LECTURES ON THIS EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE R OMANS. BY THOMAS CHALMERS, D.D. & LL.D,, SEVENTH THOUSAND. NEW YORK: ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS, No. 53.0 BROADWAY. 1874. ADVERTISEMENT. A SERIES of pulpit discourses on the obvious subject-riat or of Scripture, is of a different character from those criticd and expository works, the object of which is to fix and ascertain the meaning-even of the more obscure and controverted, as well as of the clearest passages. The following is a record of the Sabbath preparations of many years back-now given without change or improvement to the world; and the appearance of which in their present state is very much owing to the fre. quently expressed desire of my old hearers, to have the Lec tures which I delivered on the Epistle to the Romans, set before them in a more permanent form. But it may'De right to mention that the pulpit lectures which were delivered during my incumbency in the parish of St John's, Glasgow, from September, 1819, to November, 1Si'-3 extend only a little way into the tenth chapter, and that ile remaining lectures, with the exception of the one on xiv, 7 have been only prepared now for the completion of this wca f Edinburgh, January, 1842. LECTURES ON THE ROMANS. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. IT is possible to conceive the face of our be a twofold process begun and carried world overspread with a thick and mid- forward, and at length brought to its full night darkness, and without so much as a and perfect termination. Light must be particle of light to alleviate it, from any poured upon the earth, and the faculty of one quarter of the firmament around us. seeing must be conferred upon its inhabiin this case, it were of no avail to the tants. One can imagine, that, instead of leople who live in it, that all of them were the light being made instantaneously to in possession of sound and perfect eyes. burst upon us in its highest splendour, The organ of sight may be entire, and yet and, instead of the faculty being immedinothing bhe seen from the total absence of ately bestowed upon us in full vigour to external light among the objects on every meet and to encounter so strong a tide of side of us. Or in other words, to bring effulgency —that both these processes were a bout the perception of that which is with- conducted in a way that was altogether out, it is not enough that we have the gradual-that the light, for example, had power of vision among men; but, in ad- its first weak glimmering; and that the lition to this, there must be a visibility in eye, in the feebleness of its infancy, was the trees, and the houses. and the moun- not overcome by it-that the light adtains, and the living creatures, which are vanced with morning step to a clearer Inow in the ordinary discernment of men. brilliancy; and that the eye, rendered But, on the other hand, we may reverse able to bear it, multiplied the objects of the supposition. We may conceive an its sight, and took in a wider range of e.ntire luminousness to be extended over perception-that the light shone at length the face of nature-while the faculty of unto the perfect day; and that the eye, sight was wanting among all the indivi- with the last finish upon its properties and duals of our species. In this case, the its powers, embraced the whole of that external light would be of as little avail variety which lies within the present comtowards our perception of any object at a pass of human contemplation. We must distance from us, as the mere possession see that if one of these processes be gra. of the sense of seeing was in the former dual, the other should be gradual also instance. Both must conspire to the effect By shedding too strong a light upon weak of our being rendered conversant with the eyes, we may overpower and extinguish external world through the medium of the them. By granting too weak a light to eye. And if the power of vision was not him who has strong eyes, we make the faenough, without a visibility on the part of culty outstrip the object of its exercise, the things which are around us, by God and thus incur a waste of endowment. saying let there be light-as little is their By attempering the one process to the visibility enough, without the power of other, we maintain, throughout all the vision stamped as an endowment by the stages, that harmony which is so abundhand of God, on the creatures whom He antly manifested in the works of Nature hias formed. and Providence, between man as he acNow we can conceive that both these tuallv is, and the circumstances by which defects or disabilities, in the way of vi-' man is actually surrounded. sion, may exist at the same time-or that These preliminary statements will we all the world was dark, and that all the trust be of some use for illustrating the people in the world were blind. To progress, not of natural, but of spiritual emerge out of this condition-there must light, along that oath which forms the sue. i6 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. cessive history of our world. Whatever est character lay upon the first moments discernment Adam had of the things of in the history of sinful man; and which God in Paradise, the fall which he expe- required both light from Heaven upon his rienced was a fall into the very depths of soul, and a renovation of its vitiated and the obscurity of midnight. The faculties disordered faculties, ere it could be effeche had in a state of innocence, made him tually dissipated. able to perceive, that the Creator, who From this point then, the restoration of formed him, took pleasure in all that He spiritual light to our benighted world nad formed; and rejoiced over them so takes its commencement-when Adam long as he saw that they were good. But was utterly blind, and the canopy over when they ceased to be good, and became his head, was palled in impenetrable darkevil-when sin had crept into our world ness. To remove the one disability, was in the shape of a novelty as yet unheard, in itself to do nothing-to remove the anid as yet unprovided for-when the re- other disability was in itself to do nothing. lation of man to his Maker was not merely Both must be removed, ere Adam could altered, but utterly and diametrically re- again see. Both may have been removed versed-when, from a loyal and affiction- instantaneously; and by one fiat of Omate friend, he had become at first a daring, nipotence, such a perfection of spiritual and then a distrustful and affrighted rebel discernment may have been conferred on -Adam may, when a sense of' integrity our first parents, and such a number of made all look bright and smiling aid se- spiritual truths have been made by a rene around him, have been visited from direct communication from heaven to Heaven with the light of many high cornm- stand around him, as in a single moment munications; nor could he feel at a loss would have ushered him into all the splento comprehend, how He, who was the dours of a full and finished revelation. Fountain of' moral excellence, should But this has not been God's method in cherish, with a Father's best and kindest His dealings with a sinful world. Spiritual regards, all those whom He had filled and light and spiritual discernment, were not beautified and blest with its unsullied called forth to meet each other, in all the emanations: But, after the gold had be- plenitude of an unclouded brilliancy, at come dim, how He whose eye was an eye the bidding of His immediate voice. Tlhe of unspotted holiness could look upon it outward truth has been dealt out by a with complacency-after the sentence had gradual process of revelation-and the been incurred, how, while truth and un- inward perception of it has been made to changeableness were the attributes of maintain a corresponding pace through a God, it ever could be reversed by the lips process equally gradual. A greater nurnof Him who pronounced it-after guilt ber of spiritual objects has been introwith all its associated terrors had changed duced, from one time to another, into the to the view of our first parents the aspect field of visibility-and the power of of the Divinity, how the light of His coun- spiritual vision has from one age to anotenance should ever beam upon them ther been made to vary and to increase again with an expression of love or ten- along with them. derness-these were the mysteries which Those truths, which make up the body beset and closed and shrouded in thickest of our written revelation, may be regarded darkness, the understandings of those as so many objects, on which visibility who had just passed out. of innocence into has been conferred by so many successin. Till God made this first communi- sive communications oflightfrom Heaven. cation, there was no external light, to They were at first few in number; and alleviate that despair and dreariness these few were offered to mankind, under which followed the first visitation of a the disguise of a rather vague and exfeeling so painful and so new as the con- tended generality. The dawn of this exsciousness of evil. And, if the agitations ternal revelation, was marked by the of the heart have any power to confuse solitary announcement, given to our outand to unsettle the perceptions of the un- cast progenitors, that the seed of the woderstanding-if remorse and perplexity man should bruise the head of the serand fear, go to disturb the exercise of all pent. To this, other announcements were our judging and all our discerning facul- added in the progress of ages-and even ties-if, under the engrossment of one the great truth, which lay enveloped in great and overwhelming apprehension, the very first of them, had a growing illuwe can neither see with precision nor mination cast upon it in the lapse of genecontemplate with steadiness-above all, rations.' The promise given to Adam, if, under the administration of a righteous brightened- into a more cheering and inGod, there be a constant alliance between telligible hope, when renewed; to Abra. spiritual darkness and a sense of sin un- ham, int the shape of an assurance, that, pardoned or sin unexpiated-then may through one of his' descendants, all the we be sure that an obscurity of the deep- families of the earth were to be blest; and INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. to Jacob, that Shiloh was to be born, and blended with the truths of human expert. that to Him the gathering of the people ence-so solidly reared from the founda. should be; and to Moses, that a great tion of Jesus Christ and of Him crucified, Prophet was to arise like unto himself; into a superstructure at once firm and and to David, that one of his house was to graceful and stately-so branching forth sit upon his throne for ever; and to Isaiah, into all the utilities of moral and practithat one was to appear, who should be a cal application-and, at length, from an light unto the Gentiles, and the salvation argument bearing upon one great conclu. of all the ends of the earth; and to sion, so richly efflorescing into all the Daniel, that the Messiah was to be cut virtues and accomplishments which serve off, bhut not for himself; and that through both to mark and to adorn the person of Him reconciliation was to be made for regenerated man —Such is the worth and iniquity, and an everlasting righteousness the density and the copiousness of this was to be brought in; and to John the epistle-that, did our power of vision keep Baptist, that the kingdom of Heaven was pace at all with the number and the value at hand, and the Prince of that kingdom of those spiritual lessons which abound was immediately to follow in the train of in it, then indeed should we become the his own ministrations; and to the apos- children of light, be rich in a wisdom that ties in the days of our Saviour upon earth, the world knoweth not, in a wisdom which that He with whom they companied was is unto salvation. soon to be lifted up for the healing of the But the outward light by which an obnations, and that all who looked to Him ject is rendered visible is one thing-and should live; and finally, to the apostles the power of vision is another. That after the day of Pentecost, when, fraught these two are not only distinct in respect with the full and explicit tidings of a of theoretical conception, but were also world's atonement and a world's regene- experimentally distinct fr'om each other in ration, they went forth with the doctrine the actual history of God's cc mmunicaof Christianity in its entire copiousness, tions to the world, will, we trust, be made and have transmitted it to future ages in to appear from several passages of that a book, of which it has been said, that no revealed history in the Bible; and from man shall add thereto, and that no man one single appeal which we shall make to shall take away from it. the experience of our hearers. This forms but a faint and a feeble out- The first passage is in 1 Peter i. 10-12. line of that march, by which God's exter- "Of which salvation the prophets have nal revelation hath passed magnificently enquired and searched diligently, who onwards, from the first days of our world, prophesied of the grace that should come through the twilight of the patriarchal unto you. Searching what, or what ages-and the brightening of the Jewish manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which dispensation, aided as it was by the secon- was in them did signify, when it testified dary lustre of types and of ceremonies- beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and and the constant accumulation of Prophe- the glory that should follow. Unto whom cy, with its visions every century becom- it was revealed, that not unto themselves, ing more distinct, and its veil becoming but unto us, they did minister the things more transparent-andthe personal com- which are now reported unto you, by munications of God manifest in the flesh, them that have preached the gospel unto who opened His mouth amongst us, but you, with the Holy Ghost sent down from still opened it in parables-insomuch that heaven; which things the angels desire to when He ascended from His disciples, He look into." This passage sets the old prostill left them in wonder and dimness and phets before us in a very striking attitude. mystery-till, by the pouring forth of the They positively did not know the meanHoly Spirit from the place which He had ing of their own prophecies. They were gone to occupy, the evidence of inspira- like men of dim and imperfect sight, whose tion received its last and its mightiest en- hand was guided by some foreign power largement, which is now open to all for to the execution of a picture —and who, the purpose of perusal, but so shut against after it was finished, vainly attempted, by every purpose of augmentation, that in straining their eyes, to explain and to as. this respect it may be said, its words are certain the subject of it. They were the closed up and sealed- to the time of the transmitters of a light, which, at the same end. time, did not illuminate thenselves. They The Epistle to the Romans, forms one uttered the word, or they put it down in of the most complete and substantial pro- writing, as it was given to them-and then ducts of this last and greatest illumination. they searched by their own power, but In this document, the visibility of external searched in vain for the signification of it. revelation is pocred forth not merely on They enquired diligently what the mean. the greatest variety of Christian doctrine, ing of the Spirit could be, when it testified but on that doctrine so harmoniously l of the sufferings of Christ and the lorv 8 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. of Christ. But till that Spirit gave the which had arisen on the outward, page of power of discernment, as well as set be- revelation, had also dawned and arisen fore them the objects of discernment- upon their own hearts-not, in short, till their attempts were nugatory. And in- the great agent of all revelation, even the deed they were sensible of this, and ac- Holy Spirit who had already furnished the quiesced in it. It was told them by reve- object of' perception in the word, had also lation, that the subject matter of their pro- furnished the organ of perception in the phecy was not for themselves, but for understanding-not till then, were the in. others-even for those to whom the gospel quirers after the truth as it is in Jesus should be preached in future days, and effectually introduced, to a full acquaintwho, along with the ministration of the ance with all its. parts,-or to the full beexternal word, were to receive the minis- nefit of all its influence. tration of the Holy Ghost-whose office We cannot take leave of this passage, it is to put into the mouths of prophets without adverting to the importance of the things which are to be looked to and that practical injunction which is containbelieved, and whose office also it is to put ed in it. They who are still in darkness into the hearts of others the power of are called upon to look, and with earnestseeing and believing these things. And ness too, to a particular quarter; and that it serves clearly to mark the distinction is the word of God-and to do so until the between these two offices, that the pro- power of vision was granted to them. If phets, alluded to in ihis passage, present- a blind man were desirous of beholding a ed to the world a set of truths which they landscape, and had the hope at the same themselves did not understand-and that time of having his sight miraculously reagain the private disciples of Peter, who stored to him, he might, even when blind, were not so learned as to be made the go to the right post of observation, and original and inspired authors of such a turn his face to the right direction, and communication, were honoured with the thus wait for the recovery of that power far more valuable privilege of being made which was extinguished. And, in like to understand it. manner, we are all at the right post, when This we think will appear still more we are giving heed to our Bibles. We clearly from another passage of the same are all going through a right exercise, apostle in 2 Peter i. 19 —21. " We have when, with the strenuous application of also a more sure word of prophecy; our natural powers, we are reading and whereunto ye do well that ye take heed as pondering and comparing and rememberunto a light that shineth in a dark place, ing the words of the testimony-and if until the day dawn, and the day-star arise asked, how long we should pers6vere in in your hearts. Knowing this first, that this employment, let us persevere in it no prophecy of the Scripture is of any with patience and prayer until, as Peter private interpretation. For the prophecy says, the day dawn and the day-star arise same not in old time by the will of man; in our hearts. but holy men of God spake as they were That John the Baptist should not kliow mnoved by the Holy Ghost." No prophecy himself to have been he who was to come is of private interpretation. It was not in the spirit and power of Elijah; and suggested by the natural sense of him hence, in reply to the question Art thou who uttered it-and as little is it under- Elias 3 should say that I am not-whereas stood, or can it be explained, by the na- our Saviour affirmed of him, that he was tural powers of the same person. He the Elias who should come-this ignorwas the mere recipient of a higher influ- ance of his may be as much due to the ence; and he conveyed what he had thus want of outward information about the received to the world-speaking not of his point, as to any lack in the faculty of own will but just as he was moved by the discernment. The same thing however Holy Ghost-and enabled to discern or to can scarcely be said of his ignorance of expound the meaning of what he had thus the true character of the very Messiah spoken, not of his own power, but just as whom he himself foretold-insomuch, that, the same Holy Ghost who gave him the though he had baptized him and attested. materials of contemplation, gave him also him to be the Lamb of God, and had seen the faculty of a just and true contempla- the Spirit descending upon him like a tion. The light of which he was barely dove-yet he seems afterwards to have the organ of transmission, shone in a'dark been so much startled by the obscurity of place, so long as it shone upon the blind; his circumstances, and by the style of his and, not till the blind was made to see- companionship which looked unsuitable not till the eyes of those, who were taking to the character of a great Prince and heed to the letter of the prophecy, were Deliverer, that, in perplexity about the opened to perceive the life and meaning matter, he sent his disciples to Jesus to and spirit of the prophecy-not till that ask whether he was the person who should day which has dawned, and that day-star come or they had to look for another INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 9 He laboured under such a disadvantage, He made them see old things more clearly whether of darkness or of blindness about than before; and that, by a direct work the whole nature of the new dispensation, on the power of mental perception, He that though, in respect of light, he was brought them to their remembrance; and greater than the greatest of the prophets, He made them skilful in the discernment who had gone before him-yet, in the of Scripture-a term applied exclusively very same respect, he was less than the at that time to the writings of the Old least in the kingdom of heaven; or less Testament; and ~ He, not oily cleared than the least enlightened of the Christian away the external darkness which rested disciples who should come after him. on that part of Christian doctrine that The constant misapprehension of our was still unpromulgated, but He strengthSaviour's own immediate disciples, of ened and purified that organ of discernwhich we read so much in the Gospels, ment through which the light both of was certainly due as much to their being things new and old finds its way into the blind as to their being in the dark-to heart-insomuch that we know not two their defect in the power of seeing, as to states of understanding which stand more any defect in the visibility of' what was decidedly contrasted with each other. than actually set before them. that of the apostles before, and of the We read of our Saviour's sayings being same apostles after the resurrection-so hid from them, that they perceived not- that from being timid irresolute, confused, and of His dealing out the light of exter- and altogether doubting and unsatisfied nal truth to them, as their eyes were able inquirers, they became the brave unto bear it-and of His averring, in spite shrinking and consistent ministers of a of all he had dealt out in the course of his spiritual faith-looking back both on the personal ministrations upon earth, of His writings of the Old Testament, and on our averring, at the close of these miinira- Saviour's conversations with other eyes tions, that as yet they knew nothing, than they had formerly, and entlbled so to though if they had had the power of dis- harmonize them all with their subsequent cernment, they might surely have learned revelations. as to make them perceive an much from what is now before us in the evangelical spirit and an evangelical Gospels, and of which they were both the meaning even in those earlier communieye and the ear witnesses. We further cations, which, of themselves, shed so dini read, that after the resurrection, when lie and so feeble a lustre over the patriarchal met two of his disciples, and the eves of and the prophetic ages. their body were holden that they should So that the office of the Iholy Ghost not know Him, just as the eyes of their with the apostles, was, not merely to show mind were holden that they should not them things new respecting Christ, but to know the things which were said in Moses make them see things both new and old. and the prophets and all the Scriptures The former of His functions, as we said concerning Himself, they at length came before, has now ceased-nor have we to recognize His person-not by any ad- reason to believe, that, during the whole ditional light thrown upon the external currency of our present world, there will object, but simply by their eyes being another article of doctrine or information opened; and they also came to recognize be given to us, than what is already Him in the Scriptures-not by any change treasured up in the written and unalteror any addition to the word of their testi- able word of God's communications. But mony, but simply by their understandings the latter function is still in full exercise. being opened to understand them. We It did not cease with the apostolic age. also read of the descent of the Holy Ghost The external revelation is completed. in the day of Pentecost-that event on But, for the power of beholding aright the which our Saviour set such an import- truths which it sets before us, we are just ance, as to make it more than an equiva- as dependent on the Holy Ghost as the lent for His own presence in the way of apostles of old were. His miraculous teaching and enlightening the minds of gifts and His conveyances of additional his apostles. "If I go not away, He will doctrine are now over. But His whole not come unto you-but if I depart, then work in the church of Christ is not nearly Him who is not yet given, because I am over. He has shed all the light that He not yet glorified, I will send unto you. ever will do over the field of revelation. And He will guide you into all truth, and But He has still to open the eyes of the take of my things, and show them unto blind; and, with every individual of the you." There is no doubt that He showed human race, has He to turn him from a them new things, which we have in the natural man who cannot receive the Epistles; and so made the light of exter- things of the Spirit, to a spiritual man by nal revelation shine more fully and whom alone these things can be spiritu. brightly upon them. But there is as little ally discerned. doubt, that, in His office as a Revealer, Tnere is with many amongst us, an un 2 0 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE., dervaluing of this part of the Christian the pages of the word of His testimony-. dispensation. The office of the Holy let us feel assured that in Him or in His Ghost as a revealer is little adverted to, communications there is no darkness at and therefore little proceeded upon in any all. It is not because He is dark, but be. of our practical movements. We set our- cause we are blind that we do not underselves forth to the work of reading and stand Him; and we give you, not a piece understanding the Bible, just as we would of inert orthodoxy, but a piece of inforany human composition-and this is so mation which mav be turned to use and far rightr-for it is only when thus em- to account on your very next perusal ot ployed that we have any reason to look any part of the Bible-when we say that for the Spirit's agency in our behalf. it is the office of the Spirit to open the e) e But surely the fact of His agency being of your mind to the meaning of its intiessential, is one, not of speculative but of mations, and that God will not refuse His practical importance-and ought to ad- holy Spirit to those who ask Him. monish us, that there is one peculiarity, This brings us by a very summary proby which the book of God stands distin- cess to the resolution of the question guished from the book of a human author, I How is it that the Spirit acts as a revealer and that is that it is not enough it should of truth to the human understandingS be read with the spirit of attention, but with To deny Him this office, on the one hand, the spirit of dependence and of prayer. is, in fact, to set aside what by the fullest We should like if this important part in testimony of the Bible is held forth as the the process of man's recovery to God, held process, in every distinct and individual a more conspicuous place in your estima- case, whereby each man at his conversion tion. xWe should like you to view it as a is called out of darkness into marvellous standing provision for the church of Christ light. On the other hand, to deny such a in all ages. It was not set up for a mere fubiess and such a sufficiency of doctrine temporary purpose, to shed a fleeting in the Bible, as if beheld and believed is brilliancy over an age of gifted and illu- enough for salvation, is to count it necesminated men that has now rolled by. sary that something should be added to Such is the value, and such the pernla- the words of the prophecy of this book, nency of this gift of the Holy Ghost, that which if any man do, God will add unto it almost looks to be the great and ulti- him all the plagues that are written theremate design of Christ's undertaking, to in. There is no difficulty in effecting a obtain the dispensation of it, as the ac- reconciliation between these two parties. complishment of a promise by His Father. The Spirit guides unto all truth, and all And when Peter explained to the multi- truth is to be found in the Bible-The tude its first and most wondrous exhibition Spirit therefore guides us unto the Bible. on the day of Pentecost, he did not restrict He gives us that power of discernment, it to one period or to one country of the by which we are wisely and intelligently world. But the gift of the Holy Ghost is conducted through all its passages. His ",unto you," he says, "and to your chil- office is not to brighten into additional dren, and to as many as the Lord our God splendour the sun of revelation, or even shall.all." We think that if we saw to clear away any clouds that may have Christ in person, and had the explanation gathered over the face of it. His office is of our Bibles fiom His own mouth, this to clarify our organs of perception, and would infallibly conduct us to the highest to move away that film from the spiritual eminences of spiritual wisdom. But bless- eye, which, till He begins to operate, aded be they who have not seen, but yet heres with the utmost obstinacy in the have believed —and Christ hath expressly case of every individual of our species. told us that it is better He should go away The ebbs and the alternations of spiritual from the world, for "if He did not go light in our world, are not due to any away the Spirit would not come-but that fluctuating movements, in the flame, if He went away He would send Him." which issues from that luminary that has What the mysterious connection is be- been hung out as a lamp unto our feet tween Christ's entrance into heaven, and and a light unto our paths. It is due to the free egress of the Holy Ghost upon the variations which take place, of soundearth, it is not for us to enquire. But such ness or disease, in the organs of the beis the revealed fact, that we are in better holders. That veil which was at one time circumstances for being guided unto all on the face of Moses, is now upon the truth by having a part and an interest in heart of the unconverted Israelites. The this promise, than if we had personal ac- blindness is in their minds, and they are cess to the Saviour still sojourning and in darkness, just because of this veil bestill ministering amongst us. Let us not ing yet untaken away in the reading of despise that which has so mighty a place the Old Testament. When: they turn tc assigiied to it in the counsels of God-and the Lord, there will be no- change made if heretofore, a darkness hasi hung over either in the Old Testament or- in the INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 1i hew-but this veil which is now upon ever-during record. The light is near us, tneir faculties of spiritual discernment, and round about us; and all that remains will simply be taken away. The uncon- to be done for its being poured into the verted of our own country, to whom the innermost recesses of every soul, is the gospel is hid, do not perceive it, not be- destruction of that little tegunment which cause there is a want of light in the gos- lies in the channel of communication, bepel which would need to be augmented, tween the objects which are visible and but because the God of this world hath him for whose use and whose perception blinded their own minds, lest the light of they are intended. To come in contact the glorious gospel of Christ who is the with spiritual light, we have not to ascend image of God should shine unto them. into heaven, and fetch an illuminated God hath already commended all the ex- torch friom its upper sanctuaries-we have ternal light of revelation, which he ever not to descend into the deep, and, out of purposes to do, in behalf of' our world- the darkness of its hidden mysteries, bring and that light shines upon all to whom to the openness of day some secret thing the word of salvation is sent. But though that before was inaccessible. All that we it shines upon all, it does not shine into shall ever find is in that word which is all. He hath already commanded the nigh unto us, even in our mouth; and light to shine out of darkness-and we which, by the penetrating energies of' Him now wait for that opening and purifying in whose hand it becometh a sword, can of the organ of conveyance which is upon find its way through all the dark and obhour person, that it may shine into our structed avenues of nature, and reach its hearts and thence give us the light of the convictions and its influences and its lesknowledge of the glory of God in the face sons to the very thoughts and intents of of Christ Jesus. The period of the new the heart. If you be longing for a light dispensation has been tl period of light, which you have not vet gotten —it is as much from the increase of vision as worth your knowing, that the firmament from the increase of visibility. The va- of a man's spiritual vision is already set cillation of this light from one age to round with all its splendours-that not another, is not from any periodical one additional lamp will for your behoof changes in the decay or the brightening be hung out from the canopy of heavenof the outward luminary. It is from the that the larger and the lesser lights of partial shuttings and openings of a screen revelation are already ordained, and not of interception. And, in those millennial so much as one twinkling luminary will days, when the gospel, in full and un- either be added or expunged frorm this clouded brilliancy, shall shine upon the hemisphere of the soul, till this material world-it will not be because light came earth and these material heavens be made down to it from heaven in a tide of more to pass away-and therefore, if still sitting copious supply-but because God will in the region and under the shadow of destroy the face of the covering that is death, there be any of you who long to be cast over all people; and the veil that is ushered into the manifestations of the gosspread over all nations. pel, know that this is done, not by any The light is exceedingly near to every change in that which is without, but by a one of us, and we might even now be in change in that which is within-by a the full and satisfactory enjoyment of it- medicating process upon your own faculwere it not for a something in ourselves. ties-by the simplicity of a personal opeAll that is necessary is, that the veil, ration. which hangs over our own senses, be de- This is something more than the mere stroyed. The obstacle in the way of didactic affirmation of a speculative or spiritual manifestation, does not lie in the, scholastic Theology. It contains within dimness of that which is without us-but its bosom the rudiments of a most imporin the state of our own personal faculties. tant practical direction, to every reader Let the organ of discernment be only set and every inquirer. If I do not see. not right; and the thing to be discerned will because there is a darkness around me, then appear in its native brightness, and but because there is a blindness upon me just in the very features and complexion adhering in the shape of a personal attriwhich it has worn from the beginning, and bute-it were a matter of great practical in which it has offered itself to the view account to ascertain, if this defect do not of all whose eyes have been opened by stand associated with other defects in my the Spirit of God, to behold the wondrous character and mind which are also perthings contained in the book of God's law. sonal. And when we read of the way in His office is not to deal in variable revela- which the moral and the intellectual aic tions to aI people sitting in darkness. It is blended together in the doctrines of the to lift up the heavy eyelids of a people New Testament —how oneapostle affirms, who are blind, that they may see the cha- that he who hateth his brother is in blind..racters of a steady unchangeable and ness; and another, that he who lacketit 12 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. certain virtues is blind and cannot see darkness.'He who Is desirous of doing afar off; and a nother, that men who did God's will shall know of Christ's doctrine not, up to what they knew, award the i that it is of God.''He whose eye is sin. glory and the gratitude to God, had their gle shall have the whole body full of foolish hearts darkened, so as to have that light.''Light is sown unto the upright, which they at one time possessed taken and breaketh forth as the morning to away from them; and our Saviour resolv- those who judge the widow and the fathering the condemnation of men's unbelief less.''To him who hath, more shall be into the principle that they loved the given'-and'he who keepeth my sayings, darkness, and therefore wilfully shut their to him will I manifest nmyself:' These are eyes to the truth that was offered-all this testimonies which clearly bespeak, what goes to demonstrate, that presumptuous ought to be the conduct of him who is in sin stands in the way of spiritual discern- quest of spiritual manifestation. They ment; that evil deeds, and the indulgence will serve to guide the seeker in his way of evil affections, serve to thicken that to that rest, which all attain who have atfilm which has settled upon the mental tained an acquaintance with the unseen eye, and obscures its every perception of Creator. It is a rest which he labours the truths of revelation. And this much to enter into-and, in despite of freezing at least may be turned into a matter of speculation, does he turn the call of resure and practical inference from all these pentance to the immediate account of urgelucidations-that the man who is not yet ing himself on to all deeds of conformity awakened to a sense of his iniquities, and with the divine will, to all good and holy not evincing it by putting forth upon them services. the hand of a strenuous and determined But more than this. It is the Spirit who reform; that the man who stifles the voice opens the understanding; and IIe is afof conscience within him, and, the slave fected by the treatment which He receives of his inveterate habits, never, either in from the subject on which He operates. practice or in prayer, makes an honest It is true that Ie has been known at struggle for his own emancipation; that times to magnify the freeness of the grace he who makes not a single effort against of God, by arresting the sinner in the full the conformities or the associations of speed and determination of his impetuous worldliness; and, far more, he who still career; and turning him, in despite of persists in its dishonesties or its grosser himself, to the refuge and the righlteousdissipations —he may stand all his days ness of the gospel. But, speaking generon the immediate margin of a brightness ally, He is grieved by resistance, EIe is that is altogether celestial, and yet, in quenched by carelessness, He is provoked virtue of an interposed barrier which he by the constant baffling of His endeavours, is doing all he can to make more opake to check and to convince and to admonand impenetrable, may he, with the Bible ish. On the other hand lie is courted by before his eyes, be groping in all the compliance; He is encouraged by the fadarkness and in more than all the guilt of vourable reception of His influences; He heathenism. These sins infuse a sore and is given in larger measure to those who a deadly distemper into his organs of per- obey Him; and He follows up your doception. and by every wilful repetition of cility under one dictate and one suggesthem is the distemper more fixed and per- tion, by freer and fuller manifestations, petuated-and therefore it is that we call In other words, if to thwart your con. upon those who desire for light, to cherish science be to thwart Him, and if' to act no hope whatever of its attainment, while with your conscience be to act with Him they persist in any doings which they -what is this to say, but that every inknow to be wrong. We call upon them quirer after the way of salvation, has to frame their doings in turning to the something to do at the very outset in the Lord if they wish the veil to be taken furtherance of his object? What is this away —and, instead of hesitating about to say, but that a nascent concern about the order of precedency between faiith the soul should instantly be associated and practice, or about the way in which with a nascent activity in the prosecution they each reciprocate upon the other, we of its interests l What is this to say, but call upon them simply and honestly to that the man should, plainly and in good betake themselves to the apostolical order earnest, forthwith turn himself to all that of "Awake, O sinner, and Christ shall is rightl If he have been hitherto a give thee light." drunkard, let him abandon his profligaThere is another set of passages which cies. If he have been hitherto a profaner may be quoted as a counterpart to the of the Sabbath, let him abandon the habit former, and which go to demonstrate the of taking his own pleasure upon that day, connection between obedience and spiri- If he have been hitherto a defrauder, let tual light-even as the others prove a him abandon his deceits and his depredaconnection between sir. and spiritual tions. And though in that region of spit. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. itual light upon which he is entering, he last messenger is at the door. There is will learn that he never can be at peace not time for cold criticisms, or laborious with God till he lean on a better righte- investigations, or splendid oratory, or proousness than his own-yet such is the in- found argument-when death has broke fluence of the doctrines of grace on every loose amongst us, and is spreading his genuine inquirer, that, fromn the first havoc amongst our earthly tabernaclesdawning of his obscure perception of when he is wresting away from us the dethem, to the splendour of their full and lights and the ornaments of' our society finished manifestation, is there the break- upon earth-when he is letting us see. by ing and the stir and the assiduous effort examples the most affecting, of what frail of a busy and ever-doing reformation — and perishable materials human life is carrying him onwards from the more pal- made up-and is dealing out another and pable rectitudes of ordinary and every- another reproof to that accursed delay, day conduct, to the high and.sacred and which leads man to trifle on the brink of spiritual elevation of a soul ripening for the grave, and to smile and be secure, heaven, and following hard after God. while the weapons of mortality are flying We know that we are now standing on thick around him. When will we be the borders of controversy. But we are brought to the beginning of wisdom-to far more solicitous for such an impression the fear of God-to the desire of doing as will lead you to act, than for any spe- His will-to the accomplishment of that culative adjustment. And yet how true it desire, by our believing in the name of is, that, for the purpose of a practical e'- His only-begotten Son, and loving one feet, there is not one instrument so power- another even as He has given us comful and so prevailing as the peculiar doe- mandment. Let us work while it is day trine of the gospel. It is the belief that a -and, set in motion by the encouragedebt unextinguishable by us has been ex- ments of the gospel, let us instantly betinguished by another-it is the know- come the followers of them who through ledge that that God, who can never lay faith and patience are now inheriting the aside either His truth or His righteousness, promises. has found out such a way for the dispen- You occasionally meet in the New Tessation of mercy as serves to exalt and to tament, with an express reference to a illustrate them both-it is the view of that certain body of writings, which are desiggreat transaction by which He laid on His nated by the term of Scriptures. Are own Son the iniquities of us all, and has now apply this term to the whole Bible. thus done away an otherwise invincible But, in those days, it was restricted to that barrier which lay across the path of ac- collection of pieces which makes up the ceptanrce-it is the precious conviction Old Testament. For the new was only in that Christ has died for our sins accord- the process of its formation, and was not ing to the Scriptures, and thus has turned yet completed; and it was not till some aside the penalties of a law, and by the time after the evangelists wrote their narvery act wherewith He has magnified that ratives, and the apostles their communilaw and made it honourable-it is this, cations, that they were gathered into one which seen, however faintly by the eye volume, or made to stand in equal and coof faith, first looses the bond of despair, ordinate rank with the inspired books of and gives a hope and an outlet for obedi- the former dispensation. ence. The subtile metaphysics of the So that all which is said of the Scripquestion, about the order of succession tures in the New Testament, must be rewith the two graces of faith and of repent- garded as the testimony of its authors tc ance, may entertain or they may perplex the value and importance of those writings you. But of this you may be very cer- which compose the Old Testament. And rain, that, where there is no repentance, it would therefore appear from Paul's all the dogmas of a contentious orthodoxy epistle to Timothy, that they are able to putt together will never make out the re- make us wise unto salvation. ality of faith-and, where there is no There can be no doubt, however that faith, all the drudgeries of a most literal one ingredient of this ability is, that they and laborious adherence to the outward refer us in a way so distinct and so authomatter of the law will never make out the ritative to the events of the New Dispenreality of repentance. sation. They give evidence to the coin. Life is too short for controversy. Charg- mission of our Saviour, and through Him ed with all the urgency of a matter on to the commission of all His apostles hand, we tell you to turn and flee and The wisdom which they teach, is a wismake fast work of your preparation for a dom which would guide us forward to the coming eternity. The sum and substance posterior revelations of Christianity. The of the preparation is, that you believe Old Testament is a region of comparative what the Bible tells you, and do what the dimness. But still there is light enough Bible bids you. Bestir yourselves, for the there, for making visible the many in .4 INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. tices which abound in it, to the more illu- Christian can now read the very first pro Iminated region of the New Testament- mise in the bock of Genesis, that the and, by sending us forward to that region, seed of the woman should bruise the heaa by pointing our way to Christ and to the of the serpent,' which only served to light apostles, by barely informing us where up a vague and general expectation in the we are to get the wisdom that we are in minds of ou: first parents-he can now quest of-even though it should not con- read it with the same full intelligence and vey it to us by its own direct announce- comfort, wherewith he reads in the book ments, it may be said to be able to make of the Romans that'the God of peace wise unto salvation. shall bruise Satan'under your feet shortly.' The quotation taken in all its complete- But there is still more in it than this. ness is in full harmony, with the statement If there be any truth in the process which we have now given.'From a child whereby the Holy Spirit adds to the thou hast known the Holy Scriptures power of discernment, as well as to the which are able to make thee wise unto truths which are to be discerned-then salvation, through the faith that is in this increased power will enable us to see Christ Jesus.' more-not merely in the later, but also in But there is more in it than this. The the earlier truths of revelation, than we same light from heaven by which the would otherwise have done. It is like a doctrine of the New Testament has blind man, in full and open day, gradually been made visible, has also made more recovering his sight as he stands by the visible the same doctrine, which in the margin of a variegated parterre. WithOld lay disguised under the veil of a out any augmentation whatever of the exstill unfinished revelation. In the first ternal light, is there a progress of revelablush of morning, there is much of the tion to his senses, as to all the beauty and landscape that we cannot see at all-and richness and multiplicity of the objects much that we do see, but see imperfectly. which are before him. What he sees at The same ascending luminary which re- first, may be no more than a kind of dazveals to us those more distant tracts that zling uniformity, over the whole length were utterly unobserved, causes to start and breadth of that space which is inout into greater beauty and distinctness, scribed with so many visible glories; the fields and the paths and the varied and, afterwards, may plants and flowers forms of nature or of art that are imme- stand out in their individuality to his nodiately around us-till we come to per- tice: and then may the distinctive colours ceive an extended impress of the charac- of each come to be recognized; and then ter and the goodness of the Divinity, over may the tints, of minuter delicacy call the whole range of our mid-day contem- forth his admiration-till all which it is plation. It is thus with the Bible. That competent for man to perceive, of what light, in virtue of which the pages of the has been so profusely lavished by the New Testament have been disclosed to hand of the great Artist, either in one observation, has, shed both a direct and a general blush of loveliness, or in those reflected splendour on.the pages of the nicer and more exquisite streaks of beauty Old-insomuch that from certain chapters which He hath pencilled in more hidden of' Isaiah, which lay shrouded in mystery characters, on the specimens of flowers both from the prophet himself and from and foliage taken singly, shall all be perall his countrymen-as in reading of' Him ceived and all be rapturously enjoyed by who bore the chastisement of our peace, the man, whose eyes have just been openand by whose stripes we are healed, and ed into a full capacity for beholding the who poured out His soul unto the death, wondrous things, which lie a spread and and made interceseion for transgressors- a finished spectacle before him. And it is we now draw all the refreshing comfort the same with the Bible. That book which that beams upon the heart, from an intelli- stands before the eye of many an accomgent view of our Redeemer's work of me- plished disciple in this world's literature, diation; and behold plainly standing out, as transfused throughout all its extent with that which lay wrapt, in a kind of hiero- one pervading and indiscriminate characglyphic mantle, from the discernment of ter of mysticism, gradually opens up to the wisest and most righteous of men the eye of him who is rescued from the under a former dispensation This power power. of the god of this world, and whose of illumination reaches upward, beyond office it is to blind the minds of them who the confines of the letter of the New Tes- believe not; and he beholds one general tament; and throws an evangelical light impress both of wisdom and of moral upon the remotest parts of anl economy beauty upon the whole; and he forms a which has now pr'ssed away. The rays growing and more special intimacy with of our brightest ow)n have fallen in a flood its individual passages; and feels a weight of glory over the, oldest and most distant of significancy in many of them, which of uilr recorded intimations; and a he never felt before; and he is touched INTRODUCTORY LECTURE. 15 wilth the discernment of a precious adap- they could' offer their vows and their tation in this one and that other verse to thanksgivings in the courts of the Lord's his own wants and his own circumstances; house, and'in the midst of thee, oh Jeruand this more minute and microscopic salem'-in all this, a Jew might express acquaintance with the truths, and percep- the desires of a fainting and an affectiontion of the excellencies of revelation, ap- ate heart, after that ceremonial in which ply as much to the verses of the Old as it he had been trained, and that service of does to the verses of the New Testament the temple which he loved; and yet in -so that if he just grow in spiritual clear- all this, there is enough to sustain the sightedness, he will have as growing a loftiest flights of devotion in the mind of relish and observation fa c the one part of a Christian. There is a weight of expres. Scripture as he has for the other: And sion, altogether commensurate to the feelthus it is, that, unlike to any human com- ings and the ardours and the extacies of a position, an advancing Christian ever soul exercised unto godliness. There is a'eads the Bible and the whole Bible, with something to meet the whole varied expea new light upon his understanding, and rience of the spiritual life, in these ages a new impression upon the affections and of a later and more refined dispensation, the principles of his nature. The books And such is the divine skilfulness of these of the former dispensation never stand to compositions, that, while so framed as to him in place of the rudiments of a school- suit and to satisfy the disciples of a ritual boy, which he may now abandon. But and less enlightened worship, there is not written as they are for our admonition on a holy and heavenly disciple of Jesus iti whom the latter ends of the world have our day, who will not perceive in the effucome; and maintaining to this very hour sions of the Psalmist, a counterpart to all the high functions and authority of a the alternations of his own religious histeacher, all whose sayings are given by tory-who will not find in his very words, inspiration from God, and all are profita- the fittest vehicles for all the wishes and ble; and still instrumental, in the hands sorrows and agitations to which his own of the Spirit for conveying the whole heart is liable-and thus be taught by a light and power of His demonstrations writer far less advanced in spirituality into the understanding-let us rest assur- than himself, the best utterance of desire ed that the Old Testament is one of the for the manifestation of God's countetwo olive trees planted in the house of nance, the best utterance of gratitude for God, and which is never to be removed; the visitations of spiritual joy, the best and one of the two golden candlesticks lighted most expressive prayers under the disup for the church of Christ upon earth. tress and darkness of spiritual abandonand which while that church has being, ment. will never be taken away. Let us read over without any comment It may illustrate this whole matter, if the whole of the 84th Psalm-and just we look to the book of Psalms, and just simply ask you to consider how those very think of the various degrees of spirituality materials which form a most congenial and enlargement with which the same piece of devotion for a Jew, admit of becomposition may be regarded by Jewish ing so impregnated with the life and spirit and by Christian eyes —how in the praise of a higher economy, that they are able which waiteth for God in Zion-and in to sustain all the views, and to express all the pleasure which His servants took in the aspirations of the most spiritual and her stones, so that her very dust to them exercised Christian. was dear-and in the preference which "How amiable are thy tabernacles, 0 they made of one day in His courts to a Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth, yea,:housand elsewhere-and in the thirsting even fainteth for the courts of the Lord; of their-souls to appear before God-and my heart and my flesh crieth out for the in their remembrance of that time when living God. Yea, the sparrow hath found they went to His house with the voice of an house, and the swallow a nest for herjoy and praise, and with the multitude self, where she may lay her young, even that kept holiday-and when exiles from thine altars, O Lord of Hosts, my King, the holy city, they were cast down in spi- and my God. Blessed are they that dwell rit, and cried from the depths of their in thy house: they will be still praising banishment in the land of Jordan-and thee. Blessed is the man whose strength when longing for God, in a dry and thirsty is in thee; in whose heart are the ways land where no water was, they followed of them, who passing through the valley hard after the privilege of again seeing of Baca make it a well; the rain also fillHis power and His glory in the sanctuary eth the pools. They go from strength to -and in the songs of deliverance with strength; every one of them in Zion apwhich they celebrated their own restora- peareth before God. 0 Lord God of Tion, when their bands were loosed, and Hosts, hear my prayer: give ear, O God their feet were set in a sure place, and of Jacob. Behold, O God our shield, and I INTRODUCTORY LICTURE. took upon the face of thine anointed. For which they regarded as their national a day in thy courts is better than a thou- glory-in such an epistle, written in such sand. I had rather be a doorkeeper in circumstances by the accomplished Paul,'he house of my God, than to dwell in the when we may be sure he would bring up tents of wickedness. For the Lord God his efforts to the greatness of the occasion, is a sun and shield; the Lord will give it is natural to look for all the conviction grace and glory: no good thing will He and all the light that such an able and withhold from them that walk uprightly. intellectual champion is fitted to throw O Lord of Hosts, blessed is the man that over the cause which he has undertaken trusteth in thee." IAnd yet what would be the result in a We think it necessary to say thus much discussion of science or politics or law, we -lest the Old Testament should ever be will not find to be the result in a discusdegraded below its rightful place in your sion of Christianity, without such a preestimation-lest any of you should turn paration and such an accompaniment as away from it, as not fitted to augment the are not essential to our progress in this faith and the holiness of those, who lie world's scholarship. To be a disciple in under a better and a brighter dispensation the school of Christ, there must be an -lest you should abstain from the habit affectionate embracing of truth with the of reading that letter of the Old Testa- heart; and there must be a knowledge ment, which is abundantly capable of which puffeth not up, but humbles and being infused with the same evangelical edifies; and there must be a teaching of spirit, that gives all its power to the letter the Spirit of God, distinct from all those of the New Testament. And be assured, unsanctified acquirements, which we la. that, if you want to catch in all its height bour to win and to defend, in the strife it and in all its celestial purity the raptures may be of logical contention. For, let it of a sustained and spiritual intercourse be observed, that the wisdom of the New with Him who sitteth upon the throne, we Testament is characterized by moral know nothing fitter to guide your ascend- attributes. It is pure and peaceable and ing way, than those psalms and those gentle, and easy to be entreated, and full prophecies, which shone at one time in a of mercy and good fruits, and without dark place; but may now, upon the partiality and without hypocrisy. Let us earnest heed of him who attentively not confound the illumination of natural regards them, cause the day to dawn and argument, with that which warms the the day-star to arise in his heart. heart as well as informs the understandIn turning now to one of the fullest ing-for it is a very truth, that the whole expositions of Christian doctrine which is demonstration of orthodoxy may be asto be found in the New Testament; and sented to by him, who is not spiritual but which was drawn up for the edification carnal. And while we are yet on the of the most interesting of the early threshold of by far the mightiest and churches; and where, in the conduct of closest of those demonstrations, that ever his argument, Paul seems to have been were offered to the world, let us'" bow the fully aware of all those elements both of knee to the Father of our Lord Jesus intolerance and philosophy which were Christ, that He would grant us according in array against him; and where, as his to the riches of His glory, to be strengthmanner was, he suits and manages his ened with might by His Spirit in the reasoning, with the full consciousness of inner man, that Christ may dwell in our the kind and metal of resistance that were hearts by faith; that, being rooted and opposed to him; and where he had to grounded in love, we may be able to steer his dexterous way through a hetero- comprehend with all saints, what is the geneous assemblage of Gentiles on the breadth and length and depth and height, one hand, enlightened up to the whole and to know the love of Christ which literature and theology of the times, and passeth all knowledge, that we may be of Jews on the other, most fiercely and filled with all the fulness of God." proudly tenacious of that sectarianism 17 LECTURE II. ROMANS i, 1-7. "Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God, (which' e had promised afore by his prophets in the holy scriptures,) concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made ot the seed of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead: by whom we have received grace and apostleship for obedience to the faitk among all nations for his name: among whom are ye also the called of Jesus Christ: To all that be in Rome beloved cf God: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." WE now enter upon the work of expo- held, in the language of the ceremonial sition. law, to be synonymous. And it is thus that People, in reading the Bible, are often the devoting, or setting apart of an aposnot conscious of the extreme listlessness tie to his office, is expressed by the conwith which they pass along the familiar secration of him to it; and even, in one and oft repeated words of Scripture, with- part of the New Testament, by the sanctiout the impression of their meaning being fying of him to it. This explains a pasat all present with the thoughts-and how, sage that might be otherwise difficult, during the mechanical currency of the John xvii, 17-220. " Sanctify them through verses through their lips, the thinking thy truth: thy word is truth." To sanctify power is often asleep for whole passages here is not applied to the personal, but together. And you will therefore allow the official character. It is not to moralme, at least at the commencement of this ize the heart, but merely to set apart to lectureship, first to read over a paragraph; an employment; and thus bears applicaand then to fasten the import of certain tion to the apostle Christ, as to the aposof its particular phrases upon your atten- tles whom he was addressing. tion, even though these phrases may' Gospel,' a message of good news. heretofore have been regarded as so in- V. 2. "Which He had promised afore telligible, that you never thought of bes- by His prophets in the holy scriptures." towing an effort or dwelling one moment'Which' refe, s to gospel-which gospel upon their signification; and then of he had promised. reading the passage over again, in such V. 3. 1" Concerning his Son Jesus Christ extended or such substituted language, as our Lord, which was made of the seed ot may give us another chance of the sense David according to the flesh." of it at least being rivetted on your under- This verse gives us the subject of the standings. We shall generally endeavour message, or what the message is aboutto press home upon you, in the way of or, omitting the second verse as a parenapplication, some leading truth or argu- thesis,'separated unto the work of proment which may occur in any such por- mulgating God's message of good news tion of the epistle as we may have been about His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.' enabled to overtake. The phrase' which was made' might have V. 1. "Paul a servant of Jesus Christ been rendered'which became' of the seed called to be an apostle separated unto the of David in respect of His flesh, or His gospel of God." human nature. He took it upon Him. He An apostle-one who is sent, one who received from this descent all that other obtains, not a commision to do, but a com- men receive of natural faculty —or, in mission to go-' Go and preach the gospel other words, the term flesh comprehends unto every creature.' Jesus Christ is an the human soul as well as the human body apostle-because sent-and is therefore of our Redeemer.' According to,' is,'in called not merely the High Priest, but the respect of.' Apostle of our profession. God sent his V. 4. "And declared to be the Son of Son unto the world. The call of Paul you God with power according the spirit of read of several times in the Acts, both in holiness by the resurrection from the the direct narrative of that book, and in his dead." own account of it. And it is to be remark- I Declared,' or determinately marked ed that as he got his commission in a pe- out to be the Son of God and with power. culiar way, so he evidently feels himself The thing was demonstrated by an evimore called upon than the other apostles, dence, the exhibition of which required a to assert and to vindicate its authenticity. putting forth of power, which Paul in'Separated unto'-set apart to a par- another place represents as a very great ticular work. You know that holiness, in and strenuous exertion. "According to its original meaning, just signifies separa- the working of His mighty power when tion from the mass. It is thus that the He raised Him from the dead."'The vessels of the temple are holy —it is thus spirit of holiness'-or the Holy Spirit. It that the terms, common and unclean, are was through the operation of the Holy 3 18 LECTURE II. —CHAPTER I 1 —7. Spirit, that the divine nature was infused digression from the main current of his into the human at the birth of Jesus argument; and a single word of that train Christ; and the very same agent, it is re- often suggests to him another; and thus markable, was employed in the work of does he accumulate one subsequent clause the resurrection.'Put to death in the of an episode upon a foregoing; and flesh,' says Peter,'and quickened by the branches out in so many successive de. Spirit.' WVe have only to do with the facts partures, till, after a period of indulgence of the case. tIe was demonstrated to be in this way of it, he recalls himseilf and the Son of God, by the power of the Spirit falls in again to the capital stream of his having been put forth in raising Him from observations. The interval between the the dead. first and seventh verses may be looked to, V. 5. "By whom we have received as filled up with a set of parentheses; grace and apostleship, for obedience to and they will readl therefore very well in the faith amongl all nations for his name." succession.'Paul a servant of Jesus'Grace,' s.mn~eftimes signifies the kind- Christ, called to be an apostle, separated ness which p romipts a gift, and sometimes unto the gospel of God, to all that be in the gift itself: NWe say that we receive Rome beloved of God called to be saints: kindness from a man, when, in fact, all grace to you and peace from God our that we can personally and bodily lay Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." In hold of, is the fruit of his kindness. Here like manner, several of the intermediate it signifies the fruit —a spirituai gift- verses are capable of being onmitted, withability, in fact, to discharge the office of out breaking the line of continuity. But an apostleship, or other duties attached to the occurrence of the term Gospel at the an apostle's commission. HIe laboured end of the first verse, is followed up in with success at thiis vocation, because he the second by his mention of the antiquity -could strive mnightily according to His of it, and in the third by his mention ot working thart wrought in him mightily. the subject of it; and in this verse the This cotjunission was granted to him for single introduction of our Saviour's name, the ptrposf of producing an obedience leads him to assert in this and the followunto the foith among all nations, for the ing verse His divine and human natures, purpose of rendering all nations obedient and to state in the fifth verse that from unto the faith-and all this for the further Him he had received a commission to purpose of magnifying His name. preach unto all nations, and to instance V. 6. "Among whom are ye also the in the sixth verse the people whom he called of Jesus Christ." was addressing as one of these nations.' Called' externally-if addressing the And it is not till after he has completed whole church, of whom it is very possible this circle of deviations, but at the same that sonme may not have been called effec- time enriched the whole of its course with tually. Or if restricted as in the follow- the effusions of a mind stored in the truths ing verse, only the latter-though he of revelation, that he resumes in the might presume to address all in visible seventh that rectilineal track, by which communion with the church as beloved of the writer who announced hinmseif in the God and as called to be saints. first verse, sends in the seventh his ChrisV. 7. "TI'o all tIlat be in Rome, beloved tian salutations to the correspondents of God, called to be saints: Grace to you, whom he is addressing. and peace, fromn God our Father, and the WVe conclude with the following paraLord Jesus Christ." Loving kindness to phrase. you is manifested in those peculiar influ-' Paul a servant of Jesus Christ, called ences which the Spirit confers on believ- to be an apostle, and set apart to the ers; and either real peace, or a sense of work of conveying God's message of good it in your hearts, from God our Father tidings-which message He had promised and the Lord Jesus Christ. before in tHis holy scriptures, and which So minute an exposition may not be message relates to Hiis Son Jesus Christ called for afterwards: we may not there- our Lord, who in respect of His human fore persevere in it long. We have now nature, was descended of David-but was gone in detail over the words that seemed evinced to be descended of God in respect to require it, to prepare the way for of that divine nature with which the Holy repeating the whole passage to you, either Spirit impregnated His humanity at the in extended or in substituted language. first; and which He afterwards, by His But before we do so, we would bid you power, still associated with His humanity. remark a peculiarity, which we often in raising Him from the dead. By this meet with in the compositions of this Jesus Christ have I received the favour to apostle. He deals very much in what be an apostle, and ability for the office might be called the excursive style. One of spreading obedience unto the faith word often suggests to him a train of among all nations for the glory of Hit LECTURE IIL —CHAPTER I,) -17. 19 name. Among these nations are ye Ro- and called to be saints, No I wish grace mans also the called of Jesus Christ, and and peace from God our Father and thile to all of you in Rome, beloved of God, Lord Jesus Christ." LECTURE III. ROMANS i, 8-17.' First. I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world. For God i ryv witness, svhonl I serve itlh my Spirit in the gospel of his Soti, that without ceasing I rralke iention of yFol alw ay-s i- my p rayers; making request ( f by any nieans now at length I might have a prospeoa.. journley by the will of God) to come unto you. For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spirit,.al gift, to thie end ye may be establishedd; that is, that I mnay )e cortolrted together with you, by the mutual faith both of you and me. Now I would not have you ignlorant, bretlren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have sonme fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. 1 am a debtor both to the Greeks anid to the Barbarians, both to the wiise and to the unwise. 8o, as nucll as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also. Foor I am not ashamed of the gospel of Clhrist: for it is the power of God unito salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith." IT does not require much in the way of is one sense assigned to this expression, exposition to set forth the meaning of very consistent certainly with the general these verses. The spiritual gift, men- truth of the gospel-but which can scarcely tioned in the 11th verse, is one of those be admitted in this place, save by that kind gifts by the Holy Ghost, which the apos- of hurried acquiescence, which is too ties had it in their power to transmit to often rendered on the part of those, who their disciples —a power which seems to like no better way of disposing of a pashave signalized them above all the Chris- sage than to get over it easily. The right. tians of that period. Many could speak eousness of God is certainly that, in which t.ngues and work miracles; but they I-Ie hath appointed us sinners to appear could not make others either speak tongues before Him; and which is the only rightor work miracles. The gifts themselves eousness that He will accept of at our it was competent for them to have, but not hands, as our meritorious title to His fathe faculty of communicating them. This vour and friendship. Now it is very true, seems to have been the peculiar preroga- that this righteousness becomes ours tive of apostles-which Simon Magus de- wholly by faith, that by faith it is receivsired to have, but could not purchase. It ed on our part, and by faith it is retained was thus, perhaps, that an apostolical visit on our part; and that neither works bewas necessary for the introduction of fore faith, nor works after it, have any these powers into any church or congre- part in our justification-and that, theregation of Christians; and, if so, we would fore, it is not by passing onwards from infer that the season of miracles must faith to works that we further the concern have passed away with those Christians, of our justifying righteousness before who had been in personal contact with, God; but only by holding fast the beginand were the immediate descendants of the ning of our confidence even unto the end, apostles of our Lord. They left the gift and not casting it away; and if there be of miracles behind them-but if they did any lack in our faith, perfecting that not leave the power of transmitting this which is lacking therein-so that it may gift behind them, it might have disappear- holtl true of us, as it did of the primitive ed with the dying away of all those men Christians, of whom it was recorded that on whom they had actually laid their their faith groweth exceedingly. And hands. with these views in their mind, do some In the 14th verse, the phrase'I am hold, that the righteousness of God being debtor,' may be turned into the phrase- revealed from faith to faith, signifies that'I am bound' or'I am under obligation,' as it is made known and discerned at first laid upon me by the duties of my office, in the act of our believing, so the revelato preach both to Greeks and Barbarians, tion of it becomes more distinct and maboth to the wise and the unwise.' Woe nifest, just as the faith becomes stronger unto me if I preach not the gospel'-a -the things to be discerned being seen in necessity is laid upon me. greater brightness and evidence, as the The only other phrase that requires ex- organ of discernment grows in clearness planation, and about which indeed there and power-not, say they, from faith untto is a diff. rence of interpretation, is in the works, but from faith to faith-marking 17th verse-' from faith to faith.' There what is very true, that our righteousnesa Q-20 LECTURE III.-CHAPTER I, 8-17. before God, regarded as the giver of a been prevented, that I might have some perfect and incommutable law, is wholly effects of my ministry among you also, by faith. even as among the other nations where 1 2. Nothwithstanding however of all the have laboured. I have not yet visited the undoubted truth and principle which stand seat of philosophy, nor come into contact associated with this interpretation, we with its refined and literary people. But think that there are others more simple I count myself as much bound to declare and obvious. Paul had already spoken the gospel to Greeks, or to men of Attic of a transmission of faith from himself to cultivation and acquirement, as to rude those whom he was addressing, and of a and ignorant barbarians —as much to the constant mutual faith between himself learned in this world's wisdom, as to the and them; and he tells us elsewhere of unlearned. So that, as far as it lies with faith coming by hearing, and asks how me, I am quite in readiness to preach the can people believe unless preachers be gospel even to you who are at Rome. For sent; and he announces his delrumination I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ to preach the gospel to those who are in -and, in the work of declaringoit, am as Rome also; and professes his own faith ready to face the contempt and the selfin the gospel, under the affirmation that sufficiency of science, as to go round with he is not ashamed of it; and declares its it among those more docile and acquigreat subject to be the righteousness of escing tribes of our species, who have less God, revealed, as some are disposed to of fancied wisdom in themselves with understand it, from the faith of the preach- which to confiront it. For it is the power er to the faith of the hearers. Others of God unto the salvation of all who bewould have it to mean that this righteous- lieve. It is that, which, however judged ness is revealed by the faithfulness of God, and despised as a weak instrument by the to the faith of men. men of this world, it is that to which He, 3. But to our mind the best interpreta- by His power, gives effect for the recovery tion is obtained by conjoining the term of that life which all men had forfeited righteousness with the phrase in question. and lost by sin-and which cap only be For therein is revealed, the righteousness restored by a righteousness which will do of God from faith, to fatith. We shall thus away the whole effect of this sin. Who. have revealed in the gospel, J.Kao..vvq Ec soever believeth in the gospel shall be 7ro 7r.X.Os which is the righteousness saved, by having this life rendered back from of or by faith; and the gift of which to him, whether Ibe be Jew or Greek. For is,;s,tor.v or to faith. This is quite at the gospel makes known the righteousness one with the affirmation of a subsequent appointed by God —a righteousness by passage, that "the righteousness which is faith, and which is unto all who have by faith of Jesus Christ, is unto all and faith-as it is written that the righteous, upon all that believe," or the righteous- and those only are so who have that ness which is by faith is unto those who righteousness which God will accept, have the faith. As it is written, the righte- have it unto spiritual life here and unto ous live, or hold that life which was for- eternal life hereafter by faith' feited under the law and is restored to It will not be our general practice to them under the gospel, by faith. embarrass you with many interpretations We now offer the following paraphrase. of the same passage; and we do it at'First I thank my God through Jesus present, only for the purpose of ushering Christ for you all, that your faith is in the in the following observation. There do mouths of all. For God whom I serve occur a few ambiguous phrases In Scripwith my whole heart, in the business that ture; and this is quite consistent Ewith He has committed to me of forwarding such a state of revelation there, as that His Son's gospel, can testify that I never the great and essential truths which are cease to make mention of you in all my unto salvation shall stand as clearly and prayers-making request, if it now be as legibly on the face of the evangelical possible in any way, that I mayat length, record, as if written with a sun-beam. arter unlookced for delay, have with His And whereas there may enter into yolir will a prosperous journey to you at Rome. minds a feeling of insecurity, when you For I long to see you, that I may in per- behold men of scholarship at variance son and as a sign of my apostleship, im- about the meaning of one of those doubt part to you some gift of the Holy Ghost, ful expressions, we call you to remark in order to confirm your minds in the how much the controversy between them faith of this gospel. Or rather, that I is, in many instances, restricted merely to may be comforted, as well as you be con- what the subject of the expression is, and firmed, by the exercises and the sympa- not to what the doctrine of the Bible is thies of our mutual faith. Now you must upon that subject. Thus controversialists know, brethren, that it has been long my may all be at one about the scriptural purpose to come to you, but I have hitherto doctrine on every giver topic, though they LECTURE III.-CIIAPTER I, 8 —17. 21 may not be at one as to the question- by men who, in thus dissenting from each what is the topic which in this particular other on particular passages, evince that clause is here adverted to. The first class to each of them there belongs the habit of interpreters, about the meaning of the of independent thinking-and who thus ambiguous phrase in the 17th verse of stamp the value of so many distinct and this chapter, may think that it relates to independent testimonies, on those great the doctrine of our justification being doctrines which they have received from wholly of faith; and that it retains this the light of many passages, and by which as its alone footing, throughout the whole they are united in the profession of one course of an advanced Christian, as he Faith and one Lord and one Baptism. makes progress both in faith and in the A controversy about the doctrine of a works of righteousness; and they may particular passage is one thing. A connot think that it relates to the topic as- troversy about the truth of a particular signed, either by the second or third class doctrine is another. The one implies a of interpreters; and yet they may be en- difference of understanding, about the tirely at one with both, in the judgment sense of one passage. The other may and understanding they have on each of imply a difference of understanding, about the topics-concurring with the second in the general voice and testimony of Scripthe general truth that a frequent and es- ture as made up of many'passages. tablished way for the propagation of faith Let us now pass on friom our exposition in the world, is by its passing from him of the meaning of' words, to our applicawho speaks to him who listens, and who tion of the matter that is conveyed by in the act of listening becomes a believer them. And here we have only time to -and concurring also with the third in advert to the affection and the strenuoustheir general principle, that the righteous- ness with which the apostolic mind of ness appointed by God for a sinner to Paul gave itself up to apostolic businessappear in His presence, is constituted, not how he rebukes by his example those by working but by believing, and that it who make the work of winning souls to is transferred as a possession unto all who Christ a light and superficial concernbelieve. They, one and all of them, may how his whole man seems to have been have the same mind upon the same topics engrossed by it-making it a matter of -because shone upon in the same way, gratitude when he heard of its prosperity by the light of many other express and — making it a matter of' prayer when he undoubted testimonies about these topics, desired its furtherance —making it a matwhich lie up and down in the Bible; and ter of active personal exertion when it the only question of disputation between required his presence or his labour. To them may be, which of these particular this work he gave himself wholly; and, topics happens to be the theme of the by adding prayer to the ministry of the apostle in the passage before us-a very word, teaches us how much the effect of subordinate question, you will observe, to this ministry is due to those special that more vital and essential one, which influences. which are called down from relates to the meaning of an article of Heaven by the urgency of special applifaith-a question about which there may cations sent up from believers in the be varieties of sentiment among men, who world. There is one trait of' his mind, are substantially at one in all that relates which frequently breaks out in his cornto the doctrines of Christianity. And we munications with his own converts. He think that it ought to quell your appre- is sometimes obliged to affirm his apostolic hensions, and to reduce the estimate you superiority over them, or to say somemay have previously made of those con- thing which implies it. But it is evident troversies among good men, which some how much he recoils from such an aswould represent as quite endless and in- sumption; and how it sets him to the extricable, when you are thus made to expressions and the expedients of deliunderstand, that, in a very great number cacy, with a view to soften the disparity of cases they refer, not to what the whole between himself and his disciples; and amount of the Bible testimony is about how he likes to address them in the terms this one or that other portion of the theo- of equal and friendly companionshiplogical creed-but to what the position is dropping upon all possible occasions the which is specially taken up or adverted character of the teacher in that of' the to in some of the incidental or subordi- fellow Christian; and never feeling so nate passages. There is nothing to alarm comfortably in his intercourse with them, or to unsettle in those lesser diversities as when he places himself' on the level of which we are now alluding to. Nay it their common hopes and common sympaought rather to establish your confidence, thies and common infirmities. It is alto. when you see that these diversities are gether, we apprehend, such a movement held by the very men who hold the great of humility on the part of Paul, that lies principles of Christianity in common — at the transition from the eleventh verse 22 LECTURE III.-CHAPTER I, 8-17. which signalizes nlm above the whole I ded from conversation —if a visible embao church to the twelfth which brings him rassment run through a company, when ts down to a participation of the same faith piety or its doctrine is introduced among and the same comfort with them all. them-if, among beings rapidly moving We shall not at present, bring forth any towards immortality, any serious allusion remark on a phrase, which occurs fre- to the concerns of' immortality stamps an quently in this epistle,'the righteousness oddity on the character of him who brings of God'-for we shall have a freer and a it forward-if, through a tacit but firra fuller opportunity of doing so afterwards. compact which regulates the intercourse of But let us not pass over the intrepidity of' this world, the gospel is as effectually Paul, in the open and public avowal of' banished from the ordinary converse of his Christienity. WVe call it intrepidity, society, as by the edicts of tyranny the though he speaks not here of having to profession of' it was banished in the days encounter violence, but only of having to of' Claudius from Rome: —then he who encounter shame. For, in truth, it is oft en would walk in his Christian integrity a higher effoibrt and evidence of intrepidity, ainong the men of this lukewarm and to front disgrace, than it is to front danger. degenerate age-he who would do all and There is many a man who would march 1 ay all in the name of Jesus-he who, in up to the cannon's mouth for the honour obedience to his Bible, would season with of his country-yet would not face the grace and with that which is to the use of laugh of his companions for the honour edilyiinP the whole tenor of his comlmuniof his Saviour. We doubt not that there cations —be, in short, who, rising above are individuals here present, who if the that mtafrp and mitigated Christianity, Turkish armada were wafted on the which is as,emote as Paganism from the wings of conquest to our shores, and the real Christi'aiitv of the New Testament, ensigns of' Mahomet were proudly to wave would, out ot tlha abundance of' his heart, over the fallen faith of our ancestors, and without shrie.kingr and without shame, they were plied with all the devices of speak of the thinr.z which pertain to the eastern cruelty to abjure the name of kingdom of God —hsw will find that there Christian, and do homage to the false are trials still, whkbI1t? to some temperaprophet-there are individuals here, whose ments, are as fierce ardck as, fiery as any in couiage would bear them in triumph the days of martyrdoml: atd that, however through such a scene of persecuting vio- in some select and peculls:a walk he may lence; and yet whose courage fails them find a few to sympaitlize with hiln, yet every day, in the softer scenes of their many are the families ana many are the social and domestic history. The man circles of companionship, Iwhere the perwho under the excitements of a formal secution of contempt calls for determninaand furious persecution, was brave enough tion as strenuous, and for firmness as to be a dying witness to the truth as it is manly, as ever in the most intolerant ages.n Jesus, crouches into all the timidity of of our church did the persecution of direct silence under the omnipotency of fashion; and personal violence. and ashamed of the Saviour and His And let it be remarked too, that, in words, recoils in daily and familiar con- becoming a Christian now, the same tran. versation from the avowals of' a living sition is to be madd from one style of' senwitness for hIis name. There is as much timent to another, which was made by the of the truly heroic in not being ashamed apostle. It is as much the effort of nature, of' the profession of the gospel, as in as it ever was of a corrupt and ignorant not being afraid of it. Paul was neither: Judaism, to seek to establish a righteousand yet when we think of what he once ness of its own; and, in passing from a was in literature; and how aware he state of nature to that of grace, there must must have been of the loftiness of its con- still be a renouncing of that righteousness, tempt for the doctrine of' a crucified and a transference of our trust and of Saviour; and that in Rome the whole our etitire dependence to another. Now, power and bitterness of its derisions were in the act of' making that passage, there awaiting him; and that the main weapon is also the very same encounter with this with which he had to confront it was world's ridicule and observation. which such an argumlent as looked to be foolish- the apostle had to brave; and which, on ness to the wisdom of this world-we the strength of' right and resolute princidoubt not that the disdain inflicted by ple, the apostle overcame. The man wvh6 philosophy, was naturally as formidable to hopes to get to heaven by a good life, and the irind of this apostle, as the death in- who professes himself to be secure on the flicted by the arm of bloody violence. So strength of his many virtues and his many that even now, and in the agre when Chris- decencies, and who dislikes both the mystianitv has no penalties and no proscrip- tery and the seriousness which stand as. tions to keep her down, still, if all that sociated with the doctrine of' salvation by deserves the name of Christianity be explo- I faith alone —such a man ha, no more LECTURE III.-CHAPTER 1, — 17. 2Uc Christianity, than what he may easily and And here let us remark the whole imfamiliarly show-and in sporting such port of the term salvation. The power sentiments, even amnongf the most giddy of God in the achievement of it was put and unthinking of this world's generations forth in something more than in bowing he will neither disgrace himself by singu- down the Divinity upon our world, and larity nor be resisted as the author of any there causing it to sustain the burden of invasion whatever on the general style the world's atonement-in sonlethinff more and spirit of this world's companies. But than the conflicts of the garden or the should he pass from this condition, which agonies of the cross-in something more is neither nmore nor less than that of a than the resurrection of the crucified Pharisee in disguise; and, struck by a Saviour from His tomb-in something sense of' spiritual nakedness, flee for refuge more than the consequent expuniing g of to another righteousness than his own; every believer's name from the book of an:d seek for justification by faith, a privi- condemnation, and the inscribing of' it in lcc which is rendered to faith; and the book of life. There is a power put profess now, that he hopes to get to heaven forth on the person of believers. There by the obedience unto death which has is the working of a mighty power to been rendered for him by their great usward who believe. There isthe achieveMediator-such a style of' utterance as ment of a spiritual resurrection upon every this, would serve greatly more to pecu- one of them. By the sprinkling of the liarize a man amonlg the conversations of' blood of Christ, the power of' which is apsociety —these are the words of Christ of plied to every soul that has faith, there is which he is greatly apt to be more a cleansing of that soul from its moral ashamed. A telnptation meets him here, and spiritual leprosy. And hence a conwhich no doubt met the apostle, when his nection between two things, which to the Christianity first came to be known among world's eye looks incomprehensible-a those fcllow-students who had been trained connection between faith, which it might along with him at the feet of' Gamaliel; be feared would have led to indolent and it is at that point when, for the Jewish security on the one hand, and a most principle of self-righteousness he adopts thorough substantial pervading reformathe evangelical principle of' justification tion of heart and conduct on the other. by faith —it is then that he becomes more The expedient does not appear a likely an outcast than before, from the toleration one to the eye of nature.. But the power aid sympathy of unconverted men. of God stamps an efficacy upon it; and Let the same consideration uphold such He has multiplied in all ages of the church that upheld the mind of the apostle. All the living examples of marked and illusthat you possibly can do, for the purpose trious virtue in the person of believers; 3f *ubstantiating a claim upon Heaven, is and has held them forth to the world as but the weakness of man, idly straining trophies of' the power of the gospel; and after a salvation which he will miss. has put to silence the gainsayers; and Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ; and, afforded matter of glory to the friends of however simple the expedient, the power the truth; and upheld them in the princiand the promise of God are on the side of' ple and purpose not to be ashamed of it. your obtaining salvation which will cer- We conclude with that awful denunciatainly be accomplished. The Syrian was tion of the Saviour. "I-Ie who is ashamed affronted when told to dip himself in of me before this evil and adulterous Jordan for the cure of his leprosy; and generation-of him will I be ashamed to nmany in like manner is it a subject of' before my holy angels." offence, when told to wash out their sins In the last clause "the just shall live in the blood of the atonement-calling on by faith" —we are apt to conceive of justhe name of the Lord. But tlhe same tice as a personal and inherent attribute. power which gave efficacy to the one In the original, the term for just has the expedient, gives efficacy to the other; and same root with the term for righteousness in such a way too, as to invest that -and this strengthens our impression of method of salvation which looks mean- the true meaning here, which is, that they ness and foiolishness to the natural eye — who are righteous with the righteousness to invest it with the solemn venerable of God, mentioned in the same verse, and itnposing character of God's asserted who in virtue of being so have a title majesty, of God's proclaimed and vindi- and a security for life, hold that life b) cated righteousness. faith. LECTURE IV.-CIIAPTElR I, 18-24. LECTURE IV. ROMANS i, 18-24. "For the wrath of God is revealed from Ilea ren against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, lwho hold,:. truth in unrighteousness; because that which may be known of God is manifest in them: for God hath showed l unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood bt the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse; because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginatiOns, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to t e wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave thenl up to uncleanness, through the lusts of ther own hearts, to dishonour their owin bodies between themselves." THE word translated here'to hold,' eousness. They have the truth —they are signifies not merely to hold, but to hold in possession of it. But they keep it down. fast. Now this may be done for the pur- They chain it, as it were, in the prisonpose of keeping in secure possession that hold of their own corruptions. They which you wish to retain. And so this is throw the troublesome adviser into a dunthe word in that place where they who geon-just like a man who has a conreceive the word are said to " keep it, and science to inform him of what is right, but bring forth fruit with patience;"* and who stifles its voice, and brings it under where the Corinthians are praised by bondage to the domineering ascendancy Paul because they observed 1" to remember of passion and selfishness and all the lawhim in all things, and to keep the ordi- less appetites of his nature. Thus it is nances which he had delivered them;"t with men who restrain the truth, or supand where he tells them, that they are press the truth in unrighteousness. saved if they " keep in memory, that which V. 19. "That which is knowable of he had preached unto them;"t and where God, is manifest among them." he bids the Thessalonians "hold fast that V. 20. "For ever since the creation of which is good;"{ and where he informs the world, that great manifestation of the Hebrews, that Christ dwelleth in them, God's power and Godhead, these invisible if they "hold fast the confidence and the things of Him are clearly seen." rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end;"II V. 21. " In their reasonings." and also that we are made partakers of The following then is the paraphrase Christ, if "we hold the beginning of our of this passage.'For the wrath of God confidence steadfast unto the end;"~ and is revealed from Heaven against all unfinally, where he encourages them to godliness and unrighteousness of men, "hold fast the profession of their faith who stifle the truth in unrighteousness. without wavering."** It is not in the Because that which might be known of sense of the word in any of these passages God is manifest among them-for God that we are to understand it here. They hath shown it to them. For the invisible who hold the truth in unrighteousness, do things respecting Him, even His eternal not hold it for the sake of keeping it in power and Godhead, are clearly seenpossession, as an article which they being discernible from the things that are valued; and therefore were desirous of made, so as to render them inexcusable. retaining in safe and cherished custody. Because when they did know God, they Or one may hold fast for the pupose of did not do Him glory as to God, neither confining or keeping down, so as to im- were they thankful to Him; but departpede and repress that which is thus con- ing from the grave and solemn and simfined, from the putting forth of its ener- ple reliance that was due to the Creator, gies. And accordingly this is the very they went into vain reasonings about word which Paul uses, when he says to Him, and so changed the truth into a dethe Thessalonians, "And now ye know ceitful imagination, and their foolish heart what withholdeth that he might be revealed was darkened. In the profession, and in in his time. For the mystery of iniquity the prosecution of wisdom, they became doth already work; only he who now fools: And changed the glory of the inletteth will let until he be taken out of the corruptible God into an image made like way."tt He alludes to something that so to corruptible man, and to birds, and four. confined Antichrist, as to keep him back- footed beasts and creeping things.' so *hat he came not out into full and im- Our first remark on the subject matter rrieAiate manifestation. It is in this second of this passage, is foonded on the way, in sense that men hold the truth in unright- which the revelation of the righteousness of God unto faith, stands as a counterpart Luke viii, 15 t 1 Cor. xi, 2. 1 Cor. xv, 2. to the revelation of the wrath of God unto 1 Thes. v, 21.'I Ileb. iii, 6.'[ Heb. iii, 14. * b. x, 23 14 I Thess. ii, 6, 7. all ungodliness and unrighteousness of LECTURE IV.-CHAPTER I, 18-24. 25 men. The wrath is not an element framed magnified that law and made it Tic nouraor fermented upon earth. It is conceived ble. And all this apart from any obediin Heaven; and thence it cometh down ence of ours. All this the produce of a on the unrighteousness of men, as the sub- transaction in which we had no share. ject of it. And as with the wrath of God, All this a treasure existing in the reposiso it is with the righteousness of God. It tories of that place, where the Father and too cometh down from Heaven in the the Son hold their ineffable communionshape of a descending ministration. It is a righteousness not rendered by us, but no more the righteousness of man in the rendered to us; and which is the only one case, than it is the wrath of man in one that God can look unto with compiathe other. It is affirmed here, and most cency. This is the righteousness of God, prominently referred to in other parts of standing altogether aloof and separable the epistle, as the righteousness of God. from the righteousness of man; and which The wrath has its origin in the breast of He offers to administer to us all, in place the Divinity; and it goeth forth from an of that wrath which, upon our refusal of upper store-house, from a quarter above His better offer, He will administer. And our world and foreign to our world; and the way in which both the wrath and the all that the world furnishes is the reser- righteousness are set before us in this voir into which it is poured-the unright- passage, as being each of them a descendeousness and the ungodliness of men, ing ministration-the one of them being which form the fit subjects for its appli- as purely a dispensation from Heaven as cation. And there is not an individual the other-should prepare us for the still man who is not a fit subject of it. The more pointed asseverations of the apostle, wrath is unto all unrighteousness; and when he tells us that the righteousness there is none who has not fallen into some upon which we are accepted is altogether unrighteousness. All who (do these things of God, and borrows not one particle of are worthy of death; and there is not a its worth from the obedience of man: human creature who has not done one or that it comes upon us in the shape of a more of these things. previous and a prepared grant, which we But there is a way, it would appear, in are simply to lay hold of; that we are not which they who are thought worthy of the authors of it, but simply the subjects death and are under the wrath of God, of it: And much is to be gathered from may nevertheless be made to live. They the information, that, like as the wrath of die by the wrath of God being inflicted on God is unto man's unrighteousness, so the them. They live by the righteousness of righteousness of God is unto man's faith. God being administered to them. The The question is, Whether that thing on one is just as much the rendering of a which we are justified is the righteousness foreign application as the other. In the of Christ alone accepted by God, and one case there is a displacency at sin on therefore called the righteousness of God, the part of the Godhead; and this bodies and rendered ours upon our receiving it itself into a purpose of vengeance against by faith-or, Whether it be the righteousthe sinner; and the infliction of it is sent ness of man as alone or fh part the plea forth from God's remote and lofty sanctu- of man's justification. It will be found in ary, originating there, and coming down the sequel, how strenuously and how unfrom thence upon the unrighteousness of reservedly the apostle cleaves to the formman. And as with the wrath of God min- er term of this alternative; and in this istered unto the world, so it is with the opening passage of his Epistle, does he righteousness of God which is ministered afford us no obscure or unsatisfying unto the world. It has all a separate ex- glimpse of that doctrine, on which lie susistence in the upper courts of Heaven. It pended the firmest securities of our peace is no more man's righteousness in the one in this world, and the dearest hopes of our case, than it is man's wrath in the other. eternity. There was a ransom found out by God. The next thing to which we direct your There was a surety accepted by God. attention, is the precise reason that is inThere was a satisfaction which that surety timated to us here, of God's provocation rendered. There was an obedience un- with man. There is something in the dertaken for us by one who inhabited principle of His anger, which accords eternity; and with this obedience God was with what we experience of the movement well pleased. There was a righteousness of anger in our own bosoms. An infant which He could acknowledge. There was or an animal may do an action which is a duteous and devoted offering, which to materially wrong, without calling forth Him was the incense of a sweet-smelling our resentment. It is the knowing it to be savour. There was a virtue which shone wrong, on the part of the doer, which is in spotless lustre even to His pure and indispensable to our anger against himn penetrating eye; and a merit which not being a rightful emotion; and it is neither only met the demand of His holy law, but the acting nor the thinking erroneously 4 26 LECTURE IV.-CHAPTER I, 18-24. on the part of man, which in itself brings an outcast of condemnation there, who down upon them the wrath of God. It is will not feel an echo in his own contheir doing so intelligently. It is their science tothe righteousness of thesentence stifling the remonstrances of truth in the under which he has falien; and who, work of lunrighteousness. It is that they though living in the midst of thickest heavoluntarilv bid it into silence; and, bent thenism, will not remember the visitations on the iniquity that they love, do, in the of a light which he ought to have followwilful prosecution of it, drown its inward ed, and by resisting whlich he has personvoice-just as they would deafen the ally deserved the displeasure of God that fiiendly warning of any monitor who is shall then be over him, the doom of the standing beside them; and whose advice eternity that shall then be before him. they guess would be on the side of what In the 19th and following verses, the is right, and against the side of their own apostle, aware that to establish the guilt inclinations. Vere there no light present of the world's unrighteousness it was neto their minds, there would be no culpa- cessary to prove that it was unrighteousbility. On the other hand, should it shine ness committed in the face of' knowledge, clearly upon them, this makes them re- affirms what it was that man knexv origisponsible for every act of disobedience to nally, and how it was that the light which its lessons. But more, should it shine but was at one time in them became darkness. dimly, and it be a dimness of their own That which it was cornpetent to know bringing on-should they land in a state about God, was manifest among men. of darkness, and that not because any God himself had showed it unto men. outward luminary has been extinguished; H le had either done so by the wisdom that but because, in hatred of its beams and shone in creation, making it plain to loving the darkness, they have shut their man's natural discernment that it was the eyes-or should it be a candle within product of a supreme and eternal intelliwhich has waned and withered to the very gence; and this is one way in which we border of extinction, under their own de- nimay understand how the invisible propersirous enldeavours to mar the brilliancy ties of the Godhead are clearly seen, even of its flame —should there be a law of our from the impress of them, stamped and nature, in virtue of which every deed of evident to the reflecting eye on the face opposition to the conscience causes it to of creation itself. Or He had expressly speak more faintly than before, and to revealed the fact to man that the world shine more feebly than before, and should was created, and that I-eI was the Author this be the law which has conducted every of it. Instead of leaving them to find this human being on the face of our earth to out, HIe had made it known to theni by the uttermost depths, both of moral blind- actual communication. It is not necessary ness and moral apathy-Still he is what to conceive from these verses, thiat the he is because he willed against the light, doctrines of the existence and perfections and wrought against the light. It is this of God are the achievements of man's which brings a direct criminality upon unaided discovery at first. In that age of his person. It is this which constitutes a extraordinary manifestations, NIwhen God clear principle for his condemnation to put forth the arm of a creator, Ilie may rest upon; and it is enough to fasten also have put forth the voice of' a revealer; blame-worthiness upon his doings, that and simply announced to men that the they were either done in despite of the world they lived in was a piece of workconvictions which he had, or done in de- manship, and that He Himself was the spite of the convictions which but for builder and the maker of it. Wtith the his own wilful depravity he might have simple information that the world made had. not itself, but had a beginning, they could The Bible, in charging any individual rise to the perception of' Him who had no with actual sin, always presupposes a beginning. They could infer the eternity knowledge, either presently possessed or of that Being who Himself was uncreated. Unworthily lost or still attainable on his They could infer the magnitude of His part, of some rightful authority, against power, seeing it to be commensurate to which he hath done some act of wilful the production of that stupendous me. defiance. The contact of light with the chanism which lay visibly around theim. mind of the transgressor, and that too in They could infer his Godhead, or in other such sufficiency as, if he had followed words His supremacy-the subordination it, would have guided him to an action of all that existed to Htis purpose and will different from the one he has performed, — His right of property in this universe, is essential to the sinfulness of that action and in all those manifold riches which fill -insomuch that on the day of reckoning, and which adorn it-and more particularly when the men of all nations and all ages that He originated all their faculties; tha Ehall stand around the judgment-seat, He provided them with all their enjoy. here is not one who will be pronounced ments; that every secondary source and LECTURE IV.-CHAPTER, I, 18-24. 27 agent of gi atification to them, was a mere diately good, was sought after foI itself, channel of conveyance for His liberality; was valued on its own account, was en that, behind all which was visible, there joyed without any thankful reference to were a power and a Godhead invisible Him who granted all and originated all; which had been from eternity, and weiae and this too in the face of a distinct know. now put forth in bright and beautiful de- ledge, that every thing was held of God — velopment on a created expanse, where in the face of an authoritative voice, everything was that could regale the claiming what was due to God-in the senses, and be exuberant of delight and fiace of a conscience powerful1 at the outblessedness to the living creatures by set of man's history, however much it whom it was occupied. may have been darkened and overborne It is not necessary to enter into a con- in the subsequent process of his alienation. test about the powers or the limits of the And thus the tenure of his earthly enjoyhuman faculties-though we shall after- ments was gradually lost sight of altowards attempt to make it evident, that, gether; and the urgencies of sense and debased and darkened as we are by sin, of the world got the better of' all impresthere is enough of light in the human con- sions of the Deity; and man at length science to render inexcusable human un- felt his portion and his security and his godliness. But let us at present confine all to be, not in the Author of' creation, ourselves to the circumstances adverted but in the creation itself' with all its gay to by the apostle, according to the histori- and goodly and fascinating varieties. His cal truth of them. He is evidently des- mind lost its hold of a great and subordicribing the historical progress of human nating principle, by which he could have degeneracy; and begins with the state of' assigned its right place, and viewed acmatters at the commencement of a dark- cording to its just relationship, all that ening and deteriorating process, which was around him. The world in fact, by took place on the character of man. And, a mighty deed of usurpation, dethroned without resolving the metaphysical ques- the Deity from the ascendancy which betion HIow far man without a direct com- longed to him; and thus the rule of estimunication from Heaven could have found mation was subverted within him, and his his way to the Being and attributes of the foolish heart was darkened. This disorder Divinity, let us just take up with the com- in the state of his affections, while it mnencement of matters as it actually stood. clouded and subverted his discerning faIt was a period of extraordinary mnanifes- culties, did not at the same time restrain tations; and God made Himself' directly the exercise of them. The first ages of and personally known, as the one Creator the world, as is evident from the history of' all things; and men had only to look of Babel, were ages of ambitious specuwith the eye of their senses to these things, lation; and man, with his love strongly and to conclude how much of power, how devoted to the things of sense, still dreammuch of wisdom, how much of' rightful ed and imagined and theorized about hidsovereignty and ownership, belonged to den principles; and, with his sense of the Him that f'ramed all and upholds all. We one presiding Divinity nearly as good as may not be sure, in how far man could, obliterated, he began to fancy a distinct on the strength of his own unborrowed agency in each distinct element and deresources, have steered his ascending way partment of nature; and, to make use of to the knowledge of a God. But the com- the strong phrases of God giving them up municated fact that God did exist, and and giving them over, we may infer a law that He was the framer and the architect of connection between a distempered state of all, put him on high vantage ground- of the heart, and a distempered state of from which might be clearly seen the the understanding; and thus their very eternal power of the Supreme, and his wisdom was turned into folly; and to eternal Godhead. their perverted eye, the world was turned We have only time to advert, shortly, to into one vast theatre of idolatry; and the way in which the truth respecting God they personified all that they loved and was changed into a lie. The creature be- all that they feared-till by the affections came more loved and more depended on, and the judgment acting and reacting, the than the Creator. He was not glorified as one upon the other, they sank down into the giver, and the maker of all created the degrading fooleries of Paganism. good. But what was sensibly and imme 28 LECTURE V.-CHAPTER I, 28. LECTURE V. ROMANS i, 28. "And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mindJ to de those things which are not convenient." BEFORE proceeding to enforce the lesson in a state of progressive corruption. But that may be educed from this text, let us he rather sketches out to us in this chapter shortly remark, that the not liking to re- the progress of the world's degeneracy tain God in our knowledge, might have from one age to another; and we would been rendered by the not trying to do so, infer from his account that men, in the not exercising our minds on the proof and first instance, had a far more clear and information that were before them-so as convinced sense of God; but, not liking to fix the right belief about God, and to to retain it, committed the sin of a perperpetuate the right view and perception verse disposition against the light which of Him. At the same time it is very true they had, and in part extinguished itthat not to try the evidence, and not to that they of course left their own irmmeprosecute the guidance of the light which diate posterity, in a light more shaded and we have about any doctrine, argues either reduced than that which shone around the a dislike to that doctrine, or an indiffer- outset of their own progress through the ence about it-so that any slight amend- world-that these still disliked the rement which may be made of the English mainder of truth which they enjoyed; translation upon this score does not affect and, by their wilful resistance to its lesthe truth which it here sets before us, that sons inflicted upon it a further mutilation, God gives over to a reprobate mind, those and transmitted it to their descendants who do not like to retain Him in their with a still deeper hue of obscurity knowledge. thrown over it-that thus, by every sucBut the term'reprobate' too, admits of cessive step from one generation to anosome little remark in the way of explana- ther, the light of divine truth went down tion. In its prevailing acceptation, it sug- in this world's history more tarnished and gests to our minds a hopeless and aban- impaired than ever; but still with such doned wickedness of character; and so is glimpses as, however feeble and however expressive of a diseased state of the moral faded, were enough at least to try the principles. In its primary sense it was affection of man towards it, were enough equivalent to the term undiscerning, or to stir up a distinct resistance on the part undistinguishing; and so is expressive of of those who disliked it, were enough tc a darkened state of the understanding. keep up the responsibility of the world, In your larger Bibles, you will find a re- and to retain it in rightful dependence on probate mind rendered on the margin into the judgment of Him who made the world a mind void of judgment. But still it is — so as to make it clear on the day of judgment, not exercised on any secular or reckoning, that men, even in their state philosophical question, but the judgment of most sunken alienation from the true of what is moral and spiritual-that kind God, were never, like the beasts that of judgment where error leads necessarily perish, so helplessly blind, and so destiand immediately to practical unrighteous- tute of all capacity for discerning between ness; and where therefore the love of the the good and the evil, as to render them unrighteousness disposes us to prefer the the unfit subjects of' a moral sentence and darkness rather than the light. It is thus la moral examination. With every huthat the understanding and the affections man creature who shall be pronounced act and react upon each other; and that worthy of death on that day, will it be we read of men of corrupt minds having seen that there was either a light which no judgment, or' being reprobate concern- he actually had and liked not to retain, or ing the faith; and of those who are abomi- a light which he might have had and nable and disobedient, being also void of liked not to recover. To whom much is judgment about every good work, or unto given of him much shall be required; eveiry good work being reprobate. and there will be gradations of punishIn the sad narrative of the apostle in ment in hell; and in that place where the this chapter, he appears to refer not to the retributions of vengeance are administered, history of one individual mind, or of one will there be the infliction of many stripes individual conscience —the defilement of upon some, and of few stripes upon others; which two provinces in our moral and and it will be more tolerable for those intellectual nature, goes mn contempora- who lived in a darkness that was not wil. neously, with every human being who is fully of their own bringing on, than for LECTURE V.-CHAPTER I, 28. 29 those who stood on the ground of rebel- He shall let them alone since they will lion amid the full blaze and effulgency of have it so. It is an extinction of the light light from Heaven. Yet still, there shall which they once had, but refused to be not be one unhappy outcast in that abode led by; and now perhaps that they have of eternal condemnation, who will not be it not, may they do many an evil thing to convicted of sin knowing it to be so; the evil of which they are profoundly who, whatever be the age or country of asleep, and against which their conscience, the world which he occupied, has not now lulled and stifled into spiritual death, been plied with admonitions which he lifts no voice of remonstrance whatever resisted, and urged by such an authorita- The guilt of sins committed in this state tive sense of duty as he trampled upon- of dormancy, which is of their own bring. and that too, in the spirit of a daring and ing on, is no more done away by their presumptuous defiance. In short, be his insensibility to the foulness of them, than ignorance what it may, there was a wilful is the guilt of murder committed in the depravity which went beyond the limits fury of wilful intoxication. And ye deof his ignorance-Be that region of human praved and hackneyed old, at the doors affairs over which he roamed in utter of whose hearts we have so often knocked darkness as extended as it may, still there and knocked in vain, we bid you rememwas a region of light upon which he made ber a season of alarm and tenderness his intrusions with the intelligent purpose, which has now passed away-we ask of and in the determined spirit of a rebel- you to look back on the prayers and the Let the moral geography of the place he precautions of boyhood, when, the conoccupied be as remote as it may, still science awake and at her post, you at one there was a Law the voice of which at time trembled to think of that which you times did reach him, and the sanctions can now do without remorse and without of which must when time is no more at fearfulness. Ye men who have become length overtake him-Let the darkening stout-hearted sinners, and just because of his foolish heart be as due as it may to the moral light which shone upon you once the sin of his ancestors, they still left a has been extinguished by yourselves, and tribunal there from which went forth upon by yourselves your foolish hearts have him the whisper of many an intimation- been darkened-the scruples and the senIn the darkest period of this world's aban- sibilities of your earlier days may all donment, were there still the vestiges of have taken their departure, and such may truth before every eye, and a conscience be the lethargy of your souls that neither awake in every bosom,-insomuch that the thunders of the law nor the entreaties not one trembling culprit will be seen of the gospel can move them. You may before the judgment-seat, who will not now be able to stand your ground against stand self-convicted under the voice of a all the spiritual artillery of the pulpitchallenging and inspecting Deity-His and, even though death has stalked at own heart will bear witness to the sen- large over the entire field of your former tenee that he has gone forth against him; companionship and left you a solitary and the echoing voice of his own memory, and surviving memorial of friends and will be to him the knell of his righteous of families that have all been swept away, and everlasting condemnation. still may you persist in the spirit of an But we should like to bring the princi- unbroken worldliness, and act the secure pie of our text more distinctly and indi- and the stout-hearted sinner, who rivets vidually to bear upon you. That process all his desires and all his hopes on a slipin general history by which the decline pery foundation. It is true indeed, that, of this world's light respecting God, and with a conscience obliterated, and an the decline of its practical allegiance to inner man deaf to every awakening call, His authority, have kept pace, the one and a system of moral feelings like a with the other, is often realized in the piece of worn and rusty mechanism that personal history of a single individual. cannot be set agoing, and an overhanging There is a connection by the law of our torpor upon all the spiritual faculties, so nature, between his wilful disobedience that every denunciation of an angry God and his,spiritual darkness. You have and a coming vengeance is only heard read perhaps in our old theologians, of like a sound that whistles by-it is indeed what they called a judicial blindness. It true that he whose soul is in a condition is a visitation consequent upon sin. It is such as this, sits in the region and in the a withdrawment of the Spirit of God, shadow of grossest darkness. But it is when grieved and discouraged and provo- not like the transmitted darkness of Pa. ked by our resistance to His warnings. ganism, which he can offer to plead in It is that Spirit ceasing to strive with the mitigation-or which will make his last children of men; and coming to this as sentence more tolerable for him even as the final result of the contest he has so it shall be more tolerable for Sodom or long i,,aintained with their obstinacy — Gomorrah. It is a darkness which he 30 LECTURE V.-CHAPTER I, 28. loved, and into which he voluntarily compass. Is there at the very outset entered. lie made his escape to it from enough of likelihood that God might be the light which he hated; and by his the author of this book, as should resolve own act did he so outrun his pursuing us upon a serious examination-then if conscience, as now to be at a distance God actually be the author, we have not forom her warnings. If' the call of'repent acquired the knowledge of Him we might or perish' do not bring him back-it is have done; and we shall be condemnecd because he is sealed unto the day of con.- accordingly, if we withhold the examina. fiemnation; it is because God hath given tion which ought to have been given. Is him over to a reprobate mind; it is be- there enough of the character of the Dicause he is judicially in a state of blind- vinity stamped upon its pages, that, had ness; it is because his soul is compassed we only read with earnestness and ponwith a thick and heavy atmosphere of his dered with earnestness, we would have own gathering. The Heathen sinner will beheld the traces of Him distinctly there be tried by the light which he had. The and have been satisfied-then if, instead Christian sinner will be tried by the light of so reading, we have wantonly and which he fled from. This is his condem- ignorantly reviled it, God may righlteousnation, that light has come into his part ly step forth, and vindicate upon our perof the world —and he would not come to sons, the truth of His insulted message meet and be enlightened by it. He is on and the honesty of His insulted messena footing altogether different from that of gers. If the suspicion has ever come into the idolater-though the darkness in which any of your hearts, that this ridicule of he is enveloped be irrecoverable. Enough Scripture may after all be a ridicule of that a light was offered which he refused the Almighty; and you, instead of being -or enough that a light was once pos- arrested by the impulse of such a visitasessed, an(i he did not like to retain it. tion, have, in the mad outcry of a great We have already remarked, that, in the and growing infatuation, made your gradulal darkening and deterioration of strenuous effort to keep down this comour world from one age to another, each punctious feeling, and have prevailedage became successively more ignorant then have you committed yourselves, and of God than the preceeding; and yet with that wilfully, to the hazards of this altereach we believe, even in the veriest wilds native-that either the Scripture is a fable, of savage and unwrought humanity, is or you by the choice of your own hearts there enough of light and enough of con- and the deed of your own hands have science, and enough of God's law in dim come under all the curses that are written but remaining vestiges, to make every in it. Certain it is, that, to whatever term individual of' our species a fit subject for of whatever alternative the world may moral examination, and for a righteous commit itself in reference to Christianity, sentence consequent upon a fair and im- Christianity commits itself to a very disoartial trial. Now we have not practically tinct alternative in reference to the world to do with the destinies of the unconvert- -and if this religion indeed be true; and ed Heathen-nor shall we just now enter such be the actual influence of the human upon this region of speculation at all. will upon the human understanding, that But we have immediately to do with a he who is willing to do God's will shall question which respects the immortality know of the doctrine of Christ that it is of our own countrymen. What is their from God; and if faith in the gospel be light, and what is the degree of their con- at all times the fruit of moral honesty, demnation if they resist it? What is the duly exercised and sincerely in quest of precise addition which our possession of what is right; and if the spirit of directhe Bible has conferred upon our respon- tion be given to him who has an upright sibilitv? What is the knowledge of God feeling of desire to do as he ought, and to to which a conscientious and diligent pe- believe as he ought; and if every man rusal of this book might conduct us- who faithfully follows the light of his unless we like not to receive that know- conscience, is thereby conducted to a reledge which we might obtain 3 What is verence for his Bible and a reliance upon the knowledge of God which we'hrow his Bible; and if infidelity be at all times away from us by throwing this book away the issuing product of a heart careless from us-and that because we like not to about God, and utterly unconcerned either retain the knowledge which we miglht to retain such knowledge of Him as it has, possess! Only grant. that we are as mo- or to acquire such knowledge of Him as rally and as rightfully to blame for not it has not-then, it may not be in the acquiring the lilght which we might re- power of a fellow-man, under all those ceive if we had so willed it, as for not guises of candour and frankness and preserving the light which we might attain liberality which the unbeliever can put if we had so willed it; and the question on, so to fee' his way through the intrica. before us is brought within a manageable cies of another's spirit, as to catch the LECTURE V.-CHAPTER I, 28. 3. lurking criminality and bring it out in verty, were suddenly translated into ease satisfying exposure to the general eye. and affluence —and that through a mnin But let Christianity be true, and mark the istration of liberality left at your door by fearful alternative to him who spurns it the hand of some unknown benefactoraway. The unseen author of' it ponders in reference to him, though utterly in the Pvery heart; and, mysterious as its work- dark about his person, you may be guilty Ings are to us, there is nothing in them of the crime of ingratitude. To make no all hat can baffle the scrutiny of Him.inquiry about him were ungrateful. To who formed it; and if there be, as the riot in the enjoyment of the gift, without Bible says there is, an alliance between one thought of concern or curiosity about infidelity and moral evil, He can detect it, the giver, were both selfish and unfgrateand bring it out on the day of reckoning ful. To be better pleased that you did not to open manifestation-He can unveil the know and have no repayment of gratitude whole process of this miserable delusion; to make, is the very essence of ingrati. and at every step of it where pride or un- tude; and that too in reference to an ingodliness or selfishness or profligacy did dividual whose person perhaps you never operate its bias upon the understanding, saw, and whose name perhaps you never He can make it good, and that to the con- heard. To sit at greater ease without the viction of the unhappy man, that his burden of obligation upon you to any judgment was in error just because his known benefactor, than you would do if affections were in error-that there was he stood revealed to your apprehension, a want of belief in his mind, just because and claimed the due return of affection or there was a want of worth in his charac- of service-this is decisive of a heart ter-that he was not a Christian man, just tainted with the sin of ingratitude. It is because he was not an upright man-and sin which keeps you fiom enquirin g; and that the light which was in him was turn- if carefully to enquire were certainly to ed into darkness, just because he did not find, it is sin which keeps you from discare to retain it; and after it was lost he covering. You want the light, and just did not care and did not choose to re- because you hate it. You have not the cover it. knowledge of the heart that pitied and the To satisfy you of a real connection be- Land that aided you, because it is a know. tween the state of man's moral principles ledge you like not to acquire. on the one hand, and the state of his in- And thus it is, that many is the man tellectual principles oil the other, let us who is ignorant of God-and yet lies unnave recourse to one simple illustration. der the full guilt and burden of ungodliFor it does require to be explained. There ness. Many is the man who with the is many an error in judgment which im- world as his satisfying portion, never lifts plies no worldliness of character what- one anxious inquiry after 1Him who made ever. A man may have a wrong opinion the world; and think you that his defecin matters of trade or philosophy or law; tive theology is as free of blame or conand this altogether unconnected with any demnation, as is the defective philosophy wrong habit of the life, or any wrong and of him who never attempted the toils of depraved habit of the affections. And scholarship l Tell, if' here a want of unmight not he, in like manner, have a derstanding may not resolve itself into a wrong opinion on a question of theology, want of principle. He does not know God. and be so very far in the wrong as to But he does not seek to know him. Ihis think Christianity a fable, and all this mistakes of conception regarding the Dewithout any moral perversity being the ity, or his total want of conception about cause of his error 3 Might it not be a Him, may be designed as mere errors of mere mistake of the understanding for judgment, or as a mere blindness of the which he lies under no responsibility at judgment. But it is the error and the all, at that bar where nothing is con- blindness of one who wishes not to see. demned that is not criminal? Wherelies He grovels in ignorance; but it may be the greater fault of an error in a matter just because he grovels in corruption. He of speculation, and that because a man is so engrossed with the creature, that he has a bad understanding, that of an error would like to be quit of a Creator. There in a matter of sight, and that because a may be an utter absence of light, and yet man has bad eyes? How is it that there may he realize all the guilt of impiety. is any connection between sentiment and He may stand on the verge of atheism, or sin. And let our belief be as mistaken even be darkling within its limits-and as it may-explain to us how it comes yet his worthlessness, have the very same to be an affair of moral turpitude, and element with the worthlessness of him, with what justice or upon what principles before the eye of whose conviction God it can have the retribution of any moral stands fully manifested, and who places vengeance awarded to it.? himself in known defiance to his under. If any of you, the victim of helpless po- stood and authoritative voice. 32 LECTURE V.-CHAPTER Ix 28. But let us recur again to our illustra- of this proceeding-that the sin of hkn tion. The unknown friend may wish to judgment is the sin of his heart-and that reveal himself to the man he has befriend- unbelief which many would screen from ed. He may send a messenger with a let- condemnation, is in his instance unbelief ter to his door. He may inscribe such fostered by his own wilful depravity, and evidences of his authenticity there, as an unbelief for which he deserves to be would force conviction if the letter was execrated 3 but read. He may specify the amount, And so may it be of Christianity. G d and he may specify the particulars of the may have sent a written communication ministration which had been rendered; to the world. And to every careful, and and that in such a way as to prove that desirous reader, the evidence of His hand he was the author of it. The bearer of may be legibly inscribed upon it; and he the communication may have all the who is willing to do His will, may recogmarks of honesty about him-yet this be nise In the doctrine of Christ the traces not enough Ile may tell a consistent of the divinity which inspired it; and the story-yet this be not enough. There man on whose heart a weight of conscimay be companions along with him of entiousness lies, may by the dint of pacomplexion as fair and creditable as his tience and of prayer come to a full and own to vouch for the accuracy of his rational assurance of its truth; and just statement-yet this be not enough. The because reading and enquiring and attendlast and most conclusive evidence may ing the ordinances, and all under the imstill be in reserve —It may lie in the sub- pulse of a sense of duty, may he become stance of the written communication-and a steadfast believer. But if careless about not till he to whom it is addressed has God, he will be equally careless about opened it and read it, may he come fully any revelation that professes to have come to recognise and verify his benefactor. from Him. The Bible may often solicit And yet to a soul of selfishness and in- his eye, but still remain unopened and ungratitude, this might be an unwelcome used by him. That book from whose intrusion. He may have no desire to know pages, if explored with honesty and prayhis benefactor; and have a dread or a dis- er, there might beam a celestial effulgency like towards the revelation of his will; upon his understanding, may be held in and he may spurn the messenger from his neglect or treated with insult and derision. door; and he may refuse to open or to For aught he knows, it may be the record read the letter that has been offered to of the will of Him who ushered him into him; and the best evidence that there life, and ministers to him all its enjoywas upon the question may never have ments. And if ever the thought of' this been before his eyes-not because it did possibility visited his heart, and he in the not exist, but because he refused to look face of it joined in the infidel cry of those at it-Nay he might have read, but read who deride and who disown it-then on in such a careless and hasty style of pe- another day may the remembrance of this rusal, that he did not attain to conviction, visitation rise in judgment against him; and just because le took no pains to be andt it be made clear to his own consciconvinced. And who does not see that ence, that, in spurning the Bible from his his want of right understanding resolves door he braved the hazards of' a contest into a want of right principle-that there with Omnipotence. is a taint of moral perversity in the whole LECTURE VI[. ROMANS ii, 1-12. Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things. But we are sure that the jiudgcment of God is ac cord-inrg to truth aainst them which commit such things. And thinkest thou this. O man, that judgest them which iea such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance. but, after thy hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who, by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality, eternal life; but unto theme that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath: tribulation and anguish upon every soul of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, and also of the Gentile; but glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good; to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile: for there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law." BEFORE proceeding to the exposition I concluding verse in the last chapter, that, of this chapter, it may be remarked of the with all the blindness which the apostl3 LECTURE VI.-CHAPTER II, 1-12. 33 charges on the heathen, and with all the Insomuch that, let missionaries go to the dislike of retaining God in their know- very extremity of' our species, and speak ledge which he ascribes to them-there of sin and judgment and condemnation, was still one particular of this knowledge they do not speak in vocables unknown; which they did retain. They still knew and sweet to many a soul is the preacher's as much of God's judgment, as to be con- voice, when he tells that unto them a Sascious that what they were doing, in the viour is born; and, out of' the relies of sinfulness and reprobacy of their minds, even this deep and settled degeneracy, was worthy of death. There was still a can be gotten the materials of a satisfying remainder of conscience about them, in demonstration; and thus in the very darkvirtue of which they felt that there were a est places have convrerts multipl'id, and sin and a condemnation which attached to Christian villages arisen, and the gospel their own persons. With all the obliter- been the savour of life unto life to the ation which had come upon their moral some who have embraced it, and been the faculties-there were still the traces of a savour of death unto death to the many law which they could-obscurely read, and who have declined it —all proving that a of a voice which faintly uttered itself in pr-e-inle still existed in their bosoms, notes of disapprobation. They were con- which if they ioil,wed would guide therm' ~cious that all was not right about them; to salvation, and which if they fled from and had the impression of a being greater would try them and find them to be guilty. than themselves, to whose account they Nor let us wonder therefore, that the were responsible; and the idea of a reclk- apostle, even when speaking of those who oning and of a sentence were not altoge- are given over to every abomination, ther strangre to their understanding. For should still affirm of them that they know still, in the most sunken ages of our decay- the judgments of God. Even a remainder ing and deteriorating species, did each of that knowledge which they liked not man carry about with him such a light as, to retain, still kept its hold upon their conif he did not follow it, would ren(ler him science and gave them a responsibility a sinner-not against such principles as which belongs not to the beasts that perish were altogether hidden, but against such Man, in short, throughout the whole of this principles as were partly known to him. world's peopled territory, has a law by And such vestiges of a natural sense about which he may righteously be judged; and the right and the wrong, may not only be still enough of it is known and felt by his gathered from the books of Pagan anti- own conscience to make it out, that for its quity; but they may be still more satis- violation he should be righteously confactorily educted, from the converse that demned. So that, dark as our conceptions we hold in the present day with the living may be of the present character and fuPaganism which still abounds in our ture fate of those who live under the shaworld. We know not a more deeply in- dow of heathenism, we may be sure that teresting walk of observation, than that a clear and righteous principle of retribuwhich is prosecuted by modern mission- tion will be applied to them all; and that aries, when they come into contact and they who shall be judged worthy of death conmunication with the men of a still on that day will be found to have commitunbroken country —when they make their ted such things, as they themselves either lodgment on one of the r3mote and yet knew or might have known to be worthy untravelled wilds of Paganism-when, of it. after the interval of four thousand years There is still another phrase in the verse from the dispersion of the great family of which may require to be adverted to. It mankind, they go to one of its most widely is there said of the people who committed diverging branches, and ascertain what things worthy of death, that they not only of conscience or what of religious light did the same, but had pleasure in them has among them survived the lapse of so that did them. This last marks a nignei many generations —when they thus, as it and a more formed depravity, than the diwere, knock at the door of nalture left for frect commission of that which is evil. To ages to itself, and try if there yet be be hurried along by the violence of passlumbering any sense or intelligence there sion into some deed of licentiousness, may which can at all respond to the message consist with the state of a mind that feels they have brought along with them. Nor its own degradation, and mourns over the do we know an evolution of the human infirmity of its purposes. But to look with heart which carries in it more of a big and connivance and delight on the sin of others an affecting interest, than that on which -to have pleasure in their companionship philosophy has never cast an enquiring -and to spirit them on in the ways of disregard-even that among its dark and obedience, after perhaps the urgency long unentered recesses, there still subsists which prompted his own career of it has an undying voice, which owns the comfort abated-this argues, not the subjection of and echoes back the truth of Christianity. one faculty to another, but the subjectiQo 5 34 LECTURE VI. —CHAPTER II, 1 —12. of the whole man to sin, viewed as an ob- obtain an Interview with the people of his ject of full and formal approbation. This own nation; and that, as his practice was is a reprobacy of the mind, to which the' in other places, he began his explanation old are sometimes given over, after they of the gospel in the hearing of the Jews, have run their course of dissipation. At and then turned himself also unto the the outset, even of this lawless history, Gentiles. Certain it is, that in this written was there a struggling principle within communication, the main purport of the them, which debated, and, for a time, par- argument, is to conciliate the Jews to the ried off' the question of Indulgence; and faith of the gospel. It is to make them after they entered on the transgressor's understand, that, in respect of their need path, did they taste the bitterness of many of salvation, they were on a footing just a compunctious visitation. But under that as helpless as that of the Gentiles; that a hardening process, which we have already like sentence of wrath had gone out explained, the conscience at length lost its against both; and a like process of recotenderness, and all its pangs and all its very was indispensable to both. For the remonstrances were forgotten; and, from accomplishment of this object, he makes, one year to another, can the voluptuary, we apprehend, a very skilful approach to more abandoned than before, lift a louder the Jewish understanding. Throughout and a louder defiance to the authority the whole of his wr ings, in fact, do we which at one time overawed him. But see that he abounded in wise but honournever, perhaps, does he betray such a able devices, for the purpose of giving fatal symptom of one who is indeed given weight and acceptance to his reasonings. over, as when age, with all its ailing help- He was all things to all men, not to the lessness, has at length overtaken him; extent of surrendering any particle of and he can now only smile at the remern- truth to their prejudices, but to the extent brance of joys which he can no longer of doing all that might be fairly or inno. realize; and the young who assemble at cently done, for the purpose of softening his festive board, are by him cheered for- and surprising them out of their prejudl ward on that way of destruction, to the ces. The picture which he draws in the end of which he is so fast hastening; and first chapter, is a picture of the Gentile the poison of' his own indelicacy spreads world; and its most conspicuous linea. its vitiating influence over the unpractised ments are those of Gentile profligacy; guests who are around him. Depravity and in laying it before the eye of a Jewish so unfeeling as this, which goes to aug- observer, he in fact deals with him even ment its own votaries and its own victims, as Nathan did with David, when he offers and to perpetuate a legacy in hell fromr ed him a disguised representation of his one rebellious generation to another, was own character, and turned the indignation daily and currently exemplified in the which he had prevously kindled in the manners of an age which has now passed bosom of the monarch upon his own head. by. And if, in the progress of an exter- For you will observe that though the most nal or fashionable reformation, it now be prominent features of the apostolic sketch, nearly unknown, let the record of it at are drawn from the abominations and the least serve to mark, how even an indivi- excesses of Heathenism, there are others dual conscience can wither in its posses- which are descriptive, not of any special sor's bosom to the very margin of extinc- but of that universal corruption, which tion; and how ere he leaves the world he may be read and recognised on the percan bequeath to it an increase of degene- son of every member of the human family racy, adding his own seductive testimony The common depravities of our race are to all the other engines of corruption made to enter into the enumeration, along which are already at work in it-thus with those which are more monstrous and serving to explain, not merely how guilt unnatural; and the vices which are is ever growing in power and ascendancy chargeable upon all, are mixed up in the over the habits of a single man, but how same catalogue with the vices which are it deepens and accumulates and rises into chargeable upon some; and the Jew, magnitude more appalling., along the line heedless of those traits of the description of the advancing history of our species. which may be fastened on himself, is thus Before entering upon the exposition of caught, as it were, into an indignation the verses which have now been read in which may be retorted back again upon your hearing, let it be remarked, that the his own character. It is thus that the special design of the writer of this epistle apostle begins this second chapter, much begins to open into clearer manifestation. in the way in which the prophet of the The fact is, that it was written to the be- Old Testament prosecuted the advantage lievers in Rome, before he ever had made that he had won over David, whose re. a personal appearance in that city. We sentment he had kindled against an act know from the book of Acts, that, upon of oppression, which he himself had both his arrival there, it was his first care to imitated and outdone. " Thou art the LECTURE VI.-CHAPTER II, 1-12. 35 man," Is eiterated upon the Jew, through- inferior animals, of affection for your out the whole of the second and the Father who is in heaven. The man who greater part of the third chapter-it being has thrown off the allegiance (if l(cyak:.v, the main object of our apostle to assail may feel no inclination to walk It.ex hc ie the opposition in that quarter where it round of disobedience to the laws; and looked to be most impregnable-to extend yet upon the temptation of one sinmo'e opthe conviction of sin from the Gentile portunity, and by the breaking fortli of whom he had laid prostrate before him, one single exptecsion, may he bring down to the Jew who still kept a boastfuil atti- the whole vengeance of Government upon tude, on the ground of that self-sufficiency his person. The man who has thrown off which the apostle labours to cut away- the allegiance of Religion, may neither to prove, in short, that all were under sin, have the occasion nor the wish to commit and all were in need of a Saviour; that all the offences which it prohibits, or to all were partakers of the same guilt, and utter all the blasphemies which may be must be partakers of the same grace, ere vented forth in the spirit of defiance they could be restored to acceptance with against the Almighty's throne. And yet that God whom in common they had all the principle of defiance may have taken offended. full possession of his heart; and irreliIn order that you feel the force of the gion may be the element in which he apostle's demonstration, there is one prin- breathes. And in every instance, when ciple which is held to be sound in human his will comes into competition with the law, and which in all equity ought to be will of God, may the creature lift himself extended to the law of God. The principle above the Creator; and though, accordis this-that, however manifold the enact- ing to the varieties of natural temperaments of the law may be, it is possible, ment these instances may be more maniby one act or one kind of disobedience, fold and various with one man than with to incur the guilt of an entire defiance to another-yet that which essentially conthe authority which framed it; and there- stitutes the character of moral and spirfore to bring rightfully down upon the itual guilt may be of equal strength and head of the transgressor, the whole weight inveteracy with both-Making it as true of the severities which it denounces of a reputable member of society in our against the children of iniquity. To be day, as it was of the formal and observworthy of death, it is not necessary to ant Pharisee, that he only conformed to commit all the things which are included the law of God, when, though walking all in the sad enumeration of human vices- the while in the counsel of his own heart, any more than it is necessary for a crimi- conformity is that which he would; and nal, to add depredation to forgery, or mur- always trampled upon thiis law, whenever, der to both, ere a capital sentence go out walking in the same counsel, conformity against him, from the administrators of is a thing which lie would not. Ungodlithe law upon which he has trampled. You ness, in short. is not a thing of tale and may as effectually cut with a friend by measure. It is a thing of weight and of one hostile or insolent expression, as if quality. It may be as thoroughly infused you had employed a thousand; and your through the character of him who is obdisownal of an authority may be as intel- servant of all the civilized decencies of ligibly announced, by one deed of defi- life, as of him whose enormities have ance as by many; and your contempt of rendered him an outcast from all the comHeaven's court be as strongly manifested, mon regards of society. Heaven's sancby your wilful violation of one of the tuary is alike scorned and alike neglected commandments, as if you had thwarted by both; and on the head of each, will every requirement of its prescribed and there be the same descending burden of published ceremonial. It is true that there Heaven's righteous indignation. are gradations of punishments; but these Among the varieties both of taste and are measured, not according to the multi- of habit which obtain with the different plicity of outward offences, but according individuals of our species, there are -nodito the intensity of the rebellious principle fications of disobedience agreeable to one that is within. In virtue of an honourable class and disgustful to another class. The feeling, you may never steal; and this is careful and calculating economist may the deduction of one external iniquity never join in any of the excesses of dissifrom the history of the doings of the outer pation; and the mran of regardless expenman. But it is not on that account an diture may never send an unrelieved alleviation of the ungodliness of the inner petitioner from his door; and the religious man. You may have natural affection, formalist may never omit either sermon and never abandon either a child to the or sacrament, that is held throughout the exposure of its infancy, or a parent to the year in the place of his attendance; and helplessness of his age; and yet your the honourable merchant may never flinch heart be as destitute as that of any of the or falsify, in any one of the transactions 36 LECTURE VI. —CHAPTER II, 1 —12. of bus!ness. Each has such points of up to yourselves wrath against the day or.tfnmity as suits him, and each has of wrath, and against the day when tha such other points of non-conformity as righteousness of God's judgments shall suits himn; and thus the one nmay despise be rendered manifest? God will render to or even execrate the other, for that par- every man according to his deeds-to ticular style of disobedience by which he them who by a course of perseverance in indulges his own partiai ities; and the well-doing seek for glory, honour, and things which they respectively do, differ immortality, eternal life; but unto them there can be no doubt as to the matter of who of contention and obstinacy do not thel —but as to the mind of unconcern obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, about God which all of them express, will be rendered indignation and wrath: they are virtually and essentially the tribulation and anguish, upon every son same. So that amid the censure and of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first contempt which so currently pass be- and also of the Gentile; but glory, honour, twecn men of various classes and charac- and peace, to every man that worketh ters in society, there is one pervading good; to the Jew first and also to the quality of ungodliness which they hold in Gentile: for there is no respect of persons common; and in virtue of which the con- with God on that day, whatever apparent detonation that one pronounces upon preference he may make of one man over another, may righteously be turned upon another, and of one people over another himself; and it be said of him in the lan- in the present stage of His administrations. guage of the apostle, therefore thou art He will then judge every man according inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art to the light that was in his mind, accordthat judgest; for wherein thou judgest ing to the law which spake its authority another thou condemnest thyself; for to his conscience, and which he himself thou that judgest dost the same things.' recognizes to be of rightful obligation.' Romans ii, 1 —12. This passage re- It may be remarked that'tribulation' quires almost nothing in the way of ver- simply denotes affliction; and is the same bal criticism. The term for'despise' in here in the original, as in the passage, the 4th verse needed not to have been so'we are troubled on every side'-and that rendered as to denote an active contempt'anguish' signifies the affliction from -but rather a mere disregard and negli- which there is no hope of our being extrigence of the opportunity, which God in cated; and is the same in the original, as Tiis forbearance had afforded to sinners, in the passage, that'though troubled on for returning and making their peace every side we are not distressed.'* with Him. The term'patient' again, in At the outset of this chapter, the apostle the 7th verse, signifies, both here and in appeals to a principle which is vigourother places of Scripture, something more ously at work in every bosom; and, friom active than the mere patience under its felt and conscious existence within us, suffering. They who bring forth fruits would he press upon our belief the reality with patience, are they who do so with of the same principle, as residing in the perseverance. They who run their race Godhead-as applied by him to every with patience, are they who persevere in creature who is capable of exercising it so running. They who maintain a patient in his own mind; and leading to a result, continuance, are they who maintain a that will be verified on the great day of persevering continuance in well-doing. the winding up of this world's administraThe whole passage is,.o plain, that it tion. By nature we are slow to self-conscarcely admits of elucidation even from demnation; and, beset with the engrossa paraphrase. But let the following be ments of our passion and our own interest, offered to you. we see not in ourselves the criminality of' Therefore, O man, thou art without the same things which we reprobate in excuse, whosoever thou art, that judgest; others; and conscience either passes no for, in judging dnother, thou condemnnest verdict at all, or in such a faint and thyself-seeing that thou who judgest gentle whisper that it is not heard, when doest the same things. And we are sure, it takes a rare and a feeble cognizance of that God's judgment is accordingto truth, our own character. But the self-love, against those who commit these things. which deafens the voice of conscience in And dost thou think, 0 man, who judgest its application to our own case, lays no them that do such things, and doest the such barrier in its way when it pronounces same, that thou shalt escape God's judg- on the case of others. And hence the rnent? Or do you despise His goodness familiar spectacle, of, not merely an and forbearance and long-suffering, inad- adverse judgment, but even of a wrath vertent of this, that it is His goodness and an indignation in the mind of one which affords to you a season of repent- man against the vanity or the dishonesty ance? But, instead of this, do you, after your hard and impenitent hea',. treasure * 2 Cor. iv, 8 LECTURE VI. —CHAPTER II 1I —12. 3 or the calumnies of another, to the evil of you see them simply capable of being wl,ich he is blind or insensible when alive to the injustice of others, while in exemplified in an equal degree upon his the wild and untamed rapacity of their own person. natures, they experience no check from Now this very judging of others, proves the sense and conviction of their ownthat there is in him a capacity for this then be assured, that, on the great day of exercise. It shows that there is a moral account, will it be found, that there is a light and a moral sense still residing in law which can reach even unto them; his bosom. It proves a sense of the differ- and a retribution of equity which can be ence between right and wrong; and that rendered unto them; and a vengeance when a certain veil is lifted away from which, in despite of every plea and every the materials of the examination, so as to palliation that can be offered for these bring his mind into a more unclouded darkest and most degraded of our brethdiscernment of them —then, there is in ren, can be righteously inflicted-Making that mind a conscience, which can ope- it manifest, that a judgment-seat may be rate and pronounce aright, upon what is set up on the last day of our world; and meritorious and what is blameworthy in that around it, from its remotest corners, the character of man. Should that man all the men of all its generations may be be himself, and should this circumstance assembled; and that not one of them will throw a darkening shroud over the field be found to have lived without the scope of examination, it surely is no palliation and limits of a jurisdiction, on the princiof his sinfulness, nor does it render him ples of which he may rightfully be triedloss amenable to the judgment of God, if so as that yet the triumph of God's justice this shroud which hides'his own charac- shall be signalized upon every individual; ter froim his own eyes be drawn over it nor will there be a single doom pronounced by his own selfishness, You cannot al- upon any creature, in any one depa-.rtment lege his blindness in mitigation of the of the great moral territory, that is not sentence that is to go forth against him, strictly accordant with this song of Reveif it be a blindness which has no place in lation —" Even so, Lord God Almighty' reference to the faults of other men; and true and righteous are thy judgmilients; only gathers again over the organs of his just and true are thy ways, thou King of mnoral discernment, when the hand of his Saints." own partiality sets up a screen between But let us look nearer home. There is the eye of his conscience and the equal not an exercise more familiar to your owvn or perhaps surpassing faults of his own hearts, than that by which you feel the character. The mere fact that he can demerits of others, and judge of them and does judge of others, proves that a accordingly. The very movements of law of right and wrong is present with anrer within you are connected with a him. The fact that he does not so judge sense of right and wrong-such a sense of himself; only proves, not that he is as evinces you to be in possession of a without the light of moral truth like the law, which you can bring to bear in exabeasts that perish —but that he keeps mination and condemnation upon the down that truth by unrighteousness; that doings of man; and should this law be when its voice is so stifled as to be un- evaded through the duplicities and the heard, it is he himself who stifles it; that deceits of selfishness, in its application to his blindness is not the natural incapacity yourself-then know that a principle so of an animal, but the wilful and chosen universal among mankind, in reference and much-loved blindness of a depraved to their judgments the one of the other, man. If you see one of our species judg- is of unfailing operation in the mind of ingr certain things in the conduct of another, the Deity, and will be applied by HIim to infer from this that he knows of a code to all who by the mere possession of a mIoral which by his own voice he awards a moral faculty prove themselves to be the fitting authority. If you see him not judging in subjects of His moral cognizance. If in the same way of the same things in him- the whole course of your existence, you self, consider this as a wilful suppression ever judged another; this renders you at of the truth, which does not extenuate, but that one time a right and proper subject which in every way heightens his guilt, of judgment yourself; and if this be your and turns his moral insensibility, not into daily and habitual exercise, insomuch a plea, but into an aggravation. And if that any development of vanity or selthere be not a country in the world, where fishness or unfairness in another is sure this twofold exhibition is not to be wit- to call out from you a feeling of condemnessed-if, even among the rudest wander- nation, then this proves that you are ers of the desert, there is the tact of a hourly and habitually the rightful subjects moral discernment between what is fair of a moral guardianship and a moral and what is injurious in the character of jurisdiction. The faculty you have, is man-if in the fierce contests of savages, but a secondary impress of that superior 38 LECTURE VI. —CHAPTER I, 1 —12. and pervading faculty which belongs it also. The truth is, that a want of bab to God, as the,judge of all and the lief in God as a Judge, is nearly as preva. lawgiver of all. Be assured that there lent as the want of belief in Christ as a is a presiding justice in His administra- Saviour. Could the one be established tion; that there is a moral government within you, it would create an inquiry founded on a righteousness, the lessons of and a restlessness and an alarm, which which are more or less known by all, and might soon issue in the attainment of the the sanctions of which will be accordingly other. But the general habit of the world fulfilled upon all. Your very power of proves. that, in reference to God as a God judging others, proves that its lessons are of judgment, there is a profound and a in some degree known to you. And think prevailing sleep among its generations. not, 0 man which judgest those who do The children of alienated and degenerate such and such things, and doest the same, Nature, are no more awake to the law in that thou wilt escape the judgment of all the unchangeableness of its present God. authority, and in all the certainty of its God, in the day of final account, will coming terrors-than they are awake to find out in the case of every human Being the gospel in the freedom of its offers, and whom He does condemn, the materials of in the sureness of its redemption, and in his valid condemnation. These materials the exceeding greatness and preciousness may in a great measure be hidden from of all its promises. There is just as little us now; and yet the palpable fact of each sense of the disease as there is little of being able morally to judge another, and esteem for the remedy. Theologians acto pass his moral opinion upon another, cordingly tell us of the faith of the law, however little he may be disposed to scru- and of the faith of the gospel. By the one tinize himself, forms a very palpable dis- we believe what the law reveals, in reclosure of the fact, that there is in our gard to its own requirements and its own hearts the sense of a moral law-a moni- sanctions. By the other we believe what tor who, if' we do not follow him as our the gospel reveals. in regard to its own guide here, will be our accusing witness proposals and its own invitations and its hereafter. And from every feeling of re- own privileges. Faith attaches itself to probation, if not from every feeling of re- the law as well as to the gospel; and obesentment towards others of' which we are dience to the gospel as well as to the law. capable, we may gather assurance of the The apostle here speaks of our not obeyflct, that there does exist within us such a ing the truth-and the psalmist sayssense of the distinction between right and;'"Lord, I have believed thy commandwrong, as, if not acted on in our own con- ments." The truth is, that, among the duet, will be enough to convict us of a men of our listless and secure species, latent iniquity, and to call down upon us there is no realizing sense of their being a rightful sentence of condemnation. under the law-or of their being under the So long as self is the subject of its over- haunting control and inspection of a seership, the moral sense may be partial Lawgiver. Their habit is that of walking or reluctant or altogether negligent of its in the counsel of their own hearts and in testimonies. But if' it can give those tes- the sight of their own eyes-nor do they timonies clearly enough and feelingly feel, in the waywardness of their self-orienough, when it casts a superintending ginating movements, that they are the eye over the conduct of others, this proves servants of another and amenable to the that an inward witness could speak also judgment of another. Let a man just atto us, but does not, because we have tend to the current of his thoughts and bribed him into silence. In other words, purposes and desires, throughout the it will be found on the last day, that we course of a whole day's business; and he had light enough to conduct us if we will find how lamentably the impression would have followed, and to condemn us of a divine superintendence, and the sense if we have either refused or wilfully-dark- of a heavenly and unseen witness, are ened its intimations. So that God will be away from his heart. This will not exclear when He speaketh and justified cuse his habitual ungodliness-due, as when He judgeth. He will wipe His hands we have often affirmed it to be, to the wilof every outcast on that great and solemn ful smothering of convictions, which, but occasion; and make it evident that the for wilful depravity, he might have had. guilt of all the iniquities for which he is But such being the real insensibility of punished is at his own door-that there is man to his own condition as a responsible no unrighteousness of severity with God, and an amenable creature, it is well that but that' His judgment is indeed accord- by such strenuous affirm'ations as those ing to truth when it is against them who of the apostle, he should be reminded of commit such things.' the sureness wherewith God will appoint The apostle affirms his own sureness of a day in righteousness; and institute a this, and with a view to make us sure of' judgment over the quick and the dead. LECTURE VI.-CHAPTER II, 1 —12. 39'Unbelief is not so much a dissent of the shaking of the ground from under usmind from any one particular truth or but, instead of these, why it is that all is doctrine of revelation, as a darkness of going on in its wonted order, and the sun the mind which intercepts a realizing moves as steadily, and the seasons roll as view of all the truths and all the objects surely, and all the successions of nature that lie spread over the region of spiritu- follow each other with as undisturbed ality. The clearing away of this dark- regularity, as if destined so to abide, and ness renders these objects visible; and it so to persevere even unto eternity. is a variation in the order of their disclo- We know not the theory of ungodly sure which forms one chief cause of the men upon this subject, but their practice varieties of religious experience. Some speaks most intelligibly what they feel catch in the first instance a view of the about it. They tread upon this world's law, scattering, as if from the mouth of a surface as firmly, as if the world stood on volcano, its menaces and its terrors on all a secure and everlasting foundation. They the children of disobedience; and it is not prosecute this world's objects as strenutill after a dreary interval of discompo- ously, as if in the gaining their little porsure and distress, that they behold the tion of it, they gained a value which in mantle lifted away from that stronghold exchange would be greater than the value into which all of them flee as an escape of men's soul's. They toil and calculate and a resting place. Others again catch and devise for this world's interests, with at the outset a milder and a quieter ray as intense and undivided earnestness, as from the light of the Sun of Righteous- if they and the world were never to be ness; and it is not till they have been separated. In the face of evidence —in conducted within the fold of a most sure the face of experience —in the face of all and ample mediatorship, and from whence they know about death, and of all that they may look tranquilly and at a safe has been revealed to them about judgment and protected distance on all around them and retribution and the final wreck of the -it is not till then, that they are made to present system of things, do they assign see the hatefulness of sin, and all the a character of perpetuity to what is seen dread and all the dignity of God's fiery and sensible around them; nor could they denunciations against it. These things possibly labour more devotedly in the follow each other by a different succes- pursuits of time, though they themselves sion with different individuals; but cer- were to continue here for ever, and all tain it is that the most partial glimpse of things to continue as they were from the the smallest portion of the whole terri- beginning of the creation. tory of faith, is greatly more to be desired, Such is the practical impression of a than the deep and sunken and unallevia- natural man about the life that he lives in ted carnality of him, who is wholly given the world; and all his habits of life and unto things present and things sensible; business are founded upon it. But how and even he, to whom the guilt and dan- different from the revelation of its design ger alone have been unfolded, is far more and purpose as given by the apostles. It hopefully conditioned, than he, who, alike is a suspension of' the wrath of God insensible to the wrath of God the Judge, against sinners, that space may be allowand to the beseeching voice of God the ed for repentance. It is that lie, not willSaviour, has taken up with time as his ing that any should perish, but that all portion and his all; and, living as he should return, forbears the infliction of lists, lives in the enjoyment of a peace, His final vengeance till they have got which, if not broken up'ere he dies, a few their opportunity. The perverse interpreyears will demonstrate to have been in- tation which a worldly man puts upon the deed a fatal and then irrecoverable die- continuance of the world, is, that the lusion. world is worthy of all his affections; and The 4th verse of this chapter has been that it is his wisdom to rear upon its basis referred to by Peter in his second epistle the fabric of his hopes. He misses the -wherein he also explains why it is that altogether different conclusion which God does not cut short the present stage should be drawn from it-that this conof His administration-why it is, that He tinuance is due to the goodness of God, tolerates so long the succession of one lengthening out to him and to us all the sinful generation after another-why it season of an offered indemnity, and of a is, that He sweeps not away such a moral proclaimed pardon, and of an inviting nuisance as our rebellious world, and so gospel with the whole of its privileges and have done with it-why it is, for example, blessings-and so, not knowing that this that at this very hour we see not the goodness, instead of rivetting him moro symptoms of dissolving nature, and hear to the world should lead him to forsake not the trumpet of preparation for the the love of it for the love of its Maker, solemnities of the last day, and feel not does he misunderstand and misapply the the heat of melting elements, or the bearing of time upon eternity. 40 LECTURE VI. —CHAPTER II, 1-12. What we have already noticed, about goodness, that we have been spared tc the alternative character of that dispen- this present moment of our history; and sation under which we sit, is strikingly now hear Him in the very language of brought out in the verses before us. Good- His own revelation bid you turn and turn, ness to the innocent. or goodness to the for why will you die. But if you will no: deserving, merely displays this attribute draw from the treasures of His forbearin a state of simplicity; but the goodness ance, there is treasure of another kind which remains unquelled and unexhausted that is heaping by every day of your neafter it has been sinned against-the glected salvation, in a storehouse of v'engoodness which persists in multiplying geance; and which, on the great day wher upon the transgressor the chances of his God shall ease Him of all His adversaries, recovery, and that in the midst of affront will all be poured forth upon you. And and opposition-the goodness which, loth thus it is, that if you despise the riches of to inflict the retaliating blow, still holds His goodness and forbearance and longout a little longer and a little longer; and, suffering, and suffer not them to lead you with all the means in its power of aveng- to repentance, you will by your hardness ing the insults of' disobedience, still ekes and impenitency, treasure up unto yourout the season for its return, and plies it selves wratil against the day of wrath, with all the encouragements of a fi'ee and revelation of the righteous judgments pardon and an offered reconciliation — of God. this is the exuberance of goodness, this is Let us therefore, in plain urgency, bid the richness of forbearance and long- you repent; and, untramelled by system, suffering; and it is the very display which set before you, as the apostle does, both God is now making in reference to our the coming wrath and the coming glory; world. And by every year which rolls and tell you that the one is to him who over our heads-by every morning in doeth evil, and that the other is to him who which we find that we have awoke to the doeth well; and we may be sure that light of a new day instead of awakening there is nothing in faith, or in any of its in torment-by every hour and every mysteries, which will supersede the day minute through which the stroke of death of judgment as it is recorded in the pasis suspended, and you still continue a sage here before us. The apostle is not breathing man in the land of gospel calls only describing what would have happenand gospel invitations-is God now justi- ed under the first covenant, but what will fying His goodness towards you. And happen under the second. For though earnest as He is for your return, and heed- justified by faith, we shall be judged by less as you are of all this earnestness, works: and let not the one of these artidoes it call as time moves onward for a cles be so contrasted with the other, as to higher and a higher exertion of forbear- throw a shade either of neglect or insigance on the part of the Divinity, to re- nificance over it. When rightly understrain His past and accumulating wrath, stood, they reflect upon each other a mufrom being discharged on the head of tual lustre, and lend to each other a muthose among whom though God entreats tual confirmation. Faith is the high road yet no man will turn, and though He to repentance. Our acceptance of the stretch out His hand yet no man regardeth. righteousness of Christ as our title for an Now if such be the character of God entrance into heaven, is an essential stepin His relation to man, mark what charac- ping-stone to our own personal righteouster it stamps upon man should he remain ness as our preparation for the joys anti unsoftened and unimpressed by it. It the exercises of heaven; and if there be were offence enough to sin against the a stirring of conscience and an agitation authority of a superior; but to sin against of alarm in any of your hearts, under the his forbearance forms a sore and a fatal sense of your not being what you ought aggravation. Thus to turn upon the long- to be —we can (lo nothing more effectual, suffering of' God and to trample it-thus than to propose the blood of Christ to to pervert the season which He has allot- your faith, in order that under the transted for repentance, into a season of more forming and sanctifying influence of such secure and presumptuous transgression- a belief, you both be what you ought and thus, upon every delay of vengeance with do what you ought. which He favours us, the more to The great object of the apostle's demon. strengthen ourselves in hard and haughty stration is, that men should make their defiance against Him-this indeed is a escape from the penalties of the law, to highway of guilt, which, if you be not the hiding-place provided for them in the arrested therein, will lead to a sorer judg- gospel. And though he here intimates the ment and a deadlier consummation. Turn rewards which it holds out to obedience then all of you at the call of repentance, and the fearful vengeance which it holds or it is the very highway on which you out against transgression-yet he does not are treading. It is because He is rich in intimate that any individual ever earned LECTURE VI.-CHAPTER II) 1 —12. 4 the one, or ever secured by his own right- Jesus Christ to whom this judgment will eousness an exemption from the other. be committed; and the judgment will be His object is to make known to us the according to'my gospel,' or the gospel constitution or the economy of God's gov- which the apostle proclaims to his hearers. ernment, that, should any of its subjects The judgment of condemnation will be fulfil all its requisitions, they shodld be upon those who have withstood its overrewarded; but without saying that they tures; or who, if these overtures had actually did so —o', that, should any of never reached them, have withstood the its subjects fail in those requisitions they instigations of their own conscience, would be punished; but without telling us which ought to have been a law unto whether any or some or all come under them. And the judgment of acquittal will this condemnation. How it was that they be upon those who have obeyed the truth, actually did conduct themselves under or who have rendered obedience unto the this administration, he tells us afterwards faith-those whose persons and whose -when he says of all, both Jews and works are accepted for the sakeofa better Gentiles, that they were under sin; and righteousness than their own-those who, that by the deeds of the law no flesh can after they believed, were sealed with the be justified, for that all had sinned and Holy Spirit of promise, and were made come short of the glory of God. the workmanship of' God in Christ Jesus, And yet after all there will be a judg- and were created anew unto good works. mnent; and this judgment will proceed So that, after the first covenant has been upon each individual according to the superseded by the second-after man has deeds done in his body; and it is upon become dead unto the law and made alive those who bring forth fiuit with patience, unto Christ-after all its demands have or who maintain a patient continuance in been satisfied, and it has no more power well-doing, that these accents of invita- to challenge or to condemn him who truly tion will descend —" Well done, thou good believes in Jesus, Jesus himself takes up and faithful servant, enter thou into the the judgment of him, and tries him on the joy of thy Lord;" and it is also upon question whether he is actually a believer'; those who are contentious and obey not and the deeds done in the body are the the truth but obey unrighteousness, that evidences of this question, and make it the awful bidding away to the everlasting manifest on that day that the faith which fire prepared for the devil and his angels he professed was no counterfeit, being will be pronounced, by Him who conducts fruitful in all those works of righteousthe solemnities of that great occasion. ness which are by Jesus Christ unto the But then, as we read afterwards, it will be praise and glory of God. LECTURE VII. ROMANS ii, 12-29. For as many as have sinned without law, shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the lawv, (for not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be jus. tified. For when the Geutiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another,) ill the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ according to my gospel. Behold, thou art called a Jew, and restest in the law, and makest thy boast of God, and knowest his will, and approvest tile things that are more excellent, being instructed out of the law; and art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind a light of them which are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, which hast the form of knowledge and of the truth in the law. Thou therefore that teachest another, teachest thou not thyself.? thou that preachest a man should not steal, dost thou stealS thou that sayest a mall should not commit adultery, dost thou commit adultery? thou that abhorrest idols, dost thou commit sacrilege? thou that makest thy boast of the law, through breaking the law dishonourest thou God? for the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through vou, as it is written. For circumcision verily profiteth, if thou keep the law; but if thou be a breaker of the law, tily circumcision is made uncircumsion. Therefore, if the uncircumcision keep the righteousness of tie law, shall not his uncircumrcision be counted for circumcision? and shall not uncircumcision, lwhich is by nature, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision dost transgress the law? For he is not a Jew which is one Wutwardlv: neither is that circumncision which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew which is one inwardly: and circulmcision is that of the heart, inl the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." V. 12. WITIOUT a written law as the of a condemnation brought to bear upon Jews had-they shall perish without being him by a law which he did not know of. iudged by that law. There will be ano- They who have sinned in the law, that is ther law to judge them —and, whosoever in the written -law, are they who have perishes, it will not be the consequence sinned under that law-the Jews who will 6 42 LECTURE VII.