CHAP. XL] MEDITATIONS. 339 



submit themselves to His righteousness and are willing to 

 receive His gift. They are to be conformed to the image of 

 His Son, and when that is fulfilled, and God sees that they 

 are conformed to the image of Christ, there can be no more 

 condemnation, for this is the praise which God Himself gives, 

 whose judgment is just. So we ought always to hope in 

 Christ, for as sure as we receive Him now, so sure will we 

 be made conformable to His image. Let us begin by taking 

 no thought about worldly cares, and setting our minds on the 

 righteousness of God and His kingdom, and then we shall 

 have far clearer views about the worldly cares themselves, 

 and we shall be continually enabled to fight them under 

 Him who has overcome the world. 



To THE SAME. 



26th June 1864. 



Note in (2 Cor.) ver. 10 that the judgment is according 

 to what we have done, so that if we are to be counted 

 righteous, we must really get righteousness and do it. Note 

 also that we. are to receive the things done in the body, not 

 rewards or punishments merely, but the things themselves 

 are to be brought back to us, and we must meet them in the 

 spirit of Christ, who bore our sins and abolished them, or 

 else we must be overwhelmed altogether. 



. , . I have come from Mr. Baptist Noel. The church 

 was full to standing, and the whole service was as plain as 

 large print. The exposition was the Parable of Talents, and 

 the sermon was on John iii. 16. The sermon was the text writ 

 large, nothing ingenious or amusing, and hardly any attempt 

 at instruction, but plain and very serious exhortation from a 

 man who evidently believes neither more nor less than what 

 he says. 



To THE SAME. 



28th June 1864. 



I can always have you with me in my mind why 

 should we not have our Lord always before us in our minds, 

 for we have His life and character and mind far more clearly 

 described than we can know any one here ? If we had seen 



