directly, but by implication, in the Sermon on the Mount. When man was originally created in the image of God the law was sufficient of itself to impart to him a justifying righteousness; and even now, "if there had been a law which could have given righteousness, verily righteousness would have been by the law." But a broken law never can be available for this end. On the contrary, from the very moment that it was transgressed all who were under it were necessarily under a curse, and by the

deeds of that law no man

could henceforth be justified. Righteousness, therefore,

must be sought from some other source. Jesus, blessed be His name, hath provided the needful righteousness; and now we are justified by "the righteousness of God, which is by faith in Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe.”

The revelation of this perfect, this all-sufficient righteousness is the object of the whole Bible. This is the name by which Jesus is called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. But the Scribes and Pharisees completely distorted this cardinal truth of God's word, a truth which was clearly witnessed to them both by the law and the prophets. Christ was the sum and substance of every institution of the Mosaic law, and to engage therefore, in the observance of any one of its rites without a direct reference to the Redeemer, was equivalent to the mockery of professing to worship Jehovah in the temple, while they disregarded the Shechinah or symbol of His presence which overshadowed the mercy-seat.

The view which is given of Christ in the Jewish economy is so explicit that many of the Jews discerned his glory amid the typical observances, and trusted in Him as the object and end of the law. They felt that if they were bound to obey the commands contained in the law they were equally bound to reverence and believe in Him whom the law revealed. The one duty was equally binding with the other, and merely to yield a blind submission to precepts, without regard

ing the intention for which they were given, was, instead of faithfully serving God, equivalent to defeating, as far as they could, the ultimate intention for which the statutes had been appointed. The law was given from Sinai not as a mass of ceremonies cumbrous and unmeaning, but "it was added," as the apostle says in his epistle to the Galatians, "because of transgressions." It was added to the promise or covenant made with Abraham 430 years before, not in opposition but in subserviency to it,-to awaken in the mind a sense or conviction of sin, and lead to a firm impression of the necessity of the covenant of grace, thus compelling them to seek refuge in the new and better covenant. This was one peculiar advantage which the Jews might, and many of them did, derive from the Ceremonial Law; and precisely the same advantage accrues to us from the continuance of the Moral Law. It possesses no power to justify the sinner, but it leads us to the knowledge of sin, and thus compels us to submit implicitly to the righteousness of God. It makes no revelation of Him who is the end of the law, but it demands that if a revelation of Christ as our Redeemer has been made, we should immediately believe upon his name. It extends its wide and allcomprehensive requirements over the whole range of possible circumstances, and it denounces its threatenings against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men. If, therefore, Christ hath been set forth in the gospel,