-CHAPTER n 12 29. be judged by it. V. 13. There is a term This is all that needs to be advanced in which we may often have to recur to- the way of exposition-and the following and which we therefore shall explain at is a paraphrase of this passage, present. Some would have it that justifi-' For as many as have sinned without cation in the New Testament means the law, shall also perish, not by the conmaking of a man personally just. Con- demnation of that law, but of another ceive a thief, for example, to undergo which they had; and as many as have such a transformation of character as sinned who were under the dispensation that he henceforward is honest in all his of the written law, shall by that law be transactions-this would be making him judged. For, as to the Jews, they are not a just person in the sense which some the hearers of the law who are reckoned choose to assign to the word-it would be just before God; but they are the doers justifying him. We believe it may be of the law only who shall be justified. made out, in almost every place where it And, as to the Gentiles, they having not occurs, that this is not the real meaning the law of Mount Sinai, yet, when by na. of the term-that it should be taken, not ture they do the things contained in that in a personal, but in what may be called law, these, though without a written code, a forensic signification-or, that to justify, have a something in its place which to instead of meaning to make just by a them has all the authority of a law. For process of operation upon the character, -hey show that the matter of the law is means to pronounce or to declare just by written in their hearts-both from their the sentence of a judicial court. This is conscience testifying what is right and called the forensic sense of the term, wrong in their own conduct, and from because a court of justice was anciently their reasonings in which they either accalled a forum; and it is evident that, cuse or vindicate one another. No mail here at least, the word must be understood shall be judged by a law known only to forensically —:for the doers of the law do others and unknown to himself; but all not need to be made just personally. shall be judged by the light which beThey are already so; and therefore for longed to them, in that day when God them to be justified, is to be declared just shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus by the sentence of him who administers Christ, and agreeably to the gospel which the law. V. 15. There seem here to be I now declare unto you. Behold, thou art two distinct proofs of the Gentiles being called a Jew, and hast a confidence in thy a law unto themselves. The first is from law, and makest a boast of' thy peculiar the fact of there being a conscience indi- relationship with God, and thou knowest vidually at work in each bosom, and His will, and canst both distinguish and deponing either to the merit or the de- approve the things which are more excelmerit of actions. The second from the lent-being instructed out of thy law. fact of their accusing or excusing one And, with all this superior advantage, thou another, in the reasonings or disputes lookest upon thyself as a guide of the which took place between man and man. blind, and as a light of them who are in For what is translated'thoughts,' may be darkness, and as an instructor of the igrendered into dialectic reasonings, or dis- norant, and as a teacher of babes-seeing putes which one man has with another, that thou hast the whole summary of when a question of right or justice is knowledge and truth which is in the law. started between them. It proves them to But it is not he who heareth, or he who be in possession of a common rule, or knoweth, but he who doeth that shall be standard of judging, or, in other words, justified; and dost thou who teachest anthat a law is actually among them. So other, teach effectually thyself? —thou true is it, even in its application to the who proclaimest that a man should not Gentiles, that there is a light which light- steal, dost thou steal? —thou who sayest ath every man who cometh into the that a man should not commit adultery, world. V. 22. To commit sacrilege, or to dost thou commit adultery — thou who take to our private use, that which is abhorrest idols, dost thou rob God of' His consecrated to God. This is what might temple offerings?-thou who makest thy very readily be brought home to a Jewish boast of the law, through the breaking of conscience-it being matter of frequent the law dost thou dishonour God? For complaint against the Jews, that they we have it upon record, that through you offered what was lame and defective in the name of God has been blasphemed. sacrifice. V. 24. This is written for ex- For your circumcision, and other outward ample, in Ezekiel xxxvi. 20, where it is observances which form the great visible said that the Heathen in mockery said distinction between you and the Gentiles unto the people of Israel when they were -these are profitable if you keep the carried away captive-" These are the whole law; but if you break the law, the people of the Lord and are gone forth out keeping of its external ordinances will of His land." not raise you above the level of those who LECTURE VII.-CHAPTER IIt 12-29. 4S know them not, and practise them not. humanity, and there, on the review of But, on the other hand, if these latter do their doings in this world, will have such oy nature the things which by the light a place and such a portion assigned to of nature they know to be lawful, and so them in the next, as shall be in fullest keep righteousness as far as they are in- harmony with the saying that all the formed of' it-though they have not prac- ways of God are in truth and in rightetised the literal and outward ordinances, ousness. they shall be dealt with as if they had It were repeating over here what we kept them. And what is more, they will have already more than once and on vaeven have such a superiority, as to sit in rious occasions endeavoured to argument, judgment over you, who, notwithstanding did we again enter upon the question, your written law and your ordinances, How this can be? The Heathen will not are in fact transgressors of the law. For be judged by the written law of Judaism, he is not a right Jew who is only one out- neither will they be judged out of the wardly. Neither is that the circumcision things that are written in the Scriptures that is regarded by God, which is out- of Christianity. God will not, in their wardly in the flesh. But he is a Jew who case, charge them with the guilt of a sin, is one inwardly; and the genuine circum- for that which they were not taught and cision is that of a heart subject to the could not know to be sinful. It is not spirit of the law, and therefore crucified their helpless ignorance, and it is not the as to its carnal affections, and not that of fatality of their birth, and it is not the a mere outward conformity to its visible thick moral envelopment that has settled observations. And the praise of this real itself over the face of their country which circumcision is not of man, who can judge will condemn them. It will be their sin, only according to appearances; but of and that coupled with the circumstances God, who weigheth the secrets of the of their knowing it to be sin, which will spirit, and who can alone judge righte- condemn them. And we have already reously.' marked in one lecture, that there do exist, Let us now pass onward to a few prac- even in the remotest tracks of Paganism, tical observations, founded on the passage such vestiges of light, as, when collected which we have attempted to explain. together, form a code or directory of moral You can readily enough perceive, how, conduct —that there are still to be found both with Jews and Christians, there are among them the fragments of a law, materials enough for such an examination, which they never follow but with an ap. as renders them the fit subjects both of a proving conscience; and never violate reckoning and of a sentence on the great but with the check of an opposing reday of account. But this is not so imme- monstrance, that by their own wilfulness diately seen in regard to rude and unin- and their own obstinacy is overborne-in formed Paganism. To be without the pale other words, that they are a law unto of a written revelation, is held by many, themselves, and that their own conscience as tantamount, to being without the pale vests it with an authority, by bearing witof all moral and judicial cognizance. And ness to the rightness and obligation of its yet, we have many intimations, that the requirements-So that, among the secret Heathen will also be brought to the bar things which will be brought to light in of the general judgment-that, though per- the great day of revelation, will it be seen, haps more gently dealt with, yet they will that all the sin for which a Heathen shall be dealt with as the responsible subjects be made to suffer, was sin committed in of God's moral administration-that there the face of an inward monitor, which is a principle of' judgment which reaches warned him through time, and will coneven unto them, and upon which it will demna him at his outset upon eternity. be a righteous thing for God to pass upon In another lecture we observed, that them a condemnatory sentence. Sodom what brought the conscience of Paganism and Gomorrah, we are informed, being to palpably out from its hiding place, was be sisted before the tribunal of that day; the undeniable fact of the charges and the and a punishment awarded them, which recriminations and the defences, of which will only be more tolerable than the ven- the most unenlightened Pagans were cageance that awaits those, who have sinned pable in their controversies with each in the face of clearer light, and better op- other. This capacity of accusing and of portunities. Insomuch, that we know not excusing proved a sense and a standard of any age, however far back it may lie of morality to be amongst them. With removed in the darkness of antiquity; the feeling of provocation after injury, nor do we know of any wandering tribe, was there mixed the judgment of a differhowever secluded from all the communi- ence between the right and the wrongcations of light and knowledge with the and even in the rude outcry of savage re. rest of the species-the men of which will sentment and the fierce onset of savage not be called before the great tribunal of warfare, may we detect their perception 44:,ECTURE VII.-CHAPTER II, 12-29. of what is honest and what is unfair in fact have been entitled to sit in jum gment the dealings of man with man. And just and superiority over him. grant of any individual amongst them, It is observable, that, in this work of that he is keenly alive to the injustice of convincing the Jews of sin, the apostle others to himself, while, under the hurry- fastens, in the first instance, on the more ing instigations of selfishness and passion, glaring and visible delinquencies from he works the very same ifijustice against the law of righteousness-as theft and them; and you make that individual a adultery and sacrilege. He brings forth moral and an accountable being. We that which is fitted to strike conviction grant him to be sensible of what he ought into the mind of a notorious transgressor; to do, and thus make him the rightful sub- who, just because the evidence of his guilt ject of condemnation if' he does it not. is more palpable than that of others-just " For thinkest thou, O man, that judgest because the materials of his condemnation them who do these things, and doest them more immediately meet the eye of his own thyself, that thou wilt escape the judgment conscience —is, on that very account of God?" Even we therefore, unknowing often more easily induced to take the first as we are of the inward machinery of an- steps of that process which leads to reother's heart, can trace as it were an ave- conciliation with the offended Lawgiver. nue by which the most unlettered barba- And this is the reason, why it is said of rian might be approached in the way of publican and profligate persons, that they judgment and retribution. And much enter the kingdom of Heaven, before the more may we be sure, that God, who Scribes and the Pharisees. But the aposjudgeth all things, will find a clear and tle is not satisfied with convincing them open path to the fulfilment of the process only. Before he is done with his demonthat is here laid before us-summoning stration about the law, he enters into the all to their account, without exception; very depths of it-even as the Saviour, in and, from the farthest limits of the human his sermon on the mount, did before him. territory, calling heathens to His jurisdic- I.t is possible to undergo the outward rite tion, as well as Christian and Jews, and, of circumcision, and not be circumcised under a law appropriate to each, dealing in the spirit of our minds. And it is posout the distributions of equity among the sible to maintain a conformity with all various families and denominations of the those requirements which bear on the exworld. ternal conduct, without having a heart In this passage, the apostle, after the touched by the love of God, or in any way gradual and skilful approaches which lie animated by the principle of godliness. had made for the purpose of finding his He does not end his demonstration of sinway to the Jewish understanding, at length fulness, till he has completed it; and, breaks out into the warfare of open and while the first attack of his expostulation proclaimed argument. He throws out his is directed against those who do the covert express challenge, and closes with his ad- acts and wear the visible insignia of reversary-thus entering upon the main bellion, he sends it with a penetrating business of his Epistle, the great object force into the recesses of a more plausible of. which was to bring over his own and pleasing character-where, with nothcountrymen to the obedience of the faith. ing to deform or to shed a disgrace over After affirming of the two great classes the outward history, there may be a heart of mankind, that each was subject to a still uncircumcised out of all its affections law of its own acknowledging; and after, to the creature, and utterly alive unto the upon this principle, having convicted the world, and utterly dead unto God. Gentile world of' its being under sin-he We conclude with two remarks, in the addresses himself' to the Israelite, and way of home and personal application, dexterously lays open the egregious folly founded on the two senses given to the of his confidence-a confidence resting, word letter as contrasted with the word it would appear, not on his practice of the spirit. law, but barely on his possession of it-a The first sense that is given to the word satisfaction with himself, not for following letter, is the outward conformity to the the light, but simnply for having the light law, which may be rendered apart finom — an arrogant sense of superiority to the inward principle of reverence or others, not in having obeyed the corn- I regard for it. mandment, but just in having had the Now it is not merely true that pour commandment delivered to him-thus sabbaths and your sacraments may be as turning into a, matter of vanity; that which useless to you, as the rite of circumcision ought in fact to have aggravated hisshame ever was to the Jews. It is not merely and condemnation; and bearing it proud- true that the whole ceremonial of Chris. ly over others, who, had they acted up to tianity may be duly and regularly destheir more slender advantages, would in cribed on your part, without praise or LECTURE VII. —CHAPTER 1i, 12-29. 45 without acceptance on the part of God. to the righteousness of Christ, as tha: It is not merely true that worship may be alone which is commensurate to the de. held every day in your own houses, and mands, and congenial with the holy cha. your families be mustered at every recur- racter of the Lawgiver-not till, in the ring opportunity to close and unfailing attitude of one whose breast is humbled attendance on the house of God. But it out of all its proud complacencies, he is also true, that all the moral honesties receives the atonement of the gospel, and of life may be rendered; and, in the along with it receives a clean heart and walks of honourable merchandise, there a right spirit from the hand of his accepted ever be attached to your name, the respect Mediator-it is not till the period of such and confidence of all the righteous; and, a transformation, when he is made the foremost in the lists of philanthropy, workmanship of God in Christ Jesus, that every scheme connected with its cause the true image of moral excellence which may draw out from you the largest and was obliterated from our species at the most liberal ministrations: and even all ftll, comes to be restored to him, or that this, so far fiom the mere facing of an he is put in the way of attaining a resemoutward exhibition, may emanate upon blance to his Maker in righteousness and your visible doings, from the internal in true holiness. operation of a native regard for your We meant to have added another rebrethren of the same species, and of a mark founded on another sense of the high-minded integrity in all your transac- word letter, which is the word of God as tions with them. And yet one thing may opposed to the Spirit of God. But we be lacking. The circumcision of the have no time to expatiate any further. heart may be that which you have no Let us only observe that the apostle speaks part in. All its longings may be towards both of' the letter and Spirit of the New the affairs and the enjoyments and the Testament. And certain it is, that, were interests of mortality. Your taste is not we asked to fix on a living counterpart in to what is sordid, but to what is splendid the present day to the Jew of the passage in character; but still it is but an earthly now under consideration-it would be on and a perishable splendour. Your very him, who, thoroughly versant in all the virtues are but the virtues of the world. phrases and dexterous in all the arguThey have not upon them the impress of ments of orthodoxy, is, without one affecthat saintliness which will bear to be tion of the old man circumcised and transplanted into heaven. The present without one sanctified affection to mark and the peopled region of sense on which him the new man in Christ Jesus our you expatiate, you deck, it is true, with Lord, withal, a zealous and staunch and the lustre of many fine accomplishments; sturdy controversialist. He too rests in but they have neither the stamp nor the the form of sound words, and is confident endurance of eternity: And, difficult as it that he is a light of the blind, and founds was to convict the Hebrew of sin, robed a complacency on knowledge though it in the sanctities of a revered and imposing be knowledge without love and without ceremonial, it is at least a task of as great regeneration-nor can we think of any strenuousness to lay the humiliation of delusion more hazardous, and at the same the gospel spirit upon him, who lives time more humbling, than that by which surrounded by the smiles and the ap- a literal acquaintance with the gospel, plauses of society-or so to awaken the and a literal adherence on the part of blindness, and circumcise the vanity of the understanding to all its truths and all his heart, as to bring him down a humble its articles, may be confounded with the supplicant at the footstool of mercy. faith which is unto salvation. Faith is What turns the virtues of earth into an inlet to holy affections. Its primary splendid sins, is that nothing of God is office is to admit truth into the mind, but there. It is the want of this animating it is truth which impresses as well as breath, which impresses upon them all informs, The kingdom of God is neither the worthlessness of materialism. It is in word alone, nor in argument alone-it this which makes all the native loveliness is also in power; and while we bid you of our moral world of as little account, in look unto Jesus and be saved, it is such a the pure and spiritual reckoning of the look as will cause you to mourn and to upper sanctuary, as is a mere efflores- be in heaviness-it is such a look as will cence of beauty on the face of the vegeta- liken you to His image, and import into ble creation. It serves to adorn and even your own character the graces and the to sustain the interests of a fleeting gene- affections which adorn hIis. It is here ration. Verily it hath its reward. But that man finds himself at the limits of his not till, under a sense of nothingness and helplessness. He cannot summon into his of guilt, man hies him to the cross of breast that influence which will either expiation-not till, renouncing all right- circumcise its old tendencies, or plant eousness of his own, he flees for shelter new ones in its room. But the doctrine 46 LECTURE VII.-CHAPTER II, 12-29. of Jesus Christ and of him crucified is the desirously to Jesus as all his salvation he grand instrument for such a renovation; may at length experience the operation and he is at his post, and on the likely of faith working by love and yielding alF. way of obtaining the clean heart and the manner of obedience. right spirit, when, looking humbly and LECTURE TIII. ROMANS iii, 1, 2.' What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, becauMs that unto them were committed the oracles of God." OuR reason for stopping at this part of reject it, because to them the savour of our ordinary course, and coming forward death unto death-whether should a na. with a dissertation on these verses, is that tion now sitting in the darkness of Pagan. the subject of them seems to guide us to a ism, be approached with the overtures of decision, in a matter that has been some- the gospel 3 This is a doubt which has what obscured with the difficulties of a often been advanced, for the purpose of hidden speculation. You are aware that throwing discouragement and discredit on to whom much is given, of them much will the enterprise of the missionaries; and be required; and the question then comes though not on exactly the same principle, to be, whether is it better that that thing are there many still, who hesitate on the shall be given or withheld. The Jew, measure of spreading education among who sinned against the light of his reve- the peasantry. Altogether, it were delation, will have a severer measure of sirable, in this age of benevolent enter. retribution dealt out to him-than the prise, to know whether it is the part of Gentile who only sinned against the light benevolence to move in this matter, or to of his own conscience; and the nations sit still and let the world remain stationas of Christendom who have been plied with ry-leaving it to that milder treatment, the offers of the gospel; and put them and those gentler chastisements, which needlessly and contemptuously away, will the guilt of man, when associated with the incur a darker doom throughout eternity ignorance of man, will call down on the -than the native of China, whose remote- great day from the hand of Him who both ness, while it shelters him from the light judgeth and administers righteously. of the New Testament in this world, shel- We think it must be obvious, to those ters him from the pain of its fulfilled de- whose minds have been at all disciplined nunciations in another; and he who sits a into the soberness of wisdom and true hearer under the most pure and faithful philosophy, that, without an authoritative ministrations of the word of God, has solution of this question from God Himmore to answer for-than he who lan- self, we ar'e really not in circumstances to guishes under the lack either of arousing determine it. We have not all the matesermons, or of solemn and impressive or- rials of the question before us. We know dinances; and neither will a righteous not how to state with the precision of God deal so hardly with the members of arithmetic, what the addition is which a population, where reading is unknown, knowledge confers upon the sufferings of and the Bible remains an inaccessible disobedience; or how far an accepted gosrarity among the families-as of a popu- pel exalts the condition of him, who was lation where schools have been multiplied before a stranger to it. WVe cannot bal. for the behoof of all, and scholarship has ance the one against the other, or render descended and is diffused among the to you any computation of the difference poorest of the commonwealth. And with that there is between them. We cannot these considerations, a shade of uncer- descend into hell; and there take the tainty appears to pass over the question- dimensions of that fiercer wrath and tribuwhether the Christianization of a people lation and anguish, which are laid on ought at all to be meddled with. If the those who have incurred the guilt of a re. gospel of Jesus Christ only serve to exalt jected Christianity-and neither can we the moral and everlasting condition of the ascend to heaven; and there calculate the few who receive it, because to them it is heights of blessedness and joy, to which the savour of life unto life; but serve also Christianity has raised the condition of to aggravate the condition of those who those who have embraced it. It is all a LECTURE VIII. —-CHAPTER III) 1, 2. 47 matter of revelation on which side the that the apostle makes the calculation. difference lies; and he who is satisfied to He makes an abatement for the unbelief be wise up to that which is written, and of all the others; and, balancing the diffeels no wayward restlessness of ambi- ference, does he land us in a computation tion after the wisdom that is beyond it, of clear gain to the whole people. And it will quietly repose upon the deliverance bears importantly on this question, when of' Scripture on this subject; and never we are thus told of a nation with whom will the surmises or the speculations of an we are historically acquainted, that it was uninformed world, lay an obstacle on him, better for them on the whole that they as he moves along the path of his plainly possessed the oracles of God. We may bidden obedience - nor will all the hazards well venture to circulate these precious and uncertainties, which the human ima- words among all people, when told of the gination shall conjure up from the brood- most stiff-necked and rebellious people on ing abyss of human ignorance, embarrass earth, that, with all the abuse they made him in the execution of an obviously pre- of their scriptures, these scriptures conscribed task. So that if in any way ferred not merely a glory, but a positive Christ must be preached; and if in the advantage on their nation. And yet what face of consequences, known or unknown, a fearful deduction from this advantage the knowledge of Him must be spread must have been made, by the wickedness abroad to the uttermost; and if he be re- that grew and gathered, and was handed quired, at this employment, to be instant down from one generation to another. If in season and out of season, declaring it be true of the majority of their kings, unto all the way of salvation as he has that they did evil in the sight of the Lord opportunity-if these be the positive re- exceedingly; and if it be true that, with quirernents of the Bible, then, whatever the light of revelation and amongst the be the proportion which the blessings warnings of prophecy, they often rioted bear to the curses that he is the instru- amongst the abominations of idolatry be. ment of scattering on every side of him, yond even all the nations that wvere around enough for him that the authority of them; and if it be true that the page of Heaven is the warrant of his exertions; Jewish history is far more blackened by and that, in making manifest the savour the recorded atrocity and guilt of the naof the knowledge of the gospel in every tion, than ever it is illumed by the memoplace, he is unto God a sweet savour of rials of worth or of piety; and if it be Christ, both in them that are saved and in true that, throughout the series of many them that perish. centuries which rolled over the heads of "Go and preach the gospel to every the children of Israel, while they kept the creature under heaven," and "go unto all name and existence of a community, there the world, and teach all nations." These was an almost incessant combat between parting words of our Saviour, ere He as- the anger of an offended God and the percended to His Father, may not be enough verseness of a stout-hearted and rebellious to quell the anxieties of the speculative people-insomuch that, after the varied Christian; but they are quite enough to discipline of famine and invasion and capdecide the course and the conduct of the tivity had been tried for ages and found practical Christian. To his mind, it sets to be fruitless, the whole fabric of the the question of missions abroad, and also Hebrew commonwealth had by one trethe question of schools and bibles and mendous discharge of fury to be utterly christianizing processes at home, most swept away-It were hard to tell, what is thoroughly at rest. And though the reve- the amount of aggravation upon all this lation of the New Testament had not ad- sin, in that it was sin against the light of vanced one step farther, on that else un- the oracles of God; but the apostle in the trodden field, where all that misery and text has told us, that, let the amount be all that enjoyment which are the attend- what it may, it was more than counterant results upon a declared gospel in the vailed by the positive good done through world might be surveyed and confronted these oracles: and comparatively few as together-yet would he count it his obli- the righteous men were who walked in gation simply to do the bidding of the the ordinances and commandments of the word, though it had not met the whole of Lord blameless; and however thinly sown his appetite for information. But in the were those worthies of old dispensation, verses before us, we think it does advance on whom the light that beamed from this one step farther. It does appear to Heaven shed the exalting influences of us, to enter on the question of profit and faith and godliness; and though the uploss attendant on the possession of the right of the land were counted but in oracles of God; and to decide, on the minorities and in remnants, throughout part of the former, that the advantage was almost every period of the nation's pro. much every way. And it is not for those gress from its beginning to its overthrow individuals alone who reaped the benefit, -yet it serves to guide our estimate of 48 LECTURE VIII.-CHAPTER III, 1, 2. comparison between the gain and the loss dition of those who reject it, it is douUt. of God's oracles in the midst of a country, less the instrument of working out for each when, with the undoubted fact of the few of them an increment of misery. But it who had been made holy on the one hand, does not change into wretchedness, that and the many on whom they fastened a which before was enjoyment. It only sorer condemnation upon the other, we makes the wretchedness more intense; are still told that the gain did preponde- and the whole amount of the evil that has rate —that the Jews who had the Scrip- been rendered, is only to be computed by tures had an advantage over the Gentiles the difference in degree between the sufwho had them not-that any people are fering that is laid upon sin with, and sin better of having among them the instru- without the knowledge of the Saviour ment which makes a man a child of light, We do not know how great the difference even though in its operation it should of misery is, to those many whose guil. stamp a deeper guilt upon ten men, and has been aggravated by the neglect of an make them more the children of hell than offered gospel; and we do not know how before-that all the means therefore, which to compare it arithmetically, with the in their direct and rightful tendency have change from positive misery to positive the effect to save and to enlighten human enjoyment, which is experienced by those souls, should be set most strenuously ago- few who have emblraced the gospel. In ing, even though these means should be the midst of all this uncertainty, there is resisted; and it is impossible but this of- room and place in our minds for the posifence must come, and a deadlier woe will tive information of Scripture; and if we be inflicted on all through whom such an gather from it that it was better for the offence cometh. Should the fishers of Jews, in spite of all the deeper responsimen rescue a few from the abyss of na- bility and deeper consequent guilt which ture's guilt and nature's wretchedness, it their possession of the Old Testament laid would appear that in the work of doing so, upon the perverse and disobedient of the they may be the instruments of' sinking nation, yet that a nett accession of gain many deeper into that a.byss than if it had was thus rendered to the whole-then may never been disturbed or entered upon with we infer that any enterprise by which the such an operation. We have not the means Bible is more extensively circulated, or of instituting a comparison between the more extensively taught, is of positive quantity of good that is rendered by a small benefit to every nei h bourhood which is number being entirely extricated from the the scene of such an operation. gulph of perdition, and the quantity of evil But secondly.-Though in the Jewish that ensues from a large number being history that has already elapsed, they were more profoundly immersed in it than be- the few to whom the oracles of God were fore. This is a secret which still lies in the a blessing, and the many to whom they womb of eternity; yet we cannot but were an additional condemnation —vet, on think that a partial disclosure has been the whole, did the good so predominate in made, and the veil is in part lifted away its amount over the evil, that it on the from it, by the deliverance of our apos- whole was for the better and not for the tle. At all events it clears away the worse that they possessed these oracles. practical difficulties which are attendant But the argument gathers in strength, as on a missionary or christianizing question, we look onward to futurity-as, aided by when we are here given to understand, the light of prophecy, we take a glimpse, that the Jews, with all the aggravations however faint and distant, of millennial consequent on sin, when it is sin in the days-as we dwell upon the fact of the face of knowledge, were on the whole bet- universal prevalence that the gospel of ter in that they had the oracles of God. Jesus Christ is at length to reach to all Let us now follow up these introductory the countries of the world —when we conviews, with a few brief remarks both on sider that all our present proportions shall the speculative and on the practical part at length be reversed; and that if Chrisof this.question. tians now be the few to the many, ChrisFirst, then, as to the speculative part of tians theh will be the many to the few. it. The Bible, when brought into a new Even in this day of small things, the dicountry, may be instrumental in saving rect blessing which follows in the train the some who submit to its doctrine; and, of' a circulated Bible and a proclaimed in so doing, it saves them from an abso- gosp'el, overbalances the incidental evil; lute condition of misery in which they and when we think of the latter-day glory were previously involved. It makes good which it ushers in-when we think of that to each of them, the difference that there secure and lasting establishment which in is, between a state of great positive wretch. all likelihood it will at length arrive atedness and a state of great positive enjoy- when we compute the generations of.hat ment. If along with this advantage to the millennium which is awaiting a peopled few who receive it, it aggravates the con- and a cultivated world —when we try to LECTURE VIII.-CHAPTER III, I, 2. 4i fancy the magnificent results, which a la- the gospel message were mrany, yet still, bouring and progressive Christianity will on the principles of the apostolic reckonthen land in-who would shrink from the ing, there may even during the first years work of' hastenir.g it fbrward, because of of' a much resisted Christianity, be an a spectre conjured up from the abyss of overplus of advantage. And why should human ignorance? Even did the evil we be restrained now from the work by a now predominate over the good, still is a calculation, which did not restrain the missionary enterprise like a magnanimous missionaries of two thousand years agodaring for a great moral and spiritual when they made their first entrance on a achievement. which will at length reward world of nearly unbroken and unallevithe perseverance of its devoted labourers. ated heathenism? Shall we, with our It is like a triumph for the whole species, pigmy reach of anticipation, cast off the purchased at the expense, not of those authority of precept issued by Him who who shared in the toils of the undertaking, seeth the end from the beginning; and but of those who met with their unconcern who can both bless the day of small or contempt, the benevolence which la- things with a superiority of the good over boured to convert themrn. There are col- the evil, and make it the dawn of such a lateral evils attendant on the progress of glory as will far exceed the brightest visChristianity. At one time it brings a ions in which a philanthropist can insword instead of peace, and at another it dulge? The direction at all events is imstirs up a variance in fhmilies, and at all perative, and of standing obligation. It times does it deepen the guilt of those who is Go and preach the gospel to every crearesist the overtures which it makes to ture, and Go and preach unto all nations; them. But these are only the perils of a and you want one of the features of Him voyage that is richly laden with the moral who standeth perfect and complete in the wealth of many future generations. These whole will of God-you are lacking in are but the hazards of a battle which ter- that complete image of what a Christian minates in the proudest and most produc- ought to be-if, without desire and withtive of all victories-and, if the liberty of out effort in behalf of that great process a great empire be an adequate return for by which the whole world is at length to the loss of the lives of its defenders, then be called out from the darkness and the is the glorious liberty of' the children of repose of its presentalienation, you neither God, which will at length be extended assist it with your substance nor rememover the face of a still enslaved and alien- ber it in your prayers. ated world, more than an adequate return But secondly. If man is to be kept in for the spiritual loss that is sustained by ignorance because every addition of light those, who, instead of fighting for the brings along with it an addition of responcause, have resisted and reviled it. sibility-then ought the species to be arWe now conclude with a few practical rested at home as well as abroad in its remarks. progress towards a more exalted state of First. It is with argument such as this, humanity: and such evils as may attend that we would meet the anti-missionary the transition to moral and religious knowspirit, which, though a good deal softened ledge, should deter us from every attempt and silenced of late years, still breaks to rescue our own countrymen from any forth occasionally into active opposition; given amount of darkness by which they or, when it forbears to be aggressive, still may now be encompassed.* binds up the great body of professing But lastly. However safe it is to com.nChristians, in a sort of lethargic indiffer- mit the oracles of God into the hands of ence to one of the worthiest of causes. others, yet, considering ourselves in the The time is not far distant from us, when light of those to whom these oracles are a christianizing enterprise was traduced committed, it is a matter of urgent conas a kind of' invasion on the safety and cern, whether, to us personally, the gain Innocence of Paganism-when it was the or the loss will predominate. It is even burden of an eloquent and well-told re- of present advantage to the nation at gret, that the simplicity of Hindoo man- large, that the word of God circulates:n ners should so be violated-when some- such freedom and with such freqrtiecy thing like the charm of the golden age among its numerous families. But this was associated with these regions of pri- only-because the good rendered to some meval idolatry-and it was affirmed, that, prevails over the evil of that additional though idolatry is blind, yet it were better guilt which is incurred by many. And not to awaken its worshippers, than to still it resolves itself, with every separate drag them forth by instruction to the individual, into the question of his secured hazards and the exposures of a more fearful responsibility. We trust you perceive * We forbcar to expatiate over aaain upon this parti. from our text, that, even though the con- illar argum-ent, as we have alreadybrought it forward is thk 15th Sermon of our Commercial Discoursos —at ve'-ts were few and the guilty scorners of 374, Vol. VI. o mte Series. 7 g5 LECTURE VIII.-CHAPTER III, 1, 2. heaven, or his mrore aggravated hell- world that is soon to pass away; an a, liv. whether he be of the some who turn the ing as we list, kept by our guilty indiffer. message of God into an instrument of ence to offers so full of tenderness, to conversion; or of the many who, by neg- prospects of glory so bright and so al. lect and unconcern, render it the instru- luring. ment of their sorer condemnation. It But let us hope better things of you and may be more tolerable for Sodom and things tnat accompany salvation though Gomorrah than for him in the day of we thus speak. Let us call upon you to judgment. To have been so approached follow in the train of those Old Testament from Heaven with the overtures of salva- worthies, who, though few in number, so tion, as every man is who has the Bible redeemed the loss incurred by the general within his reach-to have had such invi- perverseness of their countrymen, as to tations at your door as you may have had make it on the whole for the advantage for the mere reading of them —to have of their nation that to them were commitbeen in the way of such a circular from ted the oracles of God. Be followers of God to our guilty species, which though them who through faith and patience are expressly addressed to no one individual, now inheriting those promises, which, yet, by the wide sweep of a "whosoever when in the flesh, they saw afar off, and will," makes it as pointed a message to were persuaded of them, and embraced all and to any, as if the proprietor of each them, and confessed that they were bible had received it under cover with the strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Deinscription of his name and surname from clare plainly by your life that you seek the upper sanctuary-that' God should another country; that you have no desire thus pledge HIimself to the offer of a free for a world where all is changing and pardon through the blood of Jesus, and breaking up around you —wheresin is the profess His readiness to pour out His Spi- native element, and death walking in its rit upon all who turn to Him that they may train rifles the places of our dearest relive-for Him to have brought Himself so membrance, of all those sweets of friendnear in the way of entreaty; and to have ship and society which wont to gladden committed, in the face of many high and them. Let the sad memorial of this heavenly witnesses who are looking on, world's frailty, and the cheering revelato have committed His truth to the posi- tions of another, shut you up unto the tion, that none who venture themselves on faith-Let them so place the alternative the revealed propitiation of the gospel, between time and eternity beforeyou, as and submit to the guidance of Him who to resolve for you which of them is far is the author of it, shall fail of an entrance better. And with such a remedy for guilt into life everlasting-Thus to have placed as the blood of an all-prevailing atonea blissful eternity within the step of crea- ment, defer no longer the work of recontures so utterly polluted and undone, is ciliation with the God whom you have indeed a wondrous approximation. But offended: and receive not His grace in O how tremendously will it turn the reck- vain; and turn to the study and perusal oning against us, should it be found that of those oracles which He hath granted though God thus willed our salvation, yet to enlighten you-knowing that they are we would not; and refusing to walk in indeed able to make you wise unto salvathe way which He with such a mighty tion, through the faith that is in Christ cost of expiation had prepared for us, Jesus. cleaved in preference to the dust of a LECTURE IX. ROMANS iii, 1-9. u hat advantage then hath the Jew I or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unito them were committed the oracles of God. For what if some did not believe i shall their unbelief rtake the faith of God without effect? God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged. But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance' (I speak as a man,) God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world 7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner? and not rather, (as we be slander iusly reparted, and as some affirm that we say,) Iet us do evil, that good may come —whose damnation is just 3 What then? are we better than they 1 No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they ar all under sin." You will recollect that by the argument' after having demonstrated the universality ot the foregoing chapter, our apostle, of Gentile guilt in the sight of God, at. LECTURE IX.-CHAPTER II, 1 —9. 5, tempts the same demonstration in refer- that we drew from this answer of the ence to the Jews. He proves, that, with apostle's-even, that though the Scriptures the possession of all that which distin- laid a heavier responsibility upon those guished them outwardly from other na- who had them, than upon those who had ions, they might fully participate in that them not; and though, in virtue of.this, condemnation to which sin has rendered the many among the ancient Hebrews us all liable; and even affirms as much were rendered more criminal than they as mav lead us to understand, that the else would have been, and were therefore privileges which belonged to them, when sunk on that account more deeply into an neglected and abused, were in fact so abyss of condemnation; and though they many circumstances of aggravation. It were only the few who by faith in these was very natural, that, at this point of his Scriptures attained to the heights of celes. argument, he should conceive an objec- tial blessedness and glory-yet there must tion that might arise against it; and, speak- have been a clear preponderance of the ing in the person of an adversary, he pro- good that was rendered over the evil that poses this objection in the form of a ques- was incurred, seeing it to be affirmed by tion from him. This question he answers the inspired author of this argument that in his own name. And the remonstrance there was a clear advantage upon the. of his imaginary opponent, together with whole. We will not repeat the applicahis own reply to it, occupy the first and tions which we have already made of this second verses of the chapter upon which apostolic statement, to the object of vindiwe have entered. Look upon these two eating a missionary enterprise, by sendverses as the first step and commencement ing the light and education of Christianity of a dialogue, that is prosecuted onwards abroad-or of vindicating the efforts of to the 9th verse; and you have, in what diffusing more extensively than heretofore we have now read, a kind of dramatic in- the same education at home. But be terchange of argument, going on between assured, that it were just as wrong to Paul and a hostile reasoner, whom he abstain from doing this which is in itself himself, by an act of imagination, has good, lest evil should come-as it were to brought before him. This is a style of do that which is in itself evil, that good argumentation that is quite familiar in may come. Nor, however powerfully they controversy. The preacher will some- may have operated in retarn ng the best times deal with an objection, just in the of causes, is there any thing in the objecvery terms he would have done, if it were tions to which we there adverted, that cast in living conversation against him, ought to keep back our direct and immeby one standing before his pulpit; and diate entrance upon the bidden field of the writer, when he anticipates a resist- "Go and teach all nations"-" Go and ance of the same kind to his reasoning preach the gospel to every creature under will just step forward to encounter it, as heaven." he would have done, if an entrance were The apostle we conceive to be still actually made against him on the lists of speaking in h;s own person, throughout authorship. This is the way in which the the third and fourth verses. It i.s to be apostle appears to be engaged in the remarked that'some' in the original verses before us; and if you conceive signifies a part of the whole, but not them made up of objections put by an necessarily a small part of it. It may be antagonist, and replies to those questions a very great part and majority of' the by himsetf, it will help to clear your un- whole-as in that passage of the book of derstandingofthe passage now under our Hebrews, where it is said'some when consideration. they heard provoked-howbeit not all that You have already heard at length all came out of Egypt with Moses.' The the elucidation which we mean to offer, on truth is, that, as far as we historically the first question and part of the first know of it, all did provoke God upon that answer of' this dialogue. After the Jew occasion, save Joshua and Caleb, and had been so much assimilated in guilt to those younger of the people who were the Gentile, as he had been by the apostle still incapable of bearing arms. And in in the last chapter, the objection suggests Timothy we read that' some shall depart itself; Where then is the advantage of from the faith'-though the apostle is having been a Jew? Where-is the mighty there speaking of that overwhelming blessedness which was spoken of by God apostacy of the middle ages, which left to the patriarchs, as that which was to so faint and feeble a remainder of light to signalize their race above all the other Christendom for many centuries. And, in descendants of all other families? The like manner, were they the greater numreply given to this in the second verse is, ber of the Jews, who were only so in the that the chief advantage lay in their letter, and in the outward circumcision; having committed to them the oracles of and were not so in spirit, or in the cir. God. You will recollect the inference cumcision of theheart. They were greatly 52 LECTURE IX.-CHAPTER III, 1-9. the more considerable part who did not which he here supposes to be pled by an believe; and yet, in the fice of this heavy unbelieving Jew, was also charged, but deduction from the good actually rendered slanderously charged upon Christians. to the Jews, could the apostle still stand The way in which he sets aside the objecap'in the vindication of those promises tion in the 5th verse is, that, if admitted, which God held forth to their ancestors; God would be deprived of His power of of a blessing upon those who should come judging the world-and the objection in after them-letting us know, that, though the 7th and 8th verses set aside by the they were the many who aggravated their simple affirmation, that if there be any own condemnation, and the few who by who would do evil that good -may come inheriting the privileges inherited a bles- their condemnation is just. sing, yet the truth of God here called the Before urging these lessons any furthei faith of God, was not unfulfilled-that let us offer a paraphrase of these verses whatever comes in the shape of promise'What is the advantage then possessed or of prophecy from Him, will have its by the Jew, it will be said, or what beneverification-that whatever be the deceit- fit is it to him that he is of the circumcisfulness of man, Ged will still retain the ion? We answer that the benefit is great attribute given to Him by the apostle many ways-and chiefly that to that peoelsewhere, even that He cannot lie. So ple have been committed the revealed that, should it be questioned whether the scriptures of God. And even though the family of Israel, in consequence of God's greater part did not believe, yet still their dealing with them, had an advantage unbelief puts no disparagement on the over all the other families, it will be found veracity of God. Though all men were in the holy and faithful men of the old liars, this would detract nothing from the dispensation, few as they were; and it glory of God's truth; and, however this will be found on the great day of mani- objection may be pushed, it will be found festation, when all the reverses of Jewish in the language of the Psalmist that God history from the first calling forth of will be justified in all his sayings and will Abraham to their last glorious restoration overcome when He is judged. But to this shall have been accomplished-that Ile it may further be said, if God do not sufwill be justified in every utterance He fer in His glory by our guilt-nay if, out made respe.ting them, and that He will of the materials of human sinfulness, He overcome when He is judged of it. can rear a ministration by which He and'God forbid' is in the original simply all His attributes may be exalted —why'let it not be.' should He deal in anger -against those, In the fifth verse the apostle again brings whom He can thus turn into the instruforward his objector, and puts into his ments of His honour? The unrighteousmouth an argument. It is our unright- ness of mran sets off the righteousness of eousness, says he, which hath made room God; and He gets glory to Himself by our for God's righteousness in its place, which doings; and is it therefore a righteous sets off as it were, and renders it so worthy thing in Him to inflict vengeance on acof aIcceptation; and if this be the case, count of them? Such is the sophistry of might it not be said that it is not righteous vice, but it cannot be admitted-else the in God to inflict wrath for that which hath judgment of God over the world is at an redounded so much to the credit and the end. And it is further said by those who, manifestation of His own attributes. This in the language of a former chapter, have objection is brought forward in another turned God's truth into a lie-that that folrm in the 7th verse. If God's truth have hath made God's truth to abound the more been rendered more illustrious by my lie, unto His own glory-that He has so dealt or by my sin, and so He has been the more with them as to bring a larger accession glorified in consequence —why does He of glory to Himself; and where then is find fault with me, and punish me for sins the evil of that which finally serves tcwhich advance eventually His honour illustrate and make brighter than before Should we not rather sin that God's righte- His character? Should I be condemned ousness may be exalted, and do the instru- a sinner, for having done that which glo. mental evil that the ultimate good may rifles God — might not I do the instrumencome out of it? The apostle gives two tal evil, for the sake of the eventual good 3 distinct answers to these questions, after Such is the morality that has been charged giving us a passing intimation in the 5th upon us-but falsely so charged-for it is verse, that he is not speaking in his own a morality which ought to be reprobated.' person as an apostle when he brings for- In this passage the apostle touches, ward these objections, but only speaking though but slightly and transiently, on a as a man whom he supposes to set him- style of scepticism to which he afterwards self against the whole of his argument; adverts at a greater length in the 9th chapand tells us also in the 7th verse that the ter of this epistle; and we, in like manner, maxim of doing evil that good may come, shall defer the great bulk of our observa. LECTURE IX. —CIIAPTEIR II, 1 —-, 5 t:ons about it, till we have arrived at the man will readily take up with, as being things hard to be understood which are among the certainties of the Divine Govfound therein. But let us also follow the ernment; and not till he bewilders himapostle, in that fainter and more tempora- self by attempting to explain the secrery notice which he takes of these things cies of the Divine Government, will the on the present occasion-when before impression of these certainties be at all completing his proof that both Jews and deafened or effaced from the feelings of Gentiles were under sin, lie both affirms his moral nature. Now what the apostle that God was glorified upon the former in appears to be employed about in this passpite of their unrighteousness; and yet sage, is just to defend our moral nature deals with that unrighteousness as if' it against an invasion upon the authority of was an offence to Him-that even out of its clearest and most powerful suggestions. their disobedience an actual honour ac- The antagonists against whom he here crues to Himself; and yet that the ven- sets himself, feel themselves pursued by geance of His wrath is due to that disobe- his allegations of their guilt; and try to dience-that let the worthlessness of man make their escape from a reproachful be what it may, the vindication and the sense of their own sinfulness; and, for victory will be God's; and yet upon this this purpose, would they ambitiously lift very element of worthlessness, which up the endeavours of their understanding serves to illustrate the glories of His cha- towards the more high and unsearchable racter, will He lay the burden of a righte- counsels of God. It is very true, that, ous indignation. There was something in however sinfully men may conduct themthe subtlety of the Jewish doctors of that selves, He will get a glory to His own atage, which stood nearly allied with the tributes from all His dealings with them. infidel metaphysics of the present; and It is very true, that, like as the wrath of which would attempt to darken and to man shall be made to praise Him, so shall overthrow all moral distinctions, and to the worthlessness of man be made to redethrone God from that eminence, which, dound to the honour of God's truth and as the -nevral governor of the world, be- of God's righteousness. Should even all longs.o thim. And it is well that the men be liars, the veracity of God will be apostle g-rves us a specimen of his treat- the more illustrated by its contrast with ment of this sophistry, that, when exposed this surrounding evil, and by the fultilto it ourselves, we may know what is the ment upon it of' all His denunciations. scriptural way of' meeting it, and what are The Holiness of' the Divinity will blazenr,he scriptural grounds on which its influ- forth as it were into brighter conspicuousance may be warded away from us. ness, on the dark ground of human guilt The truth is, that, in the days of' the and human turpitude. God manifests the apostle as well as in our own (lays, spec- dignity of His character, in His manifestulative difficulties were made use of to ed abhorrence against all unrighteousness darken and confound the clearest moral and ungodliness of men. In the last day principles; and, then as well as now, did the glory of His powver will be made the imagination of men travel into a re- known, when the Judge cometh in flaming gion that was beyond them, whence they fire to take vengeance on those who disfetched conceits and suppositions of their obey Him; and even the very retribution own framing, for the purpose of extin- which He deals forth on the heads of the guishing the light that was near and round rebellious, will be to Him the trophies of about them. And some there were who an awful and lofty vindication. took refuge from the conviction of sin, in Now the objection reiterated in the vathe mazes of a sophistry, by which they rious questions of this passage is, that if' tried to perplex both themselves and others out of the unrighteousness of man, such a out of the plainest intimations of con- revenue as it were of fame and character science and common sense. There is no shall accrue to the Deity —why should He man of a fair and honest understanding, be offended 3 Why should He inflict so who, if' not carried beyond his depth by much severity on the sin, which after all the subtleties of a science falsely so call- serves to illustrate His own sacredness, ed, does not yield his immediate consent, and to exalt His own majesty! Why and with all the readiness he would do in should He lay such a weight of guilt on a first principle, to the position that God those, who, it would appear, are to be the is the rightful judge of His own creatures; instruments of His glory! Is not sin, if and that it is altogether for Him to place not a good thing in itself, at least a good the authority of a law over them, and to thing in its consequences, when it thus punish their violations; and that it is an serves to swell the pomp of the Eternal, unrighteous thing in us to set our will in and throw a brighter radiance around His opposition to His will, and a righteous ways? And might not we then do this thing in Him to avenge Himself of this evil thing that the final and the resulting disobedience. These are what any plain good may emerge out of it! And might 54 LECTURE IX.-CHAPTER III, 1-9. not that sin, which we have been taught enter. But we may at least remark, tha to shun as dishonouring to God, be there- this treatment of his adversaries by the tfore chosen on the very opposite princi- apostle is consonant with the soundest ple, of doing that which will ultimately maxims of' philosophy. We know not a bring a reversion of honour to His charac- better way of characterizing the spirit of ter, and of credit and triumph to all His that sound and humble and sober philosoadministrations? phy, which has conducted the human One would have thought, that the ob- mind to its best acquisitions on the field vious answer to all this sophistry, was, of natural truth, than simply to say of it, that if you take away from God the pre- that it ever prefers the certainty of experogative of judging and condemning and rience, to the visions of a conjectural Tnflicting vengeance, you take away from imagination —that it cautiously keeps Him all the ultimate glory which He ever within the line which separates the known can derive, from the sinfulness of His own from the unknown, and would never creatures-that the very way in which the suffer a suspicion fetched from the latter presence of sin sets forth the sacredness region, to militate against a plain certainty of the Deity, is by the abhorrence that lie that stands clearly and obviously before manifests towards it-that the unright- it on the former region. And when it eousness of man commendeth the right- carries its attention friom natural to moral eousness of God, only by God dealing science, it never will consent to a princiwith this unrighteousness, in the capacity ple of sure and authoritative guidance for of a judge and of a lawgiver-that if' you the heart and conduct of man in the strip Him of the power of punishment, present time, to be subverted by any you strip Him of the power of rendering difficulty drawn from a theme so inacsuch a vindication of His attributes, as cessible as the unrevealed purposes of will make Him venerable and holy in the God, or from a field of contemplation sc eyes of His own subjects-that, in fact, remote, as the glories which are eventhere remains no possibility of God fetch- tually to redound to the character of God ing any triumph to Himself, from the re- at the final winding up of His adminisbelliousness of His creatures, if He can- tration. not proceed in the work of moral govern- It is not for man to hold at obeyance ment against their rebellion. And thus, the prompt decisions of moral sense, till if God may not find fault, and if His judi- he make out an adjustment between them cial administration of the world is to be and such endless t~incies as may be conoverthrown. there will none of that glory jured up from the gulphs of misty and come to Him out of human sinfulness, metaphysicalspeculation. Both piety and which the gainsayer of our text pleads in philosophy lend their concurrence to the mitigation of human sinfulness. truth, that secret things belong to God, This Paul might have said. But it is and revealed things only belong to us instructive to perceive, that, instead of and to our children. He has written, not this, he satisfies himself with simply af- merely on the book of His revealed testi. firming the first principles of the ques- mony, but he has written on the book of tion. He counts it enough barely to state, our own consciences the lesson, that He that if there was anything in the reason- is rightfully the governor of the world, ing of his opponent, then God's right of and that we are rightfully the subjects of judging the world would be taken away. that government. There is a monitor He holds this to be a full condemnation.within, who, with a still and a small but of the whole sophistry, that, if it were ad- nevertheless a powerful voice, tells that mitted, how then could God judge the if' we disobey Him we do wrong. There world? With the announcement of' what is a voice of the heart which awards to is plain to a man of plain understanding, Him the place of sovereign, and to us the does he silence an argument which can place of servants. If He ought not to only proceed from a man of subtle under- judge, and may not impose the penalties standing. And in reply to the maxim, of disobedience, this relationship is alto-'let us do evil that good may come,' he gether dissolved. And it is too much for enters into no depths of jurisprudence or man to fetch, either fr'om the aerial region moral argumentation upon the subject; that is above him, or from the dark and but simply affirms that the condemnation hidden futurity that is before him, a of all who should do so were a righteous principle which shall lay prostrate the condemnation. authority of conscience, and infuse the It is not for us to enter on the philosophy baleful elements of darkness and distrust of any subject, upon which Paul does not into its clearest intimations. LECTUlRE X. —CIAPTER III, 9-19. 55 LECTURE X. ROMANS iii, 9-19. What thenrm ate we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews anct Genti-es, that'hey are all undtr sin: as it is written, Ther- is none righteous, no not one: there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are, dL[ gone out o: the way, they are together become unprotitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre: with th'eir tongues they have used deceit: the poison of asps is under their lips: whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: their feet are swift to shed blood: destruction and nmisery are in their ways: and the way of peace have they not known: there is no fear of God befli'e their eyes. Now we know, that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God." V. 9.' BETTER,' in respect of having a We here remark, in the first place, that righteousness before God. We have be- Paul had already, in the second chapter, fore charged Jews and Gentiles with be- affirmed the guilt of the Jews, and condeing under sin. We affirmed it to their own scended upon the instances of it. He can conscience. We now prove it tothe Jews scarcely be said to have proved their firom their own revelation. The follow- guilt; he had only charged them with it; ing is the paraphrase of this passage. and yet through the conscience of those'What then! are we Jews better than whom we address, it is very possible that those Gentiles in respect of our justifica- a charge may no sooner be uttered, than a tion by our own obedience? Not at all- conviction on the part of those against for we before charged both Jews and Gen- whom we are directing the charge, may tiles with being under sin. And we prove come immediately on the back of it. There it from God's written revelation, where it is often a power in a bare statement, is affirmed, that there are none who have a which is not at all bettered but rather inmrighteousness that He will accept-not even paired by the accompaniment of reasonone. There are none who are thus satisfied ing. If what you say of a man agree with with themselves, and feel no need of such his own bosom experience that it is really a justification as we p)ropose, that really so, there is a weight in your simple affirunderstandeth, or truly seeketh after God. mation which needs not the enforcing of They are all gone out of the way and any argument. It is this which gives such have become unprofitable, and there is authority to those sermons even still, that none of them that doeth what is substan- recommend themselves to the conscience; tially and religiously good-no, not one. and it was this, in fact, which gained more From their mouths there proceedeth every credit and acceptance for the apostles abomination; and they speak deceitfully than did all their miracles. They revealed with their tongues; and the poison of to men the secrets of their own hearts; malignity distils from their lips; and and what the inspired teacher said they their mouth is full of imprecation upon were, they felt themselves to be; and others, and of bitterness against them. nothing brings so ready and entire an And they not only speak mischief, but homage to the truth L. at is spoken, as the they do it; for they eagerly run to the agreement of its simple assertions with shedding of blood; and their way may be the finding of a man's own conscience. tracked, ats it were, by the destruction and This manifestation of the truth unto the the wretchedness which mark the progress conscience, which was the grand instruof it; and they know not and love not the mnent of discipleship in the first ages of way of peace; and as to the fear of God, the church, is the grand instrument still; tie is not looked to or regarded by them. and it is thus that an unlearned hearer, Now all this is charged upon men by the who just knows his own mind, may be book of the Jewish law. We are only re- touched as effectually to his conviction, peating qu!otations out of their own Scrip- by the accordancy between what a tures; and as what the law saith is intend- preacher says, and what he himself feels, ed for those who are under the law, and as the most profound and philosophical not for those who are strangers to it and member of an accomplished congregation. beyond the reach of its announcements- And thus that obstinacy of unbelief, which all these sayings must be applied to Jews; we vainly attempt to carry by the power and they prove that it is not the mere of any elaborate or metaphysical demon. possession of a law, but the keeping of it stration, may give way, both with the unwhich secures the justification of those taught and the cultivated, to the bare stateover whom it has authority. Their ment of the preacher-when he simply mouths, therefore, must also be stopped; avers the selfishness of the human heart; and the whole world, consisting of Jews and its pride, and its sensuality, and above and Gentiles, must all be brought in as all its ungodliness. guilty before God.' But Paul is not satisfied with this alonea 56 LECTURE X.-CHAPTER III, 9-19. He refers the Jews to their own Scriptures. and no wisdom which he more prizes, or He deals out quotations chiefly taken from to which he bows more profoundly, than the book of Psalms; and, in so doing, he that which by its piercing and intelligent avails himself' of what both he and the glance, can open to him the secrecies of other apostles felt to be a peculiarly fit his own heart, and force him to recognize and proper instrument of conviction, in a marvellous accordancy between its potheir various reasonings with the chil- sitions, and all the varieties of his own dren of' Israel. You meet with this style of intimate and home-felt experience. argumentation on many distinct occasions, The question then before us is-Does anld often ushered in with the phrase'as the passage now read bear such an acit is written.' It was thus that Christ ex- cordancy with the real character of man, pounded to his disciples what was written as that which we are now alluding to? It in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, abounds in affirmations of sweeping uniand in the psalms, concerning Him; and versalitv, and a test of their truth or of that these disciples again went forth upon their falsehood is to be found in every the Jews, armed for their intellectual war- heart. The apostle has here made a most fare out of the Old Testament. In almost adventurous commitment of himself-for, every interview they had with the He- however much he may have asserted about brews, you will meet with this as a pecu- matters that lay beyond the limits of huliarity which is not to be observed, when man experience without the hazard of beepistles are addressed, or conversations ing confronted, the matters which he has are held, with Gentiles only. Thus Ste- here touched upon all lie within the faphen gave a long demonstration to his miliar and well-known chambers of a persecutors out of the Jewish history; *and man's own consciousness. And the posiPeter rested his argument for Jesus Christ, tive announcements that he has made are on the interpretation that he gave of one not of some but of all individuals-so that of the prophetic psalms; and Paul, in his could a single specimen be discovered of sermon at Antioch, went back to the story a natural man, who was righteous, and of Egyptian bondage and carried his ex- who had the fear of God before his eyes, lanation downwards through David and and who either understood or sought after his family, to the doctrine of the remis- Him, and who was free of all malignity sion of sins by the Saviour, who sprang and cruelty and censoriousness-then from him; and, in the Jewish synagogue would this be a refutation in fact of what at Thessalonica, did he reason with them the apostle assumes and pronounces in three sabbath days out of the Scriptures; argument; and though it requires a minute and before the judgment-seat of Felix, did and multiform and unexcepted agreement he aver, that his belief in Jesus of Naza- between the book of revelation and the reth, was that of one who believed all the book of experience, to make out an evithings that are written in the law and in dence in behalf' of the former-yet would the prophets; and in argumenting the one single case of disagreement be enough cause of Christianity before Agrippa, did to overthrow all its pretensions, and to dehe rest his vindication on what Agrippa pose the apostles and evangelists of Chrisknew of the promises that were found in tianity, from all the credit which they the Old Testament; and when he met his have ever held in the estimation of the countrymen at Rome, it was his employ- world. ment, from morning to evening, to per- You know that the apostle's aim in the suade them concerning Jesus both out of' whole of this argument, is to secure the the law of Moses and out of the prophets. reception of his own doctrine; and that, He who was all things to all men, was a for this purpose, he is addressing himself Jew among the Jews. He reasoned with to those who need to be convinced, and them on their own principles, and no are therefore not yet convinced of it. They where more frequently than in this Epis- who have actually submitted themselves tle to the Romans —where, though he had to the truth which he is urging, and have previously spoken of their sinfulness to come under its influence, have arrived at their conscience, he yet adds a number the very understanding of God which he of deponing testimonies to.the same effect is labouring to establish. These are in from their own book of revelation. the way to which he is attempting to recal It is this agreement between the Bible and the whole human race, and must therefore a man's own conscience, which stamps be excepted from the charge of being upon the book of God one of its most satis- now out of the way. There are many fying evidences. It is this perhaps more such under the new dispensation; and than any thing else which draws the in- there were also some such under the old terest and the notice of men towards it. who must also be regarded as being on For after all, there is no way of fixing the the side of the apostle, but of whom the attention of man so powerfully as by apostle affirms, that ere they came over holding up to him a mirror of himself; to that side, as he does of every o,-e else, LECTURE X.-CHAPTER i1I, 9-19. 5t that they realized on their own persons, without exception too, all the families of the sad picture which he draws in this our species. Life has much to vex and to place of human degradation. The truth trouble it; and the heart is sadly plied is that there were men even of the Old with the visitations of' sorrow; and its Testament age, who were within the pale very sensibilities, which open up for i. of the gospel; and of whom, in conse- the avenues of enjoyment, expose it ere quence, it cannot be affirmed that they long to the heavier distress; and the exemplified the description which is here friends who in other years gladdened the set before us. But though, from the nature walk of our daily history, have left us of' the case, such a withdrawment must unsupported and alone in the midst of be conceded in behalf' of those who are a toilsome pilgrimage. And itwere really under the gospel, we are prepared to cruel to add to the pressure of a creature assert that the inspired writer has not so beset and borne in upon, by telling him overcharged the account that he has given of his worthlessness-did we not stand of the depravity of those who are under before him charged with the tidings of his the law-whether it be the law of con- possible renovation to the high prospects science, or of Moses, or even of the purer of a virtuous and holy immortality. Let morality of Christ-Insomuch that all who him therefore cast the burden of his desrefuse the mysteries of His grace, are pondence away; and, if there be a novelty universally in the wrong: And if they in the views that have been offered of his who are believers, still a very little flock, present condition, let it but allure him to are regarded as constituting the church; further inquiry; and if' any conviction and they who are not believers, still a have mingled with the exercise, let him vast and overbearing majority, are re- betake himself to the great fountainhead garded as constituting the world-then is of inspiration; and if he have found no it true, that, from one end to the other of rest in all his former unceasing attempts it, it lieth in wickedness, and that all the after happiness, let him try the new enterworld is guilty before God. prise of becoming wise unto salvation. Be assured then, that there is a delusion, Should this Bible be his guide; and prayer in all the complacency that y ou associate his habitual employment; and the great with your own righteousness. It is the sacrifice, with the intimation of which want of a godly principle which essen- Paul follows up his humiliating exposure tially vitiates the whole: And addtimonal of the wickedness of man, be his firm to this, with all the generosities and all dependence-with these new elements of the equities which have done so much for thought, and this new region of anticipayour reputation among men, there is a tion before him, he will reach a peace selfishness that lurks in your bosom; or a that the world knoweth not; and he will vanity that swells and inflames it; or a attain in Christ a comfort that he never preference of your own object to that of yet has gotten in any quarter of contemothers, which may lead you to acts or plation to which he has turned himself; words of unfeeling severity; or a regard and this kind Saviour, touched with a for some particular gratification, coupled fellow-feeling for his sorrows, both knows with a regardlessness for every interest and is willing to succour him, so as to which lieth in its way-that may render replace even in this world all the deducyou, in the estimation of Him who ponder- tions that he now mourns over, and at eth the heart, as remote a wanderer from length to bear him in triumph to that rectitude as he on the path of whose unfading country where there is no sorrow visible history there occurred in other and no separation.* times the atrocities of savage cruelty and savage violence. It were barbarous to - Our more copious illustration of this passage, is te tell you so-had we no remedy to offer for be found in the 15th of the' Corinercial Discourses' al. ready referred to; and which, therefore, we have not m. that moral disease which so taints, and peated in this place. 58 LECTURE XI. —CHAPTER IIIj 20-26 LECTURE XI. ROMANS iii, 20-26. X Therefcre by the deeds of' the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin. I at fnow the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, beillng witnessed by tile law and the pro. phets; even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Christ Jesus unto all and upon all them that believe;ior there is no difference; for all nave sinned, and come short of the glory of God;-being justified freely by hil grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a pr'pitiation through faith in his blood. to declare [iis righteousness for the remission of sins that are past. through the forbearance of God;to declare, I say, at this times his righteousness; that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." THERE is perhaps no single passage in of conviction, by interpreting, in a kind the book of inspiration, which reveals in a of corporate and collective way, all that way so formal and authoritative as the one is said by the apostle about the sinfulness before us, the path of transition by which a of Jews on the one hand and of Gentiles sinner passes fhoro a state of wrath to a state on the other. But let each of us only reof acceptance. There is no passage, to view his past life, or enter with the light which if we would only bring the docility of self-examination into the chambers of and the compliance of childhood, that is his own heart; and he will feel himself more fitted to guide and to turn an en- to be addressed by the phrase of' whosoquiring sinner into the way of peace. ever thou art, O man;' and he will feel Let the light which makes apparent to that in the clause of'every mouth being the soul, only shine upon these verses; stopped,' his own mouth should be stopped and there is laid before the man who also; and he will consent that he, a naquestions what it is that he must do to be tive of our world, has a part in the apossaved, the great link of communication on tle's asseveration about all the world being which he may be led along fiom the guilty before God; and he will readily ground of fearful exposure that nature accord with the Bible in that, whereas he occupies, to the ground of a secure and is a partaker of flesh and blood, he offers lasting reconciliation. Let him lay aside no exception to the averment, that, in the his own wisdom, and submit himself to the sight vf God, and by the deeds of the law, word of the testimony that is here pre- no flesh shall be justified. sented to his notice; and, taught in the It is through want of faith that we are true wisdom of God, he will indeed be- blind to the reality of the gospel; and it come wise unto salvation. It is an over- is also through want of faith we are blind ture of God's own making, and directly to the reality of the law. The generality applicable to the question of' dispute, that of readers see not any significancy in the there is between Him and the men who apostle's words, because they feel not any have offended Him. It is one setting sense of the things that are expressed by forth of the way in which He would have it. They are just as dead to the terrors the difference to be adjusted-nor can we of the law, as they are to the offers and conceive howdefenceless creatures, stand- invitations of the gospel. The sense of ing on the brink of an eternity for which God pursuing them with the exactions of they have no provision, and which never- an authority that He will not let down, is theless all of them must enter and abide just as much away from their feelings, as upon for ever, ought to have their atten- the sense of God in Christ beseeching them tion more arrested and their feelings more to flee for refuge to the hope set before engrossed and solemnized, than by the them. The man who is surrounded with communication of the apostle in this verse, an opake par ition, which limits his view and by the unfoldings of that embassy of to the matters that lie within the region peace that is here so simply and so truly of carnality, and hides from him alike the set before us. place of condemnation and the place of The apostle has by this time well nigh deliverance that lie beyond it-he may finished his demonstration of human sin- enjoy a peace that is without disturbance fulness; and he makes use of such terms because, though he have no positive hope as go to fasten the charge of guilt, not in from the gospel, he has no positive apprethat way of vague and inapplicable gener- hension from the law. He is alike insenality from which it is so easy for each sible to both; and not till, through an man to escape the sense of his own per- opening in that screen, which hides from sonal danger, and the remorse of his own nature the dread and important certainindividual conscience; but as go to fasten ties that are lying in reserve for all her the charge on every single member or de- children, he is made to perceive that God's scendant of the great human family. truth and righteousness are out against Theiv is a method of blunting the edge i him-will he appreciate the revelation of LECTURE XI.-CHAPTER III, 20-26. 59 that great mystery, by which it is made not as God;' and they therefore are short Known how truth and mercy have met of having wherewith to glory of before together, and how righteousness and peace God. Even Abraham had nothing to glory have kissed each other. of before God; and of consequence no Let us now proceed to the exposition of claim or title to be glorified by God. this passage. V. 24. You understand that the term Mark in the 20th verse how this ques- justify signifies, not to make a man righttion is treated as one between God and eous in personal character, but to hold and mrrin. It is not that one man may not be declare him righteous in point of law. jr.cstified in the sight of another-may not We have already explained that it is to be have fulfilled all that the other has a right understood forensically. We here underto expect; but the question is about justi- stand that this justification is not wrought fication in the sight of God. It is a judicial for, but given, and given freely. It is not proceeding before God. a purchase, but a present. It is given by V. 21. A'righteousness without the grace, which is just saying,that it isgiven law,' is simply a righteousness which we gratis. When we say that it is not a purobtain without having fulfilled that law in chase, we mean that it is not purchased our own persons. Paul never loses the by ourselves. Still however it was puradvantage of any testimony that is given chased, but by another. To redeem is to to the doctrine of Christ out of the Jewish recover what is lost, but by rendering an Scriptures; and while he therefore raises adequate price for it. We had lost rightagainst himself the opposition of the great eousness in the sight of God. Jesus Christ majority of his countrymen, by asserting redeemed the righteousness that we had a righteousness that was arrived at in lost. He gave the price for it; and we some other way than through the path of are freely offered that thing which is the obedience to their law, yet he does not fruit of His purchase. omit the opportunity of trying to disarm V. 25.'Set forth.' Exhibited. This is this opposition, by avouching that this very my beloved Son in whom I am well righteousness was borne witness to by the pleased. Set forth before the eyes. The law and the prophets. The testimonies term propitiation is the same with what in of the prophets are various and abundant the Old Testament is translated mercyon this topic; for a view of the testimo- seat. On the great day of atonement it nies of the law, we refer you to Paul's was sprinkled with the blood of an apEpistle to the Hebrews. pointed sacrifice.' And there I will meet V. 22. The righteousness which is pro- thee," says God to Moses, " and will com. posed by the apostle, as that which alone mune with thee from above the mercyis valid to the object of justification, is seat." It rather, however, signifies the ofcalled by him the righteousness of God. fering itself, than the place in which the It is that the acceptance of which does offering was sprinkled. You know what not dishonour Him. It is that which Ile it is to make the Being whom you have Himself has provided, and which He offended propitious. The propitiation is bestows as a grant to all who will. We the offering by which propitiousness is cannot speak too plainly about an alter- obtained. Jesus Christ in dying, rendered native, on which there hinges the whole a propitiation for the sins of the world. eternity of a sinner. Conceive the sinner And you in particular have the benefit of to draw nigh, in the imagination of his this propitiation; He becomes your proown merits -God says to him,'I cannot pitiation upon your having faith in His receive you upon this footing, but here is blood. There is a general faith which rea righteousness which I hold out to you, spects the whole testimony of' God, that, wrought not by yourself but by my Son, if true and not counterfeit, will also reand I now ask your consent that you be spect all the particulars of that testimony. clothed upon therewith. Come to me, Still however there is a danger inconnect. consenting to be so clothed upon, and I ing our reconciliation with this general take you into full reconciliation.'-' Unto faith; for there may be a delusive vagueall.' The offer of this righteousness is ness, you will observe, in the matter, and upon all who believe. Their belief con- the attention may fail to be exercised on stitutes their acceptance of the thing of- that distinct truth with which reconciliafered; and what was formerly theirs in tion has most expressly and immediately offer, becomes by- their faith theirs in pos- to do. Let it be well remarked then, that session'.'No difference.' There is no in this verse propitiation is said to be difference between Jew and Gentile, in through faith in his blood. There is an aprespect of all having sinned; and there propriateness of this kind kept up in God's is as little difference in respect of the dealings with us. Through faith in the way in which all may be justified. blood of Christ, we obtain that redemption V. 23. Come short of glorifying God- which is through this blood, even the for. When they knew God they glorified him giveness of sin. It is through faith in ,60 LECTURE XI.-CHAPTER III, 20-26. God's promise of the Holy Spirit that we conferred on all who believe without dis. shall upon asking Him receive the IIoly tinction. For all have sinned and come Spirit. This latter act of faith brings short of rendering glory to God; and down upon us the benefit of which it is none are therefore justified in the way of the object, even the Spirit-as the former reward, but receive justification as a gift act of faith brings down upon us the bene- of kindness, out of that which has been fit of which it is the object, even the wash- purchased for us by Christ Jesus —whom ing away of our guilt in the blood of the God hath set forth to be a propitiation Lamb. As is the faith, so is the fulfil- through faith in His blood; and thus tc ment.'Our Saviour did not ask the blind declare the righteousness of God, in tHis men-Believe ye that I am able to do all having forborne to punish the sins of things?-but Believe ye that I am able to those who were forgiven in the former do this thing 3 And upon their replying ages of the world-to declare this right-Yes, HIe touched their eyes and said, eousness to us now, and so make it maniAccording to your faith so be it done unto fest, that it was not merely a kind and a you-and their eyes were opened. The compassionate, but also a just thing in man who has faith that he will get the God, to justify him who believeth in Jesus. Spirit of Charity, and prays accordingly- The first lesson that we should like to though he should get forgiveness on the urge upon you from this passage, is the back of' his prayer, is not getting accord- gospel doctrine of our acceptance with ing to that faith. The man who has the God, in all the strict entireness and purity faith that Christ's Spirit can sanctify him, of its terms. There is nothing which so and prays for it-though he should get much darkens the mind of an inquirer, forgiveness on the back of his prayer, is and throws such a cloudiness over the not getting according to that faith. But simple announcements that God has made the man who has the faith that the blood to us, as the tendency of a legal spirit, to of Christ can wash away guilt, and prays mix up the doings of the creature with that in this blood his guilt may be washed the free grace and mercy of the Creator. away, and onl the back of his prayer is Take up with it as an absolute truth, that accepted in the Beloved and for IIis sake the law has condemned you. Be very -he is getting precisely according to his sure that this is the sentence which is in faith. An(l thus it is that there is an ac- force, against even the most virtuous and cordancy between the benefits of faith, upright of the species. Do not try to and the particular truths'of revelation mitigate the evils of your condition, or to which faith has respect unto-when it blunt the edge and application of tle law, brings down these benefits upon the be- as having pronounced a destroying senliever. Faith has been compared by some tence upon your person-by alleging any theologians to the bunch of hyssop, and extenuation of your offences, or any numthe blood of Christ is called the blood of ber of actual conformities. You have sprinkling. broken the law in one point, have you For'as to' the remission of sins that not So only has the assassin done, in are past. To declare TIis righteousness, respect to the law of his country. His in the having remitted by his forbearance, execution is the legal consequence of his the sins of the ages that are past. guilt; and by that you will carry out V. 26. It is at this time that God hath your guilt to its legal consequence. It set Him forth. HIe now shows what was will be better for you that you regard before hidden from the prophets. In the yourself, as under the law to be wholly fulness of time Christ is now manifested. undone. If you do not you will keep out It was a mystery in former ages, how a from your mind the whole clearness and holy God could pardon. This is now comfort of the gospel. If you admit any declared; and it is now rnade manifest merit, or any innocence of your own, that God might be just, while he justifies among the ingredients of your security those who believe in Jesus. before God- then all is thrown back The following is the paraphrase of this again upon a questionable and precarious passage. and uncertain foundation. The conlro-'Therefore no individual shall work versy between God and man is wakened out a righteousness that justifies him by up anew, by such a proceeding. You are his doing of the law-for the law makes again consigned, as before, among the old his sin manifest. But now, in lack of this elements of doubt and distrust; and the righteousness of man, there is manifested question, what degree of comparative a righteousness of God-not consisting of innocence is enough to admit your own our obedience to the law, though both the righteousness into the plea of justification law and the prophets bear witness to it. before God, will, by its ambiguous and This is that righteousness of God, which unresolvable nature, remove you as far is received by our faith in Christ Jesus, fiom any solid ground of dependence, as which is offered unto all, and actually if there was no righteousness of another LECTURE XI.-CHAPTErR III, 20-26. 61 in which you might appear, and as if no ness with which Paul, in his Epistle to propitiation had been made for you. If' the Galatians, warded off the rite of cir you want peace to your own minds, and cumcision from the church. He woulg a release to yourself' from all its perplexi- admit of no compromise between ona ties-belter that you discard all the items basis of acceptance and another. This of your own personal merit from the were inserting a flaw and a false principle account of your acceptance with God. Go into the principle of our justification; and not to obliterate that clear line of demar- to import the element of falsehood were to cation which the apostle has drawn, be- import the element of feebleness. We tween salvation by works and salvation call upon you, not to lean so much as the by grace, and which he proposes to us as weight of one grain or scruple of your the only two terms of an alternative confidence upon your own doings-to which cannot be compounded together; leave this ground entirely, and to come but of which, if the one be chosen, the over entirely to the ground of a Redeemother must be entirely rejected. The er's blood and a Redeemer's righteousness. foundation of your trust before God, must Then you may stand firm and erect on a either be your own righteousness out and foundation strong enough and broad out, or the righteousness of Jesus Christ enough to bear you. You will feel that out and out. To attempt a composition your feet are on a sure place; and we of them is to lean on a foundation, of know nothing that serves more effectually which many of the materials may le to clear and disembarrass the mind of an solid; but many of them also are brittle, inquirer from all its perplexities, than and all of them are frailly cemented toge- when the provinces of the lawv and the ther with untempered mortar. If you are gospel', instead of mingling and mutlually to lean upon your own merit, lean upon it encroaching, the one upon the other, come wholly-If you are to lean upon Christ, to be seen in all the distinctness of their lean upon Him wholly. The two will not character and offices. The law ministers amalgamate together; and it is the attempt condemnation and nothing else. The to do so which keeps many a weary and gospel, by its own unaided self, ministers heavy-laden inquirer at a distance from that righteousness which finds acceptance rest, and at a distance from the truth of with God. God has simply set forth the gospel. Maintain a clear and a con- Christ to be a propitiation. You have to sistent posture. Stand not before God look upon Him as such, and He becomes with one foot upon a rock, and the other your propitiation. Make no doubt of its upon a treacherous quick-sand. And it is being an honest exhibition, which God not your humility alone which we want makes of His Son. It is not an exhibition to inspire-it is the stable peace of your by which He intends to deceive you. hearts that we are consulting, when we And great will be your peace, when thus tell you that the best use you can make drawn away from yourself, and drawn of the law is to shut your mouth when it towards the Saviour. It will be the comoffers to speak in the language of vindi- mencement of a trust, that will establish cation; and to let its requirements on the the heart in comfort; and, though a mvsone hand, and your rebellion on the other, tery which cannot be demonstrated to the give you the conviction of sin. world, will it be the experience of every In stepping over from the law as a true believer, that it is the commencement ground of meritorious acceptance, step of an affection which will establish the over from it wholly. Make no reserva- heart in the love and in the habit of holitions. You are aware of the strenuous- ness. LECTURE X.I. ROMANS iii, 27-31. u Where is boasting then? It is excluacQ. By what law? of works? nay; but by the law of faith. Theretore we conclude, that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the God of the Jews only t is he not also of the Gentiles I Yes, of the Gentiles also: seeing it is one God which shall justify the circumcision D, falth, and uneircumcision through faith. L)o we then make void the law through faith I God forbid: yea, we establish the law." THE term law may often be taken in a nify the method of succession, by which more general acceptation, than that of an one event follows another-either in the authoritative rule for the observation of moral or the physical world; and it is those who are subject to it. It may sig- thus that we speak of a law of nature, or 62 LECTURE XII. —CHAPTER III, 27 —31. a law of the human mind, thereby deno- justification there would still be room foi ting the train or order of certain consecu- boasting-and we must therefore conclude tive facts, which maintain an unvarying since boasting is done away that they dependence among themselves. Both the have no part at all —and that man is jus law of works, and the law of faith, though tified by faith without the deeds of the the judicial character of God is strongly law. Is He only the God of the Jews? Ovinced in the establishment of them, may Is He not also the God of the Gentiles? be understood here in this latter sense Yes, of the Gentiles also-seeing that He which we have just now explained. The the same God dispenses justification to both law of works, is that law by which the in the same way, that is, justifying the event of a man's justification follows, circumcision by faith and also the uncirupon the event of his having performed cumcision by faith. Do we then make these works. The law of faith is that the law void through faith? By no means. law, by which the event of a man's justi- We rather establish the law.' fication follows, upon the event of his We now proceed as usual to press upon conceiving faith-just as the law of gra- you, any such lessons as may be extractvitation is that law upon which every ed from the passage of the day. body above the surface of the earth, when And first you know it to be a frequent its support is taken away, will fall to- evasion, on the part of those who dislike wards its centre. And as the law of re- the utter excluding of works fiom that fraction is that, upon which every ray of righteousness which justifies a sinner belight, when it passes obliquely from air fore God, that they hold the affirmation into water, is bent from the direction of Paul upon the subject to be of the cewhich it had formerly. remonial and not of the moral law. They V. 29. It is good, for the purpose of are willing enough to discard obedience keeping up in your mind the concatena- to the former, but not obedience to the tion that obtains between one part of the latter, as having any efficacy in justificaepistle and the other, to mark every re- tion. And they will further acknowledge, currence of similar terms which takes that they have a much higher esteem for place in the prosecution of' its argument. the latter than for the former; that they He had in the second chapter, made a think greatly better of the man who has pointed address to the Jew-who rested in the rectitudes of morality to signalise his the law, and made his boast of God. He character, than of the man who has only now excludes his boasting; and in doing the ritual observations of a punctual and so reduces the Jew and the Gentile to the prescribed ceremonial to signalise his same condition of relationship with God. character; that all rites, be they Jewish V. 30. The term' one' may either be or Christian, have a greatly inferior place taken numerically, or refers to the unity in their estimation, to the virtues of social and unchangeableness of God's purpose. life, or to the affections of an inward and By a preceding verse, the works of the enlightened piety-insomuch that should law are set aside in the matter of our jus- there stand before them an individual of tification. And it comes in as an appro- fidelity incorruptible, and of honour fear. priate question-Is the law made void less and unspotted, and of humanity ever through this? 3What would have been breathing the desires of kindness and ever consequent upon obedience to the law, is busying itself with deeds of kindness in now made consequent upon faith; and behalf of our species, and of' patriotism does this nullify the law? No, it will be linking all its energies with the good of found that it serves to establish the. law, his native land, and of gentleness shedsecuring all the honour which is due to ding its mild and pleasing lustre over the the Lawgiver; perpetuating the obligation walks of private companionship, and of and authority of the law itself; and in- affection kindling its still more intense troducing into the heart of the believer and exquisite charm in the bosom of his such new principles of operation, as to home-why there would not be one mowork conformity between the law of God ment's hesitation with them, whether the and the life of man, a conformity that is j homage of their reverential and regardful ever making progress here and will at feelings, were more due to such an indilength be perfected hereafter. vidual, even though a stranger to the puThe passage now expounded scarcely ritanical regions of the sabbath and of the requires any paraphrastic elucidation at sacrament; or to him, who, trenched in all-yet agreeable to our practice we shall the outward regularities of worship and still offer one. of ordinance, had less of the graces and'Where is boasting then? It is ex- less of the honesties of character to adorn eluded. In what method? By the me- him-and you can well anticipate their thoti of justification through works? No, reply to the question, Which of the two it is by the method of justification through had the more to boast of-the man of so. faith. BuIt if works had any part in our cial worth or the man of a saintly exterior! LECTURE XIL.-CHAPTER III, 27-3;. 63 W e are far from disputing the justness greater tendency to boast of ceremonial of fneir preference for the former of these observations, then was the righteousness two men-but we would direct them to the of the ceremonial law most severely use that they should make of this prefer- struck at by the apostle, as having no ence, when turning to its rightful and con- place in our justification. But if there be sistent application the statement of our now a greater tendency to boast of moral apostle, that from the affair of our justifi- observations, now is the righteousness of cation all boasting is excluded. We ask the moral law most pointedly the object them upon a reference to their own prin- of his attack, as out of' propriety and of ciples and feelings, whether this assertion place in the matter of our justification. of the inspired teacher points more to the In a word, this verse has the same power exclusion of the moral or of the ceremo- and force of conclusion still, that it had nial law? Is it not the fair and direct an- then. It then reduced the boastful Jew to swer that it points the more, to that of which the same ground of nothingness before men are inclined to boast the more? To God, with the Gentile whom he despised. set aside the law of works in the matter And it now reduces the eloquent exof our justification is not to exclude boast- pounder of human virtue to the same ing at all-if it be only those works that ground, with that drivelling slave of rites are excluded, which beget no reverence and punctualities whom he so tastefully, when done by others, and no compla- and from the throne of his mental supecency when done by themselves. The riority, so thoroughly despises-shutting exclusion of boasting might appear to the in fact every mouth, and making the mind of an ol(l Pharisee, as that which righteousness of all before God, not a went to sweep away the whole ceremo- claim to be challenged, but a gift to be nial in which he gloried. But for the very humbly and thankfully accepted of from same reason should it appear to the mind His hands. of him who is a tasteful admirer of virtue, This is far from the only passage, howto sweep away the moral accomplish- ever, which excludes the moral as well ments in which he glories. To him, in as the ceremonial law from any standing fact, the ceremonial law, in which he has in the province of our justification. In no disposition to boast whatever, is not many places it is said, that our justificaso touched by the affirmation of the apos- tion is not of works in the general, and tie, as the moral law on which alone he without any addition of the term law at would ground a boastful superiority of all, to raise the question whether it be the himself over others. The thing which is moral or ceremonial law that is intended. shut out here from the office of justifica- And in the preceeding part of the epistle, tion, is that thing which excites boasting they are moral violations which are chiefly in man. Carry this verse to the Jew who instanced, for the purpose of making it vaunted himself that he gave tithes and out, that by the deeds of the law no flesh fasted twice in the week; and these are shall be justified. In the theft and adulthe observances, which, as to any power of tury and sacrilege of the second chapter, justifying, are here done away. Carry and in the impiety and deceit and slander this verse to the man who stands exalted and cruelty of the third, we see that it over his fellows, either by the integrities was the moral law, and the offence of a which direct or by the kind humanities guilty world against it, which the apostle which adorn him; and these are the vir- chiefly had in his eye; and when, as the tues, which, as to their power of' justify- end of all this demonstration, he comes ing, are just as conclusively done away. to the conclusion of the world's guiltWhatever you are most disposed to boast why should we restrict the apostle, as if of, it is that upon which the sentence of he only meant to exclude the ceremonial expulsion most pointedly and most deci- from the office of justifying? When he sively falls; and the ground of a Phari- says that by the law is the knowledge of see's dependence on his conformities to sin, is it the ceremonial law only that is the ceremonial law, is not more expressly intended-when in fact they were moral cast away by this passage-than is the sins that he had all along been specifying t ground of his dependence, who, in our Or is it the sole purpose of the apostle, to own more refined and cultivated age, humble those who made their boast of the would place his dependence before God ceremonial law-when he instances how on those moralities, which to him are the the law administered to himself the conobjects of a far more enlightened admira- viction of his sinfulness, by fastening tion, and of a far juster and truer com- upon the tenth commandment, and telling placency. us that he had not been criminal, except It is thus, that the towering pretensions, the law had said, thou shalt not covet! even of the most moral and enlightened What do you make of the passage where of our sages in modern days, may be ut- it is said, that we are saved-not by works terly overthrown. If there was then a of righteousness, which we have done - a4 LECTURE XII. —CHAPTER III, 27-31. Does not this include all doings, be they that sun which stands visibly before you of a moral or be they of a ceremonial -whatever glory may accrue to irimr character? And in the verses which in- who arrayed this luminary in his brightmediately precede this quotation from ness, and endowed you with that won. Titus, whether think you was the moral drous mechanism, which conveys the peror the ceremonial law most in the apostle's ception of it. There is no part of the head-when, in alleging the worthlessness glory of a gift, ascri bed to the mendicant, of all the previous doings of his own con- who simply looks to it-whatever praise verts, he charged them with serving divers of generosity may be rendered to Him lusts and pleasures, and with living in who is the giver; or still more to Him who malice and envy —hateful and hating one hath conferred upon the hand its moving another? This distinction between the power, and upon the eye its seeing faculty. moral and ceremonial, is, in fact, a mere And even though the beggar should be device, for warding off a doctrine, by told to wait another day, and then to walk which alienated nature feels herself to be to some place of assignation, and there to pained and humbled and revolted, in all obtain the princely donation that was at ages of the world. It is an opiate, by length to elevate his family to a state of which she would fain regale the lingering independence-in awarding the renown sense that she so fondly retains of her that was due upon such a transaction, own sufficiency. It is laying hold of a would it not be the munificence of the twig, by which she may bear herself up, dispenser that was held, to be all in all; in her own favourite attitude of indepen- and who would ever think of lavishing one dence upon God; and gladly would she fraction of acknowledgment, either upon secure the reservation of some merit to the patience, or upon the exertion, or upon herself; and of some contributions out of the faith of him who was the subject of her own treasury, to the achievement of all this liberality! And be assured that her own justification. But this is a pro- in every way, there is just as little to boast pensity, to which the apostle grants no ot on the part of him, who sees the truth quarter, and no indulgence whatever. of the gospel, or who labours to come Wherever it appears, he is sure to appear within sight of it, or who relies on its proin unsparing hostility against it; and mrises after he perceives them to be true. never will your mind and the mind of the His faith, which has been aptly termed inspired teacher be at one, till, reduced to the hand of the mind, may apprehend the a sense of your own nothingness, and offered gift and may appropriate it; but leaning your whole weight on the suffi- there is just as little of moral praise to be ciency of another-you receive justifica- rendered on that account, as to the beggar tion as wholly of grace, and feel on this for laying hold of the offered alms. It is ground that every plea of boasting is with the ma.n whom the gospel has reoverthrown. lieved of his debt, as it is with the man We may here notice another shift, by whom the gold of a generous benefactor which nature tries to ease herself of a has relieved of his. There is nothing in conclusion so mortifying. She will at the shape of glory that is due at all to the times allow justification to be of faith receiver; and nothing could ever have wholly; but then she will make a virtue conjured up such an imagination, but the of her faith. All the glorying that she delusive feeling that cleaves to nature of would have associated with her obedienne her own sufficiency. There is not one to the law, she would now transfer to her particle of honour dlue to the sinner in acquiescence in the gospel. The docility, this affair; and all the blessing and honand the attention, and the love of truth, our and glory of it must be rendered Him, and the preference of light to that dark- who, in the face of His manifold provocaness which they only choose whose deeds tions, and when He might have illustrated are evil-these confer, in her fond estima- both the power of His anger and the trition, a merit upon believing; and here umphs of His justice, gave way to the therefore would she make a last and a movements of' a compassion that is infidesperate stand, for the credit of a share nite; and had with wisdom unsearchable, in her own salvation. to find out a channel of conveyance-by If the verse under consideration be which, in consistency with the glory of true, there must be an error in this imagi- such attributes and with the principle of nation also. It leaves the sinner nothing such a government as are unchangeable, to boast of at all; and should he continue He might call His strayed children back to associate any glorying with his faith, again to the arms of an offered reconciliathen is he turning this faith to a purpose tion, and lavish on all who cortne the gifts directly the reverse of that which the of a free pardon in time anil a full per. apostle intends by it.'fection of happiness through,eternity. There is no glory, you will allow, to And to cut away all pretensions to glo. yourself, in seeing with your eyes open rying on the score of faith-the faith it. LECTURE XII. —CHAPTER I1II 27-31. 6? self is a gift. The gospel is like an offer but he must also awaken his eye to the madte to one who has a withered hand; perception of it. And let him who wants and power must go forth with the offer ere the faith cavil as he may, in the vain imthe hand can be extended to take hold of agination of a sufficiency that he would it. The capacity of simply laying hold still reserve for mall in the matter of him of the covenant of peace, is as much a redemption-certain it is, that he who has grant, as is the covenant itself. The help- the faith, sees the hand of God both in less and the weary sinner, who has looked conferring it at the first, and in keeping so fruitlessly after the faith which is unto it up afterwards. And. thankful )both for salvation, knows that the faculty of see- the splendour of his hopes, and for the ing with his mind, is just as necessary to faculty of seeing it, his is an unmixed senhim, as is the truth itself' which is address- timent of humility and gratitude to the ed to it. He knows that it is not enough being, who has called him out of darkness for God to present him with an object; into the marvellous light of the gospel. LECTURE XII[. ROMANS iv, 1-8. "What shall we then say that Abraham, our father as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraliam were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory, but not before God. For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto hin ltr rigliteousliess. Now to him that worketh is the rewaird not reclkoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Even as David also describeth the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works, Saying Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin." PAUL never forgets, in the course of this observances, was necessary to perfect argument, that he is addressing himself their acceptance with God. Paul pro. to Jews; and, bred as he was in all their fesses of h-imself, that he gloried not in the prejudices, he evinces a strong and a flesh; and, in enumerating the reasons ready sense of the antipathies, that he which might have led him so to glory, he would ever and anon be stirring up in refers, not merely to his descent, but to their minds, by the doctrine on which he his circumcision, and to his pharisaical expatiated. Ile knew how much they all zeal, and to his blamelessness in regard to gloried in Abraham and how natural it the righteousness of the law. Abraham was for them therefore to feel that Abra- had rites and performances laid on him, ham had something to glory of in him- and he was punctual in their observation; self; and, as he urged that faith which and the question is, What did Abraham excludes boasting, the case of the patriarch procure by these services? occurred to him; nor could he have se- Ver. 2. If by these services he was juslected a better than that of one so emi- tified, he has whereof to glory, whereof nently the favourite of God as he was, for to boast himself. But no! his boasting illustrating the principle upon which God too must be excluded. He has nothing holds out friendship and acceptance to whereof to glory of before God. mankind. Ver. 3. Genesis, XV., 6. This is said Ver. 1. The term flesh does not stand of Abraham, previous, by several years, related to the circumstance of Abraham to the institution of the great Jewish rite being our father. It does not mean what of circumcision. He was in favour with is it that Abraham, our fuather by eartnly God, before this deed of' obedience. He descent, hath found-but what is it that was dealt with by Jod as a righteous per. Abraham our father hath found by his son, before this work of righteousness was natural or external performances. What- done by him. God had declared Himself ever can be done by the powers of nature, to be his reward; and by his trust in this can be done by the flesh. The outward declaration, did he become entitled to the observances of Judaism can be so done; reward. This conferred on it the characand thus the Mosaic law is termed by Paul ter of a gift. Otherwise it would have the law of a carnal commandment. In been the payment of a debt, as of wages the question he puts to the Galatians- rendered for services performed. " Having begun in the Spirit are ye now Ver. 4. It would not have been regard. made perfect by the flesh?" he is expos- ed as a gratuitous thing, but as a thing tulating with those who thought that the due. rite of circumcision, one of the Jewish Ver. 5. Observe a few things her. 66 LECTURE XIII. —CHAPTER IV) 1 —8. The man who has obtained justification count of works done, either before or after may be looked upon as in possession of a the deed of conveyance has passed into title-deed, which secures to him a right to his hands. But no sooner does he lay God's favoulr. The question is. How comes hold of the deed, than he begins, and that he into possession of this title-deed? Did most strenuously, to qualify himself for he work for it, and thus receive it as a re- the possession-to translate himself into turn for his work 1 No, he did not work the kindred character of heaven-to wean for it; and thus it is that justification is to himself away fi'om the sin and the sordidhim who worketh not-that is, he did ness of a world, which he no longer renothing antecedent to his justification to gards as his dwelling-place-and, with a bring this privilege down upon him; and foot which touches lightly that earth from it is a contradiction to allow that it is by which he is to ascend so soon into the doing anything subsequent to justification fields of eternal glory that are above him, that he secures this privilege, for it is se- to aspire after the virtues that are current cured already. He is now in possession there; and, by an active cultivation of his of it. Hie hats not to work for the purpose heart, labour to prepat'e himself for a staof obtaining what he already has. And tion of happiness and honour among the neither did he work for it at the time that companies of the celestial. he had it not. He came to it not by doing We would further have you to remntrk, but by believing. tlis is like the case of that you must beware of having any such a man getting in a present the title to an view of faith, as will lead you to annex to estate. lie did not work for it before it it the kind of merit or of claim or of glowas presented, and so get it as a reward. rying under the gospel, which are annexIt was a gift. lie does not work for it af- ed to works under the law. This in fact ter it is presented, for it is his already. were iust animating with a legal spirit, But you must remark here-though it is the whole phraseology and doctrine of the not in consideration of works done either gospel. It is God who justifies. He drew before or after the grant that the privilege up the title-deed, and he bestowed the was bestowed —yet that is not to say, but title-deed. It is ours, simply by laying that the person so privileged becomes a hold of it. The donor who grants a busy, diligent, ever-doing, and constantly- worldly estate to his friend, counts his working-man. When it is said that the friend to have right enough to the property faith of him who worketh not is counted by having received it. God who offers us for righteousness —it is meant, that he an inheritance of glory, counts us to have does not work for the purpose of obtain- right enough to the possession of it by our ing a right of acceptance, and that it is relying on the truth and the honesty of not upon the consideration of his works the offer. Under the law, obedience would that this rite has been conferred upon have been that personal thing in us which him. But it is not meant that such a per- stood connected with our right to eternal son works not for any purpose at all. life. Under the gospel, faith is that perTo recur to the case of him who has a sonal thing in us which stands connected gratuitous estate conferred upon him, he with this right; but just as the act of neither worked for the estate before he stretching forth his hand to the offered obtained it, nor for it after he has obtain- alms, is that personal doing of the mendied it. But from the very moment of his cant that stands connected with his posassured prospect of coming into the pos- session of the money received by him. session of it, may he have become most Any other view of faith than that which zealously diligent in the business of pre- excludes boasting, must be altogether unparing himself for the enjoyment of all scriptural; and will mislead the enquirer; the advantages, and the discharge of all and may involve his mind in much darkthe obligations connected with this pro- ness, and in very serious difficulties. perty. He may have put himself under Where is boastingr then? It is excluded. the tuition of him who perhaps at one time By what law? Of faith. It is of faith possessed it, and do it thoroughly, and that it might be by grace-not that it could instruct him how to make the most might be a thing of merit, but a thing of of it. lie did not work for it; but now freeness-a present. Ye are saved by that he has got it he has been set most grace through faith. Conceive it a quesbusily a-working, though not for a right tion, whether a dwvelling-house is enlightto the property, yet all for matters con- ened by a candle from within, or by an nected with the property. He may forth- open window. The answer may justly with enter on a very busy process of edu- I enough be that it is by the window-and cation, to render him meet for the society yet the window does not enlighten the of those with whom he is now in kindred house. It is the sun which enlightens it. circumstances. And thus with the Chris- The window is a mere opening for the tian, who by faith receives the gift of eter- transmission of that which is from withnal life. It cannot be put down to the ac- out. Christ hath wrought out a righteous LECTURE XIII.-CHAPTER IV, 1-8. 67 ness for us that is freely offered to us of he hath nothing to glory of before God, God. By faith we discern the reality of And what saith the Scripture about this. this offer; and all that it does is to strike Not that Abraham obeyed, and his obedioGut, as it were, an avenue of conveyance, ence was counted; but Abraham believed by which the righteousness of another God, and his belief was counted unto him passes to us; and through faith are we for righteousness. Now to him that worksaved by this righteousness. eth and getteth reward for it, reward is Ver. 6 —8. They are Jewish authorities not a favour; but the payment of what is which Paul makes use of, when he wants due. But it is to him who worketh not.o school down Jewish antipathies-thus for a right to acceptance, but believeth on meeting his countrymen on their own Him wvho offereth this acceptance and jusground; and never better pleased than tifieth the ungodly, that his faith is countwhen, on the maxim of all things to all ed for righteousness. Even as David also men, he can reconcile them to a doctrine describeth the blessedness of him to whom which they hate, by quoting in favour of God reckoneth a righteousness without it a testimony which they revere. Take works-saying, blessed are they whose sin in its most comprehensive sense, as iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are including in it both the sin of' omission so hidden from remembrance, that they and the sin of performance; and then the are no longer mentioned. Blessed is the opposite to this, or sinlessness, will imply, man to whom the Lord will not reckon the not only that there has been no perform- guilt of his sin.' ance of what is wrong, but no omission of The first lesson we draw from this paswhat is right. In this sense sinlessness is sage is one which we have often urged in not a mere negation, but is fully equiva- your hearing; but aware of the difference lent to righteousness; and not to impute that there is between the work of urging sin, is tantamount to the imputation of a principle for the moral purpose of inrightcousness. It is clear that the righte- fluencing the heart, and the work of urgousness thus imputed, which the Psalmist ing a principle for the purpose of informrefers to, was a righteousness without ing and rectifying the judgment —we do works-that is, without such works as not feel it so much a vain repetition to could at all pretend to the character, or come over and over the same thing, for to any of the clai-ms of righteousness. the one of these purposes, as for the other For what were the works of those who of them. To say what is thoroughly aphad this righteousness imputed to them! prehended already, and that for the purThey were iniquities which had been for- pose of informing the mind, were tiresome given, and sins which had been covered. and inapplicable; but to say what, when There are certain technical terms in present to the view of the understanding, theology which are used so currently, that is fitted to work a spiritual impression, is they fail to impress their own meaning on said for the purpose of stirring up the the thinking principle. The term'im- mind. And this may be done, not in the pute' is one of them. It may hold forth way of presenting it with novelties; but a revelation of its plain sense to you- the mind may be so stirred up in the way when it is barely mentioned that the term of remembrance. And this, by the way, impute in the 6th verse, is the same in the suggests to us a very useful test of distincoriginal with what is employed in that tion, between one set of hearers and anoverse of Philemon where Paul says, 1 "If ther, which may be turned by you all into a he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee matter of self-application. The hearer, ought, put that on mine account? To whose main relish it is to regale his intel-'rnpute righteousness to a man without lect, will, in his appetite for what is original works, is simply to put righteousness down and argumentative and variegated, nauseto his account-though he has not per- ate, as tasteless and fatiguing, the constant formed the works of righteousness. recurrence of the few but all-impressive The following is the paraphrase of the simplicities of the gospel. The hearer, passage: whose ruling desire it is to refresh and to' What shall we make then of our fa- edify the spiritual life, will no more fbel ther Abraham; and how shall we esti- distaste to the nourishment that he has almate the amount of what he procured by ready taken in for the good of the soul, those works of obedience which he ren- than to the nourishment that he has aldered, and are still required of us by a ready and often taken in for the food of law that lays such things upon us as we the body. The desire for the sincere milk are naturally able to perform? For if of the word, is not desire for amusement Abraham did procure justification to him- that he may gratify a thirst for speculaself by these works, he hath something to tion-but a desire for ailment, that he may glory of-though we have just now af- grow thereby. And thus it is, that what firmed that all glorying is excluded. Our may be felt as unsufferable sameness by affirmation nevertheless stands good, for Ihim who roams with delight from one 68 LECTURE XIII.-CHAPTER IV, 1-8. prospect and one eminence to another in I term, we denominate his conversion —God the -scholarship of Christianity, may in is not the being whose moral and judicial fact be the staple commodity of a daily authority is practically recognized in any and most wholesome ministration to him of these virtues, and he has nothing to who, seeking like Paul for the practical glory of before God. objects of an acceptance and a righteous- It is thus we should like to convince the ness with God, like him counts all things good man of this world of his wickedness, but loss for the excellency of the know- and to warn him that the plaudits of the ledge of the Saviour; and like him is de- world's admiration here may be followed tcrmined to know nothing, but Jesus Christ up by shame and everlasting contempt and hitn crucified,. hereafter. In this visible and earthly Let us not therefore be prevented from scene, we are surrounded with human detaining you a few moments longer, by beings, all of whom are satisfied if they the doctrine, that, however much the most see in us of their own likeness; and, perfect of the species may have to glory should we attain the average character of of in the eye of his fellows, he has nothing society, the general and collective voice to glory of before God. The apostle af- of society will suffer us to pass. Meanfirms this of Abraham, a patriarch whose while, and till God be pleased to manifest virtues had canonized him in the hearts of Himself, we see not God; and, not till the all his descendants; and who from the revelation of his likeness is made to us, do heights of a very remote antiquity, still we see our deficiency from that image of stands forth to the people of this distant unspotted holiness-to be restored to which age, as the most venerably attired in the is the great purpose of the dispensation worth and piety and all the primitive and we sit under: and thus, in spiritual blindsterling virtues of the older dispensation. ness and spiritual insensibility, do the As to his piety, of this we have no docu- children of alienated nature spend their meat at all, till after the time when God days-lifting an unabashed front and met him-till after that point in his his- bearing a confident pretension in society, tory, which Paul assigns as the period of even as the patriarch Job challenged the his justification by faith-till after he accusation of his friends and protested walked in friendship with the God who innocence and kindness and dignity befound him out an alien of' nature; and fore them; but who, when God Himself stretching forth to him the hand of ac- met his awakened eye, and brought the ceptance, shed a grace and a glory over overpowering lustre of His attributes to the whole of his subsequent pilgrimage bear upon him, said of Him whom he had in the world. "Now if thou didst receive only before heard of by the hearing of it, wherefore shouldest thou glory as if the ear, that, now he saw Him with the thou hadst not received it?" It is this seeing of the eye, he abhorred himself question of the apostle, which, among the and repented in dust and in ashes. varied graces and accomplishments of This is the sore evil under which hua Christian, perpetuates his humility, as manity labours. It is sunk in ungodlithe garb and the accompaniment of them ness, while blindness hinders the seeing all. ", Nevertheless not me, but the grace of it. The magnitude of the guilt is unof God that is in me," is the great princi- felt; and therefore does man persist in a ple of explanation, which applies to every mosttreacherous complacency. The magvirtue that springs and grows and expands nitude of the danger is unseen, and thereinto luxuriance and beauty on the charac- fore does man persist in a security most ter of man, after his conversion; and so ruinous. There may be some transient keeps him humble amid all the heights of suspicion of a hurt, but a gentle alarm progressive excellence to which he is con- may be hushed by a gentle application; ducted. Certain it is, that it is not till after and therefore the hurt, in the language of' this period; that he acquires the right the prophet, is healed but slightly. Peace principle, or can make any right advances when there is no peace forms the fatal in the path of godliness; and that, what- lethargy of a world lying in wickedness ever he had antecedently-whether of af- -a peace which we should like to break fection to parents, or of patriotic regard up, by setring in prospect before you now to country, or of mild and winning affa- the dread realities of a future world; but bility to neighbourhood, or of upright a peace, which, with the vast majority we duty in the walks either of public or rela- fear is never broken up, till these realities tive life to society around him, or of all have encompassed them by their presence that which calls forth the voice of man to -even the sound of the last trumpet, and testify in beh'dlf of the virtues that are the appearance of celestial visitors in the useful and agreeable to man-certain it is, sky, and all the elements in commotion, that with every human being, prior to that and an innumerable multitude of newgreat transaction in his history which, in risen men whose eyes have just opened the face of all the ridicule excited by the on a firmament which lowers prematurally LECTURE XIII.-CHAPTER IV, 1-8. 69 over a world that is going to expire-oh And, to complete the freeness;f the it is sad to think that pulpits should have gospel. There are many who keep at a no power of disturbance, and the voice distance from its overtures of mercy, till of those who fill them should die so impo- they think they have felt enough and tently away from the ears of men who in mourned enough over their need of them. a few little years will be scaled to this Now we have no such command over our great catastrophe of our species-when sensibilities; and the most grievous part tokens so portentous and preparations so of our disease is, that we are not sufficiso solemn as these will mark that day of ently touched with the impression of its decision, which closes the epoch of time, soreness; and we ought not thus to wait and ushers in an irrevocable eternity! the progress of our emotions, while God The second lesson which we should is standing before us with a deed of iustilike to urge upon you is, that the disease fication, held out to the ungodliest of us of nature, deadly and virulent as it is, and all. To give us an interest in the saying, that beyond the suspicion of those who that God justifieth the ungodly, it is enough are touched by it, is not beyond the that we count it a faithful saying, and that remedy provided in the gospel. Ungodli- we count it worthy of all acceptation. it ness is the radical and pervading ingre- is very true, that we will not count it a dient of' this disease; and it is here said faithful saying, unless, from some cause of God that he justifies the ungodly. The or other, (and no cause more likely than discharge is as ample as the debt; and a desire to escape from the consequences the grant of pardon in every way as of sin) we have been induced to attend to broad and as long, as is the guilt which it. And neither will we count it worthy requires it. The deed of amnesty is equiv- of all acceptation, unless our convictions alent to the offence; and, foul in native have led us to feel the need of;. rightand spiritual character as the transgres- eousness, and the value of an interest sion is, there is a commensurate right- therein. But if your concern about your eousness which covers the whole defor- soul has been such, that you have been mity, and translates him whom it had led to listen and that for your own permade utterly loathsome in the sight of sonal behoof, to the offer of' the gospel — God, into a condition of' full favour and that is warrant enough for us to explain acceptance before Him. Had justification to you the terms of it, and to crave your been merely brought into contact with acceptance of them. Whatever your presome social iniquity, this were not enough sent alienation, whatever the present hardto relieve the conscience of him, who ness of your heart under the sense of it, feels in himself the workings of a direct whatever there be within you to make out and spiritual iniquity against God-who the charge of ungodliness, and whatever is burdened with a sense of his manifold to aggravate that charge in your wretched idolatries against the love of Him, who apathy amid so much guilt and so much requires the heart as a willing and uni- danger-here is God with a deed of righted versal offering-and perceives of himself ousness, by the possession of which you that the creature is all his sufficiency; will be accepted as righteous before Ililnm and that, grant him peace and health and and which to obtain the possession of, abundance in this world, he would be you are not to work for as a reward, but satisfied to quit with God for ever, and to to accept by a simple act of dependence. live in sonime secure and smiling region of It becomes yours by believing; and while atheism. This is the crying sin with it is our office to deal out the doctrine of every enlightened conscience. It is the of the gospel, we do it Ewith the assurance, iniquity of the heart that survives every that, wherever the belief of its truth may outer reformation, and lurks in its pro- light, it will not light wrong; but that, if found recesses under the guise and scm- the faith of this gospel be formed in the blaes: of many outward plausibilities-it bosom of any individual who now hears is this, for which in the whole compass of' us, it will be followed up by a fulfilment nature, no healing water can be found, upon him of all its promises. either to wash away its guilt, or to wash But thirdly, while the office of a righteaway its pollution. It is a sense of this ousness before God is thus brought down, which festers in the stricken heart of a so to speak, to the depth of human wicksinner, and often keeps by him and ago- edness, and it is an offer by the acceptnizes him for many a day, like an arrow ance of which all the past is forgiven-it sticking fast. And it is not enough that is also an offer by the acceptance of which justification be brought into contact with all the future is reformed. When Christ the sin of all our social and all our relative confers sight upon a blind man, he ceases violations. It must be mad(le to reach the to be in darkness; and when a rich indideadliest element in our controversy with vidual confers wealth upon a poor, he God, and be brought into contact as it is ceases to be in poverty-and so, as surely in our text, with the sin of ungodliness. when justification is conferred upon the 70 LECTURE XIII.-CHAPTER IV 1 —8. ungodly, his ungodliness is done away. him a-working. So that while we hold L. His godliness is not the ground upon a high privilege, that we can say to the which the gift is awarded, any more than ungodliest of you all, Here is the free and the sight of a blind man is the ground unconditional grant of a justification for upon which it is communicated to him, you, the validity of which you have simor than the wealth of a poor man is the ply to rely upon-the privilege rises inground upon which wealth is bestowed. conceivably higher in our estimation, that But just as sight and riches come out of we can also say, how the unfailing fruit the latter gifts, so godliness comes out of of such a reliance will be a personal the gift of justification; and while works righteousness emerging out of the faith form in no way the consideration upon which worketh by love, and which transwhich the righteousness that availeth is forms into a new creature the man who conferred upon a sinner, yet no sooner is truly entertains it. this righteousness granted than it will set LECTURE XIV. ROMANS iv, 9-15. s Cometh this blessedness then upon the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also? for we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness. How was it then reckoned? when he was in circumcision, or in uncircumcision l Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had yet being uncircumcised: that he might be the father of all them that oelieve, though they be not circumcised; that righteousness might be imputed unto them also: and the father of circurncision to them who are not of the circumcision only, but who also walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham which he had being Yet uncircumcised. For the promise, that he should be the heir of the woild, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. For if they which are of the law be heir4, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect. Because the law worketh wrath; for where no law is, there is no transgression." I the passage which stands immediate- was not another deed of conveyance, but ly before Paul had asserted of Abraham, an infeftment upon the deed that had that it -was his faith and not his obe- already been drawn out; and though cirdience which was counted unto him for cumcision should at any time be abolished, righteousness; and that it was through and some other form, as that of baptism, the former medium, and not through the be substitutedin its place, this no more latter that he attained the blessedness of affected the great principle upon which those to whom God did not reckon the man acquires a right of property to a guilt of their offences. And from this place in Heaven, than the great principles particular instance, does he proceed, in of' justice upon which an earthly posststhe verse before us, to a more general sion is transferred from one man to anothconclusion upon the subject. er, would be affected by a mere change in V. 9, 10. He resolves the question pro- the forms of an infeftment. The promise posed in the 9th verse by adducing the of God who cannot lie makes it sure; and case of Abraham. In what state was he yet a visible token may be of use in imwhen righteousness was imputed to him? pressing its sureness, by serving the purThe historical fact is, that he found ac- pose of a more solemn declaration. It is c eptance with God, several years before just expressing the same thing symbolithe rite of circumcision was imposed upon cally, which had before been expressed him. The case of their own Abraham, by words. By refusing the second exwas the case of one who was justified in pression you draw back from the first; by uncircumcision. An agreement between joining the second expression you only rehim and God had previously been made. peat and ratify the first. Thus ci'rcumA covenant had previously been entered cision is a sign-not a covenant itself, but, upon. There was a promise by God; in the language of Genesis, the token of a and there was a faith by Abraham, which covenant. Andthus also it is a seal, markgave him a right to the fulfilment of it- ing that more formal consent, (to a thing and all this antecedent to his being cir- however that had been before agreed cumcised. And when it was laid upon upon) which lays one or both of the parhim as a binding observation, it was as ties under a more sure or at least, more sothe token or the memorial of what had lemn obligation. passed between them. It was not the V. 11. The term sign may be generally making of a new bargain. It was the defined a mark of indication —as whenwe sealing or the ratifying of an old one. It speak of the signs of' the times, or of the LECTURE XIV. —-CAPTER IV, 9-15. 71 signs of the weather. A sign becomes a which actuated the doings and the history seal, when it is the mark ofanydeedorany of Abraham; and in virtue of which he declaration, having actually come forth obtained a meritorious acceptance with from him who professes to be the author God-even prior to the rite of circumci. of it. It authenticates it to be his-so that sion being laid upon him. should it be a promise, it binds him to per- V. 13. Not heir of the present evil world, formance; or should it be an order, it car- but of a bette country than this, that is ries along with it all the force of his au- an heavenly-a city which hath foiundathority; or should it be an engagement tions, whose builder and maker is Godof any sort. it fastens upon him the obli- a new earth, as well as new heavens, gation of discharging it. It may some- wherein dwelleth righteousness-Not to times happen that a seal marks the con- inherit this world, but to be counted currence of two parties in the matter to worthy of obtaining that world upon which it is affixed-and the sign of cir- which the righteous are made to enter cumcision was just such a seal. It was after their resurrection from the dead. enjoined by God. It was consented to by The promise of all this was not to those Abraham. God sealed by it the promise who obey, but to those who believe-not which Ile had formerly made of a righte- through the law, but through the righteousousness to Abraham who believed; and ness of faith. Abraham expressed by it that he was a V. 14. If it be of the law, then it must believer. It did not change the footing be of perfect obedience to that law. It upon which Abraham obtained the favour cannot be through the medium of a brothat was due to righteousness. It only ken, but through the medium of an obgave the form and the solemnity of a served law; and not till its conditions are symbolical expression to that, which was fulfilled, can faith have any warrant to already in full reality and effect, though lay hold of the promises. This is just as it had only yet been the subject of a ver- good as nullifying faith altogether; and bal expression. The symbolical expres- just as good as rendering the promise sion may afterwards be changed, or it quite ineffectual-because in fact there may be dispensed with altogether; and has been no perfect obedience. There yet the original connection between faith have been infractions of the law by all, and the imputation of righteousness, sub- and all therefore are the children of sist as it was at the beginning. Abraham wrath. is the primary model of this connection, V. 15. To escape from this, there must and remains so after the abolition of that be some other method of making out temporary rite which marked the Jewish a righteousness unto eternal life than economy. And now that that economy is through the law; for, admit the arbitradissolved, he is still the fither of all them tions of the law, and wrath will be wrought who believe though they be not circum- out of them. Condemnation will be the cised-that like as righteousness was im- sure result of this process. It must and puted to him when uncircumcised, so may will pronounce the guilt of transgression it be imputed unto them also. upon all; and, to get quit of this, there V. 12. It is not enough that they be of must be some way or other of so disposing the circumcision, that they may be the of the law, as that it shall not be brought children of Abraham, in the sense under to bear in judgment upon a sinner. It which the apostle contemplates this rela- has been so disposed of. It has been tionship in the passage before us. It is magnified and made honourable in the faith which essentially constitutes this person of our illustrious Redeemer; and relationship. They who have the faith so borne away from the persons of those are his children, though they have not the who through faith in Him are made, by circumcision. They who have the cir- the constitution of the economy of the cumcision are not his children, if they gospel, partakers of His righteousness. have not the faith. The sign without the The judgment of the law has been shifted thing signified will avail them nothing. away from them; and, with this, the It is true that circumcision is a seal set to charge of transgression has been lifted it by the will and authority of God, and away from them. guarantees a promise of righteousness on The following is the paraphrase. His part. But it is of righteousness unto'Doth the blessing of an imputed rightfalith; and when there is no faith, there is eousness come then upon the circumcision no failure of any promise connected with only-or may it also come upon those this subject, though it should remain who are uncircumcised t We have said unfulfilled. The way to ascertain the that it came upon Abraham, and that it reality of this faith, is not by the simple was faith which was reckoned unto him act of a man submitting to have the seal for righteousness. Now in what circumof circumcision put upon him. It is by stances was he at the time when it was so his walking in the steps of that faith reckoned? Was he in circumcision, or 72 ~ LEClURE XIV.-CHAPTER IV, 9 —15. uncircumcision? Not in circumcision, but Abraham. He, the first Hebrew, t elieved in uncircumcision. And circumcision he and was circumcised; and it was laid received merely as a token or as a seal of down for a statute in Israel, that all his the righteousness of that faith which he children should be circumcised in infancy had when he was uncircumcised-that he In like manner, the first Christians bemight be the great exemplar of all those lieved and were baptised; and, though who after him should beliere, though they there be no statute laid down upon the were not circumcised-that to them also, subject, yet is there no violation of any even as unto him, there might be an im- contrary statute, when all our children putation of righteousness —and that he are baptised in infancy. At the origin of might furthermore be the exemplar of the two institutions the order of succesthose who were circumcised; and were sion is the same with both. The thing at the same time, more than this, walking signified took precedency of the sign. in the steps of that faith which their father Along the stream of descent which issued Abraham had while uncircumcised. For from the first of them, this order was rethe promise, that he should obtain the versed, and by an express authority too, inheritance, was not to Abraham or his so as that the sign took precedency of the seed through the law, but through the thing signified: And so has it been the righteousness of faith. For if they only very general practice, with the stream of are to inherit who fulfil the law, then descent that issued from the second of faith is rendered powerless, and the pro- them; and if the want of express authority mise can have no fulfilment. Because be pled against us, we reply that this is the law worketh wrath and not favour; the very circumstance which inclines us and it is only when it is taken out of the to walk in the footsteps of the former disway that transgression is removed and pensation. Express authority is needed righteousness can be imputed.' to warrant a change; but it is not needed The first lesson we shall endeavour to to warrant a continuation. It is this very draw from this passage is, that it seems to want of express authority, we think, which contain in it the main strength of the stamps on the opposite system a character scriptural argument for Inf:nt Baptism. of presumptuous innovation. When once It looks a rational system, to make sure bidden to walk in a straight line, it does of the thing signified ere you impress the not require the successive impulse of new sign-to make sure of the belief ere you biddings to make us persevere in it. But administer the baptism-if this outward it would require a new bidding to justify ordinance signify any thing at all, to our going off from the line, into a track make sure that what is so signified be a'of deviation. The first Christians believreality. And all this has been applied ed and were baptised. Abraham believed with great appearance of force and plau- and was circumcised. He transmitted the sibility to this question; and the principle practice of circumcision to infants. We educed out of it, that, ere this great and transmit the practice of baptism to infants. initiatory rite of our faith be laid upon There is no satisfiactory historical eviany individual, he should make a credible dence of our practice having ever crept profession of that faith. In confirmation in-the innovation of a later period in the of this, we are often bidden to look to the history of' the church. Had the mode of order in which these two things succeeded infant baptism sprung up as a new piece one another in the first age of Christianity. of sectarianism, it would not have escaped We read of this one convert and that the notice of the authorship of the times. other having believed and been baptized; But there is'no credible written memorial not of any having been baptized and then of its ever having entered amongst us as believing. And so this should be the a novelty; and we have therefore the order with every grown up person who is strongest reason for believing, that it has not yet baptised. Should there be any come down in one uncontrolled tide of exsuch person, who, from accidental cir- ample and observation from the days of cumstances, has not had this rite adminis- the apostles. And if they have not in the tered to him in his own country-demand shape of any decree or statuary enactthe profession of his faith, and be satisfied ment that can be found in the New Testathat it is a credible profession, ere you ment, given us any authority for it-they baptise him. at least, had it been wrong, and when they Let missionaries, these modern apostles, saw that whole families of discipleship do the same in the pagan countries where were getting into this style of observation, they now labour —just as the first apostles would have interposed and lifted up the did before them-just as was done with voice of their authority against it. But Abraham of old, who, agreeably to Paul's we read of no such interdict in our Scrip. argument, first believed and afterwards tures; and, in these circumstances, we underwent the rite of circumcision. But hold the inspired teachers of our faith tc mark how it fared with thie posterity of 1 have given their testimony in favour of LECTURE XIV.-CHAPTEIR IVY 9-15. 73 infant baptism, by giving us the testimony faith over forms, by waiting for the rise of their silence. of this inward grace ere he will impose It is vain to allege that the Jewish was the outward ceremonial, he stamps a rea grosser dispensation-not so impregna- flection on that very procedure that was ted with life and rationality and spiritual instituted for him who is called the father meaning as ours-with a ceremonial ap- of the faithful. pended to it for the purpose mainly of But is it not wrong, when the sign and building up a great outward distinction, the thing signified do not go together' between the children of Israel and all the Yes, it is very wrong; and let us shortly other families that were on the face of the consider who they generally are that are earth; and that this was one great use of in the wrong, when such a disjunction at circumcision, which, whether affixed dur- any time occurs. In the case of' an adult, ing the period of infancy or advanced the thing signified should precede the life, served equally to signalize the people, sign. When he offers himself for baptism, and so to strengthen that wall of separa- he asks to be invested with the sign that Mion, which, in the wisdom of Providence, he is a disciple-and he makes a credible had been raised for the sake of keeping appearance and profession of his being the whole race apart from the general so. Were it not a credible profession, world, till the ushering in of a more com- then the administrator is in the fault, for prehensive and liberal dispensation. The having put the outward stamp of Chrisflesh profiteth nothing, says the Saviour, tianity on one whom he believed to be a "the words I speak unto you they are counterfeit. Were it a profession renderspirit and they are life." But it so hap- ed credible by the arts of' hypocrisy, then pens that in the ordinance of circumci- the minister is free; and the whole guilt sion, there are the very spirit and the very that arises from an unworthy subject, life which lie in the ordinanceof baptism. standing arrayed in the insignia of our Viewed as a seal, it marks a promissory faith, lies upon him who wears them. But obligation on the part of God, of the same in the case of an infant, the sign precedes privileges in both cases; and that is the the thing signified. The former has been righteousness of faith. Viewed as a sign, imprest upon him by the will of his pait indicates the same graces. It indicates rent; and the latter remains to be wrought the existence of faith, and all its accom- within him by the care of' his parent. if panying influences on the character of he do not put forth this care, he is in the him who has been subjected to it. That fault. Better that there had been no sign, is not circumcision which is outward in i.f there was to be no substance; and he the flesh, says Paul; but circumcision is by whose application it was that the sign of the heart, in the spirit and not in the was imprinted, but by whose ne'glect it is letter. That is not baptism, says Peter, that the substance is not infused-ihe is the which merely puts away the filth of the author of this mockery upon ordinances. flesh; but baptism is the answer of a good Ile it is who hath made the symbolical conscience unto God. If the baptism of' language of Christianity the vehicle of a infants offer any violence to the vital and falsehood. He is like the steward who is essential principles of that ordinance-the entrusted by his superior with the subprinciples of the ordinance of circumci- scription of his name to a space of' blank sion are altogether the same. Circumci- paper, on the understanding that it was to sion is the sign of an inward grace; and be filled up in a particular way, agreeable upon Abraham, in the previous possession to the will of his lord; and, instead of of this grace, the sign was impressed. doing so, has filled it up with matter of' a And, in the face of' what might have been different import altogether. The infant, alleged, that it was wrong when the sign with its mind unftilled and unfurnished, and the thing signified did not go together has been put by the God of providence -this sign of' circumcision was neverthe- into his hands; and after the baptism less perpetuated in the family of Abraham, which he himself hath craved, it has been by being impressed on the infancy of all again made over to him -with the signahis descendants. In like manner, when ture of Christian discipleship, and, by his an adult stands before us for baptism, own consent, impressed upon it; and he, should we be satisfied that he has had the by failing to grave the characters of diswashing of regeneration, then may we put cipleship upon it, hath unworthily betraythe question —' Can any man forbid wa- ed the trust that was reposed in him; and, ter, that he should not be baptised who like the treacherous agent who hath proshas received the Holy Ghost as well as tituted his master's name to a purpose dif. we?' But should any man go further, and ferent from his master's will, he hath so forbid water to the infants of his present perverted the sign of Heaven's appointor his future family, he appears to do so ment, as to frustrate the end of Heaven's on a principle which God himself did not ordination. The worthies of the Old Tesrecognise; and, while he seems to exalt tament, who, in obedience to the Go. 10 T4 LECTURE XIV.-CHAPTi R IV, 9- 15. whom they served, circumcised their chil- birth, it is he who moved the baptism and dren in infancy, never forgot that they it is he who hath profilned it. were the children of the circumcision; This ordinance lays a responsibility on and the mark of separation they had been parents-the sense of which has, we doubt enjoined to impose upon them, reminded not, given a mighty impulse to the cause them of the duty under which they lay, of Christian education. It is well that to rear them in all the virtues of a holy there should be one sacrament in behalf and a separate generation; and many a of the grown up disciple, for the solemn Hebrew parent was solemnised by this ob- avowal of his Christianity before men, servance into the devotedness of Joshua, and the very participation of which binds who said, that whatever others should do, more closely about his conscience all the he with all his house should fear the Lord; duties and all the consistencies of the gosand this was the testimony of the Searcher pel. But it is also well that there should of hearts in behalf of one who had laid be another sacrament, the place of which the great initiatory rite of Judaism upon in his history is, not at the period of his his offspring, that lie knew him, that youth or manhood, but at the period of he would bring up his children after him his infancy; and the obligation of which in all the ways and statutes and ordi- is felt, not by his conscience still in emnances that he had himself been taught; bryo, but by the conscience of him whose and it was the commandment of God to business is to develope and to guard and His servants of old, that they should teach to nurture its yet unawakened sensibilitheir children diligently, and talk to them ties. This is like removing baptism upas they rose up and sat down, and as they ward on a higher vantage ground. It is walked by the way-side, of the loyalty assigning for it a station of coimmand and and gratitude that should be rendered to of custody at the very fountainhead of the God of Israel. Thus was the matter moral influence; and we repeat it to be ordered under the old dispensation. The well, that Christianity should have here sign was imp)ressed upon the infant, and fixed one of its sacraments-that it should it served for a signal of duty and direc- have reared such a security around the tion to the parent. It pointed out to him birth of every immortal-that it should the moral destination of his child, and so have constituted baptism, as to render led him to guide it onward accordingly. it a guide and a guardian, whose post is There ought to be a correspondence be- by the cradle of the infant spirit; and tween the sign and the thing signified. At which, from coming into contact with the the very outset of the child's life, did the first elements of tuition, has, we doubt not, parent fix upon its person the one term of from this presiding eminence, done much this correspondence, as a mark of his de- to sustain and perpetuate the faith of the termination to fix upon its character the gospel from generation to generation. other terin of it. It was as good as his We have one observation more. Bappromissory declaration to that effect: and tism, viewed as a seal, marks the promise if this be enough to rationalize the infant of God, to grant the righteousness of faith circumcision of the Jews, it is equally to him who is impressed by it; but, enough to rationalize the infant baptism viewed as a sign, it marks the existence of Christians. The parent of our day, of this faith. But if it be not a true sign, who feels as lie ought, will feel himself in it is not an obligatory seal. He who beconscience to be solemnnly charged, that lieves and is baptised shall be saved. But the hifant whom he lhas held up to the he who is baptised and believes not shall baptism of Christianity, he should bring be damned. It is not the circumcision up in the belief of Christianity; and if which availeth, but a new creature. It is he fail to do this, it is he who has degra- not the baptism which availeth, but the ded this simple and impressive ceremonial answer of a good conscience. God hath into a thing of nought-it is he who has given a terrible dernonstration of the utter dissolved the alliance between the sign worthlessness of a sign that is deceitful, and the thing signified —it is he who and hath let us know that on that event as brings a scandal upon ordinances, by a seal it is dissolved. He thus stands,tripping them of all their respect and all emancipated from all His promises, and their significancy. Should the child live adds to His direct vengeance upon iniand die unchristian, there will be a pro- quity, a vengeance for the hypocrisy of per and essential guilt attached to him in its lying ceremonial. When a whole circonsequence; but it will at least not be cumcised nation lost the spirit, though the guilt of having broken a vow which they retained the letter of the ordinance, he was incapable of making. And yet He swept it away. The presence of the the -c,%v was made by some one. It was letter, we have no doubt, heightened the made by the parent; and in as far as the provocation; and beware, ye parents, ruin of the child may be resolved into the who regularly hold up your children to negligence of him to whom he owes his the baptism of water, and make their bap. LECTURE XIV. —CITAPTER IV, 9-15. 7E ttsm by the Holy Ghost no part of your con. withered here upon its stalk, has been eern or of your prayer-lest you thereby transplanted there to a place of enduswell the judgments of the land, and bring rance; and it will then gladden that eye down the sore displeasure of God upon which now weeps out the agony of an your families. affection that has been sorely wounded; This affords, we think, something more and in the name of Him who if on earth than a dubious glimpse into the question, would have wept along with them, do we that is often put by a distracted mother. bid all believers present, to sorrow not when her babe is taken away from her- even as others which have no hope, but when all the converse it ever had with to take comfort in the thought of that the world, amounted to the gaze upon it country where there is no sorrow and no of a few months or a few opening smiles, separation. which marked the dawn of felt enjoyment; o, when a mother meets on high and ere it had reached perhaps the lisp The babe she lost in infancy, of infancy, it, all unconscious of death, tath she not then, for pains and fearsTile day of woe, the watchful nighthad to wrestle through a period of sick- For all her sorrow, all her tearsness with its power and at length to be AnI over-payment of delight? overcome by it. Oh, it little knew, what We have put forth these remarks, not an interest it had created in that home for the purpose of inspiring a very violent where it was so passing a visitant-nor, distaste towards the practice of others in when carried to its early grave, what a respect of baptism, but of reconciling you tide of emotion it would raise among the to your own; and of protecting you from few acquaintances it left behind it! On any disturbance of' mind, on account of it too baptism was imprest as a seal, and their arguments. It forms no peculiarity as a sign it was never falsified. There of the age in which we live, that men was no positive unbelief in its little bosom differ so much in matters connected with -no resistance yet put forth to the truth Christianity; but it forms a very pleasing -no love at all for the darkness rather peculiarity, that men can do now what than the light-nor had it yet fallen into they seldom did before, they can agree to that great condemnation which will at. differ. With zeal for the esssentials, they tach to all who perish because of unbe- can now tolerate each other in the cir. lief, that their deeds are evil. It is inter- cumstantials of their faith; and under all esting to know that God instituted circum- the variety which they wear, whether of cision for the inftant children of Jews, and complexion or of outward observance, can at least suffered baptism for the infant recognize the brotherhood of a common children of those who profess Christianity. doctrine and of a common spirit, among Should the child die in infancy, the use very many of the modern denominations of baptism as a sign has never been of Christendom. Theline which measures thwarted by it; and may we not be per- off the ground of vital and evantelical mitted to indulge a hope so pleasing, as religion, from the general ungodliness of that the use of baptism as a seal remains our world, must never be effaced from in all its entireness-that He who sanc- observation; and the latitudinarianism tioned the affixing of it to a babe, will which would tread it under foot, must be fulfil upon it the whole expression of this fearfully avoided; and an impregnable ordinance: And when we couple with sacredness must be thrown around that this the known disposition of our great people, who stand peculiarized by their forerunner —the love that He manifested devotedness and their faith from the great to children on earth-how He suffered bulk of a species who are of the earth and them to approach His person-and, lav- earthly. There are landmarks between ishing endearment and kindness upon the children of light and the children of them in the streets of Jerusalem, told His darkness, which can never be moved disciples that the presence and company away; and it were well that the habit of of such as these in heaven formed one professing Christians was more formed on ingredient of the joy that was set before the principle of keeping up that limit of Him —Tell us if Christianity do not throw separation, which obtains between the.a pleasing radiance around an infant's church and the world —so that they who tomb? and should any parent who hears fear God should talk often together; and is, feel softened by the touching remem- when they do go forth by any voluntary orance,of a light, that twinkled a few movement of their own on those who fear short months under his roof, and at the Him not, they should do it in the spirit, end of its little period expired-we cannot and with the compassionate purpose of think that we venture too far, when we missionaries. But while we hold it nesay that he has only to persevere in the cessary to raise and to strengthen the wall faith and in the following of the gospel, by which the fold is surrounded-and that, and that very light will again shine upon not for the purpose of intercepting the him in heaven. The blossom which flow of kindness and of Christian philan 76 LECTURE XV. —CHAPTER~ IV, 9-15. thropy from within, but for the purpose I slender partition of one of its apartments, of intercepting the streams of contamina- and the door of which is opened for the tion from without-we should like to see visits of welcome and kind intercourse to all the lines of partition that have been all the other members of the Christian drawn in the fold itself utterly swept family. Let it never be forgotten of the away. This is fair ground for the march Particular Baptists of England, that they of latitudinarianism-and that, not for the form the denomination of Fuller and object of thereby putting down the sig- Carey and Ryland and Hall and Foster; nals of distinction between one party of that they have originated among the Christians and another, but, allowing each greatest of all missionary enterprises; to wear its own, for the object of asso- that they have enriched the Christian ciating them by all the ties and the re- literature of our country with authorship cognitions of Christian fellowship. In this of the most exalted piety, as well as of way, we apprehend, that there will come the first talent and the first eloquence, at length to be the voluntary surrender that they have waged a very noble and of many of our existing distinctions, which successful war with the hydra of Antinowill Ifat more readily give way by being mianism; that perhaps there is not a tolerated than by being fought against. more intellectual community of ministers And this is just the feeling in which we in our island, or who have put forth to regard the difference, that obtains on the their number a greater amount of mental subject of baptism. It may subside into power and mental activity in the defence one and the same style of observation, or and illustration of our common faith; it may not. It is one of those inner par- and, what is better than all the triumphs titions which may at length be overthrown of genius or understanding, who, by their by mutual consent; but, in the mean zeal and fidelity and pastoral labour time, let the portals of a free admittance among the congregations which they have upon both sides be multiplied as fast as reared, have done more to swell the lists they may along the whole extent of it; of genuine discipleship in the walks of and let it no longer be confounded with private society-and thus both to uphold the outer wall of the great Christian tem- and to extend the living Christianity of ple, but be instantly recognized as the our nation. LECTURE XV. RoMANS iv, 16-22. Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed: not to that onlyv which is of the lawv, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham who is the father of us all. (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whoin he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as thouah they were: who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith. he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb: he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith. giving glory to God: and being fully persuaded, that what he had promised, he was able also to pefrc~sl. And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness." V. 16. You may h'ere remark, that faith into the letter and expression of our evanis not a meritorious work in the business gelical system; and thus, not merely of of our salvation. It does not stand in the nourishing the pride and the pretensions place of obedience, as the term of' a new of its confident votaries, but of prolonging bargain, that has been substituted in room the disquietude of all earnest and humble of an old one. It is very natural to con- inquirers. For, instead of looking broadly ceive, that, as under the old covenant we out on the gospel as an offer, they look as had salvation far our works-so, under anxiously inward upon themselves for the the new, we have salvationr for our faith; personal qualification of faith, as they and that therefore fitth is that which wins ever did upon the personal qualification and purchases the reward. And thus faith of obedience. This transfers their attenis invested, in the imagination of some, tion from that which is sure, even the prowith the merit and character of a work: mises of God-to that which is unsure, and IIeaven's favour is still looked upon even their own fickle and fugitive emoas a premium, not a premium for doing, tions. Instead of thinking upon Christ, it is true, but a premium for believing: they are perpetually thinking upon themAnd this, as we have already said, has selves-as if they could discover Him in just thd effect of infusing the legal spirit the muddy recesses of their own heart. LECTURE XV.-CHAPTER IV, 16 —22. 77 without previously admitting Him by the by overthrown-for it is in the very attiavenue of a direct and open perception. tude of leaning upon God, that man is up. They ought surely to cast their challenged held not only in hope but in holiness. It and their invited regards on Him, who is is in the very position of standing erect the same to-day, yesterday, and for ever, upon the foundation of the promises, that when He calls them by His word, to look the promised strength as well as the pro. upon Him from all the ends of the earth rmised righteousness is fulfilled to him. and be saved. But no! they cast their It is in the very act of looking unto Jesust eyes with downward obstinacy upon their that the light of all that grace and truth own minds; and there toil for the produc- and moral lustre which shine upon him tion of faith in the spirit of bondage; and from the countenance of the Saviour is perhaps, after they are satisfied with the let in upon the soul; and is thence refancied possession of it, rejoice over it as flected back again in the likeness of this they would over any other meritorious worth and virtue from his own person. acquirement in the spirit of legality. This We have no fear whatever of a simple deis not the way in which the children of pendence on the grace of the gospel, opeIsrael looked out upon the serpent that rating as an impediment to the growth of was lifted up in the wilderness. They did the holiness of the gospel. WiVe believe not pore upon their wounds to mark the that it is the alone stay of our deliverance progress of healing there; nor did they from the power of sin, just as it is the reflect upon the power and perfection of alone stay of our deliverance from the their seeing faculties; nor did they even fears of guilt: And, meanwhile, go not to suffer any doubt that still lingered in their obscure the aspect of this free and geneimaginations, to restrain them from the rous ministration, by regarding the gospel simple act of lifting up their eyes: And in any other light, than as an honestly anwhen they were cured in consequence, nounced present of mercy to all who will; they would never think of this as a reward or by regarding the faith of the gospel in for their looking, but regard it as the froit any other light, than you would the ear of Heaven's gracious appointment. Do in that heard the communication of the prelike manner. It will make both against sent, or than you would the hand that laid your humility and your peace, that you hold of it. regard faith in the light of a meritorious But, to return from this digression. V. qualification; or that you attempt to draw 16. 17. The inheritance is of faith, that it a comfort froim the consciousness of faith, might be by grace, which can be extendwhich you ought primarily and directly ed to many nations; and not of the law, to draw from the contemplation of the which would confine it to one nation. Saviour. If salvation be given as a re- This makes it sure to the whole seed of ward for faiith, then it is not of grace. Abraham, not merely to his seed by natu-. But we are told in this verse that it is of ral descent, but to that seed which stands faith, expressly that it might be by grace. related to him from being believers. It is And therefore be assured, that there is an in this sense that it is written of him-he error in all those conceptions of faith is the father of many nations. It was his which tend to vitiate or to destroy this faith which introduced him into a filial character; which make the good things relationship with God; and in the eyes of of the gospel come down upon you as a God, on whom he believed, all who bepayment, and not as a present; which lieved after him were regarded as his chilmake the preaching of eternal life through dren. It was very unlikely that Abraham Christ any thing else than simply the of- should in any sense be blest with an offfer of a gift. and faith any thing else than spring. But God calleth out fiom nonensimply thie discerning of this offer to be tity such things as be not-and Ile also true, and( receiving it accordingly. In the sees such an analogy between natural and one way, you can only be as sure of the spiritual things, that He gives to a spiritpromise as you are sure of yourself; and ual relationship the name of a natural rewhat a frail and fluctuating dependence lationship. He did both in the case of is this, we would ask? In the other way, Abraham. In the face of a very strong you are as sure of the promise, as you are unlikelihood, He conferred a real posterity sure of God; and thus your confidence on Abraham. And IIe constituted him in has a rock to repose upon; and the more a mystical sense the father of a still more firmly you adhere and are rivetted to this extended posterity, by making him the foundation, the less chance is there of father of all who believed. your ever being moved away from the V. 18. Abraham, perhaps, had no suspi. hope of the gospel; and though this be cion, at the utterance of this promise, of established, not on what is within but on any deep or spiritual meaning that lay what is without you, let us not thereby under it. He certainly apprehended it in imagine that all the securities for personal its natural sense, and perhaps in this worth and personal excellence are there- sense alone. Looking forward to it with LECTURE XV.-CHAPTER IV, 16-22. the eye of experience, he could have no most unlikely to the eye of nature and hope; but looking forward to it with the experience; but, in the face of all the eye of faith in the divine testimony, he improbabilities which would have dark. might have a confident expectation. It is ened the hope of other men, did he with this which is meant by'against hope confidence hope, that he should become believing in hope.' The stronger the im- the father of many nations-according to probability in nature, the stronger was the word that was spoken to him about the faith which overcame the impression what his posterity should be. And being of it. He suffered not himself to be stag- not weak in faith, he considered nlot his gered out of his reliance on that which own body now dead, when he was yet was spoken. He thus rendered an homage about an hundred years old, neither yet to the truth of God; and an homage pro- the deadneas of Sarah's womb. IHe stagportional to the unlikelihood of the thing gered not at God's promise through unwhich God testified. It was also an hom- belief, but was strong in faith, thereby age to His power as well as to His truth: giving glory to God's faithfulness. And It proved that He thought Him able to being fully persuaded, that what He had arrest and to turn nature; and if He promised He was able also to perform. promised to do so, that what He promised And therefore was it reckoned unto him He was able also to perform. And this for righteousness.' faith was counted to him for righteous- The lessons we shall try to enforce ness. God was pleased with the confi- from this passage, are all founded on the dence that was placed in Him; and His consideration, that Abraham, in respect pleasure in it was enhanced by the trials of his faith, is set up as a model to usand difficulties which it had to contend that, in like manner as he believed in the with. It is thus that God's honour, and midst of difficulties and trials, so ought man's interest are at one. We honour we-that we ought to hold fast our confiHim by believing. By believing we are dence in the midst of apparent impossisaved. The fuller and firmer our persua- bilities, even as he did —that with us the sion in His truth, the greater is the hom- eye of faith should look above and beage that we render Him, and the more yond all that is seen by the eye of flesh, abundant are both the present peace and even as with him-and that we should not the future glory which we bring down only set out on the life of faith after his upon ourselves. To hope against hope- example, but should also walk in the footto believe in the midst of violent improba- steps of the faith of our father Abraham bilities-to realize the future things which The first thing that strikes us in ouI are addrest to faith, and are so unlike great pattern, is his tenacious and reso. those present things with which nature lute adherence to the truth of God's testisurrounds us-to maintain an unshaken mony. I"Let God be true," says the aposconfidence because God hath spoken, tle, "and every man a liar "-If God have though the besetting::rgencies of sense spoken, said the patriarch by his conduct, and experience all tend to thwart and to let us abide by it-though all nature and dislodge it-These are the trials which, if all experience should depone to the confaith overcome, make that faith more trary. Amid all the staggering appearprecious than gold in the sight of our ances by which he was surrounded, he heavenly witness; and it will be found to kept by his firm persuasion in God's truth; praise and honour and glory at the ap- and it was this which inwardly upheld pearing of Jesus Christ. him. His heart was fixed. trusting in God. The following is the paraphrase of this He knew that it was His voice which first passage. called him forth, and he was fully assured'Therefore the promised inheritance is of its faithfulness; and that it was his of faith, that it might be by grace, which promise which first allured him from the can be extended to all-so as to ensure abode of his fathers, and he held it to be the promise to the whole generation of certain that what God had promised He believers, not only to those who are of the was able to perform; and when all that law, but to those who have the faith of was visible to sense looked unlikelihood Abraham, the father and the forerunner upon his expectations, they were kept in of us all. Agreeably to the scripture,' "I full buoyancy and vigour by his unfalternave made thee a father of many nations," ing reliance on the word of Him who is which he is in the eye and estimation of invisible. All the agitations of his varied Him on whom he believed-even God, history, could not unfasten his soul from who, by quickening that which is dead the anchor of its fixed and unalterable deand dormant, both called forth a real pendence. And it was truly noble in him, osterity to Abraham, and also constituted who, obedient to the heavenly vision, had im the spiritual father of a posterity torn himself away from the endearments far more extended than that of which he of the place of his nativity; and, at the was tie natural progenitor. This looked call of what he deemed a voice of right, LECTURE XV. —CHAPTER IV, 16-22. 79 ful authority, went forth he knew not door of every individual who hears it. It whither, and'exchanged the abode of do- is true that the promise thus laid dowit mestic serenity and bliss for the mazes of will not be fulfilled upon him, unless he a toilsome and uncertain pilgrimage; and take it up; or, in other words, unless he amid all that was fitted to dismay his heart believe it. Now there is a difficulty in when travelling in countries that were be- the way of nature believing any such fore unknown, made the will of God the thing. There is a struggle that it must ruling impulse of his history, and the make with its own fears and its own suspromise of God the presiding star which picions, ere it can admit the credibility cheered and conducted him on his way- of a holy God thus taking sinners into it was a truly itoble triumph of faith in acceptance. There is an unlikelihood this great patriarch, who, when a stranger here, which is ever obtrudin-'C itself on the in a strange land, looked around him, and apprehensions of' the guilty, and which beheld nothing in the verge of this lower tends to keep the offered peace and pardon world that did not lour upon his destinies and reconciliation of the gospel at an -yet could rejoice both in the safety that exceedingly hopeless distance away from encompassed him, and in the glory that them. Can it indeed be true that God is was beforehim-upheld singly but surely at this moment beseeching me to enter on this one consideration, that God hath into agreement with Him? Call it indeed said it, and shall he not do it 1 be true that a way of approach has been It was against hope, believing in hope, devised, open for admittance to myfor him to sustain with so much confi- self; and on which, if I am found, I am dence the expectation, that to him a son met by the loving kindness and tender should be born. But the most striking mercies of Him who looks so fearful to display of his thus hoping against hope, my imagination? Can it be true of that vwas vwhen told, that unto his son and his lofty and tremendous Being who sits on a seed after him, God should establish an throne of majesty; and with whom I have everlasting covenant, and at the same time been wont to associate the character of bidden to offrer him up in sacrifice, he pro- jealousy, and wrath, and a sacredness so ceeded to do what God ordered; and yet remote and inflexible, that none may draw retained in his heart the belief of what nigh unto it-can it be true that He is now God said-when he lifted against him the bending compassionately over me, and meditated blow of death, knowing, that, entreating my return from those paths of even from death, God could revive him- alienation in which I have all along wanwhen he simply betook himself to his pre- dered? We indeed read of an adjusted scribed task; and kept by a purpose of ceremonial, by which sinners may be obedience, with which he not only over- brought within the limits of His august came all the relentings of nature, but sanctuary; and we read of a Mediator threw a darkening shroud over prophecies who hath made the rough places plain, that stood linked with the life of Isaac in and levelled the otherwise impassable the world. He knew that God would find mountains of iniquity which stood between a wVay of his own to their accomplish- us and God: But can it indeed be true, ment; and it was this which bore him on- that Christ is wooing and welcoming our ward to the full proof and vindication of approach towards Him, and if we only his faith: And should we be at a loss to come with reliance to Him as to the mercy comprehend what is meant by against seat, then to us there will be no condemhope believing in hope, we see in this nation 1 Nature may strongly desire such trial that was laid upon Abraham, and in a consummation; but nature strongly the acquittal he made of himself, the most doubts its possibility. And it takes a plain and picturesque exhibition of it. struggle to surmount her apprehensions; Now to be strong in faith as he was, to and it is against hope if she believe in cherish the full persuasion that he did, to hope; and there is a contest here to be believe with him in the midst of obstacles, gone through, ere our fears of that inflexto make the glory of God's truth carry it ible truth which has proclaimed in the over the appearances of nature, so as to hearing of our conscience the curses of a stagger not in the face of' them, but to violated law, shall be overcome by our hope against hope-this is still the exer- faith in that truth, which proclaims in cise of every Christian mind, and it were Scripture the blessings of a free and well to be guided therein by the example offered gospel. And here then let the of this venerable patriarch. Such is the example of Abraham be proposed to cheer way in which the message of the gospel our way over this barrier of unbelief is constructed-such are the terms of that Let us stoutly imitate him in the resolute embassy with which its ministers -ire combat he held with the misgivings of charged, that the promise of God us a nature. Let even the very chief of sin. shield, and of God as an exceeding great ners face the unlikelihood that such as he reward, is as good as laid down at the can be taken into fiieniship with:he 80 LECTURE XV. —CHAPTER IV, 16 —22. God, before whom his profaneness and process of quickening, which nature can. profligacy have hitherto risen as a smoke not originate, and nature cannot carry of abomination. Let even him buoy up forward-a resurrection of the soul, that his expectations, against the whole weight is as far beyond the bidding of any huand burden of this despondency. Impro- man voice, as is the egress of a reani. bable as it may look to the eye of nature, mated body from the grave. The man that an outcast so polluted and so loath- who knows how steeped all his feelings some can be admitted into the honours of and all his faculties are in ungodliness, righteousness; and that though onward to knows the moral and spiritual birth that the point of' his present history he be we are now adverting to, to be against the crimsoned over with the guilt of ungodli- current of all his former experience, and ness, can not only be forgiven, but be jus- beyond the achievement of all his present tified-yet let him against this hope be- most strenuous exertions. And if against lieve in hope, and' the stronger his faith hope he believe in the hope, that such a the more abundant to him will be the regeneration shall be begun or perfected imputation of righteousness. In that very in him, it will be on the footing of some proportion in which he has heretofore such promise as sustained the expectatrampled un the glory of God by his diso- tions of' the patriarch. This unfolds to bedience, will he render a glory to His us the link which connects our faith with truth by now believing in Him who justi- our sanctification. God hath promised fieth the ungodly. Let him consider the the clean heart and the right spirit to all faith of Abraham, and let the expressions who are in Christ Jesus; and, according which the apostle employs to characterize to the firmness of our reliance upon this it now crowd upon his observation, and promise, will be the fulness of its accomcarry all doubt and timidity before thern. plishment upon our persons. Believest It is just by standing on the truth of the thou that I am able to do this? says the gospel, and then bearing up under the Saviour to the man who looked to Him sense of the guilt that hangs over us —it for a miraculous cure; and aciording to is just by firmly and determinedly persist- his faith so was it done unto him. The ing in this attitude of' confidence on the apostle Palll looked upon another man word of God, even in the midst of all under disease, and perceived that he had which without that word should sink us faith to be healed. Peter affilrmed of the into despair-it is just by so doing, that cripple whom he restored to the use of his like Abraham we stagger not because of limbs in the temple, that the name of unbelief; and like him we against hope Christ through faith in His name had believe in hope; and like him we are not made this man strong-yea the faith which weak in the faith, but by being strong in is by Him, had given him this perfect it give glory to God; and like him are soundness in the presence of them all. fully persuaded that what God hath prom- And thus do we recover our spiritual ised, He is able to perform; and like him health. And thus are the blindness and be assured, the guiltiest of you all, that if the paralysis and the impotency that have such be your faith, held firm and fast even so benumbed our moral faculties done unto the end —like as unto him so will away. The full'and firm persuasion of this faith be imputed unto you for right- the patriarch, that what is impossible with eousness. man is possible with God, will bring down There is another great unlikelihood in this possibility in living demonstration the matter of Christianity, to call forth the upon our own characters. lie who proexercise of against hope believing in hope mises also says, that for this I must be — not merely that God's disposition to- enquired after; and the prayer of' faith wards us should be so changed as that He brings down the fulfilment; and the man shall regard us with an eye of acceptance, who asks for what is so consonant to the but that our disposition toward God shall will of God, as that he shall be made alive be so changed as to make us happy in the unto himself, has only like Abraham to fellowship of a common character and of believe Him able to call from the womb a congenial intercourse with Him. This of nonentity that power into being, by we are not by nature. Our delighted which he is made a new creature in Jesus converse is with the things that are made, Christ our Lord. A creature from the and not with the Maker of them. In re- depths of his conscious depravity, thus ference to Him there is the insensibility knocking at the door which he cannot of spiritual death; and the great transi- open, but who believes that one is standtion that we have to undergo ere Heaven ing there to hear and to answer him-a can to us be a place of kindred enjoy- humble aspirant after the character of ment, is to be made alive again. For this Heaven, who prays in faith for the love to purpose there must be a revival, which God which he has never yet felt, and for no putting forth of any constitutional the charity to man with which he has energy in man can at all accomplish-a vainly tried to animate his own cold and LECTURE XV.- -CHAP'TfE IV, 16-22. 81 selfish bosom-the labouring disciple of turbulence and the fearful despondency revelation, whose ear has taken up the of which we are yet scarcely emerging — promise of our internal inheritance, but when society has been heaving under the who knows that it is only through the me- burden of a commerce greater than it can dium of a birth in his own heart as pre- bear, and the surfeited and overladen ternatural as that of Isaac that he ever world has been rolling back upon its aucan arrive at it-let him imitate the father thors the produce of their own frenzied of the faithful in his confident reliance on speculations-when the proudest of our the promise of' God; and like him let him great trading establishments have toppled believe in the power that quickeneth from to an overthrow, and strewed the face of above; and like him who was not weak an ocean that is still labouring with the in faith, let him consider not the deadness ruins and the fragments of shipwrecked of his own moral and spiritual energies, ambition-We are confident that even in but give to God the whole glory of the reno- the very midst of such a history as this, vation he aspires after-and he will most there is not a house we can enter, nor a assuredly experience with all Christians, family from which we can obtain the re. that when weak then is he strong, and that cord of all their vicissitudes and all their what God hath promised He is able also vexations, where we shall not find a troto perform. phy of the faithfulness of God —where up But the habit of against hope believing to the extent of His own engagement, in hope. is not restricted to the great and which are what things we absolutely stand general promises of Christianity. It ex- in need of, and why care we for the rest 1 tends to all the promises of the book of -He has not ministered subsistence and revelation-to those for example, in which safety to all who put their trust in Him-so God has condescended even on the passing that here is an ever recurring topic for the affairs of our pilgrimage in this world; exercise of faith; and in behalf of God and affirmed that He will not leave us do we affirm, even in the unlikeliest and destitute of such things as are needful for most threatening of all periods, that as the the body; and hath admonished us to faith so will be the fulfilrment. cast this care upon Him, on the assurance And upon this very theme of our preof daily bread to us and our little ones. sent remarks, does the offering up of Isaac Amid the reelings of this eventful period,* admit of a most powerful and pertinent we doubt not that the aspect of the times application. It was through him, that has borne upon it a hard and a louring Abraham saw afar off the glory that was expression towards many a family; and promised; and yet was he required by that, standing on the eve of a fearful de- God to sacrifice with his own hands; and, scent into the abyss of poverty, great has even against hope believing in hope, he been the distress and great has been the proceeded to render an unfaltering corn disquietude; and that while the present pliance with the order; and while he mnado and the visible dependence was fast melt- full proof of his obedience on the one ing away, and every successive arrival land, did God on the other mnake full had for months to-gether tolled to the ear proof of His faithfulness. There is a time of the mercantile world a still more, dis- when adversity brings a man so low, as mal futurity that was coming —manyhave to strip him of more than his all; and been the hearts among you that were fail- when it places him before the tribunal of ing for fear, and to the eye of nature was his assembled creditors; and when justice it against all hope, that you ever could be bids a faithful account and a full surrenborne through the dark spaces of uncer- der of all that belongs to him; and when tainty that lay before you. And yet even nevertheless, by an act of dexterous and here the Christian has ground against unseen appropriation, he may retain a hope to believe in hope. The promise of something with which he links the future daily bread is to him and to his children. revival of his business, or the future subLet him but have the faith of the patri- sistence of his family. Now this is his arch, and he will not be afraid of evil appointed sacrifice, This, in despite of tidings; and while there be others, who, all fond antic:iation in behalf of his prosin the rush of a great commercial storm, pects, and of atl relentings on behalf of are melted in their soul because of trou- his children, it is his duty to give up. His ble; and reel to and fro, and stagger like business is to discharge himself of every a drunken man, and are at their wits' end item of God's will, and to embark himself — he believeth and is calm, and at length with full reliance on God's promises. finds himself in the desired haven. And This is the trial both of his integrity and we appeal to this worst of seasons; we of his faith; and on the altar of truth it is appeal to a period from the crash and the his part to deposit an entire article, and to bring forward every secret and untold In 1820-when commercal distress, and political dis. offering to the light of an open manifestaacntent, threatened a violent outbreakinig in the manu- lf ta, uring districts of the West of ScotlarvnA. tion. This we would call the triumph of 1: 82 LECTURE XV.-CHAPTER IV, 16-22. faith over vision, and of trust in God over of all who do believe-in that, when thc the apprehensions of nature; and the un- commandment came forth upon him from seen witness, who all the while is most God, he never once imagined that there intently looking on, can out of the infinity was any thing else for him to act in the of means which He has at command, affair, but just to render an instantaneous again bring sufficiency to his door-can compliance therewith. We have heard iill him witlh all that peace of contentment belief and obedience contrasted the one with which godliness is great gain, and with the other, and in such a way as if bless with thile light of His approving these two terms stood in practical opposicountenance that humbler walk to which tion. In the case of Abraham we see them he has descended-can throw a sweetness standing in sure and immediate succession, and a shelter around him that perhaps he so that the one emanated from the other; never felt in the loftier exposures of so- and just in proportion to the strength of ciety; and irradiate his more modest and his faith, and to the glory which he renhomely dwelling place, with a hope that dered unto God for His faithfulness, and beams beyond the grave, and soars above to the unstaggering reliance that he had all the changes of this fleeting and uncer- upon His assurances, and to the thoroughtain pilgrimage. ness of his persuasion that what God had There is still another lesson that re- promised lie was able also to performmains to be drawn and enforced from the just in that very proportion, did he comexample of Abraham, besides the strength mit himself to the authority of God, and of his f(aith; and that is the practical amid all the uncertainties incident to one movement which it imprest upon him. who was going he knew not whither, did To be the children of him who is called he take counsel and direction from Him the father of the faithful-it is not enough who was his master in heaven; and nothat we imitate him in the principle of his thing can be more evident than that charfaith —we must also, according to the lan- acter of devotedness to the whole will of guage of the apostle, walk in the footsteps God which stood imprest on the subseof' it. It is very true that it was the belief quent doings of his life upon earth; and, o)f Abraham which was counted to him for instead of a mere contemplative persuarighteousness. I-He believed what the Lord sion with which he looked forward to the had spoken; and had there not been an- country that was promised to him, did he other communication to him from Heaven, shape his measures with all the preparathan simply' that he was to have a son tion and activity of a man who had been through whoni all the families of the earth set upon the enterprise of travelling towere to be blessed, we can conceive a firm wards it. So that faith, instead of lulling persuasion of the truth of this announce- him out of his activity, was the very prinment, resting in the mnd of the patriarch, ciple which both set it agoing and kept it without stimulating him to one deed or to agoing. It was the moving force which one movement in consequence. It might first tore him away from those scenes and have found ingress there, and taken up a from that society to which nature so admost inviolable lodgment in his heart, and hesively cleaves; and after he had been he be reckoned with as righteous because loosed from all that was dear to him, did of it; and yet he may have occupied the the same force act upon him with that very station, and lived the very life that continued impulse, which made him just he would have done, though no such mes- as exemplary for his works of obedience sage had ever come to his door, and no as he was for the strength and determinasuch promise had ever been- addrest to tion of his faith. It is most true, as Paul him. But, instead of this, we find that his says to the Romans, that by faith Abrafilth in the heavenly visitation was in- ham was justified, and not by obedience. stantly followed up by a change in the But it is just as true what he says to the whole course and habit of his pilgrimage; Hebrews, that it was by faith that Abraand a painful abandonment of all that was ham obl:yed-when he was called to go out naturally dear to his heart was the very into a place which he should after receive first fruit of it, and he fortnwith put him- for an inheritance; and he went out not self under a control whch maintained an knowing whither he went. By faith, he authoritative guidance over the whole of sojourned in the land of promise as in a his future history; and in the full attitude strange country, dwelling in tabernacles of service and subordination, did he wait with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him the bidding of that master's voice, who of the same promise. For he looked for prescribed to him the conduct of all his a city which hath foundations whose journeyings through the world, and often: builder and maker is God. And he walklaid upon him the most arduous tasks of ed as a stranger and pilgrim upon earth, obedience: And nothing can be more com- and declared plainly that he had gone -pletely passive and resigned, than the pos- forth in quest of a country. ture of him who has been styled the father The truth is, that God did not confine LECTURE XV.-CHAPTER IV, 16-22. 83 His utterance w th Abraham to a bare to him, that led him to the first step of his promise, on the truth of which it was his obedience; and it was his faith in God's part to rely. The very first utterance that future addresses, where precepts and prois recorded was a precept, on the authority mises are intermingled together, that led of which it was his part to proceed. "Get him on to future steps of obedience: And thee out of thy country, and from thy kin- it is just by walking in the same path of dred an(l from thy father's house, into a obedience that he did, that we walk in the land that I will show thee." It is very footsteps of the faith of our father Abratrue that ere he would obey there was ham. An article of belief may lie up in something to believe. He had to believe our minds, without any change or any that it was God who spake unto him. He transition; and such a belief can have no must have believed in the land of which footsteps. But when it is a belief that he had been told. Ie must have believed carries movement along with it-when it in the truth of the promise, that came im- is a belief in one who both bids and mediately on the back of the command- blesses with his voice at the same timement. He must, in fact, have given an when it is a belief that is conversant with entire and unexcepted glory to the truth such an utterance as the following — of God-and must therefore have had a "Arise, walk through the land in the faith reaching to the whole extent of God's length and in the breadth of it: For I testimony, Had God simply said "' I will will give it unto thee;" or with such an make of thee a great nation," the belief utterance as the following-" I am the Alof such an announcement did not essen- mighty God: walk before me and be thou tially lead to any movement on the part perfect, and I will make my covenant beof our patriarch. But when God said- tween me and thee, and will multiply thee'" Get thee out of thy country, and I will exceedingly "-when it is belief in a God make of thee a great nation"-Ithe belief who so manages this intercourse with His of the announcement, extended in this creatures, as to cheer them by His promanner, would lead Abraham to perceive, mises, and guide them by His directions that the act of his leaving home was.just at the same instant-there is a dependence as essential to the fulfilling of it, as the that will issue from such a faith, but there act of his becoming a great nation was is an obedience also; and the successive essential. And the joy he felt in the lat- parts of that practical history which it ter part of the communication, would just originated at the first, and animates be in proportion to the prompt obedience throughout afterwards, are the footsteps that he rendered to the former part of it. of the faith. It was his faith in the first address of God LECTURE XVI. ROMANS iv, 23-25.'Now, it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; but for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; who was delivered for our oiences, and was raised again for our justification." THESE things were written for our ad- the ground that we judge Him to be faithmonition on whom the latter ends of the ful who has promised. It ought to enworld have come. The circumstance of courage our faith, when we read of him Abraham's faith being proposed as an ex- who was the father of the faithful, stagample to us, should bring up our confi- gering not at the promise of God through dence to the same pitch of boldness and unbelief, but being strong in faith, and determination which are ascribed to his thereby glorifying God by his persuasion in the preceding verses. He against hope that what He had promised Ile was able believed in hope; that is, he trusted in also to perform. WVhen we read that it the face of unlikelihood. So ought we, was this very resolute and unfaltering rehowever unlikely it is to the eye of na- liance on the part of Abraham, which ture, that sinners should be taken into God counted to him for righteousness, friendship with that God whose holiness and that the same faith upon our part will is at irreconcilable variance with sin. We bring down upon us the benefits of a like just do as Abraham did before us, when imputation-this ought to overrule the we rest and rely upon God's friendship to fears of guilt. It should rebuke all our us in Christ Jesus; and that simply on doubts and apprehensions away from us 84 LECTURE XVI.-CHAPTER IV, 23-25. It should rivet our souls on this sure attempting so feebly to illustrate, and foundation, that God hath said it, and shall which many regard as the jargon of a Hle not perform it? It should clear away scholastic theology that is now exploded the louring imagery of terror and distrust rise in all the characters of reality and from the sinner's agitated bosom: And if truth before the eye of youi now enlightthe most characteristic peculiarity in the ened conscience; and gladly would you belief of Abraham was, that it was belief devolve the burden of your guilt on the in the midst of staggering and appalling head of the accepted sacrifice, that you imrprobabilities-should not this just stim- may be rescued from the condemnation ulate to the same belief the spirit of him, of those offences for which Hle was dewho, feeling that by nature he is in the livered, that you may be lightened of all hands of a God in whose sacred breast that fearful endurance which He has there exists a jealousy of all that is evil, borne. is apt to view with i'ncredulity the ap-'And raised again for our justification.' proaches of the same God when He prof- WVe are not fond of that repulsive air firs reconciliation even to the worst and which has doubtless been thrown around most worthless offenders; and protests in Christianity, by what some would call the their hearing, that, if they will only draw barbarous terms and distinctions of schoolnigh in the name of Christ, He will forgive men. But it will, we think, help to illusall and forget all 3 trate the truth of the matter before us, V. 25. The circumstance that is singled I that we shortly advert to the theological out in this passage as the object of the phrases of a negative and positive justififaith of Christians, is that of God having cation. The former consists of an acquittal raised up Jesus from the dead. In other from guilt. By the latter a title is conparts of the Bible the resurrection of the ferred to the reward of righteousness. Saviour is stated to be the act of God the There are two ways in which God may Fathe-r; and, however much the import deal with you —either as a criminal in the of this may have escaped the notice of an way of vengeance, or as a loyal and obeordinary reader, it is pregnant with mean- dient subject in the way of reward. By ing of the weightiest importance. You your negative justification, you simply know that when the prison door is opened attain to the midway position of God letto a criminal, and that by the very autho- ting you alone. He does not lay upon you rity which lodged him there, it evinces the hand of retribution for your evil deeds; that the debt of his transgression has been but neither does He lay upon you the hand rendered; and that he now stands acquit- of retribution for any good deeds. You ted of all its penalties. it was not for His are kept out of hell, the place of penal own but for our offences that Jesus was suffering for the vicious. But you are not delivered unto the death, and that His, preferred to heaven, the place of awarded body was consigned to the imprisonment glory and happiness for the virtuous. of the grave. And when an angel de- Noxw the conception is, that the Saviour scended from heaven and rolled back the accomplished our negative justification great stone from the door of the sepulchre, by bearing upon His own person the chasthis speaks to us that the justice of God tisement of our sins-He was delivered is satisfied, that the ransom of our iniqui- for our offences unto the death. But that ties has been paid, that Christ has render- to achieve our positive justification, He ed a full discharge of all that debt for did more than suffer, He obeyed. He acwhich He, undertook as the great Surety cumulated as it were a stock of righteousbetween God and the sinners who believe ness, out of which He lavishes reward on in Him.'And could we only humble you those whom He had before redeemed from into the conviction that you need the punishment. It was because He finished benefit of such a redeeming process- a great work that God highlyexalted Him; could we only show you to yourselves as and from the place which He now occuthe helpless transgressors of a command- pies does He shed on HIis disciples a forement that cannot be trampled on with im- taste of heaven here, as the earnest and punity-could we thoroughly impress you the preparation for their inheritance herewith the principle that God is not to be after. IHe does something more than work mocked, and that the sanctions of that out their deliverance from the place of moral government which He wields over torment, and thus bring them to the neuthe universe He has thrown around Him tral and intermediate state of those who are not to be treated as things of no sig- are merely forgiven. He pours upon nitficancy-could we reveal to you your them spiritual blessings; and, by stamptrue situation as the subjects of a law, ing upon them a celestial character, does that still pursues you with its exactions, He usher them even now into celestial while it demands reparation for all'the joy —so as that, with their affections set indignities it has gotten at your hands- upon things above, they may already be Then would the topics which we are now said to dwell in heavenly places with LECTURE XVI.-CIHAPTER IV. 23-25. 85 CUhrist Jesus our Lord: And thus while it marked by a violent separation fron, al was by His death, that He delivered them the habits and attachments of nature, tile from the guilt of their offences-it is by outset of ours is marked by a separation His rising again, that He obtained for from our old tastes and our old tenden them the rewards of righteousness, the cies in every way as violent-that if' in privileges of a completed justification. the progress of his he had to obey the reAnd here we may remark, that by the quirement which laid upon the sacrifice simple bestowment of holiness upon His of his dearest possessions upon earth, in people, does He in fact infuse into their the progress of ours we may be called spirits the great and essential element of upon to cut off a right hand or to pluck heaven's blessedness. It is a mistake to out a right eye-that if he was bidden to think, that it is either the splendour or the wander afar from the scenes of his inmusic of paradise, which makes it a place fancy, and to abandon all the endearments of rejoicing. It is because righteousness of his wonted society so also we, without will flourish there, that rapture will be felt having to describe one mile of locomothere. It is because heaven is the abode tion, are bidden to enter upon a new of purity, that it is also an abode of peace spiritual region, and by so doing, to be and pleasantness. It is because every deserted by the congeniality and approheart thrills with benevolence, that in bation of all our ungodly friends and all every heart there is beatitude unspeaka- our worldly companionships. In a word, ble. It is love to God that calls forth the faith of' Christianity, like the faith of halleluiahs of ecstacy which ring eter- the patriarch, is not a mere metaphysical nally in heaven. In a word, it is not an notion-neither are the blessings of Chrisanimal but a spiritual festival, which is tianity a reward for the soundness of it preparing for us in the mansions above; The faith both of the one and of the other and in these mansions below, a foretaste is just such a practical sense of the reality is felt by those, who, through patient con- of unseen and eternal things, as leads us tinuance in well-doing, seek for glory and to go in actual quest of them according immortality and honour. The real disci- to a prescribed course; and, in so doing, ples of the Saviour on earth, can testify, to renounce present things whatever be that if they had holiness enough they the force and whatever be the urgency of would have happiness enough; and a still their allurements. The faith that was in more affecting testimony to the truth, that the patriarch's heart, originated such dothe atmosphere of goodness is of itself an ings in the history of his life, as declared atmosphere of gladness and of light, may plainly that he sought a country. And be seen in the mental wretchedness of our faith is nothing, it is but the breath those who mourn some deadly overthrow of an empty profession, but the utterance from that purity of heart which at one of a worthless orthodoxy, if it be not foltime guarded and adorned them-who lowed up by such measures and such have fallen from peace, and that simply movements as plainly declare that inlrorbecause they have fallen from principle- tality is the goal to which we are tending and feel in their bosoms the agonies of -that the world is but the narrow forehell, and that without another instrument ground of that perspective which is lying of vengeance to pursue them than a sense at our feet-and, with the eye stretching of their own native and inherent worth- forward to the magnificent region beyond lessness. it, that we are actually keeping on the The following is the paraphrase of this strait but single path which conducts to short passage. this distant heaven, though set at every'Now it was not for the mere sake of footstep with thorns, and hemmed on the Abraham that righteousness was reckoned right and on the left with difficulties innuto him because of his faith-but for us merable. also, to whom it shall be reckoned, if we Go forth with this text upon actual sobelieve on Him who raised up Jesus our ciety, and make a survey of that mighty Lord fromn the dead-who was delivered throng that move upon our streets, and up unto the death as an atonement for our frequent in thousands our market places offences; and was then raised that He -behold every individual in the busy and might confer upon us the fruits of His anxious pursuit of some object which lies own achievement, the rewards of His own in the distance away from himn-meet him at obedience.' any one hour of his history, and ascertain We have little more than time to re- if possible whether the thing on which his mark, that the faith of Christians, is as heart is lavishing all its desirousness be little an inert or merely speculative prin- placed on this or on the other side of ciple, as the faith of Abraham-that it is death: And if, in every instance, the followed up by a practical rnovement just character of the occupation shall plainly as his was, and has its footsteps just as declare that the region of sense which is his had-that if the outset of his was near engrosse. every feeling, and that ti}: 86 LECTURE XVI. —CHAPTER IV, 23-25. region of spirit which is distant is not in and, instead of a painful banishment. h all his thoughts-then, if faith, instead of would have felt it as a refuge and a a barren dogma, be indeed the substance hiding place to have gone a solitary wan. of things hoped for and the evidence of derer from the place of his nativity. And things not seen-on this very day might in like manner may affliction loosen even not the question and complaint of our now the bonds that attach us to the Saviour be preferred,'verily, when the world; and that love of it which is oppo. Son of man cometh shall He find faith site to the love of the Father, may receive upon the earth?' a death-blow from some great and unIt just occurs to us before we are done, looked-for calamity; and the heart, bethat we may gather from the history of reaved of all its wonted objects, may now Abraham, and that by no very circuitous gladly close with the solicitations of that process of inference, the efficacy of afflic- voice which speaketh from heaven, and tion in promoting the conversion of a soul would woo us to the abiding glories of to God. For any thing that appears, he, eternity; and we may now find it easier at the call of Heaven, left a happy home, to give up our disengaged attachments and a smiling circle of relationship, and a unto God-seeing that it has pleased Him, prosperous establishment, and a neigh- by the infliction of His chastening hand, bourhood that esteemed him. This added to sever away from them all those objects to the violence of the separation. But on which they wont so fondly to expatiate; conceive that, previous to the call, his and thus it is, that, from the awful visitafamily had been wrested from him by tions of death or poverty or any other sleath; or that his wealth had gone by dreadful overthrow from some eminence misfortune into dissipation; or that that which at one time was occupied, there most grievous of all misfortunes had may at length, after a dark and brooding befallen him, he had incurred disgrace by period of many agitations, emerge the some violent departure from rectitude- light of new-born prospects; there may then the ties which bound him to the at length spring up the peaceable fruit of place of his nativity had been broken; righteousness. LECTURE XVII. ROMANS V, 1, 2. "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ; by whom also we h&ve access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." To be justified here, is not to be made this epistle, we are said to be justified by righteous, but to be counted righteous. grace. It was in love to the world, that To be justified by faith, expresses to us the whole scheme of another righteousthe way in which an imputed righteous- ness was devised, and executed, and offered ness is made ours. Faith is that act of to man as his plea both of acquittal and the recipient, by which he lays hold of of reward before the God whom he had this privilege. It contributes no more to offended. In another place of the New the merit that is reckoned to us, than the Testament, we read of being justified by hand of the beggar adds any portion to Christ-even by Him who brought in that the alms that are conferred upon him. righteousness which is unto all, and upon Wihen we look to the righteousness that all who believe. One should look out to is made ours by faith, it is well to go al- that which forms the ground and the mattogether out of ourselves, and not to mix ter of our justification; and when we read up any one personal ingredient whether here that we are justified by faith, one of obeying or of believing with it. The should understand that faith is simply the imagination of a merit in faith, brings us instrument by which we lay hold of this back to legal ground again, and exposes great privilege-not the light itself, but us to legal distrust and disquietude. In the window through which it passes-the the exercise of faith, the believer's eye channel of transmission upon our persons, looks out on a cheering and a comforting by which there is attached to them the spectacle; and from the object of its merit of the righteousness which another external contemplation, does it fetch home- has wrought, and of the obedience which ward all the encouragement which it is another has rendered. fitted to convey. In a former verse of' We have peace with God.' There are LECTURE XVII. —CHAPTER I-V, 23-25. 87 two senses in which this expression may no power of self-examination is required be understood. It may signify that peace to ascertain the existence of them. I which is brought about by a transition in could much more readily, for example the mind of the Godhead, and in virtue of find an answer to the question, what the which He is appeased towards us. He emotions of my heart are, if there be any ceases from that wrath against the sinner, depth or tenderness in them at all, than I which only abideth on those who believe could answer the question what the no. not; and firomn an enemy, Ile, in consider- tions of my understanding are; and wheation of a righteousness which He lays to ther they amount to a belief, or stop short our account after we have accepted it by at a mere imagination. A state or a proftith, becometh a friend. Or it may sig- cess of' the intellect, is far more apt to nify that state which is brought about by elude the inward discernment of man, a transition in our minds; and in virtue than a state or a process of sensible imof which we cease from our apprehension pression, which announces its own reality of God's wrath against us-not, we think, to him in spite of himself. And thus it is, a dissolving of' our enmity against Him, that it may be a very difficult thing to but a subsiding of our terrors because of' find whether faith be in me, by taking a Him-rest from the agitations of conscious direct look at the state of the understandguilt, now washed away-rest fiom the ing-while it may not be difficult to find, forebodings of anticipated vengeance, now whether peace be in me, or love be in me, borne by Him on whom the chastisement or a principle of zealous obedience be in of our peace was laid. This we conceive me-all of these making themselves known, to be the true meaning of' peace with God as it were, by the touch of' a distinct and in the verse before us. The whole pas- vigorous sensation. And hence the test sage, for several verses, looks to be a nar- of the principle may be fhar more readily rative of the personal experience of be- come at than the principle itself. The lievers-of their rejoicing, and of their foliage and the blossoms may stand more hoping, and of' their glorying. The sub- obviously revealed to the eye of the innei ject of the peace that is spoken of in this man, than the germ from which they verse is the mind of believers-a peace originate; and what our Saviour says of felt by them, no doubt, because they his followers is true of the faith by which now judge that God is pacified towards they are actuated, that by its fruits ye them; but still a peace, the proper resi- shall know it. dence of which is in their own bosoms, And as to the peace of our text, which that now have ceased from their fears of is stated there to be a consequence of the Lawgiver, and are at rest. faith-it surely cannot be denied, but by Peace in this sense of it then, being the those who never felt what the remorse and effect of faith, affords a test for the reality the restlessness and the other raging eleof this latter principle. Some perhaps ments of a sinner's bosom are, that the conmay think that this could be still more sequence is far more obvious than the directly ascertained, if, instead of lookingo cause. The mind that has been tost and at the test, we looked immediately to the tempest-driven by the pursuing sense of principle itself. By casting an immediate its own worthlessness, should ever these regard upon one's own bosom, we may unhappy agitations sink into a calm, will learn whether peace is there or not. But surely feel the transition and instantly reby casting the same inward regard, might cognise it. When an outward storm has not we directly learn whether faith is spent its fury, and the last breath of it has there or not? If it be as competent for the died away into silence, the ear cannot be eye of consciousness to discern the faith more sensible of the difference-than the that is in the mind, as to discern there the inner man is, when the wild war of turpeace that is but the effect of faith-might bulence and disorder in his own heart, is not we, without having recourse to marks at length wrought off to its final terminaor evidences at all, just lay as it were our tion. The man may grope for ever among immediate finding upon the principle that the dark and brooding imagery of his own we want to ascertain; and come at once spirit, and never once be able to detect to the assurance that faith is in me, be- there that principle of faith, which may cause I am conscious it is in me? tell him that though he suffers now he will Now let it be remarked, that there are be safe in eternity. But should this uncertain states and habitudes of the soul, seen visitor actually enter with him, and which are far more palpable than others work the effect that is here ascribed to it, to the eye of' conscience —certain affec- and put an end to that sore vengeance of tions, which give a far more powerful discipline with which God had exercised intimation of their presence, and can there- him, and again restore the light of that fore be much more easily and imme- countenance which either looked to him diately recognized-certain feelings of so in wrath or was mantled in darkriess — fresh;anrt sensible a character that almost I should he now feel at peace from those 88 LECTURE XVII.-CHAPTER V, 1, 2. terrors that so recently had made him'hath shined in the hearts of those who be. afraid; and the God that loured judgment.ieve, to give them the light of the know. upon his soul, now put on a face of be- ledge of the glory of God in the face of nignity, and bid this unhappy outcast Jesus Christ; and they who believe not again look up to Him and rejoice-should and are lost, are blinded by the god of this the guilt which so agonised him be sprin- world, lest the light of the glorious gospel kled over with the blood of atonement, of Christ, who is the image of God, should and he again be translated into the sun- shine unto them.' shine of conscious acceptance with the V. 2. The single word also may conBeing whose chastening hand had well vince us, that the privilege spoken of in nigh overwhelmed him-We repeat it, that the second verse, is distinct from and adthough faith in itself may elude the explor- ditional to the privilege spoken of in the ing eye of him, who finds the search that I first. The grace wherein we stand is somehe is making through the recesses of his thing more than peace with God. We moral constitution to be not more fatiguing understand it to signify God's positive than it is fruitless-yet faith as the harbin- kindness or favour to us. You may have ger of peace may manifest at once its no wrath against a man, whom at the same reality, by. an effect so powerful and so time you have no feeling of positive goodprecious. will to. You are at peace with him, This may serve perhaps to illustrate the though not in friendship with him. It is right attitude for a penitent in quest of a great deal that God ceases to be offendcomfort, under the burden of convictions ed with us, and is now to inflict upon us which distress or terrify him. He may at no penalty. But it is still more that God length fetch it from without-but he never should become pleased with us, and is will fetch it primarily or directly from now to pour blessings upon our heads. It within. The children of Israel might have is a mighty deliverance to our own feelas soon been healed by looking down- ings, when our apprehensions are quietwardly upon their wounds, rather than ed; and we have nothing to fear. But it upwardly to the brazen serpent, as the is a still higher condition to be preferred conscienrce-striken sinner will find relief to, when our hopes are awakened; and from any one object that can meet his eye, we rejoice in the sense of God's regard to in that abyss of darkness and distemper us now, and in the prospect of His glory to which he has turned his own labouring hereafter. It is additional to our peace in bosom. He is where he ought to be, when believing, that we also have joy in believlying low in the depths of humiliation; ing. There is something here that will but never will he attain to rest or to re- remind vou of what has been already said covery, till led to the psalmist's prayer- of negative and positive justification. It'Out of the depths do I cry unto thee, O was in dying, that Christ pacified the LawLord.' It is not from the trouble that is giver. It was in rising again, that He below, but frQm the truth that is above, obtained, as the reward of His obedience, that he will catch the sun-beam which is the favour of God, in behalf of all those to gladden and to revive him. It is not for whom He now liveth to make interces. by looking to himself, but by looking unto sion, and from these two verses, the disJesus-and that peace with God which he tinction to which we have already advertnever can arrive at through the medium ed receives another illustration. of so dark a contemplation as his own The following is a paraphrase of these character-that peace the tidings of which two verses. he never will read, among the lineaments' Therefore having righteousness laid of his own turpitude and defortnity-the to our account because we have faith, we peace to which no exercise of penitential enjoy peace with God through our Lord feeling, though prolonged in sorrow and Jesus Christ. By whom also it is that we bitterness to the end of his days, will ever have obtained admittance through our of itself conduct him-the peace with God, faith, into that state of' favour with God which, through himself or through any wherein we stand here, and rejoice in the penance of his own inflicting, he never hope of His glory hereafter.' will secure, can only come in suit and The only remaining topic that occurs abundant visitation upon his heart, through to us from this short but comprehensive the channel of our text, when it is peace passage, is that glory of God which is with God through Jesus Christ our Lord. hereafter to be revealed. The Apostle'Look unto me, all ye ends of the earth, Peter speaks of believers being begotten and be saved.''Like as Moses lifted up again to a lively hope, by the resurrecthe serpent in the wilderness, so must the tion of Jesus from the dead, to an inheriSon of man be lifted up; that whosoever tance incorruptible and undefiled and that believeth in Him should not perish but passeth not away, and is reserved in hea. have everlasting life.' God who com- ven for those who are kept by tile power manded the light to shine out of darkness, of God through faith unto a salvatlorn LECTURE XVII.-CHAPTER V, 1, 2. 89 that is ready to be revealed in the last seen Father of them. All they call reach time. We cannot speak in detail upon a in this nether pilgrimage, is but a glimpse subject that has yet to be revealed. We and a foretaste of' the coming revelation cannot lift away the veil, from what an- and as to that glory, which, while in the other apostle tells us is still a mystery, body, they shall never behold with the when he says, that it doth not yet appear eye of vision, they can now only rejoice what we shall be. But we may at least in the hope of its full and abundant discarry our observation to the extent of the closure in the days that are to come. partial disclosure made to us by the same It were presumptuous, perhaps, to at. apostle, when he says, though ";it doth not tempt any conception of such a disclosure yet appear what we shall be, yet we know, -when God shall show Himself personthat, when Ile shall appear, we shall be ally to man-when the mighty barrier of like Him —for we shall see Him as He is." interception, that is now so opake and imFrom this we at least gather, that we penetrable, shall at length be moved away shall have a direct perception of God. -when the great and primitive Father of You know how much it is otherwise now all, shall at length stand revealed to the -how, though He is not far from any one eye of creatures rejoicing before Himof us, He is as hidden from all observa- when all that design and beauty by which tion as if removed to the distance of in- this universe is enriched, shall beam in a finity away from us-how, though locally direct flood of radiance from the original He is in us and around us, yet to every mind that evolved it into being-when the purpose of direct and personal fellowship sight of infinite majesty shall be so temwe are as exiles from His presence-how pered by the sight of infinite mercy, that all that is created, though it bear upon it the awe which else would overpower will the impress of the Creator's hand, instead be sweetened by love into a mnost calm of serving to us as a reflection of the and solemn and confiding reverence-and Deity, serves as a screen to intercept our the whole family of heaven shall find it discernment of Him. It is not true, that to be enough of' happiness for ever, that the visible structure of the universe, leads the graces of the Divinity are visibly exman at least, to trace the image, and to panded to their view, and they are admitrealize the power and operation of that ted into the high delights of ecstatic and Divinity who reared it. It is not true, that ineff:lble communion with the living God. he is conducted upwards, from the agents But it will be the glory of His moral perand the secondary causes that are on every fections, that will minister the most of side of him, to that unseen and primary high rapture and reward to these children Cause who framed at first the whole of of immortality. It will be the holiness this wondrous mechanism, and still con- that recoils from every taint of impurity. tinues to guide by His unerring wisdom It will be the cloudless iustre of justice 0ll the movements of it. The world, in unbroken, and truth unchanged and unfact, is our all; and we do not penetrate changeable. It will be the unspotted beyond it to its animating Spirit; and we worth and virtue of the Godhead-yet all do not pierce the canopy that is stretched so blended with a compassion that is in. above it, to the glories of His upper sanc- finite, and all so directed by a wisdom tuary. The mind may stir itself up to lay that is unsearchable, that by a way of achold of God; but, like a thin and shadowy cess as wondrous as is the Being who deabstraction, He eludes the grasp of the vised it, sinners have entered within the mind-and the baffled overdone creature threshold of this upper temple; and, withis left, without an adequate feeling of that out violation to the character of Him who mysterious Being who made and who up- presides there, have been transported from holds him. To every unconverted man, a region of sin to this region of unsullied creation, instead of illustrating the Deity, sacredness. And there, seeing Him as He has thrown a shroud of obscurity over is, do they become altogether like unto Him; and even to the eve of a believer, Him; and there are they transformed into is He seen in dimness and disguise, so a character kindred to His own; and there that almost all he can do is to long after that assimilating process is perfected, by Him in the world; and, as the heart pant- which every creature who is in Paradise, eth after the water brooks, so does his soul has the image of glory, that shines upon thirst after the living God. The whole him from the throne, stamped upon his creation groaneth and travaileth, under own person; and there each, according to the sentence of its banishment from Him the measure of his capacity, is filled with who gave it birth; and even they who the worth and beneficence of the God. have received the first fruits of the Spirit, head; and there the distinct reward held do groan within themselves, under the forth to the candidates for heaven upon heavy incumbrance that weighs down their earth, is, that they shall see God, and besouls as they follow hard after the yet un- come like unto God-like Him in His 12 93 LECTURE XVII.-CHAPTER V; 1, 2. hatred of all iniquity, like Him in the -in the possession of a sound and a well love and in the possession of' all right- poised mind, prepared for the attack of eousness. every temptation, and with all its ready You will be at no loss now to under- powers at command, on the intimation of stand, how it is that he who hath this hope every coming danger-in the triumph of in him, purilieth himself even as God is those noble and new-born energies by pure. It is by progress in holiness, in which he can cleAr the ascending way of fact, that he is in.mking ground on that a progressive holiness, through all those alone way which leads and qualifies fol besetting urgencies that are found to enheaven. There is no other heaven truly tangle and to discomfit other men-and, than a heaven of' godliness; and by every above all, in those hours of sweet and sowilful sin that is committed, does man lemn rapture, by which he diversifies a lose so muck of distance from the pro- walk unspotted in the world, with the lofty mised reward, and puts himself more devotion of his occasional retirements hopelessly away from it. You will see by away from it. Who shall say that rightthis that faith in the gospel and a delibe- eousness is not the road to a believer's rate following after sin, is a contradiction heaven, when it is righteousness, and that in terms. The very road to heaven is a alone, which gives its breath and its being road of conformity to the will, and of un- to all the ecstacy that abounds in it? Or ceasing appruximation to the resemblance who shall say that the grace in which he of' the Godhead. The great object of the is taught to rejoice, encourages to sin, dispensation we sit under, is to be restored when it is sin that wrests every foretaste to t-lis forfeited image, and to be reinsta- of the coming blessedness from his soul; ted in all the graces of the character that and darkens, if not to utter and irrecowe have lost. The atonement by Christ verable extinction at least for a period of is nothing —justification by faith is no- deep and dreadful endurance, all his prosthing-the assumption of' an orthodox pects of enjoying it? phraseology is nothing-unless they have We shall conclude with offering you an formed a gate of introduction to that arena, actual specimen of heaven upon earth, as on which the Christian must fight his way enjoyed for a season of devotional conto a heavenly character, and so be created templation on the word of God; and it anew ill righteousness and true holiness. may afford you some conception of the Every sin throws him aback on the ground kind of happiness that is current there. that he is travelling; and often throws " And now," says the good bishop Horne, him aback so fearfully, that, if' he feels after he had finished his commentary on as he ought, he will tremble lest he has the Psalms, and had held many a precious been thrown off from the ground altoge- hour of converse with God and with the ther —lest the sore retrogression that lie things that are above when meditating has made from all holiness, has made him thereon —" And now, could the author flatan outcast from all hope-lest by putting ter himself, that any one would take half a good conscience away from him, he has the pleasure in reading the following exmade shipwreck of faith: And never will position, which he hath taken in writing the irreconcilable variance between sal- it, he would not fear the loss of his labour vation and sin, come home to his experi- The employment detached him from the ence in more sure and practical demon- bustle and hurry of life, the din of politics stration, than when sin has thrown him and the noise of' folly; vanity and vexaadrift from all the securities which held tion, flew away for a season, care and dishim; and, through a lengthened season quietude came not near his dwelling. He of abandontnent and distress, he can find arose fresh as the morning to his task; no comfort in the word, and catch no smile the silence of the night invited him to purfirom the upper sanctuary, and hear no sue it; and he can truly say that food and whisper of mercy fiom God's returning rest were not preferred before it. Every Spirit, and feel no happiness and no hope psalm improved infinitely upon his acin the Saviour. quaintance with it, and no one gave him The same doctrine receives a more uneasiness but the last; for then he pleasing illustration fiom the bright side grieved that his work was done. Happier of the picture. To ascertain the kind of hours than those which have been spent happiness that is in heaven, the best way in these meditations on the songs of Zion, is to observe the happiness ofa good man he never expects to see in this world. upon earth. You will find it to consist Very pleasantly did they pass, and moved essentially in those pleasures of the heart, smoothly and swiftly along; for when which the love and the service of God thus engaged he counted no time. They bring along with it-in a sense of the di- are gone, but have left a relish and a vine favour, beaming upon him from fragrance upon the mind, and the rememabove; and in the fresh and perpetual brance of them is sweet." feast of an approving conscience within May every sabbath you shall spend LECTURE XVII. —CHAPTER V, 1, 2. 91 upon earth, bring down such a glimpse is only to those who keep the sayings of of heaven's glory and heaven's blessed- the Saviour, that He has promised thus te ness upon your habitations. No care; manifest Himself; and it is only after a no poverty; no desolation, by the hand pure and watchful and conscientious week of death upon your household; no evil, that you can ever expect its closing sab. saving remorse, that the world can oppose, bath to be a season of rejoicing piety, a need to keep such precious visitations day of peace and of pleasantness. away from you. But O remember that it LECTURE XVIII. ROMANS V, 3-5. "And not only so, but we glory in tribulation also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, es perience; and experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shted abro:,d in out hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us." THE apostle had before said, that we tience-but it is still better when it not rejoice in hope of the glory of God; and only composes to resignation, but stimuhe now says, that we glory in tribulation lates to a right and religious course of also. This impresses the idea of the great activity. " It is good for me to have been opposition that obtains, between an appe- afflicted," says the psalmist, "i that I might tite for spiritual and an appetite for tempo- learn thy law." " Before I was afflicted I ral blessings. To rejoice in hope of the one went astray; but now have I kept thy id a habit of the same bosom, that rejoices word." It is very well when affliction is and glories in the loss or destruction of submitted to without a murmur-but betthe other-not however that the ruin of ter still when it quickens the believer's any present good is desirable on its own pace in the divine life, and causes him to account, for all such affliction is not joy- emerge on a purer and loftier career of ous but rather grievous; but still upon the sanctification than before. whole should it be matter of gladness, if the We conceive the main explanation of short affliction that is but a moment, work- an afflicted process upon the heart to lie eth for us a far more exceeding and eter- in this, that the heart must have an object nal weight of glory; and if afterwards it on which to fasten its hopes or its reyieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteous- gards; that if this object be reft from it, ness to those who are exercised thereby. a painful void is created in the bosom, the " Tribulation worketh patience." You painfulness of which is not done away till will observe that the word translated pa- the void be replaced; that the soreness of tience, is of a more active quality in the such a visitation therefore, as say the loss original than it is according to our cus- of a child, inflicted upon a worldly man, tomary acceptation of it. We understand will at length find its relief and its meulit to be a mere virtue of sufferance, the cine in worldly objects; and that in the passive property of enduring without com- succession of company, or in the intense plaint and without restlessness. But it prosecution of business, or in the variety really extends to something more than of travelling, or in the relapse of his feelthis. The same word has been translated ings again to the tone of his ordinary pur.'patient continuance,' in that verse where suits and ordinary habits, time will at the apostle speaks of a patient continu- length fill up the vacancy and cause him ance in well-doing. The word perseve- to forget the anguish of his present triburance, in fact, is a much nearer and more lation. But if; instead of wordly he be faithful rendering of the original than the spiritual, he will seek for comfort from word patience. " Let us run with patience another quarter of contemplation-he will the race set before us," says the apostle, try to fill up the desolate place in his in our present translation. Let us run heart with other objects-he will turn him with perseverance the race set before us, to God, and labour after a fuller iinpreswere an improvement upon the sense of sion of that enduring light and love and this passage. We wait with patience, or beneficence, which, if they only shone sit still with patience, or simply suffer upon him in clearer manifestation, would with patience; but surely we run not with effectually chase away the darkness of patience but with perseverance. It is his incumbent melancholy. In such cirwell when tribulation is met with uncom- cumstances, and with such feelings, plaining acquiescence, or met with pa- prayer will be his refuge; communion 92 LECTURE XVIII.-CHAPTER V, 3-5. with God will be the frequent endeavour death. Time will show. The experience of his soul; he will try to people the va- of the effect on the man's personal charac. cancy created in his bosom by the loss of ter and history, will demonstrate, whether earthly things, with the imagery of the root of the matter be in him; and if heaven; he will heave up, as it were, his he really be that believer on whom tribu. affections, now disengaged with that lation worketh patience, and patience which wont to delight and to occupy such an experience of himself as will be them, but is now torn away; he will, in a ground of' hopefulness and joy to him. the stirrings of his agitated spirit, attempt Prune away a branch from a tree that is to lift them to that serene and holy and already dead; and it will not be this opebeautiful sanctuary, where Christ sitteth Iration that will revive it. Prune away at the right hand of God. And who does I some rank and excessive luxuriance from not see that he has now more of heart to a tree that is living; and you wvill divert give to these things, delivered as it is from the hurtful flow of' its vegetable moiaure, the engrossment of a fond and favourite from the part where it is running too affection; and that, as the fruit of these abundantly, and restore the proper tone repeated attempts to follow hard after and healthfulness to its whole circulation. God, he may at length obtain a nearer ap- And the same of man. His affections run proximation; and that, on the singleness sideway among the idols of sense and of his intent and undivided desires, a light time that are around him. And God, may be made to shine, which will dis- whose husbandry we are, often, by a close to him with far more clear and af- severe but salutary operation, severs them fecting impression, those great realities away; and so diverts our inclinations which are above and everlasting; and from objects to which they cannot excesthat with his faith so strengthened, and sively tend, without guilt or worldliness; his separation from the world so widened and leads them in one ascending direction and confirmed, and all the wishes of' his to Himself; and if this be the love of God heart so transferred from the earth that that we keep His commandments, a more has deceived him to the inheritance that faithful walk of holiness and a steadier fadeth not away —Who does not see, that perseverance in the way of new obedience the afflicting process which the man has are the fruits of His chastening visitation. undergone, has transformed him into a And thus may you understand, how acmore ethereal being than before; has cordant with human nature the affirmation loosened him from time, and rivetted him of our Saviour is, when He speaks of with greater tenacity and determination Himself being the true vine, and His than ever to the pursuits of eternity; has father the husbandman-and then says, forced him as it were to seek his resources "' Every branch in me that beareth not from above, and thus brought him to abide fruit He taketh away; and every branch by the fountain of living waters; has that beareth fruit He purgeth it," or as it riven him, as it were, from the world, and should have been, "He pruneth it that it left him free to attach his loosened regards [may bring forth more fruit." to the invisibles which stand at a distance But though the patience of our text, by away from him-So that now he can fill being turned into perseverance, is made up his heart with heaven as his future rather to signify the impulse and direchome, and fill up his time with the service tion which calamities are fitted to give to and the occupations of that holiness which the active principles of our nature-yet is the way that leads to it? we are not to exclude a meek and unreYou know that in the parable of the sisting endurance of suffering, as one of sower, the deceitfulness of riches is a its most precious fruits on the character thorn which occupies the room, and over- of him who is exercised thereby. There bears the influence upon the heart, of the is a certain mellowness which affliction word of God. But you also know that the sheds upon the character-a softening cares of life are also thorns. It is there- that it effects of all the rougher and more fore a very possible thing, that, by the repulsive asperities of our nature-a delitribulation of sudden poverty, one set of cacy of temperament, into which it often thorns may just be exchanged for another; melts and refines the most ungainly spirit and that by the ruminations and the anx- -just as when you visit a man, from ieties and the absorbing thoughtfulness whose masculine and overbearing manner which the ruin of fortune brings in its you wont to recoil, when, in the full flow rear, the things of heaven may as effec- and loudness and impetuosity of health tually be elbowed out of the place which he carried all before him; but whom you belongs to them, as by all the splendours find to be vastly more amiable, when, of aflluence and all its fascinations. The after the hand of disease has for a time only sorrow which such a reverse inflicts been upon him, he still retains the meek upon the bosom of the sufferer, may be hue of convalescence. It is not the pride the sorrow of this world that worketh of aspiring talent that we carry to heavea LECTURE XVIII.-CHAPER Vx 3m-. 95 with us. It is not the lustre of a superior- Peace was made to emanate from faith, ty which dazzles and commands and and joy also, and hope also. They who overawes, that we bear with us there. It believed no sooner did so. than they re. is not the eminence of any public dis- joiced in hope of the glory of God. But tinction, or the fame of lofty and success- in their progress through the world, they'ul enterprise. And should these give meet with tribulations; and it is said of undue confidence to the man, or throw an them that they glory in these also-be. aspect of conscious and complacent energy cause of the final result of a process that over him, he wears not yet the complex- may have been lengthened out for many iln of Paradise; and, should God select days, after faith entered their hearts, and him as His own, He will send some special peace and hope sprung up as the direct affliction that may chasten him out of all and immediate effects of it. The hope of which is uncongenial with the place of the fourth verse, is therefore distinct from, blessedness, and at length reduce him to and posterior to the hope of the second; ts unmingled love and its adoring humil- and it also appears to be derived from ity. Affliction has a kind of physical as another source. The first hope is hope well as moral power, in sweetening the in believing-a hope which hangs direct character, and in impressing a grace and on the testimony of God-such a hope as a gentleness upon it. It is purified by the may be conceived to arise in the mind of simple process of passing through the Abraham, on the very first communication fire. "The fining pot for silver and the that God had with him, when He said, I furnace for gold," says Solomon; "but will make of thee a great nation-having the Lord trieth the hearts.". "For thou, no other ground, in fact, than a belief in O God, hast proved us; thou hast tried us the veracity of the promiser, and fed and as silver." "'And when He hath tried fostered by this sole consideration, that me," says Job, "I shall come forth as God hath said it and shall He not do it gold." Now there is not one here present, to But the use of affliction is not merely to whom the gospel does not hold forth a better the quality of the soul; it is to warrant for so hoping. It declares the reprove this quality as it exists-'And pa- mission of sins to all who put faith in the tience experience.'-It furnishes him with declaration. By its sweeping term'who. a proof of God's love, in that he has been soever,' it makes as pointed an offer of enabled to stand this trial with principles eternal life to each, as if each had gotten exalted by it, or at least unimpaired. And a special intimation by an angel, sent to it also furnishes him with a proof' of his him from heaven. If' he do not believe, own sincerity. It causes him to know he of course cannot have any feelings that there is now that in his heart, which that are at all appropriate to the joyful can bear him up under the ills of the contents of the message which has been present life; and stimulate him in the rendered to him. But if he do believe, pursuit of life everlasting. It makes him there will be peace and joy and expectaacquainted with the force and the sted- tion-and these, not suspended on the issue fastness of his own character; and if his of any experience that is yet to come; conscience can attest, that, amid all the but suspended, and that immediately, on pressure and distress of his earthly suffer- a sl'nple faith in the tidings of the gospel. ings, still the matters of faith had the They are called tidings of' great joy; and practical ascendancy of his soul, and sure we are that they would stand distinrnade him feel the present affliction to guished from all other tidings of this oe light, aund amply compensated for all character, if they did not awaken the joy its severity —this is to h.im a satisfying at the precise moment of their being demonstration that his heart was now credited. We know of no other tidings occupied and governed by principles which can be called joyful, that do not which nature never originates, and which make one rejoice at the moment of their never do take possession of a human being told and recognized to be true. You bosom till they are imparted by grace. do not wait so many days or weeks till This to him is a joyful evidence, not of you feel glad, at some good news that the truth of the gospel, for that stands have come toyour door. You are glad on upon arguments of its own-but that the the moment of their arrival, simply by gospel had taken effect upon himself, and giving them credit; and the gospel, the that he had now come personally under strict and etymological meaning of which the regimen of that doctrine which is unto is simply good news, will in like manner salvation. gladden every heart at the moment of its 1"And experience hope." We beg to being relied upon as true: And, it being.all your particular attention to the cir- good news of pardon and eternal life to cumstance, that, at an antecedent point all and every, he, one of the all, will, if in this train of consequences, hope had he believe, take the whole comfort of the already been introduced as one of them. declaration to himself, and have peace 94 LECTURE XVIII. —CHAPTER V, 3-5. with God through Jesus Christ, and re- confirmed afterwards, was a hope that joice in the hope of His glory. maketh not ashamed? And that hope Now the second hope is distingt from which had nothing at first but the basis of this first, and is grounded on distinct con- faith to rest upon, did it not obtain a residerations-not upon what the believer inforcement of strength and of securit'y sees to be in the testimony of God, but when it further rested on the basis of e' upon what he finds to be in himself-It is perience? the fruit, not of faith, but of experience; I make a twofold promise to an ac and is gathered, not from the word that quaintance-the lesser part of which is without, but from the feeling of what should be fulfilled to-morrow, and the latpasses within. One would like to know ter on this day twelvemonth. If he be how the first and the second hopes find lieve me to be an honest man, then, simply their adjustment, and their respective appended to this belief; will there be a places, in the bosom of a disciple; and hope of the fulfilment of both; and, for what is the precise addition which the lat- a whole day at least, he may rejoice in ter of these brings to the former of them this hope. To-morrow comes; and, if — whether the want of the second would to-morrow's promise is not fulfilled, who larken and extinguish the first, by making does not see that the hope which emanahim ashamed of it. ted direct from faith is thereby darkened This matter can be illustrated as before and overthrown, and that the man will be by the case of Abraham. God, in his ashamed of his rash and rejoicing expecfirst communication with him, made him a tations 1 But if, instead of a failure, there twofold promise-one of which was to is a punctual fulfilment, who does not also have its fulfilment many ages after, and see, that the hope he conceived at first another of which was to be fulfilled in obtains a distinct accession from the expehis own life time. He promised that in rience he met with afterwards; and that him all the families of the earth should be without shame or without suspicion, he blessed; and He also promised that, upon will now look to the coming round of the his leaving his own country, He should year with more confident expectation than meet with him and show him the land ever? It is quite true, that there is a hope that his posterity were to inherit. Abra- in believing; but from this plain example ham simply in virtue of faith would hope you will perceive it to be just as true, that for the accomplishment of both promises. experience worketh hope. H-e would both see afar off the day of Now it is just so in the gospel. There Christ and rejoice; and he would also is a promise addrest in it, the accomplish, leave his own country, in the confident ment of which is far off; and a promise expectation of again meeting with God, the accomplishment of which is near at and having the land of his descendants hand. The fulfilment of the one is the pointed out to him. Conceive him then pledge or token of the fulfilment of the to have been disappointed in this expec- other. By faith in God we may rejoice in tation-to have wandered in vain without hope of the coming glory; and it will be once meeting the promised manifestation the confirmation of our hope, if we find -to have had no other message or visita- in ourselves a present holiness. He who tion from the heavens save the first, wnich, hath promised to translate us into a new by warranting the hope of another that it heaven hereafter, has also promised tc did not realise, would give him ground to confer on us a new heart here. Directly suspect was a delusive one. WVould not appended toour belief in God's testimony, Abraham, in this case, have been ashamed may we hope for both these fulfilments; of his rash confidence, and of his hasty but should the earlier fulfilment not take enterprise, and of the vain and hazardous place, this ought to convince us, that we evils into which he had thrown himself? are not the subjects of the latter fulfilWould not the fallacy of the promise that ment. A true faith would ensure to us he looked for in life, lead him to withdraw both; but as the one has not cast up at all confidence in the promise that was to its proper time, neither will the other cast have its consummation at a period of ex- up at its time-and, having no part nor ceeding distance away from him? And. lot in the present grace, we can have as on the other hand, did not the actual ful- little in the future inheritance. filment of the near, brighten and confirm Let us therefore not be deceived. You all his original expectations of the distant hear people talk of their peace with God, fulfilment? Were not all his subsequent while art and malignity and selfishness meetings with God, to him the pledges are at full work in their unregenerate boand the earnests of the great accomplish- soms-while no one evidence is apparent ment, that still lay in the depths of'a very of any gracious influence at all having relnote futurity Did not they serve to been shed abroad in their hearts-while convince him, that the hope which he con- the nearer promise has had no fulfilment ceived at the first, and which had been so upon them, though guaranteed by the LECTURE XVIII.-CHAPTER V. 3-5. 95 same truth with the more remote and ul- upon your minds between the hope of terior one, and though the same God who faith and the hope of experience; and ordains life everlasting also ordains all how if the latter is wanting, the former oh the heirs of it to be conformed to the im- that account may come to be darkened age of His son; and no one enters upon and extinguished altogether. But remem. the inheritance on the other side of death, ber you are not to wait for the second without the Spirit being given to him as hope, till you conceive the first. It is the the earnest of his inheritance on this side first, in fact, which draws the second in of leath. By this test then let us exam- its train. It is the first which originates a inc ourselves; and have done, conclusively purifying influence upon the soul. It is in done, with that odious and hypocritical proportion to the strength and habitual asslang, into which the terms of orthodoxy cendancy of the first over the soul, that and all the phrases of commonplace pro- such a character is formed as may furnish fessorship enter so abundantly-at the the second with a solid basis to rest upon. very time perhaps when the heart rankles It is the hope of the second verse which with purposes of mischief; or, in the germinated the whole of that process, that contest lietween faith and sense, the latter led at length to the hope of the fourth verse. has gained a wretched ascendancy over You cannot be too sure of' the truth of nim. Should this be the melancholy con- God's sayings. You cannot have too much dition of any professor who now hears us, peace and joy in thinking that the remislet him rest assured that he has lost the sion of sins is preached unto all, and that things that he has wrought, that he has you are one of them all. There is a hope the whole of his original distance from here which ought to arise, on the instant God to recover anew, that he has to lay of belief arising in the mind; and, so far again the foundation, and has in short to is this from superseding the hope of exdo all over again. The promise of life perience, that it will in fact bring the very eternal is still addrest to him, but the feelings and raise the very fruits upon the promise of meetness for it in a holy and character of the believer, as will cause renewed character goes along with it; the hope of experience to come surely and this present world is the place where and in succession to the hope of faith. it must be realized: and it is only by mak- Our best advice for brightening the secing himself sure of repentance here, and ond hope to the uttermost, is that you of the clean heart here, and of the right keep alive the first hope to the uttermost spirit here, that he can make himself' sure Your experience will be bright, just in of his calling and election hereafter. In proportion as your faith is bright, and it the language of the apostle then —work is just if ye continue in the faith grounded out your salvation, and labour with all ansd settled, and if ye be not moved away diligence unto the full assurance of hope from the hope of the gospel which ye unto the end. have heard, that you will at length be We shall be happy, if we have suc- presented holy and unblamable and unre2eeded in impressing a clear distinction provable in the sight of God. LECTURE XIX. ROMANS V, 5. " And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is giver, unto us." You are already, we trust, enough fa- i is the hope of faith. Should the promise miliarised to the distinction that has been that is of earlier fulfilment come to pass offered between the hope of faith and the at its proper time, this will be to you a sathope of experience. God promises to all isfactory confirmation of your first belief who trust in Him, that He will give them and of the hope that comes out of it; and an inheritance on the other side of death; you will look forward with surer anticiand that He will also give them, in the pation than ever, to the latter of the two shape of certain personal graces and en- fulfilments. This is the hope of experidowments, an earnest of the inheritance ence-a hope that brightens with the on this side of it. On the very first mo- growth of grace on the person of the bement that you hear these promises, if you liever; and with every new finding with. believe in the honesty of both, you will in himself of the working of that Spirit of hope for the fulfilment of both; and this holiness, by which he is made meet foi 96 LECTURE XIX.-CHAPTER V, 5. the everlasting abodes )f holiness. In tations of the poor, when he causes food this way, there is formed a distinct and or raiment or fuel to enter into their subsequent ground of hope, additional to houses-so does God shed abroad of' His the original one. The original ground love in our hearts, when He sends the was your faith in the honesty of the pro- Holy Ghost to take up His residence, and miser, that He would fulfil all His engage- there to rule by His influence. ments. The additional ground is your It is through the Spirit of God, that the actual experience of His punctuality, in spirit of man is borne up in the midst ot having liquidated those of His engage- adversities. Itis He whoupholdstheper. ments which had become due. It operates severance of a disciple, when all that is like a first instalment, which, when paid around him lours and looks dismal. It is with perfect readiness and sufficiency, He who causes a luminousness to rest on certainly brightens all the hope of a those eternal prospects, which are seen thorough fulfilment of the various articles afar, through the dark vista of a pilgrimof agreement, which you had when it was age which is lined on the right hand and first entered upon. And thus it is that, on the left, with sorrows innumerable. It thougli there is a hope in the second verse is when a bitterness comes upon man that is appended immediately to your faith which is only known to his own heart, in God-there is also a hope in the fourth that a secret balm is often infused along verse, that has been wrought in you by with it, with the joy of which a stranger experience. does not intermeddle. There is a history You must also be sensible what the ef- of the soul that is unseen by every eye, fect would have been, had there been a but intimately known and felt by its confailure instead of a fulfilment of that pro- scious proprietor; and often can he tesmise, which falls to be accomplished first. tify of a tribulation that would have overIt would have darkened and overthrown, whelmed him to the death, had not a not merely your hope of the near, but also powerful influence from on high supportyour hope of' all the ulterior good things ed him under it. And when the season of that you had been led to depend upon. it at length passes over his agitated spirit There is nothing which brings the feeling and leaves the firuit of a solid peace, and of shame more directly into the mind, than an augmented righteousness behind itthe failure of some confident or too fondly you perceive, how in him the process is indulged expectation. "They shall be exemplified, of tribulation working in him greatly ashamed that trust in graven im- a more strenuous perseverance in all the ages." "i They shall not be ashamed that habits and principles of Christianity; and wait for me." "And lest," says the apos- of perseverance working in him such an tie, "we should be ashamed in this same experience of himself, as argues his state confident boasting." of discipline and preparation for another'Because the love of God is shed abroad world; and of this experience working in in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is him the hope that He who thus fulfils upon given unto us.' The love of God may sig- him, the guidance in time that lHe has pronify either our love to God, as in the pas- mised, will finally bestow upon him the sage-' this is the love of God that ye keep glory He has promised in eternity. His commandments;' or it may signify He, says the apostle, who hath wrought God's love to us, as in the passage-' In us for immortality is God, who hath also this was manifested the love of God to- given to us the earnest of the Spirit, and wards us, because that God sent His only therefore we are confident. begotten Son into the world, that we might It is very true, that an early fulfilment live through Him.' In the verse under is often the satisfying token of some later consideration, we apprehend that the love fulfilment; and that grace imparted to us of God must be.taken according to the lat- on this side of death, is a pledge of glory ter signification. It is thus that, speaking being conferred upon us on the other side strictly and literally, one being when kind of death; and, in particular, that the IHoly to another, sheds upon him the fruits of Ghost. bestowed upon us so as to work a that kindness, rather than the kindness meetness for the inheritance, is. symptoitself. But the use of language has been matic of' our future translation into the so far extended, as to admit of the latter inheritance itself, and thus superadds the expression. It is quite according to es- hope of experience to the hope of faith. tablished usage to say,'I have received But you must remark, that the very hope much kindness from another,' though I of faith, the hope which you conceive at have properly received nothing but his the outset of your belief in the gospel, is money or his attentions or his patronage. wrought in you by the same Holy Ghost. And in like manner, do I receive love from It is not of yourself-it is the gift of God. God when I receive the Holy Ghost. And It was by demonstration of the Spirit, that as a beneficent proprietor is said to shed your eyes were opened at the first to perabroad of his liberality among the habi- ceive the truth of the promises; and by LECTURE XIX. —CHAPTER V, 3. 97 a fuller demonstration He can make you and more in the hope of faith, through the see this still more clearly, and rejoice in power of the Holy Ghost. it still more confidently than before. The Thus we trust, you perceive, that the effect then of an additional and subsequent good works and tile graces of personal supply of this divine influence, is, not religion, not merely supply you with fresh merely to furnish you with a pledge upon evidences for your hope, but also brighten earth of the preferment that awaits you your original ones. They cast backwards in heaven, and so to furnish you with a as it were a good reflex influence oil the new ground of hope upon the subject, faith from which they (manated. It is even the ground of experience; but it is said of tile Holy Ghost, that iec is given also to brighten the ground upon which to those who ooey Him. Follow out the all your hope rested originally, even the impulse of a conscience which Hie hath ground of faith. It is to give you a more enlightened in every practical business full and satisfying manifestation of the that you have on hand; and you will find, direct truth of God in the gospel than be- as the result of it, a larger supply of that fore. The Holy Ghost does not merely light which makes clearer than before, all put into your hand another and a distinct those truths and promises of Christianity, hold, by giving you in the performance on which a firm dependence may be laid of an earlier promise, a proof of the sure- by an act of believing. It is thus too ness with which the later promise shall that, if you keep the sayings of Christ, be performed also; but He strengthens He will manifest Himself; and( though the hold which you had by faith upon the works are of no value unless they are promises, prior to all experimental confir- wrought in faith, yet the very doing of mation of them in your own personal his- them is followed up by such larger revetory. He does not merely supply that evi- lations of the truth and doctrine of God, dence for the truth of the gospel promise that by works is your faith made perfect. which is seen by the eye of experience; Give us a man walking in darkness, and but He also casts an additional light on having no light, from whose mind the the evidence that you had at the first, and comfort of the promises isfhding away, which is only seen by the eye of faith. and whose fits of thought and pensiveness Never, in the course of the believer's pil- speak him to be on the borders of some grimage, never does the hope of experi- deep approaching melancholy. It is sin ence supersede the hope of faith. So far in all probability that has conducted him from this, in the very proportion that ex- onwards to this mental dejection; and perience grows in breadth, does faith grow that not merely by its having obliterated in brightness. And it is this last which those traces of personal character, the obstill constitutes the sheet-anchor of his servation of which, had at one time soul, and forms the main aliment of its wrought the hope of experience in his peace and joy and righteousness. It is bosom-but by its having grieved and. well, that, on looking inwardly to himself, exiled the Holy Spirit for a season, whose he sees the growing lineaments of such a office as a revealer and as a remembrangrace and such a character forming upon cer of all truth, is therefore suspended; his person, as vouch him to be ripening and who has therefore left the tenement for eternity. But, along with this process, of his heart desolate and uncheered by will he also look outwardly upon God in that hope of faith, which shone in a beam. Christ, and there see, in constantly in- of gladness on the very outset of his creasing manifestation, the truth and the Christianity. For the treatment of such a, mercy and the unchangeableness of his spiritual patient, we are often bidden tell reconciled Father, as by far the firmest him of the fulness that there is in Christ; and stablest guarantees of his fiture des- and tell him of the power whichl lies ill tiny. The same agent, in fact, who brings His blood, for turning guilt of the most about the one effect, brings about the crimson dye into thesnow-white of purest other. He causes you not merely to see innocence; and to tell him of the perfect yourself to be an epistle of the Spirit of willingness that there is in God, to hold God, and to read thereon the marks of out to him over the mercy-seat the sceptre your personal interest in the promises; of forgiveness, by the touching of which but IIe also causes you to see these pro- it is, that he enters anew into reconcilinmises as standing in the outward record, tion before Him. And it is right, it is Invested with a light and an honesty and indispensably right, to tell him of all this; a freeness, which you did not see at the but we would tell him more. The voice first revelation of them-so that it is not of man, if the visitations of the Spirit do only the hope of experience which is fur- not go along with it, will not force an nished you anew, as you proceed on the entrance, even for these welcome accents career of actual Christianity; but, in pro- of mercy, into the heart that He had so portion to your advancement on this ca- recently abandoned. And, to win the reer, are you also made to abound more return of this gracious and all-powerful 13 98 LECTURE XIX. —-CHAPTER VI 5. monitor, we would Did him work for it. righteousness. The first is, that he may We would tell him, that it is by toiling brighten his personal evidences, of being and striving and pains-taking, he must indeed one of those whom God is enrichrecover the distance which he has lost, ing and beautifying with grace in time, and call the departed light and departed and thus will he strengthen that basis on influence back again. If there be a re- which the hope of experience rests, when mainiog sense of duty in his heart, we bid it looks forward to a preferment of glory him work with all his might to prosecute in eternity. The second is, that he may its suggestions; and never cease to ply strengthen that very faith, by which he his labours of obedience till He, who still relied at the first on the promises both of it appears is whispering through the organ grace here, and of glory hereafter, for, of conscience what he ought to do, shall after all, it is by faith he stands; a-nd the be so far satisfied with the probation, as whole of' his spiritual lifei will forthwith again to shed a sufficient manifestation on go into decay, should he only look to the the doctrines which he must never cease hope reflected from himself, instead of to contemplate. And this not merely to drawing it direct and in chief abundance restore to him the hope of experience, but from the Saviour. An exuberance of to revive in him the hope of faith; and, fresh and healthy blossom upon a tree, full of penitential labour as well as of' affords a cheering promise of the fruit penitential meditation, to make his light that may be expected frnom it. But what break tforth again on the morning, and his should we think of' the soundness of that health to spring forth speedily. man's anticipations, who should cut across This holds out to us another view of the stem because he thought it independent the indissoluble alliance, that obtains of the root, which both sent forth this between the faith of' Christianity and the beauteous efflorescence and can alone obedience of Christianity. It is not say- conduct it to full and finished maturity ing all for this, to say that the former And the same of spiritual as of' natural originates the latter. It is saying still husbandry. Were there no foliage, no more to say that the latter strengthens fruit could be looked for-yet still it is and irradiates the former. The genuine union with the root, which produced the f-aith of the gospel never can encourage one and will bring on the other. And, in sin; for sin expels that Spirit from our like manner, if there be no foliage of hearts, who perpetuates and keeps alive grace in time, there will be no fruit of faith in them. And by every act of diso- glory in eternity. But still it is by abiding beclience, there is a wound inflicted on in Christ, that the whole process is begun, the peace and joy, which a belief in the and carried forward, and will at length gospel ministers to the soul. It is by be perfected. Give up the hope of faith, practically walking up to the suggestions because you have now the hope of expe. of this heavenly monitor, that we brighten rience; and you imitate precisely the within us all His influences; and thus, as man, whom the leaves had made so santhe result of a strict and holy practice, is guine of his drest and supported vine there a clearer and fuller light reflected which he had trained along the wall, that back again, on the very first principles he cut asunder the stem and trusted to the from which it emanated-so that Antino- abundance of' his foliage. And therefore mianism, after all, is very much an affair we reiterate in your hearing, that the hold of theory, and can only be exemplified in of faith is never to be let go; and that the lives of those who either profess the from Christ, who ministers all the nourishfaith, or imagine that they possess it, when ment which comes to the branches, you they are utter strangers to it. The real are never to sever yourselves; and that faith which is unto salvation, not only the habit of believing prayer, which is originates all the virtues of the gospel; the great and perpetual aliment of all but, should these virtues decay into anni- virtuous practice, is never to be given up; hilation, it also would fall back again to and thus it is, that, let the hope of the 4th Ilon-existence along with them; and, on verse brighten to any conceivable extent the other hand, does it uniformly grow upon you, from the light which is reflected with the growth, and strengthen with the by your person-yet still it is the faith by strength of a man's practical Christianity. which you are justified, and the hope of On two distinct grounds therefore, do the 2d'verse directly emanating there. we urge on every believer, a most perse- from, that form the radical elements of vering strenuousness under every temp- your sanctification here, and your meet, tation and difficulty, in all the ways of ness for the inheritance hereafter. LECTURE XX.-CHAPTER V, 6-11. 99 LECTURE XX. ROMANS v, 6-11. 7 For when wre were yet without strength. in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man wll one die; yet peradventure fbr a good man some would even dare to die. But God commnendeth his love to wards us. in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Mluch more then, being now justified by his l)lood we shall be saved from wrath through him For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." FROM the preceding verses we gather, with the prisoner, when he acquits and that a believer at the very outset of his dismisses him. It may be the simple letfaith, may legitimately hope for the ful- ting off of a criminal from punlishment, filment of all God's promises. Some of or the mere ceasing to be an adversary, these take effect upon him in time, and without passing onwards to the new chaform the pledges and the earnests of those racter of a benefactor and a patron. But further accomplishments, which are to when God in ceasing to be an enemy betake place in eternity-thus affording a comes a friend-when, instead of being basis on which to rest the hope of expe- dealt with as the objects of His displeasrience. It is true that they are the greater ure, we are dealt with as the objects of things which are to follow. The glory His love-when we get not only forbearthat is hereafter, will greatly exceed all ance, but positive favour from His hands the glimpses and all the tokens of it with -This is something higher than the peace which we are favoured here; and it may which accrues to us on the outset of our be thought that because we obtain small Christianity. There is an advance made things now, it does not follow that we are in the scale of privilege; and. if to be at to look for greater things afterwards. A peace with God through Jesu Christ our man may both be able and willing, to Lord is in itself a great privilege, to readvance the small sum which he pro- ceive the Holy Ghost fron Him as the mises to bestow on me to-morrow; but it evidence of His love is a still greater one. does not certainly ensue from this, that he And, looking onward from this to futurity will be either able or willing, to grant me it is not till we are refined into the conthe large sum promised on this day twelve- summate holiness, and raised into the pure nonth. Did the great things come first, and perfect happiness of Heaven, that we we would have less hesitation in expect- shall reach the acme of that enjoyment, ing the small things that were afterwards which God hath prepared for the faithful to be forth-coming. But when the order disciples of His Son. is the reverse of this, when the earlier in- Now according to this process, the stalments are but minute and insignificant smaller things you will observe come fractions of the entire and final engage- first, and the greater things follow. There ment —it may be allowed us perhaps to is a gradation and an ascent of privilege, suspend our confidence, ere we can be as you move forward in history-but then, sure from the puny samples on hand, of to get what is less does not so warrant the that rich and magnificent sum of blessed- expectation of getting what is more, as to ness, to which the gospel of Jesus Christ get what is much, warrants the expectahas pointed our expectations. tion of getting what is less. Surely the In the succeeding verses, we have an man who has given me the trifle which argument that is eminently fitted to over- he promised, will not withhold from me bear this diffidence; and which both ex- the treasures that he has also promised, is plains to us why we have received our not so sound a conclusion-as surely the present fulfilments, and why we may re- man who promised me a magnificent dojoice in the assured hope of all our future nation, and hath now actually made it ones. On our first acceptance of Christ good, will not break his word and proby faith, all that we obtain is peace with mise, when they are merely staked on Gqd, who ceases to be our enemy; and some paltry fulfilment, that is still in relifts away from us that hand of threat- serve for me. If the lesser comes in the ened vengeance, which has already been order of time before the greater, then the laid upon Him who for us hath borne the non-performance of the lesser would blast whole burden of it. It is a great thing, all our expectations of the greater, and no doubt, thus to be delivered from wrath make us ashamed of the confidence with and hostility. But you can conceive the which we cherished them. But, on the work of reconciliation to go no farther other hand, the performance of the lesser than this. It might have been nothing does not so warrant our expectations of more than the reconciliation of the judge the greater, as if the order of the two ful. 00 LECTURE XX.-CHAPTER V, 6-1 1. filrents had been reversed. We might the smaller not be fulfilled, when it be. well be ashamed of our hope in the latter comes due, this would make us ashamed of the two, if' disappointed in the earlier of all the expectations we had cherished of the two, But if the earlier be at the of the larger. And accordingly, the apo,same time the less of the two, we* cannot tie, fiom having received the Holy Ghost from this comparison alone say with the here as a kind of earnest or first fruits, is apostle, as the less has turned out agree- not ashamed of his hope for the glory of ubly to our first hopes, how much more God which is to be revealed hereafter. will the greater so turn out likewise 3 But though this might save him from beLNow it can be conceived, that, though ing ashamed of his high hopes in futurity one present be smaller for us to receive it is not enough to warranl the argument than another-yet it may have been given of, how much more, that he comes forin such circumstances of difficulty or ward with in the following verses. It is provocation, as to argue a higher degree not a very conclusive way of reasoning of generosity or good-will; and be alto- to say-I have got a smaller thing accordgether, a greater and more substantial ing to promise, how much more then may token of the giver's regard, than the larger I expect a greater thing? It would have present will be, which is promised to be applied better had the greater thing come conferred on us afterwards. The fellow- first, and then you might have said, How captive in some hostile prison, whom I much more, as he has given me the greater had perhaps insulted and reviled, and who boon that he stood engaged to render, may in justice might have dealt with me as an I not hope for his punctuality with regard adversary-should he, to save me from to the smaller? But, just as in the case the agonies of thirst, make over his scanty of human illustration that we have alallo\vance of water, and so entail these ready quoted, the first act of kindness, agonies upon himself, telling me at the though smaller in the matter of it, may same time, that in spite of all the insolence have been done in such circumstances of he had gotten from my hands, he could difliculty and provocation, as to be a far not help feeling an unquenchable love for more unquestionable evidence of regard my person, and a no less unquenchable than any future act of goodness possibly desire after my interests, and that if' ever can be, however great in the matter of it a happier time should restore us to liberty, -because done in circumstances of ease and to our native land, he would contribute and good agreement. And these preparaof his influence and his wealth to the tory remarks will enable us to enter into rising interests of my filmily-who does the spirit and to estimate aright the not see that even a single cup of cold strength and conclusiveness of the arguwater, given in such circumstances, and ment which follows. with such assurances as these, may well V. 6. WVe were not able to extricate warrsat the highest hopes that can be ourselves from the prison-house of God's entertair.ned of his kindness? And should righteous condemnation. We had not 1, touched and overpowered by so striking strength for that perfect obedience, which a demonstration of it, and ashamed of all a relentless and insurmountable law has my former perverseness, henceforth bind laid upon all its subjects; and even myself in gratitude and duty to this bene- though we had, such obedience could factor —may I not well argue, that surely only satisfy for itself, and at its own seathe man who ministered to me, though in son. It could not cancel the guilt of the smaller, and did so at sluch an expense another season. But the truth is, that we of sufftbring to himself; and also in the face could neither do away the guilt of' our of all the injury I had done unto him, will past, nor the pollution of our present hisnow acquit himself to the full &f the tory. We were in bondage to the power larger bounties which he held out in ex- of corruption, as well as to the fears of pectation, should I now return with him condemnation-living as totally without iis devoted friend to the country of his God, as without hope-abandoned to the fathers; and he, replaced in the ample counsel of our own hearts, and taking no sufficiency that belongs to him, should counsel and no reproof from Him whose have it in his power, by an easy and a right hand was upholding us continually. willing sacrifice, to translate me into all It was in these circumstances of provoca. the comfort and all *the independence tion, that Christ undertook for us. He which he engaged to render me. stretched out His me(liatorial hand, for There is a parallel to this in the gospel. the purpose of extending the boon of forForgiveness is a smaller boon than posi- giveness-a smaller boon than fa.vour tive favour; and all the tokens of this fa- certainly; but remember it was a boon to vour which are bestowed upon us in time, the ungodly. It was a movement of kindare smaller than that rich and full and ness, forcing its way through an obstacle ever-during expression of it which awaits that might well have stifled and reprewed us in eternity. Should the,promise of,. It was an expression of love so ar. LECTURE XX.-CHAPTER V, 6-1 1. 1t. dent, that even impiety, in full and open fury, and to stain His raiment, and tt and. determined career, could not extin- wield the arm of His supernatural mighlt. guish it. It was at the time of the world's ere He brought down to the earth the greatest wickedness, that He descended' strength that was opposed to Him. 1 from on high, not to condemn but to save should be recollected, that the death of it. It is true that the first effect of this Christ was not in semblance merely, but benevolent undertaking, was simply an in real and substantial amount, an atoneacquittal to those who had been guilty; ment for the sins of the world.-that Hle and this was but the prelude of greater tasted death not as an individual, but tastthings to follow. But this first thing was ed it for every man-that on Him was:. wrought out in the face of greatest prov- laid the accuml.llated weight of all that ocation, and at the expense of most pain- wrath, whick an eternity would not have ful endurance. It was rendered unto men expended on the millions for which He at the time when men were rioting at died-that there was the actual transferlarge, both against the law of conscience ence of God's avenging hand from the and the law of revelation. It was when heads of the countless guilty tie has re. every man had turned to his own way, deemed, to the head of this one innocent that God laid upon His Son the iniquities sufferer —and that from the moment He of us all. Our time of greatest regard- was led as a lamb to the slaughter, to the lessness was His time of greatest regard. moment of his crying, It is finished, and And estimating the intensity of affection, when He gave up the Ghost, there was not by the magnitude of its positive dis- dlischarged upon the head of this great pensations, but by the magnitude of resist- Sacrifice all the vials of a wrath which ance it must overcome, and of the suffer- the misery everlasting, and that of a mulings it niust undergo-it was at the outset titude which no man could number, could of our redemption; it was at that due time not have exhausted; there were condensed when Christ died for the ungodly; it was upon His soul all the agonies which but in the act of making atonement for the for Him the vast family of the redeemed. sins of the people, out of which act the would have borne. first though the smallest benefit that But it is not here on the kind of death emerged was the forgiveness of the peo- which our Saviour endured that the aposle —it was then nevertheless, that the tle founds his argument of' God's love to love of God in Christ, bearing all the con- us-It is on the kind of people wh'om lie dernnation of our unthankful species, and died for-even sinners. This peculia.rizvepouring out His soul unto the death for and exalts the benevolence of Christ them-it was then that this love sent forth above all human benevolence. There is its most wondrous and most convincing a devotedness of affection here, of which manifestation. there is no example in the history of our V. 7. The point insisted on by the apos- species. For a righteous man, that is a tie here, is that Christ died for us when man free from blame or criminality, for we were yet enemies in our heart toward a simply innocent man there is scarcely Him. But it should also be kept in mind, any that would die; for a good mlan, one: that His was no ordinary death; that they who rises above the level of mlere ilatowere not the pangs of a common dissolu- cence, one who is signalized by achievetion which extorted.ec:.h. agonies of fear, ments of positive benevolence or heroic and such cries of bitter suffering, and patriotism, some might die-like somle disdrew out on the person of our Redeemer ciples of Paul, who for his life Nwould lay both in the garden and upon the cross down their own necks-or like the memnsuch mysterious symptoms of distress too bhers of some gallant band, who wNould exquisite for human imagination, of an rally in defence of the worth and friendendurance far deeper than we have any ship that they revered-or like the marconception of. It is evident from the tyrs of Christianity who died fbi the honwhole history of the hour and the power ours of its founder, but not till He had of darkness, that, though He had the evinced the highest sublime of goodness whole strength of the Divinity to uphold by dying for the worst and most worthHim, there was a struggle to be made, and less of mankind. It is on this that the a hostility to be baffled, and an awful en- apostle lays the stress of his argument terprise of toil and of strenuousness to be and from this he infers, that, even at the gone through, under the severity of which outset of our redemption and when we, our Saviour had well nigh given way- had got nothing more than forgiveness, that ere the victory was His, He had to there was such a demonstintion of God's travel in His strength, and to put forth all affection for sinners, as warranted the the greatness of it; and, warring with fullest expectation of all the higher blessp,'incipalities and powers, had, in the ings that we are to receive from his hand words of Isaiah, to tread in the wine-press For observe, that though favour may lie tone, and trample on his enemies with higher in the scale of privilege than for t02 LECTURE XX.-CHAPTER V, 6 —-1 1. giveness, and glory through eternity higher there see, that Christ at that time died for than grace in time-yet it was at the point the sinful, to bring about their agreement when forgiveness was secured for the with God; and that, at the present time guilty-it was then that the love of God in Christ has not to die any more, and that Christ made its most decisive exhibition — in Him the guilt of sinfulness has been It was then that it triumphed over difficul- done away.' If when enemies we were ties which no longer exist-It was then reconciled, by His death-how much more, that it leaped over a barrier which is now now that we are reconciled, shall all the levelled into an open way of access be- blessings that He died to purchase be lav. tween earth and heaven-It was then that ished upon us abundantly.' If; when so human sinfulness rose in a smoke of abom- many difficulties stood betwixt us, He, ination before the throne of God, unaccom- forced His way through them, for the pur panied as yet with that incense of a sweet- pose of reaching forgiveness to the con. smelling savour which the sacrifice of demned-how much more, now that all is Christ has since infused into it —It was open and level and free in the road of comthen that the awful death of the atone- munication between earth and heaven, ment, a death never now to be repeated, wi4l He, out of the treasury of His fulness, had still to be endured. All these stood in shed upon us all the needful grace here the way of reconciliation; and though this and translate us into all the promised glory ae the first and the smallest boon that is hereafter.'True, if the grace did not come, conferred upon the sinner, yet conferred this might well blast and annihilate these as it was in the midst of obstacles which fond anticipations. We cannot get to ao longer exist, and of sins that are now heaven without such a stepping-stone; Dlotted out in the blood of the Lamb, so and when we have reached this lengt'h,;hat God remembers them no more-this we can see more clearly and hope more;3mallest boon, viewed as a demonstration confidently for the promised inheritance of love and a pledge of future kindness, than before. But still the main light which more than overpasses all the subsequent rests upon this glorious futurity, radiates boons that can be rendered in circum- upon it, from the great and primary work stances where there is nothing to struggle of Christ's undertaking as He did, and with, and no barrier in the way of their Christ's doing as He did, for the guilty. accomplishment. So that the apostle is And the reason why we have obtained the warranted in all his larger expectations grace, and still the chief reason why we after this. Much more then, being justified may look for the glory, is that seeing He DS His blood, we shall be translated into did so much to reconcile and to justifyall the blessings of a positive salvation. how much more, now that the heat and The love of a benefactor is not to be es- difficulty and strenuousness of the contest timated by the magnitude of His gift, but are all over, how much more may we not by the exposure and the suffering that he anticipate all the blessings of a positive incurred in rendering it. The gifts of salvation from His hand. God may go on progressively increasing Finally, let it be observed of the 9th through all eternity; but it was the first verse, that Paul speaks of himself' and gift of reconciliation which had to force others in the character of believers, and its way through the host of impediments, as being already justified by the blood of that stood between a holy Lawgiver and Jesus. The force of the consideration lies a sinful world. After these were removed, in this-that seeing He shed His blood to the following gifts came spontaneously justify us, at the time that we were unreand without interruption, out of the exu- pentant and unreconciled, and thus to save berant wealth and liberality of the God- us from the wrath that abideth on all who head. So that, ftom the very first, we have believe not-how much more, now that the argument in all its entireness, If God this is done, and that, instead of dying any spared not His own Son to reconcile a more, He has only to give, in large and world that had nothing but guilt and de- easy liberality, out of His fulness-how pravity to offer to His contemplation- much more, by the supplies of His grace how much more, now that atonement is and strength, will He save us from the made, will He bless and enrich all those wrath of those who shall finally fall away. who have fled to it for refuge, and whom He The tribulations in which he gloried might now beholds in the face of His anointed. not have wrought a more strenuous perThis then is an argument altogether ad- severance in the Christian course; but, dressed to the hope of faith, and may be like certain hearers in the parable of the seized upon and felt in the whole force of sower, he might have been offended when it, ere there is time for the hope of expe- persecution came, and actually faller rience. The moment that one looks with away. Instead of patience working such a believing eye to the work of redemption, an experience, as made him hopeful that he may gather from it all the materials he was indeed a Christian, the defect and whick. make up this argumenrL He may overthrow of his constancy, might have LECTURE XX.-CHAPTER V, 6 — 1. 103 given him the melancholy and convincing has been overtaken in a fault-then tha' experience, that he had indeed no lot or man will be saved, yet so perhaps as by part in the matter. Instead of a thriving fire. Ile will not escape the hand of chas. process, it might have been a ruinous one; tisement in time, though he will escape but grace, it appears from the result, was the hand of vengeance in eternity. He given to uphold him in a course of spirit- will be cast down yet not destroyed. God ual prosperity, under all his outward trib- will forgive the iniquity of his sin, but at ulationls; and he now hoped more than the same time take vengeance upon him ever that God had manifested the special for his inventions. He will make him love that He bore, by the Holy Ghost that taste the bitterness of transgression; and was given to him. And how could it be give him the experimental demonstration otherwise, he goes on to argue, than that of His own abhorrence to it; and render the Holy "host should be given? Would it manifest as day, that there is an utter not He who did so much to justify, and at and irreversible opposition, between the such an expense of suffering to Himself, indulgence of a sinner, and the hope of a would not He also sanctify when there believer; and, rather than that he should was no suffering incurred by the process? miss the lesson, He will force it upon him Will not He who saved us by His blood with the authoritative severity of a master, then, much more save us by His Spirit who has determined that He will not let now? Will not lie who at that time de- him alone till he learn it; and if one corlivered us, by dying, from the wrath due rective ministration will not serve the purto the impenitent and ungodly-at this pose, He will come forward with another time, when we are cleaving to Him in de- and another-still ringing this prophetic penldence and desire, deliver us by His knell into the ear of him who is under grace, from the sorer punishment of those discipline, that "for all this mine anger is who draw back to the perdition of' the not turned away, but my hand is stretched soul? There may be fatherly chastise- out still." It is not from such wrath that ments. There may be the infliction of a a disciple is saved-But let it work him severe and salutary discipline. Should a into the process of tribulation, and paprofessor sin the sin that is unto death, it tience, and experience, and hope; and willthen be impossibie to renew him again from the wrath of eternity he wil, be unto repentance. But if; instead of a hol- saved-saved as if by fire-and verifying low-hearted and hypocritical dissembler, this word in his own person, that it is there was really a sound principle of ad- through manifold tribulation we shall enherence and honest faith with him who ter into the kingdom of God. LECTURE XX1. ROMANS V, 10. U For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled we shall be saved by his life." ST. PAUL, who, by the way, is by far under the phrase of argumentum afortiore, the most argumentative of all the apostles or, an argument which affirms a thing to.-and who, from being the most success- be true in adverse and unpromising e,rful of them all, proves that argument is cumstances, and therefore far more worboth a legitimate and a powerful weapon thy of being held true in likelier circumin the work of making Christians, some- stances. It is quite a familiar mode of times undertakes to reason upon one set reasoning in common discourse. If a of premises, and then to demonstrate, how neighbour be bound to sympathise with much more valid and irresistible is the the distresses of an unfortunate family, conclusion which he tries to establish, how much more, when that neighbour is when he is in actual possession of another a relative If I obtained an offer of friendand more favourable set of premises. In ship from a man in difficulues, now much this way a great additional strength is more may I count upon it should he now made to accrue to his argument-and the be translated into a state of sufficiency'ha-, much more' with which he finishes, and ease. If in the very heat of our causes it to come with greater power and quarrel, and under the discouragement of assurance upon his readers-and it is this all my provoking insolence towards him, which gives him the advantage of what my enemy forbear the vengeance which is well known, both in law and in logic, he had the power to inflict, how much 104 LECTURE XXI.-CHAPTER V, 10. more, should the quarrel be made up, and less and thankless and careless abandon. I have been long in termsof reconciliation ment-no mitigation of that foul and with him, may I feel myself secure from audacious insolence by which the throne the effects of his indignation. Such also of heaven was assailed; and a spectacle is the argument of my text. There is one so full of offence to the unfallen was held state of matters in which God sets forth a forth, of a whole province in arms against demonstration of friendship to the world, the lawful Monarch of creation. Had the and this is compared with the present world thrown down its weapons of disc. and actual state of matters, more favour- bedience-had a contrite and relenting able than the former, and from which spirit gone previously forth among its therefobre, the friendship of God may be generations-had the light which even still more surely inferred, and still more then glimmered in the veriest wilds of firmly confided in. But it will be further Paganism, just up to the strength and deseen, that in this short sentence of the gree of its influence, told aright on the apostle, there lies a compound argument moral sensibilities of the deluded and which admits of being separated into licentious worshippers-had they, whose distinct parts. There is a reference made conscience was a law unto themselves, to a twofold state of matters, which, by just acted and followed on as they might being resolved into its two particulars, under the guidance of its compunctious brings out two accessions of strength to visitations-had there been any thing like the conclusion of our apostle, which are the forthgoing of a general desire, howindependent of each other. He, in fact, ever faint, towards that unknown Being, holds forth a double claim upon our un- the sense and impression of' whom were derstandingr, and we propose to view never wholly obliterated-then it might successively the two particulars of which have been less decisive of God's wvill for it is made up. reconciliation, that He gave way to these There is first then a comparison made returning demonstrations on the part of between one state of matters, and another His alienated creatures, and reared a state of matters which obtain in our earth pathway of communication by which sin-and there is at the same time a compa- ners may draw nigh unto God. But for rison made between one state of matters, God to have done this very thing, when and, another state of matters which obtain these sinners were persisting in the full in heaven-and from each of these there spirit and determination of their unholy may be educed an argument for strength- warfare-for Him to have done so, when, ening the assurance of every Christian, in instead of any returning loyalty rising that salvation which the gospel has made up to Him like the incense of a sweet. known to us. smelling savour, the exhalations of idolaLet us first look then to the two states try and vice blackened the whole canopy upon earth-and this may be done either ofheaven, and ascended in a smoke of with a reference to this world's history, abomination before Him-for Htim to have or it may be done with a reference to the done so at the very time that all flesh had personal history of every one man who is corrupted its ways, and when, either with now a believer. or without the law of revelation, God saw That point of time in the series of gene- that the wickedness of man was great in ral history at which reconciliation was the earth, and that every imagination of ma(le, was when our Saviour said that it the thoughts of his heart was only evil is finished, and gave up the ghost. God continually-in these circumstances of may be said to have then become recon- deep (and unalleviated provocation, and ciled to the world, in as far as He was when God might have eased Him of' His ready to enter into agreement withi all adversaries, by sweeping the whole of who drew nigh in the name of this great this moral nuisance away fiom the face propitiation. Now think of the state of of the universe which it deformed-for matters upon earth, previous to the time such a time to have been a time of love, when reconciliation in this view was en- when majesty seemed to call for some tered upon. Think of the strength of that solemn vindication, but mercy could not moving principle in the bosom of the let us go-surely, if through such a bar. Deity, which so inclined I-Tim towards a rier between God. and the guilty, He, in world then vlying in the depths of ungod- the longings of His desire after them, liness-ana irom one end to another of it, forced a pathway of reconciliation, He lifting the cry of rebellion against Him. never will turn Himself away from any, There was no movement on the part of who, cheered forward by His own enthe world towards God-no returning treaties, are walking upon that path. But sense of allegiance towards Him from if, when enemies He Himself found out an whom they had revolted so deeply-no approach by which He might beckon abatement of that profligacy which so them to enter into peace with IIil, how rioted at large over a wide scene of law- much more when they are so approach. LECTURE XXI.-CHAPTER V, 10. IONQ ing, will He meet them with the light of bers such a time of his bygone history, His countenance, and bless them with the and with such a character of alienation joys of His salvation. from God and from His Christ, as we have But this argument may be looked to in now given to it? And who, we ask, re another way. Instead of fixing our re- called him from this alienation? By gards upon that point in the general his- whose guidance was he conducted to that tory of the world, when the avenue was demonstration either of the press or of struck out between our species and their the pulpit, which awakened him! WXho offended Lawgiver; and through the rent sent that afflictive visitation to his door, veil of a Saviour's flesh, a free and conse- which weaned his spirit from the world, crated way of access was opened for the and wooed it to the deathless friendships, guiltiest of them all-let a believer in and the ever-during felicities of heaven. Christ fix his regards upon that passage Who made known to him the extent of in his own personal history at which he his guilt, with the overpassing extent of was drawn in his desires and in his con- the redemption that is provided for it? It fidence to this great Mediator, and entered was not he himself who originated the upon the grace wherein he now stands, process of his own salvation. God might and gave up his evil heart of unbelief, and have abandoned him to his own courses; made his transition out of darkness to the and said of him, as He has done of many. marvellous light of the gospel. Let him others, "I will let him alone, since he will compare what he was, when an alien from have it so;" and given him up to that juGod, through wicked works of his own, dicial blindness, under which the vast with what he is when a humble but con- majority of the world are now sleeping in fiding expectant of God's mercy through profoundest lethargy; and withheld altothe righteousness of another. Who trans- gether that light of the Spirit, which he lated him into the condition which he now had done so much to extinguish. But if, occupies? Who put into his heart the instead of all this, God kept by him in the faith of the gospel 3 Who awakened him midst of his thankless p'rovocations-and, from the dormancy and unconcern of while he was yet a regardless eneny, nature 3 Who stirred up that restless but made His designs of grace to bear upon salutary alarm which at length issued in him-and, throughout all the mazes of his the secure feeling of reconciliation? checkered history, conducted him to the There was a time of his past life when the knowledge of Himself' as a reconciling whole doctrine of salvation was an offence God-and so softened his heart with fato him; when its preaching was foolish- mily bereavements, or so tore it from all ness to his ears; when its phraseology its worldly dependencies by the disasters tired and disgusted him; when, in light of business, or so shook it with frightful and lawless companionship, he put the agitation by the terrors of the law, or so warnings of religious counsel, and the ur- shone upon it with the light of His free gency of menacing sermons away from Spirit, as made it glad to escape from the his bosom-a time when the world was treachery of nature's joys and nature's his all, and when he was wholly given promises, into a relying faith on the offers over to the idolatry of its pursuits and and assurances of the gospel-why, just pleasures and projects of aggrandisement let him think of the time when God did — a time when his heart was unvisited so much for him-and then think of the with any permanent seriousness about impossibility that God will recede fioro God, of whom his conscience sometimes him now; or that He will cease from the reminded him, but whom he soon dis- prosecution of thatwork in circumstances missed from his earnest contemplation-a of earnest and desirous concurrence on time when he may have occasionally the part of the believei, which He Himheard of a judgment, but without one self begun in the circumstances either of practical movement of his soul towards his torpid unconcern, or of his active and the task of preparation-a time when the haughty defiance. The God who moved overtures of peace met him on his way, towards him in his days of forgetfulness, out which he, in the impetuous prosecu- will not move away from him in his days tion of his own objects, utterly disregarded of hourly and habitual remembrance-a time when death plied him with its and He who intercepted him in his career ever-recurring mementoes, but which he, of rebellion, will not withdraw from him overlooking the short and summary arith- in his career of new obedience-and He metic of the few little years that lay be- who first knocked at the door of his contween him and the last messenger, placed science, and that too in a prayerless and so far on the back ground of his anticipa- thankless and regardless season of his histion, that this earth, this passing and per- tory, will not, now that he prays in the shable earth, formed the scene of all his name of Christ, and now that his heart is solicitudes. set upon salvation, and now that the doc. Is there none here present who remem- trine of grace forms all his joy and all 14 1 06 LECTURE XXI.-CHAPTER V) 10. his dependence; He who thus found him perplexity, and in the midst of all those a distant and exiled rebel, will not aban- initial difficulties which beset the awakdon him now that his fellowship is with ened sinner, ere Christ shall give him the Father and with the Son. It is thus, light —give me a labouring and heavythat the believer may shield his misgiving laden sinner, haunted by the reflection, as heart from all its despondencies. It is if by an arrow sticking fast, that the thus, that the argument of the text goes mighlty question of his eternity is yet unto fortify his faith, and to perfect that resolved. There are many we fear which is lacking in it. It is thus that the amongst you to whom this tremendous un-' how much more' of the apostle should certainty gives no concern-but give me cause him to abound more and more in the one who has newly taken it up, and who, peace and thejoy of'believing-and should in the minglings of doubt and desponencourage every man who has laid hold dency, has not yet found his way to any on the hope set before us, to steady and consolation-and even with him may it be confirm his hold still more tenaciously found, that the same reason which strengththan before, so as to keep it fast and sure ens the hope of an advanced Christian, even unto the end. may well inspire the hope of him who has With a man who knows himself to be still his Christianity to find, and thus cast a believer, this argument is quite irresis- a cheering and a comforting influence on tible; and it will go to establish his faith, the very infancy of his progress. For if and to strengthen it, and to settle it, and it was in behalf of a careless world that to make it perfect. But it is possible for the costly apparatus of redemption was a man really to believe, and yet to be in reared-if it was in the full front and auignorance for a time whether he does so dacity of their most determined rebellion or not-and it is possible for a man to be that God laid the plan of reconciliation — in earnest about his soul, and yet not to if it was for the sake of men sunk in the have received that truth which is unto sal- very depths of ungodliness, that He con. vation-and it is possible for him to be structed His overtures of peace, and sent actuated by a strong general desire to be forth His Son with them amongst out right, and yet to be walking among the loathsome and polluted dwelling-placeselements of uncertainty-and it is possi- if, to get at His strayed children, He had ble for him to be looking to that quarter thus to find His way through all those elewhence the truths of the gospel are offer- ments of impiety and ungodliness, which ed to his contemplation, and yet not to are most abhorrent to the sanctity of His have attained the distinct or satisfying nature, think you, that the God who made perception of' them-thoroughly engaged such an advancing movement towards the -in the prosecution of his peace with God; men whose faces were utterly away from determinedly bent on this subject as the Him-is this a God who will turn His own highest interest lie can possibly aspire face away from the man who is moving after; labouring after a settlement; and, towards God, and earnestly seeking after under all the agonies of a fierce internal Him if haply he may find Him war, seeking and toiling and praying for This argument obtains great additional his deliverance. It is at the point of time force, when we look to the state of matters when faith enters the heart, that reconci- in heaven at the time that we upon earth liation is entered upon-nor can we say of were enemies, and compare it with the this man, that he is yet a believer, or, that state of matters in heaven, now that we he has passed firomn the condition of an are actually reconciled, or are beginning enemy to that of a fiiend. And vet upon to entertain the offers of reconciliation. him the argument of the text should not Before the work of our redemption, Jesus be without its efficacy. It is such an ar- Christ was in primeval glory-and though gument as may be employed not merely a place of mystery to us, it was a place to confirm the faith which already exists, of secure and ineffable enjoyment-insobut to help on to its formation that faith much, that the fondest prayer He could which is struggling for an establishment utter in the depths of His humiliation, in the heart of an inquirer. It falls, no was to be taken back again to the Ancient doubt, with fullest and most satisfying of days, and there to be restored to the light upon the heart of a conscious be- glory which He had with Him before the liever-and yet it may be addressed, and world was. It was from the heights of with pertinency too, to men under their celestial security and blessedness that lie first and earliest visitations of seriousness. looked with an eye of pity on our sinful For give me an acquaintance of whom I habitation-it was from a scene where know nothing more than that his face is beings of a holy nature surrounded Him, towards Zion-give me one arrested by a and the full homage of the Divinity was sense of guilt and of danger, and merely rendered to Him, and, in the ecstacies of groping his way to a place of enlarge- His fellowship with God the Father, all ment-give me a soul not in peace, but in wAs peace and purity and excellence-it LECTURE XXI. —CHAPTER V, 10. 107 was from this that lie took His voluntary aright what we owe of love and obliga. departure, and went out on His errand to tion to the Saviour, till we believe, that seek and to save us. And it was not the the whole of' that fury, which if poured parade of an unreal suffering that He had out upon the world, would have served its to encounter; but a deep and a dreadful guilty generations through eternity-that endurance-it was not a t;'umphant pro- all of it was poured into the cup of ex menade through this lower world, made piation. easy over all its obstacles by the energies A more adequate sense of this might of His Godhead; but a conflict of toil not only serve to awaken the gratitude and of strenuousness-it was not an egress which slumbers within us, and is deadfrom heaven on a journey brightened it might also, through the aid of the arguthrough all its stages by the hope of a ment in our text, awaken and assure your smooth and gentle return; butit was such confidence. If when we were enemies, an exile from heaven as made His ascent Christ ventured on an enterprise so painand His readmittance there the fruit of a ful-if, when loathsome outcasts from the hard-won victory. We have nothing but sacred territory of heaven, He left the the facts of revelation to guide or to in- abode of His Father, and exchanged love, form us; and yet from these we most as- and adoration, and congenial felicity suredly gather, that the Saviour, in step- among angels, for the hatred and perseping down from the elevation of His past cution of men-if; when the agonies of eternity, incurred a substantial degrada- the coming vengeance were still before tion-that when He wrapped Himself in Him, and the dark and dreary vale of the humanity of our nature, He put on the suffering had yet to be entered upon, and whole of its infirmities and its sorrows- He had to pass under the inflictions of that, for the joy which He renounced, He that sword which the Eternal',d awak. became acquainted with grief, and a grief ened against His fellow, ar Hde had still too commensurate to the whole burden of to give Himself up to a death equivalent our world's atonement-that the hidings in the amount of its soreness to the de. of His Father's countenance were terrify- vouring fire, and the everlasting burnings, ing to His soul —and when the offended which but for him believers would have justice of the Godhead was laid upon His borne-if, when all this had yet to be person, it required the whole strength of travelled through, Ite nevertheless, in His the Godhead to sustain it. What mean compassionate longing for the souls of the agonies of the garden? What mean men, went forth upon the errand of win. the bitter cries and complainings of aban- ning them to Himself,-let us just look to donment upon the cross l What meaneth the state of matters then, and compare it the prayer that the cup might pass away with the state of matters now. Christ has from Him; and the struggle of a lofty there ascended on the wings of victoryresolution with the agonies of a mighty and He is now sitting at God's right hand and unknown distress, and the evident amid all the purchased triumphs of His symptoms of a great and,toilsome achieve- obedience-and the toil, and the conflict, ment throughout the whole progress of and the agony, are now over-and from this undertaking; and angels looking that throne of mediatorship to which He dlown from their eminencies, as on a field has been exalted, is it His present office of contest, where a great Captain had to to welcome the approaches of all who put forth the travailing of His strength, come, and to save to the uttermost all who and to spoil principalities and powers, put their trust in Him. And is it possible, and to make a show of them openly? we would ask, is it possible that He who Was there nothing in all this, do you think, died to atone, now that He lives, will not but the mockery of a humiliation that live to make intercession for us? Can was never felt —the mockery of a pain the love for men which bore Him through that was never suffered-the mockery of a mighty and a painful sacrifice, not be a battle that was never fought? No, be strong enough to carry Him onwards in assured that there was, on that day, a real peace and in triumph to its final consumvindication of God's insulted majesty. On mation? Will He now abandon that work that day there was the real transference which His own hands have so laboriously of an avenging hand, from the heads of reared? —or leave the cause for which lie the guilty to the head of the innocent. has already sustained the weight of such On that day one man died for the people, an endurance, in the embryo and unfinand there was an actual laying on of the ished state of an abortive undertaking? iniquities of us all. It was a war of Will He cast away from Him the spoils strength and of suffering in highest possi- of that victory for which He bled; and ble aggravation, because the war of ele- how can it be imagined for a moment, but -nents which were infinite. The wrath by such dark and misgiving hearts as which millions should have borne, was all ours, that He whose love for a thankless 3f it discharged. Nor do we estimate world carried Him through the heat and i0 8 LECTURE XXI. —CHAPTER V, 10. the severity of a contest that is now end- summation of those t:iumpns for which ed, will ever, with the cold and forbidding He had to struggle His, way through a glance of an altered countenance, spurn season of difficulties that are now over an enquiring world away friom Him 3 It is thus that the believer reasons himself The death of a crucified Saviour, when into a steadier assurance than beforebeheld under such a view, is the firm and peace may be Inade to flow through steppiiig-stone to confidence in a risen his heart like a mighty river-and, restSaviour. You may learn from it, that His ing on the foundation of Christ, he comes desire and your salvation are most tho- to feel himself in a sure and wealthy roughly at one. Of His good-will to have place-and the good-will of the Saviour you into heaven, He has given the strong- rises into an undoubted axiom-so as to est pledge and demonstration, by conse- chase away all his distrust, and cause crating, with His own blood, a way of him to delight himself greatly in the richaccess, through which sinners may draw -es of his present grace, and in the brightnigh. And now that, as our forerunner, ening certainty of his coming salvation. He is already there-now that He has And this view of the matter is not only gone up again to the place from which fitted to heighten the confidence that is HIe arose-now that, to the very place already formed-but also to originate the which He left to die, and that, that the confidence that needs to be inspired. It barrier to its entrance from our world may places the herald of salvation on a secure be moved away, Ile has ascended alive and lofty vantage-ground. It,seais and and in glory, without another death to en- authenticates the offer with which he is dure, for death has no more the dominion entrusted-and with which he may go over If:mn-will ever He do any thing to round among the guiltiest of this world's close tt,u -ritrance which it has cost Him population. It enables him to say, that so much tu -en? Will He thus throw fbr guilt even in the season of its most away the toil aiid the travail of His own proud and unrepentant defiance, did soul, and reduce to impotency that appa- Christ give Himself up unto the deathratus of reconciliation which IHe Himself and that to guilt even in this state of harhas reared, and at an expense too, equal dihood, Christ in prosecution of His own to the penance of many millions through work has commissioned him to go with the eternity. What He died to begin, will overtures ofpurchased mercy-andshould IIe not now live to carry forward; and the guilt which has stood its ground will not the love which could force a way against the threatenings of power, feel through the grave to its accomplishments softened and arrested by pity's prevent-i: ow that it has reached the summit of ing call, may the preacher of forgiveness triumph and of' elevation which He at affirm, in his Master's name, that He, whc present occupies, burst forth and around for the chief of sinners boowed Himself the field of that mighty enterprise, which down unto the sacrifice, will not now, that was begun in deepest suffering, and will He has arisen a Prince and a Saviour, end in full and finished glory? stamp a nullity upon that contest, the triThis is a good argument in all the sta- umph of which is awaiting Him; but the ges of a man's Christianity. Whether he bitterness of which has passed away. He has found, or is only seeking-whether he will not turn with indifference and disbe in a state of faith, or in a state of in- taste from the very fruit which He Himquiry-whether a believer, like Paul and self has fought for. But if for guilt in many of the disciples that he was address- its full impenitency, He dyed His garing, or an earnest and convinced sinner ments, and waded through the arena of groping the way of deliverance, and la- contest and of blood-then should the bouring to be at rest, there may be made most abandoned of her children begin a to emanate from the present circumstan- contrite movement towards Him, it is noi ces of our Saviour, and the position that He, who will either break the prop for He now occupies, an argument either to which He feels, or quench his infant aspiperpetuate the confidence where it is, or ration. He will look to him as the travail to inspire it where it is not. If when an of Ihis own soul, and in him He will be enemy I was reconciled, and that too by satisfied. His death-if He laid down hIis life to WVe know not what the measure of the remove an obstacle in the way of my sal- sinfulness is of any who now hear us. vation, how much more, now that He has But we know, that however foul his detaken it up, will IHe not accomplish that pravity, and however deep the crimson salvation 3 It is just fulfilling His own dye of his manifold iniquities may be, the desire. It is just prospering forward the measure of the gospel warrant reaches very cause that His heart is set upon. It even unto him. It was to make an inroad is just following out the facilities which on the territory of Satan, and reclaim He Himself has opened —and marching from it a kingdom unto himself, that Christ onward in glorious procession, to the con- died-and we speak tc.he farthest off in LECTURE XXI. —CHAPTER V, 10. 10l uilt anm alienation amongst you-take which you were suspended. It is no'; the overture of' peace that is now brought enough, that the word of God, compared to your door, and you will add to that to a hammer, be weighty and powerful. kingdom which He came to establish, and The material on which it works must be take away from that kingdom which He capable of' an impression. It is not came to destroy. The freeness of this enough, that there be a free and forcible gospel has the honour of Ilim who liveth application. There must be a willing sub. and was dead for its guarantee. The se- ject. You are unwilling now, and therecurity of the sinner and the glory of the fore it is that conversion does not foillow. Saviour are at one. And, with the spirit To-morrow, the probability is, that you of' a monarch who had to fight his way to Ewill be still more unwilling-and there the dominion which was rightfully his fore, though the application be the same, own, will Hie hail the returning allegiance the conversion is still at a greater distance of every rebel, as a new accession to His away from you. And thus. while the aptriumphs, as another trophy to the might plication continues the same, the subje6t and the glory of His great undertaking. hardens, and a good result is ever becomBut, amid all this latitude of' call and ing more and more unlikely-and thus of invitation, let me press upon you that may it go on till you arrive, upon the bed alternative character of the gospel, to of your last sickness, at the confines of which we have often adverted. We have eternity-and what, we would ask, is the tried to make known to you, how its en- kind of willingness that comes upon you couragements rise the one above the other then 3 Willing to escape the pain of hell to him who moves towards it. But it has -this you are now, but yet not willing to Its corresponding terrors and severities, be a Christian. WVilling that the fire and which also rise the one above the other your bodily sensations be kept at a disto him who moves away from il. If the tance from each other-this you are now, transgressor will not be recalled by the for who of you at present would thrust his invitation which wve have now made hand among the flames? Willing that known to himn, he will be rivetted thereby the fiame of your animal sensibilities into deeper and more hopeless condemna- shall meet with nothing to wound or to tion. If the offer of peace be not enter- torture it-this is willingness of which the tained by him; then, in the very propor- lower animals, incapable of' religion, are tion of' its largeness and generosity, will yet as capable as yourself. You will be the provocation be of his insulting treat- as willing then for deliverance from matement in having rejected it. Out of the rial torments as you can be now-but there mouth of the Son of' man there cometh a is a willingness which you want now, and two-edged sword. There is pardon free which, in all likelihood will then be still as the light of heaven to all who will. more beyond the reach of your attainThere is wrath, accumulated and irre- ment. If the free gospel do not meet with trievable wrath, to all who will not. " Kiss your willingness now to accept and to subthe Son, therefore, lest He be angry, and mit to it, neither may it then. And wve ye perish from the way: when His wrath know not, my brethren, what has been is kindled but a little, blessed only are your experience in death-beds; but sure they wvho put their trust in Him." we are, that both among the agonies of' It is the most delusive of all calcula- mortal disease, and the terrors of the maltions to put off the acceptance of the efactor's cell, Christ may be offlbred, and gospel, because of its freeness-and be- the offer be sadly and sullenly put away. cause it is free at all times-and because The free proclamation is heard without the present you think may be the time of one accompanying charm-and the man. your unconcern and liberty, and some who refused to lay hold of it through life, distant future be the time of your return finds that, in the impotency of his expirthrough that door which will still be open ing grasp, he cannot apprehend it. And fior you. The door of Christ's mediator- oh, if you but knew how often the word ship is ever open, till death put its un- of faith may fall from the minister, and changeable seal upon your eternity. But the work of faith be left undone upon the the door of your own heart, if you are not dying man, never would you so postpone receiving Himr, is shut at this moment, the purposes of seriousness, or look forward and every day is it fixing and fastening to the last week of your abode upon earth more closely —and long ere death sum- as to the convenient season for winding mon you away, may it at length settle up the concerns of a neglected eternity. lnnmoveably upon its hinges, and the voice If you look attentively to the text, you of Hlim who standeth without and knock- will find, that there is something more than eth, may be unheard by the spiritual ear a shade of difference between being recop-and, therefore, you are not made to feel ciled and being saved. Reconciliation is too much, though you feel as earnestly as spoken of as an event that has already if' now or never' was the alternative on happened-salvation as an event that is to 10 LECTURE XXJ.-CHAPTER V, 10. come. The one event may lead to the they are apprehended. They see not that other; but there is a real distinction be- the use of the new dispensation, is for tween them. It is true, that the salvation them to be restored to the image they have instanced in the preceding verse, is salva- lost, and, for this purpose, to be purged tion from wrath. But it is the wrath which from their old sins. This is the point on is incurred by those who have sinned wil- which they are in darkness —" and they fully, after they had come to the know- love the darkness rather than the light, ledge of the truth-'" when there remaineth because their deeds are evil.' They are no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain at all times willing for the reward without fearful looking for of judgment and fiery the service. But they are not willing for indignation, which shall devour the adver- the reward and the service together. The saries." Jesus Christ will save us from willingness for the one they always have. this by saving us from sin. He who hath But the willingness for both they never reconciled us by His death, will, by His have. They have it not to-day-and it is life, accomplish for us this salvation. Re- not the operation of time that will put it conciliation is not salvation. It is only in them to-morrow. Nor will disease put the portal to it. Justification is not the it in. Nor will age put it in. Nor will end of Christ's coming-it is only the the tokens of death put it in. Nor will the means to an ultimate attainment. By His near and terrific view of eternity put it in. death He pacified the Lawgiver. By His It may call out into a livelier sensation life He purifies the sinner. The one work than before, a willingness for the reward. is finished. The other is not so, but is But it will neither inspire a taste nor a only going on unto perfection. And this willingness for the service. A distaste for is the secret of that unwillingness which God and godliness, as it was the reigning we have already touched upon. There is and paramount principle of his life, so it a willingness that God would lift off from may be the reigning and paramount printheir persons the hand of an avenger. ciple of his death-bed. As it envenomed But there is not a willingness that Christ every breath which he drew, so it may enwould lay upon their persons the hand of venom his last-and the spirit going forth a sanctifier. The motive for Him to ap- to the God who gave it, with all the enprehend them is to make them holy. But mity that it ever had, God will deal with they care not to apprehend that for which it as an enemy. LECTURE XXII. ROMAANS V, 11. And not only so, but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement." IN the whole passage from the com- can it be otherwise, the apostle reasons. mencement of this chapter, we have an He hath already given us His Son, will account of the new feelings that are in- He not with Him fi'eely give.us all things? troduced by faiith into the heart of' a be- He hath already evinced His regard by liever. The first is a feeling of peace with sparing not His well-beloved-but surrenGod, of whom we could never think for- dering Him to the death of a sore and merly, if' we thought of Him aright, but heavy atonement for us, at the time that with the sensations of disquietude and ter- we were adversaries. And now that He ror. The second is a feeling of exultation has done so much in circumstances so( unin the hope of some glory and enlarge- likely, will He not carry on the work of ment that are yet unrevealed-whereby deliverance to its final accomplishment we shall attain such an enjoyment in His when circumstances have changed?presence, and in the view of His perfec- when we who at one time stood afar oft tions, as we can never reach in this world. have now drawn nigh; and when He, who The third is a feeling of exultation, even at one time shuddered with very apprein the very crosses and tribulations of our hension at the dark vale of agony before earthly pilgrimage, from the process Him, has now burst loose from His imwhich they give rise to in our own charac- prisonment, and finally escaped from the ters —a process that manifests a work of grief that was put upon His soul-has now grace here, and so serves to confirm all a work of grace and of gladness to carry our expectations of a harvest of glory and onwards to its full consummation? It is blessedness hereafter. And indeed how thus that the believer persuades himself LECTURE XXII. —CHAPTER V, 11. l into a still more settled assurance of the God-to have delight in this feeling-to love of God to him than before; and triumph in God as you would do in a whereas, in the second verse he only re- treasure that had come into your posses. joiced in the hope of the glory of God as sion-to dwell upon Him in fancy and it will be revealed to him in future-he, with fondness, just as one friend dwells in this.eleventh verse, expresses a present on the pleasing remembrance of another rejoicing in this same God-delighting -to reach the extacies of devotion, and himself even now in the assurance of' His find that the minutes spent in communion present regard; and approaching Him with the heavenly and unseen witness, are with affectionate confidence even now, far the sweetest and the sunniest intervals under the sense of a present reconciliation. of your earthly pilgrimage-to have; a The apostle in this passage makes use sense of God all the day long, and that of such terms, as are expressive of a gra- sense of Him in every way so delicious as dation in the feelings of him who has ad- to make the creature seem vain and tastemitted the faith of the gospel into his mind less in the comparison-to have His can-each rising above the other, and mark- die shining in your heart, and a secret ing an advance and a progress in Chris- beatitude in Him of which other men tian experience. It is well, in the first in- have no comprehension-to bear about stance, to be set at rest from all that tur- with you that cheerful trust in Him, and bulence and alarm which conviction stirs that cherished regard to Hilm, which chilup in the sinner's restless bosom-so as dren do to a father whose love they rejoice that he has "; peace with God through Je- in, and of whose good-will they are most sus Christ our Lord." But it is better still, thoroughly assuredl-to prize the peaceful when he can not only look at God as dis- sabbaths and the sacred retirements, when armed of all enmity towards him-but your soul can wing its contemplation draws near unto Him, in the confidence toward His sanctuary, and there behold of a positive favour and friendship towards the glories of His character, at the very him, which will afterwards appear in some time that you can exult in confidence glorious manifestation. "(By whom also before Him-thus to be afficted towards we have access by faith into this grace God, and thus to glory and be glad in wherein we stand. and rejoice in hope of Him, is certainly not a common attainthe glory of' God." And it argues a still ment; and yet we do not see how any higher strength and steadfastness of feel- true saint, any genuine disciple can be ing, when it can maintain itself under vis- altogether a stranger to it. "Rejoice itations, which, to flesh and blood, would evermore," says the apostle of the New be otherwise overpowering. 1"And not Testament; and "the Lord reigneth, let only so, but we glory in tribulation also." the earth rejoice," says the venerable And lastly, when there is both the positive patriarch of the Old. It is easy to walk experience of a gift in hand, even the in the founds of a mechanical observaHoly Ghost shed abroad upon us; and the tion. it is easy to compel the hand to resistless consideration that He who recon- of,ilence, against the grain and inclinaciled sinners by death, will, now surely n of the heart. It is very easy to bear that they are.reconciled, fully and conclu- owards God the homage of respect, or sively save them, seeing that He is alil fearfulness, or solemn emotion; and to again-does the apostle, upon the strengtn. render Him the outward obeisance, and of these, carry forward the believer to a even something of the inward awe of still higher eminence in the divine life, worshippers. It is somewhat natural to where he can not only see afar off to the feel the dread of His majesty, or to be glorious regions of immortality and be visited by a sense of His terrors, or to be glad; but where, in foretaste as it were checked by the thought of His authority of the joy of these regions felt by him and power. And, under the weight of' all now, he is glad in a sense of the already this impressive seriousness, it is even possessed friendship of God, glad in the somewhat natural and easy to pray. But intercourse of love and confidence with a it has been well remarked, that praise is present Deity. not so natural, nor so common, nor withal There is much, we think, to be gathered so easy as prayer-that delight in God is from the consideration, that joy in God a rarer and a loftier condition of the soul, forms one of the exercises of a Christian than devoutness of feeling to God-that mind-a habit or condition of the soul the sigh of repentance may be heard to into which every believer is or ought to ascend towards Him in many cases, while be translated-a spiritual eminence that the singing of the heart towards Him may may be gained, even in this world, and only break forth in very few-that to culwhere the heart of man may experience tivate with God as a matter of duty, is a a relish, and imbibe a rapture, which the habit of far greater frequency, than to do world most assuredly knoweth not. To it as if by the impulse of a spontaneous feel as if you were in the company of feeling-So that to serve ltirn as a master [ 12 - LECTURE XXII.-CIIAPTER V, i;. lo whom you are bound in the way of course, at a greater distance fromn that abligation, is more the tendency of nature, state of alienation which you all occupy than to serve him as a friend to whom by nature. The very description of such you are bound by the willing affections a godliness may serve to convince us, how of a heart that freely and fully and fear- wide the disparity is between the moral lessly loves Him. Is not the latter the fair element of earth, and the moral element more enviable habit of the soul, the one of heaven; and this is a lesson which we to which you would like best to be trans- should like to urge on two classes cf lated?-to have the spirit of adoption and hearers —ndeavouring to sum up the cry out Abba, Father, rather than to drivel whole by a practical conclusion, ere we before Him among the restraints and the bid a final adieu to a passage on which reluctancies of a slave?-to do His will for so many sabbaths we have (detained here upon earth, just as it is in heaven, you. that is, not as if by the force of a compul- The first class consists of those who sorv law, or as if under the stipulation to care little about the matters of the soul discharge the articles of a bond, or as if and of eternity; who have never with any pursued by the unrelenting jealousy of a degree of seriousness entertained the questask-master, who exacts from you work, tion; who have been acting all along, not just as one man exacts fri-om another the on the computation of those elements into square and( punctual fulfilment of a bar- which sin and salvation and death and gain? This is the way in which God's will immortality enter-but have just lived and is apt to be done, or attempted to be done, are continuing to live, as if the visible on earth; but it is really not the way in theatre which surrounds them were their heaven-where He receives a willing all; and the platform of mortality wherehomage from beings of a nature congenial on they walk, and underneath the surface with His own —where the doing of Ilis of which they see acquaintances sinking pleasure is not a drudgery for the per- and disappearing every day, were to formance of which they get their.meat hold them up and that firmly and prosand their drink, but where their meat and perously for ever. We are sure we speak drink itself is to do the will of God- to their experience when we say, that all where, instead of a duty from which they they mind is earthly things, and that their would like to stand acquitted, it is their conversation is not in heaven; that joy in very heart's desire to be thus employed, God through Jesus Christ is a feeling and that without respite and without ter- which they never had, and of which they mination-above all, where the presence have no comprehension; that the eitaof God ever enlivens them, and their own cies of those, who are so inspired and so pleasure is just His pleasure reflected back actuated, are beyond the range of their again. To carry onward the soul, fiom sympathy and understanding altogether. the cares and the exercises and the mani- And give them a warm habitation in time, fold observations of an outward godli- and stock it well with this world's comness, to such an inward and angelic god- forts and accommodations, and surround liness as we now speak of, were to work them with a thriving circle of relations upon it a greater transformation-than to and a merry companionship, and let the recall it from abandoned profligacy, to animating game of a well-doing business the punctiliousness and the painstakings abroad be varied by the flow of kindness and all the decencies of a mere external and the songs of festivity at home-and reformation. And we again ask, whether they would have no objection, if, thus you would not like to break forth upon compassed about and thus upholden, to be this scene of spiritual enlargement; and done with God and done with eternity for be preferred to this nobler and freer ele- ever. When the preacher tries to demon. vation of character; and to walk before strate the utter wofulness and worthlessGod as an attached and rejoicing friend, ness of their spiritual condition, we know rather than as the slave of His tyranny what the kind of question is with which ~and of your own terrors-in a word, to they are prepared to assail him. We pay joy in the light of His benignant counte- our debts; we can lift an open and unnance, rather than to tremble under the abashed visage in society; we follow the apprehension of His frown; and, instead occasional impulses of a compassionlte af submissively toiling at what you feel feeling towards the necessitous; we lc~-e.o be a task, to spring forth on the career our children; there is nothing monstrc-.s of obedience with the alacrity of one about us, possessed as we are of all the whose heart is glad in God, and who instincts of humanity, and maintaining takes pleasure in all His will and in all the full average of its equities and its deHis ways? cencies and its kindnesses. What then is You all see the one style of godliness the charge, on which you would stamp a to be of a far higher and more celestial sort of moral hideousness upon our chapitch than the other; and therefore, of ramters; and on which you pronounce LECTURE XXIT.-CHAPTER V, 1. 113 against us tne awful doom of an angry such to bestir themselves; and to beat as God and an undone eternity 3 The charge it were upon the confines of that spiritual is that you joy in the creature, and not at region, the occupiers of which have a all in the Creator; and, to verify the doom, taste for God, and so a foretaste of heaven we have only to read in your hearing, the in their souls; and many a weary strugfuture history of this world, in as fir as gle may they make after this regenerait is nwade known to us by experience and tion; and perhaps, baffled in all their atrevelation. That scene, on which you tempts, have the same distaste for God and iave fastened your affections so closely godliness as ever. For how can that,hat you cannot tear them away from it, which is bitter become sweet unto me will soon be torn away from you; and How can this religion which is a weari this world, on whose fair surface it is that ness become a delight? How can I attain sense and time have spread out their be- a relish and a capacity for its spiritua. witching allurements, and decked them exercises? or share in a joy which I have forth in colours of fascination, will soon never yet felt, and which certainly no be broken up; and your hold, as well as method of compulsion can establish withthat of all our species on the present sys- in me? tem of things, with all its pleasures and Now this leads us to a second class of all its interests, will be everlastingly dis- hearers, who, instead of being careless, solved. It is then that God will step in are making the interest of their soul a between your soul and those creatures topic of great care and great cogitation; after which it has ever longed, but which who have recourse to active measures in are now swept away. And had your joy the prosecution of' this interest; and are been in Him, then the heaven where He all alive, to the great object of being right dwells would have been your fit because with God. It is indeed a most natural your joyful habitation. But as the tree forth-setting of the whole man on such an falleth so it lies; and you rise from the occasion, to proceed on the principle of grave with the taste, and the character,'work and win;' and thus do they strive and the feelings which you had when you to establish a righteousness of their own, breathed your last upon your death-bed; and by much labour to lay up a claim for and so all that is in your heart, carrying wages on the day of reckoning; and in so upon it a recoil firom Him with whom labouring, they just feel as an ordinary alone you have to do, will meet with no- workman does. It is not his work that thing there but that which must give gives him pleasure. It is only the receipt dread and disturbance to your carnal af- of his wages that gives him pleasure. He fections; and these affections will wander has no rejoicing in his master or in his in vain for the objects which solaced them service. His only rejoicing is in the reupon earth. This intermediate place be- ward that he is to get from him, and which tween heaven and hell will no longer be is distinct from his service. And in like found; and the unhappy exile from the manner, is there many a seeker after life one, will meet with the other alternative eternal, toiling with all his might, in the as his portion for evermore. It is thus spirit of bondage and of much careful. that he who soweth to the flesh, shall of ness, who has no joy in God-satisfied if the flesh reap corruption. The materials he can escape hell and reach the un. of his gratification will be withheld; and defined blessedness of heaven; but who the sordid appetite remain unsated and does not reflect, that it is altogether essen. restless and ever pursuing him throughout tial to this blessedness, to have such a all eternity: And whatever the outward taste for the divine character as to be glad inflictions may be which a God of ven- in the contemplation of it-to have such geance will lay upon him-there will, in a liking for the divine life, as that the lifo the heats and the passions and the dis- itself, with the necessary pleasure annexappointed feelings of his own unregene- ed to it, shall be reward enough for himrate bosom, be element enough to consti- to have such a delight in the Being who tute a worm within that cannot die, and made him, that he counts himself rich in a fire within that never can be quenched. the simple possession of His friendship, This may perhaps convince the first and in the breathings of a heart that glowa class of hearers of their exceeding dis- with regard and gratitude to the personi tance from a right habit of soul for death of the Divinity. Without this, all he can and the eternity beyond it; and give them do is but the bodily exercise that profitetk; some understanding of the greatness of little; and that, instead of heightening that transition which there is from the his affection for God, may only exasperate carnal to the spiritual; and bring even the impatience, and aggravate the weari. their own experience to testify for this an- ness and distaste that he feels in His ser. nouncement of the Bible, that unless they vice. And the question recurs-how shall are born again they shall not inherit the he be translated into this right spiritual Kingdom of God. And it may lead some temperament 3 It is not by the laborious 114 LECTURE XXII. —CIIAPTER V 1 1. ness of the service, that he will ever work whole character of his ministrations, by himself into the habit of rejoicing in that which it is reduced to a matter of' giving master who appoints the service, and yet upon the one side, and of confident rewithout the rejoicing there is no adapta- ceiving and relying upon the other. Now tion of' the soul for paradise-no kindred the two parts which are thus objected to quality with the atmosphere of the upper singly, are those which give consistent regions-none of that cordial delight in support and stability to each other. It is God which gives to heaven all its free- just by faith, and in no other possible ness and all its felicity-and, with all the way, that you enter upon peace and hope drudgeries of outward obedience, no grow- and love and joy. It is just through Jeing meetness whatever for the inheritance sus Christ, not by working for the atone. of the saints in light. ment, but simply by receiving the atoneNow what is the sum and practical ment, that you are translated into this deconclusion of this whole matter? We sirable habit of the soul. It is just the trust you all perceive how it leaves you fireeness of the gospel, which conducts its no other alternative, than that of just disciples to all the peculiar affections of shutting you up unto the faith. There is the gospel. If you remain on the ground a high ground of' spiritual affection, and of' legality where' work and win' is the of joy in God, an(l of celestial delight in order of the d(lay, you never will win the the sense of His presence and fellowship, length of firmly confiding in God as your to which you would like to be elevated. friend, or of rejoicing in Him as the life But you see nothing between you and that and the dearest treasure of your existence. lofty region, saving a range of precipice It is only by walking in that open way of that you cannot scale, and against which access to which you are invited; and you vainly wreak all the native energies proceeding on the words of Christ, that that belong to you. Let one door hitherto "by IIim if any man enter in he shall be unobserved be pointed out, open to all saved;" and laying hold of that covenant who knock at it, and through which an of peace on which He is desirous, that all easy an(l before unseen ascent conducts of you should lay a full and a sure reliyou to the light and purity and enjoyment ance. It is only thus that the tastes and of those upper regions after which you affections of the heart, will be led freely aspire; and what other practical effect out to the God who thus calls and thus should all the obstacles and impossibili- manifests Himself. Let us therefore sound ties you have before encountered have in your hearing the invitations of the gosupon you, than just to guide.your foot- pel; and make it known to you, that your steps to tile alone way of access that is at only chance for being translated into that all practicable? And this is just the con- angelic love of God an(l joy in Him which elusion you should come to on the matter obtains in paradise, is simply by believunder consideration. Strive as painfully ing in their honesty and trusting and trias you may to work out a righteousness umphing and hoping and rejoicing acof your own, and you will ever work cordingly. You can never be too sure of among stumbling-blocks; and peace be God's truth. You can never be too sure at as grteat a distance from you as ever; of the saving efficacy of the blood of His and, so far from joy in God being attained Son. You can never be too sure of your by such a process, it is flar the likeliest having received such an abundance of way of accumulating upon your souls a grace, as will exceed the measure of all distaste both for Him and for His service; your abounding iniquities. You can never and, in these circumstances, we know of be too sure of the faithfulness and infinite nothing through which to ensure your compassion of your Creator who is in translation to this desirable habit of the heaven; and, the more you cherish all soul, than just the open door of Christ's this sureness, the more will you rejoice in mediatorship. It has been objected to the Him, the shield of whose protection is economy of the gospel, that it exacts from over you, and the arms of whose everits disciples an unnatural and unattaina- lasting love are round about you. This ble clevation of character; and this is a sureness is, in fact. the high road to all most likely bbjection to proceed from him that enlargement of sacred and spiritual who looks at this economy with half an delight, which in every other way is toeye. Thle very same people may also, on tally inaccessible. And we are not afraid lookin,g at another side of this dipensa- of spoiling you into indolence by all this tion, 1be heard to object to the freeness of proclamation; or of lulling you into a the gospel; to the immediate way in habit of remissness in the exertions of which any sinner may strike, even now, duty by it; or of gendering a deceitful an act of reconciliation with the God Antinomianismin your hearts; or of turn. whomn he has offended; to the method of ing any one of you into the disgusting fiis justification by faith, and not by the spectacle of one who can talk of peace works of the law; and, in a word, to the with God, while purity and principle and LECTURE XXII.-CHAPTER V, 11. I 1 real piety are utter strangers to his unre- spiritual delight that you never before generated bosom. It is this freeness, and felt; and furnish motive and impulse and this alone in fact, which will make new affection for bearing you onward in the creatures of you; which will usher the way of active and persevering duty, on love of God into your hearts; which will the career of moral and spiritual excel. bring down the Holy Ghost upon you from lence. heaven; which will inspire a taste for LECTURE XXIII. ROMANS V, 1]2-21. K Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world. and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for tha all have sinned. (For until the law sin was in the world: but sill is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the simillttlde of Adamr's bransgression. who is the figure of him that was to comne. tht not as the offence, so also is the frec eift. For if through the offeunce of one many be dead; much more tile grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one nman, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it fewas by one that sinned, so is the sift; for the jutldlent was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one mla's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shaiL reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.) Therefore, as by the ofience of one judgment canme upon all meni to colldemnatio: even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unnto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteus Moreover. the law entered, that the offence mlight abound: but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by.esus Christ our Lord." ERE we proceed to the detailed explana- thing separate and apart from the desert tlon of these verses, it may be right to of it. The corruption of human nature premise a few general remarks, on the means its tendency to sin. The guilt of way in which sin found entrance into our them who wear that nature, means their world; on the precise doctrinal amount evil desert on account of sin; and foe of our informations from Scripture rela- which, when reckoned with, a penal sentive to this subject; and on the degree in tence may justly be laid upon them. The which these informations are met by the one is a matter of fact which may be afexperience of man, and the natural sense firmned in the word of God; buit which that is in his bosom, respecting guilt or may also be verified by the experience of demerit and condemnation. man. The other is a matter of principle, We do feel this to be an enterprise of which may also be affirmed in Scripsome difficulty and magnitude; and we ture; but which may also be taken cogfear, a little too unwieldly, for its being nizance of. by the moral sense that resides brought to a satisfying termination within and operates in the human bosom. the limits of one address. It seems, how- Now as to the fact of the sinful disposiever, a suitable introduction to the task tion in the nature of man, it can only be of expounding the passage that is noxv gathered-either from the sinfull doings before us; and, however formidable the that appear in the history of man; or attempt of grappling with a doctrine so from the sinfiul desires, to the existence mysterious to some and so repulsive to of which in his own heart, he has access others, as that of original sin —we do by the light of consciousness, and in the think it right, frankly to state to you all hearts of others by the light of their testhat we think, and all that we know about timony. Even though we had outward it. exhibition alone, we often have enough to This doctrine, then, may be regarded infer and ascertain the inward tendency. in two different aspects-first as it respects We do not need to dig into a spring to asthe disposition to sin, and secondly as it certain the quality of its water, but to exrespects the guilt of it. These two par- amine the quality of the stream rhica ticulars, yosu will observe, are distinct flows from it. We have no access, eithet from one another. To say that a man by our own consciousness or by their has a tendency by nature to run into the communications, to the hearts in thle infe-. cornmissicr if sin, is to say one thing — rior animals; and yet we can pronounce to sav that by nature he is in a state of with the utmost confidence, from their doiuilt or condemnation, is to say another. ings and their doings alone, on the charThe act of sin is distinct from the punish- acteristic disposition which belongs to meen (of sin The disposition to it is a each of them. And so we talk of the 116 LECTURE XXIII.-CHAPTER V, 12 —21. faithfulness of the dog, and the ferocity the animal-So that if the fountain can of the tiger, and the gentleness of the I be regarded separately from the rivuletdove,-ascribing to each a prior tendency if the kind of' tree can be colsidered as of nature, from which there emanates the one thing, and the kind of fruit which it style of action that stands visibly forth in bears be considered as another-if' a qualtheir outbward histories. ity of inwarid temper, be a thing distinct Now this may lead us to understand in from and antecedent to tile ebullitions of part, what is meant by the term original, it in deed and in perfolrmance; and this as applied to the doctrine now under con- quality be diffused through a whole spesideration. It is quite a current mode of cies, and as much born with each of its expression, when one says that there is individuals as is the shape or are the atn original fbrocity in the tiger. It means members of its body-eThere may then be that, as the fountain on the hill-side is a real and philosophical found;-tion for forme-d and filled up, befobre it sends forth that distinction between original and acthe rills which proceed from it-so a fe- tual sin, which has been so much resisted rocious quality of nature exists in the ti- by the disciples of our modern literature, ger, before it vents itself forth in deeds aend so much decried as the fiction of a of' ferocity; and it is a quality not in- barbarous theology. duced upon the animal by education; for, It is thus that we verify the doctrine of however left to itself, all of them evince original sin by experience. Should it be it. Neither is it the fruit of any harsh or found true of every man, that he is actuprovoking treatment to which it is ex- ally a sinner-should this hold unexpectposed; for, under every variety of treat- edly true with each individual of the hument, or with no treatment at all, still is man family-if in every country of the this the unfailing disposition of each indi- world, and in every age of' the world's vidual belonging to the tribe. As little history, all who had grown old enough to can it be ascribed to climate, or to acci- be capable of showing themselves were dent, or to any thing posterior to the for- transgressors against the law of Godmation of the animal itself; for, under all and it among all the accidents and variethese differences, we still behold the forth- ties of condition to which humanity is putting of that characteristic fierceness liable, each member of humanity still bethat we are now speaking of. It may well took himself to his own wayward deviabe called original; for it would appear, tions from the rule of right-Then he both fromn the universality of this attribute sins, not because of the mere perversity and from the unconquerable strength of of his education-he sins, not solely beit, that it belongs essentially to the crea- cause of the peculiar excitements to evil ture; that from the very way in which it is that have crossed his path-he sins, not put together at the first, from the very way only because of the noxious atmosphere in which the elements of its constitution he breathes, or the vitiating example that are compounded, this fierce and fiery dis- is on every side of him. But he sins, position is made to evolve itself. And purely in virtue of his being a man. just as the structure of the stomach neces- There is something in the very make and sarily gives rise to sensations of hunger, mechanism of his nature, which causes and hunger impels to deeds of voracious- him to be a sinner-a moral virus infused ness-so in the original frame of the ani- into the first formation of each individual mal, may there be an inherent temper of who is now born into our world. The incruelty, which, ere it proceeds to devour nate and original disposition of man to its victim, leads it with savage delight to sin, is just as firmly established by the agRravate and prolong its sufferings. sinful doings of all and each of the speThere is no difficulty in understanding cies-as the innate ferocity of the tiger is, here, what is meant by the difference be- by the way in which this quality breaks tween the original and the actual. Could forth into actual exemplification on each the cruelties of a tiger be denominated individual of the tribe. If each man is a sins, then all the cruelties that were in sinner, this is because of a pervading tendeed inflicted by it on the variousanimals dency to sin, that so taints and overwhich it had seized during the course of spreads the whole nature, as to be present its whole life —then would these be the with every separate portion of it. And actual sins of its history in the world. It to assert the doctrine of original sin in is evident that these might vary in num- these circumstances, is to do no more ber and in circumstances, with different than to assert the reigning quality of any individuals of the same tribe; and yet species, whether in the animal or vegetaboth of them have the same strength of ble kingdom. It is to do no more than to native disposition towards cruelty. Each affirm the ferocious nature of the tiger, or in this case has an original tendency to the odorous nature of the rose, or the poi. sinning-a tendency that cometh direct sonous nature of the foxglove. It is to out of the very frame and composition uf reduce that whlen is true of every single LECTURE XXIII.-CIlAPTER V, 12- z- i. 1 7 specimen of our nature, into a general the members of the great family of -manexpression that we make applicable to kind-a doctrine affirmed in the Bible; the whole natur'I. And to talk of the ori- and confirmed by human experience, if the ginal sin of our species, thereby intending fact is made out, that there is not a man to signify the existence of a prior and in our world who liveth and sinneth not. universal disposition to sin, is just as war- There is not enough, it may be thought, rantable as to affirm the most certain of evidence for this fixct, in the record of laws, or the soundest classifications in those more glaring enormities, which give Natural History. to the general history of the wvorld so Could anothei planet offer to our notice broad an aspect of wicked and unprincianother family of rational beings, in form pled violence. It is all true, that, in the and in features and in fhculties like our conspicuous movement of nations, justice Dwn-Did we see there the same accom- is often thrown aside. and robbery spreads modations which we occupy, and the same its cruel excesses over the families of a scenery that enriches our globe, with only land, and revenge satiates her thirst in the this difference between the two tribes blood of provinces; so that man, when which each peopled its own world-that let loose from the restraints of earthly law, whereas in every single instance the for- proves how slender a hold the law of God mer were all actually sinners, the latter has in his heart, or the law of revelation were all actually righteous-Who would has upon his conscience. Still the actors not infer an original difference of consti- in the great national drama of the world tution, from this universal difference of' are comparatively few; and though satisconduct? Who would not infer a some- flied, from the style of their performances, thing that distinguished the nature of the that many more would just feel alike and one species from the nature of the other- do alike in the same circumstances-there the virulence of an evil principle spread is yet roorn for affirming, that, in the unover the whole of' that race, in every sin- seen privacies of social and domestic life, gle member of which you saw the out- there may arise many a beauteous specibreakings of evil; and an exemption from men of unstained worth and unblemished this deleterious principle in that race, in piety; and that, among the descendants no one member of which you could notice of our arraigned species, some are to be rt single deviation from the law of upright- found, who pass a guileless and a perfect ness? Now this evil principle is neither life in this world; and in whose characters more nor less than original sin, and actual even the Judge who sitteth above cannot sin is but the produce of it. And we have detect a single flaw, upon which to exclude nothing to do but to ascertain that actual them from the sinless abodes of paradise, sin is universal, in order to infer the origi- It is quite impossible, you will perceive, nal sin of mankind-or such an unex- to meet this affirmation, by successively cepted proneness of desire to sin in the passing all the individuals of our race behuman constitution, that no individual fore you; and pointing to the eye of your who wears that constitution is ever found observation, the actual iniquiity of the in deed to abstain from it. heart or life, which proves their relationWhen one sees a delight in cruelty, on ship as the cor'upt members of a corrupt the part of every individual among a par- family. But there is another way of meetticular tribe of animals-who would ever ing it. You cannot make all men manihesitate to affirm, that cruelty was the na- fest to each man, but you may make ealcl tive and universal characteristic of the man manifest to himself. You may make tribe — that this entered into the primary an appeal to his own conscience, and put composition of that kind of living creature, him to his defence, if he is able for it, insomuch, that it may be safely predicted against the imputation that he too is a sinof every future specimen which shall be ner. In defect of evidence for this upon brought into the world, that this hateful his outward history-, you may accompany quality will be found to adhere to it? By him to that place where the eranating ascribing to the whole species an original fountain of sin is situated. You may enpropensity to cruelty, you are only stating ter along with him into the recesses of his a general fact by a general expression. own heart, and there detect the unfiailing And you do no more, when you ascribe to preference that is given by it to its own our species an original propensity to sin- will —the constant tendency it has, to irminferring from the general filect, that all pel its possessor to walk in his own Nwaymen have sinned, such a constitutional the slight and rarely occasional hold that tendency to evil as makes you confidently the authority of God has over it —its alaver, not merely of the past but also of all most utter emptiness of desire towards the future individuals of our race, that all HIim, insomuch that His law is dethroned men will sin. This is the doctrine oforigi- from its habitual ascendancy, and thie nal sin, in as far as it affirms the exist- sense of Him is banished from our habit. ence of a. prior tendency to sin, among all ual recollections. He may spurn at injus. i. 11 LECTURE XXII1.-CHAPTER V, 12-21. tice, and blush at indelicacy, and recoil walk in the counsel of their own ungodl, htorn open profanation, and weep at hu- hearts, and in the other should walk as inan sutfering; and yet, withal, he may the devoted subjects of a Divine and A1forget and disown God. Not one hour of mighty Sovereign? Are we to be so unhis life, from one end to the other of it, philosophical as to affirm, that such a may have been filled with any one busi- distinction as this is but a random conness which God had set him to, just as a tingency, which can be traced to no origin, master sets his servant to a task. He may and is referable to no principle whatever 7 have been some hours at church; but cus- Must there not be a something in the tom set him to it. Or he may have been original make and constitution of' the two officiating as long in the services of a fel- fanlilies, to account for such a total and low-creature; but native humanity set unexcepted diversity as has been noticed him to it. Or he may labour all week by the eye of observation? Where is the long for the subsistence of' his family; error of' saying that there is a prior corrupt but instinctive affection set him to it. Or tendency in the one world, which does he may engage in many a right and use- not exist in the other? And so far have ful enterprise; but a feeling of' propriety, we explained what is meant by the origior a constitutional love of' employment, nal sin that is charged upon mankind, or a tenderness for his own reputation set when we affirmed it to be that constituhim to it. tional proneness to evil in virtue of which We dispute not, as we have often told all men are sinners. you, the power and the reality of many We are quite aware, that the principle. principles in the heart of man, most on which we would convince the whole amiable in their character, most salutary world of sin, is but faintly recognised, and in their operation, but which work at the therefore feebly felt, by many of the most same time their whole influence upon his eloquent expounders of' human virtue; conduct-without the reverence, and with- that, indignant as they are against the out the recognition of God. It is this vices which bear injuriously upon themwhich can be fastened, we affirm, on every selves, they have no sense of the injury son and daughter of' Adam. It is, that done to God by the disregard and the the Being who made us is unminded by forgetfulness of His own creatures, that us It is, that the element of human they would tolerate all the impiety there nature is an element of ungodliness. It is in the world, if there was only force is, that though the wayward heart of man enough in the moral vehemence of their goes forth by many different ways to the own powerful and pathetic appeals, to object it is most set upon-yet in no one school away all its cruelty and selfishness of them, is its habitual tendency heaven- and fraud. And therefore it is, that we ward or Godward. From such a foun- hold it indeed a most valid testimony in tain, innumerable are the streams of dis- behalf of our doctrine-when those very obedience which will issue; and though men who undertake to tutor the species many of them may not be so deeply in virtue apart from godliness, and apart tinged with the hue of disobedience as from the methodism of the gospel, are others-yet still in the fountain itself there rendered heartless by disappointment; is the principle of independence upon and take revenge upon their disciples by God, of unconcern about God. Put our pouring forth the effusions of bitterest planet with its rational inhabitants by the misanthropy against them. It would look side of another, where all felt the same as if even on their own ground, the tenet delight in God that angels feel, and in of original sin might find enough of arguevery movement they made caught their ment and countenance to make it respectimpulse from a full sense of God as the able. Rousseau was one of those to bidder of it; and, though each business whom we allude. He may be regarded on which they set out was a task put into as having, in effect, abjured Christianity, their hands, (rgave their intense prosecution and betaken himself to the enterprise of to it, not with the feeling of its being a humanizing the world on other principles; drudgery, but with a feeling of delight. and fiom the bower of romance and senLet a difference so palpable between the sibility, did he send forth the lessons, that two human generations of the two worlds were to recal our wandering race to the be exhibited-as that in the one, God is primitive innocence, from which art and out of the eye and out of the remembrance science and society had seduced them; of His creatures; and in the other, God is and, year after year, did he ply all Euever felt to be present, and the will of all rope with the spells of' a most magical whom He has there made is the will of and captivating eloquence, Nor were Him who made them. Are you to say of there wanting many admirers who worsuch a difference that it has no cause? Is shipped him while he lived; and who, it merely a fortuitous thing, that all with- when he died, went like devotees on a out exception ir the one place should pilgrimage to his tomb. And they toe LECTURE XXIII.-CHAPTER V, 12 —21. 119 had the fondness to imagine, that the respectof the guiltof it; and under whicl conceptions of his wondrous mind were we may have to advance a few remarks, the germs of' a great moral revolution, for elucidating what has been termed the that was awaiting our species. But the imputation of Adam's sin to all his posill-fated Rousseau himself, lived long terity. It is evident that the two topics enough to mourn over the vanity of his of the existence of original sin and the awn beauteous speculations; and- was guilt of it, are distinct from one another; neard to curse the very nature he had so and they lead to distinct practical,'onselong idolized; and, instead of humanity quences. The only one we shall urge capable of' being raised to the elevation upon you just now, is, that, howvever or' a godlike virtue, did he himself pro- much poetry and philosophy and elonounce of humanity, that it was deeply quence may have failed in their attempts tainted with some sore and irrecoverable to extirpate the moral disorders of our disease. And it is indeed a striking attes- world,-this is the very enterprise which tation from him to the depravity of our the gospel of Jesus Christ has embarked race, that, ere he ended his career, he upon; and on the success of which, in the became sick of that very world which he case of all who truly submit to its lessons, had vainly tried to regenerate-renounc- it has adventured the whole credit of its ing all brotherhood with his own species, divinity and its truth. We mistake Chrisand loudly proclaiming to all his fellows tianity, if we think that it only provides how much he hated and execrated and an expiation, to do away the guilt of our abjured them. original depravity. It provides a regeneWhat Rousseau is in prose, Lord Byron rating influence, to do away its existence. is in poetry. Only he never aimed to It does something more than demonstrate better a world, of which he seldom spoke the evil malady of' our nature. It will not but in the deep and bitter derision of a be satisfied with any thing short of deheart that utterly despised it-not because stroying it. For this purpose it brings a of its ungodliness, for it is not this which new and a powerful element into living calls forth the vindictiveness of his most play with the original elements of our appalling abjurations. But it is obviously constitution; and with these it sustains a his feeling of humanity, that its whole combat that may well be denominated a heart is sick and its whole head is sore; war of extermination. The moralists of that some virus of deep and deadly infu- our age, whether in lessons from the acasion pervades the whole extent of it: and demic chair, or by the insinuating address never is he more in his own favourite of fiction and poetry-while they try to element, than when giving back to the mend and to embellish human life, have world from his own pages, the reflected never struck one effective blow at that image of that guilt which troubles and ungodliness of the heart, which is the deforms it. One should have liked to see germ of all the distempers in human soa mind so powerfil as his, led to that ciety. It is against this that the gospel secret of this world's depravity, which is aims its decisive thrust, as at the very seed only revealed unto babes, while hid in a and principle of the mischief: It comveil of apparent mysticism from the wise bats the disease in its original elements; and the prudent. And yet even as it is, and, instead of idly attempting to interdoes he, in the wild and frenzied career cept or turn aside the stream of this sore of his own imagination, catch a passing corruption, its makes head against that glimpse of the truth that he had not yet fortress where the emanating fountain of apprehended. the distemper lies. For this purpose, the "Our life is a false nature-'tis not in truths which it reveals, and the weapons The hart.mo.ny ofthlings —this hard decree, which it employs, and the expedients This uneradicable taint of sin, This b.ounIdless Upas, this all-blasting tree, which it puts into operation-nay, the Whose root is earth, w.hose leaves and branches be very terms of that vocabulary which it The skies, which rain their plagues on man like dew, uses, are all most strikingly contrasted Disease, death, bondage, all the woes we see, And even the woes we. see not, which throb through both with the conceptions and the phraseThe immedicable soul, with heart-aches ever new." oogy of general literature. There is It has turned out as we apprehended. nothing, there is positively nothing, in We have said enough for one address; that general literature, the profcst object and yet we have not been able to pass of which too is to moralize our speciesaway from the first branch of the subject about the blood of an everlasting coveof original sin, even the sinful tendency nant; or the path of reconciliation with which exists, as a native and constitu- God, by an offered and appointed mediational attribute of our species, and has torsh-ip; or the provision of a sanctifying' oeen denominated the corruption of our Spirit, by which.there is infused into our species. We cannot at present afford so nature, a counteracting virtue to all the much as one sentence on the other branch sinfulness that abounds in it. We have of the subject, which is original sin in already had proof for the utter impotency 120 LECTURE XXIII.-CHAPTER VI 12 —21. of all that has issued from the schools of waiting'ill the. heart has given up its sentiment and philosophy. Should not practical and deep-rooted atheism. The this shut us up, at least to the experiment first act to which you are called, is an act of this very peculiar gospel, which offers of agreement with the God whom you to guide the world to a consummation that have so totally renounced, in the habit hitherto has been so very hopeless. Let and history of your past life. The blood each, at all events, try it for himself: Let of Christ, if you will only take heart and each here present, whose conscience has believe in it, washes away the guilt of all responded to the charge of ungodliness, this sinfulness; and the promise that Ile feel himself drawn to an expedient, by gives to those who trust in Him is, that which this most obstinate of all tendencies He will turn away ungodliness from may at length be overcome. And for Jacob-sealing those who believe with the your encouragement at the outset, let us Holy Spirit; and thus causing them to announce to you, that this said gospel jus- love and honour and serve the God, firom tifies the ungodly. Even now acceptance whom they were aforetime so widely and is offered to you. Even now reconcilia- so wretchedly alienated. tion may be entered on, and that without LECTURE XXIV. ROMANS V, 12-21. "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, foi that all have sinned. (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Never theless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgressioi, wiho is tlie figure of hinm that was to come. But not as the offeiice, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead; much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned. so is the gift; for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one mats's offence death reigliel by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righlteousiiess, shall reign int life by one, Jesus Christ.) Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift camle upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered, that the offence might abound: but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sill hath reigned unto death, even so mnight grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." IN our last discourse, we attempted to consequence; and that hue was permashow in how far the doctrine of the Bible, nent; and while we are told that God respecting the existence of a corrupt ten- made man at first after tHis own image, dency in our race, met and was at one we are further told that the very first perwith human observation. This is clearly son who was born into the world, came to a question that may be brought to such it in the image of his parent-not in the a tribunal. Whether a sinful disposition original, but in the transformed image, exists and is universal among men, is mat- that is, with the whole of that tendency ter of experience as well as of divine re- to sin, which, on the first act of sin, was velation. That this corruption exists in formed in the character of Adam, and was the world, is matter of experience. But transmitted through him to all his posterhow it entered into the world is altogether ity. a matter of testimony. It is an historical This is the simple statement; and we fact, which must be exhibited to us in a are not able to give the explanation. The credible record, ere we can come to the first tree of a particular species, may be knowledge or belief of it. We cannot conceived to have come from the Creator's confront it with any thing that now passes hand, with the property of bearing fruit, before our eyes-it being a solitary event of the sweetest taste, and most exquisite of great antiquity, and which has no pro- flavour. A pestilential gust may have per evidence to rest upon save the infor- passed over it, and so changed its nature, mations of history. that all the fruit it was afterwards to bear "By one man,"' says our text, "sin en- should be sour and unsavoury. After this tered into the world." He came out pure change, it may be conceived to have dropt and righteous from the hand of God; but its seeds or its acorns; and such may the Adam, after he had yielded to the tempta- virulence of the transformation have been, tion of the garden, was a changed man, that all the future trees which are to be from Adam in his days of innocence in propagated from the parent stock, rise not Paradise. lIe gathered a different hue in in the original but transformed likeness LECTURE XXIV.-CHAPTER V, 12-21. 121 of the tree from which they sprung. If folded into actual development, lurks in it this were credibly attested as a fact, we from its birth, and only waits its growth are certainly not prepared to resist it. We and its maturity till it come out into ex. have no such acquaintance with the phy- hibition. The tender sapling of the crab. siology of the vegetable world. as to affirm, tree, has not yet yielded one sour apple; in the face of good historical testimony, but we most certainly know, that there is that this is impossible; and as little are even from the minutest germ of' its existwe entitled, from any acquaintance with ence, an organic necessity for its producthe law of transmission from father to son, ing this kind of fruit, when tilme has conin the department of animal and intelli- ducted it onward to this period of' its hisgent nature, to set ourselves in opposition tory. And, in like manner, the inftnt of' to that bible narrative, by which we are a week old has not broken one of the comngiven to understand, that a moral blight mandments; but well may we infer, from came over the character of our great pro- the universality of sin in our species, that, genitor; and that, when so reduced and should it rise to boyhood, there is that in deteriorated in his better qualities, a race its disposition now, which will advance of descendants proceeded from him, with and ripen into disobedience then. And that very taint of degeneracy that he had should the hand of death arrest it in its taken on; that the evil thus superinduced career, and by its preventing stroke snatch on the nature of' the first man, was trans- it away froim the possibility of ever committed to all the men whom he originated mitting one action of' iniquity; and it be -who, of course, instead of being fruitful asked, how it is that the connection bein righteousness, yielded in their lives the tween sin and the suffering of' death is exbitter produce of many actual transgres- emplified in the fate of this poor innocent sions, of much visible and abounding ini- -we would reply, that though the misquity. chief had not exploded in its history, yet There is another fact announced to us the whole elements of the mischief lay in this passage, and that is, the connection slumbering in its heart; and, though it between the corruption of our nature, and could not be said to die because of actual its mortality. Sin brought death into the transgression, yet it shared in the common world; and so death passed upon all men, calamity with the rest of the species, befor that all have sinned. This brings out cause, with the rest of the species, it had to view in another way, the distinction that its full share of the original tendency to v e have endeavoured to impress between evil. aztual and original sin. All have not One knows not how soon it is, that this sinned after the similitude of Adam's trans- tendency breaks forth into open exhibigression; and yet death reigneth too over tion. One never saw, and hardly can them. All have not sinned by a positive conceive, how a babe of unspotted de(leed of disobedience. Infants have not scent, would have proved from the first thus sinned; and yet infants die. The day which ushered it into being, that it death that they undergo is not the fruit of had no fellowship in that corrupt princiany actual iniquity of theirs; but the fruit ple, which taints from very infancy all of that moral virus, which has descended the families of our earthly generation. In from the common fountain of our species, a very few years, the difference would be and which taints and vilifies, and trans- palpable-even as the Saviour, both in mits the elements of decay and destructi- boyhood and in manhood, stood distinbleness, among all the members of it. guished from all the partakers of that They have never done what is sinful; and nature, whose sufferings He bore but yet they have that of' sin in them which whose sins He had no share in. We have carries death in its train. And what is a full record of His bright example, when this but the corrupt tendency that we have He reached the maturity of His human all along insisted on; the original and powers; but it must be matter of curiosity, constitutional aptitude that there is to sin- and not of edification, that we have no ning, in virtue of which we may compute, record of His tone and habit and characwith all the firmness of certainty, that, ter in infancy. One would like if he when the time of bringing forth cometh, could, to lift the veil which hangs over transgression is the fruit that they will the experience of Mary; and to learn bear-a disposition that only yet exists in of her, who had the maternal care and embryo, but Which will come out into deed guidance of the holy child Jesus; and to and development, so soon as powers and know what was the precise complexion opportunities are expanded. The infant of that moral dawn, which preceded the tiger has not yet performed one act of pure and perfect effulgence that shone ferocity: but we are sure that all the rudi- forth on the history of' His riper years; mnerts of ferocity exist in its native con- and to be told how richly all her tenderstitution; and that the original principle ness was repaid, by smiles more lovely of this quality, long before it ha. been un- than ever before had played on the infant 16 122 LECTURE XXIV.-CHAPTER V) 12-21. coun enance —and, in His hours of an- of discernible flavour —whether nipped in guish, by such a calm and unruffled infancy, or withered into final extinction serene as not one cry of impatience, and after having passed through all the stages not one movemlent of fretfulness or wrath of growth and of decay —we never think ever broke in upon. But it is vain to pry of ascribing this sweeping and universal into the secret of that alone sinless infancy destruction to any other cause, than to a which the world ever saw; and we have universal something in the original framn only to assure ourselves of all other chil- of all the individuals that are subject to dren, that, helpless as they are in person, this sore fatality: And whether it be the and dear to a parent's fondest regards grandf:ther bowed down under the weight fiom that very helplessness-the germ of of years, or the babe of a week old that depravity is alreadcy in their hearts. And breathes its last, it is the same deadly whether or not we should put to the virus that carries off them both-the poison accouiit of this, the boisterous outcry of of an accursed nature, that only needs the an infant, and the ever-recurring turmoil scope of opportunity for the development wherewith it clamours abroad all its of all the plagues and all the perversities desires and all its disappointments, and which belong to it. the constant exactions it makes of every We trust, then, that we may have made thing it sees to its own wayward appetite it clear to your apprehension, how there for indulgence, and its spurning irnpa- exists in the human constitution from the tience of all resistance and conitrol; so as very first, a tendency to sin; and that this in fact to subordinate the whole household tendency has a forthcoming in sinful acto its caprices, and bo the little tyrant to tions, with every individual of our race, whose brief but most effective authority who lives a few years in the world-just the entire circle of relationship must bend as the tendency in the crab-tree to pro-whether these be symptomatic or not duce sour apples, has its forthcoming in of that disease wherewith humanity is the appearance of this very fruit, after the infected in all its members, still we must time of bearing has arrived. The tenadmit, that the disease is radically there; dency in both has come down, through a and however it may brood for a season, long series of intermediate parents; and in a sort of arbiguous concealment, among may be traced in each, to the tendency of the inscrutable and unrevealed mysteries one great progenitor, whether of the huof an infant's spirit-yet soon do the man or of the vegetable species. Thus selfishness and the sensuality and the far then have we got in our argumentungodliness come out at length into such.even that original sin, as it respects the open declaration, as indeed to prove to inborn depravity of our race, is at one every calm and philosophic observer of with the actual experience of mankind our nature, that one and all of us are And we should further proceed to show, born in sin, and all of us are shapen in in how far original sin, as it respects not iniquity. its actual existence in our frames, but as You will be at no loss then to conceive it respects the imputation of guilt to all the distinction between original and actual who are under it, is at one with the moral sin. The one is the tendency to sin in the sense of mankind. And then would we constitution-the other is the outbreaking propose to finish all our preliminaries to of that tendency in the conduct; and if the exposition of the passage before us, sinful conduct be universal, we infer a by replying to the invectives which have sinful constitution to be universal also. been founded upon this doctrine against And you will be as little at a loss to per- the character of God. But we have already ceive, how the original sin of every human consumed too much of your time for encreature is coeval with the first moment tering at present on topics so unwieldy; of his existence, and enters as much and we shall therefore conftine the remain. among the elements of his formation —as der of the address to such practical enthe tendency to bear a particular kind of forcements, as may be educed from the fruit, lies incorporated with the very acorn explanation that we have already attemptfrom which the tree has germinated. We ed in your hearing. know not whether, upon the introduction The first consideration we shall address of sin, the sentence of mortality was made to you is, what a testimony to God's irreto pass on the vegetable, as well as on concilable antipathy against sin, that he the animal creation; or whether, had we has made death to follow invariably in its lived in an unfallen world, its plants as train-that because there is in these bowell as its people would have been im- dies of ours a tendency to moral evil, mortal. But such is in fact the organic these bodies must therefore be dissolved structure of both, that both are liable to -that such is the blasting influence of dissolution; and whether they die ere the this sore contagion, as to wither and sickone has come forth with its fruit of palpa- en every individual whom it touches, and ble iniquity, and the other with its apple be unto him the unfailing poison, undet LECTURE XXIV. —CHAPTER V, 12-2 —. 123 the virulence of which he sooner or later man power and human experience sup. must expire-that though it was by the plies him with nothing, that can purge narrow inlet of' one temptation, that sin away the foul inveteracy wherewith his found entrance into our world at the first, nature is stained; and he just follows in and was thence diffused as if by pesti- the legitimate track of a rightly exercised lence throughout the whole extent of our and rightly discerning judgment, when he Dutrescent nature, yet, widely as it has is shut up unto the fhith. More particu. ranged abroad over the entire domain of larly, will such a man hold it to be indeed humanity, and unsparingly as it has at- worthy of all acceptation, when he reads tacked every single member of it, yet it of a new birth being indispensable; nor goes nowhere, without carrying the curse will he recoil, as many do, with sensitive of mortality along with it; and on ac- dislike from the doctrine of regeneration; count of this does each successive genera- nor will he look upon it in any other light, tion, but moulder back again into the dust than as the prescription of a wise phyout of which it had arisen. It would look, sician, who has probed the patient's disthat, as if to detach this leprosy from our ease to its bottom, and finds it to be indeed constitution, the old materials of the old engrained among the first elements of the frame-work must be beaten into powder, constitution of our nature. Ile will rather and be made to pass through some purify- do homage to the penetration of this phying ordeal in the sepulchre. And it is in- sician when he affirms, that the fiuit is deed an impressive exhibition of the rna- corrupt, just because the tree is corrupt; lignity of sin, to think that because of it and that an operation must be gone and of it alone, all nature is suffering vio- through, far more radical than any which lence-when we see death thus making lies within the compass of unaided humaits relentless sweep among all ages; and nity; that a new creation must issue forth even before it be possible to evince sin in from Him, who holds the creative faculty the conduct, as with the infant of a day altogether in His own hands; that ere the old, yet it is enough that there be sin in fruit can be made good, the tree must be the constitution, to bring this almost un- made good. And thus it is, that the man conscious babe within the operation of a who looks to the fall in all its consentence, which grants no reprieve, which sequences; and to the transmitted depraknows no exception. vity of nature, running throughout all the But secondly, this deep view of our dis- men of all the generations of our world; ease, however much it may look an in- and to the utter impossibility of this sore applicable speculation in the eyes of corruption being dislodged by the determany, yet, if rightly improved, would lead mining energy of man's will, because the in fact to a deep view of the remedy that Icorruption has in fact got hold of the will was suited to it. The man who looks itself, and determines it only to evil and upon sin as a mere affair of accident or that continually-such a man no longer education, may think, that, by the putting marvels with the incredulity of Nicodeforth a more strenuous determination mus, when he is told that flesh and blood against it —by bringing the energies of the shall not inherit the kingdom of God; inward will to bear upon the outward and that unless he is born again and walk-he may suppress the moral evil at born of the Spirit, he never can see that least of his own character, and achieve kingdom. for himself an exemption and a victory. Lastly, it may be replied, What is to be But the man who looks upon this sin as a done? To believe in the Lord Jesus constitutional taint, fixed upon him from Christ, is the thing that is to be done. very infancy, and pervading all the re- This is the specific, and that not for guilt:esses of his frame-who recognizes the merely, but also for corruption. You may will itself to be corrupt, and that when it think it too simple an affair for landing -omes to be a question between God and you in so mighty a consumnmation. Make His gifts, it is only to the latter, and not it a more strenuous affair, by putting your at all to the former that he has any incli- own puny efforts to the stretch of their utnation-when he finds that the dark hue termost activity, and you never will sueof an original and inborn sinfulness ad- ceed. The Syrian thought it too simple heres to him, just as the spots do to the an affair, when asked to bathe in the leopard, and the tawny skin which no su- waters of Jordan for his leprosy. Neverperficial operation can do away, does to theless, he did it and his leprosy left him the Ethiopian —Then, if he have any depth You will see God in a new light, if you of reflection, he will conclude, that, in look to him as reflected from the glass of such circumstances, he is really not war- the offered mediatorship. If we can turn ranted to turn away from that remedy you from the hatred of God to the love of which the gospel proposes, as the grand Him, this would be to regenerate you; specific for all our moral and all our spi- and we ask you to look unto God as God ritual dis( ders. The whole range of hu- in Christ reconciling the world, and the 124 LECTURE XXIV.-CHAPTER V) 12-21. change from hatred to love is accom- nrot by choice but by inheritance, and over plished. Those dark clouds which have which he had no more control than he had hitherto loured upon you from the pavilion over the properties of the air which ne of His lofty residence, will forthwith be breathed, or the milk which nourished dissipated. You will then see that all ma- him. We feel that we are touching on jestic as He is, and awfully as that ma- the borders of a very profound, and what jesty has been illustrated by the account to most is a very unfathomable speculathat has been made for sin-yet there is a tion-But yet we would not have ventured mercy too, which shines forth in the midst so far-had we not both conceived it due of His other attributes, and rejoices over to scriptural truth, which we think ought them. You will love the God who first to be firmly and fearlessly expounded, up loved you; and that unfailing promise, to the full amount of all that is revealed that He who gave His own Son, will also to'us; and had we not furthermore confreely give us all things, shall so invite the ceived the whole exposure of our disease prayers and the dependence of every be- and misery, to have a deciding influence lieving soul, that the Spirit given to those on him who still hesitates about the remwho ask it, wi:l be given unto him; and edy of the gospel-not very sure perhaps, he, gradually formed after the lost image whether he is altogether welcome to the of the Godhead, will become a new crea- use of it; not very sure perhaps wt hether ture-meet for the inheritance of the saints he altogether stands in urgent and indisin light; meet for the enjoyment of that pensable need of it. Paradise, where sin and sorrow and suffer- To determine the question then, in how ings are unknown. far the attaching of demerit to a sinful naWe have all along, upon this subject, ture that man has brought with him into proceeded on the constitutional tendency the world is agreeable to the moral sense that there is to sin in ournature being one of mankind-we should enquire how much thing, and the guilt chargeable upon us or how little man requires to have within for having such a tendency being another. his view, ere his moral sense shall proThe question, how far a native and origi- nounce on the character either of any act nal depravity exists among mankind, is or of any disposition that is submitted to one thing. The question, how far man- his notice. One may see a dagger prokind are justly liable to'be reckoned with, jected from behind a curtain, and in the or to be dealt with as responsible add firm grasp of a human hand, and directed worthy of punishment for having such a with sure and deadly aim against the tendency, is another. We have already bosom of an unconscious sleeper; and, spoken abundantly to the fact of the ac- seeing no more, he would infer of the intual depravity-announced to us most ex- dividual who held this mortal weapon, plicitly in the Bible, and confirmed to us that he was an assassin, and that he demost entirely and universally by personal served the death of an assassin. Had he observation. In as far as the doctrine of seen all, he might have seen that this seemoriginal sin affirms a native disposition to ing agent of the murder which had just sin, and a disposition so strong in all as been perpetrated, was in fact a struggling that all are sinners-then is the doctrine and overpowered victim, in the hands of at one with experience. But in as far as others —that he, the friend of the deceased the doctrine affirms, that there is a blame was pitched upon, in the spirit of diabolic or a demerit rightly attachable to man for cruelty, as the unwilling instrument of the having such a disposition, or that he is to deed which he abhorred-that for this purbe held a guilty and condemned creature pose, the fatal knife was clasped or faston account of it —this is a question refera- ened to his hand; and his voice was stifled ble not to the experience of man, but to by violence; and he was borne in deepthe moral sense of man. The experience est silence to the spot by the strength of of man takes cognizance of the question others; and there was he, in most revoltwhether such a thing is; and so is appli- ing agony of heart, compelled to thrust forcable to the question whether a depraved ward his passive or rather his resisting tendency to moral evil is or is not in the arm, and immediately to strike the exterhuman constitution. The moral sense of minating blow into!he bosom of a ruchman takes cognizance of the question, loved companion. WVho does not see that whether such a thing ought to be; and is the moral sense, when these new circumtherefore applicable to the question, stances come into view, would instantly whether man ought to be held and dealt amend or rather reverse, and that totally, with as a criminal on account of a ten- the former decision which it had passed dency which came unbidden by him into upon the subject-that he, whom it deemed the worid —which entered among the first the murderer and chargeable with all the elements of his constitution, without ever guilt of so foul an atrocity, it would most consulting him or asking any leave from readily absolve from all the blame and all him upon the subject-which he derived, the condemnation-that it would transfer LECTURE XXIV. —CHAPTER VI 12 —21. i 25 the charge to those who were behind him, character which it now bteare. or tbh. aspect and pronounce them to be the murderers under which it is now.ecan:tre contem. -that he who held the dagger and per- plated before you. formed the deed was innocent of all its HIow the dispos;iZorn gCt thiete is not the turpitude, because the victim of a neces- question, which the (.oral sense of man, sity which he could not help, and against when he is urvitlated by a taste for specu. which he had wrought and wrestled in lation, takes Paly conceTn in. It is enough vain: and thus, ere it passes such a sen- for the rio'lal sense, that the disposition is tence as it feels to be righteous, must it there. Gne may conceive, with the Mani. look not merely to the act but to the in- chea)u, of old, two eternal Beings —one of tention, not merely to the work of the W nomn was essentially wicked and malighand but to the will of the heart which nant and impure, and the other of wholm prompted it. wvas essentially good and upright and cornNow if we have any right consciousness passionate and holy from everlasting. We of our own moral feelings, or any right could not tell howv these opposite disposiobservation of the moral feelings o'eincrs, tions got there, for there they behoved to the mind of man, in order to he made up be from the unfathomable depths of the as to the moral character of any act that eternity that is behind us-yet that would is submitted to its notice. ble'ds to know not hinder us from regarding the one as what the intention was that originated the an object of moral hatefulness and dislike, act, but needs no more'. It makes no in- and the other as an object of moral esteem quiry as to what that was which originated and moral approbation. It is enough that the intention. Gi-e it simply to under- the dispositions exist; and it matters not stand, that such is ihe intention of a man how they originated, or if ever they had who is not under derangement, and there- an origin at all. And, in like manner, give fore knows what he is purposing and what us two human individuals-one of whom he is doing; and then, without looking is revengeful and dishonest and profligate farther, the moral sense comes at once to and sensual, and the other of whom is kind its summary estimate of the moral charac- and generous and honourable and godlyter of that which is under contemplation. Our moral sense on the simple exhibition Let us see a man who has done a mur- of these two characters, leads us to regard derous act, in the circumstances which we the one as blameable and the other as have just now specified; and we do not praiseworthy-the one as rightly the oblook upon him as a criminal, because we ject of condemnation and punishment, and find that the act originated in the will of the other as rightly the object of approval others and against his own will. Let us and reward. And in so doing, it does not see a man who has done a murderous act, look so far back, as to the primary or and was instigated thereto by a murderous originating cause of the distinction that disposition, and we cannot help looking obtains between these two characters. It upon him as a criminal-finding as we do looks as far back, as to reach its contemthat the act originated in his own will. plation from the act of the outer man to An act against the will indicates no de- the disposition of the inner man; but there merit on the part of him who performed it. it stops. Give to its view a wrong act But an act with the will gives us the full originating in a wrong intention; and it impression of demerit. The philosopher asks no more to make up its estimate of mavyamuse himself with the ulterior query. the criminality of what has been offered WiThat was it that originated the will 3 But to its notice. It troubles not itself with the peasant has no metaphysics and no the metaphysics of prior and originating speculation for entertaining such a topic causes; and, however the deed in ques-And yet he has just as fresh and just as tion may have originated, let it simply enlightened a sense of the demerit of a bad have emanated firom a concurring dispoaction coming from a bad intention, as the sition on the part of him who has permost curious and contemplative inquirer formed it, and be a deed of wickednesshas-whose restless appetite is ever carry- then does it conclude that the man has ing him upward among the remote and done wickedly and that he should be dealt hidden principles of the phenomena that with accordingly. are around him. To get a right moral es- We know very well what it is, that timate of any given act, we must carry stumbles so readily the speculative inour view tiup from the act of the hand to quirer into this mystery. He thinks that the disposition of the heart; but we need a man born with a sinful disposition, is to carry it up no farther. The moment born with the necessity of sinning; and that the disposition is seen, the moral sense that to be under such a necessity, exempts is correspondingly affected; and rests its him from all blame, and all imputation of whole estimation, whether of merit or of guiltiness in having sinned. But so long demerit, not on the anterior cause which as he is under this feeling, he is in fact, gave origin to the disposition, but on the though not very conscious of the delusion, 126 LECTURE XXIV.-CHAPTER V, 12 —21. he is in fact confounding two things which that lay upon him, he, in the breast of are distinct the one from the other. He is every plain and unsophisticated man, confounding the necessity that is against would raise the sensations of keenest in. the will, with the necessity that is with the dignancy; and be regarded by all as the will. The man who struggled against the one, whom the voice of justice most loudly external force, that compelled him to demanded, as a sacrifice to the -peace and thrust a dagger into the bosom of his the protection of society. friend, was operated upon by a necessity It is enough then that a disposition to that was against his will; and you exempt moral evil exists; and however it origihim from all charge of criminality in the nated, the disposition in itself, with all the matter. But the man who does the very evil acts which emanate therefrom, calls same thing at the spontaneous bidding of forth, by the law of our moral nature, a his own heart-whose will prompted him sentiment of blame or reprobation. It to the act, and who gave his consent and may have been acquired by education? his choice to this deed of enormity-this or it may have been infused into us by is the man whom you irresistibly condemn, the force of surrounding example; or it and you irresistibly recoil from. With may be the fruit, instead of the principle, such a disposition as he had, it was per- of many wilful iniquities of conduct; or, haps unavoidable; but the very having of finally, it may, agreeably to the doctrine such a disposition, makes him in your eye of original sin, have been as much transa monster of moral deformity. If there mitted in the shape of a constitutional bias was a kind of necessity here, it was a ne- from father to son, as is the ferocity of a cessity of an essentially different sort from tiger, or the industry of an ant, or the the one we have just now specified, and acidity of an apple, or the odour and loveought therefore not to be confounded with liness of a rose. When we look to the it. It is necessity with the will, and not beauty of aflower, we feel touched and atagainst it; and by the law both of God tracted by the mere exhibition of the oband man, the act he has committed is a ject —nor is it necessary that we should crime and he is treated as a criminal. know when this property sprung into exThe only necessity which excuses a man istence. When we taste the sourness of a for doing what is evil, is a necessity that particular fruit, it matters not to the senforces him by an external violence to do sation, whether this unpleasant quality is it, against the bent of his will struggling due to the training of the tree, or to some most honestly and determinedly to resist accident of exposure it has met with, or it. But if it be with the bent of the will, finally to some inherent universal tenif the necessity he lies under of doing the dency diffused over the whole species, evil thing consists in this, that his will is and derived through seeds and acorns strongly and determinedly bent upon the from the trees of forme" generations. doing of it-then such a necessity as this, When assailed by the fury of some wild so far from extenuating the man's guilti- vindictive animal, we meet it with the ness, just aggravates it the more, and same resentment, and inflict upon it the stamps upon it, in all plain moral estima- same chastisement or revenge —whether tion, a character of fuller atrocity. For the malignant rage by which it is actuaset before us two murderers, and the one ted, be the sin of its nature derived to it of them differing fiom the other in the from inheritance, or the sin of its educakeenness and intensity of his thirst for tion derived to it from the perverse influblood. We have already evinced to you, ence of the circumstances by which it has howthere is one species of necessity which been surrounded. And lastly, when moral extinguishes the criminality of the act corruption is offered to our notice in the altogether-even that necessity which character of mean-when we see a deoperates with violence upon the muscles praved will venting itself forth in deeds of the body, and overhears the moral de- of depravity —when, in every individual sires and tendency of the mind. But there we meet with, we behold an ungodliness is another species of necessity, which or a selfishness or a deceit or an impurity, heightens the criminality of murder-even which altogether make the moral scenery that necessity, which lies in the taste and of earth, so widely different from the tendency of the mind towards this deed moral scenery of heaven-It positively of unnatural violence. And if of these makes no difference to your feeling of two assassins of the cave or of the high- loathsomeness and culpability, wherewith way, the one was pointed out to us who we regard it-whether the vitiating taint felt the most uncontrollable impulse to- rises anew on every single specimen of wards so fell a perpetration; and to whom humanity; or whether it has run in one the fears and the cries and the agonies of descending current from the progenitor the trembling victim, ministered the most of our race, and thence spread the leprosy savage complacency-he of the two, even of moral evil over all succeeding genera. in spite of the greater inward necessity tions. The doctrine of original sin leaves LECTURE XXIV.-CHAPTER V, 12 —21 127 the distinction between virtue and vice — this, so far from softening, would iust just where it found it; nor does it affect whet and stimulate your resentment the sense of moral approbation wherewith against him. So far from taking it as an we regard the former, or the moral dislike apology, that he is forcibly constrained and feeling of demerit in which the latter by the obstinate tendency Qf his will to ought to be regarded. injure and oppress you-this would just If it be asked how this can be, we re- add to the exasperation of your feelings; ply that we do not know-that so it is we and the more hearty a good will you saw know, but how it is we do not know. It he had to hurt or to traduce or to defraud is not the only instance in which we are you, the more in fact would you hold hints compelled to stop short at ultimate facts of to be the culpable subject of your most which we can offer no other explanation just and righteous indignation. And than that simply such is the case; or, thinkest thou, 0 man, who judgest another rather, it is like in this respect to every for his returns of unworthiness to youother department which nature and expe- that thou wilt escape the judgment of rience offer to human contemplation. We God, if thou makest the very same returns can no more account for our physical, than of unworthiness to I-im? Out of your own we can account for our moral sensations. mouth you will be condemned; and if WVhen we eat the fruit of the bitter orange- out of the sin of his origiaal nature, your tree we feel the bitterness; but we do not neighbour has ever done that vwhich you know how this sensation upon our palate, felt to be injurious and at which you stands connected with a constitutional were offended-then be assured that the property in the tree, which has descended plea of your original na;tuLre will never to it through a long line of ancestry, from shield you from the curse and the conthe creation of the world. And when we demnation due to the sins, which have look to the bitter fruit of transgression on emanated from that nature against God. the life and character of any individual These remarks may prepare the way of the human species, and feel upon our for all that man by his moral sense can moral sense a nauseating revolt firom the understand or go along with, in the docodious spectacle —we do not know how trine of the imputation of Adam's sin to this impression upon the taste of the in- all his posterity. XVe confess that we ner man, stands connected with a natural are not able to perceive, how one man is tendency which is exemplified by all, and at all responsible for the personal doings has been derived through a series of many of another whom he never saw, and who centuries from the parent stock of the departed this life many centuries before grmcat human family. But certain it is that him. But if the personal doings of a distihe origin of our depravity has nothing tant ancestor, have in point of fact corto do with the sense and feeling of its rupted his moral nature; and if this corloathsomeness, wherewith we regard it. ruption has been transmitted to his deAnd let that depravity have been trans- scendants-then we can see how these mitted to us from Adam, or be a kind of become responsible, not for what their spontaneous and independent production forefathers did, but for what they themon each of his children-still we cannot selves do under the corrupt disposition look to it without moral censure and that they have received from their foremoral condemnation. father. And if there be a guilt attachable There is not a more effectual way of to evil desires, as well as to evil doings; bringing this to the test, than by making and if the evil desire which prompted one man the object of injustice and of Adam to his first transgression, enter into provocation from another man. Let a the nature of all his posterity-then are neighbour inflict upon any of you some his posterity the objects of moral blame moral wrong or moral injury-will not and moral aversion, not on account of the the quick and ready feeling of resentment transgression which Adam committed, but rise immediately in your hearts? Will on account of such a wrong principle in you stop to enquire whence your enemy their hearts, as would lead every one of has derived the malice, or the selfishness, them to the very same transgression in the under which you suffier? Is it not simply very same circumstances. It is thus that enough that he tramples upon your rights Adam has transmitted a guilt the same and interests, and does so wilfully-is not with his own, as well as a depravity the this of itself enough to call out thesudden same with his own, among all the indireaction of an angry judgment, and a viduals and families of our species-if not keen retaliation upon your part? If it be that each of them is liable to a separate under some necessity which operates reckoning on account of the offence comagainst his disposition, this may soften mitted in the garden of Eden, at least your resentment. But if it be under that that each of them is liable to a separate kind of necessity, which arises from the reckoning on account of his own separate strength of his disposition to doyou harm and personal depravity - a depravity I 08 LECTURE XX1V.-CIIAPTER V, 12 —1,. which had its rise in the offence that was dividual descendant, toat, while it is for then and there committed; and a deprav- its own qualities it is so loathed and so ity which would lead in every one in- condemned, still was it from its great stance to the same offence in the same originating parent that it inherited the circumstances of temptation. According taint by which it has been vitiated, and to this explanation, every man still reap- the sentence by which it has been aceth not what another soweth, but what he cursed. soweth himself. Every man eateth the Many, we are aware, carry the doctrine fruit of his own doings. Every man of imputation farther than this; and make, beareth the burden of his own tainted and each of us liable to answer at the bar of — cursed nature. Every man suffereth God's judicature for Adam's individual for his own guilt and not for Adam's transgression. We shall only say of this guilt; and if he is said to suffer for Adam's view at present, that, whether it be scripguilt, the meaning is, that, from Adam he tural or not, we are very sure that we inherits a corruption which lands him in cannot follow it by any sense of morality a guilt equal to that of Adam. or rightfulness that is in our own heart. It were correct enough to say, that the Still, even on this highest imagination of sin of Cataline, that great conspirator the doctrine, we hold the way of God to against the state, is imputable to an equally man, in all the bearings of this much agigreat conspirator of the present day-not tated subject, to be capable of a most full that he is at all responsible for what and triumphant vindication; and with our Cataline did, but responsible for his own attempt to evince this, we trust we shall sin that was the same with that of Cata- be able in one address more, to finish all line. And it would strengthen the resem- that is general and preliminary to the blance, if it was the recorded example of passage that is now before us. When we Cataline which filled him with a kindred next resume this topic, we shall endeavour disposition, and hurried him on to a kin- to silence the rising murmurs, which we dred enterprise. Then as Adam was the doubt not have been already felt in many efficient cause of our corruption, so Cata- a heart, on the hearing of the representaline was of his; but each suffers for the tion that we have now given-to prove guilt of his own sin nevertheless-a guilt that there is not an individual amongst the same with us as that of Adam's, and us, who has a right to complain of the the same with him as that of Cataline's. hardness or severity of God's dealing with Our Saviour cursed a fig tree because us-to come forth with that gospel, in the of its barrenness. Conceive a fig tree to utterance of which God may be said to be cursed because of the bitterness of its wipe IHis hands of the blood of all who fruit. It is for its own bitter fruit, and not come within reach of' the hearing of itfor the bitter fruit of its first ancestor, that and to neutralize all your complaints it is laid under the doom which has been about the curse and the corruption that pronounced upon it. But still its first have been entailed upon us, by lifting the ancestor may have been a tree of sweetly welcome invitation to every man, of a flavoured fruit at its first formation; and righteousness overpassing all that we have a pestilential gust may have passed over lost, and of a grace that will restore us to and tainted it; and it may, by the laws of a higher state of innocence and glory physiological succession have sent down than that from which we are now the sea. its deteriorated nature among all its pos- tenced and the exiled wanderers..erity; and it mav be true of each in-| LECTURE XXV.-CHAPTER V, 12 —2 1. 129 LECTURE XXV. ROMANS V, 12-21. Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, r:nd death by sin; and so death passed upon all ien, for that, I have sollned. (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertneless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come. But not as the oftence, so also is the hree gift. For it'hroulgh thie oflllcce of one many be dead; much more the grace of' God, and the gift by grace, which is by one niai, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment vwas by o!ne to condemnation, but the ifree gift is of many olfences unto justification. For if by one iran:is oilence death reigrned by one; miich mtore they which receive abundance of grace, and of' the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus (Christ.) Therefore, as by the offence of one j tndgmrcnt came upon all men to condemnationI; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift canme upon all mnl unto justification of life. For as by one maul's disobedience nmany were made sinners; so by the obedience of one siiail mrany be made righteous. Moreover, the law entered, that the offence might abound: but where sin abounded, g'ace did ranch more abound: that as sinl hath reigned unto.death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Chl ist our Lord." WVE have now disserted at very great imputation too, we would lie open to the length on the tenet of origi;al sin, both as informations of the record —ully assured it includes the two great articles of origi- that there is nothing there, either at varinal depravity and original guilt-under- ance with absolute truth, or at variance standing by the one, that every individual with the character of that Being who is of the human race brings a corrupt na- all goodness and justice and holiness and ture into the world with him, by which truth. he is so inclined to what is sinful, that in It is to the vindication of this charaw fact all men are sinners; and understand- ter, that we mean to devote the last of ing by the other, that he is justly respon- these preliminary addresses, which we sible for sin thus emanated by his evil have thought fit to deliver, ere we come nature-even though that nature came forward with a detailed exposition of the down by inheritance from his first parents, passage that we have so repeatedly read who, without being corrupt originally, out to you. We have already attempted corrupted themselves and sent down their to reconcile the doctrine of original sin, acquired propensities to evil among all as consisting of depravity, with the expetheir descendants. We are aware that rience of man; and we have also attemptthe doctrine of a guilt transmitted by ed to show in how far this doctrine, as Adam, is commonly carried farther than consisting of guilt and the imputation of this-affirming, not merely that all men guilt, is reconcilable with the moral sense are to blame for the sins they personally of man. And let us now proceed to meet do, under the instigations of an evil nature the charges and complaints that have transmitted by Adam; but that they are been uttered because of it, against the also to blame for the proper and individ- dealings of God with His creatures-as ual act of transgression done by Adam if He had carried Himself with unjust himself in the garden of Eden. We have and tyrannical severity against them-as not denied that this may be the doctrine if He had laid upon them an inevitable of Scripture. We have only said that our doom of wretchedness, against which all own moral sense is altogether unable to their struggles are unavailing-as if' He apprehend it; and that while we can per- had brought them into the world, in a ceive how man is justly culpable, for ev- state of helpless captivity to the power cry iniquitous deed of his history, caused of corruption, and then left them to perby the lniquitous tendency of his heart, ish under a load of necessity, that He however that tendency may have been IHimself had inflicted-as if He had made derived-Yet, we cannot perceive, how it that to be the fault of man, which in fact is that he Is Justly cuipabie, for an iniqui- was the appointment of God, that no willtous deed done, not by himself, but by ing and no striving on the part of the another who lived nearly six thousand creature could possibly overrule: And years ago. This, however, may be the thus there is a very prevalent feeling of its real truth of the case-whether we are being indeed a great hardship, that God able or not to comprehend it. The Bible should so have dealt with the rational tells us of many things, of which, without species that He has planted in our iworld its information, we should have been alto- -permitting its tainted families to come gether ignorant; and of many things, the into being at all; and to put forth their reason of which is still a mystery to our successive generations, in a state under understanding-though the reality of them which they behove to suffer, and so very has, by the testimony of God's own mouth many of them to suffer everlastingly. been made perfectly goodeto our convic- We do not want to disguiFs this objec. ions: And, therefore, on- this point of tion; but, after having presented it in all 17 30 LECTUrIE XXV.-CIHAPTER V, 12-21. its strength, we want to dispose of it. I that His sinful creatures would prefer And in our attempt to vindicate the deal- against Him, when He says, and says ings of God with the species, let us just honestly to us all-turn unto me, and I begin with that portion of the species that j will pour out my Spirit upon you? You are now within reach of our hearing. are shapen in iniquity, and if in iniquity What is it that any one of you has to you descend to the grave, you will aiise complain of 3 You speak of hardness- from it to an unrelenting judgment-seat, how or in what respect is it that you have and to a then unescapable condemnation. been hardly dealt with? You say, that, But, ere that happens, God meets you upwithout your consent, a corrupt nature on your way; and positively offers to has been given you; and so stuck on, as make new creatures of you; and in the it were, that it cleaves and adheres and washing of regeneration ready to be keeps by you wherever you go, and that poured forth, if you only want it, is He with its presence so urging and so pursu- willing even now to sweep away the ing you, sin is unavoidable; and yet there whole burden of the fancied injustice, is a law which denounces upon this sin which causes you to murmur. And, so the torments of a whole eternity. Well near does He bring Himself to you, that then, is this an honest complaint on your lie stands pledged to grant the clean heart part 3 Do you really feel your corrupt and the right spirit, if you will only care nature to be a curse and a wretchedness, so much about theml as to enquire for and are you accordingly most desirous to themn at His hand; and promises the Holy be rid of it? Would you like a purifying Ghost to all wh.o ask it. Do you indeed process to take effect upon you which feel it a hardship, that your heart is natushall at length transform that vitiated na- rally so sinful 3 Come with the grievance, ture, that has so annoyed you, and so and come with an honest desire to be rid called forth your anirmadversions upon of it before God. Say to Him, and say it God? Do you sincerely feel it to be your in good faith, take this heart of mine such provocation and your plague, that such as it is, and make it such as it should be; an evil thing has been attached to your and if this be the honest aspiration of a constitution-for if so, you would surely heart that is really desirous of' what it like of all things that it were again de- pretends to be —there will be nothing tached from you? No man really feels wanting on God's part, to renew, and to that to be a burden, which he does not purify, and at length to wash most thofeel a wish and a weariness to be deliv- roughly away that original taint, over ered irom- and is this yrour wish and which you appear to mourn, as if it were your weariness respeeti: r the depravity indeed so much the bane of your existof heart, that has so germinated from ve- I ence, that your existence is not worth the ry infancy, and so grown through all the I having. God bids you only put HIim tt., successive years of your life in the world, the proof by your petitions, and then see as to have made all your imaginations in whether He will not pour out a blessing the sirht of God to be only evil and that upon you; and is it the Being who has continually' Do you complain that God descended so far, and testified His willshould thus rate you and reckon with ingness to grant you a present deliverance you, for a sinfulness which you got by from the power of sin, and a future everinheritance, and without your consent- lasting translation fiom all its allureinstead of getting it, as Adam did before ments-is it He, we ask, whom you would you, by his own deliberate choice, and thus challenge and upbraid for the undothe voluntary surrender of hinlself to the ing of your eternity 3 power of temptation? Well then this is That the creature should complain of a your complaint against God; and here is corruption which he loves, and wilfully the way in wnich we meet it. God is at perseveres in-that he should reproach this moment holding out to you in offer, the Creator for it, who is pointing oit to the very relief which you now tell us that him the way by which he can escape, and your heart is set upon. He is in perfect offers him all strength and aid to acere-n rea(liness for the administration of an un- plish it-that he should lift an accuin r, failing specific, against that moral disease voice against God, for having broutl(t liri of which you complain so heavily. If the within the limits of so foul a moral (1dnei' complaint be just as honest in the feeling as the one he occupies; and at the sailne of it as severe in the terms of it-then are time turn away from the beseeching voice your desires and God's desires most tho- of the same God, stretching forth HIis roughly at one and you are not more hand for the purpose of taking him out wrilling for being emancipated from the of that domain if he will, and ushering power of corruption, than He is willing him among the glories of a pure and to set you at large and translate you into spiritual region-that he should murmur the pure element of holiness. Does not because of a sinfulness in his nature, God wipe His hands of the foul charge which he at the same time wilfillly cher LECTURE XXV.-CHAPTER V, 12-21. 131 ishes and retains, and obstinately refuses has uttered against Him? Will it not lay to let it go-that he should affect either to the blood of the coming destruction upon mourn or to be indignant on account of his own head; and though while he lives an inborn depravity, and that too at the it be in disquietude, and when he diks it moment when he spurns the proposition be in the volcanic whirl of the fierce and which God makes to him of an inborn fiery element by which he is surrounded grace, whereby he will cease to be that -is not the man the author of' his own old creature, of whom he says it is hard undoing; and can the blame or the exethat he should have been so formed, and cration of it be laid on that Being, who become that new creature, respecting offered to bea'r him away from the terriwhom he taxes God for injustice, that He tory of disease and danger, and securely had not so made him-Who does not see put him down in the midst of a smiling that every possible objection, which can and happy land? be raised against the Creator, on account Many may think this speculative; but of what man is by nature, is most fully we trust that there are some here present and fairly disarmed by what God offers who feel it most closely and urgently and to man in the gospel 3 And if he will immediately practical. We stand with persist in charging upon God, a depravity the ofter of' transporting you fiom the that lie both asks and enables us to give spiritual atmosphere of nature, charged up, did not we firmly retain it by the as it is with all that is foul and turbulent wilful grasp of our own inclinations —is it and rebellious, and to bear you across the not plain that on the day of reckoning it limits of conversion, to an atmosphere of will be clear to the intelligent morality of peace and purity and holiness. WVe deall the assembled witnesses, that the com- clare this gospel unto you. We preach plaints of man, because of his corruption, that Jesus who is ready, even now, to have been those of a hypocrite, who bless every one of you by turning you secretly loved the very thing he so openly from your iniquities; and through the comnplained of; and that God who will be channel of whose mediatorship it is, that justified when He speaketh, and clear the washing of regeneration and the rewhen lie judgeth, has, by the offer of a newing of the Holy Ghost are shed abunSpirit, that would both quell the corrup- dantly on all who believe. If you refuse tion and quicken man from his death in to come, it is because you are not willing trespasses and sins unto holiness, has to come. God will make this clear on the indeed manifested Himself a God both of great day of manifestation; and when Iie love and of righteousness, and poured passes the condemnatory sentence on over all His ways to the world in which those who reject the Saviour, He will we live, the lustre of a most full and prove to the satisfaction of all assembled, resistless vindication? that those who did not pass from darkness We may conceive a human being to be to light, abode in the region of darkness, born upon a territory, over which there just because they loved the darkness; and is spread a foul and turbid atmosphere- persisted in the condition of evil, just charged with all the elements of discom- because thl(ir deeds were evil. It is thus fort and disease; and at length in a given that He will vindicate Himself, and carry time, made known to all who breathe it, the consent of an observing universe to be wrapped in some devouring flame along with Him, when Hle rebukes away which would burn up and destroy every from His prese ce, all of you who have creature that should abide within its neglected the great salvation. And therevortex. And we may further conceive fore it is a salvation which we bid your him to murmur against the God, who thus acceptance of at this moment. Open had placed him within the bounds of such your hearts that Christ may enter in; a habitation. But let God point his way and, under the power of His grace, thecir to another country, There freshness was hardness and vileness-and depravity will in every breeze, and the whole air shed melt away. We do not promise you an health and fertility and joy over the land immediate transition from the spiritual that it encompassed-let Him offer all the element of earth, to the spiritual element means and facilities of conveyance, so as of heaven. It is gradual. It is by a lato make it turn simply upon the man's borious ascent of fatigue and difficulty will, whether he should continue in the and strenuousness, that we at length attain accursed region where he is, or be trans- those heights where all is serene and portcd to another region which teems unspotted holiness. The portal of death with all the enjoyments that he complains must be passed, ere we reach the cloud. he has not: —And will not the worthless less and ethereal expanse of that eternity, choice to abide rather than to move, where freed from the last dregs of our acquit God of the severity wherewith I-e vitiated nature, we can serve God without has been charged, and unmask the hypo- frailty and without a flaw. There is in crisy of all the reproaches which man these vile bodies of ours, some mysterious 132 )LECTURE XXV.-CHAPTER V, 12-21. necessity for dying-There is an original there be any hardship in your suffering taint which so imbues the whole of' our because of a fault which you did n.ot comrnnatural constitution, that the whole fabric mit-the hardship is greatly atoned for must be taken down; and after its mate- by your enjoying favour and reward, be. rials have been filtered and refined by the cause of an obedience that you did not putrefaction of the grave, a new fabric render. It is thus again that the gospel will be made out of them; and the be- vindicates God from all the aspersions liever will then arise in all the first inno- which have been cast upon His governcence of' Adam, and compassed about with ment; and there is not a man who honestly a security that shall be everlasting. Yet complains that favour has been lost behere the work must be begun, though cause of another's demerits, that we canthere and there alone it is consummated. not silence and even satisfy, by telling Hiere we must make head against the him that all this favour may be regained prevalence of sin, though there and there because of another's deservings. We inalone we shall be delivered from the pre- terpose the gospel of Jesus Christ, as the sence of it. Here the struggle must be decisive reply to all the murmurs of those made, and the victory be decided-though who revolt at the apparent severity of the there and there alone we shall have the divine administration; and affirm, upon triumph and the repose of victory. Here the strength of its blessed overtures, that the grace which calls upon you to accept, it depends upon man's own choice whether must enter into contest with the corrup- the discharge is not at least equal to the tion that so burdens and distresses you; debt, and the recovery of our nature is not but there and there alone grace will reign at least equal to the ruin of it. without a rival, and the principle of cor- We now hold ourselves prepared for ruption that now is only kept in check vindicating the doctrine of the imputation will there be utterly and conclusively of Adam's sin, even in the farthest extent extirpated. of it, when it goes beyond the apprehenWhat is true of the original corruption, sion and acknowledgment of our moral is also true of the original guilt. Do you sense altogether. We see how the blame complain of that debt, under the weight lies upon us, of such personal sins as we and oppression of which you came into commit-even though we have been led to the world? What ground we ask is there the performance of these by a corrupt tenfor complaining, when the offer is fairly dency of nature inherited from Adam put within your reach, of a most free and But we do not see how the blame lies upon ampie discharge-and that not merely for us, of that proper and personal sin which the guilt of original, but also for the whole rendered Adam an outcast from paradise. guilt of your proper and personal sinful- It may be so though we see it not; and ness 4 It is indeed a very heavy burden that it is so, is in beautiful and consenting hat has been entailed upon you by the harmony with what we are explicitly asfirst Adam; but here we stand with the sured to be the effect of our union with offer of a deliverance both from it, and the Saviour. From Him we derive, not from all the additions you'have made to it merely a new nature which inclines us to by actual transgression-wrought out and righteousness and holiness, even as we dem:ade good for you by the suretiship and rived from Adam our old nature which in-:he ability of the second Adam. Your dines us to all that is wicked and ungodly rescue from corruption is not instantane- But from Him we also derive an imputei ous, but your rescue from guilt is. The righteousness, so as that we are reckoned offer of a free and full forgiveness is even with by God as if we were positively denow unto you all; and why do you mur- serving creatures. The merit of Christ's mur at the grievousness of the reckoning obedience is transferred to us, as well as which is out against you, when there is His holy and upright nature transferred out along with it the loudly sounding pro- to us; and from the very circumstance of' clamation of remission to all who will, His being called in Scripture the second and acceptance without money or without Adam, fiom the very way in which He is price to all who will? The relief granted there designed as a counterpart to the first an the gospel, is at least an adequate coun- Adam, would we be inclined to think that terpart to all the wretchedness which na- the guilt of Adam's disobedience was transture has entailed upon you; and even ferred to us, even as his corrupt and tow are you invited by union with Christ, vitiated nature has also been transferred to be freed from the whole weight of all to us-In other words. that Adam is not the responsibility that may have been in- merely the corrupt parent of a corrmpt offcurred by your descent from Adam. What spring, who sin because of the depravity you have lost because of Adam's sin, is wherewith he has tainted all the families more than made up to you by Christ's of the earth; but who have sinned in him, righteo isne.ss; and we repeat it, that if to use the language of our old divineq, in LECTURE XXV.-CHAPTER V, 12 —21. 133.hei federal head-as the representative indeed a mystery, seated too far back of a covenant which God made with him, among the depths of primeval creation and through him with all his posterity. and of the eternity behind it, for us the Certain it is, that, to screen a believer puny insects of a day to explore or to defrom the vengeance of an immutable law, cide upon. One would think of God, that something more is necessary than the He would, if He could, banish all sin and atonement of his past offences, and the wretchedness from that system of things, derivation of a holy nature from the Sa- over which we have always been in the viour. Even after the principle of grace habit of thinking that He has the entire has been implanted, there are the out- and undivided ascendancy; nor can we breakings of sin which serve to humble at all imagine, how with both the will and to remind him, that never till death and the ability of Omnipotence leagued has pulverized his body into atoms, and against it, sin should ever have found an the resurrection has again assembled them entrance, or obtained a footing in any of into a pure and holy structure-will he be those fair worlds that surround the tilrone wholly freed from that sore corruption, of the universal Father. Yet so it is; and which so adheres, and so strives to obtain I man with all the tone of an indignant sufthe victory over him. Still, and at any ferer is heard -.- lift his remonstrances time after his conversion while he lives in against it-as If he bore the whole weight the world, were he treated according to of an injury, laid upon him at the pleahis own deservings would he be an out- sure of an arbitrary tyrant, who has laid cast from the favour of that God whose open his dominions to the cruel inroads justice is inflexible; and to meet this jus- of a spoiler, who but for Him would have tice on the ground of acceptance, he must neither had the power nor the liberty of stand before it in another merit than his mischief. But without making so much own, and be clothed upon with another as an attempt to solve the difficulties of a righteousness than his own. Or, to be in topic so inscrutable, we may at least say, favour with God, he stands in need of an that one thought has occurred, which, imputed as well as of an infused right- more than any other, melts us into aceousnes; and the merit of Christ must be quiescence; and disposes us to look on the laid to his account, as well as the nature rise and continuance of evil, as being inof' Christ be laid upon his person. You deed some dire though mysterious neceshave no title to cast out with the sin of' sity which overhangs creation —and that Adam being imputed to you, if you do not i is, that, after all, it is not man who bears cast out with the righteousness of Christ the whole burden of this dark and awfhl being imputed to you. The latter screens visitation-Neither is it any other creature you from the former, and it screens you beside man. It is the Creator in fact who also from the guilt of your own positive offers to take upon Himself, the whole offences. Without it, even the holiest burden of it; or at least to relieve our man upon earth, would stand before a species of it altogether. It is at His cost, God of perfect holiness, on a basis of ut- and not at ours, unless we so choose it, ter insecurity; and with it the greatest that sin has invaded the world we tread sinner upon earth stands on a firmer and upon. It is He, the Eternal Son, who a higher'vantage-ground, than even had went forth to the battle against this Hyall the innocence and virtue of Adam dra; and who in the soreness of His conbeen both transmitted and ascribed to flict, bore what millions through eternity him. And I willingly consent to have the could not have borne; and who, thougll guilt of Adam charged upon me, if, along He had all the energies of the Godhead with it, the overpassing righteousness of to sustain Him, yet well nigh gave way Christ shall be reckoned to me; and let under the pressure of a deep and dreadtifl the severities be what they may which lie endurance; and who, by His tears and upon me under the economy of nature and agonies and cries, gave proof to the might of the law-I see in the corresponding priv- of that mysterious adversary over whom ileges which are freely offered to me under He triumphed. Yes we murmur because the economy of the gospel, I see in them of the origin of evil. But Christ was the the fullest and the noblest compensation. mighty sufferer who hath borne it away The question of original sin is allied from us; and let us hazard what refleewith that of the origin of evil; and a very tions we may on those who die in ignordeep and unyielding obscurity hangs ance, or who die in infancy-yet, in reover it-how in a universe framed and up- gard to you who are hearing us, every held by a Being, of whom we are taught ground of complaintisannihilated. Christ to believe that He has an arm of infinite is offered; and you by confidence in Him. power and a heart of infinite goodness- and cleaving unto Him, will reach those how under His administration, such a happy shores of peace and light and joy, monster as evil, whether moral or physi- where all sin is for ever banished, and all cal, should even be permitted to exist, is evil is unknown. k134 LECTURE XXVI. —CIIAPTER. V, 12-14. LECTURE XXVI. ROMANS V, 12-14. V" W erefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for t.ta all have sinned: (for until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Never theless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam' transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come." AFTER these lengthened preliminary re- from all the joys and communications of;oarks on the doctrine of original sin, we the divine life-just as surely as in person, now proceed to the exposition of tile verses he was exiled fiom the scenes of loveliness of this remarkable passage in detail. and delight that were in the garden of paraV. 12. The death which entered into the dise. It is this character of the soul which world by sin, includes in it a great deal forms its own punishment in the place of more than that temporal death, to which condemnation; and here in every unrein common language the terra is restricted. generate bosom, is the germ of that, which It is very true that death, in the ordinary ministers to the second death on the other sense of the word, formed part of the pun- side of the grave all its agony and all its ishment laid upon our first parents and bitterness. their posterity. But there was a sentenrce It is a matter of experience, as we have )f' death executed on the very day of the already amply endeavoured to demontransgression. "In the day that thou eatest strate, that this death of the soul has passed thereof thou shalt surely die"-And yet upon all men, just as surely and as univerAdam survived his expulsion firom Para- sally as the dissolution of the body. There disc several hundred years; and the way is one species of life or of vivacity, that in which the truth of the threatening was remains to us-vivacity to the things of accomplished, was by the infliction of sense, so that they form the world in which spiritual death. By the fall he lost that, we move, and to the objects of which alone wvhic'h Christ by his salvation restores to it is that we are feelingly alive. There is out' specis. If a title to eternal life here- another species of life or of vivacity that rifter, and spiritual life here, came by is extinguished-vivacity to the things of (hirist —it is because they went away from faith, so as that God and eternity and the us by Adam. lie on that day lost the light unseen realities of another world have no of the divine countenance. A sense of more power to excite or to interest' us, God's favour died away from his heart; than if' we were inanimate beings. It is and it was this which cheered and sus- the reawakening of this vivacity in the tained him in all the joys of existence. soul which is stated in the Bible, as an Hope, that sunshine of the soul, took its event equally miraculous with a resurrecdeparture; and left the blackness of deso- tion from literal death. It takes effect lation behind it. The death in trespasses upon us on our truly receiving Christ. He and sins, began with the commission of who believeth on me, though he were dead, the first sin. It was then that trust gave yet shall he live. Ile who believeth hath place to terror. It was then that jealousy passed from death unto life: a death, on the of' God put out from the bosom its wonted one hand, in which we may be most projoy inl God. It was then that the righte- foundly immersed, at the very time that we ousness of the soul expired, because it was are bustling with eager and intense desire left without a principle and without an ob- among this world's affairs; and a life, on ject-alike unable to recover the accept- the other hand, to which we may be raised ance that had been lost; and unwilling long before our bodies have dissolved-a for the labours of' a service, when all love life which begins with conversion; which for the master had been extinguished, matures and makes progress along the among the fears and the suspicions and course of our sanctification; *which, so far the chilling alienation of guilt. This was from being arrested by the death of the a death which took place long before the body, is thereby released into a scene of dissolution of the body; and when the enlargement, and will at length, by the oody falls into dust, this is a death which reunion which takes place on the day of the soul carries with it into the place of judgment, be brought to tht t state of final its separate habitation. The literal death accommodation, in which ll its powers is only a stepping-stone to the full accom- and all its sensibilities will be for ever con. plishment of that sentence-the operation secrated to the full enjoyment of God. of which began on Adam, with the very Think then, ye hearers, whether in this first hour of his history as a sinner. It sense of the terms, you are indeed dead or was then that he became dead unto God; alive. You may surely be sensible, if God emd that his soul was driven into exile, be practically seen and recognised by LECTURE XXV1. —CHAPTER V) 12-14. i 35 you; or if, stopping short at the visions of relationship through which sin, and death carnality, you only move in a pictured the sentence of sin, found a like way world of atheism. Then know that Christ among all the families of the earth and is knocking at the door of every sleeper's fiom which Abraham himself, the imrneheart, for the purpose of awakening him. diate founder of their own nation was not tle employs the hope and the offer of His exempted. He thus confounds the dis. gospel as the instruments of reviving you; tinction, on which the children of Israe. aI.nd, should you close with the proposition were disposed to hold out against the off eing reconciled through Him unto God, gospel of Jesus Christ; and, demonstraII(, wRill c ause the breath of another life to ting all to be under the virulence of that aioiate your powers-and, instead of liv- disease which issued in sin and death iii- as you have done heretofore, without from the common fountain-head of our God, You will know what it is, under the species, he demonstrates all to be in need light of Ilis countenance and the influences of the same remedy, and befitting patients of lis Spin it, to live with Him in the world. for the same healing application. T'his death then, both temporal and V. 14. Itf death reigned from Adam to spiritual, is the judicial sentence inflicted MIoses, it could not be in the shape of a on all who have incurred it. On whatever penalty for the violations of the Mosaic subject we see it taking effect, we may law; and yet it was in the shape of a infer of him, that he is reckoned a sinner penalty rendered to men for the violation anid dealt with accordingly. And if we of some law or other. What could that see that, in point of fact, this death hath law be? What but either the law of the passed upon all men, it proves that in the heart, or the representative law made estimation of the Judge all men have with Adam, by which he stood to God in sinne(. the relation of federal head of all his V. 13. This sentence, it may be remark- posterity; by which, had he kept it, he ed, was in fulll operation anterior to the would have transmitted the right which promulgation of the Mosaic law. The he had earned for himself as a privilege death of' the soul in trespasses and sins, won and wrought for by him on behalt was as much the (loom and the character- of his descendants, but by which, as he istic of nature in the antediluvian and broke it, he brought down a forfeiture on patriarchal ages, as it is now; and that his own head, and in which, all who spring more visible mortality, which sweeps suc- from him do share. In Adam all died, cessive generations from the face of the because in Adam all are held to have world, was as relentless and universal in sinned. Such is the economy under which its ravages. The men of that period were -wve sit, a-n economy which we shall not treated as men under guilt, and all shared" stop any further to explain or vindicate in the very sentence that was passed and at present, having already endeavoured fulfilled on our one common progenitor. to acquit God of all alleged severity Death was dealt out to them all, and just against you on the score of your guilt because sin was reckoned to them all. and helplessness by nature-and that, by And yet sin is not imputed where there is directing your eye to the amplitude of the no law. Under what law then was ii, compensations which are so fully provithat, between the creation and the deli- ded and so freely offered to you in the very of the commandments from mount gospel. Sinai, men were counted as transgressors? Death reigned universally from Adam Not the Jewish law which then did not to Moses; and the term even directs our exist; but some prior law which extended attention to a class more unlikely than over the whole world, and involved all the others to be made partakers of this the men of it in one common condemna- fttality, and therefore serving still more tion. effectually to mark how far the effect of The truth is, that Paul never lost sight Adam's sin was carried among the great of the main purpose of his argument, human family. The death of those who which was to reduce Jews and Gentiles to arrived at maturity may have been asthe same footing; and bring the former to cribed to their own wilful transgressions a thankful acquiescence in that same sal- against the law of conscience. Each pervation, of which he welcomed the latter to sonally sinned against the light of a known an equal participation. The Jews were duty. Each transgressed the prohibition constantly building a superiority to them- of an inward voice, just as effectually as selves upon their law. They fancied that Adam transgressed the prohibition of that they stood out, in point of immunity and voice which was uttered from without. favour with God, from all the rest of the And each therefore may have been conspecies —in virtue of the relationship they ceived to die in the way of retribution for held with Abraham as their father. The his own personal and particular offences. apostle reasons with them on their prior But to preclude this inference altogether, relationship to Adam as their father-a and to make manifest the law cf Adam 136 LECTURE XXVI.-CHAPTER V) 12 —14. incurring the guilt of a sin unto death account can be given than that, as in for himself and for all his posterity, we Adam he sinned so in Adam he dies. see that this penalty of death is laid over' Who is the figure of Him that was to upon those, who could not sin after the come.' Adam is here stated to'be the similitude of Adam's transgression-who figure of Jesus Christ; and this statement could not, by any voluntary and deliber- completes our information respecting the ate choice, put forth their hand to any whole amount of the mischief entailed actual violation-or, in other words, as it upon his posterity. Experience tells us is generally understood-Death reigned that from him we inherit a depraved teneven over infants, who were incapable of dency to evil. The moral sense tells us, sinning as Adam did, when appetite pre- that we justly incur guilt for the sins of vailed in its contest with the sense of' our corrupt nature. But neither the one known duty, and with the fear of known nor the other, do we think, tells us that we and threatened consequences. There is are responsible for the sin done by Adam no internal war of the soul in the heart in paradise. The information however, of an unconscious babe; and yet it too which we cannot get from either of these may share in that sad penalty of death two sources, we get from Scripture-when which was pronounced upon Adam, and it announces to us that Adam is the figure falls without exception on his posterity of Christ; and that what of righteousness of all classes and all ages. we derive from the one, we derive of guilt In our former illustrations wve have and condemnation from the other. Now attempted to show, how the elements of we know, that it is not enough to derive the corrupt nature may all enter into the from Christ the cancelment of all the debt composition of infancy-how as surely, that we have already incurred-neither is as the ferocity of the tiger exists as an it enough to derive from him a new and a embryo disposition at the very first breath holy nature, under the workings of which, of the animal, so surely may the unfail- we aspire after a heavenly character, and ing germ of a sinful tendency lie incor- at length reach it. In the midst of all our porated in the heart of a babe among the aspirings, there is a mingling of sin so other ingredients of its moral nature; and long as we are compassed about with which only needs time for growth, that it these vile bodies; and as God will not may break out into the development of look upon us with regard, unless we offer actual and committed sin-that thus, in ourselves to Him in a righteousness that fact, every child is born in spiritual death; is worthy of that regard, we need to have and brings into the world with him that the righteousness of Jesus Christ imputed character of the soul, which, if not regene- to us, just as much as we need His sanctirated and made anew, will be his charac- fying grace to be infused into us. And ter through time and his course in eternity accordingly we are told in express terms, -So that though this native sinfulness may that the merit of Christ's good actions is not be appoarent, till it come forth at a ascribed to us: and, if Adam be the figure more advanced period in sinful perform- of Christ, this benefit that we obtain from ance-yet it has just as firm and solid an the latter has a counterpart bane that has existence in the frame of an infant, as the descended upon us from the former-or, tendency to bring forth sour fruit in a in other words, the demerit of Adam's bad particular tree, was a tendency which action is ascribed to us. And as, under adhered to the sapling many years before the second economy, we are held to be rethe period of bcaring, and swas even wardable for the obedience of the oneinfused into the very seed or acorn from so, to complete the figurative resemblance, which it has germinated. But should the we, under the first economy, are held to spiritual death of infants not be palpable, be responsible for the disobedience of the the literal death which forms part of' the other. sentence is exemplified on many of them; This part of the doctrine of original and, just as the order to barn thorns and sin we hold to be matter of pure revelabriers would be carried into effect on the lion-a portion of God's jurisprudence, youngest as well as on the oldest specimens the whole rationale of which we cannot of a produce so obnloxious, so death goes comprehend; but not, as we have endeaforth the executioner of an unsparing voured to show, in any way at war with sentence upon all ages-and the babe of a tenderness and love to the children of men. week old, sitnless though he may be in For, leaving the two cases of heathenism respect of his outward history, yet, with a and infancy to Himself, what have we who soul tainted by corruption and a body on are neither heathen nor infants to comwhich the curse of mortality may at any plain of? Is it that our estate by nature ime be realiscd, does he share alike with has been left so heavily entailed by our the hoary offender in that sentence, of first progenitor-then there is a surety which, as it respects the infant, no other provided, to the benefit of which we ara LECTURE XXVI.-CHAPTER V, 15-19. 137 all mnost abundantly welcome; and by Iand that, instead of looking to me as I am the acceptance of which, the estate is dis- in myself, or looking to me as I am ir burdened, and fully restored to all the Adam, He should look unto me as I am in value it ever had. I am glad to have been Christ, and lavish upon me all that bea sharer in all the miseries of Adam's re- nignity which He feels towards His only bellion, as that is the very circumstance beloved Son in whom lhe is well pleased. which has marked me out as a welcome In the three verses that follow, we have sharer in all the privileges of Christ's such a parallel drawn between tile evil tnediation. I am glad to have incurred entailed upon us by the first Adamn, and all the forfeitures which were laid upon the good purchased and procured for us Adam and his degenerate offspring, as this by the second Adam, as to evince that is the very thing which has brought me there is something more than compensawithin the scope of a most glorious am- tion-but such an overbalance of blessednesty and a most ample restoration. I ness provided to us by the gospel, as may will not quarrel with the doctrine of ori- well serve to reconcile us to the whole of ginal sin, but hold it a kindness to have this wondrous administration-V. 15 —17. had it laid before me-as to me it is the " But not as the offence, so also is the free very finger-post which points my way of gift. For if through the offence of one, access and of triumph, to that righteous- many be dead; much more the grace of ness which is unto all and upon all who God, and the gift of grace, which is by believe. It is a singular dealing of God, one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded that He should rate me for another's sin, unto many. And not as it was by one and evinces His ways to be not as men's that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgways; but I will not complain of it, as I ment was by one to condemnation, but the have a most secure and honourable refuge free gift is of many offences unto justifiin another dealing of God's, equally sin- cation. For if by one man's offence death gular, but in which it is my chiefest in- reigned by one; much more they which terest and will at length be my most ex- received abundance of grace, and of the alted felicity to acquiesce-even that He gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by should reward me for another's obedience; one Jesus Christ." LECTURE XXVII. ROMANS V, 15-19.' But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead; much more the grace of Gol, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many. And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift; for the judgment was by tie to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification. For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ. Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment caine upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift canle upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners; so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." WE do feel that there is a considerable to them. This and no other sentence was difficulty in this short passage; and the all that could be inflicted on inftants, or following is the only explanation that we those who had not sinned actually. But, are able to give of it. You will observe in addition to the guilt that we have by that in the 14th verse, the effect of Adam's inheritance, there is also a guilt which all sin in bringing death upon his posterity, who live a few years in the world incur is demonstrated by this circumstance that by practice. The one offence of Adam the sentence had full execution, even up- landed us in guilt; but the many offences on those who had not in their own per- of the heart and life of us all, have wosons sinned as he did. Death reigned fully accumulated that guilt: And we even over them; and it made Adam to be stand in need, not merely of as much the figure of Christ, that, what the one grace as might redeem us from the forc brought upon mankind by his disobedi- feiture that was passed on the whole huence, the other by his obedience did man family in consequence of the transaway. gression of their first parent, but also of But Christ did more than do away the as much new grace as might redeem us sentence which lay upon mankind, be- from the curse and the condemnation of cause of the sin of Adam being imputed our own iniquities —as might redeem us 18 138 LECTURE XXVII.-CHAPTER V, 15-19. not merely from the debt that has been complains of the weight and hardsnip.of entailed upon us, but from the additional the mortgages he has left behind him debt that has been incurred by us. ought in all justice to be appeased —when And thus it is, that not as the offence so his father's friend, moved by regard to also is the gift. For the gift by Christ his family, not only offers to liquidate the compensates for more evil. than the of:- debts that were transmitted to him by infence by Adam has entailed. Through heritance, but also the perhaps heavier that one offence the penalty of death debts of his own extravagance and folly. passed upo(n many-even upon all whom From the mouth of a wilful and obstinate Adam represented. But the grace of God, sinner, may we often hear the reproach and the gift which emanated therefrom of God for the imputation of Adam's sin and was won for us by the one man Je- to his blameless and unoffending posterisus Christ, greatly exceeds in its amount ty; and were he indeed a blameless indithe recalment of' this penalty from the vidual who was so dealt with, there might many whom Christ represented. The be reason for the outcry of felt and fancondemnation we derive from Adam was cied injustice. But, seeing that in har. passed upon us because of his one of- dened impiety or at least in careless indiffence. The free gift of justification we ference he spends his days, living without receive from Christ, not merely reverses God in the world and accumulating volthat condition of guilt in which Adam has untarily upon his own head the very guilt placed us, but that still more aggravated against which he protests so loudly when condition of guilt in which we have been laid upon him by the misconduct of anoplaced by the multitude of our own offen- ther-this ought at least to mitigate a litces. We obtain not only justification tle the severity of his invective; and it from the guilt of Adam's one offence, but ought wholly to disarm and to turn it, justification from the guilt of our own when a covering so ample is stretched many offences. Such was the virulent forth, if he will only have it, both for the mischief even of the one offence, that, guilt at which he murmurs and for the through it and it alone, even when sepa- guilt of his own misdoings. Nor has he rated from all actual guilt as in the case any right to protest against the share that of infants, death reigned in the world. has been assigned to him in the doom of There was more grace needed however, Adam's disobedience, when, wilfully as than would suffice merely to counteract he has aggravated that doom upon himthis virulence-for greatly had it been self, there is a grace held out to him, and aggravated by the abundance of actual a gift by grace, which so nobly overpas2niquify among mnen; and for this there ses all the misery of man's unregenerate was an abundance, or as it might have nature, and all its condemnation. been translated, a surplus of grace pro- Perhaps there is a great deal more in sided, so that while the effect of Adam's this passage than we have been able to single offence was to make death reign, bring out of it. It is likely enough that greatly must the power of the restorative the apostle may have had in his mind, the idministered by the second Adam, exceed state of the redeemed when they are he malignity of the sin that has been made to reign in life by Jesus Christ-as iransmitted to us by the first Adam-inas- contrasted with what the state of man.nuch as it heals not merely the heredita- would have been had Adam persisted in y, but all the superinduced diseases of innocency, and bequeathed all the privi)ur spiritual constitution; and causes leges of innocence to a pure and untaint hose over whom death reigned, solely on ed posterity. In this latter case, our spe1ccount of Adam's guilt, to reign in life, cies would have kept their place in God's.hough for their own guilt as well as unfallen creation, and maintained that.dam's they had rightfully to die. position in the scale of order and dignity This is all the length at which we can which was at first assigned to them; and, penetrate into this passage. We see af- though lower than the angels, would at Nrmed in it the superiority of that good least have shone with an unpolluted Arhich Christ has done for us, over that though a humbler glory, and have either:vil which Adam has entailed upon us. remained upon earth, or perhaps have We see in it enough to stop the mouth of been transplanted to heaven, with the inany gainsayer, who complains that he has signia of all those virtues which they had been made chargeable for the guilt which kept untainted and entire upon their own he never contracted -for we there see an- characters. Now certain it is, that the nounced to us, not merely release from redeemed in heaven will be made to rethis one charge, but from all the addi- I cover all that personal worth and accomtional charges which by our own wilful plishment which was lost by the fall, and, disobedience we have brought upon our- in point of moral lustre, will shine forth selves. The heir of a burdened property at least with all that original brightness who curses the memory of his father and in which humanity was formed; and, in LECTURE XXVII.-CHAPTER V 15- 19. 139 the songs of their joyful eternity, will of His fulness, the very graces which there he ingredients of transport and of adorned His own character. But, as it is grateful emotion, which, but for a Re- at best a tainted holiness that we have on deemer to wash them from their sins in this side of death, we must have somehis blood, could never have been felt; thing more than it in which to appear and, what perhaps is more than all, they before God; and the righteousness of are invested with an order of merit which Christ reckoned unto us and rewarded in no prowess of archangel could ever win us, is that sornething. The something -they are clothed with a righteousness, which corresponds to this in Adam, is his purer than those heavens which are not guilt reckoned unto us and punished in clean in the sight of infinite and unspot- us-so that, to complete the analogy, as ted holiness-they are seen in the face of from him we get the infusion of his deHim who takes precedency over all that pravity, so from. him also do we get the is created; and, besides being admitted imputation of his demerit. into the honour of that more special and One may suppose from the 18th verse, intimate relationship which subsists be- that the number who are justified in tween the divine Messiah, and those who Christ is equarl to the number who are are the fruit and travail of his soul, it is condemned in Adam; and that this comindeed a wondrous distinction, that the prehends the whole human race. But by Son of God, by descending to the fellow- the term' all,' we are merely to understand, ship of our nature, has ennobled and all on the one hand who are in that relabrought up the nature of man to a pre- tion to Adam, which infers the descent of eminence so singularly glorious. his guilt upon them-and that is certainly Verses 18, 19. 1" Therefore, as by the the whole family of mankind; and thus offence of one judgment came upon all'all' on the other hand, who are in that men to condemnation; even so by the relation to Christ which infers the descent righteousness of' one, the free gift came of His righteousness upon them-and that upon all men unto justification of life. is only the family of believers. As in For as by one man's disobedience many Adam, it is said, all die-even so in Christ were made sinners; so by the obedience shall all be made alive. But the all does of one shall many be made righteous." not refer to the same body of people. Th- three last verses state the disparity The first who die in Adam, evidently between the two Adams, in respect of the refer to the whole human race. But the amount of' good anid evil conveyed by second who live in Christ are restricted them. The two before us state the simi- by the apostle to those who are Christ's, larity between therm, in respect of the and will be made alive by Him at His mode of conveyance of this good and this coming. All men have not faith, and all evil. They contain in fact the strength men therefore will not reign in life by of the argument for the imputation of Christ Jesus. Adam's sin. As the condemnation of For any thing we hnow, the mediation Adam comes to us, even so does the justi- of Christ may have affelcted. in a most fication by Christ come to us. Now we essential way, the general state of huknow that the merit of the Saviour is inmanity; and, by some mode unexplained ascribed to us-else no atonement for the and inexplicable, may it have bettered past, and no renovation of heart or of life the condition of those who die in infancy, that is ever exemplified in this world for or who die in unreached heathenism; and the future, will suffice for our acceptance aggravated the condition of none, but with God. Even so then mustthe demerit those who bring upon themselves the of Adam have been ascribed to us. The curse and the severity of'a rejected gospel. analogy affirmed in these verses leads But the matter which concerns you is, irresistibly to this conclusion. The judg- that, unless you receive Christ in time, ment that we are guilty, is transferred to you will never reign with Him in eternity. us from the actual guilt of the one repre- You will not be admitted into the number sentative-even as the judgment that we of those all, who, though they compreare righteous, is transferred to us from hend the entire family of believers, 1do the actual righteousness of the other not comprehend any that obey not the representative. We are sinners in virtue gospel; and it is at your peril, if, when of one man's disobedience, independently the offer of an interest in the righteousness of our own personal sins; and we are of Christ is placed within your reach, you righteous in virtue of another's obedience, turn in indifference away from it independently of our own personal quali- And it is of vital importance for you fications. We do not say but thatthrough to know, that the free gift, though it Adam we become personally sinful- comes not upon you all in the way of inheriting as we do his corrupt nature. absolute conveyance, it at least comes Neither do lwe say but that through Christ upon you all in the way of offer. It is we become personally holy-deriving out j yours if you will. The offer is unto all 140 LECTURE XXVII.-CHAPTER V) 15-19. and upon all who now hear us-though I by one single iota, either the loudness or the thing offered is only unto all and the urgency of the kmock which it is upon all who believe. We ask each indi- making at your door. This is a property Nidual among you to isolate himself from which no extension of the message can the rest of the species-to conceive for a ever dissipate. It cannot be shipped off mnoment that he is the only sinner upon either in whole or in part, by the mission the face of the earth, that none but he ary vessel which carries the news and the stands in need of an atoning sacrifice, and offirs of salvation to other lands. Your none but he of an everlasting righteous- minister speaks with no less authority ness brought in by another and that might though thousands and thousands more are avail for his justitication before God. Let preaching at the same moment along with him imagine, that for him the one and him. Your Bible carries no less enphatic solitary oflfnder, Christ came on the intimation to you, though Bibles are cirexpress errand to seek and to save —that culatinig by millions over the mighty amfor him He poured out His soul unto the plitudes of population that are on every death-that for him the costly apparatus side of you. God, through the medium of of redemption was raised-that for him these conveyances, is holding out as disand for him alone, the Bible was written; tinct an overture to you, and pledging and a messenger fiom heaven sent to Himself to as distinct a fulfilment, as if entreat that he will enter into reconcilia- you were the only sinner He had to deal tion with God, through that way of' me- with; and whether He beseeches you to diatorship which God in His love had be reconciled, or bids you come unto devised, for the express accommodation Christ on the faith that you will not be of this single wanderer, who had strayed, cast out, or invites you weary and heav-, an outcast and an alien from the habita- laden to cast your burden upon Him anid tions of the unfallen: And that it now He will sustain it, or sets forth to you a turns upon his own choice, whether he propitiation and tells you that your rewill abide among the paths of destruction, liance upon its efficacy is all that is needor be readmitted to all the honours and ed to make it eff'ectual to you-be very felicities of the place from which he had sure that all this is addrest as especially departed. There is nothing surely want- to yourself, as if you heard it face to face ing to complete the warrant of such an by the lips of a special messenger from individual, for entering into hope and heaven-that God is bringing Himself as happiness; and yet, ye hearers, it is posi- near, as if He named you by a voice from tively'not more complete than the war- the skies-So that if you, arrested by all rant which each and which all of you this power and closeness of application, have at this moment. To you, individually shall venture your case on the calls and to you, God is holding out this gift for the promises of the gospel, there is not one your acceptance-you is He beseeching call that will not be followed up, nor one to come again into friendship with Him. promise that will not be fully and perWith you is He expostulating the cause fectly accomplished. of your life and your death; and bidding The thing offered in this passage is, that you choose between the welcome offer of you shall be instated in the righteousness the one, and the sure alternative of the of Christ. Let me crave your attention to other if' the offer is rejected. He is now the substantial meaning and efftct of such parleying the matter with every hearer; an overture. The technicals of theology and just as effectually, as if that hearer are so familiar to the ear, that they fail to were the only creature in the world, to arouse the understanding; and the thinkwhom the errand of redemption was at all ing principle often lies in complete dorapplicable. There is nothing in the mul- mancy, while there is a kind of indolent titude of hearers by whom you are sur- satisfaction felt by the mind, at the utterrounded, that should at all deaden the ance and the cadency of sounds to which point of its sure and specific application it has been long accustomed. The propoto yourself. sal that Christ's righteousness shall beThe message of the gospel does not suf- come your righteousness in such a way, fer, in respect of its appropriateness to as that you will be honoured and rewarded you, by the ranging abroad of its calls and loved and dealt with by God, just as and its entreaties over the face:f the you would have been, had this righteouswhole congregation. The commission is ness been yielded in your own person and to preach the gospel to every; and surely by your own performances-this, ye that is the same with preaching the gos- hearers, is the very jet and essence of the pel to each. It does not become less point- gospel; and could we only prevail on you edly personal in its invitation, by its be- to entertain the wondrous proposal and to ing made more widely diffusive. The close with it, like a man translated from dispersion of the gospel embassy over the beggary to some exalted order of merit race of the whole world, does not abate, that had been won for him by anothel LECTURE XXVII.-CHAPTER V, 15-19. 141 might you instantly be clothed in the wards and all the reckonings of which, glories of a high and splendid investiture are held out to you in the gospel. It is tc -recognised by God Himself; and by all go at once to the justification that Chris the subject ranks of His administration, as hath wrought out for all who believe in the occupiers of a dignity and a constitu- Him; and, entering upon that region tional standing, to which all the homage which is lighted up by the Sun of rightdue to worth and excellence and lofty eousness, there to offer yourself to the no. prospects may rightfully be paid. You tice of the Divinity, not in that tiny lustre Nwould become kings and priests unto which is created by the feeble sparks of God; and, like many of those sublimities your own kindling, but in that full irraof' nature where the noblest efforts often diation which is caught from the beams spring from the simplest of causes, is this of a luminary so glorious. God, to see princely elevation of guilty and degraded you with complacency, must see you not man brought about by the simple credence as shining in any native splendour of your which he renders to the testimony of God own; but as shone upon by the splendour respecting His Son-on which it is that he of Him who is full of grace and truth. It passes from death unto life, and accord- is only when surrounded with this eleing to his faith so is it done unto him. ment, that a holy God can regard you This is the way of being translated into with complacency; and, to complete the a condition of righteousness with God, and triumphs of the gospel administration, it there is no other. We are aware of the is only when breathing in this atmosphere, tendency of nature to try another; and that you inhale the delights of aln affecthat, in the obstinate spirit of legality, it is tionate and confiding piety-that the soul her constant forth-putting to establish a breaks forth in the full triumph of her righteousness of her own-an object, in own emancipated powers, on the career the prosecution of which, she is ever sure, of devoted and aspiring obedience-that either to dissipate her strength in a fatigue life and happiness shed the very air of that is unavailing, or at length to sink heaven around a believer's heart-and dlown into the repose of a formality that make the service of God, before a drudgery, is altogether lifeless and unfruitful. This its most congenial employment-Evrin. positively is not the way. The way is to cing, that, as to be in Christ is to have no lay your confident hold on the merit of condemnation, so to be in Christ is to beChrist as your plea of acceptance with come a new creature with whom all old God. It iT- to take your determined stand things are done away, and all things have o-n the basis of His obedience, all the re- become new. LECTURE XXVIII. ROMANS V, 20, 21. nMoreover, the law entered, that the ofience might abound: but where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." IT is good to mark, how, at certain in- turning the one offence into many offences, tervals in the course of the apostle's argu- or in making the offence to abound-so ment, there is often the recurrence of some that the power which restores us, must particular term, by which there may not not only be of force enough to counteract only be evinced some reigning principle, the guilt of Adam's transgression, but be which it is good for the reader to seize upon, of force to counteract the guilt of all those but by which he may obtain a more con- innumerable actual transgressions, which nected view of the whole demonstration. are committed by those who sin against In some former verses, the apostle insists the known enactments of a rightfully proon the mischief that was entailed upon our claimed authority. species, by the one offence of one indi- It sounds harsh to say of' God, that He vidual-a mischief which fell even upon brought in a law, for the direct purpose of the heads of those who in their own per- adding to the quantity of sin in the world; sons violated no express commandment, and it would soften this harshness, could as did Adam; and he now intimates to us we make it out to be the meaning of the the effect which an authoritative law, sub- apostle, not that there was any such de. sequently imposed upon mankind, had in sign on the part of God-but simply that 142 LECTURE XXVIII.-CHAPTER V, 20, 21. such was the effect of the law having been an even rule to any line or surface, may introduced among men. Moreover, the not create the inequalities; but it will lawir entered, not with the intention by the make known the inequalities. And, in Lawgiver of causing sin to abound, but like manner, wnether or not the law is in fwith the consequence certainly among its any way the cause of those crooked dcsubjects that sin did more abound. The viations from the even rule of rectitude law entered, and so sin became more which so abound in the character of man, abundant. In the Gospels we often read it certainly is the discoverer of those d(eof a particular thing having been done, viations; and makes known to those, who that it might be fulfilled what was spoken are acquainted with the exceeding length by some old prophet. It looks strange for and breadth and constancy of its obligathe Saviour, to have gone out of His way, tions, how much more iniquities abound on purpose to bring about an adjustment in the world, than men of unenlightened of this kind, between the prophet in the conscience and no moral delicacy are at Old Testament and the historian in the all sensible of. New, and therefore some translate the At the same time, we do think that the phrase thus-such a thing was done, and law has done more than reveal sin to the so was fulfilled what had been said by one conscience. It has positively added to the of the prophets. In like manner, and to amount and the aggravation of sin upon save the conclusion that God is the wilful the character. It has laid a heavier reauthor of sin, we would so render the pas- sponsibility on those to whom it made sage before us-as that the law was known its enactments: and, on the prinbrought in, not with the previous view of' ciple of "to whom much is given of them making sin abound, but only with this as shall much be required," has a deeper the subsequent effect —" Moreover the law guilt been incurred by those transgressors entered and thus sin did abound." who do sin in the face of clear and imBut it has also been alleged respecting pressive remonstrances from a distinct law, the sense of this passage, that the law has than by those who do it ignorantly arid in made sin to abound, not by acting as a unbelief. "Father forgive them," says stimulant to sin, but merely as the revealer the Saviour, "for they know not what they of sin- inot that it has made sin more do." The man who lives under the light abundan:r;y to exist, but that it has made of a proclaimed commandment, has no it more abundantly manifest. It has served benefit from such an intercession.'They as a mirror to set forth the deformity of sin with their eyes open; and after having sin. Paul was Covetous, before he ob- fought a pitched, and a determined, and tained such an apprehension of God's law perhaps a long sustained battle, with a as to make him feel that it was sinful to conscience well informed. They may do be so; but when the law came, sin re- the very same things and no more, than vived, not that the law made Paul covet- he who has nothing but the feeble guidous, but made him sensible that, in con- ance of nature to regulate h1is footsteps; sequence of being so, he was indeed a and yet their sin may abound a hundredsinner. It is not the tendency, say some, fold, and that just because the law has ento mrake -, man sinful, but to show him to tered with its precepts and its requisitions be sinful It discovers the tinge of guilti- among them. And beside all this, iwe do ness where no such tinge was seen or sus- further think, that the law may cause sin pected before, The effect of the corn- actually to abound in the worll —-not mandment is net to create sin, but to con- merely by investing forbidden crimes vince of sin; andl to make it evident to the with a deeper hue of sinfulness than they conscie nce, that it is indeed exceedingly would otherwise have had, but by posisinful. And we have no doubt, that this tively and substantially deepening the is one great purpose which has been served atrocity of' these crimes, arid adding to by the entering, in of the law. It has shed the frequency and the amount of them. a much stronger light on that contrast This is perhaps an effect unknown, or not or diversity, which obtains between the easily conceived by those, who possess character of God and the character of no tenderness of conscience; anid are not man. It has given a more plentiful de- feelingly alive to the guilt which attaches, monstration of human guilt and human even to the slighter violations of principle ungodliness. It has brought home with and propriety. But give us a man, into greater effect upon the conscience that whose heart there has entered such a sense great initiatory lesson-the le-brning of of the law, as to feel the discomfort even -which is of such importance in Chris- of a minutest aberration-whose force, or tianity, that the law which furnishes this whose delicacy of conscience, are such, lesson has been called a schoolmaster to that what would bring no compunction bring us unto Christ. And this is certainly into the hearts of other men, is sure to a most valuable purpose that is accom- overwhelm his with a conviction of guilt plished by the law. The application of in its darkest imagery, and its most brood. LECTURE XXVIII.-CHAPTER V, 20, 21. 143 Ing and fearful anticipations-who figures over it. Nothing will save it from apos. himself to have fallen, and perhaps irre- tacy, unless, with the growing delicacy of coverably fallen; and that by a slip, its principles there be also a growing which, giving no concern to the feelings strength of performance - a growing of ordinary mortals, would still leave them watchfulness among the temptations which in possession of all the complacency and beset and may baffle it —a growing jea. all the conscious uprightness that they lousy of itself, under the well-founded ever had, or that they ever care for-NVe conviction, that without Christ it can do say of such a man, that, if without help nothing-a growing habit of dependence and comfort from the gospel, the law, in upon Him, that He, meeting its faith by a all the strictness he sees to be in it, is all stream of influences and spiritual nourishhe has to deal with —he is positively in ment out of' His fulness, may indeed enagreater danger from the lesser delin- ble it to do all things. It is when the dequency into which he has fallen, than the licacy of moral and sacred feeling outother is fromn his transgression of tenfold strips the efficacy of these practical expeenormity. For to him so sensitive of dients, that a foundation is laid for disguilt, it has been a more grievous surren- tress inconceivable, and perhaps the der of principle; and to him so tender of backslidings of a final and irretrievable character, has there been the infliction of' apostacy; and hence it is, that, instead a sorer and more mortifying wound; and of walking in presumptuous security, it is to him so conversant in the sanctions and the part of every honest and aspiring obligations of righteousness, does it look Christian, who thinketh that he standeftl a more desperate overthrow, that he ever to take heed lest he faill; and never ought came to have forgotten them; and to him he, even to the last half-hour of his litb, so anhackneyed in the ways of trans- while it is his part to be ever on the alert gression, will one distinct instance of it, in working out his salvation-never ought however venial it may have looked to he to work it out in any other way than others, look to him as a vile and virulent with fear and trembling. apostacy. And thus, till the blood of While therefore we cannot evade the C(hrist be felt in *its cleansing and its fact, that the promulgation of a law has peace-speaking power, may the man, frem added to the world's guilt, and so affbrded his very scrupulosity, be in hazard of place for this reflection against God, that abandoning himself, in utter regardless- by a thing of His doing, even the delivery ness, to the habit of living forthwith with- of this law, sin has been aggravated in out God, even as he now lives without the character and increased in the amount hope in the world. The very exquisite- of it-Yet how completely, we ask you to ness of his moral sense, furnishes sin with attend, is the imputed severity of this promore frequent opportunities for inflicting ceeding, in as far as you at least are conupon him the humiliation of a defeat; cerned, done away, by the express affirand, in the agony of that. humiliation, may mation of the verse before us-that where lie the more readily be led to give up the sin abounded grace did much more abound. contest in despondency; and thus, such is The antidote is an overmatch for the the sad fatality of our condition under the bane; and, virulent as the disease may law, that, failing as we are sure to do of a be, there is a remedy provided, which, is perfect obedience to its requisitions, the not merely competent for its utter extirpamore tremblingly alive we are to a sense tion; but, by the applying of which there of its obligations, the greater may be the is obtained all the security of friendship advantage that sin has for plunging us with God, and all the joy of moral and into total and irretrievable discomfiture spiritual healthfulness. It is indeed a -thus turning the law into a provocative sore tyranny of evil; under which we lie of sin, and, through the weakness of our oppressed. Sin is held forth as reign.ng flesh, causing that to abound against -as seated on a throne —as fulfilling the which it has passed its most solemn and will of a sovereign, in accomplishing the severe denunciations. work of destruction; for he reigneth unto And even after the gospel has come in death, and this is the final effect of his w:th its hopes and its assistances —-this is administration. WXhat a wvide and what a a fact in our moral nature which may be paramount authority th n is he investedi turned to most important account, in the with-seeing that the individuals of each great work of our sanctification. There generation, and all the generations of the can ce no doubt, that, as that work pros- world, are the trophies of his power. One pc-rs and makes progress, the soul will would think that the bodies which we b-.lmne more delicately alive to the evil wear might be borne up, even as they of sin; and so more liable to the paralv- are, into heaven; and there have inlmorsilg Influences of humiliation and dis- tality stamped upon them. But no-Sir. couracgement, when sin in however slight has gotten an ascendancy over them: a degree has obtained some advantage and the certainty while, under this, of ii 2 LECTURE XXVIII.-CHAPTER V) 20, 21. neir sir:ning, brings along with it the nity of that sin which Ile hate(ti, that, necessity of their dying. There is no wherever it exists, Death and Destruction ~,ther way, it would appear, in which this go along with it-that on those men over.oul leprosy can be detached from that whom sin prevails, death both temporal material constitution, under which we lie and eternal is laid as a penalty; and that eumbered and heavy-laden; and so the to those men with whom sin is present in taw of sin and of death is irreversible. their vile bodies though it has not the There may from another quarter a good dominion, death comes to release thein and gracious principle descend upon us, from the plague-to strip them of their by the operation of which, the sin that bodies, as they would do of a garment dwelleth in these bodies is kept in check, spotted with infection, and cause them to and not suffered to have the dominion. undergo a cleansing process in their But in the bodies themselves, there is sepulchre: And it is indeed a striking nought but corruption.' In me that is in testimony to the regal power and state of my flesh there dwelleth no good thing.' Sin, that he carries this sore fatality over Its natural.endencies are all away from the whole length and breadth of our God and from goodness. Sin may not species; and, sitting enthroned over the reign over the whole man, if there has destinies of man, makes universal spoil been the accession to him by grace of of our dying nature, and holds it forth as that influence, under which he is regene- the trophy of his greatness. rated; but, in that ingredient of the old The honour of a king is concerned in man which is denominated Flesh-in all upholding the integrity of his dominions, that he is by nature, or in all that mere and in the keeping up of an unbroken nature ever can make of him, there is authority over them; and hence may we unnmixed sinfulness: And therefore it is, conclude, firom the expression of' sin reignthat, while the great object of contest on ing-, that, if this imply regal power vested earth is to keep nature under subordina- in a conscious and intelligent being, there tion to the higher and the better principle is indeed a busy and an active interest at that we receive by union with Christ work against our species. And taking Jesus, the repose of heaven will consist in the Bible for our guide, there is such a our having got rid of this enemy by his being, who is said to have the power of iutter dissolution-in our having been death; and who is styled from the high emancimated from that old framework, ascendancy to which he has arisen, the which so encompassed us about with evil god of this world; and whom we recogdesires and evil tendencies-in our being nise to be him whom we read of as the conclusively delivered of a system, on prince of the power of the air, and as the which Death had to lay his hand and prince of the power of darkness; and resolve it into dust, ere the soul, translated who, seated as he is upon a throne, must into a glorious body, could, without im- feel that his glory is at stake on the perpediment and without a struggle, expa- petuity of that peculiar empire over which tiate in the full enlargement of its new he is exalted: And hence the undoubted and its holy nature. truth, that the might and the strenousness Meanwhile Death reigns, and reigns and the ambitious desires of one most universally. It has both a first and a daring in enterprise, and most subtle in second portion in all who obey not the design, and most formidable in power and gospel of Jesus Christ; and even with in resources, are all embarked on the those who do obey, the body is all its object of our subjugation. The instruown. So that in respect of that more ment of our overthrow is sin; and the visible and immediate sovereignty, which result of it is, that second and everlasting addresses itself to the eye of the senses, it death, the reign of which forms the domain revels in all the glories of an undivided of his rule and monarchy-and, from the monarchy. And if Death be the mandate very expression of sin reigning, may we of Sin-if he be the executioner of this infer that a thirst for power, and the dread despot's will; and, wherever he is seen to or the shame of a fallen majesty, are all enter, it is upon an errand of subserviency at work in the heart of one who is busy to one in whose hands the power of death in the plying of his devic as, and mosl s —Then what a universal lordship has assiduous in the prosecution of them for he gotten, that not one family on earth is the purpose of destroying us. to be found, but has to weep under the This looks abundantly menacing to bondage of this sore oppressor; and not wards our helpless and degenerate race ~ a man who breathes on the face of our but by the side of the expression that sin world, however firm his step and proud reigneth unto death, let us point your re. his attitude, who will not fall in prostrate gards to the counterpart expression ot helplessness under a doom from which grace reigning unto eternal life. And there is no escaping. What a voucher this, as in the former case, implies some. for the holiness of God, and for the malig- thing more than a mere personification LECTURE XXVJII. —CHAPTEtR V, 200 21. 145 It implies a living monarch-one who sits security in'believing-for the perfect re. upon a rival throne-and who is intent pose of that acquiescence, wherewith you upon an object, directly and diametrically may lie down among the promises of the the reverse of that of his antagonist. In gospel —for keeping firm and fast, that other words, ifthere be a kingly ambition confidence in which you have begunwhich is against us, there is a kingly am- Seeing that grace has not only set out on bition that is also upon our side. If it be a warfare against sin,-but that grace is the pride of one monarch to enslave our seated on a throne, and the salvation of race, it is the dignity of another monarch those who have been obedient to Heaven's to deliver us; and the desire of mighty call is essential to the truth of hicaven's potentates is thus embarked on a contest, voice and the triumph of Heaven's monarthe issues of which are death or life to our chy. species. We read of Jesus Christ as a And a similar argument may be drawn King in Zion, and of His having come to fiom the clause of grace reigning through destroy the works of the devil —even of righteousness. It is this which forms the him who has the power of death; and the leading peculiarity of the evangelical disglory of His character is surely linked pensation. It is a dispensation of mercy with the success of His undertaking; and no doubt, but not of simple and unaccom. thus is our lower world the arena, as it panied mercy. It has more upon its were, of a contest, which involves in it, not aspect and character than the one expresmerely, the future condition of those who sion of tenderness. There was compaslive in it —but the renown of mighty com- sion in the movement which then took batants, who, arrayed in hostility against place from Heaven to Earth; but this does each other, are striving for the renown of not complete the history of the movevictory. ment. It was compassion towards sinners; Now it is not for the purpose of regaling and God's righteous abhorrence of sin, your imaginations that we thus speak, but was mixed up with the forthgoings of His foP the purpose of assuring and strengthen- benevolent desire towards those who had inDg your faith. We want you to see, how been guilty of it. The boon of' reconciliathe majesty is as much concerned as the tion descended upon the world; but it mercy of God, in the work of your Re- found its way through a peculiar medium, demption. We want you to feel how and that was a medium of righteousnessmanifold the guarantees of your deliver- and, to meet on our part this manifesta ance are, if you will only flee for refuge tion of the Godhead, it is not enough that to the hope set before you in the gospel. we regard it in the light of mercy and We want you to perceive how your safety nothing else-it will not be accepted that and the honour of the great Mediator are we rely on the general kindness and goodmost thoroughly at one. Do you think, will of the Deity; but it is altogether in that, warring as He does with the great dispensable to our safety, that, while we adversary of human souls, He will ever rejoice in His grace, we should receive it permit him the triumph of a final victory as a grace which has come to us through over those, who, cheered forward by His righteousness by Jesus Christ our Lord. own invitation, are now trusting to His So that the sinner on entering into peace grace, and( looking onward to the accom- with God, does reverence to the purity of plishment of His promises. He hath graven God. And when he draws upon the comupon an open and indelible record these passion of the divine nature, he renders memorable words, that whosoever believeth homage to the holiness of the divine nain Him shall be saved. Can you figure it ture. Did he hold singly upon His conithen, that. on the great day of the wind- passion-then the truth which stood coming up of the gospel economy-Satan will mitted to the fulfilmentof its denunciations, have it in his power to revile either the and the justice that had been offended by truth or ability of the Saviour; or to fasten sin, would have been left without proviupon an individual who believed in the sion and without a safeguard. But the Son of God, and yet whom the Son of God great Sacrifice has resolved all these diffihath not rescued from the grasp of this culties; and you by depending, not on destroyer? Jesus Christ hath embarked the general attribute of mercy, but on the His own credit upon your salvation. I redemption that is through the blood of Should any have faith in Him, and yet Jesus Christ, can, consistently with all the not be saved, He will not only fail in that honours of the Divinity, obtain the forwhich His heart is most assuredly set giveness of all your trespasses. Out of upon; but He will be foiled in His own the way of this consecrated mediatorship, enterprise, and that too by a most hateful you will never meet the mercy of the Godand hated antagonist. The destruction of head-and in this way you will never one who has faith, were the degradation miss it. of Him who is the author and the finisher But such an economy is not only essenof faith; and hence an argument for your tial to the dignity of the Lawgiver. It 19 146 LECTURE XXVIII.-CHAPTER V, 20, 21. serves to complete the security of the sin- death bore the punishment'that you ner. It makes known to him, how God should have borne. IIe by his obedience can be just while the justifier of those won a righteousness, the reckoning and who believe in Jesus. It enables him to the reward of which are transferred unto meet without dismay the whole aspect and you; and you, by giving credit to the character of God, in the fill expression good news, are deemed by God as having of all the attributes which belong to Him. accepted of all these benefits and will be It harmonises the sterner with the gentler dealt with accordingly. You cannot trust perfections of' that' Being, with whom we too simply to the Saviour. Youl cannot have to do; and the sinner can now de- place too strong a reliance on His death light himself in the abundance of his as your discharge. You are making the peace —when lie thinks that the very very use of Him that was intended, and equity and unchangeableness of' the God- do I-Him that honour wherewith He is most head are now upon his side. It does add pleased, when you venture your all upon to his confidence in the grace of the gos- Him both for time and for eternity. We pel, when he views it as seated on a (do not bid you earn -a place in heaven. throne; and thus, in all its manifestations, We do not bid you work for your forgiveholding forth the sovereignty of the Su- ness. We bid you receive it. We bid preme Being. But it adds still more to you hope for it. And eternal life will be his confidence, when he views it as grace the sure result of your thus receiving and through righteousness; and thus holding thus hoping. Could we get you truly tc forth the sacredness of the Suprcme Be- rely, Awe are not afraid of licentiousness. lng. HIe then sees no obstruction in the Many see a lurking antinomianisun in the way of its reaching even unto him. The doctrine of faith. But where there is a terrors of his guilty conscience give way, true faith there is no antinomianism. It when he perceives that the very attributes. has its fruit unto holiness here, and then which, without an atonement, would have everlasting life hereafter. But do try, ere stood leagued in hostility against himrn- you embark on that course of new obediwith an atonement, form the best guaran- ence which leadeth to the final abode of tees of his hope and safety. God now is holy and happy creatures-do try to have not only merciful to forgive —He is faith- peace in your conscience with God. Do ful and just to forgive. He will not draw dwell on the simple affirmation which ycu upon the surety, and upon the debtor meet with in the New Testament, of a both. lie will have a full reckoning with Saviour who welcomes all sinners, and of guilt; but Eie will not have more than a a blood which cleanseth from all sin. Do full reckoning by exacting both a penalty let the terrors and the suspicion of guilt and a propitiation: And the man who take their departure from your labouring trusts to the propitiation, may be very bosom; and then emptied of all that kept sure that the penalty will never reach God at a distance from you, will there be hlim. The destroying angel, on finding room for those feelings and those princihim marked with the blood of Christ, will ples which form tne rudiments of the new pass him by; and the agitated sinner creature in Jesus Christ our Lord. Love who sought in vain for rest to the sole of will cast out fear. Delight in God will take his foot, so long as the great peace-offer- the place of dismay. The heart emanciing stood unrevealed to his conscience, pated from bondage, will rise freely and and the tidings of an accepted sacrifice gratefully to Him, in all the buoyancy of fell upon his ear without conviction and its new-felt enlargement. It will be found without efficacy, may, on the moment of that the legal spirit, with its accompanyhis believing in the word of the testimony, ing sensations of jealousy and disquietude feel how firm the transition is which he' and distrust, that this in fact is the mighty maketh from death unto life-when, drag which keeps back the only obedithrough Him who died the just for the ence that is at all acceptable-the obediunjust, he now draws near unto God. ence of good will. And the faith which It finishes our exposition of this pas- we now urge upon you in all its strength sage, when we point your eye to the great and in all its simplicity, is not more the agent in the work of mediation. Grace harbinger of peace to a sinner's heart, reigns through righteousness unto eternal than it is the sure and unfailing get, n nf life, by Jesus Christ our Lord He by his his progressive holiness. LECTURE XXIX.-CHAPTER VI, 1, 2. 147 LECTURE XXIX. ROMANS vi, 1, 2. a What shall we say then? shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. HIow snail we,' that are dead to sin, live ally longer therein? WE have ever been in the habit of re- abrounded grace did much more abound." garding this chapter as the passage of -It is wvel to trace the continuity ot greatest interest in the Biblc —as that in Scripture, broken and disjointed as it is which the greatest quantity of scriptural by the artificial division that has been light is thrown on what to the eye of the made of it into chapters and verses —t general Nworld is a depth and a mystery- read the letter of an inspired writer, as even on that path of transition which you would read the letter of an ordinary leads from the imputed righteousness that acqlaintance, not in sheets, but as an enis by faiith, to the personal righteousness tire composition, through which there that is by new and spiritual obedience. possibly runs the drift of one prevailing WteV know not a single theme in the whole conception which he aims to establish; compass of Christianity, on which there and thus it is that we think to have prorests to the natural discernment a cloud fited, by the perusal of those editions of of thicker obscurity, than that which re- the Bible, which vary from the one tha' lates to the or igin and growth of a believ- is current, by the simple device of om-it er's h(_liness —nor is it seen how, after an ting the verses, and casting it like any immunnity so ample for sin has been pro- ordinary book into sections and paravided by at, atonement of which the pow- graphs. But the possession of the Bible er is infinite as the Divinity Ihimself, there in such a form is by no means indispensarcmainethl any inducement to obedience ble. In reading the bibles that you have, so distinct and palpable and certain of be aware of the concatenation that we operation, as that which is offered by the now speak of; and let it not be fiittered law of' Do this and live'-a law that we away on your minds, by those rnecilaniare given to understand is now superseded cal breaks through which, to a listless by the gospel terms of'Believe and ye peruser. of Holy Writ, the sense is often shall be saved.' It is of importance to interrupted. In guarding against the disknow surely what were the first sugges- advantage which has just been specified, tions which arose in the apostolical mind, you will be led to the habit of comparing vhen met by what appears to be a most scripture with scripture-a habit, which, plausible and pertinent objection taken to if accompanied by that divine illuminathe doctrine of grace, as if' it led to licen- lion without which even the Bible itself is tiousness; or to the doctrine of a free and made up of bare and barren literalities, full remission of sin, as if it encouraged will be altogether tantamount to that habit the disciple to a secure and wanton per- of the apostle, through which he became severance in all its practices. In the a proficient in the wisdom that the Holy apostle's reply to this, we might expect Ghost teacheth —even the habit of comthose ligaments to be made bare to our paring spiritual things with spiritual. view, by which justification and sanctiti- V. 2. " God forbid "-Let us here bid cation are bound together in constant and you remark the prompt decisive and uninseparable alliance; and in virtue of hesitating reply of the apostle, to the which it is, that a sinner both feels him- question wherewith he introduces this self secure from the penalty of sin, and chapter. Paul has by way of eminence keeps himself most strenuously and fear- been called the apostle of justification. fiully aloof from the performance of it. By no other has the doctrine of pardon as We have'already said that it was of held out in free dispensation on the one use to mark the recurrence of similar hand, and as received by simple trust phrases in the train of the apostle's rea- upon the other, been more fully and zealsoning, as it may serve to mark the con- ously vindicated. Heaven, instead of nection of its distant parts, and thus to coming to the sinner through the medium afford a more commanding view of his of wages and work, is made to come to whole argument. We have no doubt that him through the medium of a gift and an the question of this verse "Shall we con- acceptance. One would think from his tinue in sin that grace may abound V"' representation of the matter, that salvawas prompted by a recently written sen- tion was brought to the door of a sinner's tence in the preceding chapter, the very bosom, nay even pressing against it for cadence of which seemed to be still alive admittance; and that you have simply to in the apostle's memory —" Where sin open the door, and by an act of suffer. i48 LECTURE XXIX.-CHAPTER VI, 1, 2. ance to allow its ingress, and thus to feed ing him. We cannot take the dimensions upon it and rejoice. God, the offended of the crime and the carelessness and the party, beseeches the transgressor to be ungodliness, of those years that have low reconciled; and it is when the transgres- rolled over you-But whatever these disor pleases consent and compliance with mensions may be, we are entitled to prothis entreaty, that the act of reconcilia- claim an element of surpassing m gnitude, tion is struck, and an agreement is en- that will pluck the sting out of this sore tered upon. All this is implied in the moral distemper, and most effectually neupreceding argurment of the apostle, and tralise it. Your sin has abounded, and if in the terms of constant recurrence that you feel aright your conscience will rehe employs during the prosecution of it. echo our affirmation; but the grace of The tenure upon which eternal life is God has much more abounded. Be as given, and upon which it is held under sured every one who is now present, that the economy of the gospel-is made there is no sin into which he has ever abundantly manifest, by such phrases as fallen, that is beyond the reach of the'grace,' and'free grace,' and'justifica- great gospel atonement-no guilt of so tion of faith and not of works,' and the deep and inveterate a die, that the blood' gift of' righteousness' on the one hand, of a crucified Saviour cannot wash away. and the' receiving of the atonement' on It is thus that we would cheer and brighten the other. And yet the apostle, warm the retrospect of every sinner's contemfrom the delivery of these intimations, plations. It is thus that we would cast and just discharged of' the tidings of a the offer and assurance of pardon over the sinner's impunity if he will, and within a whole extent of the life that has passed single breath of having uttered that where away; anti, arresting you at this point of there was abundance of guilt there was a your personal history, at which we are superabundance of grace in store for it- pouring forth our present utterance in when met by the question of What then? your hearing —I would say, " Come now shall we do more of this sin, that we may and let us reason together, though your draw more of this grace 3 is ready at the sins were as scarlet they shall become as warning of a single moment, withi a most wool, though they were as crimson they clear and emphatic negative. And he shall be made white as snow." gives his alfrrrmation, before he gives his But the sinner, from the station that he argument upon the subject. On his sim- at this moment occupies, has not merely ple authority as a messenger from God, to look back-he should also look for. he enters his solemn caveat against the ward, and hold up the light of the gospel continuance of sin-so that should you not merely to the region of memory which understand not his reasoning, you may at he has already travelled, but also to the least be fully assured of the truth, that, region of anticipation on which he is en lavish and liberal as the gospel is of its tering. And let it never be forgotten by forgiveness for the past, it has no tolera- you, ye men who are now in earnestness tion either for the purposes or for the and thoughtful inquiry, and for aught we practices of sin in future. know may be at the very turning point of Couple this verse with the one that we your eternal salvation-forget not we say have recently alluded to; and you make that the same gospel which sheds an obliout, from the simple change of tense, as vion over all the sinfulness of your past you pass from the one to the other, two lives, enters upon a war of extermination of the most important lessons of Chris- against all your future sinfulness. You tianity. By the first verse we are told that have not yet come unqder its economy a' where sin abounded grace did much more all, if you have not embarked on the strugabound. By the second we are resolved gle of all your powers and all your puras to the question.'"Shall I continue in poses with the power of iniquity over you sin that grace may abound?" with the de- — nor would we say of' you on the one cisive and unqualified answer of, No most hand that grace has abounded unto the assuredly. With the first of these verses forgiveness of sin, unless we saw of you we feel ourselves warranted, to offer the o.n the other an honest and determined fullest indemnity to the worst and most habit of exertion against the continuance worthless among you, for all the offences, of sin. We may not be able to follow the however many and however aggravated apostle in his argument; but we may at ef your past history. We know not what least take up his affirmation. Whether the measure of your iniquity may have or not we shall see the intermediate steps been. We are not privy to the scenes of I of that process, through which a sinner is profligacy and lawless abandonment, conducted from the sense of his reconcilia. through which you may have passed. tion with God to the strenuousness of a We are not in the secret of any of those conflict that is unremitting against all foul atrocities, wherewith the perhaps now iniquity-yet may we be very sure, from agonised memory of some hearer is charg I the averment before us, that such actually LECTURE XXIX. —CIAPTEI V1; 1, 2 1 49 is the process; and that such, in the case I stand this phrase according to:ae atter of every real believer, is the personal and explanation-ye, the former we, hink the practical result of it. And —not, more ought not to be overlooked, as it involves suiely does the gospel cast a veil over the a principle most true and important ii transgressions by which the retrospect of itself, and brings out an argument agains your history is deformed, than, in some our continuance in sin, which is in mosl way or other, it sends forth a sanative in- striking harmony with one of the most fluence by which to restrain transgression explicit and memorable quotations that throughout the remainder of your pilgrim- can be educed from the whole compass age in the world. of the sacred volume. V. 2. Yet we should like to know the To understand forensically the phrase intervening steps by which a sinner is led that we are dead unto sin, is to understand onwards from his justification to his sane- that for sin we are dead in law. The tificaltion; and more especially when we doom of death was upon us on account of find that curiosity in this matter, is war- sin; and we were in the condition of ranted by the apostle himself leading the malefactors, on whomn capital sentence way, in a train of argumentation which had been pronounced, and who were now he presents throughout the whole line of in that place of imprisonment from whence the chapter before us. To follow the they were shortly to be led forth to exeapostle with a view thoroughly to under- cution. Conceive that the whole amount stand his reasoning upon this subject, is of the punishment for sin was the simple not surely any attempt on our part to be annihilation of the sinner-that, just as wise above that which is written, but under a civil government a criminal is rather the altogether fair and legitimate often put to death for the vindication of attempt to be wise up to that which is its authority and for the removal of a written. And we repeat that we know of nuisance from society, so, let it be imano track in the field of Christianity more gined, that, under the jurisprudence of hidden from the general eye, and yet of Heaven, an utter extinction of being was mfore big and eventful importance in the laid upon the sinner, both for the purpose history of every believer, tha_ that by of maintaining. in respect and authority, which he is carried onward from the re- Heaven's law, and also for the purpoze mission of his sin to the renewal of his of removing a nuisance and a contaminasoul-and so is made to exemplify the tion from the great spiritual family. Let walk of one, who feels himself to be se- us further imagine, not merely thiat the cure against the punishment of sin, and sentence is pronounced, but that the senyet sets himself in the attitude of deter- tence is executed; that the life of the mined and unsparing warfare against its transgressor is taken away; and that, by power. an act of extermination reaching to the It is altogether essential to our under- soul as well as to the body, the whole standing the sense of the apostle's argu- light of consciousness is put out, and he is ment, that we find the import of the phrase expunged altogether from the face of "dead unto sin;" and it so happens that God's animated creation. There could be it admits of a twofold interpretation, which no misunderstanding of the phrase, if' might serve to bewilder us, did not each when, in speaking of this individual after of them suggest an argument against our all this had befallen him, you were to say continuance in sin, that is in every way that he was dead unto or dead fior sin; accordant with some of the plainest and and such an announcerment regarding him most unambiguous passages in the New were just as distinctly intelligible, as Testament. when you tell of one who has undergone The term'dead,' in the phrase'dead the capital sentence of the law, that he arito sin,' may be understood forensically was one who for his crimes had suffered -in which case it is not meant that we execution. are dead in fiact, but dead in law; or it It is conceivable after such a catasmay be understood personally, in which trophe, that God may have devised a case the being dead unto sin will mean way, by which, in consistency with HIis that we are dead thereunto in our affec- own character and with all the purposes lions for it-that we are no longer alive of His government, He might remake and to the power of its allurements; but that, reanimate the creature who had underin virtue of the appetites of our sensitive gone this infliction-might assemble the firarne being mortified to the pleasures particles of his now dissipated materialismn which are but for a season, we sin not as into the same body as before, and might we wont, just because the incitements to infuse into it a spirit, on which He shall sin have not the power they wont to stamp the very same identical consciousseduce us unto the ways of disobedience. ness as before, and thus introduce it once It may be remarked ere we proceed again within that universe of life where it f.rther, that many commentators under- wont to expatiate. The phrase we are 150 LECTURE XX1X.-CHAPTER VTI,!, 2. dead unto sin, might still adhere to him, though this doom was borne by anothei though now alive from the dead. It had and so borne away from tLiem. Had they been still our rightful sentence, and we actually died for sin, and by the services would otill have been lying under it-had of a mediator been brought alive againnot some expedient been fallen upon, or the argument would have been, How shall some equivalent been rendered, in virtue we who died for sin, now that we live of which it is that we have been recalled continue in that which is so incompatible from the chambers of dark nonentity, and with the divine government, that, wherever been made to break forth again upon a it exists, it behoves by death to be swept peopled scene of sense and intelligence away? And the argumentis just as strong and feeling. And in these circumstances, though the services of the Mediator are is it for us to continue in sin-we who for applied sooner, and are of effect to presin wvere consigned to annihilation, and vent the death instead of recovering it. have only by the kindness of a Saviour Such is the malignity of sin, that, under been rescued from it-is it for us to repeat its operation, we would have been blotted that thing, of whose malignity we have out from the living universe-such is the had in our own persons such a dreadful sacredness of God that sin cannot exist experience? Is it for us, on whom the within the precincts of His loving-kindblow of God's insulted and provoked au- ness; and so we, who lay under its conthority has so tremendously fallen, and demnation, would, but for a Redeemer's who under its force would still, but for a services, have been deposed from our Redeemer's interference, have been pro- standing in creation. We were as good foundly asleep in the womb of nothing- as dead, for the sentence had gone forth, ness-is it for us again to brave the dis- and was coming in sure aim and fatality pleasure of that God whose hatred of sin on our devoted persons, when Christ stepis as unchangeable as his sacredness is ped between, and, suffering it to light upon unchangeable?-Above all is it for us, Himself, carried it away. And shall we, who have had such recent demonstration who, because of sin, were then on the point of the antipathies that subsist between sin of extermination from a scene for which and holiness-is it for us, who experimen- sin had unfitted us-shall we continue in tally know that under the government of sin, after an escape has been thus made the one there for the other can be no good for us? Shall we do that thing, the harbour and no toleration-is it for us, doing of which would have been our death, who have learned from our own history, had it not been for a redeeming process that sin is not permitted so much as to whereby life was preserved to us; and is breathe within the limits of God's beloved it at all conceivable, that this redemption family, and that to keep it clear of a would have been wrought, and that foi scandal so foul and so enormous He roots the very purpose of upholding us in the up every plant and specimen that is very sin which made our redemption nestained bv it-is it fbr us who, have thus cessary? once been rooted up and once been swept To use the term dead in a forensic away, but, by the stretching forth of a meaning, is not a gratuitous or unautho. mediatorial hand, have again been sum- rised interpretation on our part. We moned to the being and the birthright we have the example of Paul himself for it, formerly had in the inheritance of chil- in that memorable passage of first Corin. dren-is it for us to repeat that abomina- thians, where he says, that "we thus tion which is as uncongenial to the whole judge, that as Christ died for all, then tone and spirit of the Divinity now as were all dead"-not personally dead-net ever; and will remain as offensive to His dead in regard of affection for what was eye, and as utterly irreconcilable to His sinful; but dead in law-dead in respect nature through all eternity? of that sure condemnation, which, but for Now the argument retains its entireness, Christ, would have been fulfilled upon al. though the Mediator should interfere with -not executed but on the eve of execu. His equivalent, ere the penalty of death tion: and whether the Saviour prevent has been inflicted-though instead of the accomplishment of the sentence, ol drawing them out of the pit of destruc- revive and restore them after it, the argu. tion, He by ransom should deliver them ment of the apostle is the same. Christ from going down into that pit —though, by dying, and that to preserve them from instead of suffering them to die for their dying, did as much for them, as if He had sins and then reviving them from their brought them back again from the chamstate of annihilation, He should himself bers of death-as if He had put life inte die for them: and they, freed from the them anew, after it was utterly extin. execution of the sentence, should be con- guished-as if He had placed them once tinued in that life of which they had in- again within the limits of God's family, curred the forfeiture. Still they were dead and given them a second standing on the in law. To die was their rightful doom, platform of life, from which sin had be. LECTURE XXIX.-CHAPTER VI, 1 2. 15 fore swept them off. It is making Christ redeemed man, may now perseveringly the author of our life, which He is as ef- indulge, under the new arrangement, in fectually by preventing its extermination, that which under the old arrangement deas He would have been by infusing it stroyed him Does not the God who anew into us after it was destroyed; and loved righteousness and hated iniquity six the practical lesson comes out as impres- thousand years ago, bear the same love to sively in the one case as in the other- righteousness and the same hatred to even that we should give up the life to Him iniquity still 1 And well lmay not the who thus has kept or who thus has recall- sinner say-if on my own person such a ed it, or that we should live no longer to dreadful memorial of God's hatred to sin o)urselves but to Him who died for us and was on the eve of being inflicted, as that who rose again. of everlasting destruction from His preWVe trust you may now perceive, how sence-if the awfulness of such a vindicimpressive the consideration is on which tive manifestation was about to be realwe are required to give up sin under the ised on me individually, when a great economy of the gospel. For sin we were Mediator interposed; and, standing beall under sentence of death. Had the tween me and God, bare in his own body sentence taken effect, we would all have the whole brunt of His coming vengeance been outcasts flom God's family. Sinl is -if when thus kept from the destruction that scandal which must be rooted out, which sin drew upon me and so as good fiom that great spiritual household over as if rescued from that abyss of destrucwhich the Divinity rejoices-so that on its tion into which sin had thrown me, I now very first appearance, an edict of expul- breathe the air of loving-kindness frcm sion went forth; and men became exiles Heaven, and can walk before God in from the domain of' Almighty favour, just peace and graciousness-Shall I again because they were sinners. It is con- attempt the imcompatible alliance of two ceivable that the sentence might be ar- principles so adverse, as that of an aprested, or that it might be recalled; but it proving God and a persevering sinner; were strange indeed, if, after being doom- or again try the Spirit of that Being, who, ed to exile because they had been sinners, in the whole process of my condemnation they should cease to be exiles and be sin- and my rescue has given such proof of ners still. Strange administration indeed most sensitive and unspotted holiness 3 for sin to be so hateful to God, as to lay There shall be nothing, says God, to all who had incurred it under death; and hurt or to offend in all my holy mountain. yet when readmitted into life, that sin It is in conformity to this, that death is should be permitted, and what was before inflicted upon the sinner; and this death the object of destroying vengeance should is neither more nor less than his expulsion now become the object of an upheld and from the family of holiness. Through protected toleration. Every thing done Jesus Christ, we come again unto mount and arranged by God- -bears upon it the Zion, which is the heavenly Jerusalem; impress of His character. And it was in- and it is as fresh as ever in the verdure deed fell demonstration of His antipathy of a perpetual holiness. How shall we to sin, under the first arrangement of who were found unfit for residence in this matters between Him and the species, that, place because of sin, continue in sin after when it entered our world, the doom of our readmittance therein 3 How shall we, extermination from all favour and fellow- recovered from so awful a catastrophe, ship with God should instantly go forth continue that which first involved us in against it. And now that the doom is it? or again take on that disease which taken off-think you it possible, that the has already evinced itself to be of such unchangeable God has so given up His virulence, as to be a disease unto death. antipathy to sin, as that man, ruined and 15:2 LECTURE XXX.-CHAPTER VIM 3-7. LECTURE XXX. ROMANS vi, 3-7. " Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death?'Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death; that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in'newness of life. For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection: Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. For he that is dead is freed from sill." V. 3, 4. THE original meaning of the -or, living anew under the eye of that word baptism is irnmersion, and though God who could not endure the presence we regard it as a point of indifferency, of sin and so consigned it to the exile of whether the ordinance so named be per- death everlasting, shall we live again in formed in this way or by sprinkling-yet that very course which made our former we doubt not, that the prevalent style of existence so offensive to Him and so inthe administration in the apostle's days, compatible with the whole spirit and de. was by an (actual submerging of the sign of His government? Has He changed whole body under water. We advert to His taste or His character? or makes it this, for the purpose of throwing light on any difference to the argument, that a methe analogy that is instituted in these diator interposed and took upon Hlimsell verses. Jesus Christ by death underwent the whole weight of that avenging arm, this sort of baptism-even immersion un- which was lifted up for our extermination? der the surface of the ground, whence He Is not the exhibition of God's hatred and soon emerged again by IIis resurrection. hostility to sin just as impressive, that the We by being baptized into His death, are stroke of jealousy fell upon the head of conceived to have made a similar transla- His own Son, as it would have been, had tion. In the act of descending under the it fallen on the guilty millions, whom this water of baptism to have resigned an old mighty Captain shielded from the vindiclife, and in the act of ascending to emerge tive discharge that else would have overinto a second or a new life-along the whelmed us? And whether these billows course of which it is our part to maintain of wrath have all been broken on the Rock a strenuous avoidance of that sin, which of our Salvation; or first made to pass as good as expunged the being that we over us, we had again been summoned had formerly; and a strenuous prosecu- from the depth and caused to emerge anew tion of that holiness, which should begin into the sunshine of God's reconciled with the first moment that we were ush- countenance-does it not equally trove ered into our present being, and be per- that He, the everlasting enemy of sin, will, petuated and make progress toward the in any new economy that lie may instiperfection of fuill and ripened immortallity. tute, still evince it to be that hateful thing "Baptized into His death" —or regard- for which He has no taste, and can have ing ourselves as if like Him we had Iac- no toleration? tually been slain and buried, and like Him So much for the application of the brought forth anew and made alive again, phrase 1" dead unto sin," when understood before that God who for our sins had swept forensically. We trust that however irnus beyond the circle of [his favoured crea- perfectly we may halve illustrated this tion. This would have been had not part of the argument, you have been made Christ died; and though IIe by pouring to perceive that there is in it the force and out His soul for us, has kept us in the the power ofa most imnpressive considerafavour that else would have been forfeited tion; and, whether you have seized upon and that for ever-yet the argument is the it or not, be at least very sure of thissame, if prevenlted from going down into that, such is the fact of the matter. there the pit, as if after being cast headlong into is no indulgence for sin under the dispenit for our sins we had again been extri- sation of the gospel. It is a restorative c*ated therefrom. How shall we whom sin dispensation, by which you are alike kept had at that time blotted out from the fanlily from the penalty of sin and cured of its of life, now that we are readmitted, again polluting virulence. It restores you to the Indulge in it? How shall we run counter favour of Gotd, but it restores vou not to to those holy antipathies of the divine na- the liberty of sinning; and tile argument ture, of the strength and irreconcilableness wherewith we would arm and fortify the of which we already in our own persons principles of all who now feel themselves have had so fell a manifestation? How alive in Christ Jesus is-shall we continue shall we, rescued from destruction, again in that hateful thing which would have welcome to our embraces the destroyer? brought me to the death, had not my LECTURE XXX. —CHAPTER VI, 3-7. 153 Saviour, for my deliverance and preser- "dead unto sin " —yet let us not forbear vation, bowed down His head unto the to urge the personal sense of it, as implysacrifice? ing such a deadness of affection to sin, We have already tried to set forth in such an extinction of the old sensibility your hearing the forensic interpretation, to its allurements and its pleasures, as that might be given of the phrase "dead that it has ceased from its wonted power unto s'n" —dead for sin-not that the sen- of ascendency over the heart anrd charactence was inflicted, but that the sentence ter of him who was formerlv its slave. was pronounced; and the argument why We think that this sense too was in the they should not continue in sin, is as mind of the apostle; and that he speedily strongly applicable to those who are de- takes it up in the prosecution of his argulivered from a doom that was impending, ment. But we are rather induced to beas to those who are recalled from a doom lieve, that he starts his argument with the that was actually executed. There were phrase understood forensically-that out a most direct force in the consideration- of the premises already established he should a revived criminal press it upon his gathers an immediate and very powerful moral feelings-how can I recur to that dissuasive against the continuance of the which is so odious in the sight of my believer in sin-that, without assuming as country's government, that I had to suffer yet any revolution of' desire on his part, a death for it, from which I, by a miracle he plies him with a question which ought perhaps of mercy, have been restored? by its moral influence to work such a And it ought to be as powerful a conside- revolution, and a question too that emaration with a reprieved criminal, whose nates direct from the truth about which sentence has been suspenlded, and per- the apostle had just been previously emhaps by the intercession of a Mediator ployed, even that Christ (lied for us; or, been finally withdrawn. The recurrence in other words, that we, under a rightful to that which brought down the sentence, sentence of death, had yet been suffered were just as monstrous a violence done to to live by the transference of the doom the whole spirit and object of the admin- upon the person of another. And shall istration under which I live, in the one we in these circumstances, persist in docase as in the other; and( be assured that ing the very thing that had brought that there were the very same violence done to doom upon us?-a very pertinent question the spirit of Heaven's administration- most assuredly at this stage of' his reashould those who are redeemed from death soning; and a question, which, did it tell under the economy of the gospel, live in with the impression it ought on the heart that which had sunk them under so fear- of' a disciple, would lead him to abjure ful a condemnation. For sin we were sin; and so fiom the thought that he was ready to (lie. For sin we would have died dead unto it forensically, would it conduct ihad not Christ interposed, and undergone him to the reality of being dead unto it in His own person that shedding of blood actually and habitually and personally. without which remission is impossible. But you will surely perceive that, to The demonstration given of God's antipa- bring about this effect, something more is thies to the power and existence of sin in necessary than merely to address to the His kingdom, is as strong by the falling corrupt mind of man some new moral of the deadly blow upon the head of a suasion that had never been brought to Mediator, as if it had fallen direct on the bear upon it. We are not aware that it head of those He died for. And shall we lies within the influence of any argument from whom the stroke of vengeance has to deaden the appetites of nature for that been averted-shall we who are still in which is sinful. It is true, that, in conselife but virtually in a lifoe firom the dead quence of what Christ hath donle, a new — shall we who in Christ may so read topic and a new suggestion can be offered what but for Him would have happened to the sinner, which had Christ not done, to ourselves, as to be baptized into His no such topic could have at all been death and to be planted together in the urged upon him. But we fear that it is likeness of it-shall we, kept from falling not enough to bring argument however into the abyss of condemnation, and there- powerful from without, whereby to assail fore as good as if summoned again from the feelings and propensities of the human its depths on the platform of God's fa- heart-that additional to the great outvoured and rejoicing famnily —continue in ward transaction of Christ's atoning death, that hateful thing, which but for Christ from which we have endeavoured to fetch would have destroyed us, and of God's a persuasive for turning from all iniquity abhorrence to which the atoning death of -there must be also an inward operation Christ gives so awful and impressive a upon every disciple, eme the persuasive manifestation? can be so listened to as to be practically But while we have thus insisted on the effectual: or, in'other words,-as, through forensic interpretation of the phrase what Christ hath done for us we are fo. 20 ~54 LECTURE XXX.-CHAPTER VI) 3-7. rensically dead unto sin, so, that we may the great penalty, as if we had borne ii be regarded as having already undergone ourselves-in that as with Him the hour the curse in Hlim-so, there must also be and the power of darkness have now a scmething done in us, a personal change passed away, and never again to go ovet wrought, a deadening process undergoqe Him; so we, just as if we had undergone whereby >iXa is no longer of power over the same trial and the same baptism, us. come forth acquitted of all our trespasses Now though this be the work of the and the hand of the avenging adversary Spirit-yet the Spirit accommodates His shall never reach us. work to the nature of the subject upon And as we thus share in Hiis death, so which Ile is emlploved. Hie treats man as shall we also share in Ilis resurrection. a rational and intelligent being. It is not From the humiliation of the grave, He by the resistlessness of a blind impulse, arose to the heights of sublilmest glory. that IHe carries any given effect on the By what He hath borne in our stead, we desires of the heart-but by making man now stand as exempted from punishment see what is desirable, and then choose it, as if we had borne it ourselves. By what and then labour after it with all the stren- He hath done of positive obedience in our uousness of a willing and purposing and stead, He hath not only been highly exacting creature. He does not become alted in His own person; but HIe hath personally dead unto sin, or personally made us the partakers of His exaltation, alive unto righteousness, but by the ope- to the rewards of which we shall be proration of the Holy Ghost. Yet this ope- moted as if we had rendered the obediration is not a simple Jiat, by which the ence ourselves. And it is thus that we transition is brought about without the understand the being planted together steps of such a process-as marks the with Him in the likeness of His death, judgment, and the feeling, anld the con- and the being planted totgether with Him science, and the various other mental fac- in the likeness of His resurrection. ulties of him who is made to undergo this The sixth verse we think ushers in great regeneration. Agreeably to the the transition firom the forensic to the language of our Shorter Catechism, though personal. By being dead unto sin we this be the work of' God's Spirit-yet it is understand that we are spoken of' as in a work whereby He convinces and He the condition of having already underenlightens the mind, and He renews the gone the penalty of' death, and so being will, and HIe persuades to that which is acquitted of this great penal consequence right, and He enables for the performance of' sin. We get into this condition, not by of it. Let us endeavour, if possible, to actually sufiering the death; but, as it is trace the succession of' those moral influ- expressed in the third verse, by being ences, by which man under the gospel is baptized unto the death of Christ, and so conducted from the natural state of being as in the fourth verse by being buried alive to sin and to the world, to the state with Him in this baptism, and in the fifth of being dead unto these things and alive verse planted together with Him in the unto God. likeness of His death-All indicative of V. 5, 6.-We are planted together in our being forensically dealt with on acthe likeness of His death-by His death count of Christ's death, just as if we ourHe bore the curse of a violated law and selves had undergone the suffering which now it has no further charge against for us He hath endured. And we would Him. He acquitted Himself to the full even carry this style of interpretation to of all its penalties; and now He is for the first clause of' the sixth verse; and ever exempted against any future reck- understand by the old man being crucified oning with a creditor whomn He has con- with Him, that the sinner is now to be clusively set aside; and just because he reckoned with, just as if, in his own has completely satisfied him. He is now person, he had sustained the adequate that immortal Vine, who stands forever punishment of that guilt, for which Christ secure and beyond the reach of any de- rendered the adequate expiation. And all vouring blight from the now appeased this however for a posterior end-all this enemy; and we who by faith are united for a purpose specified in the remaining with Him as so many branches, share in part of the verse now under consideration this blessed exemption along with Him. -all this for the achievement of such a We have as good as had the sentence of personal change upon the believer, as death discharged upon us already. In that in him the body of sin might at Christ our propitiation we have rendered length be altogether destroyed; and that the executor all his dues. In Him our henceforth, or from the moment of his surety we have paid a debt, for which we becoming a believer, he might not serve can no longer be craved or reckoned sin. with. And here we are like unto Christ in This tallies with another -part of the that u, are secure from the visitation of Bible, where it is said that Christ gave LECTURE XXX.-CHAPTER VI, 3-7. 15' nimself up for us-suffered in our stead- chambers of the inner man, without any died the death that legally impended over new affection to succeed it. The fornm, j us, so that the sentence is as much over favourite will retain his place and hit and away from us, as if it had been in- ascendancy there, till he is supplanted by flicted on our own persons-This He did a new one, ready to take up his room, and for an end even posterior to that of our to give the sensation of full and well-liked deliverance from condemnation-for an company-so as not to leave the heart in end analogous to the one stated in the a state of dreary and woful abandonment. verse before us-even that the body of sin It is thus that the man who feels his only niight be destroyed, and that we should portion to be on earth, and that heaven is not serve sin; or, as we have it in the hopelessly beyond his reach, resigns himrnpassage now referred to, that He might self to the full and undivided sway of redeem us from all iniquity and purify us earthly affections. He cannot bid them unto himself a peculiar people zealous of away from him. They cleave to him good works. with a tenacity and a power of adherence, Now where it may be asked is the con- that nothing but the mastery of a new nection 1 How comes it that because we affection can possibly overcome; and are partakers in the crucifixion of Christ, whence, if heaven is impregnably shut so that the law has no further severity to against him, whence can he fetch the discharge upon us-how comes it that instrument that will drive out the legion this should have any effect in destroying of earthly feelings and earthly desires the body of sin, or in emancipating us and earthly idolatries, which now lord it from the service of sin? Whence is it over him, and have established the empire. that exoneration from the penalty, should and tyranny cf sin within the confines of lead to emancipation from the power his moral and spiritual nature? Let it be What is the hidden tie that conducts the his feeling that heaven is unattainable; believer from being forensically dead and this will chill and discourage within into sin, to his being personally dead him all longing for the enjoyments thal unto sin also? How is it that the fact of are there-so that his love of the enjoy. his being acquitted leads to the fact of his ments which are here, will keep undis. being sanctified? and what is the precise I turbed possession of his soul and give nature of that step which conducts from the character and the colour of atheism to the pardon of a reconciled, to the purity all its movements. He will live without of a regenerated creature? God in the world; and never till the faThere can be no doubt that the Spirit yvour of God be made accessible to hirn — of God both originates and carries forward never till the joys of the upper Paradise the whole of this process. He gives the are placed within his reach-never till faith which makes Christ's death as avail- the barrier be thrown down, which deable for our deliverance from guilt, as if fends his approaches to the happy world we had suffered the death in our own that lies in the distant futurity away from persons; and He causes the faith to ger- him-never till then will the powers of minate all those moral and spiritual in- the world that is to come carry it over the fluences, which bring about the personal pleasures of the world that is present, and transformation that we are enquiring of. by which he is immediately surrounded. But these He does, in a way that is agree- The old affictions will cleave and keep able to the principles of our rational their obstinate and undisputed hold, just nature; so that His agency does not su- because the proper engine is not brought persede the question-how is it that a into contact with the heart, athd which belief on our part, that we are so far can alone avail for the dispossession of partakers of the death of Christ as to par- them. They will not give way at a sim. take in the deliverance which it hath ple mandate from the chair of' reason or wrought from the guilt of sin-how is it philosophy; and nothing can expel them that this belief destroys the being of sin from the bosom-but the powerful and upon our persons, and releases us from victorious rivalship of new affections sent that slavery in which Nature is held to into the heart, from new objects placed its allurements and its charms, within the grasp either of certain or ol WVe apprehend one way of it, to be possible attainment. through the expulsive power of a new Now the death of Christ is the breaking nffection to dispossess an old one from down of the else insuperable barrier. It the heart. You cannot destroy your love has fetched other objects from afar, and:)f sin, by a simple act of extermination. placed them within the attainment of sinYou cannot thus bid away from your ful man, and presented them to his free boson-,, one of its dearest and oldest fa- choice, and brought the delights of eter. vourites. Our moral nature abhors the nity to his very door-so that, if he just vacuum that would be formed, by an old have faith to perceive them, he is brought affection taking its departure from the into the very condition, that, by the bias J15.6 LECTURE XXX.-CHAPTER. VI, 3-7. of his moral and sentient nature, is most how the heart of such a man may be favourable to the extinction of old appe- engrossed with the play of all those anx. titres, and that just by the intruding and ieties and feelings and mental appetites, dispossessing power of a new one. The which are incidental to such a condition things that are above now lie at his door -how wedded he is to his own little con for acceptance, and are urgently solicit- cern-how watchful of the turns and ing admittance within the repositories of movements that may afLtct its prosperity his heart, and we may now bid him set -and, withal, how complacently he cher. his whole affection on the things that are ishes the anticipation of that decent coinabove-which ift' he does, like the rod of petency, which forms the all he has Aaron, it will swallow up all his subordi- learned to aspire after. You must see nlate and earthly desires; and he will how impossible it were to detach the afhenceforth cease to set his affections upon fections of this individual from the obthe things that are beneath. Let him just jects and the interests of this his favourite by faith look upon himself as crucified course, by a simple demonstration of their,with Christ; and then he will have got vanity; and with what moral tenacity he over that wall of separation, which stood would cleave to the pursuits of his present between him and a joyful immortality. gainfulness; and what a mighty and peThat spiritual and everlasting death, culiar force Were necessary, to disengage which is the natural doom of every sin- him from the operations of that counter ner, is now as good as traversed, and got over which there was unceasingly kept over by him —for, in the person of his up the most agreeable play that was dying Saviour with whom he stands asso- within the reach of his ever arriving at. ciated in the whole power and effiect of But just suppose, that, in some way or His atonement, he has already borne the other, this reach were greatly extended whole weight of this condemnation; and and, either some splendid property, or there is now nothing between him and some sublime walk of high and hopeful that heaven, all the facilities and glories adventure, were placed within his attain-'of which have now entered into cornpeti- ment: and the visions of a far more glo*tion with the world and its evanescent rious affluence were to pour a light into gratifications-And it is thus that the his mind, which greatly overpassed and world is disarmed of its power of sinful so eclipsed all the fairness of those hometemptation. It is thus that the cross of lier prospects that he wont to indulge in Christ crucifies the world unto you, and - Is it not clear to all your discernments you unto the world. It is thus that sin that the old affection which he could nevreceives its death-blow, by its old mastery er get rid of by simple annihilation, will over the healrt being dethroned and done come to be annihilated, and that simply away, through the still more comm-anding by giving place to the new one-that the mastery of other affections, which is now field of' employment f.,om whicch no force competent for man to have, because the could have torn him, he now willingly objects of them are now placed within abandons, and that just for the more althe reach of its attainment. It is thus luring field on which he has been invited that the cross of Christ, by the same to enter —that the meaner ambition has,mighty and decisive stroke wherewith it now disappeared from his bosom, and has moved the curse'of sin away from us, just because the loftier ambition has overalso moves away the power and the love borne it-that the game in which he asof sin from over us. And we no longer pired after hundreds is now given over, mind earthly things, just because better and just because a likelier game of many things are now within our offer, and our thousands has enticed him away from it conversation is in heaven-whence we -that the worship he formerly rendered also look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus to an ido of brass is now renounced, and Christ. just because seduced from it )y the supeAnd this is in perfect analogy with rior fascination of that worship which he other and most familiar exhibitions of our is now rendering to an idol of gold? Do nature, in the scenes of business and or- not you see from this, how it is that the dinary affairs. Let us just conceive a higher idolatry has superseded the lower; man embarked, with full and earnest am- and also how it is, that both idolatries are.bition, on some humble walk of retail to be extinguished-how it is that if we merchandi;e-whose mind is wholly ta- had only faith to realis; the magnificence ken tup through the year, with the petty of eternity, and to believe that through fluctuations that are taking place in pri- the death of Christ.he portal was now ces ~).nd profits and customers; but who opened to its blessedness and its glory, nevertheless is regaled by the annual that this would deaden all our worldliness examination of particulars at the end of together —Not merely laying one species it, with the view of some snug addition to of earthly ambition, by the lighting up of his old accumulations, You can figure another; but disposing of all by the para LECTURE XXX.-CHAPTER VTI 3-7. 157 mount importance of an object, that freely invited to partake-then will it be greatly surpassed all, and so absorbed seen, that, the firmer his trust, the faster all I)oes not this throw explanation on will be the practical hold that the unseen the mystery of sin being slain in its influ- world takes of his heart. and the more ences, simply by a believing view on our powerful its controlling influence over the part of sin slain in its curse and condem- whole of' his habits and his history. The nation; and how, after all, the mighty in- faith in a free pardon, which some might strument for achieving our deliverance apprehen d would rivet him to sin, has from the power of things seen and sensi- just the effect of disenchanting him fiom btle, is otur confidence in the efficacyv of that territory of sense where its wiles and that death which has opened up for us its entanglements are laid. The stronger access to things eternal-so as to make the faith is, in the neainess and certainty this the vi tory that overcometh the world, of the coming heaven-the fuller is the even our faith. access into the believer's soul, of a taste And this illustration, by the way, may for heaven's joys, and an impulse towards help to show hoxv the gospel can do what heaven's services. It is the very thing the law cannot do. Were the humble which reaches that exterminating blow, trafficker asked to purchase for himself whereby the body of sin or the being of some place of' occupancy and lucrative sin is destroyed; and the man is dispospartnership on that higher course, where sessed of the tyranny wherewith it had merchants. are called princes, and are lorded over him, and now ceases to be its held to be the honourable of the earth-it slave-just because the death of Christ is likely that the consciousness of' utter has opened for him the gates of everlastinability for the enterprise, would check ing blessedness, and his heart transfornmed all his ambitious tendencies within the from the present evil world is conformed sphere that he already moved in, and lead to the delights and the doings of the upper him to lavish as before every energy and paradise. affection that belonged to him on the We are far from having touched on all scene of his present hopes and present the principles, which come into living and anxieties. But, instead of the place being actual play within the believer's heart; sold, were the place given to him —were and by which he is conducted from the he freely and gratuitously offered admis- state of being crucified with Christ forension to it with all the flattery of its thriving sically, to the state of being crucified with channels and splendid anticipations- him personally-so that he dies unto the there were then a moving power to dis- power of sin; and, through the Spirit, enchant him from all his present affec- mortifies the deeds done in his body; and tions, in the things held forth to him as a finally crucifies the flesh with its affecpresent, which it never had when held tions and lusts. But let it here be reforth to him in the shape of a bargain, to marked, that, in the bringing of this about, the termsof which his means were totally there is a strong likeness, in point of and hopelessly inadequate. And, in like moral history and example, between manner, should any chiid of this world Christ and His faithful disciple. There is that is armongst us, have heaven set forth a real analogy between the death for sin to him as the reward of that obedience on undergone by the former, and the mortiwhich heaven could look with compla- fication unto the power of sin that is un3ency-there were a sense of incompe- dergone by the latter. There is a simitency for the task, which would lead him larity between the spiritual exercise, to place this spiritual region at an im- which conducted the Saviour to that vicpracticable distance away from him; and, tory which He achieved over the world in with the feeling that earth was his alone dying for its salvation; and that spiritual portion, would he still grovel as before exercise, which conducts the believer to among the pursuits and the pleasures of the victory which he achieves over the that scene of carnality, on which he all world, in (lying unto the sinfulness of its along had been wont to expatiate. But earthly affections. The one for the joy let heaven, instead of being exposed as that was set before Him endured thecross; the purchase of his merit, be set before and the other for the same joy, now set him as a present to his necessities-in- freely and gratuitously before him, en. stead of the law bidding him acquire it dures the cross that is laid by the gospel by his doings, let the gospel bid him re- on nature's inclinations. The one made a ceive it as the gift of God through Jesus voluntary renunciation of all that was in Christ our Lord-in a word, instead of the world, on leaving it; and the other holding it forth to him for a price to be makes the same voluntary renunciation, paid by himself, let it be held forth to him in transferring his love to that God, the as the fruit of that price which the Saviour love of whom is opposed to the love of the nath already rendered, by a death in the world. We mistake the nature of Christ's whole power and value of which he is work upon earth, if we think not that lIe LECTURE XXX.-CHAPTER VI, 3-7. had to struggle with the fascinations of when death the wages of s'n is rendered this world's pleasures, and the seducing to the sinner, the final settlement is made, ilnatri lce of' this world's glories-for the and they become free the one from the God,f this world hath power to try Him other. Now it is true that these bitter though not to prevail over Him; and in wages of sin were inflicted not upon us all respects was He tempted like as we but upon Christ; but for us He sustained are. From His infancy to His death, was them, and we are in as exempt a condlition there a contest of strenuousness and suf- from any further reckoning on account fering and self-denial; and all, that He of' sin, as if the adjustment had been made might win the victory over a world that with us the principals, instead of' being plied IHim with countless idolatries. And made with Christ the surety-or as if we as vwas the lMaster so is the servant. WVe had borne the whole punishment-or as have to follow Him in the steps of this if death, which is the fruit of sin, had holy waifaire. The cross is little counted been actually laid upon us. upon in these days of soft and silken pro- Now it is very clear how this should fessorship; and smooth indeed is that rightfully firee us from the punishment; pilglIimAge, through which many are but how should it also free us from the looking iorward to the triumphs of a power? We have already unfilded one coming eternity. But let us not deceive way, in which deliverance from t,.e former ourselves. There is a process of cruci- leads to deliverance from the latter; and fixion that must be gone through, not upon the text suggests another way of' it. Sin the flesh as with the Saviour, but upon the is here represented in the light of a tyrant, affections of the flesh. There must be a and the sinner as his slave. But let it be striving against sin, if not unto the death remembered, that there is a personal and of the body, at least unto the death of its a living tyrant, from whose cruel and dearest and most darling appetites. There malignant breast the whole mischief of mnls. be a winding up of the purposes and sin has emanated upon our world-one energies of the spiritual power, to that with whom the extension of sin is a matter pitch of resistance against the sinfulness of' power and of policy-one whose dearof nature, which wound up the soul of our est ambition is concerned in the warfare, Redeemer to the resolute giving up of that is now going forward between the Himself' unto the sacrifice. And though principles of light and of darkness-one the death unto sin, and the baptism unto whose heart is set upon the object of that death. and the being planted with bringing men under the dominion of sin, Christ in the likeness of it, and the being and who finds his full and final gratificaplanted with Him, have been here under- I tion in the execution of the curse which it stood and reasoned upon forensically-yet afterwvards entails upon them. The erour faith in this understanding of it, has rand upon which the Saviour came, was not wrought its gelnuine effect upon us, to destroy the works of the devil; and unless we are dying unto the power of sin you all perceive how, by his death upon in our affections; and are purifying our- the cross, He lifted the curse and the selves in the waters of spiritual baptism; punishment of sin at least away from all and are daily likening unto Christ, in that xVho believe on Him, and how they who superiority over the world which led Him by faith are dead in Him are freed at to surrender it; and are inflicting the least from condemnation. They have violence of crucifixion on all that is sin- been extricated from the tyrant's grasp, ful in the propensities of nature-So as in as fir' as death and the power of death that we are not merely judicially dealt are concerned. He has no further claimr with as if in our own persons we had upon them, as the subjects of that infernal suffered and died-but really and histori- kingdom, where he is to hold the reign of cally, in these persons, do we share with terror and of vengeance throughout all Christ in the fellowship of His sufferings eternity: and where, in addition to the and in a confortnity to His death. penal torments wherewith he shall exerV. 7. Here again I would understand a cisc his unhappy victim<, the agency of forensic death-the death we are counted their own sinful passions will lay a heavy to have suffered in Christ as a penalty for burden on the misery that overweighs sin, the death which releases us from all them. It is not enough adverted to-how.further charge and reckoning because of much sin is its own punishment-how sin-the death which as effectually shields much, by the very mechanism of our us from the further inflictions of' severity sentient nature, wretchedness and wickfrom the unrelenting exactor, as the dying edness are allied the one with the otherof the slave secures his escape from the how inherently and how essentially sufcruelties of that tyrant, beyond whose fering and moral evil are ever found in reach he is now situated. The connec- company-that there is an essential bittion between the master and the servant terness in sin itself, independently of any ceases with the payment of wages; and arbitrary infliction which in the shape of LECTURE XXX.- — CHAPTER VI, 3-7. 159 fire or of any material chastisement may and personal and withal most actively be laid upon it in hell-and that this is vicious and vindictive adversary, who is just as true of sin under the gospel as altogether intent on the object of retainunder the law. The new economy under ing as entire and unbroken a moral aswhich we live has not so altered the char- cendancy as he can possibly achieve over acter or the constitution of things, as that our species. You know how it is, that, by goodness shall not of itself be a matter of death Christ hath destroyed him who has elnjoyment, and as tnat sin shall not of the power of death, that is the devil —hcw itself be matter of anguish and tribula- He stood to have all wreaked upon Him. tioli. The gospel has not changed the self; which could be rightfully inflicted bitter into a sweet. It has not given a upon us because of our disobedience — new set of properties to the affections of how, after this, we, who partake in the our moral nature. It has not infused the benefits of -His death, may challenge an feeling of solemn and sacred delight into exemption from the cruel mastery of him the affection of ungodliness. It has not who wont to maintain a resistless and given the character of a sweet and tran- unquestioned sway over the propensities quil emotion to the affiction of anger. It of our fallen nature-how. in the very has not associated the transports of an- moment of' conflict with his enticements gelic love, with the affection of malignity. and his wiles, this challenge may be Though you should be delivered by the made; and he, giving way to the force of death of Christ from the penal sufferings, it, will desist from his niiholy enterprise that attached to these evil principles in of seducing us away from the new obethe heart-yet there are other sufferings, dience of the gospel. Upo)n every orcathat spriing immnedizately and necessarily sion of exposure to the faiscinations of from the vecry e.x(:rcise of the principles moral evil, may we go through the spiritthemselves ~ and from which you cannot ual exercise of'asserting oar freedom from be deliv. ered, but by the utter extirpation the power of him, who arms these fasciof the principle s. In other words, you nations with all their influence; and, are not freed fiom the tyrant who lords it strongly confident in the plea,,lat, by over sinners by a nmere" release fiom the the death of' Christ and our dea h in ifirn, penalty of disobedience. He is not dis- Satan has virtually done his worst upon armed of all his povcer to make you us, and already expended that power wretched, by your legal deliverance from wherewith he wont to hold us in bonlage imprisonment in the. fuature hell. If he is -why it is no vain imagination, that still permiTted to reign in your heart, he such a plea, if faithfully pressed against (dn establish a hell there, that were him in the hour of spiritual conflict, will enough to embitter your whole eternity. surely prevail over him; and he, retiring And, in order that the death of Christ and a vanquished foe from the field of waryour participation in that death shall fare, will leave us freed from the power give you comnplete freedom from the great of sin as we are freed from its curse and tyrant and adversary of our species, he condemnation. must be dethroned from his power over It has been rightly said that we think your present desires, as well as from his not enough of those higher agencies power over your future destiny. Sinful which are concerned in the doings and affections will always be painful affec- the difficulties and the whole discipline tions. And your deliverance is wrought, of our preparation for eternity. We are not by changing the quality of these af- apt to look on the conflict in which we fections, not by turning the painful into are involved, as a mere contest with flesh the pleasurable, but by ridding you of the and blood-when in fact it is a contest affections altogether. And we repeat, with principalities, and powers, and spithat, if by being dead in Christ we are ritual wickedness in high places. We freed from Satan, this cannot be fully should know the might of our adversaries accomplished but by our being in the that we may go rightly armed to the batlanguage of the text freed from sin-from tle. And be assured that the death of sin, not merely disarmed of its curse, but Christ, is not a more effectual shield from sin disarmed of its power and finally against the power that would drag you to destroyed in its existence. the place of' condemnation; than it is -This unfolds to us another way, in against the power, that would now so lord which the death of Christ, and our fellow- it over the affections of your heart, as to ship therewith, may be brought to bear perpetuate the reign of sin within you, on the practical object of so withstanding and make you as effectually the slaves as the assaults of temptation, as that sin before of those evil desires and principles shall not have the dominion over us. It which war against the soul. Christ hath is not a matter of fancy, but a matter of spoiled the great adversary of all his most distinct scriptural revelation, that power. He hath left him no claim of as. these assaults are conducted by a living cendency whatever over those who bx IGO LECTURE XXX.-CHAPTER VI, 3-7. lieve in Him. It is true, that, in the mys- will not only be to him a barrier from the terious struggle which took place between abyss of its coming vengeance; but it Him and the prince of darkness, there was will be to him a panoply of defience a sting put forth which pierced Him even against its present ascendancy over his unto the death; but, in the very act of soul. The sure way to put Satan to flight, being so pierced, the sting was plucked is to resist him steadfast in this faith, away, and Satan is now bereft of' all his which will be to him who exercises it, a power to hurt those who are buried with shield to quench all the fiery darts of the. Christ in baptism, and have been planted adversary. together with Him in His likeness. Ite We are aware of the charges of strange did not merely disarm him of his power and mystical imaginary, to which this reto scourge you, and leave untouched his presentation,'however scriptural it may power to seduce you. It was an entire be, exposes us. But we ask on the one -ethronement that He effected of the God hand, those who have often been defeated of this world; and what you have dis- by the power of temptation-whether tinctly to do, my brethren, in the heat and they ever recollect in a single instance, urgency of your besetting temptations, is that the death of Christ believed and re-.) set tip your death unto sin in Christ, as garded and made use of in the way now your defence against the further authority explained, was a weapon put forth in the of sin over you-is to interpose the plea contest with sin; and we ask, on the other of His atonement between you and the hand, those who did make use of this weaattempts of the great adversary-is to af- pon-whether it ever fhiled them in their firm, in opposition to all his devices, that honest and fhithful attempts to resist the he can no more compel your services instigations of evil? We apprehend that than a tyrant or task-master can compel the testimonies of both, will stamp an exservice front a dead slave. It is not pos- perimental, as well as a scriptural soundsible, my brethren, that Satan, thus with- ness, upon the alffirmation of' my text, that stood and thus striven against, shall pre- he who by faith in the death of Christ is vail over you. The man who, rivetting freed from the condemnation of sin, has all his confidence in the death of Christ, also an instrument in his possession, has become partaker of all his immuni- which has only to be plied and kept in ties and of all its holy influences, will not habitual exercise, that he may habitually only find peace from the guilt of sin, but be free from its power. protection from its tyranny. This faith LECT URE XXXI. ROMANS vi, 8 —10 41T.ow, if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him: knowing that Christ, being raised from the dead, dietb. no more; death hath no more dominion over him. For in that he died, he died unto sin once; but in that he liveth, he liveth unto God." By the death of Christ a full penalty debt; but should an able cautioner liquiwas rendered for sin, insomuch that He date the whole, we, in him, may be said to could no more be reckoned with on ac- have sustained the prosecution, and borne count of it. He undertook to be surety the damage, and are now clear of the for all who should believe; and having weight of conscious debt-because in him finished His undertaking, the matter was we have made full and satisfactory payclosed, and the creditor now ceased from rnent. In our covenant with the Lawgiver putting in any further claim, or preferring of heaven and earth, a deficiency from any further challenge against Him. For our engagements brings us into guilt; but us to be dead with Christ, is just to share should. a competent mediator take upon in this very exoneration. It was for us his own person the whole burden of its that the account was settledl; and, just as imputation and its penalty. we, in him, much as if by death the appointed pen- may be said to have been pursued even alty we had settled it ourselves, do we unto death which was its sentence, and now stand acquitted of all further count should now feel clear of the weight of and reckoning because of sin. In the conscious guilt-because in him we have covenanting of ordinary trade, a deficien- rendered a full atonement. And we live cy from our engagements brings us into beneath our privilege, we fail in making LECTURE XXXI. —CHAPTER VI, 8-10. 16 1 the required use ofthe great propitiation, we the offering of the body of Jesus Chris, are deficient of the homage that its due to once for all, that we are cletansed from its completeness and its power-if we cast guilt: And, finally, laying upon this point not the burden of legal condemnation the stress of a frecquent reiteration does away from our spirits. It is detracting the apostle say that it is by one offering from the richness and the efficacy of that we are for ever peifect ed. There is Heaven's boon, for us to cherish the surely a real practical importanlce in a haunting imagination of a debt, that the matter so much insisted otn; and accordrevealed Surety has done away or, chang- ingly, we infer frorm another passalge, that ing the terms, to cherish the haunting im- it was to save the believer fionl the conagination of a guilt, for which the High stant recurrence and revival, in his heart, Priest whom God Himself has set forth, of a sense of guilt-it was that, onlce has made a sacrifice wherewith God purged, he should have no morve conHimself has declared that IIe is well science of sins-it was that lie should pleased. So that it is your positive duty look oil the controversy between him and to take the comfort of this, and to feel the God as now fully adjusted, and at an end deliverance of this. In as far as you do -it was that in the contemplation of that not, in so far you nullify the work of re- one act, even the decease which Christ demption, and cast a dimness and a dis- accomplished at Jerusalem, he should feel paragement over the most illustrious ex- as conclusively relieved from the irnagihibition of Heaven's grace-dignified as nation of guilt, as the son, in whose beit is with the full expression of Heaven's half the father has interposed and given righteousness. Be dead with Christ then; amriple satisfaction to all his creditors, and, this you are by putting faith in the feels himself relieved from the imaginaatoning efficacy of that death. He who tion of debt-it was that we should no so believes is as free from condemnation, longer conjure into life again, those fearas if the cup of it had been put into his ful misgivings, which the oiie death of own hands, and he had already exhausted Christ and our death with iim should it to its last dregs-as if in his own per- hush into everlasting oblivion-So that, if son, he had walked the whole length of it be our duty to rejoice in the comfort of the valley and shadow of that death which our full acquittance, through the satisfacevery sinner has righltfully incurred-as tion rendered by Him who poured out His if what was only possible for the Godhead soul for us-it goes to enhance the comfort to have borne within a given compass of still more, that there is an amount and a time, He Hlimnself had borne, the sufferings value in this same satisfaction, for meetof that eternity which is in reserve for all ing all the exigences of our future history the guilt that is unexpiated. Be dead with in the world-thus ministering the very Christ, by giving credit to the gospel tes- antidote to our fears, which the apostle timony about the death of Christ; and John urges upon his disciples, that if any the whole of this tremendous retribution man sin we have an Advocate with the for sin with you is as good as over-and Father, even Him who is the propitiation it is your own comfort, as well as God's for our sins, Jesus Christ the righteous. commandment, that you henceforth, with If we be dead with Christ, and death the assurance of being set at liberty frorn have no more dominion over hlim-this is sin, walk before him relieved from the tantamount to guilt being no longer bondage both of its conscious guilt and chargeable upon us. And ought not this of its anticipated vengeance. to be felt as a precious enhancement of But in order to be fully conformed to the blessing-setting an irrevocable seal the death of Christ, we must advert to as it were upon our reconciliation with what is said in the 9th and 10th verses, God-placing it securely beyond the about the full and conclusive efficacy of reach, not, merely of the impediments it-so conclusive, that it had not again to which sin already contracted had thrown be repeated, for I-Ie hoed to die only once, in the way; but also beyond the reach and death had no other domninlion over of all those future accidents, that the sin, Him. There was power enough for the into which we shall be surprised or into whole purpose of our deliverance from which we shall stumble, may afterwards guilt in the one offering-a truth of suffi- involve us. We set not the remedy at its cient worth, it would appear, to be urged full worth, if we use it not to quiet the by the apostle in other places of the New alarms of the guilt that is before us, as Testament; when he says, that Christ did well as of the guilt that is behind us-if, not offer Himself often; for then must He like the children of Israel, we think that have often suffered since the foundation some great purifying ceremonial must be of the world —but now once, hath He ap- set up anew to wash away the outstanding peared to put away sin by the sacrifice defilements of the current year, under of Himself: And Christ was once offered which they are meanwhile in a state of'o bear the sins of many: And it is through distance and displeasure from God-if we 21 16'2 LECTURE XXXI. —CHAPTER VI, 8 —1 0. regard not the fulness that is in Christ as But the certainty of that connlection x pelcnnial fr)untain, which is at all times which obtains between a death unto the ccessibte; and is a very present cure guilt of sin, and a death unto its pow8r7 o the conscience, under the many inroads will be more manifest afterwards: And and solicitations of that sinful nature meanwhile, after having said so much or whicil never ceases to beset us with its the clause of being dead with Christ, il urgency-Thus overbearing the sense of may now be time for offering our remarks,"ui't with the sense of that healing virtue on the clause that we shall live with Him hiich lies in the blood of the one sacri- Yet before we proceed to the elucidafice; and upholding the spirit of the be- tion of this latter clause, ve may remark liever, even while opprest with the infir- a sanctifying influence in the former one. rnities of' his earthly tabernacle, in the We are looked upon by the Lawgiver as clear and confident feeling of his accep- dead with Christ-that is, as having in tance with God. Him boriie the penalty of our sins, and But is not this, it may be said, equiva- therefore as no longer the subjects of a.ent to the holding forth of a Popish in- curse that has already been discharged, dulgence for all sins, past, present, and of a condemnatory sentence that is alto come And, is not this a signal for ready executed. Now though we share antinorianism. And will not the feeling alike with Christ, in this privilege of a final of our death to the guilt of sin, make us acquittance fiorn that death which has no all alive to the charm of its many allure- more dominion over Him, and is for ever ments-now heightened by a sense of averted firom us-yet it was at His expense impunity? And will not the peace that we alone, and not at ours, that the acquitare thus called upon to maintain, even tance was obtained. It would have cost while sin has its residence in our hearts, us an eternity of suffering in hell, to have lull us still further into a peace that will traversed the whole of that vengeance not be broken, even though sin should that was denounced upon iniquity; and reign over our habits and our history? it was therefore so condensed upon the We have sometimes ttought so, my breth- person of the Saviour, who had the infinity ren, and, under the suggestion of such a of the Godhead to sustain it, that on Him, fear, have qualified the freeness, and laid during the limited period of His sufferings our clauses and our exceptions and our on earth, all the vials of the Almighty's drawbacks on the fulness of the gospel; wrath were poured forth and so were and, solicitous for the purity of the human expended. By our fellowship with Him character, have lifted a timid and a hesi- in His death, we have been borne across tating voice when proclaiming thie over- a gulf, which to ourselves would have tures of pardon for human guilt. But we been utterly interminable; and have been are now thoroughly persuaded, that the landed on a safe and peaceful shore, over effective way of turning men from sin to which no angry cloud whatever is susrighteousness, is to throw, wide and open pended; and have been conclusively before them, the door of reconciliation; placed beyond the reach of those devourand that a real trust in God for accep- ing billows, into which the despisers of tance, is ever accompanied with a real the gospel salvation shall be absorbed, movement of the heart towards godliness; and have for ever their fiery habitation. and that to mix or darken the communi- | But it is just because Christ has, in the cations of good will to the world through greatness of His love, for us travelled Him who died for it, is not more adverse through the depths of all this endurance to the rest of the sinner, than it is adverse -just because, in the agonies of the garto the holiness of the sinner: and that, den and the sufferings of the cross, were after all, the true way of keeping up love concentrated the torments of millions in the heart, is to keep up peace in the through eternity-just because, in that conscience-thus making your freedom mysterious passion which for us He unfirom the guilt of sin, the best guarantee derwent, He with tears and cries and for your deliverance from its power; and anguish unutterable, forced the way of that, as we have already affirmed, if you reconciliation-And we who are dead with can interpose the death of Christ in arrest Christ, partake in all the triumphs of this of condemnation, when Satan for the pur- sore purchase, but not in the pains of it; poses of disturbance would inject the fears and have now our feet established on a of unbelief into your bosom, he the great quiet landing-place. And the sanctifying adversary of souls were paralyzed at the influence to which we now advert, and very sight of such a barrier in all his meas- which no real believer can withstand, is ares of hostility against you, and would gratitude to Him, who hath Wrought out retire a baffled enemy from that contest, for us so mighty a deliverance. It is the in which, for the purposes of a sinful do- respondency of love from our hearts, to minion over vou, he tried to assail and to that love which burnt so unquenchably conquer by the force of his temptations. in His, and bore Him up under the burden LECTURE XXl.- CHAPTER VI, 8-10. 163 of a world's atonement. It is the rightful we only escape the curse-by the other sentiment, that now we are not our own, we obtain the blessing. By the one, we but the ransomed and redeemed property are lightened of the debt which Iie hath of another. This touches, and touches discharged through His sufferings-by the irresistibly, upon him who rightly appre- other, we share in the property which Ile ciates all the horrors of that everlasting hath acquired through His services. The captivity from which we have been one shuts against us the gate of hell.'l'ho brought, and all the expense of -that other opens for us the gate of heaven. dreadful equivalent which Christ had to Did we only share with Him in Htis death, render —And he thus judges, that, as we would be found midway between the Christ died for all, then were all dead; region of pain and the region of positive and He died, that those who live might enjoynment;, but by also sharing with tHim live no longer to themselves, but to Him in. Ils iib'c, we are elevated to the hiigher who died for them and rose again. reion, and partake in those very glories "We believe that we shall also live with and felicities to which the Saviour has Him." To explain the phrase of our been exalted. Had the alone work of the being dead with Christ, we had to ascer- Saviour been an expiation for sin, there tain how it was that Christ was dead; and would have been a death, and such a we find by the following verse that He death as would have exempted us from its died unto sin, and we in like manner are endurance; but there would have been no dead unto sin; or, in other words, the resurrection. But in the words of the wages of sin being paid to Christ, there is prophet Daniel, our Saviour did more than no further reckoning between them-and, finish transgression and make an end of as this transaction was for us and in our sin-He also brought in an everlasting stead, it is just as if death the wages of sin righteousness; and so reaped for Himself had been rendered unto us; and sin can and those who believe in Him a positive now hold no further count, and prefer no reward, the first fruits of which were llis further charge against us. This sense of own resurrection to'blessedness, and the dying unto sin on the part of Christ, will consummation of which will be a similar conduct us to the sense of his living unto resurrection to all His followers. It was God. The life that he now lives with the atonement which laid Him in His Him, has been conferred upon Him in the grave. It was His righteousness that shape of wages. In other words, it is a lifted Him forth again, and bore Hlim up reward consequent upon what He has to paradise. Had there been an atonedone for us, and in our stead-even as ment and nothing more, like prisoners the death that He bore was a punishment, dismissed from the bar we would have consequent upon His having become been simply let alone. But He brought in accountable for us, and in our stead. a righteousness also —so that we not only This will recall to you, my brethren, a are relieved of all fear; but, inspired with distinction to which we have alreidy had joyful hope, we, in addition to being dead occasion to advert; and for which there with Him, believe that we shall also live seemeth a real warrant in the took of with Him. And thus it is, that, while lHe revelation-the distinction that there is, was delivered up unto the death for our in point of effect, between the passive and offences, that the guilt of them may be the active obedience of Christ-the one absolved in the atonement which Hie satisfy ing for sin and making an end of made —He was raised again for our justiits curse and punishment-So that to be fication, or that we may share in that dead with Christ and dead unto sin, is to merit for which HIe Himself was exalted, live in the condition of those, on whom anid on account of which we too believe the curse and the punishment have al- that we shall be exalted also. ready been expended; and who have You will see then, that as we understand therefore nothing now to fear from its the phrase of our dying with Christ forencharges —whereas to live with Christ or sically —so we understand the phrase of to be alive unto God, is to share with Him our living with Christ forensically. It is that positive favour which Christ hath our living through His righteousness, ill merited from God by His positive right- that favour which is better than'life-the eousness. It is something more than sim- sense of which favour will keep our spirits ply- to cease from being the children of tranquil and happy here; and will often, wrath, and the heirs of damnation-it is even among the turmoils of our earthly to become the objects of a positive good pilgrimage, brighten into such a gleam of will, and the heirs or the expectants of a comfort and elevation, as shall be the forepositive reward. taste to us of the coming extacy-when, T'he single term also, indicates that the on our entrance into the habitation of' privilege of sharing with Him in HIis life, God's unclouded and immediate presence. is distinct from and additional to the privi- we shall share with o-r Redeemer, nw lege on' sharing in His death. By the one on high in His full enjoyvment of the divine 164 LECTURE XX.I. —-CIIAPTEB, VI, 8-10. glory; and, beheld as we shall be in the dread and witholt disturbance, takt an face of Christ, of that love wherewith the entire view of the Divinity, and add to the Father hath loved IHim. homage of our thanksgivinlg, the homaige cf But just as a believing sense on our a reverence that is free from terror, to smch part, of' our being dead with Christ unto a full and finished glory. Faith opens to sin in the forensic sense of the phrase, our sight the real'character of heaven, in leads, as we have already affirmed, to our the sacredness of its angelic delights and being dead unto sin in the personal sense its holy services-so that to rejoice in the of the phrase, so as that we become dead hope of our living there, it is indispensa in our regard for sin-in like manner; my ble that we should rejoice in the de brethren, a believing sense of oulr living vices and the doings of saintliness here with Christ in the forensic set l>e of the Neither can we cherish the belief that we phrase, will lead to a living with U1r1n in in shall live with Christ, unless the kind of tile personal sense of the phrase ai.i. So life that is held through eternity along as that the style and character c!/ our liie Iwith Him, be dear and congenial to our shall resemble His-loving what Iamb ioves, bosoms-so that grant the faith through sharing with Him in His tastes and in His which we obtain an interest in His rightpowers as well as in His privileges, walk- eousness to reside and operate within us, ing along with Him in the very same there are securities in the very constitutrack of happiness and glory-For which tion of the inner man, that we shall aspire purpose it is altogether essential, that we after and at last attain unto holiness. be endued with a heart which delights in Yet however suited the mechanism of the very same pursuits, and feels the our hearts is, to this purifying operation working and aspiration -of the very same of faith-it will not move, neither will it properties. Or, in other words, admitted persevere in the movement, without a as we are to rejoice with Him in that continued impulse from above; and, to favour of God which He hath purchased secure this, there has been raised, if I by His obedience, we shall not have the may use the expression, a mechanism in conviction and the feeling of this, without heaven-by the working of which, a also rejoicing with Him, even as He does stream of living water is made to descend now in beholding the character of God- upon the moral nature of man, so as to in gazing with delight on the aspect of' attune all its emotions and desires to those His pure and unspotted holiness-in copy- of the spiritual nature of the upper paraing upon our own spirits all those graces dise. In other words, there is a true sancand virtues which we admire in His. So tuary there, whereof Christ Himself is the that to live with Christ in the fellowship minister, and it is His office, not merely of those privileges which by His merit He to carry up the prayers of His people to has won, will bring in its train our living Shim who sitteth upon the throne, mixed with hlim in the fellowship of all that with the acceptable odour of His own kindred excellence by which His person merits-but also to send down from the is adorned-being alive unto God, not Holiest of Holies upon our world, that remerely in regard to our right through generating influence by which man is Christ to His friendship; but alive unto awakened to a new moral existence, and Him, in the restoration of a nature that is upheld in all the affections and in all the now attracted by the charm of His moral exercises of godliness. IIe is the prevailattributes, and finds both its delight and ing Advocate, through whom our ascendits dignity to live in the imitation of them. ing supplications rise with acceptance to There is a sure transition between our God. But He, the Lord from heaven, is being justified by faith, and our being also the quickening Spirit, through whom sanctified by faith. There is a provision the light and the heat of the sanctuary made for this, in the mechanism of the are made to descend upon us. It is thus moral nature of man below; and there that faith is deposited at the firlt; and it is a provision made for it, in that celestial is thus that faith is upheld ever aftermechanism which has been set up in wards, in power to work within us all the heaven-and from which there come down feelings and all the fruits of righteousthose holy influences, that serve to regen- ness. The Holy Ghost, that blessing so erate our world. Faith makes known to precious and so preeminent, as to be us the love of God, and upon this grati- styled the promise of the Father —it was tude calls forth the love of the heart to by His power and agency. express, that THim back again. Faith reveals to usthat Christ was revived, and His resurrection exquisite union, which is held out in the from the grave was accomplished; and, gospel, betwi:en the awful and the lovely as if to fulfil and illustrate the saying of attributes of His nature; and the fear our Saviour that because I live ye shall that hath torment being now allayed, and live also, this very power has been cornthe consciousness of personal security mitted to His mediatorial hand; and it is being now established. we can, without just by its working that He quickens us, LECTURE XXX1.-CHAPTER VI, 8-10. 65 who by nature are dead in trespasses and faith, that it triumphs over the strength of sins, into a spiritual resurrection. Thus an improbability so grievous. And if, like are we made spiritually alive unto God, Abraham of old, we against hope believe and walk in newness of life before Him. in hope; and stagger not at the promise And if' it be asked, how shall this virtue because of unbelief, but are strong in be brought to bear upon us, we answer faith giving glory to God —then, barren as that the prayer of faith will bring it down we constitutionally are of all that is spiat any time-that with it the door of ritually excellent, still, such is the influheaven's sanctuary is opened; and the ence of our faith over our sanctification, required blessing passes with sure con- that, if there be truth in the promises of veyanee into that believer's heart, the God, we shall be made to abound in the door of which is open to receive it: And, fruits of righteousness. such is the established accordancy be- The best practical receipt I can give.ween the doings of the upper sanctuary you, my brethren, for becoming holy is to atnd the doings of the church upon earth, be steadfast in the faith. Believe that,hat every member thereof, who lives in Christ's righteousness is your righteous-,he favour of God because of' the right- ness; and His graces will become your eousness of Christ imputed unto him, will graces. Believe that you are a pardoned live also in the love and likeness of' God creature; and this will issue in your be/ because of the holiness of the Spirit in- coming a purified creature. Take holk fused into him. of the offered gift of Hleaven; and you The only practical inference I shall at will not only enter, after death, on the fupresent insist upon, is founded on the ture reversion of heaven's triumphs and connection that we have so abundantly heaven's joys —but before death, nay even adverted to, between the faith of a sinner now, will you enter upon the participation and his sanctification. The next verse of heaven's feelings, and the practice of, will give us room for enlarging upon this heaven's moralities. Go in prayer wits all-important topic. But meanwhile be the plea of Christ's atonement and His, assured, that you may, with as much merits; and state, in connection with this safe ty, confide the cause of your holiness plea, that what you want, is that you be upon earth to the exercise of believing, as adorned with Christ's likeness, and that you confide the cause of your happiness you be assisted in putting on the virtues: in heaven to this exercise. The primary which signalized Him And you will find sense of believing that we shall- live with the plea to be omnipotent, and the conChrist, is, that, through His righteousness, tinued habit of such prayer, applied to we shall be admitted to that place of glo- all exigencies of your condition, will enary which -Ie now occupies-there to ble you to substantiate the example of spend with Him a blissful eternity; and your Saviour, throughout all the varieties accordin/g to this belief, if real, so shall it of providence and of history. In a word, be done unto us. But in like manner also, faith is the instrument of sanctification. let us just believe that we shall live with And when you have learned the use of Him here, by entering even now upon the this instrument, you have learned the way fellowship of those virtues which adorn to become holy upon earth now, as well His character, and of that Spirit which as the way to become eternally happy in actuated the whole of His conduct; and heaven hereafter. The believing prayer according to this belief, if real, so shall it that God will aid you in this ditfficulty; be done unto us. It is indeed to the eye and counsel you in this perplexity; and of nature a most unlikely transformation, enable you to overcome in this trial of that creatures so prone as we are to sense charity and patience; and keep tup in and to ungodliness;and beset with the your heart the principle of godliness, infirmities of our earthly tabernacle, and amid the urgency of all those seducing weighed down under that load of corrup- influences by which you are surrounded lion wherewith these vile bodies are ever -this you will find, my brethren, to be encumbering us, that we should break the sure stepping-stone, to a right acquitforth, even here into an atmosphere of tal of yourself, in all the given circumsacre(dness, and inhale that spiritual life stances of your condition in the wvorld. by which we become assimilated to the And let the repeated experience of your saints and the angels that now surround constant failures, when you had nothing the throne of God. But the more unlikely but the power and the energies of nature this is to the eve of nature, so much the to trust to, shut you up unto the faith. nmore glorious will be the victory of our 166 LECTUELE XXXII.-CHAPTER VI, 1. LECTURE XXXII. ROMANS Vi, 11. iLzkewise ieLkor ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our I crt ~WE regard this verse as proof in itself, injunction of my text to disciples anrc of the forensic meaning, which we have believers, telling them to think what no all along ascribed to the phrases of our humble Christian can possibly think of being dead unto sin and alive unto God. himself-that he is crucified unto the love' The great object of this chapter, is to of sin, and that all his felt and livings establish the alliance that there is, be- desires are tc;wards God and godliness. tween a sinner's acceptance through Now you free the passage of all these Christ and a sinner's holiness. And in difficulties, by taking these phrases acthe verse before us, there is a practical cording to the forensic interpretation that direction given for carrying this alliance we have given them. To be dead unto into effect. We are called upon to reckon sin, is to be in the condition of one on of ourselves that we are dead unto sin, whom death the sentence of sin has ala id. alive unto God; and this is a step ready beer inflicted-if not in his own t:wards our becoming holy. Now what person at least in that of his representaare we to reckon ourselves? why, if these tive; so that the execution for the transphrases be taken in the personal sense gression of the law is a matter that is now of them-it would be thatwe are mortified past and over. To be alive unto God is to the pleasures and temptations of sin; to live in the favour of God-a favour to tnd alive to nothing but the excellencies which we have been admitted through of God's character, and a sense of the the services of a Mediator, or, in the lan-?)bligations we are under to love and to guage of the text, through Jesus Christ honour Him: Or, in other words, we are our Lord. To reckon that Christ died for to reckon ourselves holy in order that we the one purpose, and to reckon that he may become holy. It were a strange brought in an everlasting righteousness receipt for curing a man of his dishonesty, for the other purpose-is to reckon, not on to bid him reckon of himself that he is an a matter of fancy, but on a matter prohonest man. One really does not see the posed, and that too on the evidence of charm and the operation of this expedient God's own testimony to faith. It is not to at all. One does not see, how, by the cherish a delusive belief of what we are simple act of counting myself what I in ourselves, and that in the face of our really am not, that I am to be transferred own consciousness-it is to cherish a most from that which I am to that which I solid and warrantable belief of what God choose to imagine of myself: And a still has done for us, and that on the credit we more radical objection is, that it is bidding place in His own intimation. Ere we can me reckon that to be true which I know in our own minds bolster up the reckonto be false. It is bidding me cherish the ing, that we are personally dead unto sin belief of a thing that is not. It is calling, and personally alive unto God-there not upon my faith in a matter for which must be many misgivings; and sad failthere is no evidence, but upon my imagi- ures and fluctuations of confidence, on the nation of a matter that is directly oppo- constant detections that we must be ever site to a reality of which I am conscious. making of our own ungodliness. And at To lay hold of a sinner and bid him best it is a very precarious security indeed reckon of himself that he is a saint, is to for holiness, if the \Way to become holy is bid him admit into credit that which he to reckon that we are so. But when, inknows to be untrue —and all for the pur- stead of looking downwardly on the dark pose too of turning him from the creature and ambiguous tablet of our own characthat he feels he is, to the creature that he ter, we look upwardly to that Saviour who fancies he is. We have heard much of now sitteth in exaltation, after having the power of imagination; but this is rendered the penalty of' our disobedience giving it an empire and an ascendancy and won for us the reward of life everlastthat exceeds all which was before known ing-We hold by a thing of historical or observed of our nature-besides the fact, and not by a thing of deceitful imavery obvious moral impropriety that there gination; we rest on the completeness of would be in an apostle telling, either an afinished expiation and perfect obedience unconverted man to conceive of himself and transfer our reckoning from a ground that which Is most glaringly and noto- where conscience meets us and gives us rio.)sly untrue; or if you will restrict the the lie, to a ground occupied by the stable LECTURE XXXII.-CHAPTER V1, 11. 167 and enduring realities of Scripture-where through Christ, is just the act of receiving God who cannot lie meets us with the the truth of Christ's declaration,-accordassurances of His truth; and the voice of ing to the terms of the declaration. It is His kindness welcomes us to the deliver- not reckoning on the truth of a falsehood. ance of those who are dead with Christ, Were it a personal phrase, no doubt, it to the high and heavenly anticipations of were reckoning that to be in the house, those who are alive with Him. which is no where to be found within its W'aVen a sinner is bidden to reckon limits. But it being a forensic phrase, it himself dead unto sin, and this phrase is is just opening the door of the house; and understood personally, he is bidden to suffering that toenter in which i.; pressing reckon himself a saint —to reckon what is upon it for admittance. Bid the siillei not true; and surely this is not the way reckon in the former way; and you bid of causing him to be a saint. But when him feel that to be a reality withlin hibul, he is bidden to reckon himself dead unto which has no existence. Bid him reckor sin, and this phrase is understood forensi- in the latter way; and you bid him fetch cally, lie is bidden look upon himself' as from the abiding realities which are witha partaker with Christ in all the privileges out, a conviction that will carry light and and immunities of Him, on whom the peace and comfort into his bosom —you sentence is already discharged and gone bid him close with the overtures of the by; and to whom therefore there is no gospel-you bid him appropriate to himmore condemnation. But it may be said, self what is said of the power of Christ's might not this be an untruth also? Do blood, and the purpose and effect of His I read anywhere in the Bible, of Christ sacrifice. But it is not an appropriation dying for me in particular' The apostle which carries him beyond the exercise is speaking to his converts when he says, of a legitimate faith-because not an ap. "Reckqn yourselves dead unto sin." But propriation beyond the real meaning and is it competent to address any one indi- application of the terms, that I have just vidual at random, to reckon himself in adverted to. By reckoning himself perthis blessed condition of freedom from a sonally dead unto sin, and personally penalty, that Christ hath intercepted and alive unto God through Jesus Christ our absolrbed in behalf of all who believe on Lord, he would outrun the reckoning of Him? Might not he in so reckoning be as his own conscience. But by reckoning effectually working himself up into the himself forensically dead unto sin, and belief of a delusive imagination, as if' be forensically alive unto God, he does not reckoned that he was a new creature-, utrun the reckoning of the Bible. He while all the habits and tendencies of the gathers nc more out of the field of reveold man still remained with him, in full I lation, than what he finds to be lying and unabated operation? upon its surface; and laid there too, just Why, my brethren, it is no whiLere said that he may fall in with it and take it in the Bible that Christ so died for me in home. Without the terms'whosoever,' particular, as that by His simple dying and' all,' and'any,' and'ho, every one,' the benefits of His atonement are mine in it might not have been so; but, with these possession. But it is everywhere said in terms, he may reckon of himself that the Bible, that He so died for me in par- forensically he is dead with Christ-and ticular, as that by IIis simple dying, the yet believe no further, than the terms inl benefits of His atonement are mine in question give him the fullest warrant for. offer. They are mine if I will. Such And what is more. You will not acterms as whosoever, and all, and any, and quire a virtuous character, by barely imaho every one, bring the gospel redemption gining that you have it when you have it specifically to my door; aind there it not. But there is another way, in which stands for acceptance as mine in offer, and it is conceivable that a virtuous character ready to become mine in possession on may be acquired. Not by any false reckmy giving credit to the word of the testi- oning about your actual character; but mony. The terms of the gospel message by a true reckoning about your actual are so constructed, that I have just as condition. A mistaken sense as to the good a warrant for reckoning myself dead principle that inspires your heart, will unto sin, as if; instead of the announce- never be the mean of bringing a right ment that God hath set forth Christ to be principle there. But a correct and habitual a propitiation for the sins of the world sense as to the place you occupy, may, by through faith in His blood, I had been the its moral influence oil the feelings, have only sinner in the world; or I had been the effect both of introducing and of singled out by name and by surname, and nourishing the right principle. It is not. it was stated that God had set forth Christ by imagining I am a saint, that I will bea propitiation for the sins of me individu- come so; but by reflecting on the con-' ally; through faith in His blood. The demnation due to me as a -k.nner-on the act of reckoning myself dead unto sin. way in which it has been averted from 168 LECTURE XXXII.-COnPTER VI, 1. my person-on the passage by which, which were never felt, the penalties of without suffering to rmyself; I have been that law he so oft has broken shall never rborne across the region of vindictive jus- reach him. It is indeed levelling the tice, and conclusively placed on the fair mountains, and making the crooked paths and favoured shore of acceptance with straight, when such a high way of access God-The sense and the reckoning of all is thrown across the gulph of separation, this, may transforr-n me from the sinner that is between sin and sacredness; and Sihat I am, into the saint that I am not. never, niy brethren, will this transition be The executed criminal, who has been made good,-never will the sinner know galvanized into life again, may be sent what it is to taste of spiritual joys, or tce forth upon society; and there exposed to breathe with kindred delight in a spritua14 the temptation of all his old opportunities. atmosphere, till, buried in another's death,; It is not by reckoning of himself, that he and raised in another's righteousness than is now altogether dead to the power of his own, he can walk with the confident these temptations-it is not by reckoning peace of one who knows that he is safe, himself to be an honest man, that he will under the secure and ample canopy of become so. It is not by reckoning falsely the offered Mediatorship. of his character, that he will change it into So that the apostle tells us here, and in something different; but by reckoning the imperative mood, to reckon that our truly of his condition, he may bring a death by sin is over and gone by; and moral consideration to bear upon his this too, you will observe, for the purpose heart, that will transform his character. of bringing about our sanctification. What How shall I who for theft have passed a powerful and practical outset does he through the hands of the executioner, re- afford to this career! He dreads no Anticur to the very practice that destroyed nomianism. IIe fearlessly bids the people me? And how, in like manner, says the to count, that one man has died for them believer, shall I who have virtually under- all; and he bids them habitually reckon gone this sentence of the law, that the upon this, recur to it, keep it in memory, soul which sinneth it shall die-how shall always be acting and holding first the I, now that I have been made alive again, confidence that they begun with, and not continue in that hateful thing, of whose cast it away. The man who is called malignant tendencies in itself, and of upon to reckon that he was dead unto sin whose utter irreconcilableness to the will personally, would often feel as if out of and character of God, I have, in the death his reckoning; and many a misgiving oft my representative and my surety, ob- would visit him; and he might thus spend tained so striking a demonstration 3 It is his life in the tossings of anxiety. But not the sense or reckoning that you are a the man who is called upon to reckon sanctified man-it is not thus that the that he is dead unto sin forensically, is work of sanctification is done. It is the presented with a solid foundation in that sense or reckonilng that you are a justified which Christ hath done for him; is simply man-it is this which has the sanctifying bidden count upon that as a settled point, influence-it is this which does the work, which has indeed been settled fast; and,..r is the instrument of doing it. when like to be abandoned by hope, he Mark then, my brethren, the apostle's has only to feel for the solidity of his receipt for holiiess. It is not that you ground, and, in so doineg, will find that it reckon yourself already pure; but it is is a rock of strength which he has got to that you reckon yourself already par- stand upon. And all this as the first step doned. It is not that you feel as if the to a life of new obedience. All this as a fetters of corruption have as yet been primary command, among those which struck off; but that you feel as if alto- the apostle afterwards delivers, for the gether lightened and released from the purpose of securing our transition from fetters of condemnation, and that you may sin unto holiness. All this as a staff to go forth in the peace and joy of a recon- support us on the narrow way of disci. ciled creature. And somehow or other, pline and duty, as provision for our jourthis, it would appear, is the way of ar- ney to the land of uprightness. And what riving at the new spirit and the new life I bid you remark in the first place, is the of a regenerated creature. And how it very peculiar instrument which the aposEnould fall with the efficacy of a charm tie puts into the hands of his his disciples, on a sinner's ear, when told, that the first for the purpose of making them regenerstepping stoner towards that character of ated creatures,-.even a trusty reckoning, heaven after which he has been so hope- on their part, that they are already reconlessly labouring, is to assure himself' that ciled creatures; and what an evidence all the guilt of his past ungodliness is now here of God's desire that you should feel done away —that the ransom of iniquity is at peace from the apprehension of llis paid-and that by a death thQ pains of wrath, when it is this very peace that lie LECTURE XXXII.-CHAPTER VI) 11. 169 proposes as the means of making you the ness; and how, if the character of God partalhers of the worth and purity of His be the same that it ever was, he, in sin. nature! ning wilfully, dares over again the still -ut, in the second place, will the means unquelled antipathies of the Godheadbe really effectual l It was so with Paul. and, that if he gives himself up to the old He gloried not in himself-not in his cru- service, which reduced him at first from cifixion to sin-not in his resurrection to the one rightful. authority, there remaineth holiness; he gloried in the cross of Christ, no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain and the crucifixion to sin came out of this fearful looking for of judgment and fiery lorying. Thereby the world was cruci- indignation which shall devour the adverfied unto him, and he unto the world. The sary. God forbid, that we should continue personal result came out of the forensic in sin, that grace may abound-or, be. reckoning; and not a believer after him, cause we have been brought back again who will not experience the same result within the limits of God's beloved family, out of the same reckoning. Your busi- we should fetch along with us that which ness is to count of yourselves, that in before had banished us forth of a domain -Christ your condemnation is discharged; -from which sin, of all other things, must that in Him your acceptance is granted. be rooted out, because sin of all other And the more steadfastly and constantly things is that which most sorely and most you keep by this business, the more cer- grievously offendeth. tainly will you find to your blessed expe- But he does not know all, if he only rience, that a new heart and a new history know of that inheritance to whichlhe has emerge from the doing of it. The hourly been readmitted, that no sin is suffered to habit of reflecting upon the new condition have occupancy there. This is only in which Christ has placed you, will sus- knowing the quality of that which is extain an hourly influence, by which there iled fr-om heaven's family; but it is not shall germinate and grow the new cha- knowi. gn the quality of that, which is racter that Christ proposes should arise welcomed and cherished, and carried to -ni you. You have laboured long perhaps, uttermost perfection there. It is only givafter the life of God and of heaven in the ing me to understand the character of the soul; but this is just because you have outcast; but it is not giving me to underbeen labouring long in the'wrong track, stand the character of the guest. By beor with wrong instruments. Turn you ing dead with Christ, the door of entry is now unto that doctrine, which is as much again opened for me into the great housethe power of God unto sanctification here hold of the blest; and it is well to be soas unto salvation hereafter; and know, lemnized into the impression, that I must from this time forward, that the way of shun the hateful thing which banished me reaching the life of holiness you aspire therefrom. But I should also be led to after, is to live a life of faith in the Son aspire, and with all my earnestness, after of God. that estimable thing which stamps the I have already adverted to some of the character and constitutes the honour and moral influences, wherewith the consi- the delight of this rejoicing family. The deration of ouI' having been as good as disgraced felon, whose frauds had expelldead for sin, is so abundantly pregnant; ed him from society, when again introand even with a reiteration that might duced within its limits, is furnished by all have fatigued, and over satiated some of his recollections with a strong and acyou, did I, in remarking on the second tuating motive, to put all the atrocities of verse, expatiate at great length on what his former life away from him; but not struck me as the first of these influences. only so, —by his strenuous cultivation of It is the same with that which may be ad- the opposite virtues —by the scrupulous dressed to a man, who has been put to integrity of his dealings-by the highdeath for a crime, and then made alive minded disdain, in which he would hold again, A most impressive lesson to him, even the slightest deviations from the path of the genius and character of that go- of honour-by the sensitive nicety of an vernment under which he lives; of its uprightness, on which no discernible flaw hostility to the wickedness for which he can be detected-he might regain a distinsuffered; of its intolerance for a trans- guished place in that living circle, the es. gression, into which if he again fall, there teem and happiness of which he had bemay be no mercy and no readmittance fore forfeited; and reach a status of pofrom the sentence that will be surely in sitive credit and enjoyment, in room of reserve for him. And, in like manner, that ignominy which before had covered the sinner, who, through Christ, has been him. And the same of heaven on the restored from condemnation, learns, both other side of death, and also of the road in the sentence that was incurred, and in which leads to heaven on this side of death. the atonement that was rendered, what a The same of the habit and condition of repulsion there is between sin and sacred- paradise hereafter; and the same most 22 1 70 LEC TURE XXX:I.-CHAPTER VI; 11. assuredly of the habit of preparation for " Him, in striving, by all the aids of His paradise here. Ile who is dead with grace, to apprehend that holiness, for the Christ, and so freed from condemnation, sake of producing which in your spirit is not ushered at once into the celestial you have been apprehended? How can regions: but he is forthwith set on the you refuse to gratify in your own person.ourney which leads to them. And, with and performan.ce, the taste of Him who his eye full on the moral and spiritual ever rejoices to behold the verdure and tho glories of the place that is above, he will beauty that sit on the landscapes of ialearn that sinlessness is not enough-that terialism; and will much more rejoice to he must be strenuous in the pursuit of po- behold in the church of the redeemed, onr sitive goodness-that, to lay up treasure which He is ever shedding the water of in heaven, he must become rich in all life from above, the unspotted loveliness those graces that adorn and dignify the of a new moral creation, that now teems wearer-that, to be received and welcom- and rises towards that full accomplished as a member of the upper family, he ment, when it shall be holy and without must acquire the family likeness; or ga- blemish before Him? ther upon his inner man all those features Thus it is that the desire of Christ, and of piety and love, and humbleness and your desire, meet together in the one obtemperance and purity, which go to make ject of your sanctification. Let the sinup a portrait of affirmative excellence, ner's desire for this vent itself in prayer; and to stamp on every desire and on every and let the desire of the Saviour for this doing the expression of holiness unto the go forth upon the prayer, and hand it up Lord. perfumed with the incense of His own The starting-post at which this race of merits to Him who sitteth on the throne; virtue begins, and from which this noble and the descending of the Spirit on the career of progressive and aspiring excel- believer's heart, will make sure that relence is entered on, is your freedom from generating process, whereby he who is condemnation, through the death of Christ. saved from the punishment of sin, will It is your reckoning by faith upon this, also most certainly be saved from its which cuts asunder that load, by which power. The man, who, in the f:tith of the compressed and heavy-laden energies God's testimony, reckons himself a parof the soul are restrained from bursting taker of Christ's death and resurrection, forth on a path of hopeful activity; and is not reckoning beyond his warrant. But it is thus, that, with emancipated powers he who so reckons upon Christ hath renow awakened to life and to liberty, you ceived Christ; and the mighty vantage press onward to that summit of perfection ground upon which he stands is, that he that is yet seen by you fiom afar, but to can now plead the declaration of God which you have bent your determined Himself, that as He hath given His own course, and are ever running, as for the Son He will also with Him freely give all prize of your high calling in Christ Jesus things; and the most precious of these, our Lord. But to our progress on this are the heart and the power to serve Him. great moral and spiritual journey, the It is thus that, through the door of' reconreckoning of the text is indispensable. ciliation, you enter on the path of new Without this reckoning, you are chained obedience; and still we come back again to the sluggishness of despair. With this to this, that the very reckoning of my reckoning the chain is broken; and the text, is the thing which gives its first prossluggishness is dissipated; and the facul- perous outset to the work of sanctification. ties of the mind are not only freed, but It is this which brings home to the believthey are urged and stimulated in a holy er's heart, the malignity of sin-it is this and a heavenward direction. For, among which opens to him the gate of heaven; the thousand other guarantees for the and disclosing to his view the glories of faith of the gospel being indeed a purify- that upper region, teaches him that it is ing and an inspiring faith, mark it, my indeed a land of sacredness-it is this brethren, that a sense of pardon will never which inclines his footsteps along the path enter believingly into the sinner's heart, to immortality, which the death of Christ without its being followed up by a sense and it alone has rendered accessible-it is of obligation; and gratitude to HIim who this which conforms his character to that first loved you, will incite you to all that of the celestial spirits who are there be. you know to be gladdening or acceptable fore Him-For the will of Christ, whom to His bosom: And when you read, that hie now loves, is, that he should be like He wants to rear all those creatures who unto Him - and the grateful wish and the are the travail of his soul, into so many grateful endeavour of the disciple, draw illustrious specimens of that power with forth from his labouring bosom that prayer which He is invested-to adorn and to of faith, which is sure to rise with acsanctify those whom He has saved-how ceptance, and is sure to be answered with can you refuse to be a fellow-worker with power. LECTURE XXXII.-CHAPTER VI) 1l 171 To conclude, I shall be pleased, if, as to win this friendship by his obedience, and the fruit of' all these explanations, I have to secure this patronage. But the mran succeeded in making palpable to any un- who sets out evangelically, counts on the derstanding, the great secret of what that friendship and the patronage, and avails is which constitutes the principle of evan- himself of all the aids and facilities that gelical obedience. The constant aim and are abundantly offered to him. MAlke the tendency of nature is towards a legal experiment, my brethren. Take it up as a obedience; and, in the prosecution of this, settled point, that in Christ your condemit is sure to land either in a spiritless for- nation is done away-that in Hlimr your mality, or in a state of fatigue and dissa- right to everlasting life is purchased and tisfaction and despondency, which, with- secured for you-that all the signals of out the faith of the gospel is utterly inter- honest and welcome invitation aie now minable. To believe in Christ, is the way lifted up; and, floating in the eye even of to be holy here, as well as the way to be the worst of' sinners, are cheering him happy hereafter. A sense of peace with forward to the land of uprightness-and God through Him, when it enters the bo- that every influence is provided, to help som, is the sure harbinger of purity there; his movement from the character of that and what you have plainly to do, that you earth whence he is so soon to make an may attain to the character of heaven, is everlasting departure, to the character of to take up the reckoning of my text- that now open and accessible heaven wvhieven that the death by sin is conclusively ther he is asked to bend his footsteps. gone through; and that, the life by God Enter upon this undertaking on the footbeing promised through Jesus Christ, the ing that your reconciliation is secured, gate of heaven now stands open for your and not on the footing that your reconciapproaches through the way of holiness liation is yet to win. On the one footing which leads to it. You have perhaps been you will light all your days, at a distance practising at the work of reformation by from hope, and at an utterly impracticaother methods; and this is a method that ble distance from that heaven after which may have been still untried by you. Try you are toiling so fruitlessly. Just make it now; and what can be more inviting, the attempt then on the other footing; than to begin an enterprise with such an and see whether all old things will not be encouragement of friendship and of pa- done away, and all things will not become tronage upon your side? The man who new. sets out on the tract of legalism, proposes LECTURE XXXIII. ROMANS Vi, 12. " Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof." SOME would substitute here, in place of In virtue of the defeat that he has gotten, mortal, which signifies liable to death, he will not obtain the dominion over our the idea of our bodies being already dead hearts and wills unless we let hirm. If we in Christ; or in Him being already put to let him not, we shall find that our resistdeath for sin-which would just be urging ance, backed as it is by the plea of a Saus to strive against sin, and on the consi- viour already crucified, and by the power deration too that I have in your hearing of a Saviour now exalted, is greatly too so repeatedly insisted upon. Let not that much for him. WITe who have been baphatef'ul enemy again reign over us, who tized into Christ, are somewhat in the'already brought us to the borders of ex- same circumstances with regard to our old ecution. And here, I may revert for a oppressor sin-that the children of Israel moment to the thought, that sin, by the after being baptized into Moses in the death of Christ in our stead, hath been Red sea, were, in reference to the power plucked of its sting-that our Saviour re- and tyranny of Egypt. Their enemy was ceived it in Itis own body, and there is no engulphed in that abyss. over which they more power in our cruel adversary to in- found an open and a shielded way; and, flict its mortal poison upon us-and that placed conclusively beyond the reach of he is not only disarmed of his right to his dominion, it was now their part to excondemn us, but furthermore disarmed of change the mastery of Pharaoh for the all right and ability to tyrannize over us. mastery of God; and those who did not 172 LECTURE XXXIII -CHAPTER V[: 12. acquit themselves of this their part, but are at an equal distance from the land of rebelled against Heaven, and sighed in sin's thraldom and oppressive tyranny their hearts after the flesh-pots of Egypt, Let us count it our business then to make were cut off in the wilderness. And these head against that tyranny. Let not sin things are recorded for our admonition, on reign over us, on the passage that wve whom the latter ends of the world have have yet to describe, ere we shall be come. If truly baptized into Christ, we translated to our place of secure and have, with Him our Deliverer, passed eternal refuge from all its entanglements. athwart that mighty chasm which had Let us stifle every rising inclinationl for been else impassable; and it was in the the pleasures and the carnalities of Egypt, act of opening up and traversing this and come not under the power of those deep, that he who had the power of' death lusts which war against the soul, till we was overthrown; and we, now placed be- reach the spiritual Canaan, where every yond the reach of his inflictions, are to inclination to evil that we have withstood exchange the tyranny of sin for the right- here, shall cease to exist and so cease to ful command and mastery of Him, who annoy us. hath borne us across from the confines of We hold it.of prime importance, in the the enemy; and unless we let him, he is business of practical Christianity that we stript of all power of ascendancy over us understand well the kind of work which -being no more able to subjugate our is put into our hands, both that we may hearts to the influence of moral evil, than go rightly about it, and also that we may he is able to subjugate our persons to its have the comfort of judging whether it is penalty. Now, if he offer to reign, let us actually making progress under our exerbut resist, and he will flee from us- tions. A mistake on this point may lead whereas, if with so many aids and secu- us perhaps to waste our efforts on that rities around us, and standing on the van- which is impracticable; and when these tage ground of a safety that has thus been efforts of course turn out to be firuitless, obtained and thus been guaranteed, we may lead us to abandon our spirits to shall still find our inclinations towards utter despondency; and thus, to use the this malignant destroyer, we shall share language of the apostle Paul-running as in the fate of the rebellious Hebrews, we uncertainly, and fighting as one that shall fall short on our way to the heavenly beateth the air, we may spend our days, Canaan, we shall be likened to those who alike strangers to peace, and to progresfell in the wilderness. sive holiness. And this analogy, which has been insti- Now to save us from this hurtful mistuted by Paul himself in another part of take it were well that we weighed the vast his writings, does not fail us —though we import of certain terms in the verse before should take the term mortal in the custo- us which are altogether big with signifimary, which I am also inclined to think cancy. "Let not sin," says the apostle, is here the correct signification of it. "reign in your mortal body, that ye While in these mortal bodies, we are only should obey it in the lusts thereof." Here on a road through the wilderness of earth, we cannot fail to perceive how widely to the secure and everlasting blessedness diverse the injunction of the apostle would of heaven. It is true that all who are have been, if instead of saying, "Let not really partakers with Christ in His death, sin reign in your mortal bodies," he had have got over a mighty barrier, that lay said, Let sin be rooted out of your mortal between this terrestrial Egypt and the bodies; or if, instead of saying, Obey not Jerusalem that is above. They have been its lusts, he had bid us eradicate them. carried through the strait gate of accep- It were surely a far more enviable state tance, and have now to travel along the to have no inclination to evil at all, than narrow way of duty and of' discipline. It to be oppressed with the constant forthis most true of all who are actually through putting of such an inclination, and barely the one, that they will be borne in safety to keep it in check, under the power of and in triumph along the other, But one some opposing principle. Could we atmay think that he is in Christ, when he is tain the higher state, on this side of time, not —and therefore let him who thus think- we would become on earth, what angels eth that he standeth, take heed lest he are in heaven, whose every desire runs in fall. If in Christ, it is true, that to him the pure current of love and loyalty to a there will be no condemnation. But if in God of holinees. But if doomed to the Christ, it is just in every way as true, that lower state, during all the days of our he will walk not after the flesh but after abode in the world, then are we given to the Spirit. Let us therefore make sure of understand, that the life of a Christian is our condition by so walking. Let us give a life of vigilant and unremitting warfare all our diligence to ascertain and estab- — that it consists in the struggle of two lish it. If we really are at a distance adverse elernents, and the habitual preva. fromn the land of sin's condemnation, we lence of nie of them-that in us, and LEtTURE XXXIII.-CHAPTER VI, 12. 17 closely around us, there is a besetting to powder that corrupt fabric on the walls enemy who will not quit his hold of us, of which were inscribed the foul arlrks ill death paralyse his grasp, and so let of leprosy; and the inmost malterials of us go-and that, from this sore conflict of which were pervaded with an infection, the Spirit lusting against the flesh, and that nothing, it seems, but the sepulchral the flesh against the Spirit, we shall not process of a resolution into dust, and a be conclusively delivered, till our present resurrection into another and glorified tainted materialismn shall be utterly taken body, can clear completely and concludown; and that the emancipated soul sively away. It is death that conducts us shall no, have free and unconfined scope fiom the state of a saint on earth, to the for its heavenly affections, until it has state of a saint in heaven: but not till we b)urst its way from the prison-hold of its are so conducted, are we safe to abandon earthly tabernacle. ourselves for a single instant to the Now, this view of the matter gives us a spontaneity of our own inclinations; and different conception of our appointed task we utterly mistake our real circumstances from what may often be imagined. Sin, in the world-we judge not aright of what it would appear, is not to be exterminated we have to do, and of the attitude in from our mortal bodies; it is only to be which we ought to stand-we lay ourselves kept at bay. It is not to be destroyed, in open to the assaults of a near and lurking respect of' its presence, but it is to be enemy, and are exposed to most humiliarepressed in its prevalency and in its ting overthrows, and Irost oppressive power. It will ever dwell, it would ap- visitations of remorse and wretchedness, pear, in our present framework; but if, such being our actual condition upon though it dwell, it may not have the do- earth, we go to sleep, or to play among its minion. Let us try then to banish it; besetting dangers; if we ever think of and defeated in this effort, we may give the post that we occupy being any other up in heartless' despair, the cause of our than the post of armour and of watchfulsanctification,thus throwing away at once ness; or, falsely imagining that there is both out peace and our holiness. But let but one spiritual ingredient in our nature, us try to dethrone it, though we cannot altogether on the side of holiness, instead cast it out; and succeeding in this effort, of two, whereof the other is still alive, and while we mourn its hateful company, we on the side of sin, we ever let down the may both keep it under the control of guardianship, and the jealously, and the strictest guardianship, and calmly look lowliness of mind, and the prayers for onward to the hour of death, as the hour succour from on high, which such a state of release from a burden that will at least of things so urgently and so imperiously adhere to us all our days, though it may demands. not overwhelm us. We think it of very capital importance TVe see then the difference between a for us to know that the body wherewith saint in heaven, and a saint upon earth. we are burdened, and must carry about The former may abandon himself to such with us, is a vile body; that the nature feelings and such movements as come at which we received at the first, and from pleasure; for he has no other pleasure which we shall not be delivered on this than to do the will of God, and to rejoice side of the grave, is a corrupt nature; in the contemplation of His unspotted that all which is in us, and about us, and glory. The latter cannot with safety so that is apart from the new spirit infused. abandon himself. It is true, that there is through the belief of the gospel, is in a an ingredient in his nature, now under an state of aversion to the will of God; that advancing process of regeneration, which what may be denoted by the single word is altogether on the side of godliness; and carnality, is of perpetual residence with us were this left unresisted by any opposing while upon earth; and that our distinct influence, he might be spared all the concern is, while it resides with us, that it agonies of dissolution, and set him down shall not reign over us. It is ever present at once among the choirs and the compa- with its suggestions; and this we cannot nies of paradise. But there is another in- help: but it should not prevail with its gredient of his nature, still under an un- suggestions; and this, by the aids and finished process of regeneration, and expedients provided for the regeneration which is altogether on the side of ungod- of a polluted world, we may help. We liness. and were this left without the shall feel with our latest breath, the mocontrol of' his new and better principle, tions of the flesh; and these motions, if sin would catch the defenceless moment, not sins, are at least sinful tendencies, and regain the ascendancy from which which, if yielded to, would terminate in she had been disposted. Now it is death sins. Now our business is not to extirwhich comes in as the deliverer. It is pate the tendencies, but to make our death which frees away the incumbrance. stand against them-not to root out those It is death which overthrows and grinds elements of moral evil which the body of 17 4 LECTURE XXXIII.-CHAPTER VI,' 12. a good man before death has, and after its ture. We find the apostle stating, thiat resurrection has not-but to stifle, and to the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the keep them down by that force wherewith spirit against the flesh; and in such a the new creature in Jesus Christ is armed way too, as that the man cannot do what for the great battle, on the issue of which he would. He would serve God more hangs his eternity. We cannot obtain perfectly. He would render him an offersuch a victory as that we shall never feel ing untinctured by the frailty of his fallen the motions of the flesh; but we may nature. He would rise to the seraphic obtain such a victory, as that we shall love of the upper paradise, and fain be not walk after the flesh. The enemy is able to consecrate to the Eternal, the not so skilled as that we are delivered from homage of a heart so pure that no earthly his presence; but by an unremitting stren- feculence shall be felt adhering to it. But uousness oln our part, we may keep him all this he cannot-and why'! Because so chained as that we shall be delivered of a drag that keeps him, with all his from his power. Such is the contest, and soaring aspirations, among the dust of' a such is the result of the contest, if it be a perishable world. There is a countersuccessful one. But we ought to be told, poise of secularity within, that at least that it is a vain hope, while we live in damps and represses the sacredness; and the world, to look for the extermination it is well that it do not predominate over of the sinful principle. It ever stirs and it. This secularity belongs to the old actuates within us; and there is not one nature, being so very corrupt that Paul hour of the day, in which it does not give says of it —" In me, that is, in my flesh, token that it is still alive, and though there dwelleth no good thing." There is cast down from its ascendancy, not des- a law, then, which warreth against the troyed in its existence. Forewarned, law of our mind, even while that mind is forearmed, and it is right to be informed, delighting inwardly in the law of God. that near us, and within us, there is at all The conflict is so exceedingly severe, that times anl insidious foe, against whom we even they who have the first fruits of the cannot guard too vigilantly, and against Spirit groan inwardly, while waiting for whom we cannot pray too fervently and the redemption of the body, and for a too unremittingly. translation into the glorious liberty of the The time is coming, when, without the children of God. Burdened with the mass felt counteraction of any adverse and of a rebellious nature, the apostle exopposing tendency, we shall expatiate in claims, "O wretched man that I am! freedom over the realms of ethereal purity who shall deliver me from the body of and love-just as the time is coming, this death?" Even grace, it would appear, when the chrysalis shall burst with unfet- does not deliver from the residence of tered wing from the prison in which it is sin; for Paul complains most emphatinow held; and where, we doubt not, that cally of his vile body, and, we have no it is aspiring and growing into a meetness doubt, would so have stigmatized it to the for traversing at large the field of light last half hour of his existence in the and air that is above it. The Christian world. But grace still does something. on earth so aspires and so. grows; but It delivers fiom the reign of sin, so as Christian though he be, there is on him that we do not obey its motions, though the heaviness of a gross and tainted mate- vexed and annoyed with the feeling of rialism, which must be broken down ere them. And accordingly, from the exclahis spiritual tendencies can expand into mation of, 1"0 wretched man!" does he their full and final development. Mean- pass in a moment to the grateful exclawhile, there is the compression upon him mnation of, "I thank God, through Jesus of downward, and earthward, and carnal Christ our Lord," in whom it is that we tendencies, which will never be removed walk not after the flesh, but after the till he die; but which he must resist, so Spirit. as that they shall not reign over him. From such a representation as is given There are lusts which he cannot eradi- by the apostle of Indwelling Sin, we may cate, but which he must not obey; and, deduce some distinct practical lessons, while he deplores, in humility and shame, which may be of use to the believer. the conscious symptoms within him of a First, we think it conducive to the peace nature so degraded, it is his business, by of a believer, that he is made aware of' the energies and resources of the new what he has to expect of the presence of nature, so to starve, and weaken, and corruption during his stay in this the land mortify the old, as that it may linger into of immature virtue; and where the holidecay while he lives, and when he dies ness of the new-born creature has to may receive the stroke of its full annihi- struggle its way through all those adverse lation. elements, which nought but death will utThis representation of a believer's state terly remove from him. It must serve to upon earth is in accordancy with Scrip- allay the disturbance of his spixit, when LECTURE XXXIII.-CHAPTER VI, 12. 175 I)erced and humbled under the conscious- it is, if not utterly to extinguish thiu ness of an evil desire and wicked prin- proneness, at least to repress its outbreak. ciple still lurking within him, and an- ings. In these circumstances, it is posi. nouncing themselves to be yet alive, by tively not for man to thrust himself into the instigations which they are ever a scene of temptation; and when the al. prompting, and the thoughts which they ternative is at his own will, whether he are ever suggesting to the inner man. It shall shun the encounter, or shall dare it, is his business to resist the instigations, his business is to shun, and the whole of and to turn away from the thoughts; and Scripture is on the side of cautiousness thus the old nature may be kept in prac- rather than of confidence in this matter tical check, though as to its being, it is and we may be assured, that it is our part. not exterminated. Yet the very occur- in every case, to expose nothing, and to rence of a sinful desire, or an impure hazard nothing, unless there be a call of feeling, harasses a delicate conscience; duty, which is tantamount to a call of for no such occurrence happens to an an- Providence. When the trial is of our own gel, or to the spirit of a just man made bringing on, we have no warrant to hope perfect, in heaven; and he may be led to for a successful issue. God will grant suspect his interest in the promises of succour and support against the onsets Christ, when he is made to perceive that which temptation maketh upon us, but there is in him still so much of what is He does not engage tIimself to stand by uncongenial to godliness. It may there- us in the presumptuous onsets which we fore quiet him to be told, that he is neither make upon temptation. We better conan angel nor a glorified saint; and that suit the mediocrity of' our powers, and there is (a distinction between the saint better suit our habits to the real condition who is struggling at his appointed war- of our ruined and adulterated nature, fare below, and the saint who is resting when we keep as far as in us lies our deand rejoicing in the full triumph of his termined distance fromn every allurement victory above; and the distinction an- -when with all our might we restrain our nounces itself just by the very intima- tendencies to evil within, from coming into tions which so perplex and so grieve him contact with the excitemeLrts to evil that -just by the felt nearness (of that corrupt are without-when we make a covenant propensity which is the plague of his with our eyes to turn them away from the heart, which it is his bounden duty to sight of vanity-and whether the provokeep his guard against, and which, with cation be to anger, or evil speaking, or inhis new-born sensibilities, on the side of temperance, or any wayward and vicious holiness, he will detest and mourn over- indulgence whatever, let us be assured, but not to be overwhelmed in despair, on that we cannot be too prompt in our account of, as if some strange thing had alarms, or too early in our measures, happened to him, or as if any temptation whether of prevention or resistance; and had come in his way which was not con- that in every one instance where we have mon to all his brethren who are in the it in our power, and no dereliction of duty world. is implied by it, it is our wise and saluBut, secondly, this view of the matter tary part, not most resolutely to face the not only serves to uphold the peace of a provocative, but most resolutely to flee believer, but conduces also to his progress from it. in holiness; for it leads to a most whole- But, thirdly, this view of the matter some distrust of himself, under the con- not only leads us to withdraw the vicious sciousness that there is still a part about and wrong part of our constitution from him most alive to sin; and which, if not every encounter with temptation that can watched and guarded and kept under se- possibly be shunned —it also leads us vere and painful restraint, would be wholly to such measures as may recruit and given over to it. And here there is a strik- strengthen the gracious or good part of ing accordancy between the theoretical our constitution for every such encounter view which the Bible gives of our nature, as cannot be shunned. For we must, in and the practical habit it labours to im- spite of all our prudence, have many such press upon all who partake of it. An an- encounters in the world. Temptation will gel, perhaps, does not need to be warned come to our door, though we should never against the exposure of himself to tempta- move a single unguarded footstep towards tion; for there may be no ingredient in temptation; and then, What, we would his constitution that can be at all affected ask, is the armour of resistance?-what by it: but not so with man, compounded the best method of upholding the predoas he is, and made up as his constitution minance of the good principle over the is here, of two great departments, one of evil one? We would say, a fresh comwhich is prone to evil, and that continu- mitment of ourselves in faith and in prayally; and in the other of which lie all er to Him who first put the good principle those principles and powers whose office into our hearts —another act of recurrence 176 LECTURE XXXIII. —CHAPTER VI, 12. to the fulness that is in Christ Jesus-a. tween the children of this world, and the new application for strength from the children of light; and the misinterpretaLord our Sanctifier, to meet this new oc- tion that is sometimes given to the pains casion for strength which He Himself has and perplexities and mental disquietudes permitted tQ come in our way, and to cross which the latter do experience; and the the path of our history in the world. The puzzling appearance of inconsistency humility which leads us to flee whenever which is held out by the emotions and the we can, and to pray when flight is impos- exercises of a real Christian, who is sible-this is the very habit of the soul, troubled on every side, yet not distressed which removes it from the first set of' -perplexed, but not in despair-persetemptations, and will most effectually cuted, but not forsaken —cast down, but strengthen it against the second. To the not destroyed-Bearing about in his body proud man, who reckons upon his own the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the litIe capabilities, God refuses grace. To the of Jesus might be made manifest in his hun.ble man, who in himself has no other body-dying unto earthly honours and fee:.ng than that of utter emptiness, God earthly gratifications, while the life of gives grace in abundant measure for all Jesus is becoming manifest in his mortal his necessities: and thus it is, that by pro- flesh. ceeding as he ought, on the consideration To conclude then, let sin reside as it that there is a part of his nature belong- may, he must not be permitted to reign. ing properly and originally to himself, He may be put up with as a most offenwhich he must keep at an assiduous dis- sive and unpleasant inmate in the housetance from every excitement to evil; and but let him be curbed and guarded, and then proceeding as he ought, on the con- not one item of authority be conceded to sideration that there is a part of his nature him. It is enough that one has to bear his derived by grace from heaven, and nour- hateful presence, but his tyranny is not ished by constant supplies from the same to be tolerated. Against this there is ever quarter-thus it is, we say, that his know- to be upheld a manful, and strenuous, and ledge of his own constitution, such as we persevering resistance. He may distress, have endeavoured to unfold it, has a di- but he is not to influence us. There will rect tendency both to deepen the humility be a constant prompting on his part to of the believer, and to exalt and perfect that which is evil; but the evil thing is his holiness. not to be done, and the desire which inIt is this state of composition, in every cites to that thing is not to be obeyed. one who has been born of the Spirit, be- This is the strong and visible line of de. tween the old man and the new creature, marcation between the wilful sinner and which explains the mystery of a Christian the aspiring saint. Both of them have vile being more humble, just as he becomes bodies charged with the elements of cormore holy-of his growing at one and the ruption, and impregnated with a moral same time in dissatisfaction with himself, virus, the working of which is towards sin and in those deeds of righteousness which and ungodliness. Both have one and the are by Jesus Christ —of his being both same constitiutional tendency. But the more feelingly alive to the corruption that one follows that tendency, the other reis in him from one part of his nature, and sists it; and as the fruit of that resistance, more fruitfully abundant in all those vir- though not freed from its detested pretues which have their soil and their nutri- sence, he is at least emancipated from its ment from the other part of his nature, so domineering power. It lives in the house, as to hold out the palpable exhibition of but it is not master of the house; and is one evidently rising in positive excellence, there so starved and buffeted, and suband yet as evidently sinking into a pro- jected to such perpetual thwarting and founder self-abasement than before; as if mortification of every sort, that it graduit required a so much deeper foundation ally languishes and becomes weaker, and to uphold the ascending superstructure. at length, with the life of the natural body, The truth is, that wherever there is any it utterly expires. The soul which acreal growth of morality, there must be a quiesced in its dominion has been sowing growth of moral sensibility along with it; all along to the flesh, and of the flesh it and in proportion to this sensibility will shall reap corruption. The soul that there be the annoyance that is felt, and struggled against its dominion, and Yethe touching grief and humility wherewith fused compliance therewith, has through the heart is visited on every fresh evolu- the Spirit, mortified the deeds of the body, tion of that depraved nature, which is only and shall live,-has all along been sow. subordinated, but not yet extinguished and ing to the Spirit, and of the Spirit shall d.one away. And hence the want of sym- reap life everlasting. pathy, and the want of understanding be LECTURE XXXIII.-CHAPTER VI. 13. 14. 17r LECTURE XXXIV. ROMANS Vi, 13, 14. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourse vyes unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto Glod. For sill shall not. have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.' You will observe in the term'yield' of such a management, and another where the present verse, a counterpart to the all the animals under command go term'reign' of the last verse. We have smoothly and vigorously along in the niot been enjoined to root out sin as to its very path of service that you desire, is presence; but we have been enjoined so another mode of exemplifying the differto resist, as that it shall not reign over us ence that there is between the work of a in power. And in like manner we are not saint on earth, and the work of a saint in called upon to exscind from our members heaven. On earth you have to maintain their evil tendency to unrighteousness; the guiding and governing power of the but we are called upon not to yield them mind, over not willing but reluctant subup as instruments of unrighteousness. jects, who, if permitted to take their own Could Paul have exscinded from his way, would run off to the by-paths of members tlheir inclination to sin, he would unrighteousness-and whom you are rehave done it; and then, he would not quired by my text, not to yield up as inhave had to complain afterwards in the struments of unrighteousness unto sin. bitterness of his soul, that he found a law There is a love of gossip in our nature, in these members, warring against the partly due to its malignity, and partly law of his mind-neither would he have due to its taste for the ridiculous; and in said that in him, that is in his flesh, there virtue of which, there may be an urgent dwelleth no good thing. But the truth is, tendency, in the midst of an easy circle that, after conversion, the organs of the of companionship, to come forth with body stand in the same relation as before some of those more exquisite traits of a to the objects that are suited to them-the neighbour's folly, the recital of which natural influence of the one upon the would impart a zest to the conversation. cther is just what it was-there is a power To make use of a very familiar phrase in of temptation in the one, and a disposition deed, you have sometimes a minor cato coalesce therewith in the other, neither lumny of this sort on your tongue's end; of which is extricated by grace, either and certain it is of such an inclination, from the constitution of the man, or from that it will not only survive the passage the constitution of outward nature. But of the soul from a state of nature to a what grace does, is, to stir up a resolve in state of grace-but it is an inclination, we the mind against submitting to this influ- know, often give way to, in many a ence, against yielding to this temptation. brotherhood and many a sisterhood of And so there comnes to be a law in the commonplace professorship. Well then, mind, warring against the law that is in suppose that on the eve of its escape, a the members-a new will that aspires, if sudden remembrance of the verse which not to such a sovereignty as can carry interdicts, not certain of the more flagrant into effect a sentence of expulsion against and aggravated, but which interdicts ali the evil desires that are in the members, evil speakings together, should come into at least to such a sovereignty as shall lay the mind; and the will, that power which upon these desires an effectual negative- sits in the chair of authority, should of So that if they cannot be got quit of while I consequence interpose, and lay its arrest we'are in the body, as sc many trouble- on the offending member, and bind it over some companions, they may at least be to a peace which it feels strongly neverdeposed from the practical ascendancy theless tempted to violate-it is quite com. they want to wield over us, as so many patible with the man's Christianity, thai tyrannical lords and oppressors. Like he should have about him still, a part of the whole of a wilful and stubborn team a constitution to which the utterance of a that have a perverse tendency to devia- thoughtless story were a pleasurable in. tion, would they run into disorder on the dulgence-it is quite compatible with his reins being yielded to them; but, in virtue Christianity, that this is a temptation, and of the strength and determination of the he should feel it to be so; but it is not governor, the reins are not given up; and worthy of his vocation, while sensible of so, though with much tension and fatigue its force, that he should actually and in and watchftlness, are they kept on the deed submit to the force: And his part is proper course. The difference between resolutely to put forth his hand on the 23 178 LECTURE XXXIV.-CIIAPTER VI, 13, 14. reins of management, and not yield his listening, as it long has, to sin and to sense member as an instrument of unrighteous- and to selfishness, you make it now youi nlcss unto sin. deliberate and steadfast aim to resist all'But yield yourselves unto God' Amid the suggestions of these troublesome and the clamour and besetting importunity of treacherous advisers; and in their place the various alkictions of our nature, there you throne the great principle of,' Lord. is the will, whose consent must be ob- what wiliest thou me to do?'-All these.ained and whose authority must be given, are just so many other ways of expressing ere any one of the affections shall be that greatest of' all practical movements, gratitied. It is true that the will may be by which a man yields himself up unto the slave of unworthy passions —just as a God-a movement, which, if' not taken, monarch may be the slave of unworthy leaves you still in the broad way among favourites. But still it is from the mon- the children of disobedience, aind either arch, that the order is issued. And he marks you to be still an utter stranger to must set his seal to it ere it can be car- the doctrine of Christ, or, if you be ac ried into effect. It may be a base cor- quainted with that doctrine, marks and pliance in him, to grant what he does to most decisively, that it is a doctrine which the urgency of' his profligate and para- has come to you in word only and not in sitical minions. But still his grant is in- power. dispensable; and the same of the will Be assured, my brethren, that, in proamong all the other feelings and faculties portion to the strength and the smplicity of the human constitution. It may be in of your determination for God, will be the actual abject subordination to the appe- clearness of your Christianity, and the. tites; and through it the whole man may comfort attendant on all its hopes and all be lorded over, by a set of most ignoble its promises. It is the man whose eye is though most oppressive taskmasters. Yet single, whose whole body shall be full of the moment that the will shall determine light. You complain ofdarkness, do you? to cast off this ascendancy, like as when See that there be not. a want of perfect a monarch dismisses his favourites, their oneness and willingness and sincerity, as power is at an end; and should the will to the total yielding of yourself unto God. resolve for God, this were tantamount to The entanglement of one wrong and our yielding up of the whole man to the worldly affection, may mar your purwill and authority of God. It may do so poses. The influence of one forbidden by one act; and yet that act be the transi- conformity, may do it. To the right fction of the whole man into another habit, lowing of Christ, there must be the foland the passing of the soul under another saking of all. He must be chosen as the regimen, than before. Though one step alone master; nor will He accept of a only, it is indeed a big and a decisive one. partial yielding up of yourselves. It must It is the great introductory movement to a be an entire and unexcepted yielding. new life-nor can we figure a mightier Nor is there any thing so likely as the crisis, or a more pregnant turning point doublings of a wavering and undecided in your personal history, than is that re- purpose, to wrap the gospel in obscurity, solve of the mind, by which it resolves and throw a darkening shroud over all effectually for God, by which it yields that truth which ministers peace and joy itself up unto Him with full purpose of to the believer's soul. heart and endeavour after new obedience. And I trust that you are now prepared And this one act, brooding as it does to meet a difficulty, which is sometimes with consequences of such moment, both suggested, when the Christian disciple is in time and in eternity-we are called urged on to perfection. You are now upon in the clause now under considera- aware of the utter hopelessness that there tion to perform. The man who enlists is in the attempt to extitpate the presence himself into soldiery, may do it in a single of sin; but this, so far from discouraging, instant; and that fixes him down for life ought the rather to excite you to utterto the obedience of a new master. WVhat most strenousness in the work of making. I want to gain is your resolution of en- head against its power. In such a state trance into the perpetual service of God- of matters, there may at least be a pure that you purpose now to give no more of and perfect and honest-hearted aimyour time to the lusts of the flesh, but to though there will not be so perfect an His will-that the posture now of readi- accomplishment, as if all the sinful appeness for His commands, and determina- tites were eradicated, instead of all these tion to obey them, be at this moment as- appetites being only kept in order. The surned by you —that you now give the purpose of the mind may be sound-the consent of your will, that great master full set of the inner man which delights faculty of the inner man, to your being in the law of God, may be towards obe. henceforth the subjects of God's authority dience to that law-And thus there may whatever may be its requirements-that be a perfect surrendering yourselves up LECTURE XXXIV.-CHAPTER VI, 13, 14. 179 unto the service of God, though not so of a life that you already have. Which perfect an execution of the service itself is the way of the text is perfectly obvious. as if you had no vile body of sin and of You are not here called upon to enter the death to contend against. The charioteer service of God, as those who have life to whose horses have a strong sideway win; but to enter the service of God, as direction, may be as thoroughly intent on those who are already alive-as those the object of' keeping his vehicle on the who can count upon heaven as their own roal-as he whose horses would of them- and with a sense of God's loving favout selves and without even the guidance of' in their hearts and a prospect of glory the reins, keep an unfaltering direction in eternal in their eye, put themselves under the right path. And lihe may also succeed the authority of that gracious Parent, whe in keeping them on, though they neither guides and cheers and smiles upon them mnove so easily, or smoothly, or quickly. along the path of preparation. The perfection of aim is the same in both In this single expression, there are -though the one must put forth a more three distinct things suggested to our painful and not so successful an endea- attention; and all of them standing con. your as the other. And it is just in this nected with that new gospel service upon way, that I call on you, with the full set which we enter, at the moment of our of all your purposes and energies, stead- release from the sentence and the state of fastly to keep and carefully to describe death. the career of new obedience. God, who There is first the hopefulness of such a knoweth your constitution, knoweth how service. The same work, that, out of to distinguish between a failing in the Christ, would have been vain for all the purpose and a failing in the performance. purposes of acceptance-is no longer lie calls for singleness and perfectness vain in the Lord. The same labour that and godly sincerity in the one. He is would have been fruitless, when, toiling aware of your frame, and is touched with in our yet unredeemed state of condemthe feeling of your infirmities, and knows nation, we would have toiled as if in the when I-Ie consistently with the rules of very fire and found nothing —may now His unerring government may pass by be fruitful of such spiritual sacrifices, as the shortcomings of the other. And thus are acceptable to God through Jesus while encouraged to confess and pray Christ our Lord. The same offlerings. over the remembrance of' certain sins in which would have been rejected as an the hope that they may be forgiven-we equivalent for the wages of a servant, are also taught, that there is a sin which may now be rejoiced over and minister will not be forgiven, there is a sin unto complacency to the spirit of our heavenly death. Father-when rendered as the attentions See that in yielding yourselves unto of one, whom He has admitted into the God, it be a perfect surrender that you number of His recalled and reccnciled make. See that you give yourself wholly children. Yield yourselves up unto God over to His service. I am not asking at then, not as one who has to earn life, but present how much you can do; but go to as one who has already gotten life from the service with the feeling that your all His hands; and your 6bedience, divested is due, and with the honest intention and of all legal jealousies and fears, will be desire that all shall be done. Let there free and spontaneous on the part of the be no vitiating compromise between sin creature —and, on the part of the Creator, and duty in the principle of your actions will be sustained as worthy of Himself to -whatever the degree of' soil or of short- receive, for the sake of that great High ness in the actions themselves. Enter Priest, whose merits and whose intercesupon your new allegiance to God, with a sion and whose death have poured a confull desire to acquit yourselves of all its secration over the services of all who obligations; and thus it is, that, without believe on Him. reservation, you may take Ilim to be There is secondly in this expression your liege Sovereign-and that, without the principle of such a service-even reservation, you may yield yourselves up gratitude to Him who has received us. It unto God. puts us in. mind of these precious scripThen follows a very important clause tures. "We are not our own, we are —'as those who are alive from the dead.' bought with a price-let us therefore It cuts up legalism by the roots. To work glorify the Lord with our body and ou" legally is to worhi for life-to work evan- spirit, which are the Lord's." And "it gelically is to work from life. When you Christ died for all, then were all dead, set forth on the work of obedience in the and He died, that they who live migh,one way, you do it to attain a life that live no longer to themselves, but to HIim you have not. When you set forth on the who died for them, and who rose again." work of obedience in the other way, you It is just yielding up to Him in service, do it in the exercise and from the energies that which He has conferred upon us by 80 LECTURE XXXSV. —CIAPTER VI, 13, 14. donation. It. s turning to its bidden use the lessons of eternal wisdom, a.:d to thE the instrumer He has put into our hands. accents which fall fromn those who feai It is giving tHim His own; and you, in the Lord and talk often together of His yielding yourselves up unto God as those name. In this way you turn your memwho are alive from the dead, are just I bers into so many instrdments of right. yielding the appropriate return of grati- eousness. You give up your bodies as tude for the life that has thus been bes- well as your spirits a living sacrifice unto towed upon you. God. The holiness that has been ger. And lastly, in this expression there is minated in the heart, is sent forth to the implied the power for the service. The visible walk, and inscribed in characters faith which receives Christ, receives pow- upon the history that may be read and er along with Him to become one of God's seen of all men. By yieidng yourselves children. It of itself' argues a spiritual unto God you enlist in His service. By perception, of which nought but spiritual yielding your members as instruments of life can make us capable. The instant righteousness unto God, you go about the of our believing is the instant of our new service. You carry out into deed and into birth. The same tfith which reconciles, development, what before existed only in is also the faith which regenerates; and design. By yielding yourselves you subyou, in yielding yourselves up unto the scribe the indenture. By yielding your service of God, will be nobly upheld members you act upon this indenture. among all its fatigues and all its difficul- By the one you undertake in all things ties, by the influences which descend on for the glory of God. By the other you the prayer of faith from the upper sanc- do all things to His glory. The one shows tuary. me that the will, that sovereign among' And your members as the instruments the faculties, is for obedience. The other of righteousness unto God.' You see how demonstrates that the will has made good readily anti how naturally, the apostle her sovereignty, by showing me the perdescends from the high principle to the son on the way of obedience. plain work of obedience. To yield your- Be assured that you have not yielded selves unto God, is a brief expression of up yourselves, if you have not yielded up that act, by which you submit your per- your members; or that the heart is not son and bind over all your performances right, if the history is not right. And, on to His will. To yield your members as the other hand, be assured that the honthe instruments of righteousness unto esty, and the frugality, and the tempeGod, is, in the language of lawyers, like rance, and the scrupulous abstinence an extension of the brief. It is imple- from all evil communications, and all the menting the great and initiatory deed of other every-day duties of every-day life, your dedication to His service It is go- have a high place in religion; that when ing forth on the business to which'you done unto God, they reflect an influence have come engaged; and actually doing on the source from which they emanatein the detail, what you before solemnly adding to the light and spirituality of the and honestly purposed to do in the gene- believer; and, though only the doings of ral. Did you at one time put forth your his outer, yet serving to build up his in hand to depredation or violence-now let ner man in faith and in holiness. it be the instrument of service to your V. 14. Compare the promise that sin neighbour, and honest labour for your shall not reign over you, with the precept families. Or did your feet carry you to of two verses ago-' let not sin reign over the haunts of profligacy-now let them you;' and it will throw light on a very carry you to the house of prayer, and of interesting connection, even on the way holy companionship. Or did your tongue in which the precepts of' the gospel an<' utter forth the evil speakings, whether of the promises of the goo?el stand related calumny or carelessness or profanation- the one with the other. T'ne promise don~s let it now be the organ of charity and not supersede the precept. "I will give peace, and let the salt of grace season its you a new heart and a new spirit," He various communications. Or did your says in one place-" Make you a new eyes go abroad in quest of foolishness- heart and a new spirit," He says in anolet the steadfast covenant now be made ther. "God worketh in you both to will with them; that, with shrinking and sen- and to do," in one place-" work out your sitive purity, they may be turned away own salvation," in another It is pre. from every obtruding evil. Or did you cisely in the same way, that He bids the give your ears to the corrupting jest, and man of withered hand stretch it forth what perhaps is most corrupting of all, to The man could not unless power had the refined converse that is impregnated been given; but he made the attempt, with taste and intellect and literature and and he found the power. The attempt, or every charm but that of Christianity-let an act of obedience on the part of the thenm now be given up in obedience to man was indispensable. The power, or LECTURE XXXIV.-CHAPTER VI, 13, 14. 18t an act of bestowment on the part of God, the law would have preferred against us, was also indispensable. They both met; and sin ceases to have the dominion, in and the performance of the bidden move- regard to the power of laying on the penment was the result of it. Had the man alty being now done away. But this is made the attempt without the power, not all. The grace of the gospel, under there would have been no st-etching forth; which you now are, has done more than or had the man got the Polwv:a a:nd not made sweep away the condemnation of sin. It the attempt, there would have been as has struck an effectual blow at its practilittle of stretching forth. It was the con- cal ascendancy over you. It has provided currence of the one with the other at the a spirit that puts into you another taste, instant, that gave rise to the doing of the and other inclinations than those you had thing which was required of him. And formerly. The law had power over your so of all gospel obedience.' Let not sin person, but not over your will-so that it reign,'' for sin shall not reign'-is in combined the tormentor with the tyrant, perfect accordancy with "work out your in that it was ever thwarting your desires, own salvation," for it is "God that work- whose rebelliousness on the other hand eth in you." It is God's part to lodge the was ever aggravating your guilt. But gift, but it is your part to stir it up. Stir grace has delivered your person from the up the gift that is in you, says Paul. If law; and, most delightful of all masteries, no gift be there, nothing will follow. If it has softened and subdued your willsthe gift be there-your exertion turns it and so, causing you to love the way of' to its right use, and works out the right holiness, has turned your duty into an and proper effect of it. It is thus that di- enjoyment. It has done more than the vine grace and human activity are in per- surety who only liquidates the debt, but feet co-operation. The one as sovereign perhaps leaves you as thriftless and idle as if' man had nothing to do. The other and improvident as before, for new debts as indispensable as if' it had been left to and new difficulties. But it has acted like man to do all. The grace so far from the surety, who not only pays all for you, superseding the activity, gives it all its but supplies you with the means of future encouragement-for without the grace the independence; and teaches you the manactivity were powerless, and you would agement for turning them to the best acsoon cease from it in all the heartlessness count; and watches over your proceedof despair; and thus it is that the precepts ings with the assiduity and advices of a of Let not sin reign over you,' finds a friend, whose presence ever delights instimulous instead of a soporific in the I stead of offending you; and charms you promise that'sin shall not reign over by his own example into the sobriety and rou.' industry and good conduct, which form And the reason alleged for sin not the best guarantees for your prosperity in reigning over you, is, that you are not un- this world. Thus, we say, does the grace der the law but under grace. The law is of the gospel not only disenthrall the soul the creditor of all who are under it, and of man from the bondage of guilt; but, sin is the debt which presses you down enriching it with other desires and other with a force which you cannot cast off; faculties than before, causes it to prosper and you may conceive the debt to be of and to be in health-and to abound in magnitude so overwhelming, that you not those fruits of the Spirit against which only are unable for the slightest liquida- there is no law. tion of its principal but that, unable for Let me just urge then in conclusion, its constantly accumulating interest, you that you proceed on the inseparable allicannot live without every day adding to ance which the gospel has established, the burden of it. And thus it is with sin- between your deliverance from the penalty a most fearful reckoning of past guilt of sin and your deliverance from its powagainst you,-and an hourly augmenting er-that you evidence the interest you guilt, by which the law is arming every have in the first of these privileges, by a day with a greater strength of rightful life graced and exalted by the second of severity, that it may wreak on the culprits them —that you now break forth as emanwho have offended it. It has you in its cipated creatures whose bonds have been power, even as the creditor has his vie- loosed, and from whom the fetters of' cortims, who can only be rescued from his ruption have been struck off along with grasp by the interposition of an able and the fetters of condemnation. You may an adequate surety. And for us sinners, say, that it is preaching to the dead, to there has been precisely such an interpo- bid you move and bestir yourselves tosition. The law has been treated with, wards the path of holiness —but not if by one who has rendered it ample satis- faith accompany the utterance, for in that faction-in that He both magnified it and case power and life go along with it made it honourable. He has rescued us Like the withered hand you will perform from the challenge, that, because of sin, the gesture that is required of you at thy 182 LECTURE XXXIV.-CHAPTE~r VI, 13, 14. hearing of our voice-if the Spirit of all lief in the gospel record, which strengttlgrace lend HIis efficacy to the word that ens as well as saves, and which sanctifies is spoken; and actuate you with that be-. as well as justifies. LECTURE XXXV. ROMANS Vi, 15-18. " What then? shall we sin because we are not under the law, but under grace? God forbid. Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to wbhom ye obey; whether of sin unto death or cf obedience unto righteousness? But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin; but ye have obeyed from the heart that form ef doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sins ye became the servants of righteousness." You will perceive that in the 15th verse, sition of true moral excellence, of which the apo.tle reiterates the objection that the apostle gives us the enumeration by was made at the outset of the chapter, such specific terms as love and peace and where it is said-' What! shall we con- joy and gentleness and goodness and longtinue in sin that grace may abound?'- suffering and faith and meekness and the same objection, but grounded on a temperance, against which, says he, there distinct consideration, or on a considera- is no law. The grace which delivered us tion differently expressed at least in the from the reckoning of the law because of 15th verse, where it is said,'What then 1 our past delinquencies, delivers us also shall we sin because we are not under the from the future reckonings of the law, by law but under grace' It strikes me that introducing us to such a character and she apostle, when treating this question as such a conduct as even the law has noput at the first, has in his eye the grace thing to allege against; and so the cirthat pardons; and, in his reply, he urges cumstance of being under grace, so far the inconsistency of creatures, who for from leading us to sin, leads us just in the sin had been adjudged to die, but through opposite direction-leads us to that dothe death of another had been recalled to main of righteousness which is not under life again, ever recurring in the habit of the law, and that because there the law their practice to that which brought upon finds no occasion on which it might put them so sore a condemnation. By the forth its authority to condemn; and there time he arrives at that point in the pro- its authority to issue orders is not called gress of his argument where we now are, for, because it is in fact anticipated by the he had asked them to resist the power of' heaven-born affection which does not sin, and to give themselves up unto the wait for its commands, by the heavenservice of God; and was encouraging born taste which delights in the doing of them with the prospect of success in this them. new plan of life, on the assurance that V. 16. There may appear a sort of unthis power of sin was not unconquerable, meaning and uncalled-for tautology in this but that, instead of its prevailing over verse —a something not very close or conthem, they should be enabled to prevail sequential, and which it is difficult to seize over it-because, instead of being now upon. The apostle had already asked under the law, they were now under grace. them not to yield themselves unto the And we have no doubt that there was here obedience of sin, but to yield themselves a reference. not to grace as it pardons, but unto the obedience of God. If it were a to grace as it purifies. There is another real and effectual yielding of themselves }assage in his writings, where he tells us to the obedience of God, an actual course what that circumstance is which denotes of obedience to God would emerge from a man to be not under the law. 1"But if it. If it were but the semblance of thus ve be led by the Spirit ye are not under yielding, or the putting forth of a warm.he law." To be taken under the leading but unsteadfast purpose which was no' Of the Spirit is to be taken under grace — adhered to and not followed up-ther even that grace which paid the debt of would they still continue in the obedience our souls and is now upholding them in of sin. Now, says the apostle, you are spiritual subsistence. What is the con- the servants of him whom you indeed sequence of the Spirit's leading, or what obey-not the servants of him whom yoi is the fluit of it 3 —why that we are led to only profess to obey. You may have en the peoference and the practice of all gaged yourselves to one master-you ma) those virtues which enter into the compo- | have gone through the form of yielding LECTURE XXXV. —CHAPTER VI) 15-18,.183'ourselves up unto hint-you may per- now that I have gotten health for the lahaps have deluded yourselves into the bours of my employment? Such a use imagination, that you have made good of his newly-gotten health, would prove your surrender unto his will and unto his that he had not honestly engaged for the autlhority; but still, if; in the fact and in interests of that master, whose servant he the real history. vou obey another-you professes himself to be; and just so of the prove by this that you are indeed the ser- application to which it is proposed that rants of a:at other Ele who sins is the grace, that mighty restorer of' health to scrvanl Df sin; and the effect of that ser- the soul, shall be turned-if you are not vice is death. Ile who obeys is the ser- actually in the service of God but of sin, vant of obedience; and the effect of that it proves that you have not honestly yieldservice is personal righteousness, or per- ed yourselves unto God. sonal meetness for the realms of life V. 17, 18. Thus the question, Whose everlasting. You may have made a dedi- servants are ye, resolves itself' into a caLion of yourselves unto one of these matter of fact; and is decided, not by the masters; but you are the servants of the circumstance of' your having made a other master, if' him you actually serve. dedication of yourselves unto God, but by And perhaps the best way of seizing on the way in which this is followed up by the sense of the apostle in this verse, is the doings of obedience. Whosoever he just to substitute whomsoever for whom in may be to whom you profess that you are the first clause of it, when the whole servants, you are the real servants of him would run thus:'Know ye not that to whom you obey; and the apostle, on whomsoever ye yield yourselves servants looking to his disciples, prouounces them to obey, his servants ye are whom ye do by this test to have become the servants actuaily obey, whether of sin unto death of righteousness. He knows what they or of obedience unto righteousness.' 1 were in time past, and he compares it have already told you of your release with what they are now. They were the from condemnation by the death of Christ; servants of sin-they are now the serand I have told you how monstrously out vants of righteousness. They not only of all proper character it were, that, after made a show of yielding ti:emselves up re-admnittance into the bosom of that ac- in obedience unto this new master; but cepted family from which sin and sin they make him to be indeed their master, alone had exiled you, you should again by their in deed and in truth obeying him. recur to the service of' sin; and, under the And he not only affirms this change of impression of this sentiment, I have bid- service on the part of his disciples; but den you yield yourselves up unto the ser- he assigns the cause of it. They obeyed vice of God. And, to encourage you the from the heart. There might have been more, I have proclaimed in your hearing an apparent surrender, but which the the helps and the facilities which grace inner mall did not go along with. There hath provided, for speeding you onward might have been the form of an yielding; in the accomplishment of this service; but some secret reservations, some tacit and when, after all this, you ask me shall compromise of which perhaps the man I sin then because of this grace-I answer, was scarcely if at all conscious, some No. if you do so, it will prove that the latent duplicity, that marred the deed, yielding not unto sin but unto God, to and brought a flaw unto it by which it which I have just enjoined you, has in fact i was invalidated. There may have been been no yielding at all-that you have something like a prostration of the soul, made perhaps a form of' dedication; but Ito the new principle that now claims an it is by your after doings, and by these ascendancy over it; but there must have alone, that we are to estimate the truth been a failing or draw-back somewhere. and the power of it. The grace which All had not been sound at the core-some you allege, as the plea of exemption from want of perfect cordiality about it, that God's service, is the very argument on explains why there should have been the which I found my expectation, that the semblance of a yielding unto one master, path of His service is the very place on but the actual service of another Now which I shall now be sure to meet you- God be thanked, says the apostle, this is for it is this grace which gives the power not the way with you. I look at your There would be no wanting of it to sub- fruit, and I find it the fruit of holiness. I stantiate your dedication, if the dedication look at your life, and I find it to be the itself were a heartily sound and sincere life of the servants of God. I compare one. For a man to say, shall I sin be- you now with what I know you to have cause I am under grace — is in every way been formerly; and I find such a practias preposterous, as it were for a sick ser- cal change as convinces me, that, whereas vant that had long been disabled from sin was formerly your master, righteous wor k but was now recovered, to say, shall ness is now your master in deed and in spend nmy tilrd in idleness or mischief, Itruth. And the account he gives of thi 184 LECTURE XXXV. —CHAPTER VI, 15-18. is, that the yielding which they made of which the heart of man receives from hemselves was a sincere and hones the word of God. It should be obedient yielding. The great master act of obe. to every touch, and yield itself to eve. dience, which they rendered at that time, ry character that is graven thereupon was obedience from the heart; and thus it should feel the impression, not from it turned out, that what was truly and one of its truths only, but from all of them singly transacted there, sent forth an -else, like the cast which is'- contact impulse of power upon their habits and with the nouid but at a single point, it their history. will shake and fluctuate, and be altogether But what is it that they are said here to wanting in settled conformity to that with obey from the heart? It is called in our the likeness of which it ought to be everytranslation the form of doctrine. Now where encompassed. You know how diffi. we know that the term doctrine in the cult it is to poise one body upon anotheoriginal may signify the thing taught, or when it has only got one narrow place t it may signify the process of teaching. stand upon; and that even another wil In the last sense it is synonymous with not afford a sufficient basis on which to instruction; and instruction, or a process rest; and that, to secure a position of staof it, may embrace many items, and may bility, there must at least be three points consist of several distinct parts, and be of support provided-else the danger is variegated with lessons of diverse sort- that it may topple to an overthrow. We to obey which from the heart, is just to think we have seen something akin to this take them all in with the simplicity and ere the mind of an inquirer was rightly good faith, in which a child reads, and grounded and settled on the basis of' God's believingly reads, the exercise of its task- revealed testimony - how it veers and book. And this view of the matter is fluctuates, when holding only by one arvery much confirmed, by the import of ticle and regardless of all the others-how the Greek word corresponding to form tossed about it is apt to be by every wind in our English translation. It is the same when it fails of a sufficiently extended with a mould, that impresses its own grasp on the truths of Christianity-how precise shape however forrned, and con- those who talk for example of the bare veys its own precise devices however act of faith, vacillate and give way in the multiplied, to the soft and yielding sub- hour of temptation, and that just because stance whereunto it is applied. And it is they have not stuck to the testimony of further remarkable, that it would be still the Bible about the whole duty and discimore accordant with the original-if, in. pline of holiness-how those who admit stead of its being said that they obeyed both the righteousness of Chl'ist as their from the heart the form of doctrine which 1 plea, and the regeneration of their own had been delivered to them, it had been characters as their preparation for heaven rendered, that they obeyed from the heart to be alike indispensable, have neverthethe mould or model of doctrine, into which less been brought to shipwreck; and that they had been delivered. The image just because, though adhering in words to seems taken from the practice of casting i these two generalities, they have never liquified metal into a mould; and whereby spread them abroad over their whole histhe cast and the mould are made the tory in the living applications of prayer accurate counterparts of each other. and watchfulness. They need the filling Christian truth, in its various parts and up of their lives and hearts with the whole various prominences, is likened unto a transcript of revelation. One doctrine mould-into which the heart or soul of does not suffice for this-for God in His man is cast, that it may come out a pre- wisdom, has thought fit that there shall cise transcript of that which has been be a form or scheme of doctrine. The applied to it. Did the melted lead only obedience of the heart unto the faith, is touch the mould at one point, it woul, obedience unto all that God proposes, for not receive the shape that was designed to the belief and acceptance of those who be impressed upon it-or if the surface have entered on the scholarship of eterof the one adhered to the surface of the nity; and for this purpose, there must be other only throughout a certain exten-t, not a mere subscription or assent of' the and not at all the parts, neither yet would understanding to any given number of there be an accurate similitude between points and artioles-there must be a the copy and the model. It is by the broad coalescence of the mind, with the closeness and the contact of the two all whole expanse and magnitude of the book over, and by the yielding of the one soft. of God's testimony. ened throughout for the whole impression A scheme of doctrine, you will observe, of the other, that the one taKes on the implies more truths than one; and St. Paul very shape and the very lineaments which had actually gone beyond the announceit is the purpose of the other to convey. ment of his one individual item by the And such ought to be thp impression time that he reached the verse which ts LECTURE XXXV.-CHAPTER VI, 15 — 1. 18l row submitted to you. He was very full on made free from sin, and so of being trans, Christ as the propitiation for sin, and on lated into the service of another master'he righteousness of Christ as the plea of besides him who heretofore has domiacceptance and reward for sinners-and neered ove: them, than that they should then when he came to the question, shall spread -pen their whole mind to the they who are partakers of this benefit whole.estimony-than that they should co t inue in sin that they may get still render that obedience of their hearts unto InOre of the benefit, he is very strenuous the faith, which consists, not in the conin pronouncing a negative thereupon. finement either of their attention or belief!te-e'here was not one doctrine but a to one of 1,.. articles, but in the freeness I')m (S,f doctrine, not one truth but a con:-. of thei. walking survey over the whole t Ad of truths-a mould graven on both platform of revelation, and in their ready'lc s of it with certain various charac- approbation of all the truths which lie..rs; and the softened metal that is poured extended thereupon. "Believe in the therein, yields to it all round, and takes Lord Jesus Christ and ye shall be saved," the varied impression from it. And so of is a quotation fiom Scripture; and indeed hilm, who obeys from the heart the form one of the most precious and memorable ot doctrine into which he is delivered. of its sayings-but 1"repent and believe T-H'oes not yield to one article, and pre- the gospel," is the complex announcesent a side of hardness and of resistance to ment of Jesus Christ Himself; and you another article. HIe is thoroughly softened must treasure up the saying that "unless and hurmbled under a sense of sinfulness, ye repent ye shall all likewise perish." and most willingly takes the salvation of There is no condemnation to those who,he gospel on the terms of the gospel. He are in Christ Jesus, is a weighty and welldoes not like the sturdy controversalist, laid doctrine-but another is subjoined; or the eager champion of system and of and out of the two we have this scheme argument, call out from the word his own or form of doctrine, that "there is no thvourite positfcn, with the light of which condemnation to those who are in Christ he would overbear and eclipse the whole Jesus who walk not after the flesh but -rnaining expanse of the law and of the after the Spirit."'estimony; but, like the little child, he The belief of the truth as it is in Jesus, follows on to know the Lord-just as the will be the salvation of one and all who revealed things offer themselves to his embrace it; but mark how this one andocility and notice, on that inscribed tab- nouncement has another added to it, which let which the Lord hath placed before is hinged to it as it were, and may be him. Tl-his was the way in which the dis- made to close into a mould for impressing ciples of Paul seemen to have learned the heart of God's elect children —" God their lessons at his hand; and this way hath from the beginning chosen you to of it, it would appear, brings forth the salvation, through sanctification of the te.timony from their apostle, that they Spirit and belief of the truth." To have had obeyed from the heart the form of his the blood of Christ sprinkled upon you, is doctrine. Their obeying of it from the indeed to be furnished with asure defence heart marks their obeying of it truly and against the angel of wrath-when he com-.n the inward parts; and their obeying a eth forth in his avenging mission against'borm of doctrine marks, not their exclu- the children of iniquity; but within the sive adherence to one doctrine, but their compass of a single clause, does the broad and entire coalescence in his sum- apostle Peter tack obedience to the sprinkmary of doctrine. A most important step ling of the blood of Christ. And then, to this, for it forms the very modus of con- use his expressions, do you' obey the catentation, between what the apostle says truth," and are indeed " obedient children they once were and what he says they not fashioning yourselves" according to now are. They were the servants of sin; the errors and the ignorance of former They are the servants of righteousness, days, when you submit to both the articles and why;-what was it that took place at of this clause, and proceed upon them the interesting moment of transition, or both. Paul went about preaching everyrather what was it that gave rise to it? where faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; but:'hey obeyed from the heart the form of this forms only one part of his summary doctrine into which they were moulded or according to his own description of it.cast; and then it was that they were and so he tells us of his "testifying, both made free from sin-then was it that, to the Jews and also to the Greeks, reloosed from its power as well as from its pentance towards God and faith towards condemnation, they gave their emancipat- our Lord Jesus Christ." In one place he ed faculties to the service of righteousness. could say of himself and of his disciples, I therefore know not a more pertinent that, "being justified by faith we have and rmore efficacious advice, that I can peace with God through our Lord Jesus give for those who are desirous of being Christ; and in another place he says to 24 LECTURE XXXV.-CHAPTER VI, 15 —18. sciples -"that the unrighteous shall whole form of doctri.ie Jlat is delivered ot inherit the kingdom of God." And he And at the sight of this flaw, the Spiri told them that such they once were, but takes His flight from the heart that is dethey had made it seems the very transi- formed by it; and leaves the owner tion spoken of in our text; and he could thereof in the thraldom of nature's cornow say, " but ye are washed, but ye are ruption and nature's carnality. And thus, sanctified, but ye are justified, in the my brethren, as you hope to lie rescued name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit from the tyranny of sin by the power of of our God," Arid the way for you, my Christian truth, you must fan and foster brethren, to make good the same transi- the whole of it. There must be the saub tion-is to have the same obedience of mission of a whole faith to a whole testifaith-it is to spread out the tablet of your rnony. Divide and you darken. The heart, for the pressure thereupon of' all whole of that light, which one truth or the characters that are graven on the one portion of the record reflects upon tablet of revelation-it is to incorporate in another, is extinguished-when the inquiyour creed the necessity of a holy life, in rer, instead of' looking fearlessly abroad imitation and at the will of the Lord Jesus, over the rich and varied landscapoe of along with a humble reliance, on His revelation, fastens his intent regards on merits as your alone meritorious plea for one narrow portion of the territory, and acceptance with the Father-it is to give shuts out the rest from the eye of' his conup the narrow, intolerant, and restrictive templation. The Spirit will not lend system of theology, which, by vesting a Himself to such a nian —one who does right of monopoly in a fetw of its fitvour- net choose to see afar off; and is sure to ite positions, acts like the corresponding fbrget some capital truth or other, in that system of trade, in impeding the full cir- finished scheme of doctrine whlict. the culation of its truths and of its treasure, gospel has made kno\wn to us. And of all through that world within itself, which is the things which he is apt to forget — made up of the powers and affections and perhaps the most frequent is, that every faculties that reside in a human bosom. true Christian is purged froni his old But do you, my brethren, obey the whole sins; and thus, in the language of Peter formof Christian doctrine, aswell as each the person who is thus blind, lacketh and sundry of its articles-be your faith righteousness, and is both barren and as broad and as long, as is the record of unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord all those communications, that are ad- Jesus Christ. dressed to it —and be very sure that it is The reason why you remain in the fetonly when you yield yourselves up in ters of sin is, that you refuse your consent submission to all its truths, that you can to some part or other in the scheme of be made free from sin by sharing in the truth. You would fkiln have orthodoxy, fulfilment of all its promises. and perhaps think that you are in thoe You often read in Christian authors of actual possession of it, when, without the power of the truth; and by which power and without spiritual discernment, they mean its power, not merely to pacify you only strain at a few of the literalities the sinner's fears, but its power to sanctify of' Christian doctrine, and sit down in the his character. It is a just and expressive unmoved lethargy of nature, with the phrase, and is adverted to in the passage word upon your lips that there is salvabefore us, where it is said that the being tion by faith, and forgiveness through the made free from sin, and becoming ser- blood of a satisfying atonement. Could vants unto righteousness, turns on the we only get you to admit the necessity of obedience of the heart to doctrine. But it a personal surrender, in all holy obediis not one doctrine only, but the entire ence unto God-could we prevail upon form of doctrine, to which the heart is you to believe that Christ came, not obedient; and so this power of the truth, merely to redeem you from guilt, but to is the power of the whole truth. Mutilate redeem you firom the vain conversation the truth and you cripple it. Pare it down of the world-could we, under the power and you paralyse its energies. The Spirit of this incipient conviction, only persuade is grieved with the duplicity and the you to make a beginning, and to move a disingenuousness of men, when they offer single footstep in the way of transition to divide that testimony, which, if they from sin unto righteousness-could you would but treat it fairly, Ile would turn understand, that, even as the remission of into the mighty engine of their conversion, sins must be had, so repentance must be and so pass them over with the strength accomplished, ere you be admitted into of His own right hand, from the service heaven, and the honesty of this your unof sin to the service of righteousness. The derstanding approved itself by your forth. obedience must be sincere, or it is not with acting upon it-could we only get obedience firom the heart; and it must not you thus to set forth on this measure oe partial, or it is not obedience to the incipient light, the light would grow witb .LECTURE XXXV.-CHAPTER VI 15- 18. 187 the incipient obedience; and, ever bright- is, that He presides over the initial, as ening as you advanced, would the prin- well as over all the successive movements ciple of forsaking all for Christ become of this gr2at transformation; and accordmore decided; and your decision for ingly, in the 17th verse, the primary cirChrist would grow with the growth, and cumstance of your obeying from the heart strengthen with the strength of your de- the form of doctrine, is made matter of penltdence upon Him. Trhe justification thanksgiving to God. It is through grace, and the sanctification, these two mighty in fact, that you are made to embrace the terms in Christianity, would be alike whole form of' doctrine. If any of you clearly apprehended as essential to the feel so disposed in consequence of our completion of the scheme of that doctrine, imperfect explanations-the glory of this by the obedience of the heart unto which it is due to grace, which has revealed to you is that you are saved. And I again repeat the necessity of holiness as well as parit, my brethren, take in the whole of gospel don-which has touched and softened your truth —lay hold of its offered pardon, and I hearts under the impression of this truth enter even now upon its prescribed course -which has moved you to an aspiring of puritication. The Spirit will not look in- obedience thereto-which will lead you, differently on your day of small things; but trust, to carry out the principle into prac. if you, casting yourself into the mould of tice and daily conversation —which will the whole truth, shall labour to realise it vent itself upward to the sanctuary in and seek to be renewed as well asto be for- prayer, and bring down that returning given-He will come down with the might Ifrce, which can unchain you from the of His creative energies upon you, and, bondage of' corruption, and give you imbreakling asunder the chains of your cap- pulse and strength for all the services of tivity to sin, will cause you hencefor- righteousness. It is grace that begins the W&I'd to be the servants of righteousness. good work, and it is grace that perfects This practical change, stands connected -and to sin because we are under this with the obedience of your heart to the grace, carries in it just the same contraform or scheme of Christian doctrine- diction, as to be in darkness because the fogr it is upon this being rendered, that sun has arisen; or to be in despair beyou are made free from sin and become cause an able friend has come forward to the servants of righteousness. Yet let us support us; or to be in disease because an not think therefore, that we, of our own infallible physician has taken us in his proper energy, supply as it were the first charge, and is now plying us with a regi. condition on which our deliverance from men which never misgives, and with sin is made to turn; and that then the medicines the operation of which never Spirit comes down and gives full and disappointed him. finished accomplishment to it. The truth LECTURE XXXVI. ROMANS Vi, 19-21. speak after the manner of men, because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members serwants to uncleanness, and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to rirhteousn:ss unto holiness. For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness. What fruit ihad ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed; for the end of those things is de,,th?" 1HIIE first clause of the nineteenth verse the manner of men, more in the way that reminds us somewhat of another passage is suited to the comprehension of unenin the apostle's writings, when he says to lightened and unrenewed humanity, to'his disciples, I speak unto you not as unto those who are still in the infancy of their spiritual but as unto carnal, even as unto education for heaven-whereas, in the oabes in Christ. The transition from the language of Paul, to those who are perruile and raw conceptions of nature, to feet, to those who by reason of use have the heights of spiritual wisdom and dis- had their senses well exercised, Nxe speak cernment, is not an immediate but a suc- what he calls hidden wisdom, even the cessive one; and so it follows, that the wisdom of God in a mystery. From the illustrations of Christian doctrine, must be clause before us, we infer that the same varied according to the progress of him topic may be variously illustrated, and whon you are labouring to convince and that according to the degree of maturity to satisfy - and we have to speak more in I which our hearers have attained in Chris. 18Es ~ LECTURE XXXV'I.-CHAPTER V[, 19-21. tian experience. And, agreeably to this, his minister, in the hope that othei s of the we find, that, whereas in the first instance, congregation require the very argument the apostle, in expounding the personal which falls powerlessly on his own heart, change from sin to holiness which takes and are profiting by the very consideraplace on every believer, borrows a simil- tions which to him are superfluous or unitude that may be understood by men at called for. the very outset of their Christian disciple- And it is well to notice what the precise ship-he passes on to another consldera- illustration is, which Paul seems, while tion, the force of which could only be felt he is using it, to have felt of so puerile and acquiesced in by those, who had in and elementary a character, or so adaptsome degree been farniliarised to the fruits ed to the mere infancy of the Christian and the feelilgs and the delights of new understanding-that he says I speak as a obedience. man or as a mere child of nature, who This by the way may account for the had not been initiated into the mysteries various tastes that there are for various of the gospel, and that because of' the instyles and manners of' elucidation; and firmity of your flesh. The thing he was all it may be of substantially the same attempting to make plain to them, was doctrine. It justifies fully the ve'ry pecu- the transition of a believer from tlhe ser liar appetite, that a hearer is often found vice of sin to the service of righteousness. to express for that which he feels to be The service of sin might not be a very most suited to him. Nay it goes to ex- palpable conception to us, it being the plain the change that may have taken service of a mere abstraction, so long as place in his preference for the ministra- you restrict your attention to the genera tions of another expounder, whose mode term. But when embodied, as it was of putting or illustrating the truths of the imagination of a heathen convert, iL. Christianity, is the best adapted to that the person of a heathen deity; and fa. state of progress whereunto he has now miliar as he must have been, with those attained. And all that remains for him is impure and frantic orgies which were.o bear in mind, that there are other held in honour of a god who both exemn hearts and other understandings in the lplified and patronised the worst vices ot world beside his own-that, as there is a our nature —he would instantly connec diversity of subjects, so there is and so with the service of' sin, the service of a there ought to be a diversity of applica- living master, who issued a voice of autions; and, accordingly, a diversity of thority and exacted deeds of iniquity gifts is provided by that Spirit, who divid- from his worshippers, as the most accep eth to every man severally as He will. table homage that could be rendered to This consideration should serve to abate him. In turning from that service to tht a litkle of' the intolerance, wherewith a service of righteousness, he could thu. hearer is apt to regard the ministrations easily comprehend it, as a similar transiof all, who do not lie within the boundary tion to that of passing from under the of his own very limited and exclusive fa- authority of' one living commander to vouritism. It should expand into a wider another-even front the god or gods to latitude that estimation of utility and whom he aforetime rendered the offering worth, which he is too apt to confine to of acceptable impurity or acceptable cruthose select few among the preachers, who elty, to the true God of' heaven and of work most effectually upon the peculiar earth whom he could only serve acceptatablet of his own understanding. More bly by walking in holiness and righteousparticularly, when he sees how Paul ac- ness before Him. And these Romanscomfnlodated his illustrations to the capac- accustomed as they were to the transferity awd progress of his disciples-how, on ence of bond slaves from one master to the principle of being all things to all another, to the way in which they were men, he made use of carnal or human ransomed from their old servitude and comparisons, to those who were but just placed under a new subjection to him emergring into spiritual light from the who had purchased or redeemed themmere light and discernment of nature- would the more easily catch the similihow this gifted apostle, that could have tude from the mouth of the apostie-when dealt out the profounder mysteries to the he told them of the power and effect of older and more accomplished converts, the ransom by Christ; and how, in virtue condescended to men of' low attainment; of it, they were rescued from the grasp and for their sakes came forth with expla- of their old tyrant, who could no longer nations, the need or the pertinency of wield that vengeance against them for sin which might not have been felt by those which he else had been permitted to exwho had reached a higher maturity of ercise-and no longer, if they chose tc experience in the gospel-Then might he betake themselves to the grace and privi. patiently wait what to him perhaps are leges of the gospel, could have that asthe insipid or inapplicable reasonings of cendency over them, by which their af LECTURE XXXVI.-CHAPTER VI, 19 —21. 189 fections were entangled and they were hateth iniquity, that soul anl spirit and kept under the oppressive influence of body which are not his own but his moral evil. From this they were all re- Lord's. leased and extricated, by the new master But the chief cause, perhaps, why an wtho'had laid down his life for them as illustration of this sort is more readily the price of their captivity; and whom, seized upon at the outset of our Chris. now that I-e had taken it up again, they tianity than many others, is that it falls were bound to serve in the way of all His more in with the natural legality of the commandments. human heart. We know not how obstiAi d this illustration of it, was not only nately it is that the conception of N:ork well adapted to the understanding of those and wages adheres to us, long after we Pagans wvho had turned them from dumb profess to have given in to the doctrine idols to serve the living and the true God. of justification by faith alone; and this It may still, in many instances, be the leaven of carnality may remain, to taint most effectual that can be employed, for the pure and the free and evangelical making clear to the convert of modern spirit, even for many months after the days, either at the moment of his turning germ of gospel truth has been deposited, or recently after he has done so-how he and ere by its growth it overbear the enters on the new habit of a sanctified feelings and tendencies of the old man. disciple, at the time that rescued from It is remarkable that Paul should think it condemnation he cherishes the new hope right to adjust his expositions, to the state of a redeemed disciple. He need be at of immature and yet unformed Chrisno loss either for a living and substantial tianity; and that the sturdy and unbendpersonification, when told of the service ing advocate of salvation by grace, and of sin. There is a real monarch to whom by grace exclusively, should, for the purthe iniquities of every sinner are so many pose of helping forward the cause of acceptable offerings-a superhuman be- Christian holiness, avail himself of the ing who sits on a throne, the authority of legal admixture that still infuses itself which extends over a wide domain of the into the thoughts at the earlier stages of moral world-an actual and living Mo- the Christian discipleship. But so it is; loch, who is surrounded by innumerable and, on the principle of all things to all slaves whom he has the power of tyran- men, he suits hit argument to the infirmity nizing over in time and of tormenting of their flesh; and, disposed as they are through all eternity: And the express under the economy of nature to regard mission of the Son of God was to combat themselves as servants, who by the fulfiland overthrow him. He came. to destroy ment of an allotted task make out a title the works of the devil; and to make good to payment from their master-he still, the deliverance of all, who put themselves under the economy of the gospel, employs unfder Himself as the captain of their sal- at least the relationship of servant and vation, and are willing to be rescued from master to express the relationship that the grasp of the adversary. And that power there is between them and God. He comes to punish us in hell, wherewith Satan was upon the very borders of legality, in order invested, Christ has as it were exhausted that he might fetch from thence a someby stepping forward and absorbing its thing that he might suitably address to whole discharge in His own body on the the babes in Christ, for the purpose of tree. And that power to fascinate and urging them on to the new life that beenthrall us upon earth, wherewith the comes the new creature; and while none God of this world holds his votaries in more careful than he to check in his subjection to sin, the Redeemer hath also disciples the spirit that would challenge overcome by the Spirit poured forth on reward from God, even as the servant the hearts of His followers, from that might prosecute the master for his rightthrone of mediatorship to which He has ful wages-yet none more solicitous than been exalted. And the believer, strong he, that every Christian should be steadand shielded and secure in the privileges fast and abundant in all the works of that have thus been obtained for him, is righteousness. And therefore, did he efflctually set at large from the power of gladly avail himself of a similitude, that his old master-either to confine him in the very legalism of the heart would the prison-house of guilt, or to control dispose it the more readily to apprehend; nim in any of his actions now that he and by which he would make it plain'to walketh at liberty. But still, like the his disciples, that they must now give oond servant who has been translated to themselves up to the service of another a humane from a hard-hearted superior, master —that they must now yield thenmne is not his own-he is bought with a selves unto God. price-and his business is now to devote, It may only be further necessary in to the new and the pleasing service of this verse to explain its reiterations. In Him who loveth righteousness and who their former state they had made their 190 LECTURE XXXVI -CHAPTER VI. 19-2 1.,nemoers servants to iniquity unto iniqui- you will at length come to love the ways ty —that is, iniquity, or he in whom moral of obedience. We doubt not that a cerevil may be conceived as personified or tain degree of desire and of cordial regard embodied, was their master. They were towards what is right, enters into the very servants to, or the servants of iniquity; first moving principle that sets you agoand it is added'unto iniquity'-That is to ing on the career of your sanctificatior. say, unto the corruption or iniquity of But you are not to wait till your taste and their own character. The effect of mak- affections be spiritualized to a suflicient ing iniquity their master, was to stamp pitch, ere you embark on this career the-character of iniquity upon their souls. But now, whether with or against the They were the slaves of the tyrant ini- grain, do whatever your hand findeth tc quity; and the effect of' this was to make do which you know to be obviously right themselves iniquitous. And in like man- Do it under a sense of allegiance to God, ner, are we to explain the counterpart in defect meanwhile of the more generous clause of their yielding their members and angelic principle that you like the servants to righteousness unto holiness- doing of' it; and the transition pointed that is, by entering into the service of this out in the text seems to be, that, as the new master, they become partakers of his fruit of your being subordinated to God's character and of his taste in their own authority, will you come at length to br persons. They could not become the assimilated to Him in holiness..servants of righteousness, without them- V. 20. This twentieth verse seems ar selves becoming holy. In yielding up argument for our entire dedication to the( their members unto righteousness, they new master, into whose service we have look to righteousness as vested with an entered ourselves. It is somewhat likfauthority to rqle over their actions; and the consideration of making the past tim, the effect of their doing so is, that right- of our life suffice, for having done th:. eousness becomes an accomplishment to will of the flesh; and that it is now hig? adorn and exalt their nature. So that time to spend the remainder of our life i,. this last clause may be thus paraphrased doing the will of God. Aforetime yo.. -' As aforetime you have yielded your were wholly given over to the service of members servants unto uncleanness and sin, and righteousness as emanating fromtr to iniquity, unto the utter ruin and cor- the divine sovereignty had no dominion ruption of'your whole character-even so You were free from righteousness, or now yield your members servants to wholly unrestrained by its obligations righteousness, unto the recovery and and its precepts. Now then be free from transformation of your character, that it sin, resist the mandates of the old tyrant, may stand out anew in all the charms of and give yourself wholly up to the will holiness, and be graced as it was origi- of the new master-Let your obedience nally with the features and the linea- to Him now be as complete, as wvas your ments of that divine resemblance wherein disregard of Him then; and an argument it was created.' of mighty influence why the old service And I may here advert to the influence should be,altogether given tip and the which action has upon principle. When new service be altogether followed, is you do what is right. at the bidding of ano- urged upon them in the following verse, thoer, there may, in the first instance, be by the appeal which the apostle makes to no very willing concurrence of the heart their own memory, of what it was they* with the obedience that has been pre- gained in the employment of their first scribed to you. You may yield yourself master. up unto God, under an overpowering sense V. 21. The apostle now proceeds to an of His authority; and, from that impulse argument, that could be better seized upon alone, do many things, which the sponta- by those who had to a certain degree neous tastes and feelings of the inner moved onwards in Christianity — who:nan do not very cordially go along with. could now speak to the superiority of the But no matter-you have entered upon new service over the old; and that, iot His service; and the effect of your stren- from the higher authority which had preuous and fhiithful perseverance in the scribed it, but from the more refined charcourse of it, will be to reconcile the inner acter and enjoyment of the service itself man to that whereunto you have restrain- -by those whose moral taste had undered the outer man. This is a result which gone a renovation, and could now look it appears you must work your way to. back with loathingf upon the profligacies The effect of your going through the ser- of their former career, while they chervices of righteousness, is that you will at ished a love and a heartfelt preference for length attain the spirit of holiness. You those beauties of holiness which adorned must labour at the work of obedience; the new path whereon they had entered., and, like unto the effect of practice in You will see that, to appreciate such a many other parts of human experience, comparison, marked a higher state of LECTURE XXXVI.-CIIAPTER VI, 19-21. 1'3. spiritual cultivation, than merely, at the with the preciousness:f that heavenly bidding of God, to enter upon the task, charm which he now felt to be.n all the which at the outset of' their gospel pro- sworks and all the ways of new obedience, fession He as their new master had put The apostle tells us here of the fruit o. into their hand. The musical scholar, sin in time, and of its fiuit in eternity who, at the bidding of a parent or a pre- For its fruit in time he refers his disciples ceptor, practises every day at the required to their own experience; and, whether we hours upon an instrument, is not so ripe advert to the licentious or the malignant for a festival of harmony, as he, who, passions of our nature, we shall finid that under the impulse of an ear all awake to even on this side of the grave it is a fruit its charms, revels as in his most kindred of exceeding bitterness. That heart, which element, when spontaneously he sets him is either tossed with the agitations of' un'lown to the performance-not as a task, hallowed desire, or which is preyed upon but as an entertainment. And neither is by the remorse and shame and guilty terthat spiritual scholar so ripe for heaven, ror that are attendant on its gratification who, because of the infirmity of his flesh, -that once serene bosom. friom which its needs to have his distaste for holiness wonted peace, because its wonted sense overcome by the argument of God's au- of purity has departed-that chamber of thority-as he, who, in his love for holi- the thoughts which is no longer calm, beness, now confirmed by the experience he cause stormed out of all tranquillity and has had of its pleasant and peaceful ways, self-command by the power of a wild nauseates with his whole heart the oppo- imagination-The unhappy owner of all site vice and the opposite impurity. It is this turbulence, who has given up the right to lift the voice of an imperative re- reins of government, and now maddens in quirement on the side of new obedience, the pursuit of his tumultuous joys along at the commencement of every man's the career of lawless dissipation-let him C(hristianity-just as it is right to exact speak for himself to the fruit of those from the musical scholar, a regular atten- things, of which he may well he ashamed. (lance on lessons which at the outset he 0 does he not feel, though still at a dismay find to be wearisomne. But as in the tance from the materialism of hell, that a one case what is felt to be a weariness, hell of restlessness and agony has already often merges, with the cultivation of' the taken up its inmost dwelling-place in his taste and of the ear, into a willing and own soul; that there the whip of a secret much-loved gratification —so, in the other tormentor has begun its inflictions; and, case, what, from the strength of remlininrg even now, the undying worm is concarnality was laboured at as a bondage sciously active and never ceases to coand called for the direct incitement of rode him! Or, if he be a stranger sti1. to God's authoritative command to make the fiercer tortures of the heart, will he head against the sluggishness of nature, not at least admit, that, as the fruit of yet, as the fruit of perseverance in the guilty indulgence, a hell of darkness if walk of holiness, does the will itself at not a hell of agony, has taken possession length become holy; and there is a growth of it-that, at least, the whole of that of affection for all its exercises and all beauteous morning light which gladdened its ways; and the doing of the allotted his pure and peaceful childhood is utterly task by the outer man, calls forth and extinguished-that all the vernal springs confirms a suitable taste of accordancy of approved and placid satisfaction are in the inner mrann; and, in proportion to now dried up-and that, in the whole rapthe strength of the regard for what is ture and riot of his noisy companionship, sacred, must be the strength of the recoil there is nought that can so cheer his defrom what is sinful and what is sensual. solate spirit as in the happy years of his So that while Paul, in illustrating the boyhood-nought that shines so sweetly transition of a gospel convert from sin upon him, as did the lustre of his pious unto righteousness, did, at the moment of and his early home. that transition and because of the infir- Or, if, from the wretchedness of him mity of his flesh, urge in terms as direct who is the victim of his base and sordid is if thu legal economy were still in force, propensities, you proceed to examine the the obligation under which he lay, to ex- wretchedness of him whom deceit is ever change the service of one master for the instigating against another's rights. or service of another-yet, with the disciple cruelty has steeled against all that is ex. who long had practised and long had per- quisite and all that is prolonged in an. severed at the bidden employment, could other's sufferings-you will find that here he use an argurment of a higher and no- too, the heart which is the place of' wickedbler and more generous character; and, ness is also the place of woe; Hand that, triumphantly appealing to his own recol- whatever the amount of unhappiness may lection, asked him to compare the vile- be of which he is the instrument to others, ness and wretchedness of his former days, it may not equal the unhappiness which . 92 LECTURE XXXVi, —CHAPTER VI, 19-21. Iiis own moral perversities have ferment- dulgence of vice here, to the constitut'ona, ed in his own bosom. The man of deep result of' it in wretchedness both here and and inscrutable design, who is an utter hereafter. It makes no violent or desulstranger to the simplicity and godly sin- tory step, from sin in time to hell in etercerity of the gospel-the man of thought nity. The one emerges from the other, as and mystery and silence, and into the does the fruit from the flower. It is sim. hiding-place of whose inaccessible heart ply that the sinner be filled with his own the light of day never enters —the man ways, and that he eat the friuit of hlis own who ever ruminates and ponders and re- devices. All that is necessary to consti solves, and has a secret chamber of plot tute a hell, is to congregate the disobe. and artifice in his own bosom which ad- dient together, where, in the langulltge of mits of no partnership with a single bro- the Psalmist, they are merely given up by ther of the species-Such a one, it may God to their own hearts' lusts, and where be thought, diabolical though he be, will. they walk in their own counsels. in the triumphs of' his wary and well-laid To conclude —there are some we trust po-licy, have his own sources of diabolical here present, who feel the force of the satisfaction. But ere he reach his place comparison between their past and their in eternity, he too in time may have the present habits; and who all open to the foretaste of the misery that awvaits him. charms of the vast superiority which lies There is already a hell in his own heart, in holiness, would, from the impulse of that is replete with the worst sufferings spiritual taste alone, make a most quick of thehell of condemnation;and if through and digustful recoil from all iniquity. But the deep disguises in which he lies en- there may be others, who, instead of trenched from the eye of his fellow-men, having accomplished the transition fromn we could see all the fears and all the fore- darkness to light, are only at the turning bodings that fluctuate within him, we point-or are yet but meditating the transhould say of him, what is true of every sition, instead of having made it. They son of wickedness, that, like the troubled have not yet acquired that loathing f,r sea, he cannot rest. sin, and that love of sacredness, which It seems inseparable from the constitu- would make them appreciate the con. tion of every sentient creature, and who trast, which the apostle makes between is at the same time endowed with moral the service of the old and the service of faculties, that he cannot become wrong the new master. Then let us revert t( without at the same time becoming wretch- them with the argument of the apostle ed. And what is the death that is the end who spoke to his young converts as a man, u. these things, but their natural and their fand because of the infirmity of their flesh utl-grown consummation? The fruit of If they are not yet in a condition for bein time, when arrived at full and finish- ing roused to the performance of the lat-.1 maturity, is just the fruit of sin through ter service by the finer argument of taste, ernity. There may be fire-there may let us attempt to rouse them by the grosser ve a material lake of vengeance-there argument of authority. The scholar is nay be the shootings of physical agony compelled to his hours of attendance for inflicted on the material frames of the a musical task, and thus does he work damned by material instruments: But we himself into a musical taste. And knew. believe that the chief elements of the tor- ye men, who are still only at the place of ture there, will be moral elements-that breaking forth on the career of' new obefierce and unhallowed desire —that con- dience, that it is a career which must be tempt and jealousy and hatred unquench- entered on-that though it shall fbr the able-that rancour in every heart, and present be against every taste and tendisdain in every countenance-that the dency of the inner man, your business is glare of fiendish malignity, and the out- to constrain the outer man to a conforcry of mutual revilings, and the oaths of mity with all the requirements of the gosdaring blasphemy, and the keen agony of' pel-that the life of a Christian is not ut-:onscious and convicted worthlessness- terly and throughout like a piece of wellWe believe that these will form the ingre- tuned harmony, moving in soft and flowdients of that living lake, where the spi- ing accordance with a well-poised and rits of the accursed will be for ever in- smoothly-going mechanism. But there is haling the atmosphere of spiritual bitter- a conflict, and a strenuousness, and a ness. And such is the natural course and painful opposition between the delights of consummation of iniquity upon earth. It nature and the demands of the gospel, and is merely the sinner reaping what he has a positive striving to enter in at the strait sown; and suffering the misery that is gate, and a violence in seizing upon the essentially entailed upon the character; kingdom of heaven which is taken by and passing onwards, by a kind of neces- force. sary transition, from the growth -and in LECTURE XXXVII. —CHAPTER VI, 22, 23. 193 LECTURE XXXVII. ROMANS vi, 22, 23., [-!t now, belrg made free fromn sin, and become servants tc God, ye have your iruit unto holiness, and the end ever Lastinlg life. For the wages cf sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal lir-e through Jesus Christ our I,ord." THE apostle, in contrasting the nature' more saintly advancement in personal al d enjoymnent of the two services, passes Christianity. It evinces a growing assei fi om that of' sin which is indeed a service. milation to God-who does what is right, of' bitterness, to that of righteousness not in force of another's authority; but which is a service of delight here and of who does wnat is rigcht, in fbrce of the enduring bliss and glory hereafter. It is free and original propensities of' his own remarkable that he speaks of holiness as nature to all that is excellent. And in the fruit, and not as the principle of our like manner does it forward our resemservice to God-as the effect which that blance to Him —when, on our first beservice has upon the character, and not coming subject to His imperative control, as the impelling moral power which led we at length like the service which we to the service. And this accords with the aforetime laboured in-when that way, to observations that we made on the various which at His word of command we have clauses of the nineteenth verse-where betaken ourselves, becomes a way of they who had yielded their members ser- pleasantness-when that path, to which vants to iniquity, are represented as having we constrained our footsteps because He thereby reaped fruit unto iniquity-or, in had prescribed it, is felt by us to be a path other words, as having, by their own sin- of peace. By such a blessed progress of ill work, aggravated and confirmed the sanctification as this, do we at length sinfulness of their own characters. Arnd, cease to be servants and become sons; on the other hand, they who had yielded the Spirit of adoption is shed upon us, their members servants to righteousness, and we feel, even here, somewhat of thhe are represented as having reaped thereby glorious liberty of God's own children. fruit unto holiness-or, in other words, A thing of labour is transformed into a thley, by doing, and that on a direct feel- thing of love. Our duty becomes our in. ing of obligation or at the bidding of a clination. And, by the heart and spirit direct authority, that which was right, being enlisted thereinto, what was before they, by giving an obedient hand to the of constraint is now of congeniality and work of righteousness, rectified their own most willing accord. The feeling of bondmoral framnes; restored to themselves that age wears away; and that which might image of holiness in which they were once have been felt as a burden, is now originally formed; became saints in taste felt as the very beatitude of the soul. It and principle, from being at the first is thus that the process of the text is realrather only saints of performance. The ised; and when the transition is so made obedience of the hand reached a sanctify- that the work of servitude becomes a ing influence upon their hearts; and a work of felicity and freedom-then is it perseverance in holy conduct made them that man becomes like unto God, and holy at length to be holy creatures. This is even as He is holy. the very process laid down in the verse One most important use to be drawn before us. Inl virtue of having become from this argument is, that you are not to servants to God, they had their fruit unto suspend the work of literal obedience, till holiness. We have no doubt that there is you are prepared by the renewal that has a germ of holiness, at the very outset of taken effect on the inner man, for renderthe new life of the new creature in Christ ing unto God a thoroughly spiritual obeJesus. But still a coarser principle of it, dience. There are some who are posiif I may be allowed the expression, may tively afraid of putting forth their hand predominate at the first; and the finer on the work of the commandments at all, principles of it may grow into establish- till they are qualified for the service of ment afterwards. The good things may God on sound and evangelical principles. be done, somewhat doggedly as it were, Now, in every case, it is right to be a~lat the will of another; but the assiduous ways doing what is agree2ble to the will doing of the hand may at length carry of God. There may be a mixture at first along with it the delight of the heart, and of the spirit of bondage-there may be a the same good things be done at our own remainder and taint of the leaven of will. It may become at length a more legalism-there may be so much of naspontaneous and plceasurable service; and ture's corrupt ingredient in it at the outthis certainly marir a stage of hig?.r and set, that the apostle would say of these 25 194 LECTURE XXXVII. —CITArlR vI, 22, 2J. babes in Christ who had just set forth on this hateful tyranny, there must be re. their new career,'I speak unto you not course to Christ as your surety-so that as unto spiritual but as unto carnal.' Yet this arch-bailiff shall no longer have the still it is good to give yourselves over, right to pursue you, for the heavy arrears amid all the crude and embryo and infant of all the negligence and all the midconconceptions of a young disciple, to the duct that are past; and there must also direct service of God. Break loose from be recourse upon Christ as your strength your iniquities at this moment. Turn and sanctifier-so that this arch-betrayer, you to all that is palpably on the side of shall be as little able to subjugate you to God's law. Struggle your way to the the power of sin as to exact from you its performance of what is virtuous, through punishment. So that faith, and justifica. all those elements of' obscurity and disor- tion by faith, and our interest in that proder which m;ay fluctuate long in the bosom mise of the Spirit which is given to faith of a convert. Do plainly what God bids, -this after all forms the great introduc-. and on the direct impulse too of God's tory step to a life of hearty, because to a authority; and the fruit of your thus life of hopeful obedience. A more literal entering upon His service, will be the obedience at the first, may be the stepperfecting at length of your own holiness ping-stone to a more spiritual obedience -such a holiness as shall be without spot afterwards —but faith is the essential stepand wrinkle-purified from the flaw of ping-stone to all obedience. Without legal bondage, or of mercenary selfish- faith, the sense of a debt, from which you ness-a holiness that finds its enjoyment are not yet, free, will ever continue to in the service itself. and not in any remu- haunt and to paralyse you. Without neration that is distinct fiom ca- subse- faith, God remains the object, not of love, quent to the service-a holiness that is but of dread; and thus an immovable upheld, not by the future hope of the interdict is laid upon the service of the great reward which is to come after the affections. Without faith, all the helps keeping of the commandments; but a and facilities of obedience are withheld holiness upheld by the present experience, from the soul; and the weary unproducthat in the keeping of the commandments tive struggle of him who is not yet freed there is a great reward. from the law which is the strength of' sin, Yet mark it well, my brethren, that not terminates, either in a deceitful formality, t till you are made free from sin, can you or in the abandonment of a task now felt enter even upon the first rudiments of a to be impracticable, or finally in the utter fruitful and acceptable obedience-not wretchedness of despair. Faith opens a till you are delivered from him, who, like gate of conveyance through all these Ihe executioner for a debt, could at any obstructions. It cancels the bond that time seize upon all your gains, and thus was before felt as a dead weight on all render all care and effort and industry on the energies of an aspiring reformation. your part of no avail. The analogy holds It gives the feeling that now obedience is between him who has the power of pur- not in vain; and that the labour of servsuing you with diligence, because of what ing God, instead of having all its acquisiyou owe; and him who has the power of tions wrested away as by the hand of an inflicting death as the condemnatory sen- unrelenting creditor on the moment that tence upon you, because of what you they are made, is now productive of a have incurred as a transgressor of the fruit that is realised in time and that law. The man who has not gotten his endures through eternity. Like the disdischarrge, is bereft of every motive to charged bankrupt, can the believer who econormy or to labour-because the creai- is freed from sin, now count upon the tor is on his watch, to lay hold of the gains of his diligence, and may therefore entire proceeds; and, by every movement set himself anew to save and to strive for lie makes towards him, he can add to the treasure that he is permitted to enjoy. expense of the business, and so plunge Faith is the starting-post of obedience; him into more hopeless and irretrievable but what I want is that you start immecircumstances than before. And so it is diately-that you wait not for more light of the great adversary of human souls — to spiritualize your obedience; but that invested with power as the grim execu- you work for more light, by yielding a tioner of the sentence; and invested also present obedience up to the present light with the power of aggravating that sen- which you possess-that you stir up all tence, by the corrupt sway that he has the gift which is new in you; and this is over thet affections of his enslaved vota- the way to have the gift enlarged-that ries, by the command which belongs to whatever your hand findeth to do in the him ais the god of this world over all the way of service to God, you now do it with elements of temptation, by his ill-gotten all your might: And the very fruit of empire in the hearts of the fallen posterity doing it because of His authority, is that of a fallen ancestor. To be freed from you will at length do it because of your LECTURJ.E XXXVII.-CHAPTER VI, 22, 23 195 own renovated taste. As you persevere task, to which you may perhaps feel in the labours of His service, you will prompted at the outset by something even grow in the likeness of His character. of a legal fear towards God. But no The graces of holiness will both brighten matter-should it be the task that goes to and multiply upon you. These will be perfect your holiness, it will perfect also your treasures, and treasures for heaven your love; and then will you be conclutoo,-the delights of which mainly con- sively delivered from the spirit of all sist in the affections, and feelings, and legalism or bondage or carnality, and congenial employments of the new crea- have that affection in your bosom which ture. casteth out fear. We gather from the text, what is the An-d I should like you to know the pregreat and practical business of a Christian cise import of the term holiness. It has in the world. It is to perfect his holiness. been defined to be all moral and spiritual The promises he lays hold of by faith. excellence. But this does not just exhaust The future blessedness and the present the meaning of the term. It is not just sanctification are both held out to him as virtue, even in the most comprehensive a gift, at the very moment of his first con- sense of the word, as including in it all that tact with the overtures of the gospel. one absolutely ought to be, both in refer~There is a free pardon-there is an all- ence to God and to all the creatures of perfect righteousness for his valid claim God. To turn virtue into holiness, a upon God's favour-there is a renewing reference must be had to the opposite of and a strengthening spirit-All these are virtue-even sin; and then does virtue begratuitously stretched forth to him for his come holiness, when, in addition to its acceptance; and his business, and the own positive qualities, we behold with business of you all, is now, even now, to what sudden and sensitive aversion it reput on the investiture of these various coils from the contamination of its oppoprivileges. And mark how the apostle site. Thus it is, my brethren, that had lays down the career of activity for a there been no sin there would have been disciple, as a thing subseqnent to all this, no sacredness. There might have been and emanating out of all this-" Havring love and rectitude and truth, exalted to therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let all that infinity which they have in the is cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of Godhead; and filling too, according to the flesh and of the Spirit, perfecting our the measure of his capacity, every one holiness in the fear of God." And it is of being that had sprung from the creative importance to advert here, to the place hand of the Divinity. But, in order that that the fear of God has in this process the Divinity or any subordinate creature of your advancing sanctification-as har- shall make an exhibition of sacrednessmonising with the text, that, by becoming it must be seen how it is that he stands the servants of' God ye have your fruit affected by the contemplation of sin; or unto holiness. You begin the new obe- by the approach of sin to his presence. dience of the gospel, more at first in the And then it is that we witness the characspirit and with the fearfulness of servants teristic display of God in the holiness, or -Lmore under the impulse of God's right- of God in the sacredness that belongs to ful authority over you-more perhaps at Him-when we read of the eves which His bidding than at your inclination- are so pure that they cannot look upon more from a sense of duty to Him, than iniquity-when we read of a sanctuary so from the love you as yet bear to the work remote from all fillowship with evil, that that Hle has given you to do. But no it is there impossible for evil to dwellmatter-be diligent with such principles when we read of' God in the awful jeaas you have, with such performances as lousies, and of God in the unconquerable God hath prescribed to you; and your repugnance of Ilis nature to sin; of the diligence in the service will at length grief and the hostility and the indignation work out a delight in the service. The wherewith it is regarded by the Spirit of labour you render to Him as your Master, the Deitx-So that should it offer to draw will forward and mature your family nigh, all Heaven would shrink at its comlikeness to Him as your Father. From ing; or fire would go forth from the place servants you will become sons; and my where His Honour dwelleth, to burn up object in urging this law and order of and to destroy. progression upon you, is, if possible, to Holiness is virtue, regarded in the ono set you aworking with such humble de- aspect of its separation from all that is grees of light and spirituality as you have opposite to virtue. It is thus that the at. -and this is the way of attaining to more tributes of clean and pure and untainte.' light and to more spirituality. It is to are given to it-free from all spot, because cause you to break forth from the ground free from all mixture or vicinity with sinof inactive speculation; and to put into fulness. The vessels of the temnple were your hands the employment of an instant holy, because, set apart from comlmon use 196 LECTURE XXXVII.-CHAPTER VI, 22, 23. they were consecrated, and that exclusive- spiritual elements. It lies ia'he play and ly, to the solemn and separate services of exercise of pleasurabe affections-rin the a divine ritual. But the most striking of possession of a heart now:horoughly Aill the historical demonstrations that we emancipated from all its idc!atries, and have, of the deep and determined recoil attuned to the love of that which is most that there is between a holy God and a worthy of love-in the well-poised and sinful world, is, when He gave it in well-constituted mechanism of the soul, charge to set bounds about mount Sinai that now moves in (luteous and delighted and to sanctify it-through which neither conformity to the will of that mighty Being the priests nor the people were to pass, lest on whom all is suspended-in the conthe Lord should break forth upon them. scious enjoyment of His favour, sensibly From this explanation, you will see how expressed by such indications of' benigthe fruit of holiness arises out of the nity and regard, as will pour into the cleansing of yourselves from all filthiness bosom unutterable extacy-in the rapof the flesh and the spirit. The deeds of im- tured contemplation of all the glory and purity must be given up at God's bidding, all the gracefulness, that are spread out even though the urgency of His command before the mental eye on the character of should carry you beyond what you would the Divinity-in the willing accordancy have been carried to, by your own detes- of honor and blessing and praise, not tation of impurity. You, at the outset of' merely to Him who sitteth supreme on a your new course, make a wider departure throne of majesty, but to him who paved from iniquity than your own dislike to ini- for sinners a way of access into heaven quity would prompt you to. But then, this and consecrated it by his blood. And reformation of the outer man will tell songs of eternal gratitude and gladness upon the inner man. As you keep your will ever and anon be lifted there; and it fearful distance from evil, your dread and will be the spiritual jubilee of beatified your delicacy against it will augment up- spt:'its that is held there; and the clear on you; and it is just by this reflex influ- ethereal element of holiness will be all ence of the habit upon the heart that its that is breathed there; and, altogether, holiness is perfected. And tnis view of it will not be a sensual, but a moral paholiness, as consisting of virtue or moral radise-where righteousness will be the excellence in its quality of uncompromis- alone recreation, and the service of God ing and unappeasable enmity to sin, har- be the very cordial and nutriment of the monises with the character that is held soul. And how is it possible, we again out of heaven-as being a place so invio- ask, that there can be any other way to lably sacred that nothing unclean or un- such a habitation there, than the way righteous can enter thereinto. 0 how it here of aspiring and progressive holiness 1 ought to chase away firom our spirit all the What other education can fit us for such delusions of antinomianism —when told, as an eternity as this-but the education ot we are, what is the atmosphere of that virtuous discipline, and guarded purity, place whither the disciples of Jesus are and determined watchfulness against that going; and how it is not possible for sin sin wherewith the sacredness of the upper so much as to breathe in it! What a spur regions can have no fellowship? If heato diligence in the great work of purify- ven above would recoil from all contact.ng ourselves even as that upper paradise with the pollutions of the world that is is pure, in which we hope to spend an below, then surely, we who are aspiring eternity; and how busy might we be at all toward that heaven, should keep our asthe branches of our spiritual education, siduous distance from them. The way of when we think that we shall be found un- the disciple here, should be as distinct meet for admittance into the great spiritual and as distinguishable from that of a child family, unless we are found without spot of this world, as the places are in which and blameless in the day of Jesus Christ! they will spend their eternity; and if it It is thus that in our text, holiness here is be through the way of sin that the one the essential stepping-stone, or the indis- reaches his abode of death and condermpensable path of conveyance to heaven nation, so surely must the other keep on hereafter. And as surely as the end of the way of holiness, ere he can reach the sin is death, so surely the end of holiness abode of life everlasting. is life everlasting. V. 23. It is of importance here to re. We have already adverted to the spirit- mark the contrast which the apostle exual character of hell; and have affirmed presses in this verse, as to the manner of that the wretchedness thereof, was mainly these two successions-how it is, on the composed of spiritual elements. And, in one hand, that death follows in the train like manner may we advert to the spritual of sin; and how it is that everlasting life chaiacter of heaven; and as surely affirm follows in the train of holiness. He had of it, that the happiness which is felt and before likened the trapsiticn from the one circulated there, is mainly composed of state to the other, to v transition from the LECTURE XXXVII.-CHIAPTER VI, 22, 23. 197 service Df one master to the service of sarily as anger disquiets, and envy cor. another master. And he before told us rodes, and avarice chills, and inordinate that he had done so, on a principle of ac- desire shakes the spirit into phrensy-as commodation to the yet remaining carnal- necessarily as the fierce or malignant ity of their feelings and conceptions upon passions of our nature, like so many torthe whole subject. They were still in- mentors' whips, serve to scourge or to fected with the spirit of legalism. They agonise-so necessarily, as well as meriwere still most familiar with the illustra- toriously, does their entrance into hell tion of work and wages; and, accustomed hereafter, follow in the train of all the, as they were to the transition of a bond iniquity that is unrepented of and untlrnslave from one master to another, they ed flom. could readily seize on that comparison- And as hell is just the place suited naby which Paul urged upon them their turally for sin, so heaven is just the place emancipation from the authority of sin that is naturally suited for holiness. But regarded as their old tyrant, and their al- while hell is both naturally and meritorilegiance to righteousness regarded as ously the place for sin-heaven is natutheir new and lawful superior. But he rally only and not meritoriously the place now adverts to a difference between the for holiness. Heaven is not so earned by two services, which it is of importance for man. It is given to him. And you should as all to apprehend. The death that advert to the distinction so palpably here comes after sin comes as the wages of sin. held out by the apostle —that whereas death Everlasting life, coming though it must do is rendered to the sinner on the footing of after holiness, comes not as the wages of wages that are due to him, eternal lite is holiness. It is a gift. On this footing rendered to the believer on the footing of must it be received at the last; and on a gift that is simply and freely bestowed this footing must it now be looked forward upon him. to by the expectants of immortality. But mark in the first place-that the As to the first of these successions, circumstance of heaven being a gift, does namely sin and death as the wages of sin, not supersede the necessity that there is -the very term wages, is expressive of for holiness going before it. It may take the one, as being the fit remuneration of away from the merit of holiness; but it the other. wTe are thereby informed of does not take away from the need of holideath being rightfully the punishment of ness. The man who comes to the marsin, or being due to it in the way of desert. riage-feast must have on the marriageI have already endeavoured to show, — garment; though it is not the simple act of that there is nothing in the tyranny of sin putting on that garment, which entitles over the affections, that can at all exempt him to a seat among the guests. His title us its helpless slaves, from the condemna- there is simply the invitation that he has tion to which sinners are liable-that the gotten; and yet it is quite indispensable very strength of our inclinations to that that he comes suitably arrayed. He may which is evil just makes us the more atro- not be able even to purchase the requisite cious, and therefore the more punishable vestments; and should these too have to -that had the necessity in question been be provided for him-should even tlhe a necessity against the will to do wick- very dress in which he comes have to be edly, there might have been cause shown given to him, as well as the entertainment why sentence of death should not be pass- that is set before him after he does come ed against us; but when that necessity — It may both be true, that without the just lies in the very bent and determina- dress he could not have been admitted; tion of the will towards wickedness, then and also, that, poor and defenceless outis it a circumstance of aggravation, in- cast as he was, he owes nothing whatever stead of an apology, for our transgres- to himself-that all had to be given; and sions against the law of God. Let no man he, ere he could partake of that feast by say because of the depravity of his own which heaven is represented in the New heart, and the unresisted ascendancy of Testament, had to be clothed by another's sin over it, that he is tempted of God. The wealth as well as regaled by another's fact is that he is drawn away of his own bounty. lusts and enticed; and the death, which Now this is just the way in which the is laid upon him as a penalty, is as much everlasting life, that none can obtain withthe natural as it is the penal effect of his out being holy, is nevertheless a gift. It own conduct. In being enveloped with is of grace and not at all of works. It is the atmosphere of hell on the other side all of grace from the first to the last-for of the grave, because of his character on the very holiness is given; and while of this side of it, he is simply filled with the all sin it may be said that it is our own, fruit of his own ways-he is just reaping because drawn away to it of our own that which he has sown. And as neces- lusts and enticed-of holiness it may be 198 LECTURE XXXVII. —CITAPTER VI, 22, 23. said that it is not of ourselves, but that use of all the grace that has already beea, good and perfect gift which cometh down imparted. When you do whatever your fr'om above. hand findeth to do, you are only stirring And as eternal life being a gift, does up the gift that is in you; and if faithful not supersede the need of holiness-so in turning to account all that you do holiness being a gift, does not supersede have, and watchful and prayerful for the need that there is for your own stir- more, it is thus, that, from the more rude ring, and your own painstaking, and all and literal services which you are enabled the diligence both of your performances to render at the outset of your new obeand your prayers. Still the progress is dience, you are conducted to the higher just as has already been set forth to you, attainments of the spiritual character, from such small doings as you are able and have your fruit unto an ever-advancfor at the first, to your growth in grace ing holiness. And Christ is all in all and in holiness afterward. And yet, even throughout this entire process. He purfor the small doings, an influence from on chased the inheritance, and He makes high must have been made to rest upon you meet for it. He has gone to prepare you. It is by power from heaven that a place for you there, and He prepares the work is begun; and it is by power you here for the place. It is through Him from the same quarter that the work is that the Spirit is given in answer to your carried forward, even unto perfection. In prayers; and while nothing more true other words you cannot pray too early. than that you must have the fruit of holiTurn me and I shall be turned, may be a ness ere you can have eternal life, it is most pertinent and a most availing cry just as true that eternal life, both in its even at the outset of your conversion. preparations and in its rewards, is the You cannot too soon mix up dependence gift of God through Jesus Christ our upon more grace, with diligence in the Lord. LECTURE XXXVIII. ROMANS vii, 1-4. - Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that knlow the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth. For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth: iilt if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Clhrist; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God." THE apostle, in these verses, bethinks has its fruit unto holiness; or, as it is him of other illustration, on the subject termed in this passage, its'fruit unto of the new and the holy life that is incum- God.' bent on a believer-and one more ad- The attentive reader will perceive, that dressed to his Jewish, even as the former there is a certain cast of obscurity over was to his Gentile disciples. In the verses the whole of this passage; and arising that we have already tried to expound in from the apparent want of an entire and your hearing, he illustrates the transfer- sustained analogy, between the illustraence that takes place at conversion, from tion and the thing to be illustrated. It is the service of sin to the service of right- true that the obligations of marriage are eousness-by the transfererne of a bond- annulled by the death of either of the slave now made free from his old master, parties; but then he only supposes the but whose services are still due to the death of one of the parties, and that is present and the lawful superior under the husband. Now the case to be eluciwhom he now stands enrolled. The apos- dated by this supposition, is that of the tle then, at the commencement of this now dissolved relationship which there is chapter, turns him to those who know the between the law and him who was the law, and deduces from the obligations subject of the law. The law is evidently which attach to marriage, the same result the husband in this relationship, and the which he had done before firom the obli- subject is as evidently the wife. So that, gations which attach to servitude-that is, to make good the resemblance-the law an abandonment on the part of the be- should be conceived dead, and the subject liever of those doings which have their alive, and at liberty for being transferred fruit unto dea:h, and a new service which into another relationship than that which LECTURE XXXVIII. —CHAPTER VII, 1-4. 1 99 he formerly occupied. Yet, in reading I agony of those inflictions that were laid the first verse, one would suppose-that it upon Him by the law; but then also did was on the expiry of life by the subject, the law expend all its power as a judge and not on the expiry of life by the law, and an avenger, over those who believe in that the connection between them was to the Saviour. be broken up and dissolved. It is true There is something in the consideration that the translation might have run thus, of the law alive and of the law dead, that'How that the law hath dominion over a should bear practically home upon the man so long as it liveth; and many, for fears and the feelings of every inquirer. the sake of' preserving a more lucid and Without Christ the law is in living force consistent analogy, have adopted this against us; and were we rightly aware translation. But then this does not just both of its claims and of our provocations suit so well with the fourth verse-where, -then should we feel as if in the hands instead of the law having become dead of an enraged husband, who had us most unto us, we are represented as having be- thoroughly in his power; and who, income dead unto the law; so that a certain censed with jealousy and burning with degree of that sort of confusion, which the spirit of revenge, because of the way arises from a mixed or traverse analogy in which we had aggrieved and degraded appears unavoidable. It so happens too, him,-held us in the daily terror of a that eithel- supposition, of the law being resentment, which no penitence could dead or of the subject being dead, stands appease, and which he was ready to dislinked with very important and unques- charge upon us by some awful and overtionable truth-so that by admitting both, whelming visitation. It is some such you may exhibit this passage as the appalling imagination as this, that gives envelope of two meanings or two lessons, rise to what is familiarly known by a both of which are incontrovertibly sound phrase ivhich often occurs in our older and practically of very great consequence. authors-a law-work. It is a work which This of course, would add very much to passes through the heart of him, who is the draught that we make upon your conscience-stricken under the conviction attention; and altogether we fear that, of sin, and terror-stricken under the antiunless there is a very pointed and stren- cipation of a coming vengeance. The uous forth-puttingofyour own intelligence experience and degree of this state of on these verses, we shall fail to render emotion are exceedingly various; but at any explanation of them to you, which all times it is the state of one who feels you will feel to be at all very vivid or himself still under the law; and liable to very interesting. be reckoned with by him as an unrelentIt is in the first place true, that the law ing creditor, who can allege such an tray be regarded as dead; and that he amount of debt as never can be paid, and our former husband, now taken out of the of deficiency that in his own person can way, has left us free to enter upon that never be atoned for. Some are pursued alliance with Christ considered as our with this thought, as if by an atrow sticknew husband, which in many other parts ing fast. Others, without such intense of the New Testament is likened unto a agony, are at least haunted by a restlessmarriagoe. And it is true also, that the ness, and a discomfort, and a general death of the law, which gave rise to the uneasy sensation that all is not right, dissolution of its authority over us, took which leads them to cast about for the place at the death of Christ. It was then, peace and deliverance of some place of that, inll the language addressed to the refuge, in which they facin would take -Colossians, it was then that our Saviour shelter and hide themselves. All are in blotted out the handwriting of ordinances the state of the apostle who says of himthat was against us, which was contrary self, that, when the law came, sin revived to us, and took it out of the way, nailing and he died-or that, when a sense of the it to His cross. It was then that the law law and of its mighty demands visited lost its power to reckon with us, and its his heart, there revived within him a right as an offended lord to take vengeance sense of his own fearful deficiencies along of our trespasses against him. You have with it; and he gave himself over to the read of certain venomous animals which despair of one, who had rightfully to expire, on the moment that they have suffer and rightfully to die. Men under deposited their sting and its mortal poison, earnestness, and who at the saine time in the body of their victim. And thus have not yet found their way to Christ, there ensues a double death-the death are in dealings with the law alive —stand of the sufferer, and the death also of the related to him as the wife does to an outassailant. And certain it is, that on the raged husband, breathing purposes of cross of our Saviour, there was just such vindictiveness and resolute on the accoma catastrophe. Then did our Saviour plishment of them-A state of appalling iour out His so il, under the weight and danger and darkness from which there is 200 LECTURE XXXVIII.-CHAPTER VII, 1-4. no relief, but in the death of that husband; exalts him more than he could have been and a state exemplifying perhaps the by all the fidelities of' your most unbrospiritual condition of some who now hear ken allegiance. It is thus that Christ ha: me, who know themselves to be sinners, negociated the matter with the law; and and know the law wherewith they have now invites you to lay upon Him, the so do as the unbending and implacable whole burden of its unsettled accounts, enemy of all who have offended him- and of its fearful reckonings, and of its who feel that with him there is no reprieve unappeased resentments —now invites you and no reconciliation-who have long to break loose from the disquietudes of perhaps wearied themselves in vain to your old relationship, to emancipate yourfind some door of escape, from this severe selves from that heavy yoke under which and stern and uncompromising exactor- you have become weary and heavy laden, and, as the bitter result of all their fa- to come unto Him and take His yoke upon tiguing but unfruitful endeavours, are now you; and you shall have rest to your sitting down in heartless and hopeless souls. despondency. It is thus that the law which is alive, and And perhaps the illustration of our text, fiercely alive to all who are under it, bemay open up for them a way of access to comes dead to the believer-now no longer the relief which they aspire after. It is under the law but under grace. To him iust such a relief as would be afforded by the law is taken out of the way. It is the the death of the first tyrannical husband, hand-writing of ordinances that was at who, at the same time, had a right to one time against him, and contrary to wreak the full weight of his displeasure him; but its hostility has become powerupon you; and by the substitution of an- less, ever since it has been nailed to the other in his place, who had cast the veil cross of Christ. It was then, that it put of a deep and never-to-be-disturbed obli- forth all the right and power of condem. vion over the whole of your past history, nation which belonged to it; and there. and with whom you were admitted to no fore it was then, that its authority as a other fellowship than that of love and judge may be said to have expired. The peace and confidence. It is thus, my bre- law had power over every man, so long thren, that Christ would divorce you, as it as it was alive; and its power went to the wvere. from your old alliance with the law; infliction of a grievous curse upon all, for and welcome you, instead, to a new and all had broken it. But after it got its friendly alliance with Himself. He in- death-blow on the cross, this power ceasvites you to treat, in trust and in kindly ed; and we became free from it-just as fellowship with Him, as the alone party the woman is free fromn all the terror and with whom you need to have to do; and all the tyranny of that deceased husband, as to the law, with whom you so long have who wont to lord it, and perhaps with juscarried on the distressful fellowship of tice too, most oppressively over her. And accusation on the one side and of con- thus ought we to hold ourselves as free, scious guilt and fear upon the other, He from the whole might and menacing of bids you cease from the fellowship alto- that law, which has now spent its. whole gether-by having no other regard unto force as an executioner, on that body by the law, than as unto a husband who is which the whole chastisement of our peace now dead and may be forgotten. And to has been borne. And we actually live deliver this contemplation from any image beneath our offered privileges —we shut so revolting, as that of our rejoicing in our hearts against that blessed tranquillity, the death of a former husband; and find- to which by the whole style and tenor of ing all the relief of heaven in the more the gospel we are made most abundantly kindred and affectionate society of an- welcome-I-1 we cast not away the terror other-You have to remember, that the from our spirits, of an enemy who is now law has become dead, so as to be divested exhausted of all his strength; and resign of all power of reckoning with you-not not ourselves to the full charm of so great by an act which has vilified ihe law or and precious a deliverance. done it violence, but by an act which has When a sense of the law brings remorse magnified the law and made it honourable or fearfiilness into your heart-transfer -not by a measure which has robbed the your thoughts from it as your now (lead, law of its due vindication, but by a mea- to Christ as your now living husband. sure which sets it forth to the world's eye Make your escape from all the rueful apin the full pomp and emblazonment of its prehension which the one would excite, to vindicated honours —not by the new hus- the rest and the comfort and the able pro. band having with assassin blow relieved tection which are held out by the other. you of the old, but by the one having Instead of having to do as formerly with done fiill homage to the rights and autho- the law, have to do with Christ now stand. rity of the other; and rendered to him ing in its place. Thus will you flee to Him such a proud and precious satisfaction, as in whom you will find strong consolation LECTURE XXXVIII.-CHAPTEA~, VII, 1-4. 20 Nor will you throw yourselves loose from the latter, the predominant feeting *which the guidance of all rule and of all recti- prompts her services may be sweet and tude, by having thus swept the law entirely spontaneous affection to one, from whom away from the field of your vision, and she is ever sure to obtain the kindest made an entire substitution of Christ in indulgence. But still it is evident, that its place-for He is revealed not merely under the second economy of matters, as a witness unto the people, but as a there will be service, possibly much greater leader and a commander unto the people. in amount and certainly tar worthier in But there is another way than through principle, than all that was ever rendered the death of the husband, by which the under the first. And thus it is with the relationship of marriage may be dissolved; law on the one hand, and with Christ on and that is by the death of the wife. And the other. Under the law we were bidden there is another way in which the rela- to do and live; and the fear of a forfeittionship between the law and the subject ure, or the consciousness of having incurmay be dissolved, than by the death of red a forfeiture, already infused the spirit the law; and that is by the death of the of bondage into all our services. Under subject. The law has no more power Christ, we are bidden to live and do. We over its dead subject, than the husband are put into the secure possession of that has over his dead wife, or than the tyrant which we before had to strive for; and has over his dead slave. And it is in this the happy rejoicing creature comes forth way, that the assertion of all power or at will, with the services of gratitude and authority over us, on the part of the law, of new obedience. Instead of life being seems to be represented in the fourth given as a return for the work that we verse-when we are said to have become render, our work is given as a return for dead unto the law, and it is added by the the life that we receive. And it will furbody of' Christ. This brings us back to ther be seen, that, whereas a slavish and the conception that has been already so creeping and jealous selfishness was the abundantly insisted on, that in Christ we principle of all our diligence under the all died-that we were dead in law; and, law, it is a free and affectionate generosity though Christ alone and in His own body which forms the principle of all our dilidied for our sins, yet that was tantamount gence under the gospel. In working to to the legal infliction of the sentence of the law, it is all for ourselves-even that death upon ourselves-so that the law we may earn a wage or a reward. In can have no further reckoning with us, working to Christ it is all the free-will having already had that reckoning with offering of love and thankfulness-not in us to the full in the person of Him who the mercenary spirit of a hireling, but was our surety and our representative: with the buoyant alacrity of an eternallyAnd just as the criminal law has done its obliged and devoted friend-because we utmost upon him whom it has brought to thus judge, that, as Christ died for all, execution, and can do no more-so the then were all dead; and He died, that law can do no more in the way of veh- they who live should live no longer to geance with us, having already done all themselves, but unto Him who died for with Him who was smitten for our ini- them and who rose again! quities, and who poured out His soul unto And to the eye of the attentive reader, the death for us. this may throw light on the difficult verse, After our old relationship with the law which comes immediately after the quotais thus put an end to, the vacancy is sup- tion that we have now given.* Christ plied, and in a way that is very interest- upon earth so lived and so died in our stead, ing, by tHim, who, after having removed that we may be said to have been held in the law through His death out of the the body of Christ. He was made substation it had before occupied, then rose ject to the law, in taking upon Him of again and now stands in its place. And our nature; and when he was in the we utterly mistake the matter, if we think, world, we may be conceived with Hlim to that, because emancipated from the rela- have served the law, and with Hlim to tion in which we formerly stood to the have suffered under it. But the law hath law-we are therefore emancipated from dominion over a man only so long as he all service. The wife owes a duty to her liveth; and thus, at the death of' Christ second husband, as well as her first. The and our death along with Him, this do. one has his claims upon her obedience minion terminated. And now it is no and her dutiful regards, as well as the with the law that we have to do, even as other. It is true, that, with the former, Christ had to do with it in the days of the predominant feeling which prompted His mortal flesh. It is with Christ in His her services may have been that of immortal and glorified body that we hold obligation —mixed with great fearfulness, all our conversation; and thus, perhaps, becauae of the deficiencies into which she was perpetually falling; and that, with ~ 2 Cor. v, 16. 26 202 LECTURE XXXVIII.- -CHAPTER VII, 1-4. will the more profoundly spiritual of our j you a rigorous exactor-insisting on every hearers feel a meaning in these words of article of the bond, and looking with an the apostle, who, after he had said of air of jealous and pointed stipulation Christians' that they should not henceforth to your every fulfilment; and, what is live unto themselves but unto Him who more, he will be unto you an offended died for thein and rose again'-said further, Lord, urging to performances which can that, 1 "Wherefore henceforth know we no never be reached, and reminding of' deman after the fleshl: yea though we have ficiencies which under him never can be known Christ after the flesh, yet now pardoned. If you will persist in looking henceforth know we Hin no more. T'here- upon heaven as the bargain of your serfore if' any man be in Christ he is a new vices, then will you be dealt with accordcreature; old things are passed away, ing to the whole spirit of a bargain's behold all things have become new." demands and of a bargain's punctualities. We shall not have time for the exposi- Now it is in this respect that the law has Lion of anly more verses at present; and ceased from his wonted capacity. The shall therefore take up the remainder of' believer is rid of him, and of' all his comthis lecture with the enforcement of such mandments, viewed in the light of so many practical lessons, as may be suggested terms, on the rendering of which eternal from the passage that we already have life is yours of challenged reward-yours endeavoured to illustrate. of rightful and meritorious acquirement. It must be quite distinct to you, in the All of you I trust are convinced, that on first place, that, though released from the this footing eternal life were placed at an old relationship betwcen you and the law impracticable distance away from you. on your becoming a disciple of Christ, This was the old footing with the old husyou are not thereby thrown adrift from band; but, now that he is dead, it is a all restraint and fromn all regulation. footing on which, to the great relief of a The second husband has his claims as sinful and sinning species, it no longer well as the first; and the wife is as much stands; and it is thus that we view the the subject of' obligations to the one as to matter, when we say of the law that it is the other. The transition from nature to abolished as a covenant. grace is here represented, by the dissolv- But on the other hand say our divines,ing of one marriage and the contracting while abolished as a covenant, it is not of another. Had there been no second abolished as a rule of life. Though not marriage after the breaking up of the under the economy of do and live, still first, then may it have been inferred, that you are under the economy of live and the faith of the gospel led to a state of do. Your obedience to the law is no lawless and reckless abandonment. But longer the purchase-money, by which there is such a marriage, which of course heaven is bought; but still your obedicarries its duties and its obligations and ence to the law is the preparation by its services along with it; and, accord- which you are beautified and arrayed for ingly, there is a very remarkable clause heaven. It is no longer the righteousness, in the apostle's writings that is commonly by which the rewards of eterinity are included in a parenthesis-when speaking earned; but still it is the righteousness, of himself as without law he says- which fits us to enjoy the sacred rest, and "Being not without law to God but under the hallowed recreations of eternity. It the law to Christ." 1 Cor. ix, 21. is no longer that, by which you obtain Now this leads us in the second place such a title as qualifies you to challenge to consider, whiat it is of the law that we the glories and the felicities of' paradise have parted with by the death of the first for your due; but still it is that, by which husband; and what it is of the law that you obtain such a taste, as qualifies for is retained, by our new alliance with the partaking in the glories and felicities of' second. And perhaps this cannot be done paradise for your best-loved enjoyment better, than in the language of our older To walk by a rule is to walk by a paitic. divines, who tell us on the one hand, that ular and assigned way. And still under the law is abolished as a covenant. We the gospel as under the law, the way to have ceased from the economy of' Do this heaven is the highway of holiness. Still and live.' Our obedience to the law is no it is as true in the present as in the forlonger the purchase-money by which hea- mer dispensation, that without holiness ven is bought —no longer the righteous- no man shall see God; and if it be no ness by which the rewards of eternity are i longer the gold by which you buy the earned-no longer the title-deed on which inheritance, still it is the garment that we can knock at the gate of paradise, and, you must put on ere you are permitted to presenting it there, can demand our admit- enter on the possession of it. tance among its felicities and its glories. The proprieties of the marriage state If you choose to abide in the relationship are substantially the same with tne sec. of the first marriage, the law will be unto ond husband, as they were with the first LECTURE XXXVIII.-CHAPTER VII, 1 —4. 203 But while the one would chide you, the tween a family establishment, arid an other would charm you into the perform- establishment of hirelings. Evei y workance of' then:; and we may add, that, man in the one is under a law of sobriety while the stern and authoritative precepts and good conduct, which, if' he violate, he of the one never could have forced your will forfeit his situation. But, if' instead compliance, because the will is not a sub- of a servant he is a son, it is not on any ject for the treatment of force-the mild bargain of that kind, that he is understood persuasions of the other, by his poses- to retain the place of security and main. sion of this faculty, carry in them a power tenance, that he enjoys under the roof of that is irresistible. And it is thus that his father. Yet, though sobriety and good Christ, who loved the church and gave conduct are not laid upon him in the way Himself for it, " sanctifies and cleanses it of legalism-who does not see, that the with the washing of water by the word, whole drift and policy of the patriarchal that he might present it to Himself a glo- government under which he sits, are on rious church, not having spot or wrinkle the side of all that is virtuous and amiable, or any such thing; but that it should be and praiseworthy on the part of' its memholy and without blemish." bers. Who does root see, that the desire Thus it was the will of the first hus- of a father may still, without any legal band, that you should keep the law, and economy of do and live, be most earnestly still it is the will of the second also that set on all that is good and all that is you should keep the law. There is no graceful in the morality of his children distinction in the matter of it, between the And while the thought never enters his commandment of the one and the com- bosom of any thing else, than that he mandment of the other. What you ought should aid and sustain and advance them to have done under the first economy, to the uttermost-yet, next to the desire you still ought to do under the second. that they should live, is it the most earnest It were strange had it been otherwise. desire of his heart that they should live He who loveth righteousness presented and do —do all that can purify or embelman with a draught of it on the tablet of lish their own character, do all that is the written law; and told him that, on his honourable to the name they wear. And obedience thereto, He would reward him thus are we under Christ as our second with a joyful immortality. This reward husband, or under the new family govhas been forfeited by sinners, but redeem- ernment of heaven-no longer servants ed by the Saviour of sinners; and still but relatives-admitted to all the priviGod, unchangeable as He is in His love leges of life, under the paternal and proof righteousness, and who had before tecting roof of Him, whose children we pictured it forth in that perfect code of are in Christ Jesus. Still the conduct morality which by man has been viola- that as servants would not have been ted —will now have it to be pictured forth tolerated, as sons we are warned and on the character of man: And, for this chastised against; and the conduct that as purpose, does He put the law in his heart servants would have been legally rewardand write it out upon his mind-and that ed, as sons is most lovingly recommended virtue, which the first husband failed to to our strenuous and unceasing observaenforce, does the second succeed in estab- tion. And our heavenly Father lovettl lishing-by engaging the gratitude, and righteousness in us, and hateth iniquity goodwill, and affection of His disciples, in us; and that verylaw which lie before on the side of it. That spiritual excel- enforced on the penalty of our eternal lence which man could not find of him- exclusion from His presence, Hle now self, wherewith to purchase heaven-the engages us to choose and to follow as the Saviour finds for him, and spreads it out eternal characteristic of all IHis family: in goodly adornment upon his person, so And our business now is to put ourselves as to prepare him for heaven. What the in training for the joys and the exercises first husband would have exacted as a of this great spiritual household; and for price, the other lays on as a preparation; this purpose to cleave unto Christ as the and the very duties that were required by Lord our Sanctifier-to betake ourselves'the unrelenting taskmaster, but not ren- to the aids of His grace, and resign our dered to him-are also required by the whole wills to the influence of that gratikind and friendly benefactor, who at the tude, which should lead us to love and to same time gives both a hand of strength imitate and to obey Him. Thus shall we and a heart of alacrity for all His services. bring forth fruit unto God-even those The difference between the two cases, fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus s somewhat like that which obtains be- Christ unto His praise and unto His glory 204 LECTURE XXXIX.-CHAPTER VII, 5, 6. LECT UJRE XXXIX. ROMANS Vii, 5, 6. "For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sin, which were by the law, did work in our nembers.o bring forth fruit unt: death. But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held: tl at we should serizt in r.ewness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter." THERE is a twofold change which takes under the economy of grace, but of grace place%, at the moment of a believer's tran- in conjunction with holiness; and the sition into the peace and privileges of the overtures of reconciliation-coming to us gospel. He in the first place passes into as they do through the channel of a mysa new condition, as it respects his legal terious atonement, and an unchangeable relationship with God; and he in the priesthood, and a mediatorship sealed second place passes into a new character, with the blood of an everlasting covenant as it respects the feelings and principles -come to us, if I may so express it, through by which he comes to be actuated. You such an intervening ceremonial, as serves know what his relationship to God is, to guard and to dignify the Sovereign, under the first economy in which he is even in the freest exercise of His clemency situated. The moral Governor of our to the sinful-So that they cannot by this world ordained a law of rectitude, and path of access enter into peace with the authoritatively bound it onthe observation Deity, without beholding Him in the of our species. That law has in every awfulness of His purity, without feeling individual case been violated; and it for Him the profoundest reverence. were giving up the very conception of a From this rapid sketch of the great moral government, for us to delude our- moral characteristics that sit on the econselves with the imagination, that a certain omy of the gospel, you may come to penalty shall not follow in the train of understand how it is that the belie her, on an offence, or that condemnation shall not being translated into a new condition is follow in the train of disobedience. This also moulded and transformed into a new in fact were stripping the jurisprudence character. It is easy to profess the faith, of Heaven of its sdnctions, and so reducing and a mere profession will induce no the divine administration to a nullity; radical change on the habits or the hisand this is the perpetual tendency of tory; but if a man actually have the faith, those who have not yet been arrested by then he has that which never fails to be the awful realities of the question. They the instrument of a great spiritual renovahurry themselves away from the contern- tion. It is upon this principle, that he is plation of God's inviolable majesty, and prompted to comply with the overtures uncompromising truth; and, in the pleas- of the gospel; and, in so doing, he is ing dream of His tenderness for the infir- made to feel what Nature never feels, and mities of His erring children, would they that is a calm and confident sense of his lull themselves into a sweet oblivion of own reconciliation with Godt. The man the alone elements, on which hinges the who has never experienced this sensation, fate of their eternity. It is indeed most will not adequately conceive of its detrue, that God has all of the love and the lights and its influences; yet still may he compassion and the amiable ki-ndness have some distant imagination of the new wherewith they have invested Him; and feelings and the new impulses, to which the gospel of Jesus Christ is the very it is the harbinger. On this single event development of these attributes-the very in the history of a believer's mind-that, expression of a longing and affectionate whereas formerly there was in it a disFather after His strayed children, for the trust or a jealousy of God, there is now in purpose of' recalling them; but at the it the assured conviction that the Almighty same time of recalling them in that one is his Friend-on this single event, there way, that shall illustrate the entire char- is made to turn an entire revolution of its acter and perflection of the Godhead. It desires and its principles. In the lanis a dispensation of mercy free to all- guage of the Psalmist, its bonds are indeed only of mercy through the medium of loosed; and, in place of that terror or that righteousness-not of' a mercy which hopelessness which frioze the soul into dethrones the law, but of a mercy which downright inactivity, is there now the magnifies that law and makes it honour- fieeness of a grateful and confiding spirit able-not of such an indulgence as would -the alacrity of a willing obedience. "1 pour contempt on the face of the Divinity, will run in the way of thy command. but such an indulgence as pours a deep ments" says David "when thou hast an I awful consecration over it. We sit I enlarged my heart." It is just this en LECTURE XXXIX.-CHAPTER VII, 5, 6. 2 5 argement that is opened up to the disci- wide is the dissimilarity in the whole pie, on his accepting of Christ, and so form and forthgoings of a man's mind, being delivered from the fears and the after the accession of this influence from fetters of legality. The mountain of a what they were before it-how certainly before inextinguishable debt is now liqui- a new character, as well as a new condidated; and a discharge is given by which, tion. emerges from it: and, when you from a peculiar skilfulness in the method connect the change with that which the of our salvation, the very justice of God, Bible reveals to us of the power from the as well as His mercy. is guaranteed to the upper sanctuary by which it has been acceptance of the sinner; and he now has effected, you will be at no loss to perceive a comfort and an expectation in the ser- on the one hand, why converts to the faith vice of that Being, before whom he had of the gospel, as born of the Spirit are hitherto stood paralyzed, as if in the said to be in the Spirit; and, on the other, hands of an unappeased and unappeasa- you will be at as little loss to perceive ble creditor; and the holiness, which for- the meaning of the apostle's phrase, merly he would have attempted in vain as'when we were in the flesh'-when we his price or his purchase-money for that were what nature originally made us; heaven the gate of which was shut against and before that transition by believing, all his exertions, he now most cheerfully which introduced another relationship renders as his free-will offering and his with God, and introduced us to another preparation for that heaven whose gate habit and another disposition in regard to is now open to receive him; nor can he Him. look to the whole process and principle The apostle tells us what took place of his recalment to the favour of God, both with him and with his disciples, at without seeing depicted therein the love the time when they were in the flesh. which that God bears to righteousness, Then did the motions of' sins, which were andi the hatred which He bears to iniquity. by the law, work in their members to The very contemplation from which he bring forth fruit unto death. We should gathers peace to his breast, brings down like here to know in the first instance, upon it a purifying influence also. The what is meant by the phrase of' sins which same spectacle of Jesus Christ and Him were by the law l' Some understand such crucified, that charms from the believer's things as were declared by the law to be heart the fears of guilt, tells him in most sinful-as if the apostle had said,'then impressive terms of the evil of it: And did certain affections which by the law that deed of amnesty, on which are in- were pronounced sins, work in our memseribed the characters of good-will to the bers to bring forth fruit unto death.' sinner, is so emblazoned with the vestiges Others assign a still greater force to the of God's detestation for sin, and so ratified law in this passage, as if the law had not by a solemn expiation because of it- only declared the affections in question to that the intelligent disciple cannot miss be sinful, but as if it was the law that had:he conclusion, nor will he fail to proceed made them to be sinful. And indeed there':pon it, that this is the will of God even is nothing hyperbolical in ascribing this his sanctification. function to the law-and that, on the prinI trust that even those of you who have ciple that where there is no law there is no no experience of this transition at all, and transgression. If a man break no rule;o whom I still speak as in amystery,will he is no sinner-and if there was posiat least admit, that, when a man comes tively no rule to break, then sin were an practically and powerfully under the impossibility. It is the law that characoperation of these influences, he must terizes sin as sinful; that makes the affecteel another moral pulse, and breathe tion to be sin which but for it would have another moral atmosphere from before. been no sin at all, and that purely by forIt is the doctrine of the Bible, that without bidding it. So that it is quite fair to unsupernatural aid the transition cannot be derstand the motions of sins which were effectedl-that, even for the establishment by the law, to be not merely such motions of that faith which is the primary and or desires as the law had declared to be pIresiding element of this great renewing sinful, but also such motions and desires process, an agency must descend upon us as the law had actually constituted sinful. from on high which nevertheless it is our But admitting both these explanations duty to watch and to pray for; and that as quite consistent the one with the other, unless fiom the first to the last we feel and as alike applicable to the passage be. our dependence upon the Spirit of God, fore us, there are others, who, additional we shall not be upheld in those habits to these, would ascribe to the law an inand affections of sacredness, which con- fluence of a still more active and efficient stitute our meetness for the inheritance quality-as if it not only rendered certain that is above. But my purpose in Intro- affections sinful which but for it could not ducing this remark, is to demonstrate how have obtained any such character, but as 206 LECTURE XXXIX. —CIIAPTER VII, 5, 6. if it called forth into being the very affec- ciples by which he is actuated. This tions themselves. They would make the proves of what importance it is, for uplaw, not merely a discoverer and an as- holding the tone of' character in societysertor of sin, but they would make it a that we should all be predisposed to turn provocative to sin; or an instrument for to our fellows with kindness and conficalling it into existence, as well as an in- dence and respect; and there is no saying strument for detecting and exposing it. how much the opposite habits of suspicion They think themselves warranted in this and detraction, and fieindish delight in the explanation by the text, "that the law en- contemplation of human ignominy, may tered that the offence might abound;" contribute to lower the real worth and and still more by the text, that "the law dignity of our species. But our present wrought in rne all manner of concupis- aim is to show, that, by the very establishcence"-so that these last interpreters, in ment of a law, we become exposed to the explaining the phrase of the motions of' sense of its violations; and this degrading sin which were by the law, would not ob- sense works a regardlessness of character ject to the idea of the law having actually and lays us open to other and larger vioexcited these motions, and being thus the lations: And thus the law may become efficient originator of the sins that pro- not only declaratory of sin, but creative ceeded from them. of sin; and that both by constituting cerNor is this view of the matter so much tain actions to be sinful andti multiplying at war with the real experience of our na- these actions-And in all these ways may ture, as may at first be supposed. The we understand the phrase.of our apostle, law may irritate and inflame the evil pro- even the motions of sins which are by the pensities of the heart to greater violence. law. The yoke, which it lays on human cor- The remaining clause of this verse ruption, may cause that corruption to fes- brings into view the distinction that there ter and tumultuate the more. The per- is, between feeling the motions or tendenverse inclination is just fretted to a stouter cies of sin and the actual following of and more daring assertion of itself, by the these tendencies. We have before a bun-. thwarting resistance which it meets with; dantly insisted on the presence of sinful and you surely can conceive, nay, some inclinations, even in the regenerated of you may have found-how legal prohi- Christian; but that he differs from him bitions, and remorseful visitations, and all who is still in the flesh, in that while the the scruples of a remaining conscience one obeys the inclinations, the other utand sense of rectitude in the bosom, which terly refuses to indulge or gratify them. lie in the way of some vicious indulgence Paul himself was not exempted from the on which the appetite is set, may give the motions of sins; and this is what he feel-. keener impulse to its demands, and make ingly laments in the subsequent verses it more ungovernable than had there been of this chapter. But then he did not suffer no law. And when once all the barriers these motions so to work in him, as to of principle are levelled, you may well bring forth fruit unto death. It is of ilmimagine —how, on the pressure and the portance for the believer to understand prohibition being removed, the depraved that, so long as he abides in his present tendency will burst out into freer and framework, he occupies an infected tenelarger excesses; and the harder the strug- ment-he bears about wnith him a vile gle was ere the victory over a feeling of body charged with a moral virus, from duty had been obtained, the prouder will the presence of which death alone can be the rebel's subsequent defiance to all deliver him; and against the power of its suggestions, and the more fierce and which, it is his appointed wartfhre so to lawless will be his abandonment. struggle, as that it shall Inot have the Nay, I can figure how the existence and practical ascendency over him. This is felt obligation of a law may, on the minds the inward' constitution even of a saint of a more delicate cast, have somewhat upon earth-a constant urg('ncy to evil of the same operation. It is not too sub- But what distinguishes him fronm tahe wiltile a remark, for there is substantial and ful sinner is, that he so resists this urgenexperimental truth in it-that, if the i-n- cy that it does not prevail. There is no putation of guilt lie hard upon a man, and conflict with the one for he walks altohe overwhelmed therewith sink into shame gether in the counsel of his own heart, and into despondency-in addition to los- and altogether in the sight of his own ing the sense of character, he may lose eyes. With the other there is the conflict the character itself. lIe will come down of two opposite principles-of the Spirit in reality to the level of the surrounding lusting against the flesh, and the flesh estimation; and you have only to enve- against the spirit; but so as that the lope him in an atmosphere of disgrace, in Spirit has the habitual predominance order to impart a corresponding tinge of and by the Spirit he is practically led moral Deterioration, to the living prin- They who are in the flesh have no such LECTURE XXXIX.-CHAPTER VII, 5, 6. 207 principle of counteraction within them to deceit, or fell malignity, or abandoned their evil tendencies-so that the motions licentiousness in the action-there may of sins which are in them work in their be less of difficulty in tracing it to the members so as to bring forth fruit unto operation of such propensities, as in truth deal h. work those palpable deeds of disobediPaul now under the power of the gos- ence, which obviously and undeniably pel, and in the full career of his sanctifi- have their fruit unto death. But when cation, speaks of his being in the flesh as the actions are those of' industry for ex. a thing of remembralnce. He could now ample in a lawful calling, or of light look back upon that state, with the full heartedness in a gay and harmless amnuse. advantage of' a tender and enlightened ment, or of courteousness in a circle of conscience, that recognized as sinful what decent and estimable companionship —. hle before had never charged himself Surely they are such actions as a chriswith, as incurring the guilt of' any viola- tian may perform; and in what circumtion that should infer death. He was stances, it may be asked, do they indicate even then free from the grosser profliga- f the performer of' them to be still in the cies of human wickedness; and lived in flesh, and under the dominion of such the deceitful security of one, who thought appetites as bring forth fruit unto death? that all his duties were adequate to all his Whatever difficulty we may feel ill anobligations. But he now could discern, swering the question, it can be replied to, t.hat, un blemished as he was in respect of and on a clear and int(elligent principle all outward enormities, he was then too, by that law which is a discerner of wholly given over to the idolatry of his the thoughts and intents of' the heart. own will; and then when tried by a law You are still in the flesh, if wvhat you which questioned him of his godliness- habitually do is not done unto God. Howof his I)relerence for the Creator above ever more amiable and more refined your the crelature — of his obedience to the species of worldliness may be than that commandmlent, that he should covet and of another, yet still. if you are not walkdesire no earthly good, so much as the ing with God, you are walking after the favor of that Being at whose bidding he flesh, and you move in a pictured world ought to have subordinated all the atf'cc- of atheism. Such may be your dark and tions of his heart —When thus tried, he obtuse apprehensions of the spiritual mocould now plainly perceive, that, at that rality of the law-lthat the general drift time, he was altogether carnal; and not of your affections being away from God the less so that at that time too, he with and set upon earthly things, may not apself was altogether satisfied. But the dif- pear to the eye of your contemplation as ficulty is to make that which was a thing being very deeply tinged with the hue of remembrance to Paul after he was and character of criminality. But by the converted, to make it a thing of present law itself this is declared to be a state consciousness to those who are not yet and habit of the soul, that is exceeding converted. It is true, it was on the eve of sinful; and all that is devised and all his becoming a christian that the convic- that is done under that dominant and untion of sin first seized him-nay, this very quelled spirit of secularity, which is the conviction migrht have been the instru- universal spirit of unrenewed and unremnent of turning him to the gospel. And generated nature, is done by those who therefore it is the more desirable, to reach are still in the flesh, and all the desires of the same conviction to the hearts of those whose heart bring forth fruit unto death. who are still in the flesh and now hearing To quicken you from this state-to me —to make them understand. how whol- transform secularity into sacredness-to ly it is that they are in the flesh-how un- make those who are dead in trespasses reservedly they give themselves up to the and sins alive unto God-to usher you impulse, of all those constitutional ten- into other feelings and other principles, (lencies, which result from the existing than those which unchristianized humechanism of their soul and body and manity ever can exemplify-This in fact spirit, without any control upon it from the is the great and ultimate design of the accession of a principle of godliness- gospel, which, after translating you into how much they live and talk and feel, just another condition, also transforms you as they would have done though the idea into another character. of a God were never present to them-So, V. 6.'That being dead wherein we in fiet, as to t,e as far as possible from the were i'ld' might be rendered' having habit of glorifying the Lord wvith their soul died in lii.n in whom we were held.' The and body and spirit, which are the Lord's. law has wreaked the whole force of its For the purpose of awakening this con- vindication on i,:' head of our great sacriviction, the thing wanted is both a more fice; and this is tal,'mount to out' having tender and a more lofty conception of borne the penalty outselves; and so, by the divine law. Where there is glaring our death in Christ, being delivered from 298 LECTURE XXXIX.-CHAPTER VII, 5, 6. an infliction that has now gone by. The is something in this state of matters tha law has no further reckoning with us, on is powerfully calculated to set mall ago. the old principle of do this aind live. We ing; and more particularly when he un. are not now under what the apostle in derstands it to be the alternative, that, another place calls the ministry of con- should he lose heaven, he will have his demnation, or under the authority of what part through eternity among the un he in the same place calls the letter that quenchable torments and ever-during agokilleth. The commandment no longer nies of hell. And so without any love to frowns upon us, from the place which it virtue in itself, but from the single princibefore occupied when written on tables ple of regard to his own safety-without of stone; but it is now felt in persuasive any native hatred of sin, but from the influence within us, because written now terror of that awful and intolerable venon the fleshly tablets of' our heart. It no geance which he conceives to be attached longer acts as a master, who drives his to it-may he be set on a most laborious reluctant slaves into a forced compliance course of dutiful and diligent and painsvith his bidding; or keeps them in per- taking obedience. Now only suppose petual terror, under the consciousness of him to have a just imagination of the law, a displeasure which no act or strength of' of its high demands, and of his countless theirs can allay. It is now their hearts' deficiencies therefrom; and do you not desire, instead of their constrained drudg- perceive, that, after all, they are the cry, to fulfil the requisitions of the law. jealousies of'distrust, and the scrupulosiThe honest struggle in which they are ties of fearfulness, and the mercenary embarked, is to make head agTainst all feelings of a bargain, and the extorte'd that corruption of nature, which would homage of sordid and slavish devoteeship, incline them to disobedience; and now and in a wo:d the desires or the dreads of in the hands of an approving friend who selfishness-that these form the main condeals out to them supplies of grace and stituents of that old legal service, which it strength for the wvarfare, they serve in is the purpose of the gospel to supersede. newness of spirit and not in the oldness But the most blasting circumstance of the of the letter. whole!s, that the primary influence by So that whatever the change be, which which this course of obedience has beer. takes place on this transition from nature originated, and by which it continues to to the gospel, it is not such a change as be sustained-is not the love of rectitude carries an exoneration from service along at all, but of a something in the shape of with it. It may be service in another reward that is distinct from rectitude; and spirit, and under a different stimulus from not a spontaneous aversion of the heart to before; but still it is service. There is sin, but the recoil of animal or physical nothing in the true faith of Christianity, nature from that suffe,-ing which follows which exempts its disciples from the ac- in the train of sin. There are no great tive performance of virtue; or from the moral characteristics, to stamp or to sigmost assiduous cultivation of all moral nalize the activities of such a service and of all spiritual excellence. So that and to view tman plodding and drivelling there must in some way, be a misappre- in this career, is to view him the mere hension of the matter, when it is thought creature of his own personal interests, the of the New Testament or of the evangeli- degraded bondsman of his own fears. cal system that is contained in it-as if it From this view of what it is to serve annulled every motive to righteousness; God in the oldness of the letter, let us proor substituted the contemplation and the ceed to the view of what it is to serve Him quietism of a mystic theology, in place of in the newness of the spirit. Under this those moralities by which human life is economy the door of heaven is thrown adorned, and which send a powerful and open to a sinful world; and the signals practical impulse to the conduct on the of' invitation are hung out from all its busy walks of human society. portals; and, instead of being proposed It may be difficult on this subject, to as the unattainable reward of' an obedi reach the understanding of those who ence utterly beyond the power of huhave not the experimental feeling of it; manity, it is held forth in the character but still perhaps they may be able to ap- of an accessible gift by God through Jes- i prehend, what the leading characteristics Christ our Lord. But then it is not a are of that service which is rendered in heaven of sensuality: It is a heaven of the oldness of the letter. Under this sacredness. It is not a place for the reeconomy, heaven is held out to man as creation of animal nature: It is a place the reward of his obedience-an inherit- for the high recreation of the moral and ance for which he must pay value; and spiritual faculties. It is described as the that never will be his without the pur- land of uprightness; and its main delight chase-money of certain specified merits, as lying in the play Gf holy affections, and certain prescribed services. There regaled by holy exercises. No man can LECTURE XXXIX.- RHAPTER VII, 5, 6. 20? purchase heaven by his virtue; yet no forms the highest and tie noblest offer. man can be happy in heaven without ing. virtue-for virtue is the element of heaven; It might perhaps help to clear this mat. and without the preparation of a virtuous ter, did we think that the great object of heart and a virtuous character, all the the economy under which we sit is to be appropriate extacies of that pure and lofty come like unto God. Now, it is not for region you would be incapable of sharing reward that God is righteous; but the love in. On this single change in the relation of righteousness for itself is the original between virtue and heaven, do you pass property of His nature. Neither is it from service in the old less of the letter to under the dfread of punishment, that He service in the newness of the Spirit. Your shuns iniquity; but it is because -le hates virtue is not the price of heaven; for iniquity. There is nought of legalism in then all the jealousies of a bargain, and the morality of the Godhead; but it is a the freezing apprehensions of legality, morality which springs from the primiwould degrade it from a thing of sponta- tive and emanating fountains of His own neous love to a thing of selfishness. But character, and spreads out in free and virtue is your indispensable preparation spontaneous efflorescence over all His for heaven, to which you are freely beck- ways. It is not with a prospective regard oned in the gospel by all the tokens of to some future heaven, that is to be adwelcome and good-will; and the man who judged to Hlim from a tribunal which is has this believingly in nis eye, forthwith loftier than Himself-it is not under an inenters with a new-born alacrity and de- fluence like this, that God is so observant light on the career of' holiness. He loves of truth, and so strict in justice, and of' it, not for any distinct or separate reward, such unwearied beneficence. These in but he loves it for itself; and gratitude to fact have constituted His heaven from Him, who poured out His soul as an esx- eternity; and it is just this spiritual heapiation for his sins, engages his affection ven, the delight of which lies in its love to it the more; and the soul, disengaged and in its holiness-it is this, and no other, from all anxieties about a debt which that awaits those who are here admitted Christ hath extinguished and a condem- to the number of His children through the nation which Christ hath done away, is faith which is in Christ, and have the fanow at leisure and at liberty for the pro- mily likeness imparted to them. Then it secution of all moral excellence; and the is that you pass from the oldness of the law, put into his heart by the Spirit of letter to the newness of the Spirit —when, God, is now his heart-felt delight, instead instead of toiling at the observations of of being as before his hopeless and un- virtue for a sordid reward distinct and seavailing drudgery. He has become a new parate from virtue itself, you are prompt. creature. The taste and the affection of ed to the observations of virtue by the holy angels have been given to him; and spontaneous love which you bear to it we refer to you all-on comparing the This alone is true moral excellence, puril service that is prompted by a love for the fled of all that taint of selfishness by reward of the law, with the service that is which it were otherwise debased and vi-'prompted by a love to the righteousness tiated; and it is only when transformed of the law-which of the two presents into this, that you are formed again after you with virtue in its most generous style the image of God in righteousness and in of exhibition, and which of them it is that true holiness. LECTURE XL. ROMANS Vii, 7-13. "What shall we say then lis the law sin I God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin but by the law; Ior I had no known Inst, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin, taking occasion by the commandmellt wrought inl me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead. For I was alive withcat the law once; tut when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. And the commandment, which was eor dained to life, I found to be unto death. For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me. Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good. Was then that which is good made death unto me' God forbid. But sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me by that which is good; that sin by the commandment might become exceeding sinful." THE apostle had before affirmed as ed to it-nay perhaps, that even the saw much, as that it was the law which consti- called forth into living energy and opera-:;*.ed that to be sinful, that without the law tion, certain sinful affections, which, but could have had no such character ascrib. for it acting as a provocative, might have 271 210 LECTURE XL.-CHAPTER VII, 7 — 1 o. lain within us in a state of latent and of of virtue having shed an aspect of greater unobserved dormancy. And he seems to hatefulness on the vice that is contiguous feel in this verse, as if this might, in the to it —that therefore it must gather upon apprehension of his readers, attach the itself, the same hue and the same hatefulsame sort of odiousness to the law that is ness which it has imparted to the other attached to sin itself: This charge against This were altogether reversing the pro. the law, he repels with the utmost vehe- perty of a foil, which is certainly not to inence and decision, and that sort of readi- obscure but to heighten the opposite exness which carries somewhat the expres- cellence. And the same of sin and of the sion of indignancy along with it. And law. The law is the ruler which marks the first consideration that he calls to his and exposes the crookedness of sin —not aid is, that the law acted as a discoverer because crooked itself, but because preof sin. Ile had not known sin but by the cisely and purely rectilinear. And it is law; and he had not known lust, or as the light which reveals the blackness and some would understand this clause, he had the darkness of sin-not because these not known the sinfulness of lust, or he are its own properties, but because of its had not known lust to be sinful, except the clear and lucid transparency. And it is law had said'thou shalt not covet.' It is the bright exemplar of virtue, which reno impeachment against the evenness of a bukes and vilifies all the wickedness that ruler, that, by the application of it to any it looks upon,-not surely because of any material surf.ace, you can discover all that vileness imputable to it; but because of is crooked or unequal thereupon. On the the force wherewith it causes this imputa. contrary its very power of doing so proves tion to descend, from the elevation of its how straight and unerring it is in itself; own unclouded purity, on the dross and and the more minute the deviations are the degradation and the tarnish by which which it can manifest to the eye of the it is surrounded. So that to the question, observer, the greater is the evidence that'Is the law therefore sin because it makes is afforded to the perfection of the instru- sin known,'-the answer is No. It makes ment that you are using. The light of sin known, not because of any participaday may reveal a place of impurity, or a tion at all in its character, but because of soil in the colouring of the object that you its strong and total dissimilarity. contemplate, which could not be recog- V. 8. But from the first clause of this nised under the shade of midnight-nor verse it would appear, that the law does yet in the duskiness of approaching even. more than make the deformity more noYet who would ever think on that account, ticeable and more odious than before. It of ascribing to the beautiful element of is even the occasion of aggravating that light, any of that pollution or deformity, deformity, by making sin more actively which the light has brought forth to obser- rebellious, and causing it to be the more vation? The character of one thing may foul and more abundant in its deeds of come more impressively home to our dis- atrocity. There can be no doubt of the cernment, by its contrast with the charac- fact, that the law of God does not cure ter of another thing; and the stronger the what the apostle here calls the concupiscontrast is between the two, the more in- cence of men, or in other words the detense may our perception become of the sire of man's heart towards any forbidden distinct and appropriate character of each indulgence; and this desire not being of them. But it were indeed very strange, cured by the law, is just thereby heated if the dissimilarity of these two things, and exasperated the more. The very reshould be the circumstance that led us to morse that follows in the train of any vioconfound them; or if when because placed lation, is of itself a constant feeder of the beside each other, the one became more mind with such suggestions and images, palpably an object of disgust than if as serve to renew the temptation to what viewed separately-the other should not is evil. It is ever bringing the thoughts on that very account, become more pal- into contact with such objects as before pably and more powerfully the object of overcame the purposes of the inner man, our admiration. When one man stands and may again overcome them-and the before you in the full lustre and loveli- very consciousness of having broken a ness of moral worth, and another loath- law, by perpetually adhering to the heart some in all the impurities of vice and and pervading it with the conviction of wickedness-the very presence of the first, sin, is just as perpetumlly operating on the may generate in the heart of the observer, heart with the excitements of sin. The a keener sensation of repugnancy towards man who does what is morally wrong, and the second; and this not surely because thinks no more of it, may never repeat they have any thing in common, but be- transgression till its outward influencesa causp they have every thing in wide and have again come about him, after it may glaring opposition. It were indeed a most be, the interval of many days or months, perverse inference to draw, from the fact and prevailed over him as before. But LECTURE XL.-CHAPTER VII; 7-131 1 the man who is conscious-stricken because. sainted holiness and integrity of the goo(. of his iniquity, and who is ever brooding nlan, still shine out in the same cloudless under a sense of guilt and degradation, and unimpeached lustre as before? and and who ever and anon recurs to it as the will not all the hardening and all the ceaseless topic of his many cogitations resoluteness of depravity which his pre. and many cares-Such a man has the sence has created in the bosom of another image of alluremrent- present to his just serve to bring down upon that other thoughts, and that too during the whole a still feller and heavier imputation"' extent of those frequent and lengthened And it is just so with the two parties, intervals of time, when they are not pre- whose merits the apostle is employed in sent to his senses. And thus does the law adjusting in the passage before us. It is turn ovit an occasional cause, why with not the commandment which works all him there should be both a more intense manner of concupiscence. But it is sir and a more abiding fermentation of all which taketh occasion by the commandthe sinful appetites of' our nature,-than ment; and it all goes to aggravate the with another, who, reckless of law and un- moral hideousness of our nature, tlhat, on disturbed by its accusing voice, just lives the approach of' so pure and righteous a at random and more under the impulse of visitor as the law of God, it is thereby outward events than of his own inward prompted to break forth into more audapropensities and inward processes. And, cious rebellion, and to give itself up te what adds to the helplessness of this whole the excesses of a more loose and lawless calamity is, that, while the law thus abandonment. scourges the unhappy victim of remorse, And it is in this sense, and in this sense it gives him no strength and no encourage- only, that the law is the occasion of death ment for the warfare. It gives a new as- to those who have disobeyed it. This sailing force to his enemies, but no force sore infliction is primarily and properly of resistance to himself,-because depriv- due to sin, which taketh occasion by the ing him of the inspiring energy that is in law. It is conceivable, as we have alhope, it gives him in its place the dread ready said, that the very company of a and the desperation of an outlaw. It tells man of righteousness, might so distance how by its unrelenting power and its ir- and so degrade in his own eyes a man of revocable curse, that he is undone; and iniquity-as that, with the desperate feelhe, by a process that in fact is oft exem.- ing of' an outcast from all honourable plified in the sad history Qf many an estimation, he might henceforth give him. apostate, may, just because of' his sensibil- self over to the full riot and extravagance ities at one time to the law of God, have of villany. He might even under this now become the more sunken in all pro- process of depravation have become a fligacy, the more daring and determined murderer; and so entailed upon himself a in all wickedness. death of vengeance, for the death of vioAnd yet the law here is not in fault. It lence that he inflicted upon another. But is sin which is in fault. The law is not who would ever think of laying either his the proper and primary fountain of all own blood, or the blood of his victim, to this mischief. It is sin which took occa- the door of' him whose excellence had sion by the law-which, at sight of the only called out -into more open decision law, strengthened itself the more in its and display the hatefulness of his owvn own character; and felt a more decided character? Even though this man oi impulse than ever, to the emission of all righteousness had been his judge, and had those influences on the heart of man, by passed upon him the sentence of execuwhich all manner of concupiscence is tion for his crimes-yet who does not see, wvrought therein. Which of the two par- that his crimes are all his own; and that ties then, whether is it sin or the law, that even though provoked into being by the deseirves the blame and the odiousness? view of another's worth, or by the galling It is conceivable of the worthless repro- prohibitions of the righteous example or bate, that he may be brought into the of the righteous authority tbit had been presence of hire who stands high and brought to bear upon him —at i. till this pure and undoubted in all moral estima- only served to blazer. and to enhanc:e his tion; and that he sickens, either with own turpitude, without transferring one envy or in despair, at the contemplation particle either of its guilt or of its roulness of an excellence which he cannot reach; to the pure and honourable arbiter of his and that the reaction which descends destiny And so again of the parties — upon him from the elevation of another's even sin and the law. The law is the virtue he is now looking to, may but exemplar of perfect virtue, and it is the fortify him with greater spite and tena- expounder of perfect virtue; and she may ciousness than ever in all his purposes of further be regarded as the executioner of evil. Though such be practically the virtuous wrath on all who haxe disowned ~'esult of such an interview, wi' not the and have defied her. And if so be, that ~212 LECTURE XL. —-CIAPTER VII, 7-13. they have been excited to a prouder and heart which is deceitful above all things more tumultuous defiance, by the very and desperately wicked. restraints which the presence of the law We now direct your attention to the has imposed upon them-this just makes last clause of the eighth verse. "For their sin more exceeding sinful; both without the law sin was dead"-dead in bringing it out to more glaring exhibition, respect of all power to condemn you. had and stamping a deeper atrocity upon its there been actually no law, or had its charac ter. authority been really extinguished; and Tihus much for the first clause of this dead in respect of its inability to stir up 8th verse-and, as we want not to repeat the alarms of condemnation in your heart, more than enough, we would make these had the sense or feeling of its authority illustrations serve for the 10th, 11th, and been extinguished: and, in both cases, 13mt verses, which we now read out in dead as to its power of seducing or enYour hearing-only adding one observa- slaving you, by means of a remorse that tion about sin taking occasion by the were thus obliterated, or of terrors that commandment to deceive in order to des- would thus never agitate the bosom. All troy. It slays its victim by a process of this, on the supposition of being without deception, of' which deception the law is the law, or without any sense in your made the instrument. It may do this in heart either of its high requisitions, or of various ways and by various wiles. As the high and unalterable sanctions which the man's remorse is continually leading enforced the observation of them. And him to brood over the transgression-so in the next verse Paul is visited with the sin may take advantage of this employ- remembrance of his own state, in a forment, and follow it up by leading the man mer period of his history-when ignorant to dwell as constantly on the temptation as he was of the exceeding breadth of which led to it. Or it may represent the God's commandment; when unaware of man to himself as the (loomed and irre- the reach which it took, into the very coverable victim of a law, that can never secrecy of his affections and desires; be appeased by any subsequent obedience when, not adverting to its character as a -and thus, through means of this law searching and a spiritual law, he looked again, may it drive him onward to the forward to a life of favour here and of profligate excesses of a ruthless desperado. blessedness hereafter, on the strength of Or. changing its device and its policy, his many outward compliances and his may it soothe him in a favourite though many literal observations. He was thus forbidden indulgence, by setting forth to alive wiihout the law once; and it was his remembrance the many offerings not till the commandment came-not till which he hath already rendered to this it revealed to him the whole extent of its same law; and the many conformities of authority and its cognizance —not till he Honesty, or Temperance, or Compassion, was made to see what its lofty demands or Courteousness, by which he still con- were, and what his wretched and irrecotinues to do it honour. And lastly, it may verable deficiencies therefrom-Not till even turn his very compunction into a then was it, that sin revived in him; that matter of complacency; and persuade its terrors and itsconvictiors awoke upon the man, that, in defect of the homage of his soul; that it stirred him up to such his obedience to the law, it is at least well restless and unavailing struggles, as shortthat he gives it the- homage of his regret ened not his distance from perfection: fir his many violations-and so Ewith a- And perhaps while it whetted his remorse, fieeling of very tolerable security, may he gave a darker and more desperate characspend his life in a constant alternation of ter to his rebellion; or at all events dissinning and sorrowing; of first offending posted him from the proud security of his his conscience by the freedoms of his old imaginations; and made him see, that, life, and then of quieting it again by the instead of a victorious claimant for the feelings of a bosom, where all sense of rewards of the law, he was the trembling the commandment and of its obligations victim of its menaces and its penalties. has not yet decayed into utter annihila- V. 9. The state that Paul here describes tion. And in these various ways, may a as being at one time his own, is in fact process of depravation be going on, under the prevalent state of the world. The men the guise of much solemn and reverential of it live in tolerable comfort and security acknowledgment; and the man be be- all their days; and that, just because trayed ints) peace where there is no peace; blind to those awful and besetting real=and sin be ripening into full ascendancy, ties by which they are encompassed-and even where its triumphs are mingled with dead to the tender invitations of the gosthe terrors and the sighs of penitency; pel, only because dead to the terrifying and at length, through the medium of menaces of the law. They are without many legal formalities and legal feelings, all adequate sense of its obligations, or of acquiring a supreme authority in that the powe' and certainty of His wrath whc LECTURE XL.-CIIAPTER VII, 7-13. 213 established it; and who will see to it that or show more strikingly thar. befcre tle. its aulhority shall be maintained, and its exceeding sinfulness thereof. But it car) many threats and many proclamations in no way be construed into an impeachshall one and all of them be verified. It ment against the law-which stands ex. is because the sinner is without the law, onerated of all the mischief, that ought or without any strong and affective con- properly and primarily to be referred to viction of all the places in his heart and the corruption of our own hearts. That in his history to which its government ex- vice should gather itself into an attitude tends-that he sees not the danger of the of more stout and shameless defiance, at condition which he occupies, nor reflects the sight or at the bidding of virtue-is upon himself as a transgressor, whose indeed a fell aggravation of all the enor. condemnation even unto spiritual and mities, wherewith it is chargeable; but everlasting death is altogether due to its still virtue shines forth with untarnished violated honours. Not till the law came, lustre, or rather enhanced in all fair and did Paul look upon himself as a doomed righteous estimation, when thus placed and devoted malefactor, thankful for the by the side of this contiguous worthlessoffered pardon of the gospel, and humbly ness: Or the law by which virtue is pouracquiescing in ito proposals and its ways trayed, and virtue is enacted, still retains for his acceptance with God. And thus it her primitive and endearing characters is that we count it so highly important, of being wise and holy and just and good. when the Spirit lends His efficacy to our This may lead to the solution of a quesdemonstrations of the might and majesty tion, by which the legal heart of man of the divine law-when He thereby often feels itself embarrassed and exerarouses the careless sinner out of his cised-a question which we have often lethargies, and causes him to see that attempted to treat and to resolve in your there is a coming wrath from which there hearing; and by which we may have is no escaping but by an offered gospel- succeeded in laying for a season the obwhen by the terrors of the Lord, He per- stinate legalism of nature. But it recurs suades the man to flee for refuge to the again with its unquelled difficulties, and hope set before him there-when He opens its unappeased longings after a reward] his eyes to the dread exhibition of his own and a righteousness of its own; and, with guilt, and of the fiery vengeance that out its eye open to the palpable truth, that of Christ and away from his cross is sure God still urges uponr us that very law, by to overtake it-when He thus pursues him which our justification is impossibleas with an arrow sticking fast, and lets that, under the economy of the gospel, him not alone, till, an awed and a hum- works are still in imperative demand, bled penitent, he is glad to stretch forth even after grace has been proclaimed to his hand to the propitiation which God us as the only way of salvation-the perhath set forth unto the world, and so to plexity from which it wants to be unridwash out his sins in the blood of the died is, Why should the law that is now Lamb. deposed from the office to which it was at V. 12. The apostle had already de- one time ordained of being a minister livered the law from all charge of odious- unto life; and has now become a minister ness, because of the death which it in- unto death-why should it still be kept up flicted; and because of the sin which it in authority and importance, and obeexposed, and even excited with greater dience to it be as strenuously required, fierceness and power in a sinner's heart. and a conformity of character to it be And now does he render it the positive held as indispensable, under our present homage of all that acknowledgment, dispensation as under the old one? which was due to its real character —as In order that God should will our obe. the tablet or the representation of all dience to the law, it is not necessary to moral excellence-bodied forth from the give to obedience the legal importance conceptions of the Divinity Himself, into and efficacy that it had under the old disan authoritative model of perfection —and pensation. All that is necessary to make (had man talken upon his soul the fair God delight in the morality of' His creaand the full impression of it) conveying tures, and that He should please their from Him who is the fountain-head of observation of it, is that this mora.lity be virtue, the lovely impress of its accom- to Him in itself a gladdening object of plishments and its graces to the creatures contemplation. There was a realerial whom He had formed. If the law be the chaos at the outset of our present system occasion of death, or of more fell and — out of which the Spirit of God moving frightful depravity, to its subjects-it is upon the face of the waters, educed the not because of any evil that is in its cha- loveliest forms of hill and dale and mighty racter; but because of the evil of that sin ocean and waving forests, and all that which is in their nature. Such an effect richness of bloom and verdure and vege. may demonstrate the malignity of sin, table beauty which serves to dress and to 214 LECTURE XL. —CHTIPTER VIT, 7-13. diversify the landscape of nature. And chaos did He, in obedience to 1Iis Love o' it is said that God saw every thing to be order and gracefulness in our visible good, and rejoiced over the works of His world, educe all that symmetry and splel creative hand. Now there was no legality dour and perfect organization by which whatever in this most obvious and intelli- we are surrounded, and rejoices over gible process. The ornaments of a flow- them. This was His will of matter, even er, or the gracefulness of a tree, or the its harmonization. And in like manner soft magnificence of' a whole extended does He now operate on a spiritual chaos, and outspread scenery-these are not and and out of the malice and impurity and cannot be the offerings of inanimate mat- rebellious deviation from God, and all the ter, by which it purchases the smile and jarring influences by which it is agitated the regards of the Divinity. And yet it is and deformed, does He educe love and with the smiles of complacency, that the peace and beauteous accordancy with the Divinity does regard them. The Almighty perfect law of heaven. This is His will Artist loves to behold the fair composition of mind, even its sanctification. He does that Ile Himself has made; and wills not need to truckle or negociate with us each of His works to be perfect in its upon the subject, or to enter into any such kind; and dwells with satisfitction and legal understanding on the matter, as in joy on the panorama of visible excellence, fact to lay the burden of an impossibility that He has spread before His throne; on the whole process-for, in truth, mart and rather would He look to the freshness has forfeited every legal reward; and of its many decorations, than to a univer- incurred every legal penalty-So that the sal blight of nature, when every flower whole of this economy must he set aside, should sicken upon its stalk, and all those and man be approached by some new pencilled hues by which the surface of power, and be plied with some new expeour earth is adorned should be swept dients, ere he can be restored to the holi. away by the pestilence of a tainted at- ness and the excellence in which he was mosphere above it. So that in a case to created. Meanwhile it is the will of God which legality is quite inapplicacle, does that he should be restored; and just as God prefer His creatures to be of one He rejoiced at every step in that process, form and comeliness rather than another whereby the chaos of matter was evolved -does Ile love beauty rather than defor- into a fair and orderly system-so does mity, and harmony rather than confusion; He rejoice in that process by which we aind when He did put forth on the (lark grow unto the stature of perfect men in and chaotic mass of warring elements the Christ Jesus; and He looks with intent power of His transforming hand, it was eye on the church that He is now forming to spread out a scene of loveliness before out of the world and on every member of Hirm, and to lavish upon it the gayest and it-So that, released though you all be the oodlliest adornments. from the old legal enforcements of that Arid the same of the moral taste of the commandment which is contained in orGodhead. Ile loves what is wise and dinances, still is it the thing which His holy and just and good in the world of heart is set upon, and still do you testify mind; and with a far higher affection too, your love to God and your desire to comthan He loves what is fair and graceful ply with His will, that you keep his comand comely in the world of matter. He mandments. has a pleasure in beholding what may be It is thus, and on this principle, that styLed a moral comeliness of character; God wills you to be holy and just and and the office of His Spirit at this mo- good; but these are the very attributes ment, is to evolve this beauteous exhibi- which the text gives to the law, or to the tion out of the chaos of ruined and rebel- commandment —so that though the old lious humanity. And to forward this relationship between you and the law is process, it is not necessary that a man be dissolved, still it is this very law with stimulated to exertion by the motives of the requirements of which you are to legalism. All that is necessary is, that busy yourselves, during the whole of man be submitted to the transforming your abode in the world; and with the -operations of the divine Spirit; and that graces and accomplishments of which he shall willingly follow His impulses, at you must appear invested before Christ the will of that God who requires it of at the judgment-seat. It was written first him. And must God, we ask, ere He can on tables of stone, and the process was gratify HIis relish for the higher beauties then that you should fulfil its requisitions of morality and of mind, first have to as your task, and be paid with heaven as make a bargain about it with His crea- a reward. It is now written by the Holy tures? Is not His creative hand as free to Ghost on the tablets of your heart; and follow the impulses of His taste for the the process is now that you are tnade to beauties of moral, as for the beauties of delight in the law after the inward manmaterial landscape? OuW of the corporeal and when released, as you will be by LECTURE XL. —-CHAPTER VII, 7-13. 215 death, from the corruptions of the out- this hbs been already purchased by the ward man, heaven will be open for your pure gold of the Saviour's righteousness, admission as the only place that is fitted *and is presented to all who believe on to harbour and to regale you. You know Him. But still it is with your own perof gold that it has two functions. With sonal righteousness, that you must be gold you may purchase a privilege, or gilded and adorned. It is not the price with gold you may adorn your person. wherewith you have bought heaven, but You may not be able to purchase the it is the attire in which you must enter it; king's favour with gold; but he may and thus do we answer the question, why grant you his favour, and when he re- it is that the law is still kept up in auquires your appearance before him, it is thority and importance, and obedience to still in gold he may require you to be in- it is as strenuously required, and a convested. And thus of the law. It is not formity of character to it is held as indisby your own righteous conformity there- pensable, under the new dispensation as o that you purchase God's favour; for under the old one. LECTURE XLI. ROMANS vii, 14-25.': For we know that the law Is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin. For that which I do I allow not: for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I. If then I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law thal it is good. Now then, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my ftesh) dwvelleth no good thing; for to will is present with me: but how to perform that which is good I find no1t. For the good that I would I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now, if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is proe sent with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into caiptivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched mall that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death. I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin." ERE I enter into detail upon these verses, rise on the wings of divine contemplation let me come forth with a preliminary ar- and breathe of the air of the upper sancgument upon that which appears to be tuary; and in the other you sink down to the subject of them. the common-place of tame and ordinary There is one thing which the common life, and become as other men. We think experience of all, whether they be in the that this may have been the finding of faith of the gospel or not, must have made many who are not, in the spiritual and perfectly familiar to them; and that is substantial sense of the term, Christians the exceeding difference which they have at all; but who in the mere fervency of often felt, between the whole tone and natural emotion, can be put into sometemper of their mind at one time from thing like a glow of sacredness, whether what it is at another time. There are many by a certain power of sympathy with the of you who can recc6llect, that in church, preacher, or in the musings and meditaand wih:n under the influence of a power- tive exercises of their own solitude. It ful demrrnstration from the pulpit-you will not surprise them when they are told caught something like the elevation and of two principles in our moral constitupurity of heaven upon your souls; andthat tion-which, by the ascendency of the then when you passed into another atmos- one or the other of them for the time phere, whether at home in the midst of being, may cause the same man to appear your family, or abroad among the colli- in two characters that are not only differsions of society and business, the whole of ent but are in total and diametric opposithis ethereal temperament went into utter tion. Of this their own piety, meagre dissipation; and you became a peevish and capricious and merely sentimental and sensual and earthly creature. Some though it be, may have given them a very of you may have marked it well how strong experimental illustration: And so differently it fares with you in the hour have convinced them how possible it is, of your devotional retirement, and in the that, in one and the same individual of season of your exposure to the manifold our species, there may be one set of tenurgencies of the world —how the heart dencies, which if followed out, would seems to have passed as entirely into liken him to the seraph who revels among another mood by the transition, as if it the choirs and extacies of Paradise; and had been transformed into another heart also another set of tendencies, which, if altogether-that in the one state yoll can -lso followed out, would liken him to the l 6 LECTURE XLI. —-CHAPTER VII) 14-25. veriest grub-worm that moils for lucre wont to be the superior shall become the upon earth, or finds all his satisfaction in subject-it would make a new creature of the basest and most sordid gratifications. him. There are two rival appetites, in But we further conceive that the same being at least, though only one may so thing may be rendered palpable to those, domineer as to have all the power and who are so far alienated in worldliness, as practical ascendancy over the character. lo be totally unobservant of piety —whe- But in point of fact, were the other to rether in its private or in its public observa- bel and to rise into a gathering strength, tions; and who, apart from every expe- that should dethrone the old tyrant and rience of their own frame either at church establish its own supremacy —then would or in the closet, may still have been sen- the spirit of the mind undergo an entire sible to other exhibitions of themselves, renovation; and the phrase of his'being which might reconcile them to the doc- born again' were not too strong a one, to trine which we shall forthwith labour to express the transition of heart and of haestablish. Even they have often been ad- bit that should take effect upon him. But mitted to such a view of human nature meanwhile it will suffice that you be upon their own personal character and aware of certain moving forces, that do history, as might prove how strangely exist at the same time in your moral ecocompounded it is of diverse and opposite nomy; and which act in directions that inclinations. So extensive in our day is are contradictory the one to the otherthe class of' novel-readers,-that we may and according to the prevalence of which have the chance of bearing home upon it is, that you may appear either in one not a few who are here present, when. we light to the eye of an observer, or in anappeal to a very common experience I other that is altogether opposite. among those who are most enamoured of We have heard of a great lady prothis species of literature-how readily prietor in one of our slave plantations, their hearts have conformed, to all that who never could read a fictitious tale of was bright or beautiful in the moral suffering but with tenderness and tearsscenery of fiction-how they could kindle yet could enforce the severest punishments into its heroism; and melt into its tender- on her wretched and overdriven negroes; ness; and weep with very delight over its and could look unrelentingly on, while representations of' worth, or generosity, she beheld the rigid execution of them. or devoted attachment; and appear for a This may be an extreme case; but it is season, and while under the power of that no anomaly in the character of our spemaster-hand which pictures out virtue cies. It is but one of a kindred and very with such force and exquisiteness, to be extensive class of phenomena; and which assimilated themselves to that which they all go to prove such to be the nature of so veh(emently admire. And yet all goeth man, that while under one sort of influto fli.ht, when again ushered as before ence he may be so operated upon as to into the scenes of familiar existence; and exhibit all that is graceful in sensibility, the mind of the reader is speedily vulgar- he, under another sort of influence, may ized agrain, to the level of all that is tame be so operated upon as to act the monster and ordinary around it-Insomuch, that of savage cruelty among the ill-fated viche, who, from one part of his nature, tims who are under him. The individual could rise to lofty enthusiasm while en- of whom we have now reported to you, gaged in the contemplation of rare and might, of all others,'have been well preromantic excellence-could. from another pared to admit the truth of that doctrine, part of his nature, pass in less than half by which it is affirmed, that, under a ceran hour to the very plainest character- tain influence, the current of right feelistics of plain and every-day humanity; ing may flow smoothly and spontaneously and either fiet, or scold, or laugh, or-give through the heart; while, if that influence full indulgence to every one of those very be withdrawn and the heart be abandoned ordinary passions, which come out of the in consequence to itself; it may evince feelings and the fellowship of very ordi- by the abundant product of its own natunary men. ral atrocities, how deceitful it is above all There is one principle of our constitu- things and how desperately wicked. tion, that tends as it were to sublime the A very conspicuous instance of the same heart up to the poetry ot human life; and thing is the susceptibility of the heart to there is another principle, that, operating the power of music. You have seen how as a drag, weighs the heart as if helplessly the song that breathed through every line down to the prose of it. There is not a of it the ardour of disinterested friendship, man who mixes literature with business, and a generous contempt of all selfish. as many do who are now before me, that ness-you have seen how it blended into might not be conscious in themselves of one tide of emotion, the approving symtwo warring elements, which, if they were pathies of a whole circle of companion. to change places, so that the one which i ship. One would think, on looking along LECTURE XLI.-CHAPTER VII, 14-25 217 this festive board, that, with the harmony lected by him, he actually won the con. of sounds, there was a harmony of kind- quest over the rebellious tendencies af his ness and confidence and mutual goodwill inner man, and steadily maintained it; in every bosom; and that each, awaken- and, as the effect of this habitual recured as it were to a fresh moral existence, rence to the soothing air by which all the had been suddenly formed as by enchant- tumults of his soul were pacified, that ment, into one devoted phalanx of sworn there was benevolence in every look, and and trusty brotherhood. It is hard to such a placid softening of tone and manimagine that on the morrow, the competi- ner, as made all his domestics happy and tions and the concealments and the jea- him beloved by them all. lousies of rival interest will be as busily Now, thirdly, I would have you all to active as before; and will obliterate every consider how Saul should have felt as trace of the present enthusiasm. And yet well as acted, under the consciousness of there is in it no hypocrisy whatever. It what he natively and originally was. He is not a thing put on of artifice; but a in very deed, and because of the power tiing that genuinely and honestly hath that lay in the musical instrument, may;ome, out of the living excitement that is have both imported into his own heart all.iow in operation. The heart is actually the feelings, and diffused among those attuned to the very cordiality which the around him all the fruits of that benignity music has inspired; and while the notes which had thus been awakened. But still vibrate on the ear, the play of high although he should in this way perpetuand honourable feelings is upheld in the ate the mastery of a good and gracious bosom-till the last echoes have died principle in his soul-should he not still away from the remembrance, and the have been base in his own eyes, when he man again lapses into the same cold and bethought him of the quarter from which creeping and selfish creature that he ever it behoved to come!-that, to sustain his was. moral being, he had to live on supplies But the finest recorded example of this from abroad, because in himself there wats fascination, is that of the harp of David the foul spirit of a maniac and a murderon the dark and turbulent spirit of Saul- er; and it would have become this very nor was there ever a more striking exhi- monarch, even at the time when he most bition of the power of melody, than when felt the play of kindness in his own heart, the native outrageousness of' this mon- and he most brightened the hearts of arch's temper was thereby overborne. others by the courtesy and the condescenDuring the performance of the son of sion that he shed over therr —even then, Jesse, all the internal fires and furies by was it most his part, to mourn the deiinwhich his bosom was agitated, seem to quencies of his inner man; and to loathe have been lulled into peacefulness. The the savage propensities which fain would tyrant was disarmed; and, as if the cun- tumultuate there, in dust and in ashes. ningly played instrument had conveyed But lastly, do you not perceive, that, in of its own sweetness into his heart, he this state of matters, there were really no became meek and manageable as a child. mystery at all, though the actual serenity We are glad that out of Scripture history, of Saul's temper and his own self-abhorwe can draw such a case of illustration; rence because of its native fierceness and and we now proceed to unfold the uses of asperity had kept pace the one with the it, in the argument that lies before us. other; and that in the very proportion of First then, it is said of Saul that he was that fearfulness and aversion wherewith he refreshed and became well, under the looked to himself, because of his inherent operation of this music. In which case, it vices, would he become fruitful in all the was his duty to recur to it in every hour virtues that were opposed to them It of necessity-to call in the harp, on the were just the humility of his downward very first approaches of the threatening regards upon his own soul, that would be visitation upon his spirit; and if he could the instrument of raising it to the highest not, in the native gentleness of his own perfection of which it was capable; and heart, maintain a serenity of feeling and because he had no trust in the unborrowconduct to all around him, it was his bu- ed energies within, that he would fetch siness ever and anon to ply that artifi- aliment from without, for the preservacial expedient, by which alone it seems tion and the growth of all those moralities that the perennial kindness and tranquil- whereof he was most destitute. The harp lity of his feelings could at all be up- would be his perpetual companion, or holden. never beyond the reach of his calling for And secondly, you may further con- it. That sense of depravity, which ceive of Saul that he succeeded in this prompted the self-abasement of his spirit, great moral achievement upon his own would prompt an increasing recurrence spirit-that, on the strengthof the foreign to that by which its outbreakings were application ever at hand and never neg- repressed; and so the more intense his 28 18 LECTURE XLI.-CHAPTER VII, 14-25. detestation of his own character, would Jewish monarch. And so Ho is a living De the vigour and the efficacy of that and a personal agent, who overrules the alone practical expedient, by which his sinful and the wayward propensities of a character was converted andtransformed. believer's heart; but this He does by And thus, in all its parts, does it hold evolving certain truths on the believer's of a Christian. I-Ie knows that inhis own understanding. In the former case, the proper nature dwelleth no good thing. power to soothe lay materially and diIHe is aware of' his native un.godliness; rectly in the music —though, to bring it and the experience of every day brings into contact with the organ of hearing, fresh and more hurnmiliating discoveries of there needed one to perform it. In the it to his consci(ence. lie feels that in him- latter case, the power to sanctify lies self he is like Satul without the harp-not materially and directly in the doctrine — perhaps so violent and vindictive as bhe though, to bring it into contact with the was among his fellows; but sharing with organ of mental perception, there needeth the whole human race in the virulence of one to present it-even the hloly Spirit, their antipathies against a God of holi- whose office it is to bring all things to ness. The streams of his disobedience our remembrance. And so, my brethren, may not be of the same tinge and impreg- when assailed by temptation firom withnation as that of the Hebrew king; but out, or like to be overborne by the tyranny they emanate like his from a temple of of your own evil inclinations, is it your idolatry in the heart, that would con- part to summon gospel truth into the prestantly issue forth of its own produce on sence of your mind; a-nd, depending on the outward history. The Christian feels the Holy Ghost, to go forth and meet His that in that part of' his constitution which manifestations, as He takes of the things is properly and inherently his own, there of Christ and shows them unto your soul; is a deeply-seated corruption, the sense and, precious fruit of your believing meof which never fails to abash and to hum- ditation on the realities of our most holy ble him; and thus, Christian though he faith, will you be sure to find, as you be, he never ceases to exclaim-'Oh look forward with hope to that mercy wretched man that I am, who shall de- which is unto eternal life, that the heart liver me from this law of sin, from this will be purified thereby. It will be kept abiding and impetuous tendency to evil?' in the love of God; and this will attune What then, it may be asked, is it, which it out of all discord and disorder. But serves to mark him as a Christian? Not never, throughout the whole of this promost assuredly that he is free of a carnal cess, will it be led to count on the worth nature, tainted all over with foullest le- or the power of its own internal energies. prosy-but that he has access to an in- The sense of its depravity will ever be fluence without, by which a healing present to the conscience; and hanging virtue is mingled with it, and all its rebel- on an influence that is foreign to itself, lious tendencies are thereby overborne. will it feel as helplessly dependent on a The only distinction between the disciple medicine from without, as did Saul when and the unbeliever is, that the one uses he summoned to his apartmentthat melody the harp, and the other has neither faith which charmed all the heat and vindicin its efficacy nor desire for the effect of tiveness of his spirit away from him. It is its operation. The Christian hath learned thus that the believer while he looks upon whither to flee in every hour of tempta- himself as nothing, or rather loathes himtion; and thus it is that a purifying in- self as a diseased sinner, is ever labouring fluence descends upon his soul. It cometh to medicate his soul from those springs not through the medium of the ear, and of moral and spiritual health which are upon the vehicle of sounds; but it cometh without him and above him-looking to through the medium of the understanding, that outward mercy which has been and upon the vehicle of thoughts. It is provided for his worthlessness, and praynot by calling the music that he loves ing for that refreshment and revelation by into his presence; but by calling the the Holy Ghost which are so richly protruth that he believes into his memory-it vided for all who ask in faith. is thus that he harmonises the else disor- We think that there must be many here derly affections of his heart; rnd while present, who might be made to recognise, he feels that all within is corruption, he and we trust some who have actually at the same time knows of an agency proved in their own persons, the efficacy without by which the mutiny of its sinful of this expedient —how the truths of the appetites is staid. gospel can attemper the soul into a unison There was a personal agent called in with its spirit-And more especially in by Saul, when he had to be calmed out that one truth which is the first that the of his wild perturbations-even the son of apostle bids us keep at all times in our Jesse; and this he did by evolving a cer- memory, even that Christ died for our tain harmony of sounds on the ear of the sins according to the Scriptures-how in LECTURE XLI.-CHAPTER VIIl 14-25. 219 this precious saying, when reckoned upon reader, and so assort his feelings to them as faithful and regarded as worthy of all as that, while the allusion lasts, he shall acceptation, there is a power to still and be refined and removed above the level overawe the heart out of its rebellious of our ordinary world-or if poetry can tendencies-So that when a trusted Sa- bear him upward to a purer moral eleviour is present to the thoughts, the sin of ment, than he can breathe among his our nature is by a moral necessity dis- fellow-mortals-or, lastly, if music, that so armed of its practical ascendancy over charmed the spirit of the Hebrew king us. We trust that with some who hear out of all its ferocity, is still found, so us, it has been found to hold experimen- long as it plays upon the ear, to attune tally-how a sense of the mercy of God the heart to nobler and better feelings thian in Christ annihilates the whole space of those by which it is habitually occupiedseparation that there was between God Shall we wonder, that, upon faith realising and the soul, and so dissipates all its the promises and the prospects of the ungodliness-how walking before Him gospel, the heart shall be translated into a in the light and peace of conscious for- new state, when thus visited as it were by giveness, the spirit of bondage has fled the sense and the impression of its new away, and there have come in its place circumstances? What music can be the love and the trust and the joy of' sweeter to the soul, than when peace is reconciled children-how whenever he whispered to it from on high; or what bethinks him of God having passed over lovelier vision can be offered to its contemthe magnitude of his own provocations, he plation, than that of' heaven's Lord and finds that achievement easy, which to of heaven's family; or what more fitted nature is difficult, of maintaining the to lay the coarse and boisterous agitations gentleness of his spirit under the sorest of a present world, than the light which provocations of his fellow-men-how in has pierced across the grave and revealed dwelling on the agony of' that endurance the peaceful world that is beyond it? that was laid upon Christ for sinners, he Simply grant that the veil has been lifted too can learn'to suffer and to grow in all from the eyes of guilty man; and that he those graces which are best taught in the now sees what he never wont to see-the school of' tribulation-how it is when love of God in Christ Jesus, and the rebeholding the cross of our atonement, that mission of sins, and an open path to the he is most solemnized into a reverence for bliss of' eternity, and the glories of a purthe sacredness of the Godhead, and is chased inheritance there, and here all the most awed into a fearfulness of the sin graces of our required preparation-let that was expiated there-Above all, when him see that these, which before stood at he looks onward to the glories of that an impracticable distance, are now inheritance which Christ hath purchased brought nigh unto him and have become by His blood, and the gates of which He all his own-Is it at all to be marvelled at has unbarred for the welcome access of -when the romance of music and elothe guiltiest of us all-how it is that the quence and imagination and poetry, adpowers of the coming world win the mas- drest to the heart of man, cakn so sublitery in his spirit, over the powers of the mate its affections for a period above all present one; that he sits loose to the van- the passions and vulgarities of familiar ities and the interests of a scene which life-with this fact of the human constitupasseth speedily away; and, now feeling tion so plainly before our eyes-are we to eternity to be his destined home and the listen with incredulity, if told, that when virtues of eternity to be his incumbent the truths of Christianity burst forth upon preparation, he holds a perpetual warfare the believer in all the magnificence of with those passions that war against the their lofty bearing and in all the might of soul, and bears on every footstep of his their now apprehended reality, they sc pilgrimage on earth the impress of that refine his every affection and so elevate heaven for which he hopes and of that the whole tone of his character, that all holiness to which he is aspiring. old things are henceforth done away and We would conclude these preliminary all things become new? /remarks with three distinct observations. Now, secondly, it is the office of God's And first, it is hoped that some of you Spirit thus to picture forth to the eye of may be led to perceive from them-how the believer these truths of the gospel, ill it is, that, by means of a power external all the reality and power of application to the mind of man yet brought from with- which belong to them. It is He who takes out to bear upon it, he may be so trans- of the things of Christ; and, showing them formed as to become a new creature. If unto the soul, causes the imagery of faith the eloquence cf a Christian minister can to overbear the impressions of sight. And for a time lift the soul, as it were, above the man who is thus acted upon, looketh its.ilf-or if a pleasing and pathetic no- beyond what is seen and temporal to what velist can transport the imagination of his is unseen and eternal. It is from a source 220 LECTURE XLI.-CHAPTER'II, 14-25. which is out of himself, that he fetches an the other the inherent corruption of man, influence which never fails to soothe and and the very reason why Paul plied sc to sanctify the corrupt and distempered laboriously and at length prevailed with spirit; and, as it was the duty of' Saul on the former, was because he felt such the threatening of every dark visitation to loathing and such self-abomination for the require the music of' that harp which he latter. This is a mystery of the Christian could at all times summon by the word of life which the world apprehendeth not; command into his presence, so it is the nor are they able to discern why the same duty of every sinner in every time of need individual should become every day or of temptation, to invoke that Spirit, more profound in humility, and yet more who never is withheld from the prayers graceful in positive holiness-why he of those who sincerely ask Him. When should be ever mourning more heavily like to be assailed by the power of sin to than before under a sense of his worthan overthrow, this is the instrument of aid lessness, and that at the very time when and of defence that will never fail you; the real worth of his character is maturand let the storms whether of the furious ing and building up unto eternity. or of the wayward passions of our nature It is not understood, how the strugglings be what they may, this is the agent, at the of the inner man bring every Christian bidding of whose still but omnipotent who feels them into a more familiar acvoice, an influence of peace and purity quaintance than before with the adverse descendeth upon the heart, and it becom- elements in the conflict; and that as the eth a great calm. spirit lusteth against the flesh and the But lastly, the way in which all this flesh against the spirit, just in proportion bears upon the passage before us, is by to the felt preciousness of the one, is the helping us to the determination of a con- felt burden and odiousness of the other. troversy —whether the soliloquy whereof It is because he loathes so much the earthit consists, be that of Paul in his own pro- liness of what is naturally and originally per person, or of Paul in the person of his own, that he longs so much for the an unconverted man? How, it may be visitation of a heavenly influence from thought, could this holy apostle take to above. The sense of poverty is the very himself, the blame of so much vileness impulse that sends him to the fountain of and exceeding turpitude, as are made to abundance; and the detestation he feels characterize him who is supposed to utter of the sin that dwells in him, is the best his effusionl How could it be said of guarantee that this sin shall not have the him who fought the good fight, that he dominion over him. With these princiwas sold under sin; and that there dwelt ples do we feel ourselves prepared for no good thing in his flesh; and that there entering into more full elucidation of the was a law in him, which would have led passage before us; nor will you, I trust, him in captivity to the ltw of sin and of be any more perplexed when you read of death; and that, wretched under a mass him who delighted in the law of God after of corruption from which he could not the inward man, and who disallowed all deliver himself, he had to cry out, under that was evil, and who had the Spirit of the extremity of anxious helplessness, lest Christ dwelling in him-how at the same it should have wholly overwhelmed him time he mourned his vile body, and Can all this be true of the man, in whom groaned being burdened under a sense of Christianity beheld the very noblest of her that sore moral leprosy by which it was specimens; who ere he died could claim pervaded. He had no confidence in himthe victory as his own; and who, to obtain self; but he rejoiced in the Lord Jesus. it, was throughout the whole of his dis- He was in weakness, and in fear, and in cipleship the most unwearied in vigilance much trembling; but when he was weak and the most strenuous in warfare? then was he strong —for when he spake Yes, there was a fight and it turned out of his infirmities, the power of Christ was to be ultimately a successful one. But made to rest upon him. "I will make who were the parties in it? They were my grace sufficient for thee. I will pe:the grace of God on the one hand, and on feet my strength in thy weakness." LECTURE XLII.-CHAPTER, VII, 14. 15. 22 LECTURE XLII. ROMANS Vii, 14, 15.'Fr we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. For ir.t which. do, IClow not. lot what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that I do." THE first thing to be remarked here, is I gifts of Providence, it has a disrelish and the transition which the apostle makes at I disregard for the Giver of them; and bethis verse into another tense. It looks as cause while it may yield many compliif from the 7th verse to the 14th, he, using ances with the law of God at the impulse the past tense, was describing the state of of dread or of danger or of habit, it yields matters antecedent to his conversion, and not to God Himself the offering of a sponshowing what his case was under the law;' taneous devotion, the tribute of an intelbut that now, sliding into the use of the ligent or of a willing reverence. present tense, he is describing his experi- Perhaps my best recommendation to ence as a believer: And this is one argu- you, for the purpose of acquiring a more ment for Paul speaking here in his own thorough discernment of God's law in the person, and not in that of an unregenerate spirituality of its character, is that you man. peruse with faithful application to your' The law is spiritual.' It has authority own heart the fifth chapter of Matthewover the desires of the inner man. It holds where, article by article, you have the a sinful wish to be criminal, as well as a comparison between a spiritual and what sinful performance. It finds matter for may be called a carnal commandment; condemnation in the state of the will, as and from which you will at once perwell as in the deeds of the outward history. ceive, how possible it is, that, with a most It demands punishment, for example, not rigid and undeviating faithfulness in remerely on the action by which I wrest gard to the latter, there may be an uttex another's property; but on the affection deficiency from the former in all its by which I covet it. Paul once thought requirements-and how truly the same himself free of all offences, in regard to a individual may say of himself; that, wher. neighbour's rights, because he had never in the flesh, he, touching the righteousness put forth the hand of violence, or plied that is of the law, was blameless; and any device of frau.dulency against them. yet, when advanced and elevated above But when he looked to the spiritual nature this state and now in the spirit, he may of the commandment, in that it interdicted say, 0 wretched man that I am, wh( him even front the longings of a secret shall deliver me from the law of sin in m) appetite for that which was not rightfully members! You see how, in proportion t4 his ownl-then, conscious that with all the his high sense of the law, he may have Z abstinence ef his outer man from the acts low sense of himself; and that, just a-, of dishonesty there was still a secret pro- one advances in the discernment of its pe.nsity in his heart towards the gains or purity and in the delicacy of his recoil at the fruits, he felt himself, when standing the slightest deviations therefrom, which at the bar of this purer and loftier juris- surely mark his progressive sanctification prudence, to be indeed a transgressor. -the more readily will he break forth And so, in the general, there may be no into exclamations of shame and selfdisobedience on the part of the outer man abhorrence: Or the loftier his positive to any of God's commandments; and yet ascent on the heights of sacredness, the there may be, all the while, an utter dis- more fearful will he be of all those drags taste for them on the part of the inner and downward tendencies by which he man-and this is what the law takes cog- still is encompassed; and which, if not nizance of, in virtue of its spiritual cha- felt to be most hazardous as well as most racter, and pronounces to be sinful. To humbling, may not only cause to slip the do what is bidden with the hand, is not footsteps of the heavenward traveller; enough tosatisfy such a law-if the strug- but may precipitate him from the emigling inclination of the heart be against nence that he has gotten, into the lowest it. And above all will it charge the deep- depths of wretched and hopeless apos. est guilt on a man-because of his disaf- tacy. fection towards God-because of a love'I am carnal'-It is on the principles tor the creature, that has deposed from its just now uttered, that Paul may have rightful ascendancy over him the love of made this affirmation of himself. The the Creator-'because of that moral an- same man who could say of all the good archy and misrule in the constitution of that was done —" nevertheless not me but his spirit, whereby, with its relish for the the grace of God that is in me"-Surely Rf22 LECTURE XLII.-CHAPTER VI' 14. 15. this man, who thus knew what he should Christian to regard the one as the home refer to God's grace and what he should article, and the other as a foreign article refer to his own separate and unaided for which he stands indebted to a fountain self, might, even after this grace had that is abroad-and whereunto it is his become the habitual visitant or innmate of business to resort perpetually. He is like his heart, still look to his own soul; and, Saul operated upon by the harp of the conceiving of it as apart or disjoined from son of Jesse; and as the one might well the fountain out of' which he draws the have said, even in the kindest and gentlest supplies of its nourishment, might well mood to which the warblings of the insay that'I am carnal.' Suppose for a strument had brought him, that in myself moment that the branch of a tree were 1 am a firebrand of rage and vindictiveendowed with a separate consciousness ness-so the other, conscious that disjoinof its own-then, however lovely in blos- ed from the grace and truth which come som or richly-laden with fruit, it may by Jesus Christ he is an ungodly and an feel of the whole efflorescence which unheavenly creature, might as well say adorns it, that it was both derived and is that in myself I am an alienated rebelupholden, by the flow of a succulence in myself I am altogether carnal. from the stem; and it may know, that, if Let me separate by ever so little from severed therefrom, it would forthwith Christ, then is this corrupt nature ever in wither into decay, and that all the goodly readiness to put forth its propensities-Or honours wherewith it was invested would even let me always abide in Him-let me drop away from it. The twofold con- in no one instance lose my hold of Himsciousness of what it would be in itself, conceive me to be placed on the very and of what it is in the tree, might force height of Christian perfection, and that the very utterance that was emitted by a just because I at all times am steadfastly Christian disciple when he said, "I am and solidly established on the deepest dead nevertheless I live." "Yet not I" basis of Christian dependence-Yet still adds the apostle,but Christ livethin me." with the assurance in my mind, that, I apart from Him without whom I can do should I let the dependence go, self would nothing-I disjoined from the Saviour recover the ascendency and that the aswho compares Himself to a tree and us cendency of self would be the ascendency to the branches-I who in Christ am a of sin, it is not too strong an inference new creature-out of Christ am dead and that self is carnal; or even that self is out of Him am carnal. sold under sin, as being, apart from the The Scripture phrase "to be in the Saviour, its helpless and irrecoverable flesh" when descriptive of character is slave. It is said of Ahab that there was applied in sacred writ only to the unre- none like unto him; for he did sell himgenerate. "They who are in the flesh self to work wickedness in the sight of cannot please God." " You are not in the the Lord. In him you have a character, flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the where corruption was the dominant and Spirit of God dwell in you." But the the entire and the unresisted principle of Scripture term carnal is sometimes ap- his constitution. He was the old man all plied to a man after his conversion. A over-who loved his state of captivity, man when newly born again is a babe; instead of lamenting it; and of whom it yet to such did Paul apply this epithet, never could be said, that he felt the sin "I could not speak unto you as unto of his nature to be a burden, or that he spiritual but as unto carnal, even as unto longed to be delivered from it, or that he babes in Christ. For ye are yet carnal, delighted in the law of God after the for whereas there is among you envying inner man, and sighed after the subjuand strife and divisions, are ye not carnal gation or rather the extirpation of every and walk as men?" Only think of a tumultuous and adverse element of evil Christian as made up of two ingredients, that was in his outer man. Iis mind the one consisting of all that he inherits went wholly along with the wicked and by nature, the other consisting of all that wayward inclinations that nature had is superinduced on him by grace. Think given him; and here lay the difference of his inward and experimental life as between him and Paul, tha', with the latconsisting of a struggle between these ter, there was gotten up a new creature ingredients, in which the one does habit- all whose energies and desires were in a ually and will at length ultimately and state of warfare with those of the old completely prevail. But the wrong prin- man; and in this passage we have the ciple belonging properly and primitively cries and the agonies of the battle, till it to the man himself, and the right principle closes with the final shout of victory, " I being derived from without through the thank God through Jesus my Lord." Still, channel ot believing prayer, or the exer- viewing the old man as properly his own, cise rf faith in Christ Jesus-how natural and the new creature as a present or a is it in these circumstances, for every production from above-well might the LECTURE XLII.-CHAPTER VII, 14, 15. 223 a'postle say, not in the character of what after the supremacy of all grace and all be was by derivation from the Lord his goodness. s'nctifyer, but in the character of what That the soliloquist of the passage had he originally and essentially was in him- this generous and aspiring tendency is self, that I am carnal and I am sold evident. If faults he had, he had no toleunder sin. ration for them; but rather the fellest V. 15. To understand this verse, and to antipathy-'that which I do I allow not see that it is the utterance not of a wilful -what I hate that do I.' If he fell short sinner but of an honest and aspiring dis- of moral and spiritual greatness, still he ciple-remember that it is the soliloquy honestly aspired and habitually pressed of one, who had just recognised the spirit- towards it.' What I would that I do not,' ual character of the law of God, and who and "to will is present with me," and "I was exercising and judging and confess- would do good," and that good is the law ing himself according to the standard of which has the consent of my approbation, that law. There is at least one moral and "in this lawI delight afterthe inward property, that must, in the midst of all man" —so that " with my mind I serve it." his recorded deficiencies, be ascribed to Now could you apply any one of these him. He willed the conformity of him- affirmations to such a man as Ahab? If self to God's holy commandment. The they hold true of one character and do prescription that lies upon him and upon not hold true of another, is there not the all is " be ye perfect " and if perfection utmost of a real and practical difference was not his achievement, it was at least between the characters! Could Ahab his aim. His prevailing wish was to be have said that it is no more I who do it altogether as he ought; and ift' he did not but sin that dwelleth in me? Does it not succeed in being so-he at least aspired impress you with a most wide and palpaat being so. The habitual longing of his ble distinction, when you see one man heart was, without reserve and without solacing himself in full complacency with hypocrisy, towards the law of God. There a sinful indulgence, and another man was a pure an'd a lofty ambition which ac- struggling with all his might against the tuated his soul; and the object of that sinful tendency which leads to it? The ambition was that he might serve God former comes willingly under the power without a flaw, and reach an unspotted of sin in his constitution-the other detests holiness. He may have been thwarted in and mourns over the presence of it there. the ambition-he may have been so cross- They are alike in both of them having a etl and impeded in his movements as to corrupt nature. They are unlike in that,iave come greatly short ofit-yet still the one has been furnished with a new and arbition did exist, and evinced at once its holy nature, which does not immediately strength and its perpetuity, both by the extinguish the former, but takes place bitterness wherewith he mourned over his beside it until death, and bears a principle own failures, and by the fresh and repeat- of unsparing and unquenchable hostility ed efforts wherewith he laboured to re- towards it. A man conscious to himself deem them. In a word there was one of this state of composition, takes the side principle of' this man's constitution, that of his new nature, and can say of the was all active and awake on the side of rebellious movements of the old man, "it holiness —that bore a genuine love to vir- is not I who do them but sin that dwelleth tue, and made constant efforts to realize in me." Ahab could not have said sc it-that could not rest while its own por- but Paul could. In the former, sin and trait was one of unfinished excellence; self were on terms of perfect agreementand just like -he accomplished artist, in so that his heart was fully set in him to proportion to his nice and delicate sense do that which was evil. In the latter, the of beauty, were his grief and his intoler- original self was set aside, and kept under, nnce at the blemishes wherewith. his per- and loathed because of its abominations, formance was stained. It is he who sets and striven against as the worst of enebefore him the loftiest standard of worth, mies, and' loaded with epithets of abuse, and who is most jealous and unremitting and charged with the designs and the in the pains that he takes to equalize it- dispositions of perpetual mischief. And it is he who most droops and is dejected so, throughout the whole of this soliloquy, under a sense of his deficiency therefiom. is it reproached with being carnal and It is from him that we may look for most sold under sin, with doing that which is frequent hiumblings of spirit, and for the unallowable and undesirable and evil and deepest visitations upon his heart of a hateful-with omitting to do what is good, sense of sin and shortcoming; and that, and being without thp skill and the power not because he is beneath other men in to perform it-with being utterly destitute his powers of execution, but because he of any good thing-with keeping up its is beyond them in his powers of concep- execrated residence, even in the bosom tion, and in the largeness of his desires of the Christian who loathed it; and ever 224 LECTURE XLII.-ICHAPTER VII, 14, 15. present there, warring against the sugges- progressive disciple of the Lord Jesus, tions of a better principle; and bent on urged on by a sense of his distance from taking captive the whole man to the law the perfection that lay before him, and of that sin which was in his members-So charging his own heart with a wide and as that the flesh was wholly enlisted on woful defect from the sanctities that i the side of this hateful service; and such felt to be due to his God. a conflict upheld among the belligerent And the same holds true in regard to powers and principles that were in a his confessions of positive sinfulness, believer's frame, as burdened him with a 1" What I hate that I do." "I do that which sense of wretchedness, and made him cry I would not." " The evil which I would out for deliverance therefrom. not that I do" —Not that any doings of his Take this along with you, and you will were such as would be hateful to him of be able to appreciate what the confessions an ordinary conscience, not that the world are that Paul makes of his own sinfulness. could detect in them a flaw of' odiousness. He first mourns over the guilt of his omis- It was at the tribunal of his own consions, 1" what I would that I do not"-" how science, that they were deemed to be to perform that which is good I find not" reprehensible. It was in the eye of one -"the good that I would I do not." Ere now enlightened in the law of Gor and you estimate the flagrancy of his omis- made alive to it, that the sins of his own sions, think of this, that they consist in heart bore upon them an aspect of such having fillen short of his desires-not that exceeding sinfulness. It was because of his work fell short of that of other men, that quicker sensibility that he now had, but that it fell greatly short of his own wil- as he moved forward in his spiritual edulingness-not that he neglected any one cation, that he now felt more of' tenderduty which could obtain for him credit in ness and alarm, about the secret workings society, but that he failed in bringing his of pride and selfishness and anger and graces and his exercises up to the balance carnality in his inner man; and such an of the sanctuary. That he should in any effusion as that before us, which has been one instance through the day, have lost so strangely ascribed to a personified out. the frame of' his aff'ctionate dependence cast from all grace and from all godliness towards God, or have let a sense of his is one that only could have proceeded obligations to Christ depart from his mind, from the mouth of an experienced Chrisor have slackened his diligence in the way tian, and is the best evidence of his proof labouring for the souls of his fellow- gress. No unchristianised man could creatures, or have cooled in his charity have felt that delight in God's law, and towards those who were around him, or that love for its precepts, and that active have failed in any acts and expressions zeal on the side of obedience, which are of courteousness-these were enough most all profest in the soliloquy that is now tenderly to affect such a heart of moral under consideration; and they would intenderness as he had, and to prompt every sure, as they do with every Christian, a confession and every utterance of shame real and habitual progress in the virtues or humiliation or remorse that is here and accomplishments of the new creature. recorded. What some might mistake as But just in proportion as the desire after the evidence of a spiritual decline on the spiritual excellence is nourished into part of the apostle, was in fact the evi- greater force and intensity in the one dedence of his (growth. It is the effusion of partment of' his now complex nature-so a more quick and cultured sensibility must be the detestation that is felt for than fell to the lot of ordinary men; and every degree or remainder of evil, that like the mortification of him, who, because exists in the other department of it. And the most consummate of all artists, is not till the union of the two is terminated therefore the most feelingly alive to every by death-not till that tabernacle is broken deformity and every deviation. The up, which festers throughout with the inference were altogether erroneous, that moral virus, that entered at the sin of our because Paul went beyond other men in first parent, and was transmitted to all his'his confessions, he therefore went beyond posterity-not till these bodies have moulthem in his crimes. The point in which dered in the grave, and are raised anew he went beyond them was, not in crime, in incorruption and in honour-not till but in conscience; and the conclusion is then shall the desire and the doing, the — not that he who uttered these things principle and the performance be fully was a reprobate, against whom the world adequate the one unto the other; and could allege some monstrous or unnatural then, emancipated from the drag and the defect from any of the social or relative oppression that here encumber us, we proprieties of life-but that, on the other shall be translated into the glorious liberty hand, he was a busy and earnest and of the children of God. LECTURE XLIII. —CHAPTER VII, 16, 17. 225 LECTURE XLIII. ROMANS Vii, 16, 17.' hen I do that which I would not, I consent unto the law that it is good. Now then, it is no more I that dt il, but sin that dwelleth in me." IT might save a world of illustration in of unintelligible mystery, we doubt nwAt, the business of interpreting this passage, to those who have not personally shared were we sure of addressing ourselves to in it; but coming intimately home to the the experience of all cur hearers. But we experience of those, who have learned to fear of some of you, that you have no in- strive and to run and to endure hardship ternal conflict in the work of your sanc- as good soldiers cf Jesus Christ. tification at all-that you are under the Yet, as we have said before, it were dominion of but one ruler, even t' self; well if by any means we could give a that ever lends a willing ear, and yields plausible though distant conception to a ready obedience to its own humours and those who are without, of a matter whereappetites and interests; and that, living with every established and well-exercised just as you list, you feel no struggle be- Christian is quite familiar. It looks, I tween your principles and your propen- have no doubt, an apparent puzzle to the sities-even because you live without God understandings of many, that a man in the world. And furthermore we fear should do what is wrong while he wills of others of you, that you have taken up what is right; and, more especially, that your rest among the forms of an external he all the while should be honestly grievreligion, or among the terms of an inert ing because of the one, and as honestly orthodoxy, which play around the ear, aspiring and pressing forwards, nay mak. without having reached a practical im- ing real practical advances, in the direcpulse to the heart; and which leed you to tion of the other. And yet you can surely solace yourselves with the privileges of figure to yourself the artist, who, whether an imaginary belief, instead of landing in painting or in poetry or in music, layou in the prosecution of a real and ever- bours, yet labours in vain. to do full jusdoing business-which is to cleanse your. tice to that model of high excellence selves from all filthiness of the flesh and which his imagination dwells upon. He of the spirit, and to perfect your holiness does not the things that he would, and he in the fear of God. It is only the man does the things that he vould not. There who has embarked upon this work in is a lofty standard to which he is congood earnest-it is only he whose con- stantly aspiring and even constantly apscience will thoroughly respond to the proximnating —et along the whole of this narrative which the apostle here gives, of path of genius, there is a perpetual sense the broils and the tumults that take place of failure; and a humbling comparison among the adverse powers which are in of' what has been already attained with the bosom of every true Christian. For what is yet seen in the distance before it; Christian though he be, he is not yet a and a vivid acknowledgment of the great just man made perfect; but a just man deficiency that there is between the exe. fighting his way onward unto perfection, cution of the hand, and those unleached through the downward tendencies of a creations of the fancy that are still floatcorruption that is present with him, and ing in the head: And thus an agony and cleaves to him even till death shall set a disappointment and a self-reproval, behim free. Arid again, a fallen and de- cause of indolence and carelessness and praved mortal though he be, he is not aversion to the fatigues of watchful and now of the wholly carnal and corrupt na- intense study-all mixetl up you will ob. ture that he once was; but a spirit has serve with a towering ambition, nay with been infused into him, wherewith to make a rapid and successful march along this head against his rebellious affections walk of scholarship. How often may it which still continue to solicit, though not be said of him that he does the things permitted to seduce him, to that degrading which he would not, when one slovenly slavery, against which he has now en- line or one careless touch of the pencil tered into a war of resistance, that will at has escaped from him; and when he falls length conduct him to freedom and to short of those pains and that sustained victory. The passage now before us is labour, by which he hopes to rear a work taken up with the history of this war. It for immortality. Yet is he making steady is a narrative of that battle which arises and sensible advances all the while. This from the flesh lusting against the spirit, lofty esteem of all that is great and And the spirit against the flesh-a process gigantic in art, is the very step in hie 29 A26S LECTURE XLIII.-CHAPTER VII, 16, 17. mind to a lowly estimation of all that he to. Then all he did was as he would; has yet done for it; and both these to- and the work and the will were on terms gether are the urgent forces, by which he of even fellowship with each other. But is carried upwards to a station among the what he now did was as he would not; men of renown and admirable genius who for he was aiming and stretching toward have gone before him. Now what is true a height that he had not gained, and till of the scholarship of art, is just as true of he arrived at which he could not be satisthe scholarship of religion. There is a fled. The view that he had now gotten of model of unattained perfection in the eye the law did not make him shorter of it o. its faithful devotees, even the pure and than before; but it made him feel that he right and absolutely beautiful and holy was shorter. He was still the same blamelaw of God; and this they constantly less and respectable man of society that labour to realize in their lives, and so to he had ever been; nor do we think that build up, each in his own person, a befit- even in his days of darkness, any deed of ting inhabitant for the realms of eternity. intemperance or profligacy or fraud could But while they love this law, they are at all be imputed to him. The confesloaded with a weight of indolence and sions which are recorded here, are not carnality and earthly affections, which those of a degraded criminal; but those of curnber their ascent thitherward; and a struggling and heavenly-minded Chrisjust in proportion to the delight which tian, who was now forcing his way among they take in the contemplation of its the sins and the sanctities of the inner heaven-born excellence, are the despon- man, and, far above the level of our ordidency and the shame wherewith they re- nary world, was soaring amid the spiritual gard their own mean and meagre imita- alternations of cloud and of sunshine up tions of it. Yet who does not see, that, to the heights of angelic sacredness. out of the believer's will pitching so high, Figure then a man to be under the asand the believer's work lagging so miser- pirings of such a will on the one hand, ably after it, there cometh that very ac. but these often deadened and brought - tivity which guides and guarantees his down by the weight of a perverse constiprogress towards Zion-that therefore it tutional bias upon the other; and there is, that he is led to ply with greater dili- are a thousand ways in which he is exgence the armour which at length wins posed to the doing of that which he would him the victory-that the babe in Christ is not. Should he wander in prayer-should cradled, as it were, in the agitation of these the crosses of this world ever cast him warring elements-that his spiritual am- down from the buoyancy of his confidence bition is just the more whetted and fos- in God-should he, on being overtaken tered into strength, by the obstacles with a fault, detect upon his spirit a keenthrough which it has to fight its way-and er edge of sensibility to the disgrace that rising from every fall with a fresh onset he had incurred among his fellows upon of help from the sanctuary, does he pro- earth, than to the rebuke that he has ceed from step to step, till he have finished brought upon himself from the Law-giver the faith, till he have reached the prize of in heaven-should the provocations of dishis high calling. honesty, or the hostile devices of malicious Paul, ere he was a Christian, was and successful cunning, or the unexpectblameless in the whole righteousness of ed evolutions of' ingratitude, or even the the law-so far as he then knew or then teazing and troublesome annoyances of understood of its requirements. His con- interruption-should any of these temptaduct was up to the level of his conscience; tions, wherewith society is constantly exand what he did was adequate to the sense crcising its own members, ever transport that was in him of what he ought to do. him away from meekness and patience But on his becoming a Christian, he got and charity and unwearied kindlessa spiritual insight of the holy law of God, Then on that high walk of principle, upon ard( then began the warfare of the text- which he is labouring to uphold himself, for teen it was that his conscience outran will he have to mourn that he doeth the his cc: -uct; and that he could not over- things which he would not; and ever as take by,;s doings, what his now enlight- he proceeds, will he still find that there ened mor,;ty told him were his duties. are conquests and achievements of greater There was n.',ing in this change actually difficulty in reserve for him. It argues ia to degrade the -.: and character of' Paul; very exalted Christianity, when the glory but there was mu::h in it to degrade them of God is the habitual and paramnount imin his own eyes. lie formerly walked on pulse, that gives movement to the footsteps what he felt to be an even platform of of our history in the world. Burt, think righteousness; but now the platform was you, that, when a man's heart comes to be as lifted above him, and he was left to toil visited by this ambition, that then it is he his upward way on a steep ascent that makes his escape from the complaint of had been raised for conducting him there- doing what he would not I It only thick. LECTURE XLIII.-CHAPTER VII) 16, 17. 227 ens the contest, and multiplies the chances In the case of an unconverted man the,)f mortification, and furnishes new topics flesh is weak and the spirit is not willing; )f humility to the disciple —and in the and so there is no conflict-nothing that very proportion too that he urges and as- can force those outcries of shame and recends and strikes loftier aims along the morse and bitter lamentation, theat vwe course of his progressive holiness. And have in the passage before us. - Vith a so it follows, that he who is highest in ac- Christian, the flesh is weak too but tile quirernent is sure to be deepest in lowly spirit is willing; and under its influence ant c ontrite tenderness-for just as the there must from the necessary connection desires of' his spirit mount higher, will the that there is between the human faculties, damp and the deadness and the obstruc- there must from the desires of his heart tions of the flesh be more felt as a grief be such a plenteous efflux of doings upon and an encumbrance to him. So that his history, as shall make his life distinwhile in the body, this soliloquy of the guishable in the world, and most distinapostle will be all his own; and so far guishable on the day of judgment, from from conceiving of it as the appropriate the life of an unbeliever. But still his utterance for a natural and unconverted desires will outstrip his doings, and the man-it is just as we are the more saintly, will that he conceives shoot greatly ahead that we shall feel our readiness to coalesce of the work that he performs-and thus, with it as the fittest vehicle of hearts will he not only leave undone much of smitten with the love of purest excellence, what he would, but, even in the language yet burdened under a sense of distance of our present verse, do many things that and deficiency therefrom. And thus it is, he would not. But I call you particularly that the toil-worn veteran has been known to notice that the will must be there-that to weep upon his death-bed; and to long he is not regenerated at all unless the for an escape from this sore conflict, be- will, honestly and genuinely and without tween the elements of' his compound na- the hypocrisy of all mental reservation, ture; and to be in exceeding weariness for be there. If he have any interest in his emancipation from that vile body, Christ, any part in the promises or the which brings a soil and a taint and a tar- influences of His new economy, the inclinish upon all his offerings; and to feel nation which prompts to a resolute and how greatly better it were that he should unsparing warltare with all iniquity must be with Christ, and expatiate at large be there. The man who uses the degen. among those unclouded eminences where eracy of his nature as a plea for sinful the spirits of the perfect dwell, and are indulgence-the man who makes a cloak admitted among the glories of that un- of his corruption wherewith to shelter its spotted holiness which now is inaccessible. deceits and deformities, instead of' hating For here, the accursed nature is still pre- the spotted garment with his utmost soul sent, and galling with its offensive solicita- and labouring to unwind himself from all lions the regenerated spirit-so that its entanglements-the man who loves the when weighed down by indolence; or play of orthodoxy in his head, and stickles frozen into apathy; or betrayed into un- for his own depravity as the most favourcharitable thoughts and uncharitable ite of its articles, while he continues to wishes; or led to seek the desires of its cherish it in his heart or to roll it under own selfishness more than God's honour, his tongue as a sweet morsel-That man to rejoice in its exemption fiom punish- is going to the grave with a lie in his ment more than to aspire after its exemp- right hand; and the piercing eye of his tion from sin, to be more vehement for the Judge, who now discerns his latent worthobject of being safe than for the object of lessness, will at length drag it forth to being sanctified-The consciousness of open day, and expose it to shame and to these, which give no disturbance either to everlasting contempt. That the will be the unchristian man or to the Christian in on the side of virtue is indispensable to his infancy, is still in reserve to humble Christian uprightness. Wanting this, you an(l keep down even the most accomplish- want the primary andti essential element of ed believer; to assure him still of the regeneration-You are not born again — many things that he does which he would you shall not enter the kingdom of God not; to keep him at the post of depend- God knows how to distinguish the man ence, where he may join with the apostle of Christian uprightness, even amid all his in mourning over his own wretchedness, imperfections, from another who, not very and with the psalmist in exclaiming "Who visibly dissimilar in outward history, is can understand his errors, cleanse thou nevertheless destitute of an honest, habitme fiom secret faults: Search me O God ual, and heart-felt desirousness after the and know mv heart, try me and know my doing of His will. Let me suppose two ihollghts, and see if there be any wicked yoked and harnessed vehicles, both upoh way in me, and lead me in the way ever- a road of ruggedness and difficulty, and lasting." where at last each was brought to a dea4 228 LECTURE XLIII. —CHAPTER VII, 16 17. stand. They are alike in the one palpable and a conatus aitem all ~L.L- obedience. circumstance of making no progress; and, He consented unto ihe law that it was were this the only ground upon which a good, not assented but consented-did not judgment could be formed, it might be simply approve of the things that are concluded of the drivers that they were more excellent as the Jews with whom he alike remiss, or of the animals under them reasoned, but had a liking to the things that they were alike spiritless and indo- that are inore excellent. His will was on lent. And yet on a narrower cormparison the side of the law that he loved; and not of the two, it may be observed from the on the side of that transgression which he loose traces of the one, that all exertion hated, at the very time perhaps that he had been given up-while with the other had been surprised into it. He consented there was the full tension of a resolute unto the law that it was good, and his and sustained energy, pressing at the delight was in the law after the inward instant against the obstructions of the man, and with his mind he served the law ro(ad, and perhaps with the perseverance of God. And God has a judging and a of' a febw minutes carrying it over them. discerning eye upon all these tendencies. Both, for the time being, are stationary; lie knows most clearly the difference and yet the one is as distinct as possible between him who has them, and him who florn the other, in respect of the push and has them not. There is a real and sub. the struggle to get forward, and the forth- stantial distinction between the two charputting of strenuous inclination on the acters, which is quite palpable to our part of all the living agents who are con- heavenly Judge, and will guide Him to an cerned. And so, my brethren, of the unerring decision on the day of reckonChristian course. It is not altogether by ing. If not so palpable to yourselves, it the sensible motion, nor yet altogether by should just make you the more earnest in the place of advancement at which you labouring to work out your assurance; have arrived, that you are to estimate the and to watch against the deceitful and genuineness of the Christian character. unknown hypocrisy, that may be lurking Man may not see all the springs and under the plausibilities of an orthodox traces of this moral mechanism, but God profession; and to be altogether on the sees them; and he knows whether all is alert and on the alarm against all those slack and careless within you, or whether treacherous inclinations, that, if not rooted there be the full stretch of a single and out, must at least be most vigilantly honest determination on the side of obe- guarded, and on every appearance which dienee. Think not that He is in want of they do put forth must be vigorously overmaterials for judging and deciding upon borne. The adherence of the mind must this question. Think not that He, of be to the law of God. The affectionate whom it is said that He weigheth the consent of the heart must be towards it. spirits of all those whose ways are clean All the feelings and faculties of the inward in their own eyes, and that He pondereth man must be on the side of obedience; the hearts as well as the goings of His and if such be indeed our spiritual mecreatures, and that from His throne in chanism, we shall be impelled forward heaven His eyes behold and His eye-lids through the many impediments of a per. try the children of men-think not that verse and wofully deranged nature, on I-Ie will lose His discernment of the in- the path of new obedience-rising, as the ward principle, amid all the drags and upright ever do, fiom the falls which they corruptions and obstacles wherewith a experience; and urging our laborious believer is encompassed upon his path. and oft-interrupted way to that land, lie knoweth how to separate the chaff where the soul that has holy desires shall from the wheat, and how to set His ap- meet with a body that has been delivered propriate mark on the upright and on the of its moral leprosy, we shall pass from hypocrite. You know in what direction strength to strength till we appear perfect you should move, even towards that which before God in Zion. is good and away f/om that which is evil. V. 17. There is a peculiarity here that God knows if you are intently and sin- is worth adverting to. St. Paul, throughout cerely prosecuting this career; for under the whole of this passage, utters the conall the mistiness of the human understand- sciousness that is in him, of the two oppoing, nevertheless the foundation of God site principles which resided and which standeth sure, having this seal, "the Lord rivalled, the one with the other, for doknoweth them that are His —And, let every minion over his now compound because one that nameth the name of Christ de- now regenerated nature. And it is repart from iniquity." markable how he sometimes identifies And so, amid all the besetting infirmi- himself with the first of these ingredients, ties of a nature tainted with evil, which and sometimes with the second of them. Paul had as well as others, he had what In speaking of the movements of the flesh, unconverted sinners have not, a desire he sometimes says that it is I who put LECTURE XLI1I.-CHAPTER VII, 16, 17. 229 forth these movements. 1"I am carnal original ingredient of this composition, he and sold under sin." "I do that which 1 does well to be humbled under a sense hate." " I do that which I would not." of' his own innate and inherent worthless. "In me-that is in my flesh, but still you ness. And yet it is true, that in virtue of will perceive so identifying for a time the the second or posterior ingredient-his flesh with himself as to say of this flesh taste, and his understanding, and his that it is me-In me dwelleth no good deliberate choice, and the higher powers thing." And lastly, 1" I do the evil that I and faculties of his moral system, are now would not" and "I find not how to perform all on the side of new obedience. Neverthat which is good." theless it is well for him to look often Now here you will perceive, that, in all unto the rock whence he was hewn; and these quotations, he charges on his own thinking of the quarter whence he derives proper and personal self; the corrupt all his heaven-born virtues, to say of them feelings and instigations that the flesh that they had not their origin in me-and gives rise to. And it is true that these all it is also well for him, while he regards do emanate from the original part of his the duties of the Christian life and the nature; and the other or the gracious part graces of the Christian character, to say of it, came by a subsequent accession to that these are what I love to perform, and him. It is a thing superinduced at con- these are what I hope to realise. version, and may be regarded more in the And the apostle, at the end of this chap*light of an element imported from abroad, ter, lays before us the distinction between which no doubt it was his part to cherish the two parts of the Christian natureto the uttermost; beut which still was a when he says, that with the mind I myself sort of foreigner in his constitution that serve the law of God, and with the flesh lid not primarily and essentially belong the law of sin. But ever remember, that.o it. it is the part of the former to keel) the Yet notwitstanding this, I would have latter under the power of its presiding you to notice, how he shifts the applica- authority. The latter, on this side of' tion of the pronoun I; and transfers it time, is ever present with us; but for all from the corrupt to the spiritual ingre- that, it may not prevail over us. It may dient of' his nature. It is I who would do often be felt in its hateful instigations; that which is good. It is I who hate that but it must not on thataccount be followed which is evil. It is I who consent unto in the waywardness of its devious and the law; and finally it is I who delight in unlawful movements. Were there no the law of God after the inner man. Thus counteracting force I would serve it; but, it is, if' I may so speak, that Paul inter- with that force in operation over me and changes himself between the two conflict- because I am under grace, sin may have ing elements that were within him-at a dwelling-place but it shall not have the one time regarding the better of the two dominion. elements as a visitant from without whom When the matter is taken up as a mathe longed to detain, and charging upon ter of humiliation, then it cannot be too his own person all the baseness and strongly insisted upon, that it is I who misery of its antagonist-at another bit- am the sinner; that to myself, properly terly complaining of the worse element and primarily, belongeth all that is vile as a burden wherefrom he longed to be and worthless in my constitution; that, delivered, and actually vindicating him- even at the very time I am brightening self from its corrupt movements by ex- into the character of heaven, I am ever pressly saying that it was not I. And, to reminded by the conscience within me fetch an example from another part of his of an inherent depravity that be all my writings, we hold it to be truly remarkable own; and, even though this corruption is that, while in the passage before us he fast dying towards its final and complete says of that which is evil in him'it is no disappearance, yet that it is under the more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in power of an influence that cometh all me' —there is a different passage where from another. He who can say that by he says of that which is good in him the grace of God I am what I am, may in'nevertheless not me, but the grace of fact have reached a lofty eminence of God that is in me.' that ascent which reacheth unto perfecWVe thus bring together these affirma- tion and yet with truth may think and tions of the apostle, hoping that it may i feel, that, in himself, he is altogether void have the effect of making more manifest of godliness. The shame of his Driginal to you-that state of composition in which nature still adheres to him; and, although every Christian is, who hath been visited it be fast giving way to the ascendant wMith spiritual life from on high, and yet power of another and a nobler nature, yet, is comnpassed about with the infirmities of knowing whence it is that he hath derived an earthly tabernacle. In virtue of the both its being and its growth, the graces 23G LECTURE XLIII. —CHAPTER viI, 16, 17. and the ornaments of the spiritual life are corrupt, he thanks none but God In Chril.. but to him a matter of'gratitude, and not for all that is gracious and good in hirrt at all ~f glorying. To use an old but expressive phrase, hii On the other hand, when, instead of soul is ever travelling between his own being taken up as a topic of humiliation emptiness and Christ's fullness; anl like it is taken up as a topic of aspiring the apostle before him when urged with earnestness, it cannot be too strongly any temptation, he recurs to the expediurged on every Christian, that he should ent of beseeching the Lord earnestly that be able honestly arid heartily to say of it might depart from him. And the anhimself, I desire after holiness-in very swer to this petition is remarkable. It sincerity and truth it is the fondest aim does not appear that the temptation was of my existence, to be what I ought and made to depart from him; but it was deto do what I ought-for the furtherance prived of its wonted force of ascendency of the same would I pray and watch and over him. It was not by the extirpation keep my unceasing post both of vigilance of the evil, but by the counteracting and exertion-I take the side of all that is strength of an opposite good, that the good and gracious in my constitution; apostle was kept upright as to his walk, and against whatever still adheres to me in the midst of all the adverse and corrupt of the unrenewed and the carnal, do I feel tendencies of his will. "I will make my an utter and irreconcilable enmity. His grace sufficient for thee," was the Lord's mind is with the law of God; and though answer to him. It was not that he did not the tendencies of his flesh be with the law still feel how in himself he was weak. of sin, yet, sustained by aid from the The weakness of nature remained; but in sanctuary, does he both will and is enabled that weakness I will perfect my strength, to strive against these tendencies and to says the Saviour. And so it is we believe overcome them. to the end of our days. There is a felt It is tinder such a feeling of what he distinction between the Weakness that is was in himself on the one hand, and such in ourselves, and the strength that cometh an earnestness to be released from the upon us from the upper sanctuary. Even miseries of this his natural condition upon Paul was doomed to the consciousness the other, that Paul cries out in the ago- that he had both a flesh and a mind-the nies of his internal conflict-" 0 wretched one of which would have inclined him man that I am, who shall deliver me from wholly to the love and to the law of' sin; tile body of' this death!" And I would and with the other of which he kept the corhave you to mark how instantaneous the rupt tendency that still abode with him in transition is, from the cry of distress to check, and so maintained a conduct agreethe gratitude of his felt and immediate de- able to the law of God. Like him, my liverance-"- I thank God through Jesus brethren, let us have no confidence in the Christ my Lord." This we hold to be flesh, and like him let us rejoice in the the exercise of every true Christian in Lord Jesus; and so shall we be enabled the world. Evil is present with him; and to serve God in the Spirit-realising that he blames none but himself for its hateful comprehensive description which he gives and degrading instigations. But grace is of a Christian when he says, "' We are of in readiness, not to sweep away this evil the circumcision, who serve God in the as to its existence, but to subdue it as to Spirit, and rejoice in the Lord Jesus, and its prevalence and power; and while he have no confidence in the flesh." blames none but himself for all that is LECTURE XLIV. ROMANS viii, 1. " There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the fleah. but aftec the Spirit." THE term'now,' may be understood in first covenant has passed away, and the two senses-one of them a more general, second has been substituted in its placeand the other a more special. It may be now, that Christ hath born the vengeance understood as it respects the present econ- of the law upon his own person, and, omy of the gospel. Now, since that econ- having thus disposed of its threatenings omy has been instituted —now, since the against the guilty, can now address the LECTURE XLI'.- CHAPTER VIII, 1. 231 guilty with the overtures of a free pardon world; and be encouraged in the thought and a finished and entire reconciliation- that the whole weight of your offences Now is it competent for sinners to em- has indeed been born away from your. brace these overtures; and there is now no self, and indeed been laid upon another. condemnation to those, who, having so. It is on the strength of this simple exhibicomplied with them, are in Christ Jesus. tion, that I should like to assure you of It is thus that the term now may be made pardon; nor would I embarrass the matto respect the current period in the history ter with any conditions, or hang it on any of God's administration —the reign of dark and uncertain futurities that may lie grace under which we at present are, in before you. Christ hath made atonement, coitradistinction to the former regimen and with it God is satisfied; and if so, of the law which has been superseded. well may you be satisfied-delighting Or it may be understood more specially, I yourselves greatly in the abundance of ss referring to the present moment in the peace, and going forth even now in the history of an individual believer. He is light and the liberty of your present ennow freed from condemnation-not as if largement. the sentence of acquittal were still in de- But the verse further proceeds to inform pendencee, but as if' that sentence had al- us, who they are that have this inestimaready passed-not as if he had to look, per- ble privilege; and the first circumstance haps doubtfully, and ambiguously forward of description which it brings forward reto some future day, when a verdict of ex- specting them, is, that they are in Christ. culpation shall be pronounced upon him; There are some, who actuated by the disbut as if' he stood exculpated before God taste of nature towards gospel truth in all even now, and even now might rejoice in its depth and all its peculiarity, underthe forgiveness of all his trespasses. stand this phrase in a way that is but We think that, in the clause before us, vaguely and feebly expressive of its real the term now reaches the full extent of meaning. They have no tolerance for this signification. When a sinner closes the doctrine of a vital and mystical union with Christ, God takes him on the instant between Christ as the head, and Christians into reconciliation; and from that time as the members who receive from Him are his sins washed out in the blood of both their guidance and their nourishthe Lamb. I will remember them no ment; and they fearlest fanaticism should imore. I will make no more mention of betray them into some of her illusions, by themr; and they are among the things that carrying too far the analogy between a are behind, and which ought to be forgot- vine and its branches; and so they get ten. The believer should feel his con- over the phrase of being in Christ, and get science to be relieved from the guilt and quit of all that special intimacy of allifrom the dread of them; and, instead of ance with the Saviour which it is fitted to being any longer burdened with them as convey, by the very general interpretation so many debts subject to a count and that to be in Christ is just tantamount to reckoning on some future day, he has a being a Christian. And so it is, if you unmost legitimate warrant for looking on the (lerstand a Christian in the full sense and account as closed, and that there is a full significancy of that high denomination: settlement and discharge because of them But then we must not shut our eyes against between him and God. We have heard the closeness of that personal and subthat it is wrong in a believer to live be- stantial attachment, which we every where neath his privileges, and we fully agree read of, as subsisting between the Rein so thinking. We know not how the deemer and those who are the fruit of the spirit of bondage is ever to be done away, travail of His own soul; nor are we jeaor the joy of the gospel ever made to lously to exclude from our minds the imspring up in the heart, if, still beset with pression of that very near relationship, the entanglement of his scruples and of which is suggested by the following pashis fears, he shall suspend the remission sages —" But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, of his sins on any thing else than on the who of God is made unto us wisdom and blood of Jesus. Now all that is told of righteousness and sanctification and re. that blood should assure him of a present demption." "If any man be in Christ he justification; and this should send an in- is a new creature."'" The dead in Christ stant peace into his bosom; and like the shall rise first." "We are in Him that is jailor of old, should he on hearing of the true, even in His Son Jesus Christ." power and property thereof forthwith and,Blessed are the dead which die in the from that moment rejoice. Be translated Lord." " He that abideth in me and I in then into the sense of God being at peace him the same bringeth forth much fruit." with you. Receive the forgiveness of "And be found in Him not having my own your sins, through Him whom God hath righteousness." set forth as a propitiation. Look unto But lest we should wander into a region Christ lifted up for the offences of the of mist and of obscurity, let us not forget, 232 LECTURE XLIV. —CHAPTER V1II, 1. that, for the purpose of being admitted cause he hath not believed on the name of into this state of community with the Sa- the only-begotten Son of God." viour, the one distinct and intelligible But there is another circumstance of thing which you have to do is to believe description that attaches to those unto in Him. There is nothing mystical in the whom there is no condemnation. This is act by which you award to Him credit for the privilege of those who are in Christ His declarations; and this is the act by Jesus; and further, who walk not after the which you are grafted in the Saviour. flesh but after the Spirit. Whatever this matter of your union with Now here I must come forth with a speChrist be, it all hinges upon your faith in cial demand upon your attention. We Him-which faith is the great tief of rela- are not fond of those less manageable totionship betwixt you. As you hold fast pies in theology, that call either for an the beginning of your confidence, and per- elaborate exposition on the part of the severe therein, the tie will be strengthened minister, or for a very strenuous and sus-the relationship will become more inti- tained effort of attention on the part of the mate-the communications of mutual re- hearers; and nothing else can reconcile gard will become more frequent, and more us to them, than their practical bearing familiar to your experience-every day upon the comfort or the holiness of Chrisyou live might bring you into more in- tians. For it is at the same time most tense acquaintanceship with the Saviour, true, that a thing may at once be both and that on the strength of' your faithful profound and important. It may lie deep applications to Him, and of His sure and and yet, like the precious metals, be of faithful responses unto you-And thus, by use in the familiar currency of the busicertain exercises and feelings which cer- ness of religion. The work of godliness tainly are not recondite in themselves presses all the faculties into its service; might you arrive at a state of fellowship and lays a tax on the understanding of with Christ; which fellowship, in the de- man, as well as upon his heart and his scription of it, might be very recondite conscience. Insomuch that we are bidboth to those who stand without, and even den to give earnest heed, and to hearken to those who have got no farther than to diligently, and to search for sacred wisthe threshold of Christian experience. By dom as for hidden treasure, and to medithe simple expedients of believing prayer; tate on these things, and to give ourselves and the habitual commitment of yourself wholly thereunto, and to study and strive to the Lord your Saviour, in circumstances and stir ourselves up that we may lay of trial or difficulty; and the encourage- hold of them. And we do think that such ment of' your heart's regard and grati- passages as these, might mitigate sometude, because of all the favours that you what the prejudice of marny against the have gotten at His hand; and the strenu- scholastic air of certain of our theological ous maintainance within you oV that disquisitions-as leading us to suspect that peace which lie hath purchased by His perhaps in some instances, and more blood, and of that purity by which His especially in the work of rightly diviwill is complied with and His doctrine is ding the word of truth, the thing is un. adorned-by these you may so over-shoot avoidable. the experience of other men, as to have You will therefore sufflr me I trust, attained a sense and a discernment of in- when I say, that, of the two circumstances corporation with the Saviour, wherewith in the description of those who are free they are not yet prepared to sympathise. from condemnation which are presented All this, though not yet realized by many to our notice in the verse before us, one of you, is surely conceivable by many of of them is the cause of our being so freed; you; but meanwhile, and lest ye should and the other is not the cause but the conthink of some remote and inaccessible sequence. Both of these invariably meet mystery which it were utterly hopeless on the person of him, who hath been adfor you to aspire after, I would have you mitted to the pardon and acceptance of all to remark, that, though the territory the gospel. Every one who is so admitof Christian experience may not be plain ted, is in Christ Jesus; and every one who to you, yet the way is plain by which you is so admitted, walketh not after the flesh arrive at it —that, more particularly, you but after the Spirit. But it is of real you are conducted to the state of being in practical importance for you to be made Christ simply by believing in him: And aware, that one of these circumstances sD, there ought to. be nothing more unin- goes before your deliverance from guilt, telligible in the verse,'that there is no and the other comes after it. Your release condemnation to them which are in Christ from condemnation is suspended on the Jesus,' than in the verse, "' Ile that believ- first circumstance of your being in Christ eth on Him is not condemned, but he that Jesus. But -c is not so suspended on the believeth not is condemned already, be- second circumstance, of your walking not LECTURE XLIV.-CHAPTER VIII, 1. 238 after the flesh but after the Spirit. The there-there may be the outward complifirst is the origin of your justification- ance of a slave, but none of the inward the second is the fruit of it. You secure graces or aspirations of' a saint. The truth your hold of the one, by keeping hold of is, that if this immunity from condemrnaChrist; and you make progress in the tion, instead of being a thing given to us other, by walking securely before Him in because we are in Christ, is a thing purthe light of His friendly countenance, and chased by us because of our walking not with the willingness of a grateful and de- after the flesh but after the Spirit-then voted heart that He has emancipated from will conscience ever be suggesting to us all its fears. The order of succession that, the purchase has not been made which I now announce to you, will not good; and all the jealousies of' a bargain interest those who take no interest in their wvill ever and anon rise up between the'souls. But it may resolve the difficulty parties; and a cold or mercenary feeling of an anxious inquirer; and be the in- will put to flight the good will, afl the strument to him, both of his translation confidence, and the spontaneous regard, into peace, and of his translation into which are the alone worthy ingredients of progressive holiness. all acceptable godliness; and, after all For mark the embarrassment of that the offerings that may have been rendered disciple, who, instead of entering upon by the hand, the sterling tribute of the forgiveness even now by a league of faith heart will be withholden. God will be and fellowship with Christ; and so bring- feared, or HIe will be distrusted; but He ing his person under the first of these two cannot be loved under such an economy circumstances,-postpones his enjoyment so that, throughout the whole of this of this privilege until he has accomplished strenuous and sustained exertion after a the second of them, and is satisfied with righteousness which is by the law, the himself that he walketh not after the flesh law is dishonoured at every breath in the but after the Spirit. Look, I pray you, to first and greatest of her commandments. the heavy disadvantage under which he There is a better way of ordering this toils and travails at the work of new obe- matter; and it is a way laid down by dience; and how the spirit of bondage is Him, who is the wisdom of God unto salsure to be perpetuated within him, so long vation. The gospel carries in it a full and as he persists in his wrong imagination; immediate tender of pardon unto sinners. and how still the conditions of an imprac- Deliverance from condemnation is not the ticable law must continue to oppress his goal, but the starting-post of the Chrisconscience, and to goad him onward in a tian race; and, instead of labouring to service, where he labours in the very fire make good the remote and inaccessible and wearies himself for very vanity; and station where forgiveness shall be awardhow working, as he in fact must do, for ed to him, he is sent forth with the inspihis justification before God, he cannot ad- ration of one who knows himself forgiven vance a single footstep without a despair- on the way of all the commandments. ing eye on some new and unsealed heights All are invited to come unto Christ, and to of virtue, the very aspect of which takes be in Christ; and from that moment the all heart and all energy away from him. believer's guilt is washed axvay; and a And thus, with the burden upon his inner full deed of amnesty is put into his hand; man of all the fears and disquietudes and, lightened of all his fears, he goes which attach to the old legal economy, forth upon his course rejoicing. The will he either spend his days in a grievous tenure of his discipleship, is, not that servitude which fatigues but never satis- with him there is some future chance of fies; or be driven from very weariness to pardon, but unto him that now there is no a compromise between his conscience and condemnation; and this, like the loosing his conduct, between the law of' God and of a bond, sets him free for all the services his own garbled conformity thereunto- of new obedience. It opens an ingress to bringing down the high requisitions of his heart for affections, which never else heaven to the corrupt standard of earth; could have found company there; and and offering, in the sight of men and of the creature knowing himself to be safe, angels, a polluted obedience as a rightful and delivered from the engrossment of his equivalent for the rewards and the hon- before slavish apprehensions, can now ours of eternity. He must either do this, with new-born liberty walk after the or be haunted and pursued to the end of Spirit on the path of a progressive holiness. life, by all the perplexities of a yet unset- It is because he knows the truth that the tiled question between him and God; and truth has now made him free. It is nota the sense of his manifold deficiencies will regeneration originating with himself, that never cease either to pain or to paralyse has reconciled him unto God-but it is a him; and still much of the drudgery of sense of his reconciliation, it is this which obedience may reluctantly be borne, but has regenerated him. His new walk is nought of the delight of obedience will be not the cause of his agreement with God 30 234 LECTURE XLIV. —CHAPTER VIII, I. It is the consequence which has emanated distinction between the conseque ice and therefrom. the cause, though it gives to the otedience It is.he free grace of the gospel, which of a believer its proper place, does not awakens every man who receives it, to the make that obedience less sure What the charm of new moral existence. Faith is worldly or hypocritical professor thinks tc the quickening touch, whereby the before be faith, is nought but fancy or something dormant energies of our nature are put worse, if it be not followed by the walk into motion. It is faith which ushers love of godliness. It is just as true as if your into the heart, and love gives impulse to virtue were the price of your salvationthe inert and sluggish mechanism of' the that there will be no salvation for you, if human filculties. With the despairing you have no virtue. There will be a persense in his bosom of a good wholly un- sonal distinction between those in the last attainable, the man feels himself weighed day who stand on the right, and those who Jown lo inlaction and to apathy. But stand on the left of the judgment-seat; when the good is offered to him freely and the distinction will be, that, whereas And he by faith lays hold of it-then, de- the one abounded in good, so the other livered at once from the cold and creep- abounded in evil deeds done in their body. ing spirit of bondage, does he break forth All that we have said was not with a view in the full vigour of his emancipated pow- to supersede the moralities of practical ers. What before was a matter of anxious righteousness, but to set you on the proper uncertainty, and without either hope or way by which to arrive at them. The affection to animate. becomes a matter of ultimate design of the gospel economy is confidence and alacrity and good will. to make those who sit under it zealous of And this is the great secret of that promp- good works; and the reason why we titude and that power wherewith the gos- should like the sense of your deliverance pel urges on its disciples to the cultivation from guilt to be. introduced even now by of its heaven-born virtues, to the faithful- faith into your bosoms, is, that we esteem ness and the activity of its bidden services. it the only instrument for reviving within Make the transition, my brethren, from you the love of God, or for causing to death unto life, by simply laying hold on break forth upon your visible conduct the the gospel offer of reconciliation. After efflorescence of all that is virtuous and placing your full reliance upon this, then pure and praiseworthy. run with all your might on that heaven- To conclude my remarks upon this ward path of righteousness and purity and verse which has detained us so long, 1 love which leadeth unto the upper para- would have you to be aware of this most dise. First trust in the Lord, and then be important consideration-that the same doing good. A workman to whom a tool believer who is represented here as walkis indispensable-you would never bid ing not after the flesh, is the very indivib him work for the tool, but you would put dual who would take up the soliloquy of the tool into his hand and bid him work the last chapter; and have full share and by it. Faith is the alone spiritual tool, full sympathy, with the toil, and the conby which you can accomplish any right flict, and all the inward bitterness because spiritual preparation. How can I love of sin, that are represented therein. The God-how can 1 maintain the gentleness same man who feels the motions of the of my spirit, under provocations the most flesh, walks not after the flesh. The same artful and the most galling-how can I man who is harassed with the instigakeep up the serenity of the inner man, tions of sin, resists and refuses to follow while the voice of calumny is abroad; or them. He who was burdened, even to a a visible alienation sits upon every coun- sense of wretchedness, with the hateful tenance; or plans misgive and prospects presence of his wayward and licentious lour and look dreary on every side of me; desires, would not submit to their tyranny; or, forsaken by all that is sweet and sooth- and while kept in a state of constant ing in human companionship, I have vigilance and alarm because of the warnought to lean upon but God as the friend ring elements in his bosom, yet does he whom I have chosen, and Heaven as the so fight as that the evil which is in his home of my fondest expectations? The heart shall not have the mastery over his. answer of the new Testament is —" Only conduct —So that, amid the opposing tenbelieve-all things are possible to him dencies and inclinations which beset his that believeth." This is the tool for all will, still his walk is the walk of new the high moral achievements of Chris- obedience-not being after the flesh but tianity; and thus it is that your being now after the Spirit. "Every man is tempted," in Christ, with a present freeness from says the apostle James, "when he is condemnation, forms an essential step- drawn away of his own lusts and enticed ping-stone to your walking no more after Then when lust hath conceived it bring. the flesh but after the Spirit. eth forth sin, and sin when it is finished But-mark it well, my brethren. This bringeth forth death." The believer is LECTURE XLIV.-CHAPTER VIII, 1. 28 often so tempted, and even to his own sad' from the weight and oppression of your grief and humiliation may he have des- guilt-that sore spiritual palsy, then arise cribed the previous steps of this process; and walk. Tidings of great joy should but never is the process so finished as to make you joyful; and the tidings where. terminate in death. He struggles against with I am fraught are of that remission sin, and he prevails over it. There may from sin which I now ~'reach unto you, be a sore and a desperate contest in the and which may be preached to every inner man; but the result of it is a body creature under heaven. The effect it had kept under subjection, whose hands are on believers of old was an instantaneous made the instruments of righteousness, joy; and so should be the effect on all and whose feet are found in the way of now who believe the same gospel. And all God's commandments. Take my joy my brethren carries a vigour and an brethren the patent and accessible way inspiration along with it. There is a that lies so openly and so invitingly might of practical energy in the impulse before you. Wash out your sins even which it communicates; and it is when now in the blood of God's everlasting the heart is enlarged thereby, that the covenant. Come and taste of the sure feet run with alacrity in the way of all mercies of David. Receive the forgive- the commandments. ness of your sins; and, when delivered LECTURE XLV. ROMANS viii, 2. k' " or the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." IT is of great importance for the under- might be used and understood even by standing of this verse, that you be made the Atheist, who denied the being or the acquainted with the two different senses power of a living Sovereign who presided that belong to the word law. At one time over nature, and established the various it signifies an authoritative code, framed successions that go on with such order by a master for the regulation and obe- and regularity around us. It is quite dience of those who are subject to him. consistent with the use of language, to And so we understand it when we speak speak of the laws of nature-denoting of the law of God, whether by this we thereby the process by which events mean His universal moral law or any follow each other, in a train of certain system of local and temporary enactments and unvarying accompaniment —3uch for -such as those which were embodied for example as the law of falling bodies-the the special government of the Jews, and law of reflexion from polished surfaceshave obtained the general denomination the laws of the vegetable kingdom; and of the Mosaic law or the ceremonial law. even in this sense may we speak of the According to this meaning of it, it stands laws of the human mind, as altogether related to jurisprudence-established by distinct from that law of God to which it one party who have the right or the power is morally and rightfully subject in the of command, and submitted to by another way of jurisprudence. By one of these party on whom lies the duty or the neces- laws its thoughts follow each other in a sity of obedience. The laws of the Medes certain order that might almost be preand Persians-the laws of any country- dicted-so that if one thought be present and, in a word, any rule put forth by to it, it is sure to suggest another thought; authority and enforced by sanctions, and this is called the law of association. whether it has issued from the Divine And so in proportion as we make an intiGovernor, or from those who have the mate study of ourselves, shall we find reins of civil or political authority upon certain methods of procedure, in the order earth-All are expressed by the same of which the feelings and the faculties term and in the same sense of the term. and the habits of man are found to go But there is still another and very fre- forward; and all these may be announced quent meaning of this word, apart alto- by metaphysicians and moralists as the gether from jurisprudence-a meaning laws of human nature. The law which applicable in cases where there is no willing and accountable creatures are obedience of living and accountable crea- bound to obey is one thing. The law tures at all; and a meaning in which it in virtue of which creatures whether 236 LECTURE XLV. —-CHAPTER VIII, 2. animate or inanimate are found at all law in hydrostatics. Now there is a like times to make the same exhibition in the constancy running throughout the whole same circumstances, is another. of nature, and any of her uniform proces. At the same time it is not difficult to ses is referred to the operation of a law-~ perceive, how one and the same term just as if she sat with the authority of a came to be applied to things so distinct mistress over her mute and unconscious in themselves. For you will observe that subjects, and as if they by the regularity law, according to the first sense of it, is of their movements (lid willing and revernot applicable to a single command that ential homage to the authority of her may have issued from me at one time, and regulations. But you will perceive whereperhaps may never be repeated. It is in it is that the difference lies. The one true that this one commandment, like all kind of law is framed by a living master the others, is obeyed, because of that for the obedience of' living subjects, and general law by which the servant is bound may be called juridical law. The other to fulfil the will of his master. Yet you is framed by a living master also, for would not say of the special command- amid the diversity of operations it is God ment itself that it was a law; nor does it who worketh all in all; but it is not by a attain the rank of such a denomination, compliance of the will that an obedience unless the thing enjoined by it be a habit is rendered thereunto-it is by the force or a practice of invariable observation. of those natural principles wherewith the Thus the order that the door of each things in question are endowed, and in apartment shall be shut in the act of virtue of which they move and act and leaving it-or that none of' the family operate in that one way which is agreeshall be missing after a particular hour in able to their nature. This kind of law the evening-or that Sabbath shall be would by philosophers be called physical spent by all the domestics either in church law. The one is a preceptive rule for the or in the exercises of household piety- government of willing and accountable These may be characterised as the laws creatures. The other is an operative of the family-not the random and for- principle residing in every creature, be it tuitous orders of the current day, but animate or be it inanimate; and determiorders of standing force and obligation ning it by its own force to certain uniform for all the days of the year; and in virtue processes. of which you may be sure to find the Now the question comes to be, in which same uniform conduct on the part of of these two senses shall we understand those who are subject to the law, in the this term law in the text before us. We same certain circumstances that the law think that though it occurs twice, both of hath specified. these must be understood in the same Now it is this common circumstance of sense; and both indexed appear to be uniformity which hath so extended the determined to the same sense by the relaapplication of the term law, as to present tion in which they stand as rivals or as it to us in the second sense which I have opposites. When thle law of the Spirit of endeavoured to explain. Should you drop life in Christ Jesus makis us free from a piece of heavy matter from your hand, the law of sin and of death, it is either by nothing more certain nor more constant the authority of one master prevailing than the descent which it will make to over the authority of another master; or the ground-just as if constrained so to by the force of one influencingo principle do by the authority of a universal enact- within us prevailin~g over the force of ment on the subject, and hence the law another such principle. To determine of gravitation. Or if' space be allowed which of these two it is, we shall begin for its downward movement, nothing with the consideration of the law of sin more certain or uniform than the way in and death, which though it comes last in which it quickens its descent-just as if the verse, is first in the order of ascendbidden to make greater speed, and hence ancy over the human mind; and from the the law of acceleration in falling bodies. nature of the thraldom under which it Or if light be made to fall by a certain brings us, may lead us to think aright path on a smooth and polished surface, of the nature of our deliverance therenothing more mathematically sure than from. the path by which it will be given back It must be quite obvious then to you all, again to the eye of him who looks to the that the law of sin and death is net a law image that has thus been formed, and that is enacted in the way of jurispru hence in optics the law of reflexion. Or dence; but, like every other law of i} a substance float upon the water, noth- nature, it is an operative principle that ing more rigidly and invariably accurate worketh certain effects and emanates than that the quantity of fluid displaced certain processes in the subject where it is equal in weight to that of the body resides. It is neither more nor less in which is supported; and all this from a fact than the sinful tendency of our con LECTURE XLV.-CHAPTER VIII, 2. 237 stitution; and is quite the same with in virtue of which there are evolved the what in the preceding chapter is termed desire, and the purpose, and the activities,.he law of sin that is in our members. It and at length all the conquests and all the,s called a law, because, like the laws of achievements of a life of holiness. The gravitation or magnetism or electricity, it affection of the old man meets with a new impels those upon whom it acts in a cer- affection to combat and to overmatch it, tain given direction; and has indeed the If the originating principle of sin might poWer and the property of a moving force be reduced to one brief' expression, and expressly ascribed to it, when it is said so be shortly designed the love of the to war against the law of the mind, and creature-the originating principle of the to be incessantly aiming after the estab- spiritual life might also be briefly and lishment of its own mastery over those summarily designed the love of the Crewhom it tries to lead captive and to en- ator. These two appetites are in a state slave. And to keel) up this conception of unceasing hostility. The flesh lusteth of a law in the second sense of it, let it be against the spirit, and the spirit against remembered that death is as much the the flesh. The law of sin and of death natural consequence of' sin, as it is the warreth against the law of the mind; and penalty of sin-that it forms the termina- this law of the mind in the preceding contion of an historical process by a law that text, is just the law of the Spirit of life in regulates the succession of events, as well the verse that is now before us. as the termination of a juridical process Let me now come forth in succession under the power and authority of a law- with a few distinct remarks upon this giver-that regarded in its true character verse, with a view to complete our under. as the extinction of the life of godliness standing of it. in the soul; as the death of all spiritual First, You are already aware how it is joy; as the darkness and the misery of a the Spirit of God that infuses this prinheart, where vice and selfishness and ciple into the mind, and sets agoing the carnality are the alone occupiers; as that law of its operation. Hence it may promoral hell, the rudiments of' which every perly be denominated the law of the Spiunconverted man carries about with him nrit-even as the opposite process against here, and the settled maturity of which he which it has to struggle and at length to will bear with him to the place of con- vanquish, is called the law of sin —a new demnation hereafter; as that state of dis- tendency imparted to the soul for the purtance and disruption from God, which pose of ariesting the old tendency and at may now be supportable so long as earth length of extinguishing it; and called the spreads its interests and gratifications law of the Spirit, just because referable before us, but which so soon as earth to the Holy Ghost, by whose agency it is passeth away will leave the soul in deso- that the new affection has been inspired, [ation and terror and without a satisfying that the new moral force has been made portion throughout eternity-Such a death to actuate the soul and give another di. as this, comes as regularly and as surely rection than before to the whole history. in the train of our captivity to sin, and by But secondly-why is it called the law the operation of a law, in the moral or of the Spirit of life? Just because he in spiritual department of nature-as the whom this law is set agoing is spiritually fruit of any tree, or the produce of any minded; and as to be carnally minded ia husbandry, does by the laws of the vege- death, so to be spiritually minded is life. table kingdom. The sinful tendency that It is the law of the Spirit, because of the worketh in man bringeth forth fruit unto agent who sets this law agoing in the soul. death; just as the vegetative tendency It is the law of the Spirit of life, because that is in the foxglove bringeth forth of the new state into which it ushers the poison. In both it is a fruit of bitterness; soul. It is like the awakening of man to and in both the effect of an established a new moral existence, when he is awaklaw,-apart from the awards and the ened to the love of that God whom before retributions of a Lawgiver. he was glad to forget; and of whom he Now the way in which this tendency is never thought but as a Being shrouded in ~ounteracted, is just by an opposite ten- unapproachable majesty, and compassed dency that is implanted in the mind, for about with the jealousies of a law that had the purpose of making head against it, been violated. It is like a resurrection and of at length prevailing over it. The from the grave, when, quickened and law of the Spirit of life, just expresses the aroused firom the deep oblivion of nature, tendency and the result of an operative man enters into living fellowship with his principle in the mind, that has force God; and Ile, who ere now had been re. enough to arrest the operation of the law garded with terror or utterly disregarded, of sin and death, and at length to eman- hath at length reclaimed unto Himself all cipate us therefrom. It is deposited with- our trust and all our tenderness. It is the in as the germ of a new character; and introduction of a before earthly creature 238. LECTURE XLV.-CHAPTER VIII, 2. into a region of other prospects and other Christ Jesus, we become subject to a quic!k. manifestations, when now he can eye eter- ening and a reviving touch that raises us nity with hope, and look up with confi- to spiritual life, and maketh us susceptible dence to the Lord and Disposer of his of all its joys and all its aspirations. We eternity. It is like imparting to him an- have the immutability of nature's laws, oi other breath, and enduing him as it were rather the immutability of Him who pre. with another vitality, when, for the ani- sideth over the constancy of nature's pro. mal and the earthly desires which once cesses, as our guarantee for an ordination monopolised all his affections, there spring which can never fail-that he who is in up in his bosom the desire of spiritual Christ Jesus is a new creature, that he excellence, and a love that reacheth unto who is in Christ Jesus walketh not after all, and the new moral ambition that the the flesh but after the Spirit. image of the Godhead be again implanted But fourthly-what have we to do that upon his character. There is now a sa- we may attain the condition of being in tisflaction and a harmony within, a rightly Christ Jesus? I know of no other answer going mechanism of the soul that is in than that you have to believe in Him. 1 unison with the great purposes of his be- know of no other instrument by which ing, a refreshing sense of that native enjoy- the disciple is graffed in Christ Jesus, ment which goodness and righteousnes and even as the branches are in the vine, than truth are ever sure to bring along with faith. And certain it is that a connection them, the sunshine of a heart at peace is often directly affirmed in the Bible, beand of a heart inhaling the purity of holy tween the act of believing and the deand celestial aspirations-all which make scent of a quickening and sanctifying inhim feel as if he had entered on a life fluence fiomn above. The Holy Ghost is that was new; and in comparison with given to those who believe. The promise which the whole of his former existence of the Spirit is unto faith. In whom after appears corrupt to him as a sepulchre, that ye believed ye were sealed with the and worthless as nonentity itself. It is Holy Spirit of promise. While Peter yet only now that he has begun to live, be- spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on cause now hath the law of the Spirit of all them that heard.. Ye shall know the life begun to operate in his bosom; and truth and the truth shall make you free. only now hath that well of water been Jesus is the Light of the world, and the struck out in his heart, which to him, even Light is the life of men-All pointing to a in the life that now is, is precious as the law of connection between our belief of elixir of immortality and springeth up unto the truth as it is in Jesus, and our being life everlasting. set at liberty by a divine power for a life And thirdly, when is it that this visita- of new and holy obedience. tion of the Spirit descendeth upon the And again, to recur to the term law as soul? When is it that this new law is set having the same sense in this verse that up within it; and so a power or a ten- physical law or a law of nature has. dency is established there, that arrests and What a security does it hold out for the at length subjugates the old one! We sanctification of every believer! If we think that the answer is to be gathered believe we are in Christ Jesus-if we are from the single expression of the law of in Christ Jesus the Spirit will put forth the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. What- such an energy as shall overmatch the ever the import of the phrase in Christ corrupt principle that is within us, and set Jesus may be, it is when so in Him that us free from its tyranny-And all this in this law taketh effect upon us. As surely virtue of an ordination so certain and so as when you enter a garden of sweets, unfailing, as to rank with those laws one of your senses becomes awakened to which have stamped an unalterable conthe perfumes wherewith its air is impreg- stancy on all the processes that are going nated-as surely as when emerging from on around us. There is notught that so the darkness of a close apartment to the arrests the admiration of philosophers as glories of an unclouded day, another of the inflexibility of nature-the certainty your senses is awakened to the light and wherewith the observations of the past beauty of all that is visible-So surely may be turned into prophecies for the when you enter within the fold of Christ's future-the sure evolution of the same mediatorship, and are so united with Him phenomena in the same circumstances; as to be in Him according to the bible and how, without one hair-breadth of designification of this phrase, then is it that viation, the same trains and the same suethere is an awakening of the inner man cessions will be repeated over again till to the beauties of holiness. We refer to the end of the world. It is thus that the a law of nature, the impression of every seasons roll in their unchanging courses scene, in which he is situated, on the and that the mighty orbs of the firmament senses of the observer; and it is also by maintain their periods of invariable con. the operation of such a law, that, if in stancy; and that astronomers, presuming LECTURE XLV.-CHAPTER VIII, 2. 2K or tie xiaiformity ot nature in all her reckoning of his past iniquities, whereby pilcessos, can, to within a second of de- its entrance was formerly beset, all done viation, compute the positions and the away through the power of the great gos. distalccs sand the eclipses of these heaven- pel sacrifice. And never does he move ly bodies for thousands of the years that with such alacrity at the bidding of the are to come-And not only so; but, Saviour, as when under a sense of the throughout all the departments of nature purchased reconciliation, he feels the debt to which the eye of man hath had access of obligation to Him for all his peace in upon earth, do we witness a uniformity time, and all his hopes in eternity. And rigid as fate, and that without a miracle never does the vigorous inspiration of light is clever violated-insomuch that some are and love and freedom come so copiously the philosophers who have made a divi- upon him from the upper sanctuary, as nity of Nature; and who,-coneeiving that when praying with confidence in the had there been a God there would have name of Christ, he obtains from Him the been more of freedom and of fluctuation presence of the witness and the comforter. in the appearances of things, have affirm- The powers and principles of the new ed this universe, instead of a creation, to creature, are all alimented by these varibe the product of some mysterious and ous exercises of faith; and so the law of eternal necessity, under which all things the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes move onward without change and with- him free from the law of sin and death. out deviation. But the Christian knows But to conclude. This freedom will be better how to explain the generality and perfect in heaven, but on earth it is not so. the certainty of nature's laws, and that is Here it is not that freedom by which you not because Nature is unchangeable, but are rid of the presence of' sin. It is only because God is unchangeable. What has that freedom by which you are rid of its been once done has been best done, and tyranny. While you are in the body, you cannot be amended; and so in the same will be vexed with its solicitations; and circumstances will it again and again and surprised perhaps into an occasional overagain be repeated. It is the perfect and throw; and at all events be so annoyed unerring wisdom of nature's God, which by its near and besetting artifices, that has banished all caprice, and stamped you must never let down the vigilance of such a reigning consistency on the whole a prepared and determined varriior. The of nature's processes: And when we find process by which sin lead(th unto death, that each of these processes is denomi- consists of' various steps, frorn the lust tated a law; and that this very term, in which conceiveth and brineth forth-and this very sense of it, is employed to ex- at length, if not arrested, will finish in press the union that there is between be- deeds and habits of sinfulness, which land lief in Christ and the putting forth of a the unhappy apostate in destru c tion. By renewing and a sanctifying influence on the law of the Spirit of life, you will be the believer-I fear not lest the obedience kept free of this awful catastrophe; but of the gospel should lead to Antinomian- not without many a weary struggle against ism; but grant me only a true faith in sin in its incipient tendencies, that these the mind of an aspirant after heaven, and tendencies may be kept in check-against there will I confidently look for virtue and sin in its restless appetites, that these apfor holiness. petites may be denied and at length starvBoth the certainty of Nature and the ed into utter mortification-against sin in certainty of God's word are very finely its tempting thoughts and tempting imagiexpressed together in the book of Psalms. nations, that the desires of the spirit as "For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in well as the deeds of the body may be heaven. Thy faithfulness unto all gene- chastened into obedience. and thus your rations; thou hast established the earth holiness be perfected. it will be freedom, and it abideth. They continue this day no doubt; but the freedom of a country according to thine ordinances, for all thy that has taken up arms against its tyrants servants." or its invaders-of a country that has reAnd therefore would I have you to be fused submission, but must fight to mainever dwelling upon that truth, the belief tain its independence-of a country from of which it is that brings down the Spirit whose gates the battle has not yet been of God upon your souls; and the'very turned away, but where the enemy is still presence of which to the mind, bears a in force, and the watchfulness of all is charm and a moral energy along with it. kept alive by the perpetual alarm of hosIt is a thing of mystery to the general tile designs and hostile movements. "But world; but to the Christian indeed, it is a ye are of God little children and shall thing of experience and not of mystery. overcome, because greater is He that is in Never does the way of new obedience lie you than he that is in the world. And this more invitingly clear and open before is the victory that overcometh the wo)rld, him. than when he finds the guilt and the even your faith." LECTURE XLVI.-CIIAPTER VIII. 3. 4. LECTURE XLVI. ROMANS viii, 3, 4. For what the law cc,lld not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the liket ceo of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, wht walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." WE have already explained the distinc- could not fulfil in us its own righteous tion between a physical law, whereby is ness. It could not cause us to exemplify established that order of succession, in that which itself had enacted. It could which one event follows another; and a not fashion us, the children of men, acjuridical law, or a law of authority, for cording to its own pure and beautiful mothe government of rational and respon- del; and, all perfect in excellence as its sible creatures. In the verse immediately light was, it could not obtain the unsullied preceding, the word occurs twice; but at reflection of it, from the living history of each time with such an annexed specifica- any of our species. As to any efficiency tion, as points to the former rather than to upon us, it was a dead letter; and did as the latter meaning of the term. There is little for the morality of the world, as if first the law of the Spirit of life in Christ struck with impotency itself, it had been Jesus, which marks, we think, that esta- bereft of all dignity and been reduced to blished order in the Divine administration a dishonoured thing, without the means or of grace, whereby, all who are in Christ the right of vindication. The law issued Jesus have a reviving and a sanctifying forth, and with much of circumstance too, influence put forth upon them. There is its precepts and its promulgations. But it then the law of sin and of death, which is quite palpable that man did not obey; marks another of those constant succes- and, whether we look to the wickedness sions, that obtain either between two which stalketh abroad and at large oveevents, or two states in the history of any the face of the earth, or rest the questioi individual-even that by which sin is fol- on each individual who breathes upon itlowed up with an extinction of the spiri- that the righteousness thereof, instead of tual life, with an utter incapacity for sa- being fulfilled, has been utterly and uni. bred employments or sacred delights; and versally fallen from. when superadded to the negation of all But the apostle introduces a caution those sensibilities that enter into the hap- here, that he might no c appear to derogate piness of heaven, you have as the natu- from the law, by ascribing to it any ral consequences of sin, the agony of proper or inherent impotency. And, for self-reproach, the undying worm of a con- this purpose, he lets us know, what the science that never ceases to haunt and to precise quarter was in which the failure upbraid you. originated-not then that the law was But you will observe that the term law weak in itself, but in that it was weak in the verse before us, is used generally through the flesh. To the law, there and without any accompaniments. We belong a native power and efficiency, in are not aware of any passage in the Bible, all its lessons and all its enfo)rcements, where, if so introduced, it does not signify which is admirably fitted to work out a that law which God hath instituted for the righteousness on the character of those io moral government of his creatures; and whom it is addrest. For this purpos(, there can be no doubt, that it is to be un- there is no want of force or of fitness in the derstood in this juridical sense on the pre- agent; but there may be a want of fitnevs sent occasion. -For what the law could in the subject upon which it operates. IT not do in that it was weak through the is no reflection on the penmanship of a flesh, God sending His own Son in the beautiful writer, that he can give no ade flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the quate specimen of his art, on the coarse flesh.' or absorbent paper, which will take on But what is it that the law could not no fair impression of the character that do! The answer to this is, we think, to he traces upon its surface. Nor is it any be gathered from the next verse. It could reflection on the power of an accomplished not accomplish that end for the bringing artist, that he can raise no monument about of which, God sent His Son into the thereof, from the stone which crumbles at world, and executed upon Him the con- every touch, and so is incapable of being demnation that we had incurred; and this moulded into the exquisite form of his He did, it is said, that the righteousness own faultless and finished idea. And so of the law might be fulfilled in us. This of the law, when it attempts to realize a then is what the law failed to achieve. I portrait of moral excellence on the ground. LECTURE XLVI.-CHAPTER VIII, 3, 4. 24 t work of our nature. It is because of the moral picture should be gradually brightgroundwork, and not of the law, that the ening, into a faultless conformity to that attempt has failed; and so when he tells pattern that hath been shown us from the us of what the law could not do, lest we mount-though at length our likeness to should be ieft to imagine that this was the law should be consummated-Yet is from any want of force or capacity in the that very law subject even now to perpetlaw, he adds'in that it was weak through ual affronts from us, on its holiness and the flesh.' majesty; and the question remains, how, And it is to be observed, that the fulfil- in these circumstances, shall its righteousment of the righteousness of the law in ness be vindicated upon us-even though us, was a thing to be desired-not merely we do walk after the Spirit, and do not that in us a beauteous moral spectacle walk after the flesh' might be reared, and so the universe You all understand, I trust, how it is become richer as it were than before in that the gospel adjusts this deficiency. It worth and in virtue; but that cir right- is stated in the verse before us; and eousness should be of such a kind as though stated often, it is like ointment, would satisfy the law, as would render to which, though often poured forth, is the law its due, as would secure all the always the same and always precious. homage that rightfully belongs to it. This There was something more, you will peryou will perceive is a distinct object from ceive, than a Spirit necessary to work in the former. That the law should impress us a personal righteousness-a sacrifice the worth and the loveliness of its own was neeessary to make atonement for our virtues upon our character, is one thing. personal guilt. Though the former opeThat the law should in us achieve the ration were to prosper onward every day, vindication of its own honour, is another, to its full and final accomplishment-yet, It could not do the first, through the weak- without the latter provision, there would ness of the flesh. And as little can it do have been still the spectacle held forth the second, excepting in those on whom it of a degraded law and a dishonoured wreaks the vengeance of its insulted lawgiver. The righteousness of the law authority. It may be said to fulfil its own might have been fulfilled, in regard to the righteousness, in those to whom it serves impress made by it on the character of as the ministry of' condemnation. It, in man; but it would not have been fulfilled, the act of punishment, gives full proof' of in regard to the perfect and undeviating its own awful and unviolable majesty. It adherence due by man at all times to its is a work of righteousness on the part of own authority. And so, to use the expres. tWe law, wshen it pours forth the wrath, sion of the apostle John, the Saviour and execues the penalty that are due to came not by water only, but by water diso ituience. There is then open demon- and blood. It was not enough to regenestration made, of its strict and sacred rate, itwas also necessary to atone. Withcharacter; and the charge of impotency out the shedding forth of the Spirit there cannot be preferred against the law, as to would have been no righteousness infused: the manifestation and fulfilment of its But without the shedding of blood there righteousness. It does not work in the could have been no righteousness imputed. persons of the impenitent, the virtues There behoved to be the one, for the which it enjoins, nor fulfil in this sense renewal of man unto obedience; and its own righteousness upon them. But it there behoved to be the other, for the wreaks upon these persons the vengeance remission of his sins: And thoselare the which it threatens; and in this sense, may weightiest verses of the Bible, where, in be said to make fulfilment of its righteous- one short and memorable sentence, both ness. In the persons again of those who are propounded to us, as the essentials of walk after the Spirit, the virtues enjoined a sinner's restoration. by the law are effectually wrought; but Now the passage before us, is one out how, would we ask, can the law, in refer- of many exemplifications, that may be ence to them, acquit itself of its juridical given us of this twofild announcement. honours —for they too have offended. It might be rendered clearer to you, perThe experience of every struggling Chris- haps, by a short paraphrase.'For what tian in the world, bears testimony to his the law could not do, in that it was weak many violations. There is, all his life through the flesh, God did, by sending his long, a shortcoming from the law's strict- own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, ness and the law's purity. There is a and for a sin-offering —so as thereby to constant offence rendered by us in these condemn sin in the flesh. And this he vile bodies, against that commandment did, that the righteousness of the law which will admit of no compromise, and might be fulfilled in us. who walk not suffer no degradation. So that even though after the flesh but after the Spirits' the personal workmanship of righteous- You will observe here, that the first uess should be in progress-though the step, was to make ample reparation for 31 242 LECTURE XLVI.-CHAPTER VIII, 3, 4. the injuries sustained by the law; and so their trust in Him, are enabled to walp by satisfying its rights, making a full vin- not after the flesh but after the Spirit. dication of its righteousness. Ere the sin- Thus historically, the atonement by' ner could be operated upon so as to be Jesus Christ took place, before that more transformned, the law which he had brok- abundant ministration of the Spirit, which en, it would appear, behoved to have cornm- obtains under the economy of the gospel pensation for the outrage done to it.'here -And so also personally, a belief in that was a need be that the threatened penalty atonement has the precedency to a saneshould not be arrested, but have its course tifying operation over the sinner's heart. -that it should break forth into the open Not till we accept of Jesus Christ as the and manifest discharge, which might an- Lord our righteousness, shall we ex erinounce to the world both the evil of sin, ence Him to be the Lord our strength. and the truth and justice of that God who Not till we put faith in that blood by had uttered I-Iis proclamations against it: which our guilt is washeO away, shall we And there seems to be a further, though be free to love the Being shom before we perhaps to us an inscrutable propriety, in were afraid of. Not till pardon is made the chastisement of our peace having known, shall we be loosened from the been borne by one, who bore our nature bonds of despair, or at least of that cal— in the Son having been sent, under no lous indifference-And it is only through other likeness than the likeness of sinful a pardon which is sealed by the blood of flesh-in humanity having had to suffer a divine expiation, that to peace with God the vengeance which humanity incurred. we can add a practical and purifying And though it called for the strength of sense of the holiness of God. It is thus the Godhead to bear the burden of our that a belief in the propitiation, is as sure world's atonement-yet seemeth there to to regenerate as it is to reconcile; and the have been, in order to the effect of' this knowledge that Christ was condemned in great mystery, some deep necessity that the flesh for our offences, is that which we cannot fully penetrate, why it should gives impulse to that heavenly career, in be laid on God manifest in the flesh, and which we walk no longer after the flesh who took not upon Him the nature of an- but after the Spirit. gels, but the nature of the seed of Abra- We read in one epistle of the ministraham. tion of condemnation and the ministratior. And so the incarnate God suffered for of righteousness. The former is that our world. For this purpose, did He be- which takes place under the law, when its come flesh of' our flesh, and bone of our denunciations have their course; and, as bone. There were laid upon Him the all are guilty, all are liable to the treiniquities of us all; and from the intelli- mendous penalties of guilt. The apostle gible symptoms of a sore and cruel agony, says of this ministration, that it is glorithat even the divine energies of His na- ous; and glorious certainly in the exhiture did not overbear, may we conclude bition which it gives of the Godhead-of that the ransom has been fully paid-and that sacredness which admits of no stain, so the worth and authority of the law and would recoil from the most distant have been fully magnified. approaches of evil-of that pure and lofty And this, it would appear, is an essen- throne, whence every award comes forth tial step to our sanctification. There be- with authority inflexible-of that rectihoved to be this satisfaction rendered to tude which will not hold compromise with the law, ere they who had transgressed it iniquity at all, and, rather than suffer it to could be turned to its love and its willing draw near, will send out flames from the obedience. That law which was written awful sanctuary of its habitation to burn on tables of stone, had to be appeased for up and to destroy it-of that jealousy, its violated honour, ere it was transferred which, like a consuming fire, spreadeth into the fleshly tablets of our heart, and abroad among the hosts of the rebellious, became there the spontaneous and ema- so that not one shall remain a monument nating principle of all goodness. The of God's connivance at that which He utblood of remission had to be shed, ere the terly abhors-of a dread intolerance for water of regeneration could be poured moral evil, even in the slightest shades forth; and so the Son of God came in the and degrees of it, so that, rather than likeness of sinful flesh, and became a sin- deign one look of acceptance to sin, every offering, and sustained the whole weight sinner must irrevocably perish. In all of sin's condemnation-And, after ascend- this, says the apostle, there is a glory — ing from the grave, had that Holy Ghost yet there is another ministration, even one committed un;o Him, who was not given of righteousness, which excelleth in glory in abundance to men till the Son of man It is that which takes place under the gos. was glorifiedl-and it is under the power pel; and under which all the former glory of this mighty agent, that all who put is kept entire, nay enhanced into a LECTURE XLVI.-CHAPTER VIII, 31 4. 2'3 brignter manifestation. For there too, is tion before God, on nothing else than or the Law made honourable; and there the Jesus Christ and on Hirn crucified. Lawgiver is evinced to be inflexibly just, Now, this comes to be a mystery, which mnd jealous of the authority of His go- the world can never be made to undervernment; and there the sacredness of stand by explanation; and which it is Heaven's jurisprudence is made to shine only for a Christian to realize in his own forth, if not in the punishment of sin, at experience. There are constant alternaleast in the atonement which has been tions of sin and of sorrow, in the history made for it; and there the vengeance due of every believer; and the guilt of the to guilt appeareth more strikingly than daily transgression is actually washed before, by its transference from the head away, in this case, by the evening acof the sinner to the head of the illustrious knowledgment-the act of confession on Substitute, who trembled and suffered and his part, being in very deed followed up died in his stead. The glories of truth by an act of forgiveness on the part of and of holiness are more highly illustra- God. "For if any man confess his sins, ted under our new economy than under God is faithful and just to forgive him his the old one, and with this additional glory sins." And then the singularity is. (yet if which is all its own-that there mercy sits you have no part in that singularity you in benignant triumph among the now vin- are no Christian) it is, that, under this dicated attributes of the Godhead; and process of daily offending, and daily sinners, who else would have been swept application to that blood by which it is away into an eternity of pain and of deep again obliterated, there should, on the oblivion, are transformed anew into the part of the disciple, be so fearful an avoirighteousness which they had lost, have dance of evil-such a dread of sin, and so their place again in the family of' God- grievous a discomfort when he falls into a part among the hallelujahs of the un- it-as honest an aspiring after his own fallen. personal righteousness, as if it formed the Let me conclude with two practical price of' his salvation; and, withal, the observations. In the first place see, how, same busy performance of duty that bein order that the righteousness of the law hoved to take place, had the old economy might be fulfilled in us, it is not enough of the law been again set up, and heaven.hat we walk as spiritual men. The more to be challenged upon the merit of our spiritual in fact that you are, the greater own obedience. Yes! my brethren, it is will your sensibility be to the remaining the wondrous property of the gospel, that, deficiencies of your heart and temper and while it speaks peace to the sinner, it conversation-the more oppressive will be charms the power of sin away from his your consciousness of the weight of your heart-inducing him to love the law, at still unquelled carnality-the more affect- the very time that it holds out an impu..ng wil! be your remembrance, every nity for all its violations; and, with the evening, of the slips and the shortcomings soft whispers of reconciliation that it of the day that hath past over you-So sends into the offender's ear, sending along that if you only had to do with the law, with it a moral suasion into his heart, and if its righteousness were the condition that gains it over to the side of all the of your acceptance with God-you, though commandments. making daily progress even unto perfec- And hence my second remark is, that, tion, would, by every new addition to howvever zealously the righteousness of your spiritual tenderness, be only aggra- Christ must be contended for as the alone vating your despair. There behoved to plea of a sinner's acceptance, yet that the be a daily remembrance of sin; and this, benefit thereof rests upon none save those, if unmixed with faith in the great propi- who walk not after the flesh but after the tiation, would leave you heartless and Spirit. Light where it may, it must carry hopeless as to all the purposes of obe- a sanctifying power along with it; and dience. So that to the last half-hour even you have no part nor lot in the matter, if of a most triumphant course in sanctifi- you are not pressing onward in grace and cation, you must never lose sight of Him in all godliness. It is not enough, that on whom has been laid the condemnation upon Christ all its honours have been of all your offences-the confessions that amply vindicated-upon Yvo, wno believe you make, (and you will have to make in Christ all its virtues mist De engraven; them perpetually) must be over the head and it is thus, and thnus alone, that there of the great Sacrifice-you must still is brought about a complete and a satiskeep by your great High Priest, as the fying fulfilment of its righteousness. The anchor of your soul; and never for a law is not made void by faith, but by moment transfer your dependence from faith it is established; and while, on the Hin to your own righteousness-you one hand, all the outrage done to it when must look for all your acceptance only in written on tables of stone, has been re. the Beloved; and count for your justifica- paired by the noblest of satisfactions —on 244. LECTURE XLVI.-C CHAPTER VIII: 3, 4. the other hand, does it come forth again cross of Christ; but the hand of Jesus in all the brightness of a new and a living Christ as the Lord their sanctifier is ever lustre, by its being now written on the on the persons of those who believe in fleshly tablets of our heart. The hand- Him-beautifying them with His salva. writing of ordinances that was against tion, and spreading over their characters us, and contrary to us, has been taken all the graces of holiness. out of the way, having been nailed to the LECTURE XLVII. ROMANS viii, 5. "For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. " I SHOULD like if I could give you a clear but in neither of them was it the chosen understanding of the difference that there or the much loved home. It is true of is, between your simply dwelling in the both, that, though in the flesh, they walkflesh as your tenement-and your being ed not after the flesh; and though we immersed, with the practical consent of have not been so fortunate, as to find the your will and mind, in those pursuits and former phrase to be in the Bible univerpleasures which are natural to the flesh. sally characteristic of nothing more than And the first thing which might occur, for simple occupancy-yet we believe of the the illustration. of this difference, is, to latter phrase, that it is uniformly descrip., offer, as expressive of it, that distinction tive of that state, in which a man abanof meaning which one feels between the dons himself to the propensities of nature, two phrases,'to be in the flesh' and'to be and lives in the full prosecution of its after the flesh.' The one may be thought delights or its interests. simply to imply, that the flesh is the place And the distinction between these two of the soul's present residence; and the J things, is very well marked by the apostle other, that all the soul's inclinations and within the compass of one verse. 1" Though energies, are in full prosecutionof those we walk in the flesh, we do not walk acobjects which minister to the appetites of cording to the flesh-we do not war after the flesh. But then you have the very the flesh." phrase of being in the flesh applied in And it is well, that, in this fifth verse, Scripture not to the state of one who bare- we have a descriptive clause, by which ly occupies the flesh as his present taber- we are presented with something like a nacle, but of one who delights in the flesh definition of being after the flesh. They as his congenial and much loved element. who are after the flesh, mind the things And it must be in this latter sense of the of it. It is not that the flesh assails them phrase that it occurs at the distance of a with its suggestions, for this it does, and very few verses from the one now submit- often as forcibly with those who resist the ted to you-when it is said that they who suggestions as with those who yield to are in the flesh cannot please God; and them. But it is that their mind follows when it is further said, that ye are not in after the flesh-that they make a study the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that and a business of its enjoyments-that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. they prosecute them in thought, in purAt the same time it must be remarked, pose, and in will. Some there are who that, in other passages of the Bible, the dwell in the flesh, and so are surrounded phrase of being in the flesh denotes the with the importunity of its delights and soul's simple occupation of a fleshly tab- temptations; but who nevertheless abide ernacle, a.- not the soul's immersion in in the firm attitude of withstanding them fleshly habits.r fleshly desires The all. Their mind is not after the flesh, but apostle who said that Christ liveth in me, in opposition to it. But for these some, also says I live in the nesh; and that to there are many who are dragged willingabide in the flesh is more needful for you. ly along in that very direction in which In this sense too even Jesus Christ was the flesh draws them —who, not only re. God manifest in the flesh; and it was a sign themselves implicitly to the force of most essential point of orthodoxy that He its instigations; but who, even in their had come in the flesh. In both of these hours of calm and dispassionate exemp. instances, flesh was the temporary abode, tion from them, are in some way la bouring LECTURE XLVII.-mCHAPTEPL VIII, 5.'245 or devising for the pleasures and accom- cal exclusion of the things of the Spirit modations of the perishable body-whose from the preference of your hahiiual re: nkind, both in its likings and in the exer- gards. We do not charge you with a cises of its faculties, is wholly given over devotion of heart to all those things in to the pursuit of these things. What the the world, which are opposite to the leve things are, we may learn from the apostle of the Father-any more than we charge John —when he bids us love not the world you, with idolatrously falling down in neither the things that are in the world; obeisance to all the divinities of a heathen and when he comprehends these things polytheism. But still if only one of these in the one summary description of all divinities be your god, this were enough that is in the world, which he rnaketh to to constitute you an idolater, and to conconsist of the lust of the flesh and the lust vict you of a sacrilegious disownal of the of the eye and the pride of life. Thus King who is eternal and immutable. And are we to understand of all those who are so your one earthly appetite, though f:ee after the flesh, that either as slaves, they from the tyranny of all the others-your are tyrannized over by the master-idols of one habit of ungodliness, though it be the sensuality or avarice or ambition; Or only one that breaks out into visible exthat, with a sort of free and more sov- pression in the history of your life-of ereign agency, they at least give them- itself renders you a carnal man; of itself selves up to the object of providing for exiles you from the spiritual territory; of these gratifications-that, if' not dragged itself proves that you are still one of the after them by the force of appetite, they children of this world, and that you have at least drive after them, and that, of spon- not passed from death unto life. taneous and withal of steady and settled' They who are after the Spirit mind the choice. And thus, in the habitual prefer- things of the Spirit.' The man to whonm ence of their mind as well as in the pro- this character belongeth is as effectually pensities of' their animal system, are they tabernacled in flesh, as he who is altoaltogether entitled to the denomination of gether carnal; and the natural tendencies worldly. of his constitution to evil, may be as strong And there is one thing that you would and as urgent as those of the latter. By do well to advert unto. It is not necessa- temperament, for instance, he may have ry that you mind all the things of the as great a taste for luxury-by original flesh, in order to constitute you a carnal disposition, he might be as apt to rejoice man. It is enough to fasten this charac- in grandeur or in wealth; and there be ter upon you, that you have given your- spontaneously within him, the same kindself over to the indulgence or the pursuit, lings of ambition, or the same grovellings even of so few as one of these things. A of sensual and avaricious desire. But miser may not be a debauchee, and neither though he feels these impulses, yet he the one nor the other may be an aspiring walketh not after them; and that just bepolitician. But whatever the reigning pas- cause his mind is wholly set against them sion may be, if it have the effect of attach- -whereas the mind of the other goeth ing you to some one object that is in the wholly along with them. It is the direcworld, and which with the world will ter- tion of that sovereign faculty the will, minate and perish-then still your mind which explains the difference. If this be is in subjection to an idol, and the death enlisted on the side of the flesh, as it is of the carnally minded is your inheritance with every unconverted man, then he sinand your doom. Be not deceived then, ye neth wilfully. If this be enlisted on the men, who engrossed with the cares and ob- side of the Spirit, as it is with every man servant of all the sobrieties of business, are who hath truly turned him unto the Lord not addicted to the profiigacies of dissipa- Jesus Christ-then he may sin accidenttion-nor ye, who, heedless of wealth's ally; and, in some moment of sleep or of accumulations, can mix an occasional surprise, he may be overtaken; and eit generosity with the squanderings of in- the will, as it were, has had time to rally temperance and riot-nor ye, who, alike and to recover, some outpost may have exempted from sordid avarice or debasing been carried, and even some advantage sensuality, have yet, in the pursuit of an have been gained to the length of a most ascendancy over the minds and the meas- humiliating overthrow. But deep is the ures of your fellow-men, made power the grief that is thereby awakened; and strenreighing felicity of your existence-nor uous is the resistance, that is thereby yet even ye, who, without any settled aim summoned into the future warfare; and after one or other of these gratifications, heavy is that mourning of sackcloth and fluctuate in giddy unconcern from one of of ashes, wherewith the soul of the penithis world's frivolities to another. None tent offender is afflicted; and though he of you mind all the things of the flesh; hath stumbled on the way of temptation, yet each of you minds one or other of yet utterly he refuses to walk therein-so these things, and that to the entire practi- giving testimony to the mode, In which 246 LECTURE XLVII. —CHAPTER VIII, 5. the leading tendencies of his spirit have on the difficulty of ascertaining the roae most painfully and most offensively been state and character of one's mind, by a thwarted by the momentary power and direct examination of it; and if the im. assault of his great adversary; and that mediate question were put to the inner the whole drift of his choosing and delib- man, whether he minded the things of the erating and purposing faculties, is indeed flesh or those of the Spirit, a clear an. on the side of God and the side of right- swer might not so readily be obtained — eousness. and that, more especially, as they who The remark that we made however are spiritual often feel on the one hand about the things of the flesh, is not appli- the instigations of the flesh; and they cable to the things of the Spirit. A giving who are carnal have at times the visitaup of the mind to but one thing of the tion upon their heart, of a wish and an flesh, makes you a carnal man. But a aspiration and an effort however ineffec. spiritual man gives himself up not to one tual after a life of sacredness. It is well thing, but to all the things of the Spirit. then, that this verse supplies -us with a To be the servant of any other master test for the resolving of this ambiguity than God, marks you an idolater; and, They who mind the things of the flesh. for this purpose, it is not necessary that are they who walk after the flesh; and you should obey all the masters who are they who mind the things of the Spirit, apart from God or hostile to God. But to are they who walk after the Spirit. With be the servant of God Himself; you must both classes, there may be the inward obey Him in all things-you must aspire struggle of the opposite and conflicting at least, and that in firmness and in truth, elements-the one not being totally ex. at universal conformity-you must mind, empted from evil inclinations, and the not merely one thing, but all the things other not being totally bereft of their long. which he authoritatively lays upon you. ings after godliness. When we look only And these are just the things of the Spirit, within, it may be hard to say from the whose fruit is not in any one branch of fight that is going on, which of these righteousness, or in any specific number two elements shall prevail. But this may of them-but whose fruit is in all right- be decisively gathered, if not from the eousness and goodness and truth. His battle itself; at least from the issue of the office is to put the law in your heart, and battle; or, in other words, from the way so to give you a taste and a liking for all in which it terminates upon the conduct. its requirrnemnts. It is not enough that The spiritual man is urged by the corrupt you maintain the sobrieties of human propensities of his nature-nevertheless conduct, if not its equities also. It is not he follows not after them, and this from enough that you be strict in honour, if that preponderance of motive and of not also kind and gentle in humanity. It inward power on the side of what is good, is not enough that you excel your fellows which marks his mind to be set on the in all the virtues of society-you must be things of the Spirit. The carnal man is further arrayed in the virtues of sacred- urged by the voice of conscience, and its ness. And neither is it enough that a remonstrances against all that is evilgeneral sabbath complexion be upon your nevertheless he obeys it not in deed, and history-You must proceed on Christiani- this from that prevalency of force and of ty being the religion of your life, being the impulse on the side of what is corrupt, guide and the ornament of your daily con- which marks his mind to be set on the versation-a mingling ingredient, which things of the flesh. The working of the diffuses itself throughout the nlass of your inner mechanism is not palpable. But ordinary affairs-a light that sheds its the result of that working on the outward pure and celestial tint over the whole of history is so; and thus from the stream your path; and leaves not one little space do we learn the nature of the fountain, in the field of humanity unirradiated by and by the test of man's fruits do we its beams. know them. You have already heard me expatiate I LECTURE XLVIII.-CHAPTER VIII, 6. LECTURE XLVIII. ROMANS Viii, 6.' #s to be carr:ally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." THE death which is here spoken of, is I And you may further see how it is — something more than the penal death that ithat such a death is not merely a thing of is inflicted on ~ransgressors, in the way of negation, but a thing of positive wretch. retribution. It is not a future but a pre- edness. For with the want of all that is sent death which is here spoken of; and sacred or spiritual about him, there is still arises from the obtuseness or the extinc- a remainder of feeling, which makes him tion of certain feelings and faculties in sensible of his want-a general restless. the soul, which, if awake to their corres- ness of the soul, on whose capacities there ponding objects, would uphold a life of has been inflicted a sore mutilation; and thoughts and sensations and regards, al- from whose aspirings after undefinable together different from the actual life of good, the object is ever melting away into unregenerated men. To the higher and hopeless and inaccessible distance —a respiritual life they are dead even now; morse and a terror about invisible things, and, to estimate the soreness of this depri- which are ever and anon breaking forth, vation, just figure an affectionate father even amid the busy appliance of this to have a paralysis inflicted on all those world's opiates to stifle and overbear domestic feelings, which bound him in them. And there are other miseries, that love and endearment to the members of are sure to spring up from those carnal his own family. Then would you say of sensibilities which have undergone no him, that he had become dead to the joys death-from the pride that is met with and the interests of home-that perhaps incessant rebuke and mortification, by the he was still alive to the gratifications of equal pride of our fellow-men-from the sense and of profligacy, but that what selfishness that comes into collision, with went to constitute the main charm of his all the selfishness of the unregenerated existence had now gone into annihilation society around it-from the moral agonies -that to what at one time was the highest which essentially adhere to malice and pleasurable feeling of his consciousness, hatred and revenge-from the shame that heo had become as torpid as if he had is annexed, even on earth, to the pursuits literally expired-and that thus he was of licentiousness-from the torture that labouring under all the calamity of a lieth in its passions, and the gloomy desodeath, to that which occupies a high place lation of heart which follows the indulamong the delights of the feeling and the gence of them-All these give to the sinner friendly and the amiable. And it is in a his foretaste of hell on this side of death; sense analogous to this, that we are to and, whether they be aggravated or not understand the present death of all those by the fire and the brimstone and the who are carnally minded-not a death to arbitrary inflictions that are conceived to any of the impressions that are made be discharged upon him in the place of upon their senses from without-not a vengeance-still they are enough, when death to the animal enjoyments of which earth is swept away, with all its refuges men are capable-not even, it may be, a of amusement and business and guilty death to many of the nobler delights dissipation, in which the mind can now either of the heart or of the understanding be lulled into a forgetfulness of itself-But a death to that which when really they are enough to entail upon the second felt and enjoyed, is found to be the su- and the eternal death, a burden of enorpreme felicity of a man-a death to all mous and incalculable wretchedness-a that is spiritual-an utter extinction of curse so felt and so agonized under by those capacities by which we are fitted the outcasts of condemnation, as to make to prove those heavenly and seraphic the utterance of Cain their theme of wail. extacies, that would liken us to angels-a ing and of weeping through all eternity, nopeless apathy in all that regards our even that their punishment is greater love to God, and to all that righteousness than they can bear. which bears upon it the impress of the From what we have said of the death upper sanctuary. It is our dormancy to of those who are carnally, you will be at these, which constitutes the death that is no loss to understand what is meant by here spoken of; and in virtue of which the life of those who are spiritually mind. man is bereft, if not of his being, at least ed. We read of those who are alienated of the great end of his being which is to from the life of God, and to this it is that glorify God and to enjoy him for ever. the spiritual find readmittance. They 248 LECTURE XLVIII.-CIIAPTER VIII1 6. before stood afar off, and now are brought steady, under all the fluctuations that nigh. The blood of Christ hath conse- would make utter shipwreck of the desires crated for them a way of access; and the or the delights of the worldly. He is freed fruit of that access is delight in God-the from the cares of fame, or of fortune, or charm of a confidence, which they never of any other interest upon earth; and felt before, in His friendly and fatherly with a mind engrossed by that which is regard to them-a new moral gladness in spiritual, and without room in it for the the contemplation of that character, which anxieties of what is seen and temporal, now stands revealed in all its graces, he, in as far as these anxieties are conwhile it is disarmed of 11 its terrors-an cerned, is at peace. assimilation of their ow.l Tharacter to I know not a finer illustration of this His; and so a taste for charity and truth topic, than one which may be gathered from and holiness; and a joy, both in the cul- a recorded conversation, between Dr. Cativation of' all these Virtues, and in the rey the missionary at Serampore and a possession of a heart at growing unison wealthy merchant in Calcutta. One of with the mind and will of the Godhead. his clerks had determined to give up all l'hese are the ingredients of a present. the prospects and emoluments of a lucralife, which is the token and the foretaste tive situation, and henceforth devote himof life everlasting-an existence in the self to the work of evangelising the heafeelings and concerns of which, all earthly then. His employer, to whom this looked existence is tasteless and unsatisfying; a very odd and inexplicable resolution, and to be awakened whereunto, is a tran- called on Dr. Carey; and enquired from sition as great and more joyful than for a him the terms, and the advantages, and dead man to be awakened from his grave. the preferments of this new line, to But let me pass on from thie life to the which a very favourite servant whom he peace of those who are spiritually minded. was exceedingly loath to part with was There are two great causes of disturbance, now on the eve of betaking himself; and to which the peace of the heart is exposed. was very much startled to understand, The first is a brooding anxiety, lest we that it was altogether a life of labour, and shall be bereft or disappointed of some that there was no earthly remuneration object on which our desires are set. The whatever-that, in truth, it was not comsecond is the agitation felt by all who petent for any member of their mission to have a taste for human kindness; and have property at all-that beyond those which taste is most painfully agonised, things which are needful for the body, amid the fierceness and the tumult and there was not an enjoyment within the the din of human controversy. You will power or purchase of money, which any at once perceive how the man who is one of them thought of' aspiring afterspiritually-minded, rises above the first that each of them, free from care like a of these disquietudes-for there is an commoner of nature, trusted that as the object paramount to all which engrosses day came the provision would come, and the care of a worldly man, and on which never yet had been disappointed of' their his desires are supremely set; an(l so confidence-that, with hearts set on their what to others are overwhelming mortifi- own eternity and the eternity of their felcations, to him are but the passing annoy- low-creatures, they had neither time nor ances of a journey; and the same revolu- space for the workings of this world's amtion of fortune which would plunge the bition. So that, however occupied about earthly in despair, leaves to him who is the concerns of the soul, each fMlt light as heavenly a splendid reversion of hope the bird upon a thorn, about the food and and of happiness. So that neither can the raiment and the sufficiency of coming the actual visitation of any disaster so days, all which they cast upon Proviutterly discomfort him; nor can the ap- dence, and had ever yet found that Proviprehension of' its coming so torment his dence was indeed worthy of their relibosom, with the dark imagery of poverty ance. There is a very deep interest to and ruin and blasted anticipations. To my mind in such a dialogue, between a him there is an open vista, through which devoted missionary and a busy active ashe might descry a harbour and a home, piring merchant; but the chief interest on the other side of the stormy passage of it lay in the confession of the latter, that leads to it; and this he finds enough who seems to have been visited with a to bear him up, under all that vexes and glimpse of the secret of true happiness, dispirits other men. The pure and lofty and that after all he himself was not on serene which lies beyond the grave, gives the way to it —whose own experience told a serene to his own bosom. The main him that, prosperous as he was, there was question of his being is settled; and that a plague in his.very prosperity that enables him to sit loose, and to be lightly marred his enjoyment of it-that the affected, by all the inferior questions. thousand crosses and hazards and entanHis soul is at anchor; and so he is kept glements of mercantile adventure, had LECTURE XLVIII.-CHAPTER VIII, 6. 249 kept him perpetually on the rack, and of a wayfaring man in the wilderness; rifled his heart of all those substantial and that haunted the whole public life of sweets by which alone it can be purely and Luther, who, though dragged forth to the permanently gladdened. And from him combats and the exposures of a very wide it was indeed an affecting testimony- arena, yet felt all along how uncongenial when, on contrasting his own life of tur- they were to the right condition and wellmoil and vexation and checkered variety, being of the human spirit; and so did he with the simple but lofty aims and settled unceasingly aspire after a tranquillity dependence and unencumbered because which he was never permitted to enjoywholly unambitious hearts of these pious a nursling of that storm which he had missionaries, he fetched a deep sigh and enough of softness most utterly to hate, said it was indeed a most enticing cause. and enough of intrepidity most manfully And some of you perhaps, though not to brave-by nature a lover of quietness, spiritual men, may have caught a like yet by Providence had he his discipline glimpse of the peace that the spiritually- and his doom amongst life's most boister. minded enjoy in the recurrence of your ous agitations. weekly Sabbath-the very chime of whose There is nought in the character of the morning bells may have the effect of tran- spiritually-minded, that exempts them quillising you under the weight of this from the outward disturbance, which has world's cares; and even from the pulpit its source in the hatred and hostility of ministrations may there descend a power other men; but there is so much in this to soothe and to sweeten and to elevate character that gives an inward stability, your bosoms, and, while it continues to and sustains the patience and the hope of operate, may all the perplexities of your our souls even under the most outrageous business and common life be forgotten. ebullitions of human malignity, as most Now just figure this influence, which with nobly to accredit the declaration of our you may be flitting and momentary like a text-that to be spiritually-minded is not vision of romance-just figure it to be sub- only life but peace. For there is the sense stantiated into a practical and a perma- of a present God, in the feeling of whose nent habit of heavenly-mindedness, and love there is a sunshine which the world then you have the peace of the spiritual knoweth not, and which even the lour of realised throughout the whole extent of a hostile world in arms cannot utterly their every-day history. darken; and there is the prospect of a There is another cause, by which the future heaven, in whose sheltering bosom peace of many a heart is sadly torn —not it is known that the toil and the turbulence by the fear of future misfortune but by of this weary pilgrimage will soon be the actual feeling of present malice and over; and there is even a charity, that hostility-by being doomed to breathe in mellows our present sensation of painfulthe rough atmosphere of debate; and ness, and makes the revolt that is awakenhaving to witness the withering coldness ed by the coarse and vulgar exhibition of and alienation that sit on the hu'man human asperity to be somewhat more tocountenance, as well as to hear the jar- lerable-for we cannot fail to perceive ring discords of rancour and controversy how much of delusion at all times mingles when they come forth in unfriendly ut- with the impetuosity of irritated feelings; terance from human lips. There are and that were there more of mutual knowsome minds to which the frown, and the ledge among the individuals of our spefierceness, and the incessant threatenings cies, there would be vastly more of muof this moral warfare, are utterly insup- tual candour and amenity and love; and portable-some who have a taste for cor- that the Saviour's plea in behalf of His diality and cannot be happy, when its enemies, is in some sense applicable to all smile and its softness and all its blessed the enemies that we have in the worldcharities are withdrawn from them-who,' They know not what they do." The rather than be placed in the midst of un- menace and the fury and the fell vinkindred spirits, would give up society and dictiveness that look all so formidable, are seek for recreation and repose among the as much due to an infirmity of the underpeaceful glories of nature-who long to standing as to a diabolical propensity of be embowered amid the sweets of a soli- the heart; and it does alleviate the offence tude and a stillness, into which the din of that is givetl to our moral taste by the this fatiguing world would never enter; spectacle of malevolence, when one reand where, in the calm delights of medi- flects that malice is not its only ingredient tation and piety, they might lull their -that it often hangs as much by an error hearts into the forgetfulness of all its in- of judgment, as by a perversity of the justice and all its violence. It must have moral nature-that it needs only to be enbeen some such affection as this that lightened in order to be rectified; and that prompted the Archbishop Leighton, when therefore there may be hope of deliver. he breathed out his desires for the lodge ance from the ferocity of one's an'agonists 32 250 LECTURE XLVIII.-CHAPTIR, VIII) 6. even in this world, as well as a sure and of our text, let it be observed, that. though everlasting escape from it in those regions in the character of' being spiritually-mind. of beauty and of bliss, around which there ed there is no immunity from the tribula. is an impassable barrier of protection tions that are in the world, yet there is a against all that offendeth-where, after hiding-place and a refuge where the spi. having crossed the stormy passage of this ritual alone can find entry-so that though w;rld, the spirit will have to repose itself in the world they do have tribulations, yet P peace and charity for ever. well may they be of' good cheer, for in In one word, and for the full vindication Christ they do have peace. LECTURE XLIX. ROMANS viii, 7, 8. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can:e. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." BUT it might appear from the 7th verse, upon it the character of heaven, and be. hat the peace spoken of in the last verse come a devoted and willing and most afis peace with God-for the enmity which fectionate subject under the government is here ascribed to the opposite state of of God-still it holds true of the carnal being carnally minded, is enmity against mind that it is not so subject, neither inGod. Where there is enmity between two deed can be. parties, each is displeased with the other; But it is not only logically true, that and the enmity of the carnal mind thus the carnal mind cannot be subject to involves in it two distinct particulars. God's law-the same thing is also true First, it implies a feeling on the part of physically and experimentally. There is rim who is its owner of hostility against no power in the mind by which it can God, and this necessarily comes out of the change itself. It has a natural sovereignvery definition of the carnal mind. It ty, we admit, which extends a certain way were a contradiction in terms, to say other- over the doings of the outer man; but it wise of the carnal mind than that it was has no such sovereignty over the desires enmity against God-for how, if all its of the inner man. It can, for example, preferences be toward the creature, can it constrain the man in whom it resides to be otherwise affected toward that Creator, eat a sour apple rather than a sweet. But who looks with a jealous eye on all such it cannot constrain him to like a sour appreference, and fastens upon it the guilt ple rather than a sweet. There are many of idolatry-how, if its regards are wholly things which it fintls to be practicable, directed to sense and time, canit be other- which it does not find to be palatable; wise than in a state of disregard to Him and it has just as little power over the who is a spirit and invisible? If the law taste and affections of the mind toward of God be a law of supreme love toward God, as it has over the bodily organ of himself; how is it possible for that mind to taste, or the law of its various relishes for be in subjection to such a law, whose af- the various food which is offered to it. fections are wholly set on the things and There are a thousand religious-looking the interests of a passing world? It not things which can be done; but, without only is not subject to this law, but it can- such a renewal of the spirit as the spirit not be so-else it were no longer carnal. itself cannot achieve-these things cannot It would instantly be stripped of this epi- be delighted in, cannot be rejoiced in. thet, and become a different thing from But if not rejoiced in, they really are not what it was before, did it undergo a trans- religious, however religious they may ference in its likings from the things that look. And this is the great moral helpare made to Him who is the maker of them lessness, under which we labour. WVe all. It has all the certainty in it of an can compel our feet to the house of God, identical proposition, when it is said of the but we cannot compel our feelings to a carnal mind that it neither is nor can be sacred pleasure in its exercises. We can subject to God's law. Ere it become sub- take a voluntary part in the music of its eet, it must resign its present nature and psalms, but we cannot force into our be carnal no longer. The epithet then hearts the melody of praise. We can bin will not apply to it; and though a mind our hands away from depredation and before carnal should now have gathered violence, but we cannot bid away the ap. LECTURE XLIX -CHAPTER VIII, 7, 8. 251 petite of covetousness from our bosoms. that no acrimony about H:mr should ever We can retrain ourselves from the inflic- disturb you, during the whole of that pe. tion of all outward hurt upon our neigh- riod, when at play or pleasing yourselves bour; but tell me, if we can so muster with His gifts, the giver is wholly unand so dispose of our affections at the minded-that, instead of carrying the tone word of command, as that we shall love or the aspect of an enraged adversary tohim as we do ourselves. And, ascending ward God or any one else, you should from the second great commandment to simply appear in the light of an easy the first great commandment of the law, comfortable good-humoured man, while, we can, it may be thought, keep the Sab- busied with the enjoyments of life, you baths of the Lord and acquit ourselves of have no room in your regards for Him many of the drudgeries of a carnal obe- who gave the life, and scattered these endience-while, instead of loving Him with joyments over it. When one is in a deep all our heart and soul and strength and and dreamless slumber, his very resentmind, there exists against Him an antipa- ments are hushed, along with all his other thy, which we can no more extirpate, than sensibilities, into oblivion; and though in we can cause a svcamine tree to be the latent dormitory within, there should plucked up by the roots at the utterance lie a fell and unextinguishable hatred of a voice-So that, in reference to the against the deadliest of his foes, yet even law which claims a supremacy over the the presence of that foe would awaken no heart, and taketh cognizance of all its asperity; and, while under the immediate affections, we are not and we cannot be eye of him who with implacable revenge subject to it. he could call forth to the field of mutual And here I am sensible, that, when I extermination, might he lie in all the charge you with a positive enmity against meekness of infancy. And so of you who God-when I say that He is not merely are not awake unto God-who are sunk the object of indifference, but of hatred — in dullest apathy about Him and all His when I affirm of the human heart, not concerns —who, profoundly asleep and merely a light and heedless unconcern forgetful, are really no judges of the reabout Him, but also the virulency of a coil that would come upon your spirits, strong hostile affection against Him —I did He but stand before you in all His might not, in all this assertion, obtain the characters of uncompromising truth, and exact or the willing respondency of your inflexible justice, and sacred jealousy, and own consciences. You may be ready to awful unapproachable holiness. B) the answer, that, really we are not at all thought of this Being you are not disturbaware of any thing half so foul or so ed, because, steeped in the lethargy of enormous at work in our bosoms, as any nature, it is a thought that does not come ill-will towards God. We may be abun- with a realizing touch upon your percepdantly regardless of Him and of His tions. You may even hear His name, and laws; but we feel not any thing that ap- this may stir up some vague conception proaches to a resentful emotion excited of an unseen Spirit; and you still may within us by His name. We may not have no feeling of that enmity which our think of Him often; and perhaps are very text has charged upon you. But the conwell satisfied to do without Him, if He ception of whom or of what we would would but let us alone. But, examine ask — Is it of the true God in His true ourselves as we may, we can detect no attributes-or a being of your own imagaffirmative malignity in our affections to- ination X Is it of that God who is a Spirit wards Him; and for once we have lighted and claims of you those spiritual services upon a case, where the dogmata of a stern which are due unto the character that betheology are really not at one with the longs to Him? Is it of Him, the very decisions of our own intimate and per- view and aspect of whom would mar all sonal experience. your earthly gratifications, or put them Now on this we have to observe, that utterly to flight, because of His parathe greatest enemy whom you have in mount demand for the affections and purthe world will excite no malevolent feel- suits of godliness 1 Oh how little do we ing in your heart, so long as you do not know of ourselves, or of the mysteries of think of him. All the time that he is ab- our inner man, which may lie hid and sent from your remembrance, he has no dormant for years-till some untried cirmore power to stir up the painful and the cumstances shall form the occasion that bitter feeling of hostility within you, than proves us, and reveals to us all which is if he were blotted out from the map of in our hearts. And thus the manifestation existence. And so let it not be wondered to our understandings of God, not as we at, that you should not be ruffled out of fancy Him to be, but of God as IIe actuyour complacency by the thought of God, ally is, would call forth of its hiding-place when in fact, for days or hours together, the unappeasable enmity of nature against the thought is utterly away from you- Him; and would make it plain to the 252 LECTURE XLIX.-CHAPTER VIII, 7, 8. conscience of the carnal man, now little and by the force or terror of youi author sufferance he hath for the God that would ity, could compel from them the homage bereave him of his present affections, and of all their services; Oh let us know it implant others in their room. The disrel- you could sit down in complacency, be ish would be just as strong, as are the dis- cause of such an obedience from your relish and opposition between the life of own children? And if you but saw that sense and the life of faith. Did God re- in their hearts, they were inly pining and veal Himself now to the unconverted sin- murmuring and feeling resentfully, bener, He would strike the same arrow into cause of the utter repugnance which they his heart, that will be felt by the con- felt to you and to your exactions, were it demned sinner, who eyes on the day of not the most wretched of all atonements, reckoning the sacredness and the majesty that still the bidding was executed, and of that Being whom he has offended. You still the task was performed by them 3 have heard Hfim by the hearing of the ear, And it is thus that I would like to reach and yet remain unconvinced of nature's the hearts of the careless, with the alarm enmity. Could you say with Job that now of a guilt and a danger, far greater than mine eye seeth, then would you see cause they have ever been aware of: I should with him, wherefore you should abhor like them to understand. that they are yourself, and repent in dust and in ashes. indeed the haters of God-that they hate V. 8. My remarks have been hitherto Him for what he is, and hate Him for on the hostility that is in our hearts to- what He requires at their hands; and wards God; but this verse leads us to though this hostile propensity of theirs consider the hostility that is in God's heart lies hid in deep insensibility, when, amidst towards us. If we cannot please God we the bustle and the engrossment and the necessarily displease Him; nor need we intense pursuits or gratifications of the to marvel, why all they who are in the world, there is nothing to call it out into flesh are the objects of His dissatisfaction. distinct exhibition-yet that a demonstraWe may be still in the flesh, yet do a tion of the divine will or the divine charthousand things, as I said before, that, in acter is all which is needed, to bring up the letter and.in the exterior of them, bear the latent virulence that is lurking in the a visible conformity to God's will, and yet bosom, and to convict the now placid cannot be pleasing to Him. They may and amiable man that he is indeed an be done from the dread of His power — enemy to his Maker. And in these lirthey may be done under the trembling cuinstances, is his Maker too an enemy apprehension of a threatened penalty- to him. The frown of an offended Lawthey may be done to appease the restless- giver resteth on every one, who lives in ness of an alarmed conscience-they may habitual violation of His first and greatest be done under the influence of a religion commandment. There is a day of reckthat derives all its power over us from oning that awaits him. There is a true education or custom, or the exactions of a and unerring judgment which is in reserve required and established decency; and for him. That enmity which now perhaps yet not be done with the concurrence of is a secret to himself, will become manithe heart, not be done from a liking either fest on the great occasion when the seto the task or to the bidder of it, not from crets of all hearts shall be laid open; and a delight in the commandment but from the justice of God will then be vindicated, the slavish fear of that master who issued in dealing with him as an enemy. Such it. And however multiplied the offerings is the condition, and such are the prospects may be, which we laid on the altar of of all who remain what Nature made such a reluctant obedience as this, they them-who, still in the flesh, have not will not and cannot be pleasing to God. been translated to that new moral exisWould any father amongst you be satisfi- tence into which all are ushered who are ed with such a style of compliance and born again; and who by simply being submission from your own children lovers of the creature more than of the Would the labour of their hands be Creator, prove themselves to be still counted enough, though the love of their carnally minded and to be the heirs of hearts was withheld from you? Would death. you think that you had all out of them And it is only by taking a deep view which was desirable, because you had as of the disease, that you can be led ademuch of drudgery as was laid Upon them quately to estimate the remedy. There -however grievous you said was the dis- is a way of transition from the carnal to taste which they felt for you and for all the spiritual. There is a distinct and your requirements 3 If it were quite pal- applicable call, that may be addressed pable, that their inclinations were in a even to the farthest off in alienation; and state of revolt against you —would you which if he will hear and follow, shall think it ample compensation, that you still transform him from one of the children could restrain their outward movements, of this world to one of the children of LECTURE XLIX. —CHAPTER VIII, 7, 8. 253 light. The trumpet giveth not an uncer- bears all the character of a great authen. tain scund, for it declares the remission tic transaction between Heaven and Earth. of sin through the blood of Jesus, and And they see God as God in Christ wait, repentance through the Spirit which is at ing to be gracious; and they no longer His giving; and your faith in the one stand in dread of a justice that is now will infallibly bring down upon you, all most abundantly satisfied; and they can the aids and influences of the other. To brave the contemplation of all the attriyou who are afar off, is this salvation butes, wherewith mercy to themselves is preached;. and the grand connecting tie now blended in fullest harmony; and by which it is secured and appropriated they rejoice to behold that the throne of to your soul, is simply the credit that you Heaven is at once upheld in all its august give to the word of this testimony. Many dignity, and yet that even, the chief of feel not the disease; and so all the pro- sinners has a warrant to approach it; and clamations of grace pass unheeded by. while they take to themselves the security Many listen to them as they would to a that is guaranteed by the atonement on pleasant song; but the form of sound the cross, they feel how that very atonewords is enough for them, and the reali- ment affords most entire illustration of the ties which these words express never find sacredness of the Godhead. And thus, admittance into their bosoms. But some uniting peace to their own souls with there are whose ears and whose eyes are glory to God in the highest; they expeopened —who are made to hear with effect, rience a love which was before unfelt, and to behold the wondrous things that which weans them from all their idolaare contained in the word of God. With trous affections, and translates them from them the gospel is something more than the state of the carnally to that of the a sound or an imagination. To them it spiritually minded. LECTURE L. ROMANS viii, 9. " But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." THERE is nought more undeniable, than of God, if, from any cause whatever, it so the antipathy of nature to the peculiar happens that there be a resemblance of doctrines of the gospel. This, it is likely, character and disposition and principle may have been felt by many of your- between him and the Divinity-just as selves-and many have been the devices any active and devoted philanthropist of of human ingenuity, for mitigating the our day may be said to have the spirit of offensive features of the truth as it is in Howard, without its ever being imagined, Jesus. We are not sure but that the doec- that there has been any transmigration trine of the Spirit calls out a more painful into his body of' that soul by which the revolt from the children of this world, body of Howard was animated. All that than even the doctrine of the Sacrifice. is intended is, that there is a common or At least, the attempts and plausibilities kindred character between the one philhave been just as frequent, for explaining anthropist and the other-just as we would it away. And this, perhaps, is the right say of' a philosopher, that he had the place, for adverting to the way in which spirit of Newton; or of a daring conspiit has been endeavoured, to make all that rator that he had the soul of Cataline is revealed of the Holy Ghost. and of His And thus has it been attempted to gloss regenerating influence upon man, more over the truth, that there is in the souls palatable than it naturally is to unrenewed of believers an actual occupancy by a taste-more fitted to satisfy the demand Spirit from on high, or even so much as which obtains for a religion, that shall be the communication of any influence from altogether rational anddevoid of mystery. the one to the other; and to have the Agreeably to this it has been affirmed, Spirit of God is understood as nothing that to have the Spirit of God implies no more, than to be in the possession of god personal visitation by Him upon the soul; like excellencies or virtues-that to have and, more particularly, no indwelling on the Spirit of Christ is nothing more, than His part in man, as His residence or as just to have the like mind in us that was His habitation. One, it is thought, may also in the Lord Jesus. be rightly enough said to have the Spirit It is their favourite imagination of the 254 LECTURE L.-CHAPTER VIII7 9. sufficiency of human nature, which at- dwell in us; must be operated upon by taches them to this style of interpretation. an energy as distinct and separate firom They look upon it as a nature liable to our own proper selves, as the body of the errors and infirmities of an occasional Christ was: And accordingly are we told waywardness-but radically and substan- in one of these verses, that it is Ile who tially as sound; and possessed within raised up Christ from the dead, who also itself of energies and principles enough, quickens our mortal bodies by the Spirit for the attainment of all that spiritual which dwelleth in us. excellence which qualifites for heaven. It is this, in fact, which advances our They deem it to be in the power of ordi- state from that of being in the flesh to that nary moral suasion from without, to guide of our being in the Spirit. We are in the and accomplish humanity for the joys of latter state-if so be that the Spirit of an everlasting state; and they utterly God dwell in us. It is upon the entrance repudiate the conception of any thing so of Him, who bloweth where He listeth, altogether visionary in their eyes, as that that the whole of' this great translation of a new and preternatural infusion from hinges; and it is well that you know, in above, by which the mind of man is all its certainty and distinctness, what transformed-and an impulse given, dia- that event is by which we are called out metrically opposite to the bias of those from death unto life —from being one of native and original propensities which the children of this world, to being one of belong to it. They count, in fact, upon the children of God's kingdom. no greater transition, than from what is'Now if any man have not the Spirit of held base and dishoinourable in our world, Christ, he is none of His.' Still to have to what is held in it worthy of moral the Spirit of Christ is here to be underestimation. Now the fihct is undeniable, stood, not in the light of our possessing a that there are very many wvho stand in no kindred character to that of Christ, but of need of any such transition at all; how- our being the subjects of an actual and ever great the revolution of' principle must personal inhabitation by the Spirit. The be —by which, from the creatures of sight Spirit of God may be denominated the and or' sense and of mere earthliness, we Spirit of' Christ-either because the Holy are led to walk by faith-to be habitually Ghost proceedeth from the Father and the and practically conversant with the things Son; or, more particularly, because the of an unseen world-to hold the concerns Son, now that He is exalted at the Faof immortality, as paramount to all the ther's right hand, is entrusted with the pursuits and interests of a fleeting pil- dispensation of Him. You know the grimage; and, above all, to have a con- order of this economy in the work of our tinual respect unto God as the supreme redemption. Christ finished on earth the Master both of our affections and of' our work that was given Him to do. He performances-as the Being with whom yielded, in our stead, a perfect obedience we most emphatically have to do. Now to the law of God; and He suffered, in you, I trust, are aware of the necessity of our stead, all the penalties that were anthis transition-of the magnitude of that nexed to its violation. And having thus change which all must undergo, ere they wrought our acceptance with God, Ho are fit for that heaven, the delights and attained as His reward, the power of the occupations of which are. at such sanctifying all those whom He had saved. variance with the delights and occupa- That instrulment was put into His hands, tions of this planet, now in a state of exile by which He could wash away the pollufrom heaven's famrnily. And in proportion tion of that sin, whose guilt he had exas you highly estimate the requisite trans- piated-and by which He could beautify formation, so will you highly estimate.in all the lustre of heaven's graces the requisite power for carrying it t.,,o those for whom He had purchased a right accomplishment; and you will be pre- of admittance into heaven's family. Our pared for all the descriptions which the renewal unto holiness and virtue, is, in Bible gives, of the utter helplessness of fact, part of the fruit of the travail of His man in himself for so mighty and decisive soul; and the way in which it is accoma change upon his own constitution-that plished, is, by the forthgoing of the Spirit just as there is nought of energy in a dead at the bidding or will of our exalted body for the revival of itself, but the Saviour. When He ascended on high, it principle of animation must come to it is said, that He led captivity captive, and from without-so we, to be quickened obtained gifts for men, even for the reunto a right sense of spiritual things, and bellious; and the most supereminent of to be made alive to the power of them, these gifts is the Holy Spirit. It is through must be the subjects of a foreign or ad- Christ that the washing of regeneration, ventitious influence, which has no original and the renewing of the Holy Ghost, are residence in our nature; must be born shed upon us abundantly. It is when the again; must have the Spirit of God to Spirit descends upon us, that the power LECTURE L.-CHAPTER VIII, 9. 255 of Cnrist is said to rest upon is. Hence ought it never to be forgotten, that gene. the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ rally it is by the result of the visitation, are equivalent, the one to the other. And and not by any sensible circumstances as the Saviour uniformly regenerates all attendant upon the time of it, that we whom He redeems-as the conjunction is come to know whether the Spirit of God invariable, between the penalty being be really in us or not. It hinges on the lifted off from our persons, and a purify- question, whether we are like unto God ing influence being laid upon our charac- or like unto Christ, who is His image, and ters-as it is true, even in the moral sense was His sensible representative in the of the term, that if He wash us not we world; and thus the most direct way of have no part in Him-The truth is inevi- settling the inquiry, is to compare our table, and cannot be too urgently im- character with that of the Saviour-our pressed on all our consciences, that if any history with the history and doings of man have not the Spirit of Christ he is Christ upon the earth. none of His. And yet at present we should not like But though it must not be denied, that to discourage any, from their intended to have the Spirit of Christ, implies the approach to His sacrament,* because of entrance and the abode of a personal the width and magnitude of that actual visitor with the soul, yet we have no other dissimilarity, which obtains between their way of ascertaining that we have been thus Saviour and themselves. They cannot privileged, but by our having become like dare to affirm, that they have yet grown in character with the Saviour. We can up unto the stature of perfect men in only judge of His being in us, by the im- Christ Jesus. They perhaps are nougrht press He has made upon us. He often but humbled and abashed —when they enters without one note of preparation, compare their own attainments of palike the wind that bloweth where he list- tience, and piety, and unwearied benefieth, and we know not whence he cometh. cence, with those of that high and heaven. It is by the fruit alone that we know; and ly exemplar, who is set before them in there is not another method of verifying the gospel. They could not venture to that He has been at work with our souls, sit down and participate in the coming but by the workmanship that is manifest festival, if the question turned on such a thereupon. So that though to have the family likeness between them and the Spirit of Christ, be soimthing more than Master of the entertainment, as would that our Spirit is like unto His-yet it is mark them to be children of the same by the latter only as the effect, that we God, and members of the same spiritual can infer the operation of the Saviour as brotherhood; and therefore let us assure the cause. And therefore the question, them, that their right to place themselves whether you belong to the Saviour or not, at the table of the Lord, is not an argustill hinges upon the question —whether ment of degree as to their actual progress there be the same mind in you that was in the divine life, but a question of princialso in the Lord Jesus. ple as to their aims and their desires after And therefore it is thus that we ought it. Do they hunger and thirst after rightto examine ourselves. That we may eousness? Do they look unto Christ, not know what to pray for, we should advert merely for the purpose of confidence, but to the work of God's Spirit upon our also for the purpose of imitation? Is it soul-as that by which alone the requisite the honest aspiration of their souls, under transformation into another character can all the helplessness they feel, and the take effect upon us. But then to fix and burden of their deficiencies over which ascertain the question, whether there have they mourn and are in heaviness-that been any such work, we have nought to they might indeed be visited by a more do but to read the lineaments of that char- copious descent of the Spirit's influence, acter. It is right to be humbled into the and so attain a higher conformity to the impression of our own original and utter image of the Saviour. Then sure, as we worthlessness, as destitute of any good are, that Christ would not have spurned thing; and, as wanting the power in our- them from His presence, had He still been selves, either to import what is good from sojourning amongst us in the world-neiabroad, or to raise it from within by any their can we interdict the approaches of operation which lies withir. the compass such unto the Saviour, through one of of nature's mechanism. It is but proper His own bidden and appointed ordinances. for us to know, that for all that is of spi- The Sacrament we hold to be not merely ritual worth or estimation belonging to a privilege, but a means of grace-a pri. us, we stand indebted to an influence that vilege to all, who choose the Saviour as Is exterior to ourselves, and that comes to their alone dependence for time and for us from abroad-so as that each may say with the apostle, "Nevertheless not me * Delivered shortly before thecelebration of the Lorcd but the grace of God that is in me." Yet supper. 256 LECTURE LI.-CHAPTER VIII, 10. eternity; and a means of grace to all, symbols of that atonement, through which who, humbled at their distance and defi- alone it is that a sinner may draw nigh — ciency from the perfections of the sanc- and over which alone it is, that a holy tuary above, seek to the instituted ordi- God can rejoice over you. Come-but nances of the scene of preparation below, come with a sincere purpose. Come in or the advancement of their meetness for honesty. Come aware of the total renothe inheritance. Even for that very Spi- vation which your personal Christianity rit, the presence of which you long to as- implies. Come free of all those superfi. certain, I would bid you comne to this cial and meagre conceptions of it, which place of meeting; and see whether the are so current in the midst of this really blessing will not be shed forth upon you. infidel world. Come resolved to be and Turn unto me, saith God, and I will pour to do all that the Master of the assembly out my Spirit. And sure we are, that would have you; and look unto Him for there is not a likelier attitude for receiving the perfection of His own work upon the full and the free supplies of it, than your character, that in you He may see when you look in faith to the consecrated I the travail of his soul and be satisfied. LECTURE LI. ROMANS viii, 10. "' And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness." I HAVE already affirmed, that to have spirit —Then there would be nothing to Christ in us, is tantamount to the Spirit hinder our reception even now into the being in us. Christ dwells in us by the courts of the celestial. With such a har. Holy Ghost. It is not because of this that mony in our moral system as a soul al the body is dead; but it is because of sin. whose aspirations were on the side of ho. The work of the Spirit in us does not liness, and nothing to thwart these aspira. counteract the temporal death of the body, tions in the materialism by which it was however much it may counteract the se- encompassed, we see nought awanting to cond or eternal death to which the soul constitute a heavenly or an angelic chawould have else been liable. It does not racter —nor do we understand why death pour the elixir of immortality into the should in that case interpose between our material frame —however much it may state of being upon earth, and our state strengthen anlt prepare the imperishable of blessedness for ever. And accordingly, spirit for its immortal well-being.. Still, we read that on Nature's dissolution, when after Christ has taken up his abode within the dead shall rise from their graves in tri. us and hath made a temple of our body, umph, they who remain alive and who have it is a temple that is to be destroyed. never fallen asleep must, to become incorThere remaineth a virus in the fabric, that ruptible also, at least be changed. The sooner or later will work its dissolution; change on those who are alive and caught and as the law of temporal death is still up to meet the Lord in the air, does for unrepealed, even in the case of those them what the death and the resurrection whom Christ hath redeemed from the do for those who have been saints upon curse of the law; and as, in harmony earth, ere they ascend as embodied saints waith this palpable fact, there is still the into heaven. It is on the corruptible put. doctrine that sin lurks and lingers in the ting on incorruption, that the mortal puts moral system even after the renovation on immortality; and the reason why even which the Spirit hath given to it-this sug- those in whom Christ dwells have still a gests a very important analogy, fiom the death to undergo, is that sin, though it no farther prosecution of which we may per- longer tyrannizes, still adheres to them — haps gather, not a useless speculation, but and the wearing down of the bodly by a substantial and a practical benefit. disease, and the arrest that is laid on all Suppose for a moment that the body, the functions and operations of its physiby some preternatural operation, were ology, and the transformation of it into wholly delivered of its corrupt ingredient inanimate matter, and the mouldering of -that the sinful tendencies which reside it into dust, and then its reascent from the there were not only kept in check, but grave in which it for ages may have lain eradicated, so that all its appetites were at -These it would appear are the steps of one with the desires of a pure and perfect a refining process, whereby the now vile LECTURE LI. CHAPTER VIII iV. 257 body is changed into a glorious one; and the satisfaction which hath been already the regenerated spirit is furnished with its rendered for sin; and when Paul says suitable equipment for the delights and that he fills up that which is behind of the the services of eternity. sufferings of Christ in his flesh, it can To the question then, why is it, that, never be that by any sufferings which the though Christ dwells in us, still the body believer can endure, not even by the last is dead or liable to death-the answer is, and most appalling of them all, he makes'because of sin;' and from this very an- good any deficiency in that great act, by swer do we gather, that sin is still present which, and by which alone, transgression with every believer in the world, and as was finished, and the controversy between universally present too as death is univer- God and the sinner, is for ever set at rest. sal. In regard to temporal death, there is The meaning then of a believer's death, one lot we know that falleth to the wicked is not to expiate the guilt of his sin-it is and the righteous. And therefore though to root out the existence of it. It is not to these two classes do not stand alike re- cancel the punishment, for that is already lated to sin, yet both are so related to it done-it is to give the finishing blow, as as to partake in common of.the mortal- it wvere, to the crucifixion of its power. It ity, which, ere they are so changed as to is not inflicted upon him as the last disbecome incorruptible, all it appears must charge of the wrath of God, after which undergo. he is conclusively delivered therefrom. The righteous, we all see, die in com- But it is sent to him as a release from the mon with the wicked; and the text tells plague and the presence of that corrupus that the death of the body is because tion, which adheres it would seem, as long of sin. There must therefore be some- as the body adheres to us. It has not, it thing that respects sin, which the right- would appear, been made part of the eous hold in common with the wicked- economy of grace, that, on our entering seeing that, because of it, there is a com- within its limits by accepting of the gospel, mon suffering which both do undergo. we are forthwith delivered from those What then is this common relation which ceaseless and besetting tendencies, which they hold to sin as the cause, and in virtue attach to our present bodily constitution. of which they have a common participa- This could have been done without death. - tion in that bodily death that is here re- If a man, on the moment of believing, presented as the consequence? were just to be suddenly changed, in the In the first place, it cannot surely be way that they shall be who are alive at that it is still inflicted on both as the judi- the last day, and are caught up alive to cial sentence which has been attached to meet our Lord in the air-.then at once transgression. It is very true, the an- would he have been made sinless in the nouncement from the first has been, that material framework, as well as sinless in he who sinneth shall die; and that, in re- the regenerated part of his nature; and ference to all from whom the condemna- without the stepping-stones of a death, tion hath not been turned away, temporal and a resolution of his body into sepuldeath may be regarded as forming a part chral rottenness and dust, and a resurrecof their sentence. But it cannot surely be tion of it free from the taint by which it viewed in this light, in reference to those now is pervaded-without these steppingof whom the Bible says that unto them stones at all, might he at once have winged there is no condemnation; in reference to his ascent into heaven, and had its gate those who savingly believe in the Lord opened to him —because now, as free from Jesus Christ, and so have the benefit of the presence of sin as he was from its penthat expiation which He hath rendered, alty. And thus, without passing at all and of that everlasting righteousness through the dark valley of the shadow of which He hath brought in. It cannot for death, might he have been put into ir:nmea moment be thought, that any suffering diate. preparation for the pure and lofty of theirs is at all requisite to complete communions of'paradise. This might have that great satisfaction which was made on been the order of God's administration, Calvary for the sins of the faithful. It is but it is not so in fact. He hath arranged said of Him, who by one offering hath it otherwise. He hath thought fit, instead perfected the work of our reconciliation of working a miraculous change on the anl made an end of iniquity, that He trod appetites of the body, to work that change the wine press alone and that of the peo- on the principles and desires of the spirit ple there was none with Him. To Him -to renew the inner man, but to perpetbelongs the whole glory of our atonement. uate for a season the outer man. IIe hath He bore it all, for He looked and there was thought fit to make that Gospel by which none to help, HIe wondered that there was peace is established between God and the none to uphold; and then did His own arm believer-still to make' it the. harbinger bring salvation. It cannot be that by any not of peace but of war, among the eledeath of ours then, we eke out, as it were, ments of that moral system which is in 33 258 LECTURE LU.-CHAPTER VIII, 10. the believer himself. There might have no change impressed by it upon his organ been an instantaneous transition, to all of taste. The relation that now subsists the repose and harmony and serene tri- between his palate and the liquor that has umph of a virtue, that actuated every so long and so frequently regaled it, is the faculty of the mind; and met with noth- same as before-the desire for it is not ing to thwart or to impede its dictates, in extinguished; and the physical' affinity th- vile affections of a body that still that now is between the appetite and its -v,,uld grovel, were it permitted, among wonted indulgence, is not now changed its own base and sordid gratifications. into a physical repulsion. In the act of Bi t this is not the way in which it hath regeneration, the bodily affection is not appeared meet unto the wisdom of God, eradicated; but there is infused into the th'tt our translation shall take place from moral system a power for keeping it in eath to heaven. Like the processes both check: And, long after that this old man of His natural and His moral kingdom, hath become a new creature, we do not see this is accomplished not instantly but that the propensity which at one time gradually; and there is a long intervening tyrannized over him, is clearly and con. series of conflicts and exercises through elusively done away. It is not rooted out life, and a death and a burial and a re- my brethren. It is only resisted; and all surrection after it, ere the whole body and that regeneration has done for him in the soul and spirit shall be fully matured for world is to give him that moral force of the high fellowships of eternity. And determination and courage, by which he meanwhile, what Christ said of the world, is enabled to resist it with success. He is holds true of every individual who re- now able to control that which before ceives Him-"- I camre not to bring peace was uncontrollable. but a sword." I came to raise an internal Were this and all his other rebel appeFwar among the feelings and the ftculties tites only rooted out; and were he under of those who believe in me. I came to the dominion of a pure andholy principle, infuse a new principle within the lim- and of' it alone, to serve God on earth its of their moral economy, against which without a struggle —then might he even all the powers and principles of' the now be borne aloft on angelic pinions; ol, man will rise up in battle-array; and placed, without so hideous a transiand, instead of that harmony within tion as that of failing and sickeniT, and which is felt by the seraph above, and dying, in the city which hath found,.tions even felt by many a secure and satisfied But no: this, it would appear, iz tbs: arena sinner below-there will be the war of of his discipline for eternity; a'!id it is so, rival tendencies, by which the believer's by being an arena of' contest.. The ela. heart shall be kept in constant agitation; ments of moral evil are not pi-r-ed away there will be all the pains and perplexi- from his corporeal framework, bat there ties of many a sore conflict within; there is a spiritual element infused, which, if it will be an agony so fierce as to have been cannot destroy the former, will at least imaged in Scripture by a crucifixion; subordinate them. The apc,;;tlecomplained there will not it is true be unmitigated of his body being vile; but herein he suffering-there will be a mixture of tri- exercised himself, to keep that body under umph and of tumult throughout the period subjection, lest he should be a castaway of that singular transition which each be- He is like unto a Heathen, in having a liever must undergo —of triumph to that vile body. He is unlike unto a Heathen, in Spirit which is now made willing, and of having now a spirit within him by which anguish to that body which is now made the body is subjected. Both have in them a sacrifice. the desires of nature; but the one fights You see then, I trust, what that is of sin, with these desires, and the other fulfils which is common'here to the children of them. Both are lured by solicitations to Pight, and the children of this world; and evil; but while the one is only lured, the what that is which constitutes the distinc- other is led by them. He is led away tion between them. While both are alive with divers lusts. He is led away with' upon earth, they have both one kind of the error of the wicked, and so falls from body; and just as the eye of each takes in his stedfastness. The very same evil the same impression from the same objects propensity might offer to lead both; but standing visibly before it, so are the ap- while the one consents to be so led, the petites of each liable to the same inclina- other refuses. He gives himself' up to be tion from the allurement of the same led by another master. In the language objects when brought within their reach. of the apostle, he is led by the Spirit of The unhappy drunkard, who, at the very God, and so approves himself to be one sight of his inflaming beverage, is visited of God's children. He is led by the Spirit, with an affection thereunto which he finds and so fulfilleth not the lusts of the flesh. to be unconauollable-suppose him to be You also see what the use of death is to made a convert at this moment, there is a Christian. It is not laid upon him as a LECTURE LI.-CHAPTER VIIi, 10. 253 sentence of condemnation. The whole abandoned-and then by the assembling weight of that sentence is already borne. again of all its particles, but without the It is not to complete his justification. corrupt infusion that formerly pervaded That is already perfected for ever by the it-And so the transformation of the whole one offering. It is to release him in fact into what is now called a glorified bodyfromn his warfare. It is to deliver him a body like unto that of Christ, and free fiom the presence of his great enemy. It now even from the tendency to evil. And is to remlove from him that load under not till the whole of this change take which he now groans being burdened, effect upon it, is it fit for admission to the and which forced from the holy apostle upper realms of love and purity and the exclamation of his wretchedness. It righteousness. The justice of God would is to assure him who hath fought the have recoiled from the acceptance of a good fight, and hath finished his course, sinner,'and so an expiation had.to be that the battle is now ended, and that now made; and the holiness of that place the repose and the triumph of victory where God dwelleth, would have recoiled await him. To the last hour of his life, from the approaches of one whose chait is the same foul and tainted body that racter was still tainted with sin, even it ever was; and his only achievement though its guilt had been expiated-and upon it, is not that he hath purified its so it is, that there must be a sanctification nature, but that he hath not suffered it to as well as an atonement-there must be a have the mastery. He has all along been renewal as well as a sacrifice. For the upheld against its encroachments, by the one, Christ had to suffer and to die-for vigour of a counteracting principle within, the other man has also to die, and so to even of that Spirit which is life because fill up that which is behind of the sufferof righteousness. T.hese two have been ings of Christ. And it is indeed a most in perpetual conflict with each other, from emphatic demonstration of heaven's sathe hour of the heavenly birth to the hour credness, that, to protect its courts from of the earthly dissolution; and the way violation, not even the most pure and in which it is terminated, is, not by the sainted Christian upon earth, can, in his body in its present state being transformed, present earthly garb, find admittance but by the body in its present state being therein-that loved and revered as he is destroyed.' by his friends and his family, and little The fact of the body being still sub- as they see about him of that which is jected to death because of sin, is the unworthy even of fellowship with angels, strongest experimental argument that can still, that even he would be deemcd'a be urged for heaven being a place to nuisance in that high and holy place which sin can find no entry. It is not in where nothing that offendeth can enterthe way of penalty that the Christian has that ere the gate of the New Jerusalem be to die-for the whole of that penalty has opened for his spirit, he must leave his already been sustained. It is not exacted tainted body behind him; and ere he from him as the payment of a debt-for walk embodied there, the framework that Christ our surety hath paid a full and a he had on earth must first be taken down, satisfying ransom. It is not then to help and be made to pass in mysterious transout the justification which is already formation, through that dismal region of complete in him-nor to remove a flaw skulls and of skeletons, where the moulfrom that title-deed which we have re- dering wreck of many human generations ceived perfect from His hand. It stands is laid. This death, which even the holiest connected, in short, with the sanctifica- of believers have to undergo, speaks tion of the believer; and has nought to loudly both to the loathsomeness of sin, do with that sentence which Christ has and to the sensitive the lofty sacredness fully expiated, with that legal chastise- of heaven: And oh how should it teach ment which was laid upon Him who bore all, who by faith have admitted the hope it all. The whole amount and meaning of glory into their hearts, that, in so of it is, that our bodies are impregnated doing, they have embarked on a warfare with a moral virus which might be dis- against moral evil-that the expectation charged from them, it is certain, by a fiat of bliss in heaven is at utter variance of the Almighty-even as with those who with the wilful indulgence of sin upon shall be found alive on the day of resur- earth-and that, by the very act of emrection. But this is not the way in which bracing the Gospel, they have thrown God hath seen meet so to discharge it. It down the gauntlet of hostility to sin; and is by death that the thing is to be done. they must struggle against it, and pray It is, in the first instance, by the departure against it, api prevail against it. of the spirit breaking out of its tainted Now this principle of hostility to sin and leprous prison-hold-and then by the wherewith the believer is actuated, cometh resolution into fragments and into dust, down upon him like every other good and of this materialism that its tenement hath perfect gift from above. All that is evil 260 LECTURE LI.-CHAPTER VIII, 10. about him still cometh from himself, and second death which has been called the from the vile body by which he is encom- wages of sin, because it is both its penal passed. The gracious ingredient of his and its natural consummation. now regenerated nature, does not extin- NTct so with him whose spirit has been guish the corrupt ingredient of it. It mai'e righteous; and who vexed and anonly, as it were, keeps it down; and, noyed with the urgencies of his vile body without delivering him from its presence, has, to the hour of death, carried on delivers him from its prevalency and its against it a resolute and unsparing war. power. This it is which constitutes the fare. He will have no part in the second struggle of the Christian life. This is the death. His spirit because of its righteous. sore conflict which is carried on through ness has become meet for that life, which many discouragements, and perhaps some is both spiritual and everlasting. So soon defeats, and at least frequent alternations as it quits its earthly tenement, it will be and variations of fortune. Nevertheless, with Christ in Paradise, where, freed from th roughout all the fluctuations of this spirit- the incumbrances of a tainted material. ual history; the seed of blissful immortality ism, it will instantly find —that, though to is there; the element of a holy and celes- live for a season in the flesh was needful tial nature is at work; the honest aspira- and salutary, yet to have departed and to tion after God and godliness will never be be with Christ is far better. He soweth extinguished. A life of well-doing, and to the Spirit here, and hereafter he shall a produce in the fruits of righteousness, reap of the Spirit life everlasting. He has will force their way among all the im- the very evil tendencies which the other pediments of a vile materialism. These hath who soweth unto the flesh; buf, intwo rival and opposing ingredients will at stead of giving to them his consent, he length be detached the one from the enters with them into combat, and he other; and of these the body will become fights the good fight which terminates in dead because of sin, and the spirit be life victory, and he earns the blessedness of because of righteousness. him that overcometh, and of him that enWith an' unconverted man there are dureth unto the end. Those inclinations not two such conflicting elements. The of a corrupt nature, which the other pam. mind and the body are at one. The evil pered into lordly and domineering appetendencies are given way to. He not only tites, that will wield for ever their rnercisubmits to the instigations of the flesh; less tyranny over him, he hath in every but, in the language of Scripture, he sows way thwarted and buffeted and starvedunto the flesh, that is, he devises and de- so that though still alive while the breath liberately provides expedients for its gra- was in his body, and he had even to week tification-laying up for the flesh, as well their presence on his death-bed, and still as fulfilling the lusts thereof. The whole to mourn even tthen the carnalities and man pulls as it were in one direction; and the spiritual sins which he could not utthat is a direction altogether towards the terly extinguish-yet his reward is, that, creature, and altogether away from the at the moment of his dissolution, they till Creator. HIe soweth unto the flesh, and expire for ever; and not be raised up of the flesh, he shall reap corruption. As again to be his plagues and his perscuhe falleth, so shall he rise; and the body tors through eternity. The reward is, that wherewith he is enveloped on the day of his risen body shall also be a regenerated resurrection, will not, like that of the glo- body —that all about him shall then be in rifled saint, be expurgated of its tenden- fullest harmony with the desires of his cies to evil: But as he indulged them glorified spirit-and that the evil instigathrough life, so will they rise up against tions which so perplex and disquiet him him in the full vigour of their absolute on earth, shall never haunt nor harass and imperious sway; and be his merci- him in heaven. He will be altogether less, his inexorable tormentors, through freed from those corrupt elements, which all eternity. As he never resisted them still adhere to the unbeliever when hc with effect here, so there will he find arises from his grave, and which constithem to be irresistible. They will lord it tute in fact the elements of his moral hell. over him; and he be the miserable slave There will be nothing adverse to the love of vile and worthless affections, under the or to the services of God in any part of sense of which his now convicted soul his constitution; and he will be iully enacannot escape from the agonies of re- bled to glorify the Lord, with his soul and morse, that undying worm, which gives body and spirit, which are the Lord's. to hell its fiercest anguish, and far its This is not an idle speculation. It may sorest tribulation. He thus pursued by a be carried personally and practically to fire that is unquenchable within, and a the conscience. Are you or are you not fear without of that holy and righteous engaged in a warfare with moral evil! countenance that is now turned in rebuke Are you busily employed in the work of towards him, will be made to taste of that subduing and bringing unaer discipline LECTURE LI. —-CHAPTER VIII, 10. 2t 1 oll the Irregularities of your perverse na- beneath-and this not only the grosser ture? Or, instead of this. are you in affections of our nature, but the more repeace with yourself; and that because of putable, the more refined, the affections the friendly terms, in which your spirit for wealth, for honour, for fame, for liteand your body are with each other 3 Re- rary reputation-for these too are among member that there is a peace where there the things which are beneath-these also is no peace. Do you imagine that you will perish in the using-these have their are at peace with God, because you be- place on earth, and have no place in lieve the Gospel? Remember that Paul heaven; and it is only by the spirit being preached the Gospel, yet, had he not kept above all these, and resting its affections the body under subjection, he would have on the things which are above, it is only been a castaway. And therefore in this thus that it will be made to inherit life, did he always exercise himself, mortify- and because of its righteousness. ing his affections for the things which are LECTURE LII. ROMANS Viii, 11, 12. "But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortat bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh." V. 11. IN the last verse it is affirmed for ever-that the same power which that Christ being in us will not avail helped him to the conquest, will rid him to prevent the death of the body though altogether of his enemy; and his body it will avail to the preparing of the will be so purified and transformed, as to soul for life everlasting. And in the become like unto the glorious body of present verse, the apostle recurs to the Christ. The wicked are not so. As the body, and now affirms that it too, will at tree falleth so it lies; and as they wen length have a benefit conferred on it- to their graves with all the propensities that neither is it altogether overlooked in of corruption unmitigated, they will again this great work of regeneration-that come forth from their graves, with these though permitted for a season to moulder propensities in lordly and despotic rigour in the dust, and though every vestige of to be their tyrants and their tormentors what it was is made to disappear; yet through all eternity. And this, I imagine, will it emerge from the hideous receptacle will explain a verse which enters into the in which it lies, and come forth a quick- prophetic narrative of the earthly conened and a glorified body on the day of summation of all things-"- He that is unresurrection-that though the present oc- just let him be unjust still, and he which cupation of it by God's Holy Spirit, does is filthy let him be filthy still, and he that not save it from decaying into a loath- is righteous let him be righteous still, and some spectacle of corruption; yet if that he that is holy, let him be holy still." Spirit dwell in us now, it will again ani- Now it is, in the first place, to be remate that matter which has gone into dis- marked-that the very same agent who solution —raising it to a new framework, raised up Christ from the dead, is to raise and investing it as before with all those up all who are in Christ also. That He graces which are expressive of the life was the agent employed by God in the and sensibility within. But it is to be resurrection of the Saviour, may, I think, observed that the wicked as well as the be gathered from this passage, where it is righteous are to rise again-that all the said, that He was declared to be the Son dead both small and great are to stand of God with power, according to the Spibefore God-and that therefore there must rit of holiness by the resurrection from be a something which peculiarizes the the dead;-and still more obviously firom resurrection of the believer, from that of the text (and this we holdvto be the reason a sinful and unconverted man. Now we why it is said of Christ risen from the know of no other peculiarity than this- dead, that He is become the first-fruits of that his body shall be delivered from that them who slept) —" Every man in his own moral virus against which he struggled order —Christ the first-fruits, afterwards through life, and by overcoming which he they who are Christ's at his coming.' is to be rewarded with a complete and But there is a still more important set of conclusive exemption from its presence X passages that point, we think, t) a very 26'S LECTURE LTI.-CHAPTER VIII, 11, 12. pleasing analogy, between Christ's resur- seventh day over that which a little befor. rection from the grave, and the resurrec- was without form and void, so God rejoi. tion of our souls into newness of life- ces over us, when, in looking to the prothat ascribe both of these events to the duct of this new or second creation, He operation of the same power; and regard sees that it is all very good. You know it as alike the functions of the Holy Ghost, enough, I trust, of our depravity by nature to have restored the natural life to the -to admit of our moral world that it is body of the Saviour, when it lay insensi- indeed a chaos —that, though there be ble in the tomb-and the spiritual to occasional gleams of the bright and the those who are dead in trespasses and sins, beautiful, yet that the great master sin of but are awakened from this death at the ungodliness stalks triumphant over the moment of believing in Him. And thus I face of society-that, though, as in every would understand it of Paul that he longs companionship even of iniquity, there to make sure of the renewal of his soul must be recognised principles of truth and unto holiness, when he speaks of his de- honour and fellowship which bind togethsire to know Christ and the power of His er the members of the human commonresurrection; and I can enter into the wealth, and make it a possible thing for analogy which he states in these words, society to subsist, yet that, as if altogether that, like as Christ was raised up from the broken loose from the great original of dead in the glory of his Father, even so Being, each individually hath betaken we also should walk in newness of life himself to the counsel of his own heart -and that thus it is that we are plant- and the sight of his own eyes. The ened together with Christ, in the likeness of lightened assertors of a native and origiHis resurrection. WVe read in various nal corruption in our species, never displaces of our being made conformable to pute that there is much of the fair and His death by dying unto sin; and so are amiable and upright in human intercourse; wre made conformable to His resurrection and that this gives rise to many fine and by living unto righteousness. The thing graceful evolutions in the walks of social is still more expressly affirmed in the ilfe. But what they affirm, and they deerm epistle to the Ephesians, where mention is that they have the experimental light both made of " the exceeding greatness of God's of observation and conscience upon their power to us-ward who believe, according side, is, that while busily engaged. wheto the working of his mighty power, ther in the virtues or in the vices of our which he wrought in Christ when he intercourse with each other, we one and raised him from the dead, and set him at all of us by nature have renounced our his own right hand in the heavenly pla- proper intercourse with God-that, inti. ces, far above all principalities and pow- mately joined as we are to our fellows of ers and might and dominion and every the species by the ties of patriotism and name that is named, not only in this world neighbourhood and family affection, we but also in that which is to come; and live in a state of moral and spiritual dishath put all things under his feet, and junction from God —that just as if the given him to be head over all things to gravitation that bound our planet to the the church, which is his body, the fulness great central luminary of our system of Him who filleth all in all." And then were suspended, and it were to take its he adds, "you hath he quickened who own random way in space, so have we were dead in trespasses and sins" — broke adrift as it were from that main "'Even when we are dead in sins, hath attraction to which all the duties and moGod quickened us together with Christ." ralities of life are subordinate. And just Now this analogy between the raising as the stray world might still have active of the body and the regeneration of the physical principles of his own-its cohesoul, both of which'are ascribed to the sion, and its magnetism, and its laws of agency of the Holy Spirit, forcibly re- fluidity, and its busy atmospherical prominds us of the history of the material crc- cesses, even after the sun had ceased to ation in the book of Genesis-where it is have the imperial sway over it-So, in distinctly affirmed, that, at the very first our stray species, are there a thousand footsteps of that glorious transformation, mutual and internal principles of constant by which a dark and disordered chaos operation-the resentment, and the love, was evolved into light and loveliness and and the domestic affinities, and the dread harmony, that then the Spirit of God of authority, and the delight in approbamoved upon the face of the waters. And tion, and the sense of shame, and the so when the Spirit begins with the soul mighty power which lies in the awards of man, it is a perfect chaos of moral of the general voice-principles these, darkness and disorder on which it has to which, in their turn, either agitate or operate-whence it gradually advances arouse or restrain or even embellish the from one degree of grace and godliness face of society —Yet still may it be a unto another, till, as God rejoiced on the society altogether without the regard at LECTURE LII. —CHAPTERP VIII, 11 12. 263 the reverence of God. In reference to you have much of secular worth and ex. -lim, the family of mankind may be an ex- cellence. But we deny that you have the iled family; and while the men of its suc- least tint of sacredness. You are not decessive generations pass through the little moralized out of all virtue, but you are hour of life, some deformed by earthly desecrated out of all godliness; and we vices, and others decked in the ornaments appeal to the distinctly felt current of of an earth-born morality, yet, equally your plans and purposes and desires, oaloof as all may still be from the virtue we appeal to the familiar history of you, of that great relationship which is be- every day, whether the will of God be the tween the thing that is formed and Him reigning principle of your mind, whether who hath formed it, it may still hold true God can be said to have the rule over you. ot our species, that we by nature are in Now Christianity is a restorative sysa state of disruption from God-asunder tem. Its object is to reinstate the authorfrom Him as to all right and habitual ity of God over the wills and consciences fellowship in time; and, if we decline the of men; and by this great and ascendant reunion which He himself proposes, likely power of moral gravitation, again brought to remain thus asunder fiom the great back to its influence over our heart, to fountain of light anti love and happiness reclaim our wandering species into that through all eternity. duteous conformity to Himself from which Now that this is the very chaos in they have departed so widely. What He which humanity is involved, we hold to wants is to restore us to our wonted place be pretty obvious from the broad and among the goodly orbs of His own favourgeneral aspect of society. But far the ed and unfallen creation; and this He most useful conviction that can be wrought does simply by turning away ungodliness upon this subject, is that which is carried from our hearts. It is to set up that anhome to the bosom of individuals, by a cient and primeval law, by which the manifestation of their own heart to the creature is bound to recognise the Creator conscience of each of them. It is not in all his ways-so.that instead of fluctupossible to lay open the characters of all ating as heretofore through the mazes of to the inspection of' any; but it may be error and wilfulness and sin, he might walk possible to lay open the character of any with assured footsteps on that right and lofman to the inspection of himself-and ty path, which is defined by Heaven's juthus it is, that far the most profitable of risprudence, and to which he is willingly all moral demonstrations, whether from constrained by Heaven's grace. And it is the pulpit or from the press, are those thought, that, though godliness be a single which reveal to each individually the in- principle out of the many which operate on timacies of his own spirit; and by which the heart, yet that upon its re-establishhe is enabled, as in a mirror, to recognise ment alone, there would instantly emanate such a likeness to the portrait of his own a peace and a virtue that should be felt inner man as his conscience can respond in all the departments of our nature. The unto. And therefore would we bid each benevolence would be stimulated, and the unconverted man who is now present, to justice become greatly more strict and enter upon this recognizance of himself, sensitive, and the temperance and purity aniid to see whether the very habit of his be more guarded than ever, and the masoul is not a habit of practical atheism- lignant propensities be kept in check and whether it be not true that God is scarcely at last exterminated-and so all the secif at all in his thoughts-whether he be ondary and earthly moralities, which may not an utter stranger to the gait and the and do exist without godliness, attain by attitude of His servant-and whether the godliness, a far more effective and saluquestion is ever taken up, or ever brought tary ascendant over the character and to a conclusion, that is afterwards in very interests of our species. Even as the deed and history proceeded on,'What is planet, that, without the scope of the law the will of' God in the matter before me.' of gravitation to the sun, has deviated We do not charge you with any trans- from its path, yet retained the principles gressions against the social or domestic which be at work throughout its mass and principles of our nature-any more than upon its surface —restore to it this single we deny of a rambling planet which now law which for a season has been suspendflounders its capricious and unregulated ed and you do a great deal more than way in space, that there the chemical simply reclaim it to the old elliptic path affinities, or there the active play of all which it was wont to revolve in. You those influences which belong to its own impress and you vivify all the operations peculiar and physical system are un- of the terrestrial mechanism-you call known. But we do charge you with the those tides into force and action, which disownal of the authority of God. We arouse the sluggish ocean out of its unaffirm that against Him you have deeply I wholesome stagnancy-and you set afloat revolted. We cannot deny that many of through the air those refreshing currents 264 LECTURE XLI. —CHAPTER VIII, 11, 12. by which its purity is upholden-and you cation with Heaven, that it may indced be pour abroad that beauteous element of put forth upon himself. And this is the light, which, with its accompanying order in which the graces and embellishwarmth both stimulates all the processes, ments of the new creature spring uip in and discloses all the graces and the laws the believer. Ere God will pour them on of the vegetable kingdom-And, in a word, his person, he must enquire after them. you, by this single restoration, turn the The Spirit of grace and supplication is else desolate and unpeopled globe into a generally given, ere the things which it is vast habitation of life and of enjoyment, your part to supplicate for are given. And where the notes of cheerfulness may be therefore be not surprised at vour miseraheard on every side; and there may be ble progress in sanctification, if a stranger seen the work of busy design, the abodes to the habit of prayer. Wonder not anti of industry and comfort, the temples of complain not, that strength to help youpiety. infirmities is still withheld, if you have Now it is the Spirit who evolved matter not mixed the prayer of faith with your out of the chaotic state; and it is the severe yet ineffectual struggles againstthe Spirit who renews a living body out of power of corruption. Think not that you the putrifaction into which it had mould- are to overcome, if, with all the humble, ered; and it is the very same agent, even ness of a needy and dependent creature, the Spirit of God, who renovates the heart you do not look up to a power that ix of man, and forms him anew into right- greater than your own; and give not the eousness and true holiness. It is a doctrine glory of all holiness in the creature, to that is mightily nauseated in this our day that high and heavenly influence which -forming, as it does, one of the most cometh down from the Creator. You have offensive peculiarities of the Gospel; and never yet known what the receipt is for perhaps more fitted than any other to re- making you virtuous, if, to this hour, you volt into antipathy, both the natural and have been ignorant or inexperienced as literary taste of those who hear of it. It to the efficacy of prayer. Though you is therefore the more desirable, when any should have tried every thing else beside; thing can be alleged, which might propi- you are still morally in a state of helpless tiate you in its fhvour. And surely-if and hopeless disease. And therefore, with you can be at all affected by,the contrast all the eagerness of a patient who has between the loathsomeness of the grave, been enquiring and experimenting for and the gracefulness of a living form in- years about the right method of being vested with the bloom and vigour of im- healed, take yourself now to this premortality; or between the turbulence of scription; and see whether a blessing warring elements, and that magnificent will not come out of it. And, like those harmony of animate and inanimate things medicines which are of daily application, which has been made to emerge therefrom should you pray without ceasing. It into our goodly world-this should enlist should be a regimen of prayer. Earnest you altogether on the side of so beneficent prayer and vigorous performance should an agency; and, instead of that felt and be always alternating the one with the invisible repugnance wherewith the doc- other. A good word with God in secret, trine of the Holy Ghost as our refiner and qualifies for a good work with man in as our sanctifier is listened to by men, yflu society. And, on the other hand, your should hail these informations of the Bible, deeds of righteousness with the hand, will by which you are given to understand that send back an influence upon the heart, the same plastic energy, which moved on that shall brighten and inflame its sacredthe face of the waters at the beginning, ness. You will strive mightily according and has since moulded the very dust into to the grace of God that worketh in you organism and living beauty-thatthis too is mightily. The Spirit of Him that raised the principle of that new creation, which, up Jesus from the dead will dwell in you, out of ruined and distempered humanity, if you make Him welcome; and prayer raises, upon every true disciple of Jesus, may be regarded as your invitation to the worth and the excellence that fit him Him, as the expression of your welcome. for immortality. And the Spirit so dwelling will be indeed But better than all speculation on this the earnest of' your inheritance-He who topic, would it be that you prized the op- quickens you from the death of trespasses eration of the Spirit on your heart, and and sins shall quicken your mortal bodies that you earnestly and habitually prayed from that death of nature which comes for it. The doctrine of the Holy Ghost is upon all men. too much neglected in practice. It is not V. 12. " Therefore, brethren, we are adverted to, that all acceptable virtue in debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the man is the product of a creating energy, flesh." that is actually put forth upon him; and The debtor is bound in certain duties that it is his business to wrestle in suppli- or obligations to his creditor: and the LECTURE LII.-CHAPTER VIII, 11, 12. 265 Apostle here tells us, that we are not so truth, and amongst all its rich promrises bound to the flesh. It has its demands of grace and pardon and remission from upon us, and it would fain exact our com- every legal consequence to believers, do pliance with them; but this is a compli- we also read, that if we live after the flesh ance which it is not incumbent upon us we shall as surely die. to render. We shall not, as I have often But while there is this resemblance be. affirmed in your hearing, be released on tween the two dispensations, there is also this side of death from the hateful expos- a difference between them; and the dif. ure of having to feel its instigations; but ference might be illustrated by help of that is no reason why we should follow another text taken from the writings of these instigations. We are subject here to Paul, and one of those very few in which the annoyance of being oft solicited by this there occurs the same term, debtor. He tempter; but we are not therefore bound says of a judaizing Christian who insisted to yield ourselves up unto him. Living as on the rite of circumcision as being essenwe do in the flesh, we are at all times in tial to our acceptance with God, that, if contact with its near and besetting urgen- circumcised upon this ground, he was a cies; but there is no such acquiescence debtor to do the whole law; and that, in due on our part, as that we shall live after the act of becoming so, he would fall from the flesh. This last is the debt wherefrom grace, and cease in fact to have the privithe text releases us-nay, in the next leges or the immunities of a believer. verse, the most forcible motive is present- Now what is this to say, but that a Chrised to us, why, instead of acquiescing, we tian is not a debtor to do the whole law, should resist to the uttermost. For if we and yet he is a debtor to live not after the live after the flesh we shall die. flesh 3 He is not bound to the faultless The motive in fact is as strong, as that obedience of a perfect commandment; which Adam, who lived under the first co- and yet he is bound to a hearty and susvenant, had to abstain from eating the for- tained warfare against all sin, which is a bidden fruit. In the day thou eatest violation of the commandment. He is no thereof, thou shalt die. So that there can- longer under the economy of do this and not be a more gross misunderstanding of live; and yet he is under an economy, the gospel economy, than that it is desti- where if he give himself up to the doing tute of as plainf and direct and intelligible of what is opposite to this, he shall most sanctions against moral evil, as those inevitably die. which were devised for upholding the le- The truth is, that both the one economy gal economy. Under both are we deter- and the other are on the side of moral red from sin by the threatening of death; righteousness; and both proceed alike on and the only difference between them is, this undoubted position, that there, can be that-whereas under the law one sin, no fellowship between God and iniquity however lenient in its character, or how- and that the heaven where He and His ever strong and sudden the temptations holy angels dwell, is a place where not a were which hurried the unhappy victim creature can find admittance, that has onward to the commission of it, inferred upon him the slightest taint or remainder the whole penalty-under the gospel, of evil. And thus the law condemned the death is represented to be the effect as sinner to exile from heaven; but, after well as the penalty of such a character as having done so, it could not restore him has been formed in us by the habit of sin- thereunto. It had no provision within its ning, by the preference on our part of a limits, by which it could either annul its carnal to a spiritual life, by a surrender own threatenings; or purge away from of ourselves to the power of any evil af- our now contaminated race that foul spiritfection-So that, instead of struggling ual leprosy, the very existence of which, against it andbarring its ascendancy over apart from the consideration of legal us, wepermit the ascendancy, and become penalties altogether, barred the entrance the slaves of one against whom we should of mankind from the habitations of unhave fought with all the determination and spotted sacredness. Under its continued hatred of honest enemies. This we must administration, we had no release from either do, or consent to live after the flesh; our past guilt, and no remedy from either and against the latter alternative there is our present or out future sinfulness; and, lifted under the dispensation of grace, as in these vile bodies, how was it possible clear and decisive a warning of terror, as to escape the necessity of perpetual addiever was lifted under the dispensation of tions to the account which was against us works,. We read in the book of Genesis -since, in the high reckoning of a holy how God said to Adam, that in the day and heart-searching law, the very existthat thou eatest of the tree of the know- ence of an evil thought, the very inroad ledge of good and evil, thou shalt surely of a wrong or licentious imagination, die. And in this epistle tQo the Romans, in would be deemed and dealt with as the this most complete record of evangelical transgression of an offender! And there. 266 LECTURE LII.-CHAPTER VIII, 11, 12. fore it wai that this economy had to be moral helplessness. Under the present suspended, and another set up with dis- dispensation, we are not without sin; but tinct principles and provisions of its own, the sin of infirmity is not like the sin of that might render it competent for the wilfulness, unto death-and there has been sinner's restoration to that heaven which a sacrifice provided, in the faith of which he had forfeited, and for admittance into if we make daily onfession we shall have which he both laboured under a legal and daily forgiveness. So long as we are in a personal incapacity. There needed to these accursed bodies, it is impossible be a skilful adaptation for purposes so ever to venture off from any other foundavery mysterious, that angels are repre- tion for our acceptance before God, than sented as looking on with the eye of eager the perfect righteousness of Christ; and and unappeased curiosity. And herein the very sin of our nature has the effect lay the profound, the unsearchable wis- to remind us of our dependence, and to domn of the gospel, by which the guilt of keep us closely and tenaciously thereupon. the believer's sin was cancelled, and by But, meanwhile, though vexed and annoywhich the existence of it upon his charac- ed by the instigations of the flesh, we are ter is at length done away. He had to be armed with a resolution and a strength saved by water and by blood. There is and an affection for what is spiritual, that an atonement to do away the curse of sin, shall abundantly secure our not living and there is a purification to do away its after the flesh; and on the generous mind defilement. And thus, to complete our of the new-born Christian, the daily infirsalvation, was it not enough that Christ mities which he has to lay at the throne bowed His head unto the sacrifice. When of grace, so far from working an indifferHe rose again, I-He claimed, as the fruit of ence to moral righteousness, only shame His obedience unto the death, the promise and stimulate him the more to the vigorof His Father-the Holy Ghost given by ous prosecution of it. And the knowHim to those who believe-the power over ledge, that, though the infirmities of his heaven and earth, by which He might flesh will be pardoned, yet that if' he live subdue all things unto Himself; and, more after the flesh he will die, this is to him as especially, by which He might aid the direct and urgent excitement, as ever bore moral warfare that is going on among His with practical effect on the legal aspirants disciples here below, and at length so after a reward and an acceptance oftheii change their vile bodies as that they might own. And thus are the comfort after sin be fashioned like unto His glorious body on the one hand, and the impulse to re-So that, delivered alike fiom the pre- newed holiness on the other, most admirsence and penalty of sin, every barrier ably blended in such a way, as best to suit may be removed, and every hindrance those who are weighed ldown with a cormay be done away to unexceptionable rupt materialism, yet are furnished with admittance within the limits of the sanc- power in the inner man to war against.uary that is above. and at length to overcome it; andthe disBehold then the very nice adaptation to ciple who is thus employed can, at one our state as sinners, of that gospel eco- and the same time, draw comfort from the nomy whereby the legal economy has saying that if any man sin we have an been suspended and superseded-because advocate with the Father-and derive the to our condition, as the wretched outcasts energy of a practical impulse from the of a violated law, it brought no relief, and saying, that 1"if any man sin wilfully, could bring no restoration. Under the after that he hath received the knowledge former dispensation, every sin, however of the truth, there remaineth no more satrivial and though urged to it by the beset- crifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking ting propensities of a constitution marred for of' judgment and fiery indignation that arid vitiated since the fall, plunged us shall devour the adversaries." more hopelessly than ever in guilt and in LECTURE LIII.-CHAPTER VIII) 13-15. 267 LECTURE LILI. ROMANS Viii, 13-15. * For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received the spirit ef bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." V. 13. "FOR if ye live after the flesh, and perfection of this very law; and that ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit though now exempted from the threat if do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall ye fail in one jot or tittle thereof ye shall live." die —the threat is still against him and And in like manner as the threatenings against all in full operation, that if, castunder the law and the gospel may be com- ing off the authority of the law, ye give pared with each other, so may the pro- yourselves up to your own heart's desire mises or the rewards. By the former dis- or live after the flesh ye shall die. pensation, he who fell into an act of dis- Now the like analogy and the like disobedience was adjudged to die; and by tinction may be observed in the promises the latter, he who by living after the flesh or rewards of the gospel, when compared lived in a habit of disobedience was in with those of the law. The apostle says like manner to die. It is well that we are of the law, that it is not of faith, but the liberated from the rigid and unbending man that doeth this shall live; and he economy of the law; for thus we are set saith in our text of him who hath emfree from the fears, and the scrupulosities, braced that gospel which supersedes the and in fact the utter and irretrievable des- law, that if a man through the Spirit do pair, which would have paralysed the mortify the deeds of the body he shall whole work of obedience. But it is also live. There is a doing to which death is well, that, while the economy of the gospel annexed with as great certainty under the has achieved our deliverance from these, one economy as under the other. And it still lifts as loud a testimony on the side there is also a doing to which lifB is anof righlteousness, and is actuated by as nexed with as great certainty under the determined a hostility against all sin-so one economy as under the other. The as to set all its honest disciples upon a' do this and live' of the former dispensamost resolved and persevering opposition tion however, is a condition which has to it. liad law been the arbiter of this long been violated; and which, in our contest, they never, in the vile bodies present tainted materialism, we never can wherewith they are encompassed, they attain unto; and which therefore, instead never could have obtained the meed or the of indicating to us a practical avenue to honour of victory-each error being an heaven, is like a flaming sword that guards irrecoverable defeat-each infirmity being and bars in every way our access therea death-blow to their cause. And there- unto. The'mortify the deeds of the body fore it is well that they now fight under and live' of the latter dispensation, is a the banniers of another umpire, who can condition again which might be rendered; see, amid all the frailties of the old and which every believer in the grace and the natural constitution, that there is ris- righteousness of the Lord Jesus will be ing and strengthening apace a force of enabled to perform; which from this momoral resistance against the urgencies of ment we should set ourselves forward to corrupt nature, which is gradually under- for the purpose of making it good-and mining its ascendancy, and at length will so exhibit in our history as direct a pracoverthrow it. The man who has been en- tical impulse taken from the hopes of the dowed with this force from on high, is gospel, as any servant from the prospect ever reminded by the frailties that are of his wages, or any labourer under the within of his daily need of Christ's pro- covenant of works could take from the pitiation; and would give up the battle in remunerations of the law. And in this despair, had he not the righteousness of warfare against the body, an advantage Christ to build upon. Yet he never for- may sometimes have been gained by it, gets that the battle is his unceasing occu- such an advantage as the law would have pation-that the gospel which has dis- irretrievably condemned us for, and decharged him from the penalties of a law dared against us all the ruin and disgrace that he is ever falling short of, has not of a fatal overthrow; but such an advandischarged him from this warfare-that tage as under the gospel though it has his business is so to strive against all the cast us down yet will not destroy us-but, corruption which is in him, as to make after perhaps a severe discipline of mor-,tnceasing approximation to the purity tification and sorrow, will arm us with 26b, LECTURE LIII.-CHAPTER VIII, 13-15. fresh resolution for the contest; and in- and the soul, delivered from its presence, spire into us a more cordial hatred against and again translated into it after the last the body of sin, and all its sinful instiga- taint and remainder of its evil nature had tlons, tl.an ever; and give to the heart a been done away, would find itself in a more burning earnestness, that we may perfect condition for the joys and the sernot only recover all the ground which we vices of life everlasting. have lost, but may rise more aloft than But it is well to mark, that, in order t: ever above all the gross and terrestrial make this mortifying of the deeds of the ingredients of our corrupt nature-till, body effectual unto life, it must be done having passed through a series of watch- through the Spirit. For the very same fulness and endurance and busy work- thing might in great measure be done ing, and so having made full proof of our without spec-al grace from on high, in discipleship, we can say with the apostle which case it hath no fruit in immortality. vhen the time of our departure is at hand, How many are the evil passions, which "I have fought a good fight, I have can at least be restrained by the pure finished my course, I have kept the faith force of a natural determination. In the — Henceforth there is laid up for me a pursuits of fortune, or of ambition, or of crown of righteousness, which the Lord war, what a violence a man can put upon the righteous judge shall give me on that himself-what a heroic self-denial he is day, and not to me only but also unto all capable of carrying into full operationsuch as love his appearing." what a mastery he can reach over some From the expression'to mortify the of the most urgent inclinations of nature; deeds of the body' I may here advert to and all this certainly without one particle that law of our moral constitution, by of a sanctifying influence, but rather by which it is that if we refuse to perform a the strength and power of one unrenewed sinful deed, we by that very refusal principle lording it with a high ascenweaken the sinful desire whic'h prompted dancy over all the rest. To make then it; and that thus by mortifying the deeds the mortification of your earthly desires you mortify the desires. Every act of available for heaven, there must be an sinful indulgence, arms with a new force agency from the Holy Ghost-else there of ascendancy the sinful inclination. is nought of heaven's character in the Every act of luxury makes you more the work, and will be nought of heaven's reslave of the table than before. Every ward to it. And if the Holy Ghost indeed draught of the alluring beverage, might be the agent, then He will not select a bring you nearer to the condition of him few of our carnal tendencies for extermiwho is the victim of a habitual intoxica- nation by His power; but He will enter tion. Every improper licence granted to into hostility with all of thenm-He will the eve or the imagination, sinks you into check the sensuality of our nature, and more helpless captivity under their power. He will mortify its pride, and He will Every compliance with lawless appetite, check its impetuous anger,'and Ile will enthrones more firmly than before another wean it from its now clinging avarice, oppressor, another tyrant over you. And Let it be your care then, from the very therefore if you want to dethrone the first moment of your strenuous resistance appetite, refuse the indulgence; if you to these deeds and affections of evil —let want to starve and enfeeble the desires of it be your care, that, instead of trusting to the inner man, mortify the deeds of the the energy of your own firm and highouter man. Begin in a plain way the minded resolves, you invoke the constant work of reformation. And let it be the supplies of aid from a higher quarter. resolute purpose on which you shall put Let yours be a life of prayer along with forth all the manhood of your soul, that, ai life of performance; and then will you however you may be solicited by the strive mightily, but according at the same affections that are within to that which is time to the grace of God that worketh in evil, you shall not give the actions that you mightily. are without to their hateful service-that V. 14. "For as many as are led by the however sin may have been desired, sin Spirit of God they are the sons of God." shall not be done by you-that with the There is frequent cognizance taken in control which you have overthe hand and the Bible, of the degrees in which the the tongue and all the organs of the body, Spirit of God may operate on the heart they shall with you not be the instruments of man. There is one work from which of sin but the instruments of righteous- He ceases, because He will not always ness: And thus it is that the corrupt pro- strive; and there is another work which pensities of the heart, wearied out with after He hath begun, He will carry on resistance, and languishing under the con- even unto perfection. There is a tasting stant experience of hopeless and fruitless of God's Spirit by those who afterwards solicitat,,)n, would at length weaken and fall away; and there is an anointing nly expire. The body would be mortified; God's Spirit that remaineth't is this LECTURE LIII-CHAPTER VIII, 13-15. 269 which hath given room to the distinction the Spirit are the sons of God, —the neirs made by theologians, between the saving therefore of what their Father hath to be. and the ordinary influences of the Holy stow, which is life everlasting. Ghost,-the former signifying those by The Scriptures often affirm a harmony which a man is effectually called unto the between two positions, which the first and faith, and afterwards completed in the natural apprehensions of men would lead sanctification of the gospel; and the lat- them to regard as opposed the one to the ter signifying those by which he is made other. We are the children of God says't feel the stirrings of conviction, and a the Apostle by the faith that is in Christ desire and even a partial delight in many Jesus. He is my brother and my sister of the accompaniments of sacredness, says Christ Himself, who doeth the will of which, had he improved, would have been my Father who is in heaven. It is through followed up with larger measures of grace the redemption of the gospel, wherein we and illumination-but which as he quench- obtain a part and interest by believing, ed, do at length vanish into nothing, and that, as Paul says in his Epistle to the Galeave him short of the kingdom of God. latians, we receive the adoption of sons. It In these circumstances it were well, if any is when through the Spirit we mortify the definite or satisfactory mark could be as- deeds of the body, that we are led by the signed, by which to discriminate between Spirit; and, as he says in his Epistle to the one set of influences and the other- the Romans, are the sons of God. You by which to ascertain whether we have will not be disturbed by the utterance of only so much of this heavenly influence these propositions as if they were contraas will suffice for condemning our resist- dictory. You know in the first instance, ance to it; or so much as will carry us that it is by faith, as by the hand of the forward to a meetness for the inheritance mind, that you accept of the offered reabcve. as will be effectual for salvation. conciliation. You know, in the second inNow the verse before us supplies us with stance, that it is by the hearing of faith,;he test that is wanted. There are many and not by the works of the lawv, that the who are solicited by the Spirit of God, yet Spirit cometh. You know in the third inwho are not led by Him-many to whom stance, that the Spirit which so cometh is the Spirit offers the guidance of His light a Spirit of might and good-will for all and of His direction, but who refuse that holy obedience-so that through Him you guidance-many, we believe all, to whom are enabled to mortify the deeds of the the Holy Ghost hath made through con- body. And this last is not the cause why science that ear of the inner man the in- you are led by the Spirit of God, but the timations of His will, yet most of whom proof that you actually are led by Himhave not followed these intimations. They a proof which, if wanting, might still have been in so far then the subjects of argue you to be in possession of His orthe Spirit's operation, as to have been per- dinary, but not in possession of His sanchaps in converse, and even occasionally tifying, and therefore most assuredly not in desirous and delighted converse with of His saving influences; —but a proof Him; but they have not given themselves which having, is to you the best evidence up to His authoritative voice. They have that you are led by the Spirit, and have been so far enlightened by Him, yet not therefore received from God the seal of led by Him. The man who through all being one of His children. the strugglings of remorse, at last gives When you adopt one as a son, it is beway to the power of a temptation, has had -cause you design for him an inheritance; light enough to forewarn him of sin, and and one can conceive something to be light enough after it hath been committed given as the token or the acknowledgment to reprove himself and that most bitterly of his acquired right thereunto. In the because of sin-and yet not power enough act of hiring a servant, there is often a for the warfare of a successful resistance, pledge given by the master; and this asso as not merely to feel what is right but sures to the hireling his title to enter at to follow it. He therefore in this instance the specified time upon his employment. hath not mortified the deeds of his body; Now by one being adopted as a son of and if such be his habit he liveth after the God, there is the destination for him of a flesh and he shall die. It is not they who very splendid inheritance-even one of mourn over the sin, that is practically and eternal glory in the heavens. But this is permanently indulged in; but it is they only entered upon at the term of death; who mortify the sin that are led by the and meanwhile, previous to that, there is a Spirit: And it is by this, as the consecu- pledge or a token bestowed upon him, and tive tie which binds the last verse to the this is the Spirit of God which is styled present one, that the reason is explained by way of eminence the promise of the why they who mortify the deeds of the Father, and which, agreeably to the exbody shall live. They who do so are led planation which we have now given, is by the Spirit; and they who are led by also termed the earnest of our inheritance. 270 LECTURE LI. —-C'HAPTER vIII, 13 —15. This is that grace in time, which is both to this, the spirit of sons is given unto the pledge and the preparation of glory them. And he appeals to the kind of spi-. in eternity; and the best evidence of which rit as being an argument for their being is, that, enabled to mortify all those evil the sons of God-a spirit altogether di. desires which would thwart the purposes verse from that by which many are viof a holy obedience, you are thereby ena- sited, under their first convictions of sin bled to keep the commandments. and of the soul and of eternity; who are But there is a certain style of keeping pierced, as by an arrow sticking fist, with the commandments, which we fear is not an agonising sense of their own guilt and indicative of this grace. It may be done of God's uncompromising authority; who in a scrupulous, fearful, and painstaking are burdened under a feeling that the disway, by one who is under the workings pleasure of Heaven is upon them; and of a natural conscience, and perhaps a whose conscience, all awake to the horterror of everlasting damnation. In this rors of wrath and condemnation, never too it is possible, that there may be a cer- ceases to haunt them with the thought, tain measure of success-the avoidance that, unless they can make good their esof much gross and presumptuous sin, that cape from their present condition, they might else have been indulged In-the are undone. Now, to make this good, penance of many sore and strenuous mor- they will set up a thousand reformations; tifications, so as that the body shall be they will abandon all their wonted fellowstarved, and in a good degree subjected, ships of iniquity; they will strenuously, by the mere force as it were of a dogged and in the face of every temptation, adand stiff determination; and so a kind of here to all the honesties and sobrieties of resolute sullenness in the whole aspect of human conduct; they will betake themthe man's obedience, which certainly is selves to a life of punctuality and prayer; of a different cast,.and has upon it a and moreover graft upon their former hawholly different complexion, from the gen- bit the rigours of devoteeship, the austetleness and the grace and the good-will rities and the forms of Sabbath observawhich characterise the services of an tion. Thus it is that they will seek for affectionate Christian. The truth is, that rest, but they will find none. The law mhere might be a self-denial and a self- will rise in its demands as they rise in infliction which come through constraint their endeavours, and still keep a-head, -a drudgery which is rendered at the with a kind of overmatching superiority stern bidding of authority-a reluctant to all their fruitless and fatiguing efforts compliance to appease the dread or the of obedience. They will labour as in the troublesome remonstrances of the inner very fire and not be satisfied; and all man —Which fall altogether short,-nay their vain attempts to reach the heights are altogether opposite to the temper of of perfection, and so to quell the remoc those, who mortify the deeds of the body strances of a challenging and not yet ap. but do it through the Spirit. What is peased commandment, will be like the la. done is done in their own spirit, which is borious ascent of himl, who, after having the spirit of bondage; and not in that so wasted his strength that he can do no Spirit which cometh firom above, and more, finds that a precipice still remains whereby we are made both to love the to be overcome-a mountain brow that service and Him who enjoins it-to look scorns his enterprise, and threatens to upon God not as a taskmaster but as a overwhelm him. This has been the sad friend, and so to execute His bidding with history of many a weary month, with some the alacrity of those whose meat and whose on whom the terrors of the Lord have drink it is to do His will-to keep the com- fallen heavy-God having looked at them, mandments, not in the spirit of bondage as He did upon the Egyptians from a which is unto fear, but in the Spirit of cloud and troubled their spirits-giving adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father. them no rest, till they fall back again perV. 15. "For ye have not received the haps into the lethargy of despair, and spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye Itake up with this world anew as their have received the Spirit of adoption portion because they have fail-d in their whereby ye cry, Abba, Father." attempts to secure a portion in the next Had it been under a slavish terror that world-Or, if He had a purpose of mercy, the work of mortification was gone into, in this sore visitation of darkness and this would have been no evidence of our tempest and wrath, at length leading them filial relationship to God. It would have to the alone Rock of confidence; and enbeen the obedience of those that were dearing the Physician still more to their lorded over, and not of those who were breasts, that they have been made to feel led as by the cords of love, as by the the disease in all its severity and all its bands of a man. Henceforth ye are not wretchedness. servants or slaves, says Christ to his dis- Now this spirit of bondage, which is ciples, but ye are sons; and, conformably unto fear, can only be exchanged ior the LECTURE LIIt.-CHAPTER VIII' 3 —15. 27 1 Spirit of adoption, by our believing the hath He set forth Christ unto you; and gospel. Every legal. attempt to extricate He bids you enter through Him into full ourselves from the misery of the former repose and reconciliation-accrediting the spirit, will only aggravate it the more; testimony that regardeth His blood, and and we know of no other expedient, by thus will you be washed from guilt-acwhich the transition can be made, than crediting the testimony that regardeth His simply by our putting faith in the testi- services in your room,-and thus will you mony of the Son of God. We have la- be sustained by God as the rightful heirs boured in vain to seek a righteousness of of a purchased and glorious immortality. our own, wherewithal we might stand ac- Submit yourselves therefore anto this ceptably before God, because this is the righteousness of God. Be assured that it wrong way of it. It is true that He will is the grand specific for your case as a not look upon us without a righteousness, sinner; and that you will never, but upon on the consideration of which it is, that this, get solid or legitimate rest to the sole He deems it consistent with the honour of of your foot. Your acceptance of Christ Ilis government and the integrity of His as He is offered to you in the gospel, is the character to take us into favour. But turning point of your salvation. He is never, and on this point the gospel will freely offered; and never will you cease enter into no compact whatever with the to be haunted by the disquietudes of a presumption of weak and guilty man, heart that is not at ease-never will the never will the act of fiiendship be,rm jealousies of the legal temper be done and steady between him and his offen(led away-never will you attempt an act of Lawgiver, in consideration of any right. fellowship with God, without the flaw of e rusness of ours. And the distinct pro- some guilty and misgiving suspicion adposition is, that we shall look unto Christ hering to it-never will YOU know what it as the alone ground of our acceptance is to draw near in the freedom of perfect before Him, unto IHis propitiation as that confidence, with every topic of disturbon which our hopes of pardon do rest, and ance and distrust hushed into oblivion unto His obedience in our stead and for betwixt you —Till taking up with Him on our sakes as that on which we look for His own terms, you alike cast the pride the rewards of eternity. Could I state the and the pain of self-righteousness away, thing more explicitly I would. It is in the and become the children of God through form of bare and unqualified statement the faith that is in Christ Jesus. that the Bible lays it down; and all who I fear, that there are many here present, give credence ther( unto will find, that in who could never allege of themselves at no one instance will they ever be disap- any time, that they had the Spirit of pointed. It is this in fact which forms the adoption —with whom the sense of God grand characteristic peculiarity of our as their reconciled Father, is as entirely a dispensation; it is the burden of those stranger to their heart as is any mystic good tidings which constitute the gospel, inspiration-who have a kind of decent, an. which operated instantaneously as and in some sort an earnest religiousness, (idings of great joy-because they were but have never been visited by any feelno sooner announced in some cases than ing half so sanguine or extatic as this; they were credited-no sooner revealed and who perhaps may be interested tc than they were relied upon. This is the know, by the footsteps of what distinct ot one and the direct stepping-stone bywhich intelligible process, they could come tc you may enter even now into rest. The that filial affection unto God, wherewith merit which you laboured to possess is as yet they have had no familiarity whatalready acquired; and what you seek to ever. I would therefore say, in the first deserve is held out unto you in the shape place, that I know of no more direct exof a free donation. There is a perfect pedient for arriving at this end, than that righteousness already brought in, and you of giving earnest heed unto the word of need not therefore go about to establish the testimony. "Hearken diligently untc one. It will indeed be going about, if you me," saith God, "and your souls shall try to establish a righteousness of your live." Your ears are so accustomed tc own. Many a fruitless round will you what may be called the mere verbiage of have to ply-many a vain and weary cir- orthodoxy, that when sounded anew ot cuit to accomplish; and after all be no another time in your hearing, it stirs up'nearer to your object than at the point no fresh exercise of the thinking princifrom which you departed-many a labo- ple. You are so well acquainted with the rious drudgery, which will be nought but terms, that you arouse not yourselves to a laborious deviation from that plain and the contemplation of the truths. What unerring path, by which, with a majestic you hear. now, you have heard again and simplicity that is stamped upon all His again; and this deafens, as it were, the processes, the wisdom of God would con- whole activity of your understanding-s,: duct you unto Himself. For this purpose, that whilst you recognise the words of the 272 LECTURE LIII.-CHAPTER VIII, 13-15. evangelical system as so many old and sacrifice —It is when thus enabled tc see oft-repeated common-places, you remain God disarmed of all His terrors, and in blind to all the important and affecting stead of the inflexible judge, to behold realities of which these words are never- Him as now reconciled through Christ theless substantially the vehicles. In these Jesus-it is when this assurance is made circumstances, I can give you no likelier directly to bear upon our spirits from the advice, than that you should put your word of revelation, that the confidence of'minds forth and forward from the words our adoption enters into our hearts, and to the things. Be not satisfied with the we can join the apostle and his converts mere expression and cadence of orthodoxy. in crying Abba, Father. Engage, and that closely, steadily, perse- It does not follow, however, because veringly, with the matter of the gospel you lift your eyes, that the manifestation testimony. Think that there has been a is then in readiness, for your first and movement in heaven towards a sinful earliest regards towards it. There may world. Think that the express design of be a cloud which intercepts it from your this movement, was to recall as many of view; and even after many a wishful our alienated race as would, to the joys look towards that quarter whence you exand communions of that paradise, from pect the light and the comfort of divine which they had been exiled. Think that truth to come down upon your soul, may for its accomplishment every barrier in you have to complain that I cannot be. la wayof this return is lifted away; and, lieve, I cannot discern-neither is Jesus more especially, that satisfaction was so Christ evidently set forth crucified before rendered to a violated law, as that they me. One advice of an eminent theolowho have trampled upon it might be gian in these circumstances, and it i? a crowned with honour, and yet the law good one, is that though you should have itself be magnified and made honourable. missed the object of' which you are in Think that the whole burden of your quest a hundred times, still make the guilt, and of its full expiation, has been other and the other effort; and who knows lad upon another; and that all are invi- but that next time you will be met with tcd, and you amongst the number, to come the very revelation which your soul longby this open way of access, and lorthwith eth after? To this advice I would shortly enter into peace with God. If, in lifting add another. While busy in seeking after up your eyes to this contemplation, you the development to your belief of Christ's still find that all above you is haze and work-be equally busy in your practice that all within you is heaviness-continue at the doing of Christ's will. Labour, to look-continue to give heed even until though in the dark. Mortify sin, though the day dawn and the day-star arise in in such a spirit of unsettledness as to be your heart; and when this wondrous almost equivalent to the spirit of bondage. transaction between heaven and earth at Be diligent in duty, and thus might you length unfolds itself to your mental eye, pioneer your way to clearness and to in its characters of bounty and truth and comfort in doctrine. Forget not the saytenderness-when the spectacle of God ing that Christ manifests Himself to those willing, and of God waiting to be gracious, who keep His words; and that the Holy is at length recognised by you-when all Ghost is given to those who obey Him; that moved His wrath and kept Him at a and that they whose eye or whose aim is distance, is seen to be put aside by the single shall have theirwhole body full of work of the great Mediator, and that light; and that to him that hath, more nothing is -left but the exhibition of a shall be given; and that he who wills to mercy now rejoicing in the midst of the do the will of God, and proves the sinother attributes, and pouring a fresh lustre cerity of his will by she vigour of his per. on them all, as it passes onwards to a formances, that he shall be made to knobw guilty world through the channels of a of Christ's doctrine whether it is of Gol. emonse rated priesthood and an infinite LECTURE LIV.-CHAPTER VIII: 16. 273 LECTURE LIV. ROMANS Viii, 16. " The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God." WE can well imagine the desirousness, spoken by Peter, that the Holy Ghost feit wherewith an earnest and aspiring Chris- upon Cornelius and the members of his tian might enter into the interpretation of household. The word of God is the vehithis verse. For, at the first view of it, he cle upon which this heavenly visitant might think that it so far outstrips his maketh entrance into the heart; and the own personal experience, as to leave him very first announcement that He gil es of utterly behind all legitimate hope of his His presence, is by the truths of that word own personal salvation. He may be imprest convincingly and feelingly upon honestly conscious to himself, that he the mind. This is the way in whith He hath never felt any such witnessing as the becometh sensible; and if you look for text seems at least to advert to-no secret the Holy Ghost in any other way than and preternatural intimation of his being through the power of Bible doctrine seen one of God's children-no inward com- to be real, and felt to be morally touchmunion going on between the Spirit of ing and impressive, you will have no more God and his own spirit, whereby he might success than if you looked for a spectre assure himself of that test whereby the or some airy phantom of superstition. apostle and his converts assuredly knew And therefore, if you wilt to realize upon that they were the heirs of coming glory your own person the test by which Paul -no whisper of this sort to the ear of the knew of himself and his disciples that inner man-no feeling of any other prin- they were the children of God, begin ao ciple that was active and astir in his own the beginning. heart, but the'thoughts, and the emotions, Ere you look for that joy which is one and the desires of his own busv and fa- fruit of the Spirit, look to the tidings by miliar self-And thus, on the perusal of which you are made joyful. Ere you look this verse, and of those in St. John where for the peace which is another of His the apostle speaks of the witness in him- fruits, read the pacific message that came self, and of' his positively knowing that from Heaven to earth; and you will cease God had taken up His abode and dwelt in from your disquietude, when you know him even by the Spirit which He had that God hath ceased from His displeasgiven him-why there are many, who, ure. Ere you make sure of love being in from the want of all finding and partici- your hearts towards God, r-lake sure of pation in this sort of experience, feel love being in His heart towards you-for themselves thrown at an utter distance it is only upon your believing sight of from that which ministered the high hopes that love which looketh down from of immortality to the Christian of the Heaven, that a responding love will rise New Testament; and who seek in vain back again from the earth. We know for that inscription on the tablet within, not if the shepherds of Bethlehem became which shone in characters of such bright spiritual men. It is very likely that they and legible reflection to the primitive dis- did, and that the Holy Ghost took up His ciples, and assured them of their being residence within them. But they first Indeed sealed unto the day of redemption, heard the voice from the sky, of glory to of their indeed having the mark imprest God in the highest and peace on earth and ipon them of God's own family. good-will to men; and, under all the Now the first thing that I would say unto doubts and perplexities of your various d11 who are in this state of painful ambi- cogitations, do we also bid you attend to guity, i>, that if they ( an obtain no satis- the import of the same voice-and it is in faction in their inquiry after the tests the attitude of a full outlook on the obwhich they are looking for within, they jects, that you realise upon your own ought to remember, that these tests are person the work and the consequences of come at in no other way, than by a be- faith. And therefore, in defect of experilieving contemplation on their part of cer- ence, in defect of all feeling or confidence tain truths which they should often and on your part that the Spirit is within you, habitually be looking to without. Even in utter darkness though you may be on the Spirit, whose presence and whose in- the question whether you are the subjects ward witness they so vehemently deside- of grace, gaze upwardly and outwardly rate, cometh by the hearing of faith. It on the revealed objects of that economy was in he act of listening to the words of grace which hath been set up in the 35 4 ECTURE LIV.-CHAPTER V:II, 1. view of all-and that, that from the utter- as shall believe. In reply to this it is most ends of the earth all may look and most Important to observe, that His work be saved. Your first business is with the is visible, but His working is not so. It is gospel. Your first attention should be to not of His operation that we are conscious, its overtures. They are the approach and but of the result of that operation. We the errand and the work of the great Me- do not see the wind, though we see the diator, which have a prior and a prefera- impulse and the direction which it gives. ble claim upon you. What you have to many sensible things. And neither can done once, you have to do always; and we tell of the Spirit's agency on a human if ever a confidence sprung up in your soul, though the impression which lie bosom, when to Christ as a great Saviour, hath made upon it may be quite palpable. you brought yourself as an empty unfur- We do not see Him at work, though we nished and altogether helpless sinner, this may see the workmanship that He leaves you have to do again and again-this be- behind Him. As in vegetation our eye is ginning of your confidence you have to upon the fruit, and not upon the secrets hold fast unto the end; and it is by a of that hidden physiology whence all the constant renewal of your affections at the efflorescence cometh-so, in spiritual husfire of this spiritual altar, that the flame bandry, the eye of our consciousness is of your spiritual grace can be so upheld upon deeds that are palpably done and as to be at all distinct or discernible. desires that are palpably felt, and not And even when all discernment of your upon the primary influence which touches inward graces is lost, and nothing remains the inner mechanism and originates all its of which you are sensible but a desire goings. There is much, in that parable, after them-when utterly at a stand on where the kingdom of heaven is likened the question whether you ever had the unto seed thrown into the ground, and Spirit, or whether you have it at this mo- which springeth up one knoweth not how; ment still —You have a patent way by but which still leaves the test unaffected which to secure the attainment that your that by its fruit ye shall know it. The heart is set upon, if it be really so set. If Spirit may not be felt in His access to there be nothing within to which you can the soul, but His fruits may be recognised look with any satisfiction, still you have in the now holy and heavenly affections God above standing forth in the aspect of of the soul. There is neither a light, nor graciousness, and waiting the applica- a voice, nor a felt stirring within, to warn tions of human willingness and human us of His presence; but there may now want. You have that being to repair to, be a goodness, and a righteousness, and a who hath pledged His truth to the promise truth, in the heart which give testimony that He will give the Holy Spirit to them to His power. It is thus that from certain who ask it. When in the chaos and con- plain characteristics we may come at the fiusion of' the inner man, all appearance inference that we are the children of God of His workmanship hath disappeared, -from distinct and intelligible remarks still you can pray; and just as the natu- to which we have access without mystiral hunger ever recurring stands in need cism; and on which apostles have conof constrant and periodical supplies, so it descended in other parts of' the New Tesis of our spiritual necessities. They are tame4it —- Hereby know we that we know not met and conclusively provided for by Him if we keep His commandments." one effusion of living water from on high. "My little children, let us not love in word You perhaps have been counting upon a neither in tongue, but in deed and in stock in hand-when in fact the style of truth." " And hereby we know that we this spiritual administration, is of grace to are of the truth, and shall assure our help you in the time of need. And the hearts before Him." felt time of your need, is the fit time of There is one very obvious way then, in your application. So that let you at which the Spirit may bear witness with present be as far aback as possible, on our spirit that we are the children of God; the question of your having an unction or in which, according to the translation from the HIoly One-there are expedients of many, the Spirit may bear wit aess to between you and utter despondency. or attest to our spirit that we are God's There is the direct act of faith on the children. It is He who worketn a work truths of the gospel, by which the Spirit of grace in our souls, and that work may cometh. There is the exercise of prayer, become manifest to our own consciences. in answer to which the Spirit is &bun- We may read the lineaments of our now dantly poured upon you. renovated character; and it may be re. Now how shall we verify the answer to garded as an exercise of our own spirit this prayer 1 How shall we ascertain that that by which we become acquainted upon us there has been the fulfilment of with the new features or the new charac. that promise which is unto faith-even teristics that have been formed upon our. the HIoly Ghost who is given to as many selves. And we may furthermore read in LECTURE LIV.-CHAPTER VIII, 16. 275 the Bible, what be the Scripture marks him of his own destination to an inherit. of the new creature; and as all Scripture ance of glory? He hath data encugh for is given by the inspiration of God-this such a conclusion. He hath both the is one way in which a joint testimony major and the minor proposition for the may be made out between God's Spirit, winding up of an argument, which to him and our spirit upon the subject; or in at least is irresistible. Still it is the Spirit which a communication may be made to which hath furnished him with both. BII pass from the one to the other-so that it he discerns the evidence that there is in they both shall concur in one and the the Bible, and by it he discerns the reflecsame sentence that we are indeed God's tion that there is of that evidence in his children. The part that the Spirit of God own heart-so that he not only recogbath had in this matter is, that He both nises the Bible to be true, but recognises graves upon us the lineaments of a living himself to be a believer in the Bible. The epistle of Christ Jesus, and tells us in the one recognition in fact may be so clear epistle of a written revelation what these and confident and strong, as to lead inlineaments are. The part which our own stantaneously and forcibly to the other. spirit has is, that, with the eye of con- And thus believing in the Son of God, may sciousness, we read what is in ourselves; he come to have the witness in himself, and, with the eye of the understanding, and assuredly to know that he is one of we read what is in the book of God's tes- God's children. timony: And upon our perceiving that No man can know any thing, or believe such as the marks of grace which we find any thing, but upon evidence. Yet this to be within, so are the marks of grace evidence may be of such prompt occurwhich we observe in the description of rence to him wfien he goes in quest of it; that word without that the Spirit hath and it may work its convictions upon the indited, we arrive at the conclusion that mind so quickly and so powerfully; and we are born of God. with all the rapidity of consciousness But what is more, it is the work of the might so hasten on the argument-that, as Spirit to make one see more clearly in the Bible is true, and he is thoroughly both of these directions-to open one's aware of his own belief in it, therefore to eyes both that he might behold the things him all its promises are sure, and all its contained in the Bible with brighter mani- glorious prospects are unquestionably in festation, and also that he might behold reserve for him: And this sunshine of' the things which lie deeply and to most hope may come so immediately on the undiscoverably hidden within the arcana back of prayer, or be so lighted up at the of his own heart. In virtue of his clearer view of a scriptural passage, or be so outward discernment, he may have a supported by all the regards that he is more sure and satisfying belief in the Son enabled to throw on his past history or of God; and in virtue of his clearer in- on his present feelings-as not only to ward discernment, this belief, now more assure him of the sufficiency of all these sure and strong, may also become more proofs for his personal interest in the sensible. There are many natural truths gospel, but also that it is the Spirit of God in authentic history, in science, in common who at the moment hath assembled them life and experience, which you not only in such force and frequency and radiance believe, but which you know that you around him-Not an intimation from that believe-so that you can not only say of Spirit either by a voice or a direct imthem that these are truths, but of which pulse, but an intimation rationally gathyou can say I know the firmness and the ered from those materials of contemplacertainty of my own faith in them. In tion which it is the office of the Spirit to like manner, a man may both believe in a set before him-gathered from that written gospel truth, and which is a distinct record, to understand which the Holy thing, may know that he believes it. The Ghost hath opened his understandingSpirit may have so far enlightened him as gathered from what he knows of his own to the doctrine, that he is quite satisfied believing heart, to perceive which the as to the truth of it; and may also have Holy Ghost hath enlightened his conso far enlightened him as to the state of science-gathered from the retrospect of his own mind, that he knows the belief his bygone experience, for the perusal of or the conviction to be assuredly there. which the Holy Ghost hath performed the'Let him have no doubt upon this point; office that belongs to Him, of bringing and, on the single assertion that he who all things to his remembrance: And thus believeth in Christ shall be sived, he may through the medium, not of visionary but have no doubt of his salvation. If he most significant and substantial proofs, know himself to be a believer, and also yet proofs brought together in a way that knoweth that every believer shall go to announces the preternatural agency cc-.. heaven, what more is necessary to assure cerned in the representation of them- may 2 76 LECTURE LIV.-CHAPTERt VIII, 16. the Spirit of God witness to the spirit of and to satisfy the enquiring spirit of its man, that he is a child of mercy and that relationship to the family of God. the seal of his redemption is set upon him. Mine eye can carry me no farther I could not, without making my own among these experimental processesdoctrine outstrip my own experience, these hidden mysteries of' the Christian vouch for any other intimation of' the life-these lofty eminences of' grace anc Spirit of God, than that which he gives in of attainment, which, high and inaccessithe act of making the word of God clear ble as they may appear to many who are unto you, and the state of your own heart here present, have nevertheless beer. clear unto you. From the one you draw reached and realized by believers in this what are its promises-from the other world. And would you like to realize what are your own personal characteris- them'l Are you convinced that there is tics; and the application of the first to the much of recorded experience in the Bible second may conduct to a most legitimate and even much of actual and yet occurargument, that you personally are one of ring experience among the Christians of the saved-and that not a tardy or elabo- the day, which overshoots all that you T'ate argument either, but with an evidence have ever felt or become familiar with in quick and powerful as the light of intui- the intimacies of your own bosom? Would tion. By a single deposition of conscience, you like personally to taste of this expe. for example, I.may know that I do indeed rience, to ascertain and upon your own hunger and thirst after righteousness; and, finding what sort of thing after all it isby a single glance with the eye of my Really to have to do with these witnessings understanding, I mayrecognise aSaviour's of' the Spirit-these communications of truth and a Saviour's tenderness in the light and love from the upper sanctuary — promise that all who do so shall be filled; these foretastes of a coming blessednessand,without the intervention of any length- these ecstacies, that, almost look like so ened process of reasoning, I may confi- many inspirations of' which you read in dently give to this general announcement the lives of the holy, but which belong it in the gospel such a specific application would seem to a more elevated region of to myself, as to carry my own distinct faith or of fancy that you have yet soared and assured hope of a particular interest into. We hold it to be no fancy. We therein. Thus there is no whisper by the deem that such a region exists, and we Spirit, distinct from the testimony of the also deem that there is a series of firm word. Thus there is no irradiation, but stepping-stones by which it may be gainthat whereby the mind is enabled to look. ed. We have already spoken, and at the reflexly and with rational discernment outset of these remarks, of the direct upon itself. And here there is no conclu- exercise of faith in the gospel; and we sion, but what comes immediately and now say, that, up to your faith in the irresistibly out of premises which are doctrine, let be your diligent following of clear to me, while they lie hid in deepest *the duties of the gospel. The manifestaobscurity from other men-And all this tions for which you long, are given to you will observe with the rapidity of those who do the commandments ofChrist. thought —by a flight of steps so few, as to You desire to reach the assurance of so be got over in an instant of time-by a bright and joyful an anticipation, as the train of considerations strictly logical, apostle expresses in our text. It is to be while the mind that enjoys and is imprest reached by a path of labour, and so he with all this light is not sensible of any says in another place —"labour with all logic-and yet withal by the Spirit of diligence unto the full assurance of hope God; for it is He who hath brought the unto the end." It is not by a flight of word nigh, and given it weight and sig- imagination that you gain the ascents of nificancy to my understanding; and it is spiritual experience. It is by the toils He who hath manifested to me the thoughts and the watchings and the painstakings and intents of my own heart, and evinced of a solid obedience. Performance alone some personal characteristic within that will not do it-for performance unsanctiis coincident with the promise without; fled by prayer is a legal and a presumpand it is He who sustains me in the work tuous offering. Prayer alone will not do of making a firm and confident applica- it-for prayer unaccompanied with pertion In all this He utters no voice. The formance, is an idle or a hypocritical word of God made plain to my convic- effusion. But prayer and performance tion, and His own work upon me made together will do it. What looks now a plain to my conscience-these are the secret and inaccessible thing, will then vocables, and I do imagine the only voca- become familiar-for the secret of the bles, by which He expresses Himself; but Lord is with them that fear him. What enough to furnish any Christian with a now looks dark and deep and wholly reason of the hope that is in him, and, undiscernible, will then become manifes better thran articulation itself, to solace -for to him that ordereth his conversa LECTURE LIV.-CHAPTER VIII, 16. 277 tion aright will God show His covenant. He is ever ready to bestow on His faithful There is a working to establish a right- followers; and which He delights in eousness of your own, that will land you showering down upon them from His seal in utter disappointment and defeat; but of exaltation-as the tokens of His love to there is also a working which is taken up all those who evince the sincerity of their with a looking unto Christ as the Lord love to Him, in the keeping of His comrnyour righteousness, that brings down mandments. upon your soul the illuminations which LECTURE LV. ROMANS Viii, 17, 18.'And if childYen, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ: if so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified together. For I reckon, that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be com. pared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."' AND if children, then heirs.' The.one our seeing Him led, by a sort of casual implies relationship to God, the other a or influential energy, to the circumstance right of property from Him-differing of our being assimilated to Him-as if we from the corresponding right in society in gathered, by a sort of radiation from Hlis this-that for one man to be the heir of glory, the reflection of a kindred glory another, implies a right to that which the upon our own persons-as if His excelother possesses upon his relinquishing it lencies passed into us when ushered into by death. It is a right in reversion; but Ilis visible presence, and became ours by which, instead of entering upon at the sympathy or ours by transmission. HIe death of another, he enters upon at his does not part with His character; but iHe own death. And he is an heir of God, not multiplies His character by the diffusion because at that period he succeeds Him, of it through all the members uf the blest but because at that period he is admitted household that is above; and the) may by Him into the enjoyment of himself- most significantly be called heirs of God nay into as full a participation as his lirnit- -may be most significantly said to have ed faculties will allow, of the very joys God for their portion, and God for their and the very characteristics of the God- inheritance-When not only admitted to head. He then enters on the glory that is the full and immediate sight of Him; but to be revealed, and he is then filled with when the efficacy of that sight is to acthe whole fulness of God. St. John felt tuate and inspire them with His very afhimself unable to enter into the details of fiections, is to cover and adorn them with what that is which the children of God His very moral and spiritual glories. shall be, but still he could say in the'Heirs of God.' This phrase brings us general that we shall be like Him. He to the. same conclusion as that in which knew of himself and of his fellow-disci- we have often been landed, by the consiples that they were the sons of God, and deration of other phrases and other pasexclaims on the manner of love wherewith sages of the Bible, in regard to the kind God had loved them in that they should be of happiness that is to be enjoyed in heaso called; and then he seems to pass from ven. To be filled with the fullness of God, their relationship as sons of which he is to have a full view of Him as He is; spake with present certainty, to their re- and not merely a full view of His characlationship as heirs of which he could only ter, but a full participation of it. This is speak distantly and dimly-yet speaks in the inheritance that we have to look forsuch a way as makes out a very apposite ward to. An heir hath something in prosconception of our property in God; for pect, and something in reversion; and what canr give us a nearer use and enjoy- this is our prospect. There is a glory to ment of the Deity, than we have by actu- the revealed; and of which we shall be ally seeing Him as Ile is, and so gazing admitted as the beholders, and not only with unexpended delight on all those the beholders but also the sharers of it. lovely and venerable graces by which He Our eye will be direct on the manifested is irradiated-and, what comes nearer to Godhead; and in the act of looking to a communication of Himself unto us or Him we shall be made like unto Him. to our having a portion in the Divinity, We shall imbibe the very character that thanl our being made like unto Him? It we gaze upon; and not only shall we have would look too as if the circumstance of unspotted mo-ral excellence in full and 278 LECTURE LV.-CHAPTER VIII, 17, 18. faultless perfection before us, but we shall These are the properties of that divin have all that inherent delight which inheritance whereunto we are called — springs from the ample possession of it. these are the beatitudes to which, as the So that after all, it is not the happiness of heirs of God, we are invited to look forsense but mainly and substantially the ward; and though we do believe of the happiness of sacredness. It is the very paradise above, that it will be lighted up kind of' happiness wherein God hath in material splendour, and have all the dwelt from everlasting; and in which he hues and graces of material loveliness had supreme and ineffable enjoyment be- scattered over it in rich and infinite pro. fore the world was. It is that happiness fusion-yet will it be in the healthful temto which the viewless Spirit of the Eter- perament of spirits; in the action of mind nal is competent; and which lay pro- upon mind; in the worth, and the benefifoundly seated in the depths of His in- cence, and the piety, that are inwardly comprehensible nature, ere there was any felt by each, and spread abroad in one sensible delight to be tasted or any sen- tide of joyful communication among allsible beauty to gaze upon. He was happy it will be in these that the happiness of in the contemplation of His own virtues; immortals shall essentially lie. It will be and this is a happiness that we are made a moral and a spiritual gladness that shall to inherit, when, admitted into His pre- hold jubilee there; and the high and sence, these virtues stand in illuminated heaven-born festivities that are there englory before us. And Ile was happy in joyed will be characteristic, not of a place the complacent possession of these virtues of sense, but of a place of sacredness. -in the harmony within to which they And this should hold out a lesson to all ever attune the bosom of their serene and who are pressing forward to acquire, or abiding occupation-in the deep and ca- who do now entertain the hopes of the pacious peacefulness, wherewith they gospel. It is a hope which should lead pervaded the very essence of the Divinity directly unto holiness. The son, who is -in that fulness of joy, whereof purity also heir, receives upon his spirit an imand righteousness and love are the sole pression and a tinge from the nature of but the sufficient elements. This happi- his inheritance. If it be an inheritance ness too we are made to inherit, when the of wealth-he may now be busied with all character of God is not only set before the plans, and have entered in some deus in radiant perspective, but is made ours gree upon the habits of expenditure. If in real and actual possession-when all it be the inheritance of an official dignity His moralities take up their dwelling-place -he even now rises upward in thought to in our own souls, and have over them en- the measure of the elevation that awaits tire and absolute dominion-when, in the him. If it be a place of duty, and where ethereal play of our kind and holy and eloquence or scholarship or high philosoheavenly affections, we shall have plea- phy be indispensable to the discharge of sure for evermore-when ours shall be it-then will he give himself' up to the the blessedness that essentially resides in toils of an unseen but busy solitude, to the every well-conditioned and well-consti- labours of the midnight oil in the work of tuted spirit; and opposed to all that tur- preparation. And so if it be a place of bulence and misery, which wrath and ma- holy delights and holy exercises-will lice and deceit and the fierceness of un- there even now be a foretaste of the hallowed desire are ever stirring in the coming joy, and a preparation for the heart which they agitate and possess- coming services. The expectants of heathere will be a well of living water in the ven will even now, be of heavenly chasoul, the play of a celestial fountain that racter and heavenly conversation. There yields to the feelings a perpetual refresh- will be a mortification unto the present, ment; and which, apart from all external there will be an engrossment with the gratification, can minister the choicest concerns of the future. The urgencies of sweets of elysium from the deep and in- sense will be resisted, because they are ward complacencies of rectitude alone. not the delights of sense which are to And then there is the sympathy of all constitute the portion of their eternity. this conscious feeling between soul and The high communions of sacredness will soul,-there is the diffusion of God's own be aspired after, because it is a habitalikeness over all the individuals of Hea- tion of sacredness whither they are going. ven's family-there is the moral radiance The spirit of holiness that is in them that issues from His throne, and is re- here, will be the earnest to them of a hcly flected back again from the countenance inheritance hereafter. They will know of all the worshippers who are around it themselves to be strangers and pilgrims; -there is the law of kindness, that ema- and their affections will be kindred with nates from the central place of glory, and the country to which they travel, and not circulates throughout the mighty hosts with the country through which they pass. both of the redeemed and the unfallen- They will sit loose to this world's cares LECTURE LV.-CHAPTER VIII) 17, 18. 279 and this world's pleasures; and thus a you it is freely gwven, because by Him i'. patience under all earthly discomforts, and has been amply earned. a self-denial to all earthly gratifications, But though we had no part with Christ will be to them the discipline that shall at in the purchase of that inheritance which once inspire the hope and qualify for the belongs jointly to Him and to us, yet there enjoyment of higher gratifications. is one thing that is common betwixt us.' Joint-heirs with Christ.'-The term son He alone achieved the pur'chase. He trod implies only a relationship. The term the wine-press alone. And when, He saw heir implies something more-a right to that there was none to help, His own arm something in reversion, and on which we brought Him salvation. But whilst there are afterwards to enter. The heir hath a is no similarity between Him and us as to title to the inheritance; and joint-heirs the fulfilling of that righteousness by have a joint or common title thereunto. which heaven is purchased, there is a simWe who believe in Christ have a common ilarity as to the fulfilment of that righttitle with Christ, to the inheritance that is eousness by which heaven is prepared for. above. It is a title by us possessed, but It was He who reared the pathway of by Him purchased. It is called a pur- communication between earth and heaven; chased inheritance, because a.price was but He not only reared it, He also walked given for it-a ransom or a redemption- upon it, and we have to fbollow His steps. price, whereby the title that we had for- For this purpose He was set forth as an feited is again made up to us-a right that example; and to make it an applicable we share along with Him who earned it — and an imitable one, He assumed such a and of which it is most material that you humanity as felt the power of temptation, should know, that by Him it was alto- though He overcame it-as was tried by gether bought, and to us it is altogether sufferings, and was actually schooled into rendered in the form of a present. There perfection thereby-as was exercised by is not a greater stumbling-block in the affliction in such a way as to be taught way of our entrance upon the divine life, by it, and from it to learn obedience. We than the legal imagination that we often have nought but revelation to guide us set out with, of making good as our claim through the mysteries of a nature that that which is freely offered to us as a gra- none but He ever realised-yet it was a tuity. We either never shall be satisfied nature so conformable to ours, as that we with the goodness of such a claim, and so could make a study and a copy of it; and, be all along haunted by a most oppres- accordingly, we are told by the apostle in sive sense of insecurity; or, if we are his epistle to the Hebrews, that the Capsatisfied, it is only by dishonouring God- tain of our salvation was made perfect by bringing down His law to the measure through sufferings-that by the things of our loyalty,-by an affronting com- which He did suffer He learned obediparison between the lofty commandment ence-that He became qualified by this of Heaven and our unworthy and polluted process of discipline to make our sufferservices. And, accordingly, this is a ings the instruments of our sanctification, point on which the gospel will stoop tono even as His sufferings were the instrucompromise whatever with human guilt. ments as we are expressly told of His It makes you welcome to heaven, but not sanctification-that both He who sanctithrough the works of righteousness that fieth and they who are sanctified are in you have done; and if you persist to this respect one —that from the like conmake this the footing on which you rest test of trials here, there is the like crown your hopes of immortality-this it de- of triumph hereafter-and that He hath nounces as a presumption on your part not only pointed out this way by describwhich it resents to the uttermost, and for ing it before us, but hath been enabled which it has no toleration. You must take thereby to help us over all its-difficulties; he gift of eternal life, if you are to obtain for "to him that overcometh" he says it all, on the footing of that mercy which "will I grant to sit with me on my throne, hath saved us-and of mercy too, that, even as I also overcame and am set down not satisfied with giving it as a simple with my Father on his throne." donation, gives it conjoined with all the' If so be that we suffer with him that securities of a title-deed, and of a legal we may be also glorified together' —or investiture. It is given to you in conside-'seeing that we suffer with him that we ration of a righteousness, and that not may also be glorified together.' There is your own but the righteousness of Jesus this difference you will perceive of import Christ; and you altogether defeat the between the two phrases'if so be that,' economy of the gospel, and miss the very and' seeing that.' By the former phrase, spirit which it is designed to impress upon the present suffering is made the essential sinners, if you hold not by your hopes of conditioni of our future glory. By the a coming inheritance, on the terms that to latter ~F'se, the preset suffering is re. 280 LECTURE LNV. —CHAPTER VIIII 17, 18 cognised as that which hath actually hap- ened them the more-how it, in a manner pened; and the future glory as that in compelled us upon ourresourcesin heaven which it will most assuredly terminate. to make up for crosses and deficiencies on And though we would not say of suffer- earth; and, in so doing, brought us into ings in time, that they are indispensable closer contact and made us have more to the triumphs of eternity-yet, certain abundant conversation there —So, in a it is, that the one is often made the step- word, as to confirm our attitude of stranping-stone to the other. Certain it is, that, gers and pilgrims upon earth; and habitin point of fact, they are the instruments uate us to the frame of those, who, looking a)f a salutary discipline for the growth and forward to another resting-place, sit loose establishment of a believer in holiness. to the world and to all its treacherous They not only go before our glory in enjoyments. heaven; but it is expressly said that they Arid it would greatly lighten the burden work out that glory. "' Our light af- of our afflictions, did we but lay our acflictions which are but for a moment work count with them —did we regard them as out for us a far more exceeding and eter- forming a necessary part of our lot-did nal weight of glory." The chastisements we, forewarned of their frequency, stand of God yield, it is said, the peaceable fruit in the attitude of readiness and were preof righteousness; and they are inflicted pared to receive them. It would serve to for the express purpose of making us par- repress the murmurs of our impatience, takers of His own holiness. "It is good" and reconcile us to the hardships of life, for me says the Psalmist "that I have did we look on life as a journey whose been afflicted." "Ere I was afflicted I hardships must be traversed; and that went astray." And it is very remarkable they, in fact, were the steps of that labothat the Saviour who assumed the person, rious ascent which led to the higher scenes and put on the infirmities, and became of a sinless and unsuffering kingdom. subject to the temptations of a man-that There is nought which aggravates more He also exemplified the very processes by the painfulness of affliction, than the which humanity is purified and exalted thought that we have been singled out unto a meetness for the celestial habita- for calamities which are but rarely exemtions-that He, of whom we might well plified in the world; and one of the most imagine that He had nothing to learn, familiar effusions of discontent is-that actually learned obedience by the things never was man so beset and tormented which He suffered-that He, of whom no and cruelly agonised both by misfortune one could think that any imperfection and injustice, as I have been. To meet adhered to Him, actually became perfect this tendency, the apostle makes use of through suffering-that He, whose natural many arguments. He tells us that our manhood was carried forward from in- afflictions are not rare-"Think not that fancy in a way analogous to the rest of any strange thing hath happened unto the species, seems to have grown to His you," and that others experience the same moral and spiritual manhood in the same -" There has nought befallen you that is way, being cradled among the elements not common to the rest of your brethren of suffering and pain, being tutored in the in the world," and that it is not so great as school of adversity, being tried and at might easily be imagined —" Ye have not length established in virtue under the yet resisted unto blood striving against lesssons of this severe teacher-So be- sin;" and, lastly, that they are useful in coming in all points, with the single ex- the great work of our spiritual education. ception of sin. like as we are-not feeling Be reconciled therefore and patient. You only as we ought to feel, and acting as we do not know what others suffer as well as ought to act, but learning as we ought to you. The heart knoweth its own bitterlearn.. ness: And each believer hath his own I have had occasion formerly to explain appropriate visitation laid upon him, by in your hearing the beneficial efficacy of the God who chastens because He loves; an afflictive process-how it emptied the and who conforms us to Christ in suffering, heart of an idol that had seduced or with- because He means that we shall be condrawn us too muich from God-how it formed unto Him in glory. loosened the tie by which man is so often V. 18. "For I reckon that the suffering, lbound to the vanities of a perishable of this present time are not worthy to be world-how by rending asunder the con- compared with the glory which shall be nection that there formerly was between revealed in us." our affections and certain earthly objects This is a testimony which cometh well by which these affections were secularised, from the apostle Paul who was so singuit left the soul more clear and unoccupied larly afflicted in his day; who stood at fot the things of God and eternity-how, all times in imminent peril of his life, from additionally to all this, it tried our faith and the unrelenting enemies of that faith patience, and by the very trial strength- which he so steadfastly adhered to; who, LECTURE LV.-CHAPTEIR VIII, 17, 18. 281 in addition to fightings from without, had this world. The man who frets impa. fears and forebodings within; and whose tiently, under the little crosses and disas. spirit, made the subject of constant agita- ters of our peaceable day-who abandons tion and turmoil both from his misgivings himself to despair, when his visions of as to the success of his ministry and from prosperity on this side of time are scat. that deep and tender sensibility of con- tered by the hand of misfortune into science which rendered him so alive to nothing —who feels that all is lost, because his own weakness, was well nigh wearied the earthly portion upon which he set his into utter despondency-so that he longed heart is lost-who, differently reckoning to depart firom the world, and to be with fiom Paul, reckons himself an outcast Christ which he deemed far better. Such from hope and happiness because of the a testimony from a man of so much expe- clouds that sit on this temporary scenerience in the sufferings of life, should be He may try himself by these marks, and prized by the sufferers of after ages- learn how little indeed it is that he lives even as the record of that grace and mer- by the power of a coming world-learn cy which were bestowed upon him a sin- how, after all, when his faith is brought to ful persecutor, should be prized by the a really practical test, it is found most sinners of all after ages. It is a signal wofully to fail him-and, more especially exhibition of the power of faith, proving learn, how possible it is to have quite the that with him immortality was somewhat form of sound words, and to have all the more than a dream-that it was embodied notions and phrases of the evangelical into a practical reality; and had the same system, without being impregnated with substantial influence to console him, in that faith which is the substance of things the dark and trying hour of adversity, as Ihoped for, the evidence of things not the near prospect of deliverance even in I seen. LECTURE LVI. ROMANS viii, 19-22. For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope; because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children ot God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now." V. 19-21 "Foa the earnest expectation holdeth true, that, though they cannot of the creature waiteth for the manifesta- hope, they at least wait a restoration. We tio(n of the sons of God. For the creature cannot ascribe to them, without an effort was made subject to vanity, not willingly, of poetry or of personification, the posture but by reason of him who hath subjected of looking forward to that day of their the same in hope; because the creature coming enlargement, when they shall be itself also shall be delivered from the emancipated from the distress and imprisbondage of corruption into the glorious onment in which they are now held —But liberty of the children of God." still when we include them in the descripTo understand these verses let it first be tion of these verses, we commit no greater adverted to, that the term here translated violence upon the literalities of sober and creature signifieth also creation; and so prosaical truth than is done in other parts might comprehend all animate and all in- of Scripture-when all nature is sumanimate things. It is true, that the inani- moned to an act of attendance upon God mate are not capable of hope; and this -when the voice of praise is heard by feeling perhaps should not be extended the ear of fancy as arising to heaven from beyond the members of the human family the mountains and the forests, and the -though, certain it is, that, amongst the valleys are made to sing, and the little inferior tribes of living creatures, there is hills on every side to rejoice-when on also, in some partial degree, the same the approach of its Maker, the whole crerestlessness, the same dissatisfaction with ation is represented as vocal-when the present things, the same desire of things fields are called upon to break forth into better, and perhaps even the same tenden- gladness, and the floods to clap their cy of wish and expectation towards them, hands. These all are now waiting such that are so palpably evident of ourselves an advent and such a jubilee as this; and all the fellows of our species And and there is no great stretch of the imagi. then of mute and insensible th.:gs it nation, when the apostle affirms that thei 363 28t2 LECTURE LVI.-CHAPTER VIII, 19-22. all now nope for a futurity, at which when been made subject to vanity not willingly it becomes present the Psalmist figures on the part at least of any who now live them to rejoice. but by reason of him who by his fata The next remark that we shall offer for disobedience hath brought it into this the elucidation of' these verses is, that the bondage-yet it is a bondage that is middle clause of the 20th verse should be mingled and alleviated with hope; and thrown into a parenthesis. The main that too a warranted hope, because creaassertion of this verse is, that the creature tion shall also be delivered firom the bonwas made subject to vanity in hope; and dage of corruption: And emancipated we are told by the way that it was so from those fetters which now bind and made subject unwillingly, or without its burden and make it impracticable and own consent. It was not for example by ungracious, it will come forth in smiles any wilful act of theirs, that animals were that shall be perennial and immortal, it made subject to death. There could be will yield a grateful compliance to the no willingness on the part of the ground, wishes of its happy inrlmates, and have in in that act of which its curse was one of all its operations the beneficent flow and the consequences. It could be from no freedom of God's own children. fault of the will in nature, that she was Having rendered to you a general ex. visited with that sore distemper, under position of this remarkable passage, let which she now labours; and whereof she us now look a little more narrowly into giveth palpable symptom in the volcano, the separate clauses of it. and the earthquake, and the storm, and'For the earnest expectation of the that general conspiracy of all her ele- creature waiteth for the manifestation of ments against which man has to fight and the sons of God.' We have already hinted to fatigue himself his whole life long- at the extension of this clause even to the that he might force out a subsistence, and lower animals, and to mute insensible keep footing through a history that is things. There might be somewhat of made up of little better than to drudge personification and fancy in such an and to die.* It was not of its own will- application. But there is no fancy in ingness that the creation was thus brought generalising it so far, as to include at under the power of vanity, but by reason least all the members of the great human of him who subjected the same. There family. There is a sort of vague unde. are some who understand this of the great finable impression, we think, upon all tempter, who, by seducing man from his spirits, of some great evolution of the obedience, brought death into our world present system under which we liveand all its woe. Others understand him some looking towards, as well as longing who yielded to that temptation, our first after immortality-some mysterious but parent, at whose fall a universal blight yet powerful sense within every heart, of came upon nature and she is now become the present as a state of confinement and a wreck of what she was-still lovely in thraldomrn; and that yet a day of light and many of her aspects, though in sore dis- largeness and liberty is coming. We.ress-still majestic and venerable, though cannot imagine of unbelievers, that they a venerable ruin-appearing as if out of have any very precise or perhaps confijoint; and giving token by her extended dent anticipation on the subject, any more deserts, and the gloom of her unpeopled than the world at large had of the advent solitudes, and her wintry frown, and her of our Messiah-though a very general many fierce and fitful agitations, that some expectation was abroad of the approachmysterious ailment hath befallen her. ing arrival of some great personage upon So that the whole passage may be thus earth. And, in like manner, there is paraphrased. The creation is now wait- abroad even now the dim and the distant ing, as if in the attitude of earnest expec- vision of another advent, of a brighter' tancy, for that era-when, transformed and a blander period that is now obscurely into a new heavens and a new earth, it seen or guessed at through the gloom by shall become a suitable habitation for which humanity is encompassed-a kind those who are declared and manifested to of floating anticipation, suggested perhaps be the sons of God. For creation, then to by the experimental feeling that there is be so gloriously restored, has for a time now the straitness of an opprest and limited condition; and that we are still A few of the following passages had been transferred among the toils, and the difficulties, and twelve years ago, from the author's MS. Lectures on the the struggles, of an embryo state of exist Romans to his preparations on Natural Theology, and a have since been printed from p. 389 onward of vol. ii of ence. It is altogether worthy of remark his work on that subject. Neverti:eless they are still re- and illustrative of our text, that, in like taned here though in a different: connection; and to throughs curselves at least it is interesting to feel, that the same manner as th e various countries process of reflection which suits the dimness of nature of the world, there is a very wide impresanterior to the light of Christianity, is alike suitable to sion of a primeval condition of virtue and our present state, while we yet see through a glass darkly and anterior to the _isclosures of our future immcrtality. blessedness from which we have faller. LECTURE LVI.- CHAPTER VII, 19 —22. 283 so there seems a very wide expectation are subject to it. Through the whole of of the species being at length restored to life doth man walk in a vain show, and the same health and harmony and loveli- he vexeth himself in vain; and even ness as before. The vision of a golden though it had flowed in one clear and age at some remote period of antiquity, is untroubled current of felicity, how surely not unaccompanied with the vision of a and how sadly it reacheth its termination yet splendid and general revival of all It is this which puts a mockery on all the things. Even apart from revelation,there splendour and stateliness of this world. floats before the world's eye the brilliant The grave absorbs all and annihilates all; perspective of this earth being at length and as one generation maketh room for covered with a righteous and regenerated another, and the men of the present age family. This is a topic on which even are borne off the scene by the men of the philosophy has its fascinating dreams; age that is to follow, we cannot regard and there are philanthropists in our day the history of our species, and indeed of who disown Christianity, yet are urged all the living tribes that people the surface forward to enterprise by the power and of this labouring earth-we cannot regard the pleasure of an anticipation so beauti- it in any other light than as a series of ful. They do not think of death. They abortions. There is so much of the proonly think of' the moral and political glo- mise of immortality in the high anticiparies of a renovated world, and of these tion and heyday of youth-there is so glories as unfading. It is an immortality much of the seeming power of irmortalafter all that they are picturing. While ity in the vigour of established manhood they look on that gospel which brought -there is even so much of the character life and immortality to light as a fable- of endurance in the tenacity wherewith Still they find that the whole capacity of age keeps itself rivetted to the pursuits their spirits is not filled, unless they can and interests of the world, to its busy regale them with the prospect of an in- schemes, and its eager prosecutions, and mortality of their own. Nothing short of its castles of fame or accumulated fortune this will satisfy them; and whether you -clinging, as it does, to these things on look to those who speculate on the per- the very brink of the sepulchre; and fectibility of mankind, or those who keeping the firmer hold with the hand of think in economic theories that they are avarice, the sooner that its deeds and its laying the basis on which might be reared documents and its various parchments of the permanent happiness of nations-you security are to be torn away from itsee but the creature spurning at the nar- WThy the whole picture looks so farcical rowness of its present condition, and if I may be allowed the term-that surely waiting in earnest expectancy for the it may well be said of life under its hapmanifestation of the sons of God. piest guise, and in the midst of its great-'For the creature was made subject to est prosperity, that it is altogether subject vanity. We have already spoken some- unto vanity. what of the inanimate creation-of the'Not willingly but by reason of himn curse under which the ground lieth, and who hath subjected the same.' This the consequent toil to which man is sub- as I said before is a parenthesis, by jected that he might live-of the visible which the main current of observation is derangernent into which nature has been suspended. Yet here it comes most perthrown, so that all her elements are im- tinently in. This is a condition which pregnated with disease, and often by hath passed upon it by the sentence of hurricane or pestilence or sweeping flood the Creator, not gone into with the conbecome the ministers of desolation. We sent of the creature. It is a thing of ordo not know how much lovelier' the face dination not of choice. The mute and of creation would have stood out to the inanimate things had no choice of that eye, had not sin entered within its con- derangement which they have been made fines. WVe do not know what tints of to undergo —of that decay under which sweeter beauty had diversified the land- so many of them, and these the loveliest scape, or with what finer notes of melody in nature, do yearly sicken and expire; and peace the purer and fresher atmos- and so exemplify a death that likens them phere4iad been charged. It is not for us to those who are immediately above to tell the precise amount of deterioration, themselves in the scale of creation. Neiwhich the mute and unconscious material- ther had the inferior animals any volunismk hath sustained by the fall of Adam. tary part in that law of mortality whereBut certain it is, that vanity hath thereby unto they are subject-or in that law of obtained a sad ascendant over every their sentient or organic nature by which thing that lives on the surface of our in obedience to a tyrant appetite, they go lower world. It was by sin that death forth upon each other in mutual fierceness entered amongst us; and this stamps the to raven and to destroy. And even with character of vanity of vanities on all who man it is a thing of destiny, and he comes 284 LECTURE LVI.-CHAPTER VIII, 19-22. into the world all unconscious of that ty informs the conscience, that what the which is abiding him. What does an in- present void and the present agony are fant know of death or what does it now, such will they ever be —when the know of those restless passions by which weight that is now upon the spirit is ere death ensues, the period that inter- surely believed by the owner of it to be venes is a troubled dream of vexation and irremediably there; and there is ever vanity. They lie unevolved and sleep in ringing in his ear, the unvaried knell of a myster ous embryo among the curious re- ceaseless and changeless and comfortless ceptacres of its little bosom. If this sub- eternity. Such may be the sad state of jection of our world unto vanity is resol- those apostate spirits that have fallen vible into willingness at all, it must be before us; but it is not ours. The vanity the willingness of those first parents who to which we are subject is mingled with yielded to it. And it is indeed a most hope; and it bears a kind of experimenstriking demonstration of the malignity tal evidence to that economy under which of' sin, and of God's unfaltering hostility we live, that the prospects which it sets against it-that, on its first entrance with- before us are so adapted to principles in the confines of' our planet and ever which God hath still permitted to remain since, Nature took on a hue of sickliness; in our nature. It shows that there is a and the very elements were charged with counterpart within us to the doctrine that disease; and even that ground, which erst is without us. It secures a more ready offered a soft and flowery carpet for the coalescence on our part with the revelaimpress of ethereal footsteps, gathered tion of immortality. It gives to that revinto a more rugged and intractable temper elation the advantage of being met with than before; and death established its and responded to, in a way that it could grim relentless empire over every thing not so promptly and immediately have that breathes; and more especially man been, had there not been such an adaptahas been doomed by the very nobleness tion between the mechanism of our spirits of his endowments, by the greater reach and the matter that is addrest to them. It Df his forebodings and the finer sensibili- secures it, that we shall spring forth with ties that belong to him, to a larger partic- more alacrity and desire to that message ipation, to a higher pre-eminence in the by which our futurity is unfolded-And general distress. however misdirected this tendency of our'In hope.' Take away the parenthesis nature, either on the part of those who and you read' Vanity in hope'-or an have a false mythology and a fabled elyexperience of present evil mixed with the sium, or on the part of those who without anticipation of release fiom it. In the religion at all have still a philanthropy condition of' the accursed angels, there is that urges them forward in pursuit of an evil unmixed and unalleviated. We can earthly elysium that after the lapse of imagine it, but we do not feel it. We generations they conceive to be waiting deem that in every clime and with every our species-still they are better subjects human creature, there is, it may be dimly for being plied with the doctrine of a true and faintly, but there is we think a sort revelation, than ift' they had no such tenof restless aspiring towards better things, dency. which could not exist within a certain That there is this tendency, and a prospect of enlargement. There is a con- strong one too, even without and beyond stitutional impulse in the human spirit, the limits of Christianity is quite obvious. by which it is ever stretching forward to The very thirst after immortal fame, on a better and a happier condition than the the part of orators and philosophers and one which it now occupies; and if it can poets, is an exemplification of it; and so find no earthly prospect on which to rest, are the magnificent sketches of a proudel still the tendency abides with us; and and better day for our species, that float goads us on as it were to unknown futu- before the eye of our sanguine econoturity, which we fill with wishes and mists; and so is every effort to shake off schemes and fond imaginations, rather the trammels of antiquity, and to speed than that a faculty should lie unemployed if' possible with an innovator's hand, the or a feeling should continue to actuate amelioration of our race; and so are our hearts that shall be left without an those lovely visions of a world regeneratobject to exercise and entertain it. We ed into benevolence and purity and cannot fincy a situation of greater wretch- peace, that certain uninspired prophets edness, than that from which hope is ex- love to gaze upon. Each has a millennieluded, and before which there lies no um of his own on which he doats and open vista whatever that admits one ray dwells with kindred imagination; and of light from the fathomless unknown; or whether you read of the future triumphs rather perhaps when it is all known to of virtue by the progress of light, or are be the cheerless infinite of one vast and called to look upon it in the perspective unknown desolation-when grim certain- of planned and regulated vi lages-put LECTURE LVI.-CHAPTER VIII, 19-22. 285 all down to the craving appetite, or even of these wild and untaught children of to the strong expectancy that there is in Nature, that they -hoped specifically for human bosoms, for some bright and beau- the glorious liberty of the children of God teous evolution in the history of human -though we should say, that, because affairs. such a liberty is awaiting us, therefore There is a prophetic announcement of there is a general hopefulness of some ensuch an era, or, what is stronger still, a largement or other among all the memhabitual advertance to it, on the part of bers of the human family. There is a many prophets and apostles and evange- marvellous adaptation between the truths lists. This is a topic on which Christians of the gospel, and the constitutional tenfeel that they have a warrant for very no- dencies of those to whom it is addressed. ble and high anticipations. The gospel There are counterparts in revelation, to throws open to the eye of faith a vista, every feeling and every faculty of nature. that terminates in a better day of glory There is something in it suited to our fears and of rejoicing which shall fill the whole and our wishes and also to our hopes; and earth; and with this peculiarity, which is in all that is said of the millennium and all its own, that, while it points the eye to the latter-day glory, do we recognise a this moral scene, it puts into the hand that tallying accordancy with an expectation, specific instrument by which it is to be which, however it may have originated, is realized. It is through the ministry of in some shape or other very widely diffusthat by which the world is reconciled, ed throughout the world. that it shall at length be regenerated. It But let it be your care, my brethren, to is on their acceptance of the message of have a hope more precise and practical peace, that a purifying influence is to de- than this-a hope that looks forward to scend from the sanctuary; and, in very the prospects, and is founded on the proproportion as the word of faith circulates mises of the gospel-a hope of enlargeand finds admittance with the species, will ment certainly, but such an enlargement the work of renovation take effect upon as even now it is competent for you at them. And, amid all the ridicule which least to enter upon though not fully to is incurred by those who put their trust in expatiate in it. What the liberty is, we the operation of a preached gospel, we, may infer from what the bondage is. It at this very day, have witnessed the sam- is the bondage of corruption from which ples of its efficacy. And surely it is not you are to be delivered; or, in other words, for us who know the wonders of mission- it is the liberty of a will set free from the ary success; who, within the compass of tyranny of evil desires into which you are our own evanescent memory, have seen to be translated. It is a moral and spirithe transition of a whole people from the tual liberty to which you look-a release grossness of heathenism to the light and from the servitude of sin, from the power love of Christianity-it is not for us to and the prevalency of those base and give up as hopeless the cause of this earth-born affections which war against world's amelioration. the soul. Now let me apprise you, that, V. 21. "Because the creature itself to obtain. this release, the soul must now also sbhall be delivered from the bondage put forth all the energy that is in it, and of corruption, into the glorious liberty of forthwith embark on a war against them. the children of God." If you permit them to be your tyrants in Because-is capable from the original time, they will be your tormentors throughlanguage of being rendered into that-in out eternity. Here the victory will not be which case the passage would run thus- complete, but here the battle must be beFor the creature was made subject to gun; and it is only to him who overcomvanity, in hope that the creature itself eth in the conflicts of grace, that the crown shall be delivered from the bondage of of glory is given. The hope of the goscorruption.'-We prefer however the pre- pel is not that floating and vague and sent translation. It is not true that all aerial speculation, which is merely adhave the specific hope of a deliverance in dressed to the contemplative faculties, and the terms of the verse-though all I think over which a man may luxuriate in a sort have a kind of longing and indefinite hope of indolent elysium of the fancy. It is a -a vague anticipation of a better and a hope that turns immediately to a practical higher existence that awaiteth them-a account; and, if real, will urge forward, fond imagining of future bliss-Not con- and that immediately, in a practical difined to the mythologies or the faiths of rection. The hope of unspotted holiness the old world; but felt even by the In- in heaven, leads to the toils and the trials diana of the new,-mixing itself with their and the purifications of holiness upon feasts and their battles and their war- earth. This is the life on which a man songs, and descending with something enters, and that in good earnest and inn like the power of inspiration upon their real spirit of business, on the moment that hearts. We would not however just say his mind is taken possession of by a true 286 LECTURE LVI. —CHAPTERP VIII, 19-22. faith in the gospel. It is when we know sing, but sublime and comprehensive rethe truth that the truth makes us free. It gard, unworthy of a place in the page of is when we look to the fulness of that inspiration. And accordingly, set and propitiation which was made for the sins shrined as it were in an epistle the most of the world, and feel how under its bless- replete of them all with the very strictest ed operation all sense of guilt and of peculiarities of the theological creed, do reckoning is made to disappear from the you find an image more striking I am sure conscience-it is then that we are loosed and more descriptive of a universal chafrom the bond of despair, and can see racter, that takes in the whole compass that there is a hope in the new obedience of nature in all its varieties, than any which of the gospel. And it is then too that we I have ventured to bring forward-the creare visited with trust, when before there ation in a state of big and general diswas terror-that we are visited with a de- tress, giving token of some pregnant but light in those ways, to which before there yet undisclosed mystery wherewith it is were distaste and antipathy-that we are charged, and heaving throughout all its visited with gratitude to Him, who before borders with the pains and the portents was lightly esteemed by us-and that, of its coming regeneration. under the impulse of this gratitude, we This is the aspect which our present enter with alacrity and good-will on that system of things bore to the eyes of the new path, which, by His example and His apostle, and its aspect still. The world is precepts He hath pointed out to us. You not at ease. The element in which it have no part nor lot in these things, if you floats is far from being of a tranquil or a are not so bestirring yourselves. rejoicing character. It has somehow gone V. 22. 1"For we know that the whole out of adjustment; and is evidently off creation groaneth and travaileth in pain the poise or the balance of those equable together until now." movements, in which we should desire It may be thought by some that there is that it persisted for ever. Like the stray a little too much the character of fancy member of a serene and blissful family, in our previous remarks, for the solid and it has turned into a wayward comfortless simple instruction of those to whom they ill-conditioned thing, that still teems howare addressed. And yet you find that the ever with the recollection of its high origievangelical Paul, he who was determined nal, and wildly gleams and gladdens in to know nothing save Jesus Christ and the hope of its future restoration. It hath Him crucified, he who gloried to preach all the character now of being in a transithe gospel in the face of the oppositions of tion state; and with all those symptoms vain philosophy and of science falsely so of restlessness about it which brooding called-you find of him that he casts a insect undergoes, ere it passes into the widely speculative eye over the whole death-like chrysalis, and come forth again creation, which in this verse he represents in some gay and beauteous expansion on as groaning and travailing in pain. It is the fields of our illuminated atmosphere. quite obvious that he here extends the Meanwhile it is in sore labour; and the range of his contemplations, beyond the tempest's sigh, and the meteor's flash, and limits of the Christian church properly so not more the elemental war than the concalled. In the next verse, he expressly flict and the agony that are upon all singles out believers, whom he represents spirits-the vexing care, and the heated also as in the agony of a yet unfulfilled enterprise, and the fierce emulation, and expectation. Not only they-that is Na- the battle-cry both that rings among the ture at large-not only they but we who inferior tribes throughout the amplitude have the first-fruits of the Spirit do groan of unpeopled nature and that breaks as inwardly. So that in this the present loudly upon the ear from the shock of verse, he is indulging himself with a very civilized men-above every thing the ample perspective —he is taking a distant death, the sweeping irresistible death, outlook beyond the precincts of the con- which makes such havoc among all the secrated territory-he is roaming abroad, ranks of animated nature, and carries off as it were, and with generalised survey as with a flood its successive generations over the whole expanse of animate and These are the now overhanging evils of a inanimate things -he counts not this pas- world that has departed from its God. LECTURE LVII.-CHAPTER VIII, 23-25. 285 LECTURE LVII. ROMANS viil, 23-25. And riot only they, but ourselves also, which have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we oursel res groan within our. selves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. For we are saved by Lope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." V. 23. " AND not only they, but ourselves tabernacle do groan being burdened-nol also, which have the first-fruits of the for that we wotild be unclothed but clothed Spirit, even we ourselves groan within upon, that mottality might be swallowed ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, up of life." "Now he that wrought us the redemption of our body." for the self-same thing is God, who also It is the turn of expression here, the hath given unto us the earnest of the introduction of'even we ourselves'-as Spirit." It is when thus clothed upon additional to and apart from all that he that "our vile bodies are changed and had asserted before, in regard to the in- fashioned like unto the glorious body of tense and even painful expectancy of na- Christ." ture for its coming enlargement-it is this These passages all harmonise, in the which, more than any other, convinces us account they give of' the present state of of the amplitude that.there is in the apos- believers in our world. In spite of the tle's contemplations; and we are satisfied enlargement they have gotten, it is still a that we only follow in his track, when we state of durance. They have not yet had affirm of creation at large, the agony and the Spirit without measure, but only the the suspense and the brooding anticipa- first fruits of' it. They have not yet been tions that we have ascribed to the general delivered from the presence of an evil species, and have even extended in some nature. It is only overruled, not extermisense to the irrational creatures, nay to nated. It is only under watch and under mute and inanimate things. The apostle warfare-yet not stript of its power to seems to pass from this wider speculation fatigue and to annoy. The life ot' a Christo the present state of his own limited tian differs as much from that of another society-to draw himself in as it were man-as the smart of the wounds that are from the world to the church, whom he inflicted in a battle for freedom, differs represents as in like manner labouring. from the smart of the wounds that are inEven with them too, there is a present flicted upon captives or slaves by the lash draw-back from that full and final bless- of an overseer. But then it also differs edness that awaits them-there is hope far as much from that which it will be-as more specific and sure, than that which the strenuousness and hazard and agony floats and dazzles so indistinctly upon the of the day of conflict, differ from the rest vague imagination of those who are with- that is enjoyed, and the triumphs which out; but still it is a'hope subject to the are felt, and the music that is lifted up, deduction while they remain in the world and the smiles of gratulation and high of a remaining vanity-there is an evident contentment that are exchanged from one composition of two ingredients, one of happy countenance to another, on the day them the Spirit whereof they have re- of victory. There is no respite from the ceived already the first-fruits, but the warfare on this side of death. A larger other of them a vile body that is still in a supply and manifestation of God's Spirit bondage from which it has not yet been will not even secure it to us —for while it fully redeemed or emancipated —Insomuch arms with new power against the enemy that, under a sense of its thwarting and within, it also endues us with new and oppressive presence, there is the feeling, powerful sensibility to the now diminishand even the exclamation of a sore agony. ed but still more hated remainders of evil The reader will not fail to recognise in than before. So that the final release this passage, the very lamentation that is will not be enjoyed till death, and even uttered elsewhere " O wretched man that then perhaps it will amount to little mo:e I am, who shall deliver me from the body than rest from our labours. The fina of this death." "Our life at present is triumph will not be till the resurrection hid with Christ in God, and when Christ when the body shall again be called forth who is our life shall appear, then shall we from the tenement in which it long hath also appear with him in glory." "For in mouldered; and the corrupt principle this we groan, earnestly desiring to be shall by the mysterious transformation of clothed upon with our house which is the grave be fully disengaged from it; from heaven." "For we that are in this and that fra nework, every vestige of 288 ~ LECTURE LVII.-CHAPTER VIII, 23-25. which was before obliterated, shall put more ethereal and heavenly than before on its ancient form, but be thoroughly -for a final relief from the last dregs of freed of that moral virus which now so that vitiated nature, which still hangs thoroughly and so intimately pervades it; about him and troubles him with its hateand its reappearance from the land of its ful presence-Insomuch that the purest present captivity will indeed be to it a and the saintliest of men have been redemption of joy-achieved by Him, known to weep upon their death-bed, for who, in giving up His own body, gave up that still adhering corruption which:hey'he price of their glorious immortality in felt to be most dishonouring to God, and behalf of all who believe on Him. most disquieting to their own souls. You perceive hew it is, by the very Such being the state of matters, Chrisnature of the case, that there can be tians have not yet come to the inheritance no deliverance to the Christian from the of' perfect virtue. They are only waiting agony of a conflict, and from a sense of for it. They now bend forward ill the soreness and heaviness and discomfort, attitude of expectants. They have already on this side of death. For thore passeth got the first-fruits of the Spirit; and this no such transformation upon his body, as serves at least as an earnest. But they to change it from the state and character are fiar from thinking that they have vet of being a vile body-for it so remaineth attained. St. Paul thought so much othertill the departure of' the last breath from wise, that he counted his acquisitions to it. The whole of what the New Testa- be as yet nothing; and such is the infinite ment describes as the old man, or the distance between a saint on earth and a carnal man, is alive even unto the mo- saint in heaven, that the former, so far ment of our earthly dissolution-enfee- from having any adequate share of the bled, no doubt, by the habit of' frequent perfection and the glory to which the latthwarting and mortification to which it ter is elevated, has not even an adequate hath been subjected-kept more effectu- imagination of them. He sees it, by a ally under in proportion to tl growth medium of such exceeding dimness, that and energy of.the rival princi,e, that is he is said to see it through a glass darkly. fostered by prayer, and strengthened by He knows himself' to be one of the childexercise, and placed after every new vie- ren of God; but he knows not yet what he tory on the vantage-ground of a higher shall be-what the whole amount of blessascendancy than before over all the edness and of perfection is which belongs rebellious appetites of our ungodly and to that exalted relationship, and to which accursed nature. Yet, in spite of all this when he is preferred, he receiveth what prosperity, there is a felt annoyance; may substantially and in the full sigand to which the mind becomes more nificancy of the term be called his adoppainfully and sensibly alive, as it ad- tion. It is then that the most signal mark vances into a meetness for the inheritance of this relation to God is conferredl upon of the saints. For if a disciple be making him; and this is what in the text he is genuine progress-Then, along with the represented as now waiting for. This triumph of this which bears him up on adoption is followed up by a short exthe one hand, there is a tenderness that planatory clause, which maketh known keeps him down on the other; and that what it is that it consists in-to wit-the because of the remaining evil which still redemption of the body. It is brought lurks and lingers in his moral constitu- back from the land of its captivity. It is tion, less than before but better seen than called forth again out of the grave into before-of a milder taint, but now looked which it had entered, where it perhaps at with a purer eye, now reflected on with ages before had been deposited as a natua deeper humiliation. And thus a burden ral body, but whence it now ariseth a upon his spirit which the world cannot spiritual body. And the redemption which sympathise with; and a.deeper groaning it then undergoes is an everlasting rewithin, even while to all without the demption. Death will no more have the graces of his character are brightening dominion over it. It will become immorinto a more vivid lustre than before — tal; but this is not the whole of its coming a greater annoyance from one quarter, glory. It will also be immaculate. It will along with a greater hope and satisfaction furnish no element to thwart or to impede from another. and that because his self- the movements of a righteous spirit; and acquaintance is growing, and his sensi- by which. it is that the whole man of a bility is growing: And thus it is that he believer upon earth is kept in a state of longs more earnestly as he proceeds, for controversy. From its then regenerated the entire repose of perfect godliness and mould there shall have been ejected, and purity and love-for a thorough extinc- that conclusively, both the seeds of mortion from his moral system of all that evil tality and the seeds of moral evil. The by which it is still pervaded, and is the death which our first parent entailed, and more offensive to him just as he becomes the corruption which he entailed, shall LECTURE LVII. —CHAPTER VIII, 23-25. 289 be alike put forth of that materialism which it places us here is one of expecwherewith the spirit of man is forthwith tancy, and not of attainment. The salva-.o be encompassed, and in which he is to tion that it hath brought is not one which.oe equipped for the services of eternity. It we have now, but one which we hope to is saying much for what that is which have afterwards. We are in the wrong essentially constitutes heaven, when it is if we give way to heaviness, because we said here to consist in the redemption of are not yet fully inducted into the spiritthe body. It is in truth the jar, and the ual privileges and immunities of heaven. dissonance, and the maladjustnment with It is not so arranged by Him who had the all that a righteous spirit aspir{es after in ordering of this whole administration of the way of moral excellence-it is this grace. By the very constitution of it, which now distempers our world; and it what we aspire after, and are in heaviness is this, aggravated and universal, which because we have not yet reached, is ours will give its fiercest agonies to the ac- only in prospect and not in possession. cursed in the place of condemnation. This ought to satisfy our disquietudes. It And on the other hand, it is a total ex- is an argument for patience. The disemption from the carnal and the corrupt pensation under which we sit is not one ingredient-it is the harmony of a system of sight but one of hope. This hope in all whose parts are in unison, and all on the essential characteristic of it, which the side of purest virtue-it is tuhe scope would in fact be expunged were the full that will then be for the doings and the and finished reward a thing of presence desires of holiness, when the body shall and not a thing of futurity. It would lay no weight as now upon the willing- cease to be a matter of hope if it were a ness of the spirit-This is the redlemption matter of vision-for hope that is seen is for which believers are waiting here, and not hope, for what we see we do not hope the hope of which upholds themr in their for-what is in possession is no longer ill struggle with all the perversities of our prospect. Seeing then that such is the earthly nature-it is this of which they economy of the gospel, that is so framed have now the dim and distant perspective, as to place its consummation not beside and which when realised will constitute us but in a distant futurity before us, let the glorious liberty of the children of God. us conform ourselves thereunto-let us sit V. 24, 25. 1" For we are saved by hope- down and be satisfied with hope instead but hope that is seen is not hope: for of perfect happiness in the meantimewhat a man seeth, why doth he yet hope let us wait for the coming glory and wait for 3 But if we hope for that we see not, for it with patience..hen do we with patience wait for it." But though the phrase admits of the In the whole of this passage, it seems translation that we are saved in hope, inthe drift of' the apostle to reconcile those timating thereby the simple truth that whom he addresses to their present suf- salvation is in the main a thing of expecferings-and that not merely to the per- tancy while we live in the world-yet secutions which they had to sustain from though we should adhere to the present without, but to the perplexities and spirit- translation of our being saved by hope, ual misgivings whereby they were agitated and thereby ascribe to this principle a within; and the main cause of which in the kind of efficacy in bringing about our aspiring bosom of every honest Christian, salvation, we should not on that account is a sense of his own exceeding;shortness traverse any of those principles that are from the high standard of gospel obedi. unfolded in the New Testament. There ence. What he desiderates and longs is indeed a very close alliance stated after, is to be saved from the deadness throughout the evangelical writings, beand carnality of his own earthly nature; tween the hope of a Christian and his and the apostle meets this anxiety, by salvation. There is a hope that is intelling him that the actual economy of stantly awakened by the faith of the gossalvation is not so constituted, a:s to bring pel; and it is often reiterated upon us to those who are its objects the lulness of that by faith we are saved. I cannot an immediate possession, but as to hold conceive a man really to believe even in this out to them as a thing in re serve-as the general announcements of the gospel, a thing in distant anticipation. We are without appropriating to himself the comsaved by, or rather we are savedl in hope. fort wherewith they are charged, and Christians in this world are maintained in which is addressed unto all-for while ada sort of analogy to the general state of dressed unto all they are at the same time the world, which has already been affirm- as I have often affirmed, pointed specified as a mixture between present vanity cally unto each: Nor can I think of any and future expectation. If we look for a honest enquirer after salvation, that he full and finished salvation now, we look shall read believingly such a statement as for that which the gospel gives us no war- that 1" whosoever cometh unto Christ shall rant to count upon. The condition in not be cast out," or such an invitation as 7 290 LECTURE LVII. —CHAPTER VIII, 23-25. "Come unto me all ye who weary and of uprightness, and described in the book are heavy l;aden and I will give you rest," of Revelation as that eternal city where or such a widely sounding call as i" Look the servants of God do serve him-then i unto me all ye ends of the earth and be is not in truth or in nature, that one should saved,"-I cannot think of faith in any look forward with complacency to his of these apart from the hope the individ- entrance upon such a heaven, without a ual hope and trust they are fitted to awa- growing conformity in his character here ken-so that the affirmation of being sav- to that which he believes and rejoices to ed by hope Is about tantamount to the believe shall be his condition hereafter. saying that by faith you are justified. But He cannot look with pleased expectnicy this of being justified is far from being the to such a place, without gathering the rawhole of salvation. The term includes a diance of its virtues upon his soul; and great deal more than our being saved from if, amid the crosses and fatigues of a wrath; it sitgnifies further our being saved treacherous world, this be habitually the from the power of sin-as in that passage hope by which he is sustained-then, as where it is said that we are saved by the surely as by any law of his moral or senwashing of' regeneration, and the renew- tient constitution, this also is the hope by ing of the JHory Ghost. And that we are which he will be sanctified. so saved by hope, that by this principle Before quitting this subject, let me simwe are sanctified as well as justified, is ply advert to a cause, that serves very directly affirmed by St. John-when he much to aggravate the struggle of a Christells us that "he who hath the hope of tian here below, and to expose him to a seeing God and being like unto God puri- still more acute sense than he might fieth himself even as God is pure." otherwise have had, of that deadness and To understand how it is that hope should deficiency from the spiritual life, under operate in this way, we have just to re- which even Paul and his converts are reflect what that really is to which a genu- presented as groaning inwardly. What I ine believer looketh forward. It is not to allude to, though perhaps it looks like an a paradise of' sensuality, else he might excrescence from the main subject of these revel as nature would incline him among remarks to allude to it at all, is the way its delights and gratifications. It is to a in which an aspiring Christian must be paradise of' sactredness; and we hold it weighed down, as to all his holy and inorally impossible that a man should heaven-born tendencies-by the engross. d':eell with fondl anticipation on such a ments of business —by the multitude of destiny, without a taste and temper of hours that he consumes every (lay among sacredness. The man who prefers what the attentions and labours of a pursuit, is earthly to what is heavenly, will turn along which he never meets with any one away his face from the better country, of the influences of sacredness-by the and from the road that leads to it; and in exhaustion in which this lands him on reference to it there will be no belief; no each recurring evening-and by the call nope, no kindred aspiration. With such that he feels to lie upon him, of giving the a preference he withholds all attention as first and earliest vigour of his necessary well as all desire from the futurities of repose to the very toils, that so spent and another world; and, wholly immersed in secularised him yesterday. To a man the cares or joys of the present one, he who has been visited with any unction lives without faith, and he dies with the upon his soul from the upper sanctuary, 1 burden of this condemnation upon him cannot figure a heavier burden or a sorer that "he loved the darkness rather than discomfort than this; and just as we have the light, because his deeds were evil." thought it right occasionally, even from It has been defined of hope that it is a the pulpit, to protest against the keen and compound of desire and expectation; and busy and almost gambling adventure of no man can desire such a heaven as that an over-trading age-so would we protest which is represented in the New Testa- against that total absorption of spirit, that ment, without the work of holiness being overwhelming load upon all its faculties, begun in him. Were it merely a heaven that utter alienation from better things, of animal enjoyments, or a heaven that which must ever accrue from an undue rang with melody, or a heaven that was and overdriven employment. The two lighted up with variegated splendours, or evils work in fact to one another's hands. even a heaven of science where the un- The man who trades beyond the compass derstanding was feasted with truth even of his means, gives himself more to do unto extacy-then one might have the than he can well overtake; and so has to hope of such a heaven without being labour at the desk of his counting-house, inoralised by it. But when it is a heaven or to bustle among markets, or to run to whose essential characteristic is that it is and fro among customers and corresponda place of holiness, when it is a heaven ents at a distance, beyond the compass of defined in the book of Psalms as the land his time or his physical strength-and so, LECTURE LVII.-CHAPTEPR VIII, 23-25. 29 1 In the neglect of all spiritual cultivation, rier; and the share that each individual his heart becomes a wilderness; and his takes of it cannot be so pushed either family ceases to profit by his instructions without the ruin of his fortune, or at'ill or his exa.mple, and Christianity goes to events, the utter ruin of a mind whotly utter waste on a mind thus overrun with given over to a most deceiving and a mi )st the cares and the keen ambitions of a dangerous idolatry. Take pity on yourperishable world, and the good seed of selves. Take pity on your clerks and the word of God is choked and overborne journeymen and apprentices. Offler not -And all from what? from the tempta- the encroachment of one moment upoi tion that he has given way to of extend- their Sabbaths; and even be careful ing, and that to undue dimensions, a busi- through the week, lest they be drudged ness that, within safe and moderate limits, and worn out of all energy for a far nobler might have yielded him a quiet and com- service and a far higher interest than fortable passage through this land of your own. There is nought for which I vanity. There never was so cruel a sacri- more admire the Bible, than the experifice as this-of all the snugness and tran- mental sagacity wherewith it pronounces quillity that he might have perpetuated, on all the habits and temptations and in the character of a thriving well-condi- characteristics of human life in each of' tioned, though withal perhaps a plain and its varieties-a sagacity that might still be unambitious citizen-had he only not ad- recognised even in modern days; and ventured himself on the high and slippery though the apostle had lived in our city, places of daring speculation; and given and spent years in the capacity of a stuup his domestic evenings, and his un- dent or a spectator on the exhibitions of broken Sabbaths, and the perennial con- our nature that he found in it, he could tentment that used to flow within his not have more happily described the bosom, and his simple gratifications, and wretchedness and the folly of extrer-e. all the quiet opportunities that within the mercantile ambition, than in this passag,shelter of an humbler but happier sphere to Timothy-" But they that will be rich he would have enjoyed for communion fall into temptation and a snare and into with a present God and the preparations many foolish and hurtful lusts, which for a future eternity. Be assured, that drown men in destruction and perdition. there is a limit which ought to be laid on For the love of money is the root of' all the number and extent of the services, evil-which while some have coveted after that are rendered to the great divinity of they have pierced themselves through the place. The commerce of the world with many sorrows." cannot be pushed beyond a certain barLECTURE LVIII. ROMANS Viii, 26, 27. "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought; but the Spirit itself tmaketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. V. 26. 1" LKE.wISE the Spirit also helpeth foretaste, we may infer the nature of the our infirmities: for we know not what we anticipation. Now the benefit that they should pray for as we ought; but the have in possession is help against their Spirit itself maketh intercession for us infirmities; and so the benefit which they with groanings which cannot be uttered." have in prospect is that these infirmities It would appear from the first clause of shall be utterly and conclusively done this verse, that the great subject of labour away. In other words it is a moral enand sore anxiety to Christians, and under largement on which the truly renovated which they groan inwardly, is their defi- Christian hath set his affections and his ciency fiom holiness; and the great hopes. They are the glories of perfect subject of their hope, is the perfect holi- virtue after which he aspires. It is the ness that awaits them in heaven. But, fulness of the image and character of the additionally to this expectation of the Godhead, that form the triumph and the future, the apostle also tells us here that rejoicing of the blest in eternity. It is an there is partly a deliverance at present- emancipation from the present carnality; a foretaste of that which they are looking I and the present corruptness; and tihe forward to; and from the nature of the i weight of present low and earthly affec 292 LECTURE LVIII.-C'HAPTER VIII, 26, 27. tions into love and light and liberty, while sing into a state of rest and a state cI they gaze directly on the excellence of enlargement, could they only but find it God and reflect that excellence back again out and practically enter upon it-Thel6 from their own character-this is the true is such an obscure, yet upon the whole heaven which they have in prospect, and urgent and habitual tendency, incidental for which they have already set themselves to men at the outset of their religious out in busy preparation-a preparation course; and even abiding with them, as therefore of' holiness, the only preparation it did with Paul and his disciples in our that can fit them for joining in the ser- text, for a long time after they had entered vices or the joys of the upper sanctuary, upon it. They know not perfectly or the only one that can make them meet for precisely what is the matter with them, or the inheritance of the saints. what that is which is correctly suited to But, meanwhile, they have somewhat the disease or the deficiency under which more than a future hope-they have a they labour. They would fain give vent present help; and it is worthy of remark to all this feeling of want and of necessity htat they are not delivered from their in prayer; but, hazy and unsettled as:nfirmities, they are only helped against their spiritual conceptions are, they know thmrn. The burden of' them, it would not what to pray for as they ought. We appear, is not lifted off. But strength is think that there must be some present, afIorded that they may be able to bear it. whose inward experience responds to the The pressure still exists; but there is an sketch that we now set before you-whose adequate power of resistance given, by hearts are filled with desirousness, but which it is effectually withstood. Never- who. necapable of shaping the expression theless it is a pressure, a felt and a griev- of nto any distinct or definite prayers, ous pressure, under which they groan — -.forth instead the sighs and the aspieven as a strong man might do under a ations which bespeak little more than a burden, though able with much pain a' soul in earnest. Amid all these struggles fatigue to carry it. It is just so wi''.e then, between the fervent sincerity of' the Christian. He is still weary and aeavy- feelings on the one hand, and the cloudiladen; and in this respect he differs from ness of apprehension and intellect on the a saint in heaven. But his sins, which so other, it is somewhat satisfactory to perweary and so overload him, are not cher- ceive, that even the apostle and his conished by him as his enjoyments-they are verts, after they had received the fruits of hated and denied and striven against, as the Spirit, had experience of the very his deadly enemies; and in this respect same thing —that before their eye too, he differs from an unrenovated man upon there passed such floating uncertainties earth. His state in fact is a state of com- of yet distant and unrealised attainment position. His life is a life of conflict. as they could not embody-that, under There is war in his soul. The vile body the pressure of yet unsatisfied desire and aspires to the mastery by its instigations. a still remaining ignorance of what they The mind seeks to retain the ascendant would be at, they heaved ejaculations against it; and God's Spirit is sent to help rather than prayers; and that because it in its purposes. There will be repose they knew not what to pray for as they at length, but not here. The battle will ought. not be terminated on this side of death.' But the Spirit itself maketh intercesBut reinforcements of strength will be sion for us with groanings which cannot daily sent to keep up the combat —by be uttered.' sustaining that one party, which, but for It is still more satisfactory to be told, as them, would have surrendered. So that we are in this clause, that, in those general though the soul is not defeated, it is kept and vague but withal very intense and in the busy turmoil of a sore warfare-it earnest aspirations of soul which we have is often cast down though not destroyed. now adverted to, there is, not only a re'For we know not what we should pray semblance to the habit of Paul himself for as we ought.' We are convinced that and of those disciples who had the firstmany feel a general undirected desire to fruits of the Spirit, but that it is the Spirit be right-a kind of vague though vivid itself who dictates and inspires them. earnestness-an indefinite longing after WVrhen the Spirit maketh intercession for God and goodness-a sort of looking us, it is not by any direct supplication towards Zion and preference for heavenly from Himself to God the Father in behalf things-who at the same time are unable of any one individual; but it is by pour to rest upon aught that is specific or ing upon that individual, the Spirit of satisfying. They have the sense of not grace and supplication. The man whom being as they should be-an indistinct yet IHe prays for, is in fact the organ of His strong impression of helplessness-the prayer. The prayer passes, as it were, assurance, though not a very specific or from the Spirit through Him who is the luminous one, that there is a way of pas- object of it. Those groanings of the Spirit LECTURE LVIII.-CHAPTER VIII, 26, 27. 293 of God which cannot be uttered, are those grace. It gives important insight into the unutterable desires wherewith the heart methods of' the divine economy in this of a seeker after Zion is charged; and world, when we observe that the promises which, in defect of language, perhaps of God are meant not to suspend but to even in defect of very clear and definite stimulate our prayers. And, accordingly conceptions, can only find vent in the ar- after that He has declared, He will give dent but unspeakable breathings of one the clean heart and the right spirit, He who feels his need and longs to be re- saith, yet for all these things must I be lieved from it-who hath a strong and enquired after. Before, in fact, that He general appetency after righteousness, poureth those influences upon the soul by and yet can only sigh it forth in ejacula- which it becometh rich in all spiritual tions of intense earnestness. Now these accomplishments, He poureth upon it a are called here the groanings of the Spirit sense of its own barrenness, and a correof God, because it is in fact He who hath spondent longing after the right feelings awakened them in the spirit of man. and fertilities of a new creature; and so WVhen He intercedes for a believer, the be- anterior, to all other supplies from the liever's own heart is the channel through sanctuary that is above, did He pour on which the intercession finds its way to the the house of David of the Spirit of grace throne of grace. It is not that there is and supplication. One of His promises is any want either of light or of utterance to turn the soul into a well-watered garabout HIim; but He doeth His work gra- den-yet, ere this is realised, there must dually upon us, anti often infuses a de- be a felt thirst on the part of the soul; a sirousness into our hearts before I-le re- hungering and thirsting after righteousveals the truth with distinctness unto our ness, before that it is filled; an appetite understandings. He walketh by progres- that craves to be satisfied, ere the satisfysive footsteps, in accomplishing the crea- ing food is administered; a seeking that tion of a. new moral world-even as He precedes the finding: And so from the did when employed in the creation of our descriptions of' prophecy it would appear, present system of materialism. He then that, when the desert is made to flourish moved upon the face of the waters, before it is by the pouring forth of water upon ile said Let there be light and there was thirsty ground-upon ground not merely light. The dark and muddy element was destitute, but that feels as it were and defirst put into agitation, and the very tur- sires to be relieved. Let us cease to wonbulence into which it was thrown may der then, that prayer should appear among have just thickened at the first that very the foremost indications of the Spirit of chaos out of which it was emerging; and God being at work with us; or that it takes so it often is with him who is born of' the the precedency of other blessings, or that Spirit, when the Spirit begins to move it has happened so frequently in the upon his soul. There is labour without church, that a season of supplication went light-there is a strong and general excite- before the season either of a gracious rnent without a clear guidance, either deliverance or of a gracious revival; or where you are to turn, or on what visible that with individuals too, as well as with path you are to enter-there is a busy communities, ere you can point to any fermentation of shadowy and floating de- one of them as rejoicing in the hope or as sires and indistinct feelings, whether of a fruitful in all the righteousness of the present misery or a future and somehow gospel, you find him earnest in supplicaattainable enlargement-And, these all tion-and perhaps too a supplication that come forth in the very indications of our is not spoken, that does not find articulatext-proceeding originally from God's tion for its effiuxes from the heart, that Spirit, but passing through the interme- does not even proceed on any very clear dium of man's; and, while struggling or distinct conception of what the want there with the darkness and obstinate car- is or what are the supplies which are exnality of nature, giving rise to a vigour pressly suited thereunto; but that, in the and a vehemence of emotion that dis- language of my text, ascends in general charges itself' in sighs but not in articula- and undirected fervency from the soul tions. If any here experience such a with groanings which cannot be uttered. condition, or make any approximations And neither are we to wonder. that, towards it, let him not despair-for it may though this be indeed tne Spirit's doing, be the Spirit that is at worK with him; yet, nevertheless, there is a mixture of and he may now be labouring in the ago- darkness and distress in the whole operanies of his new birth, in the distress of tion. There is perfect light and liberty his coming regeneration. with Him. But when He comes into That among the'first-fruits of the Spirit, contact, and especially at the first, with a there should be the prayers of deep and soul before dead in trespasses and sins — desirous earnestness, is in perfect harmony when He has to operate on that mass of with the order of the administration of carnality, where He finds nought but on*e 294 LECTURE LVIII.-CHAPTER VIII, 26, 27. inert and sluggish mass of resistance,-. that light which shineth more and incr when, instead of doing the work separately unto the perfect day. and by Himself; He does it through the There is an example remarkably anal. opaque medium of a corrupt human soul ogous to this in the old prophets. They -We should not marvel, though the spake only as they were moved by the prayers that even He hath originated, be Holy Ghost. They poured forth their tinged with the obscurity of that dull and predictions only as the Spirit gave them distorted medium through which they utterance; and though He of course knew have to pass. We know that to the sun the meaning of all that He had inspired in the firmament, we should ascribe not Himself, yet they themselves, though the merely the splendour of the risen day, organs for the conveyance of His intima. but even the faintest streaks and glim- tions to the world, knew but little or mering of incipient twilight; and that nothing of the sense that lay under them without him, all would be thick and im- And, accordingly, we are informed by the penetrable darkness. It is because of the apostle Peter of the very singular attitude gross and intervening earth, that, though in which they stood-as prying into the something be seen at the earliest dawn of sense of their own prophecies-as searchmorn, it is yet seen so dimly, and the eye ing and enquiring diligently into the nature is still bewildered among visionary and of' that coming grace, whereof the Holy unsettled forms, while it wanders over the Ghost had given them certain warnings, landscape. And, in like marner, it is the which to themselves were unintelligibleSpirit to whom we shall owe at last the as speculating what thing it could be, and effulgence of a complete manifestation; what manner of time it was which the and to whom also we owe at present even Spirit of Christ in them did signify, when the misty and troubled light that hath it testified beforehand the sufferings of.excited us to seek, but is scarcely able to Christ and the glory that should follow guide us in our enquiries. And this im- It was not in fact unto themselves but perfection is not because of Himself, in unto us that they did minister; and though whom there is perfect and unclouded the resemblance does not hold throughout, splendour. It is only because of the gross yet we may gather friom the case that we and terrestrial mind upon which He ope- are now quoting, how in like manner'as rates. There is the conflict of two holy men of old knew not the meaning ingredients, even the light that is in Him of those predictions wherewith themselves and th.c darkness that is in us; and the were inspired-so holy men of the present result of the conflict is prayer, but prayer day, and more especially at the outset of mixed with much remaining ignorance. their holiness, might feel the inspiration It is the mixture of His intercession with of a strong desirousness from above, and our unutterable groanings —an obscure yet be ignorant of the whole force and day that plrecedes the daylight of the soul meaning of their own prayers. There -a lustre that cometh from Him, but may be a decided fervour of prayerfultarnished with the soil and broken with ness-an aspiring tendency after better the turbulence of' our own accursed nature. things-yet a most indistinct apprehension,nd let us not think it strange therefore, of what the things really are of which hat, as the compound effect of God's they most stand in need, and that most Spirit working with our spirit, and not suited them. And so at the very time overbearing our infirmities but only yet that the Spirit helpeth their infirmities, helping these infirmities-let us cease to they know not what to pray for as they think it strange, if the effect should only ought; and at the very time that the be a certain vehemence or urgency of Spirit itself maketh intercession for them, desire, but still in some measure vague or do they send forth groanings from the undirected, because of a still abiding recesses of their now touched and awadarkness in the soul. And again there- kened souls which cannot be uttered. fore, to comfort all who are labouring But, in conclusion, it ought to be reamong the disquietudes of such a condi- marked that this state of darkness is not tion, we repeat, that, even amid the mazes a desirable one to be persisted in. One and uncertainties in which they toil and would not choose to live always in twihave as yet had little satisfaction, the light; but rather does he press onward, Spirit, for aught we know, may even now in wish and in expectation, to the coming be at work with them. The heavenly day. Labour after distinct and satisfying visitant may have made His entrance, and apprehensions of the truth as it is Christ have began the process of a glorious Jesus. Seek to know your disease; and transformation on the materials of their seek to know the powers and the properinward chaos. The spiritual twilight may ties of that medicine, which is set forth in now be breaking out as the harbinger of the gospel. Study and search with dili. a coming glory, as the dim flickerings of gence, and by a careful perusal of Holy LECTURE LVIII. —CHAPTER VIII. 26, 27, 295 Writ, into the economy of man's restora- that the word shines with clear and contion-the blood which atones-the right- vincing lustre upon the soul-still to meet eousness which justifies-the sanctifying the promise of help to the infirmity (,f our power that maketh holy-the law that understanding with a prayer for that help: before your reconciliation condemned And thus shall we be enabled, more and you, and that after your reconciliation more, to order our speech and our argubecame the rule by which you are to ment aright before God-to pray intelliwalk, the compass by which you are to gently as well as affectionately-and to guide your movements towards heaven. body forth those desires which now ac Even in this work too you must have the tuate us in a way so vague and undefinaSpirit to help your infirmities. For He is ble, to body them forth in words that may the Spirit of' wisdorn, as well as of prayer, be audibly uttered, in conceptions that -id gives you revelation in the knowledge may be distinctly seized upon. of Christ. You increase by Him in ac- V. 27. "And he that searcheth the hearts quaintance with God; and though at the knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, beginning of' Iis work, and perhaps for because he maketh intercession for the some time afterwards, there may be a sore saints according to the will of God." conflict of doubts and desires and diffi- You may perhaps not have reflected culties-yet such is the process of this much on the office of the Spirit as an inwork, that you will at length come to tercessor-viewing this as more properly experience that where the Spirit of the, the officeof the novw exalted Saviour. The Lord is, there is light-where the Spirit Saviour intercedes for us in heaven. The of the Lord is, there is liberty. Spirit intercedes for us in our own breast. But still it ought ever to be kept in The one intercession is pure and altomind, that, while we are in this tabernacle, gether unmixed with the dross of earthlithere will to the latest hour of our abode, ness. The other passes through a corrupt be a remainder of darkness; There may medium, and finds its way among the adbe a brightening manifestation of divine verse impediments of' an earthly nature; things, as uwe proceed onwards. But our and by the time that it cometh forth in exGutlook towards them, will be through the pression, has had to encounter the elements loopholes of a bedimmed and tainted ma- of darkness and of carnality that are withterialism. Still we shall see through a in us. And, not from any defect in the glass darkly. It is in fact with the light power which originates our prayers, but of the gospel, as it is with its love and its from a defect jin the organ by which they peace and its holiness. It will be corn- are conveyed, do they arise as so many pounded with the grossness of an earthly broken and indistinct aspirations to Him nature. It will be shaded with an incum- who sitteth on the throne. The man from bent carnality. The realities of faith will whom they ascend is perhaps conscious De seen, not through a purely ethereal of nothing but a deep and determined nedium, but through a curtain as it were earnestness —thoroughly intent on being -the transparency whereof shall have right, yet clouded and confused it may be inuch of the soil and the tarnish of nature in his apprehensions as to the way of bepervading it. And this transparency, coming so-not knowing therefore what thouuh clarified as we advance, will never he should pray *for, yet in virtue of the be perfect on this side of death. Inso- Spirit's operation pouring out the ejaculamuch that the complaint of our text will tions of utmost feeling and utmost ferbe found to suit the Christians of all de- vency. Now, in like manner as the holy grees, the disciples of all stages. Still we men of old when moved by the Holy Ghost shall not know all the things which we did not understand the predictions that should pray for as we ought. Still will were put into their mouths, so might holy the Spirit be needed to help this infirmity. men now though similarly moved not unStill will His illumination have to meet derstand their own prayers. All that and to struggle with the impediments of a they are sensible of may be a spirit of vile body; and the desirousness after prayerfulness venting itself in the breathmnore light, still outstripping the actual at- ings that are not articulated, in the groans.ainment, will vent itself forth, in some that cannot be uttered. But though they degree as at the first, in aspirations that have no such insight into the workings are yet indefinite-in groanings that are and expressions of their own heart, God yet unutterable. Let this teach, in all our who searcheth the heart discerns them meditation and study upon things that are thoroughly. He knows from what quarsacred, still to proceed on the incapacity ter they come —whether from His own of Nature for the right apprehension of pure Spirit, or from that corrupt origin then —stillto recognise the Holy Ghost in whence there issueth nought but that His office as a revealer —still, in our pe- which is abomination in His sight. He rusals of the word, to court the guidance can distinguish between the genuine and ot that Spirib through whom it is alcne the Counterfeit; and, more especially is 296 LECTURE LVIII. —CHAPTER VIII, 26, 27 He acquainted with the mind of His own I self hath awakened. He hath said in an Spirit-even as man is acquainted with other place that if any man ask that his own thoughts. If from the former- which is agreeable to the will of God, He the prayer that has been suggested, even will give it to him. Now what the Spirit though it announce nothing to the man suggests though darkly to the man him. himself but the intense desirousness self; yet clearly to Him who searchetb whereby he feels that he is actuated, an- man's heart and can ascertain the charac. nounces most clearly to God all the cha- ter of every movement that is experienced racters of truth and rightness and confor- there-whatever is thus suggested must mity with the whole views and spirit of be agreeable to the will of' God, and have tHis government which can recommend it the very recommendation upon which God to his acceptance. He will meet with hath pledged Himself to entertain and to graciousness the supplication that Him- answer it. LECTURE LIX. ROMANS Viii, 28. "rAnd we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose." HE recurs again in this verse to the that, under the severe but salutary discitopic that he introduced in the eighteenth pline, wisdom has been increased, and verse, even to the sufferings of the present character has been strengthened, and the time; and, after having contrasted them rough independence of human wilfulness with the glory and the enlargement of has been tamed, and many asperities of their future prospects, and having ad- temper have been worn away; and he, verted not merely to the hope that will be who before was the boisterous and implarealised then but also to the help that is cable and unsafe member of society, has -administered now, he, as a last argument been chastened down into all the arts and for reconciling his disciples to all the ad- delicacies of pleasing companionship. versities of their earthly condition, affirms And so of many a single infliction on the that they all work together for their good; man who is viewed, not as a citizen of the that even the crosses and disasters of life world that is below, but as a candidate are so many blessings in disguise; and for the world that is above. The overthat the whole machinery of Providence, throw of his fortune has given him a in fact, is at work for the accomplish- strong practical set for eternity. The ment of' a great and beneficent purpose death of his child has weaned him from towards them. It, in the first place, is all the idolatries of' a scene-whereof the abundantly obvious of many a single ad- family, the home, the peace and shelter versity-that a great and permanent good of' the domestic roof, formed the most may come out of' it. This is often veri- powerful enchantments. Even the drearified on the ground even of every-day ex- ness of remorse hath given a new energy perience-when the disease brought on to his spiritual frame, and made him both by intemperance hath been known to ger- a more skilful and a more vigilant warminate a course of' determined sobriety; rior on the field of contest than before. and the loss by a daring speculation hath The tempests of life, if so withstood that checked the adventurer on his hazardous they have not overthrown him, will have path, and turned him into the walk of safe fastened him more stedfastly to the hold though moderate prosperity; and the felt of religious principle. It is thus that tile discomfort of a quarrel hath made him a traveller through life is nurtured for the far more patient and pacific member of immortality beyond it. He is made persociety than he else would have been; feet by sufftrings. He sits more loose to and many other.visitations, unpalatable the world, in proportion as he finds less on the instant but profitable afterwards, in it to fascinate and detain him. Its very iave each turned out to have in it the disappointments have the effect of throw-,,holesomeness of a medical draught as ing him upon other resources; and, castvell as its bitterness. Apart from Chris- ing away the desires and the delusions ianity, or from the bearings which our of the hope that perisheth, he clings as to tistory on earth has on our preparation the alone anchor of his soul by the hope for heaven-Man has often found that it that abideth for ever. On the scale of was good for him to have been afflicted — infinite duration, a present evil becomes LECTURE LIX.-CHAPTEIR VIII, 28, 297 a future and everlasting benefit; and we assured by the apostle that, not merely are at no loss to perceive, how even a ca- one, but that all things work togethel lamity, that to the eye looks most tremen- for good unto those who love God. Fol dous and would overwhelm one of the it is the compounding of one evil thing children of this world in despair-how it with another that aggravates so much the may work for the good of one of the chil- distress of each of them; and the sensadren of light, by working out for him a tion of plague or of perplexity increases in far more exceeding and eternal weight of a much faster proportion than the number glory.' of them; and, like the problem of the But these adverse visitations do not three bodies, one additional element of always come singly. The apostle sup- distress more might make the line of pruposes otherwise, as may be gathered from dence far more difficult, and every plan the phrase of all things working together. and every prospect far more inscrutable He supposes in the text, not one single than before: And thus though each of his.nfluence from one event alone; but he cares might be easily provided for, could supposes the mutual or the concurrent in- one meet each with undivided strength, fluence of two or more events, all verging and bend upon it the whole force of his however towards the one result of good anxiety-yet, from the very multitude of for him to whom they have befallen. It them, might there ensue a general helphas often been said that misfortunes sel- lessness, that needs to have the precise dom come by themselves; and there is no consolation which is now before us. The doubt that it often occurs, when one pas- mechanism of Providence is made up of sage of our history is signalised by an ac- so many parts, as often to baffle the comcumulation of ills —when, instead of be- prehension of man-yet all is clear to the ing called upon to measure our strength eye, and under the sovereign hand of Him with one calamity, our attention is shared who works it; and when we are lost in and distracted among several-when the the bewilderments of a history that we boding dread of disaster and distress low- cannot scan, when we are entangled ers upon us from more than one quarter among the mazes of a labyrinth that we of that visible sphere by which we are cannot unravel, it is well to be told that surrounded-and when we are made the all is ordered and that all worketh for subjects, not of one, but of manifold tribu- good. lations. It has often been alleged that I should imagine that I now speak to the pressure of each distinct calamity is the experience of those, who, manifold in lightened, when the anxiety is thus dis- the adventures of business, have a very persed and divided among several. I do extended circumference around them, not think so. I hold it easier to meet with from every quarter of which fears and the summoned intrepidity of the bosom mischances and the arrivals of disastrous one great and nearly overwhelming mis- intelligence might bring fresh and frefortune,-than it is to have a constant quent disquietudes into the soul; and who tunult kept up in the spirits, by the cease- therefore may have felt what it was to be less play of so many petty yet intermina- visited with one plague after anotherble harassments. I hold it a less ineligi- perhaps agonised in all the moral sensible condition, to have all the energies of bilities of your nature, by some aggravatthe soul collected and prepared for a ed wrong of injustice; and ere you have mighty shock of adversity, than to have recovered this shock, told of some menacthem wasted in the skirmishes of a lighter ing fluctuation in that market where the yet more complicated warfare. main bulk of your interest lies; and furI hold it not only an occasion of greater thermore waiting on the rack of anxiety glory, but positively an occasion of great- for the appearance of that richly-laden er ease, when one tremendous combatant vessel, which some recent storm must approaches on whom there hangs the have put in jeopardy, and that with the fearful issues of life, or of that which eye of midnight fancy you conceive to be than life is dearer-than when doomed by, fearfully rocking amid the surges of an the stings of an insect tribe to die by angry ocean: And all this mixed up with inches, or to spend in perpetual annoy- the rumoured bankruptcy of customers ance the remainder of your days. And and correspondents, with bills unanswered therefore it is well, that, for the comfort and the swift approaches of that time of exercised humanity, deliverance is when payments that far exceed your pre, promised out of six and of seven troubles; sent strength shall be imperiously requir. and when we are told that the afflictions ed-These are the foreign invaders of of the just are many, but that God will your peace, and should they meet unhap. extricate out of them all; and when we pily with the broils and miseries of a dis. are bidden to count it all joy, though we tempered home —should these days of should fall not into one but into manifold vexation be followed up by evenings of temptations; and lastly, when we are discontent and discordancy; or, what i, 38 298 LECTURE LIX.-CHAPTERI VIII, 28. also grievous, should there be peace and may be the germ of an influence wide as love in your dwelling, but its dearest in- a continent and lasting as a thousand mate be laid on the couch of irrecovera- years; and thus it is that the politics of ble sickness-should one child of the man are baffled in the mystery of that family be dying, or another by his vice higher politics, by which the government and his wiifulness minister a grief as of the Supreme is conducted, and where. heavy to the hearts of his parents-should by the minutest accidents and the mightithe burden upon his spirit, which this est results interchange and have equal sorely agitated man brings with him daily efficacy the one upon the other. It is well from abroad, have nought to alleviate its that God has the management; and that pressure within the door of his own habi- what to man is a chaos, is in the hands of tation —What a noble faith it would re- God a sure and unerring mechanism. quire to bear him up under the weight and Man is lost and wilders in the multiplicity accumulation of' all these evils; and is of things, and their diverse operations, there ought within the compass of nature and he staggers and is at his wit's end; so suited to his weary and heavy-laden and therefore it is well that all things are spirit, as the'assurance of my text that all under the control of that great and preof them shall work and work together for siding intelligence which is above, and his good. that God maketh all things work together You must often have been sensible, in for good unto those who love Him. the course of your own history, how big To conclude then for the present. Do and how important the consequences you not perceive that at this rate God Were, that emanated from one event, would be divested of His sovereignty, if which in itself was insignificant-how on His superintendance were not universal t the slightest accidents the greatest inter- Is not the historical fact, that what is most ests were suspended-how, moving appa- minute often gives rise to what is most rently at random, you met with people or momentous, an argument for the theologiwith occasions that gave rise perhaps to cal doctrine of a Providence that reaches far the most memorable passages in your even to the slightest and most unnoticealife-how the very street' on which you ble varieties? If God did not number all chanced to move, brought you into con- the hairs of our head-if His appointtact with invitations or appointments or ments did not include the fall of' every proposals of any sort, which brought re- sparrow to the ground-then, from the sults of magnitude along with them —In- observed relation of events to each other, somuch that the colour and direction of empires might have fallen, and the faith your whole futurity have turned on what, of whole nations been subverted, and apart from this mighty bearing, would the greatest evolutions been made in have been the veriest trifle in the world. the progress of human affairs, all the It is thus that the great drama of a na- time that the will of' God and the authortion's politics may hinge on the veriest ity of God were elements of' utter insigbagatelle, that could modify or suggest nificance. Sould he let go as it were one some process of thought in the heart of' a small ligament in the vast and complicasingle individual. The most remarkable ted machinery of the world, it might all instance of this which I at present recol- run, so to speak, into utter divergency of lect, is, when the pursuers of Mahomet from the purposes of the mind that formwho followed hard upon him with a view ed it. As things are constituted, the influto take his life, were turned away from ence of littles carries along with it an the mouth of the cave in which he had experimental demonstration, that the powthe moment before taken shelter, by the er and direction of the Godhead extend flight of a bird from one of the shrubs even unto littles. From it we argue, that that grew at its entry-inferring that, had there is no alternative between a provihe recently passed that way, the bird dence so particular as to embrace all, or must have been previously disturbed away an atheism so universal as to exclude all, and would not now have made its appear- from the guidance and the guardianship ance. It is a striking remark of the his- of a Divinity. In such a world, where all torian, that this bird, by its flight upon are so bound together in the way of inthis occasion, changed the destiny of' the fluence or unvarying succession, there is world-instrumental as it was in perpetu- need of such a Providence. And even ating the life of the false prophet, and, from this contemplation, may be gotten along with him, the reign of that super- something that should reconcile us to the stition which to this day hath a wider as- idea of a predestinating God. In the folcendancy over our species than Chris- lowing verses the apostle passes onwards tianity itself. And such indeed are the to this conception; and we shall be more links and concatenations of all history. prepared to go along with him, when we A word, a thought, an unforseen emotion, only think, that, by shutting out the ordiin event of paltriest dimensions in itself, j nation of God fromnr any event in nature LECTURE LIX.-CHAPTER VIII, 28. 299 or in nistory, we, in fact, shut Him out good? The promise here is not unto all from that lengthened train of events, in the general, but to those who harbour whereof it only formed one of the step- within them a certain feeling, and are ping-stones-that by breaking one link, stamped upon their moral or spiritual na. however small, we in fact wrest the chain ture with a certain character. It is unto out of that hand from which it was sus- those who love God. Now I may not be pended —that, by refusing Him the su- sure that I love Him. I may desire to prerne and directing agency over the least love Him; but to desire is one thing and incidents, we in fact depose Him from all to do is another. I may have a wish for government of men or of things, even in the affection-of this I should suppose the greatest passages of their story —In a that many of you are conscious; but to word, that we cannot disjoin God from have a wish for the affection is not to one particle of the universe, without deso- have the affection itself, and the question lating the universe of its God. recurs-what title have I to appropriate'To them that love God.' We have al- the comforts of this passage, or to preready spoken of His providence; and of sume on the strength of an. affirmation the sureness wherewith He works out His that is evidently restricted to the possesown purposes by a mechanism far too sors of a certain grace, even of love to complex for our apprehension; and of God-what title have I to imagine, that the way in which He intermingles the lit- the power and the providence of Heaven tie with the great in the history of human are wholly upon my side? affairs; and of the need that there is for Now it does not follow, that you are a constant superintendance by Him-see- altogether destitute of love to God, being that on the minutest incidents of life cause it stirs so languidly within you, that its mightiest and most abiding interests you are not able very distinctly or decidare often made to turn; and of the sup- edly to recognise it. Your very desire to port which a sound experience renders to love Him is a good symptom-your very a most important doctrine of sound theol- grief that you love Him not bodes favourogy-even that God, instead of sitting in ably for you. The complaint that you remote and lofty unconcern to our world, utter of a heart hard and ungrateful, and save in the noblest and grandest passages that hath been very much unmoved by of its history, busies Himself in fact with the claims which God hath to all the affecthe operations of every atom, and bears tions of it-is one which has been rea microscopic regard to the most trivial echoed by the disciples and the saints of of events and of things-even while He all ages; and which, if you feel as you sits in heaven s high throne, and casts a ought, will to the end of your life be the directing eye over space and its immea- subject of your humiliation and your surable regions. This we have already prayers. Love to God is a heavenly aspi. attempted to make as palpable to your ration, that is ever kept in check by the discernment as we could; and we are drag and the restraint of an earthly nan~w led by the clause that is before us, to ture; and from which you shall not be bethink ourselves of the character of unbound till the soul by death has made those to whom it is that God maketh all its escape from the vile body, and cleared things work together for their good-even its unfettered way to the realms of light that they love God. and life and liberty.'In very proportion We seldom meet with so of much ear- to the desirousness wherewith you now nestness among those who are intent on soar aloft, will you be galled by the tenatheir preparation for heaven, as that which cle that holds you; and, feeling with the is excited by the question whether or not Psalmist of old how your soul cleaves unthey really do love God. It is indeed a to the dust, will you pray that God might trying question on which few adventure quicken you. Where there is a complain' themselves; and on which most who do, of hardness, there is in fiact a beginnin, have to record that marvellously little of tenderness. Where there is an honest satisfaction is to be found. It forms one wish for affection, there is in fact the of the most anxious topics of self-exami- embryo affection itself, struggling for a nation; and the thing which the enquirer growth and an establishment in the aspiris in search after, even the affection for ing bosom. Where there is a feeling of the Godhead that exists in his own bosom sad insensibility, the sensibility hath may be either so dull and undiscernible begun; and that good seed, which one of itself, or lie so buried in the multitude can with difficulty see among the still of other things that crowd and confuse vigorous and unbroken elements of carthe receptacles of the inner man, as to nality, is already deposited, and will rise elude the investigation altogether. And into a tree that might overspread with its then the question comes, how am I to be droppings the whole mass of our then re. assured of my interest in the declaration generated nature. Meanwhile it is most.hat all things shall work together for my;desirabie that the germ should expand 300. LECTURE LIX. —CHAPTER VYi;, 28 that the precious element should be fos- Their faith in the offer constitutes their tered into a more visible magnitude-that acceptance of it. By meeting God's as. the affection, of which you are now so surance with their trust, they will find, fruitlessly in quest, should so grow as to that, according to this trust, so shall it be announce itself —that the flame should done unto them. By simply regarding brighten and break forth out of its present the transaction of the sacrifice for sin as dull and lambent obscurity: And the a real and honest transaction, they shall question is, how shall this be brought have a full share in it, and be absolved aboutl Never we affirm by the exercise from their sin. Many are outwardly call of self-inspection alone-never in the ed; but, turning a deaf and listless ear mere employment of inwardly brooding thereunto, they come not under the desigon the characters that are already graven nation of my text. They are not the callupon the tablet of the heart-never by ed-a designation reserved for those, who looking to oneself as the subject, at thee have not only heard the call, but who have time when you are called to look unto the perceived its honesty and worth, and have Saviour as the object. The eye is not a proceeded upon it. luminary. It sheds no light on the field You see then the connection that there of its contemplation. It diffuses no heat is, between the two characteristics of those over it. It only witnesses the splendour, for whose good God maketh all things to but can in no way create it. It may dis- work together. The two characteristics cover that which is visible, but it does not are that they love God, and that they are make it visible; and, therefore, if you the called. The second of these in the complain that you cannot see the love of order of enumeration, is the first in the God within you, it is not by poring and order of succession. It is only upon our penetrating among the arcana of your entertaining the call of the gospel and moral constitution that this love is to be consenting thereunto, it is only upon this inspired. transition taking place in our minds-that'To those who are the called.' This there ensues a transition of the heart to new clause may be turned to some prac- the love of God, from that indifference or tical account in the resolving of the diffi- even hatred which we formerly bore unto culty. They who love God are described Him. Anterior to this, the thought of God by another and a distinct characteristic. stood associated with feelings of jealousy They are the called, by which we under- and insecurity and alarm. The constand not those who have merely had the science, if at all faithful, could not fail to call or invitation of' the gospel sounded in reproach us for our delinquencies. The their ears; but those who have felt the law of God, and more especially if repower of the call upon their hearts, and garded in its pure and lofty and uncomhave complied with it accordingly. In the promising character, could not but sugwell-Nweighed language of our Shorter Ca- gest the disturbing imagination of many techism, it signifies those who are effectu- accounts that were unsettled, and many ally called. There has not merely been violations for which no recompense to its a call on the part of the gospel, but there outraged dignity had been made. The has been a compliance with it on the part character of God, as being that of august of their souls-and that just because the and unapproachable sacredness, offered gospel hath come to them, not in word no asylum from the disquietudes that only, but in power and in the Holy Ghost haunted us; nor could we ever with our and with much assurance. Their eyes eyes open to the incommutable attributes have been opened to behold the reality of of His holiness and His justice and His the gospel overtures. They recognise the truth, could we ever find any solid repose death of Christ as an effective propitia. in that fancied indulgence of HIis nature, tion for sin. They perceive that the be- which forms at once the refuge and the nefit of this propitiation is held out in delusion of a meagre and sentimental offer to them individually. They hear the piety. Those imaginations of the Godbeseeching voice of God accompanied with head, which make up a religion of poetry, such terms as any and all and whosoever; are not enough for a religion of peace'; and they understand this to be as good as and, in these circumstances, He, to all a voice addressed specifically to each of practical accounts, is regarded by the eye hemselves; and they regard a message, of nature with that dread and that dis3o couched and so worded, to be a mes- quietude, which are inspired by the sight sage from Heaven to their own doors; of' an enemy. It is a sense of guilt that and as the message is neither more nor has so alienated us from God; and it is less than an entreaty on the part of God under the latent yet powerful conviction that they will be reconciled to Him, they of His displeasure, that we stand before respond to it with the full consent and Him with our hearts in chill and torpid confidence of their hearts; and by so do- apathy, and our countenances fallen. It ing they in fact enter upon reconciliation. is this which stands as a wall of iron be, LECTURE LIX.-CHAPTER VIII) 28. 301 tween heaven and earth; and wholly de- 1 in mercy, but mercy shrined as it we.re in bars the intimacies either of confidence Ithe immutabilities of truth and holiness or of regard, from Him who dwelleth in -as longing for the approaches even of the high and the awful sanctuary. And the guiltiest of His children, but laying the only way, we repeat it, by which this His firm and authoritative interdict on else impregnable barrier can be scaled, that approach in any other way than by and we can draw nigh in kind affection to the appointed mediatorship-as turning the Father who made us, is by accepting His throne into a throne of grace, but the only authentic offer that He ever held without undermining the eternal props of' out to us of reconciliation. It is by be- judgment and of righteousness by which holding Ifim in the face of' Christ. It is it is upholden-as mingling in His own by rejoicing in that mercy which flows so character the tenderness of a friend, with copiously on all who will, through the the venerable dignity of a Sovereign-as channel of his consecrated priesthood- blending at once in that economy which and that not at the expense of His other Ile hath set up over His erring creatures attributes, but with their fullest and no- the meekness of a paternal government blest vindication. It is this alone which with the majesty of its power. The man by quelling the suspicions and the fears who is groping for the discovery of an of guilty nature, at the very time that it affection towards God among the secrepresents the attractive exhibition of a God cies of his own inscrutable bosom, I whosa graciousness hath not impaired but would bid him cast an upward eye to the illustrated His glory-it is this alone that revealed countenance of the Godhead; can achieve the great moral revolution in and this will do something more than disthe character of man; and by rending cover the affection,-it will create it. Ere the enmity of nature, can soften the before it can be made manifest, it must be made sullen and intractable heart of man, for to exist; and, most assuredly, it is not the impression of that new character in by downwardly probing and penetrating virtue of which it now loves God. among the mysteries of your own moral Now it is by the recurrence of the mind constitution, that you will summon it into to that truth which first conveyed to it the being. Ere you can love God, you must love of God, that this affection is upholden see Him to be lovely; and this is a vision -just as to rekindle your admiration of a which the terrors of unexpiated guilt, and beautift:l scene or picture, you would re- the sense of a controversy with God that turn again to gaze upon it. It is on this has not yet been satisfactorily or intelligiprinciple that so much stress is laid on. bly made up, are. sure to scare away. It keeping the truths which we believe in is the gospel, and it alone, that resolves memory-insomuch, that, if not so recall- this obstruction-nor am I aware of any ed and dwelt upon, we are said to have expedient by which the first and the believed them in vain. The doctrines of greatest law can again be established the gospel are intended for a further pur- within us, than by accepting the call of pose than that of merely making up a that gospel wherein He is propounded as creed. One mainl design of them is to a just God and a Saviour. move the affections; and more especially,' According to his purpose'-or accordto reawaken that affection to which na- ing to His previous design. We now tread ture, when oppressed with fears or weigh- on the borders of' what is deemed by many ed down with the lethargies of sense, is to be a great mystery; and though we wholly incompetent-even the love of have no great respect for that Theology God. And that this love be perennial in which loves to grapple with the incomour hearts, there must be a constant ref- prehensibles of lofty speculation —yet we erence to the truth which first inspired it. must not shrink from ought that Scripture The way to keep our hearts in the lo-ve lays across our path. I'here is an ambiof God, is to build ourselves up on our tion on the part of some to be wise above most holy faith. To recall the emotion that which is written; but that is no reawhen it hath vanished from our heart, we son why, in avoiding this, we should not must recall the truth which hath vanished attempt at least to be wise up to that from our remembrance. The way to ali- which is written. You may remember ment and perpetuate the one, is to detain that a few chapters ago, which, from the the other, and let it be the habitual topic exceeding tardiness of our progress, makes of our fondest contemplation. You com- it nearly as many years ago-we came to plain of your love to God being so exceed- an encounter with the very formidable ingly dim as to be beyond the reach of doctine of original sin, and found the task your discernment. I know of no other way so ponderous that it took several succes. to brighten it, than simply to think of sive Sabbaths ere we did acquit ourselves Him as He is, and more especially as He thereof. The few succeeding verses pre. stands forth to the believer's eye in the sent us with a similar exercise on the glass of His owrn revelation-as abundant doctrine of predestination; and we most 302 LECTURE LIX.-CHAPTER VIII, 28. assuredly would not embark on so ardu- hearing of the people, that there is no:us an undertaking, did we not hold it man, be his guilt what it may, whom God'ght to follow fearlessly wherever the will not welcome into peace with Him,.ight of revelation may carry us; and would he only draw nigh in the name of did we not further believe, that, like all that great propitiation which has been other Scripture, this too is profitable, and rendered for the sins of the world. In in most entire harmony with the interests this sense every one of you is called. But of truth and virtue in our world. it must be clear to your own experience, The purpose then signifies a previous that there is the widest possible difference design; and this in so far previous, as to between one class and another as to their be even anterior to the existence of those reception of this call-that on some it who are the objects of it. In the second falls in downright bluntness, and moves epistle to Timothy there is an allusion to them not out of the deep unconcern and this very purpose of our text, and where lethargy of nature-whilst others recogit stands associated too with the very call nise it as a voice from Heaven; and are that is now under consideration. "(God awakened thereby to a sense of reconcilhath saved us," says the apostle, "not iation; and feel a charm and a preciousaccording to our works but according to ness in the doctrine of that cross, whereon his own purpose and grace, which was the enmity between God and a sinful given in Christ Jesus before the world world was done away; and through the began." The purpose then is the prior faith which they are enabled to put in the determination in the mind of the Divinity, word of this testimony, are translated into that such a one should be converted from a felt peace and friendship with that God, the error of his ways-should be called who turns away His displeasure from from darkness unto light-should make them on the moment that they turn away that transition by which he passes from their distrust from Him: And thus, while v. state of condemnation to a state of ac- you all in one sense of the word are call-:eptan,e; and the call which we have ed, they are the latter class alone who are already supposed to be an effectual one, the called of my text-because, called ef: is just as distinguishable from this pre- fectually, they have not only heard the vious determinution, as the execution of a call but answered it. Here then is a palpurpose is from the purpose itself-or as pable difference between two sets of a design entertained and resolved upon hearers, that falls to be accounted for; long ago is from its fulfilment, that may and the account every where given of' it only take place this very day, or at some in Scripture is, that the Spirit, who blowdistant and indefinite futurity before us. eth where He listeth, hath carried the' Moreover whom he did predestinate them message with power to the listener's heart he also called.' By the one He makes the in the one case, and hath gone along with decree —By the other he carries it into it in the other-that He hath inclined the effect. And'we again repeat, that it is not one to God's testimonies, and left the in the daring spirit of an adventurer we other to his own waywardness-that wherwould have you to enter this field, or on a ever a saving impression has been made, game of strength or of skill with the dif- there the Holy Ghost has been at work, ficulties of human argument; but in the who operating not without the word but simple and lowly spirit of genuine disci- by the word, hath fulfilled on the person ples would we have you to submit your- of the new believer, that purpose which selves to the Divine testimony. God conceived in his favour before the It is quite obvious that the being called foundation of the world. here means something totally different, But let not any feel himself thrown at from what it does in the verse where it is a distance from salvation, by thus consaid that many are called but few are necting it with the antecedent decree of chosen. In that verse the call of the gos- God respecting it. WVe are sure that none pel is supposed to be heard by many, but ought, who feel a true moral earnestness complied with by few. But in the verse on the subject, and are honestly and debefore us they who are the called have sirously embarked on the pursuit of their not only heard the call, but they have re- immortal well-being. For though the sponded to it. In the one sense all who Spirit bloweth where He listeth, yet He are here present, may be made to pass listeth so to do on all who court and who among the called, simply by sounding aspire after Him; and though by His forth among you the offers and the invita- work upon a human soul He is fulfilling tions of grace-simply by bidding, as we a design that hath been conceived from are fully warranted to do, each and all to eternity, yet it is not with this past design put his confidence in the blood of Christ, bult with the present futfirment that you and so have his sins washed away-sim- have to do: And the matter in hand, the ply by coming forth with the assurance, matter with which you should feel yourwhich we cast fearlessly abroad in the self urged and occupied, is, that by the LECTURE LIX.-CHIAPTER VIII, 28. 303 operation of that Spirit you may indeed able at once to sanctify and to save usbe enlightened in the truth of God, and let me press you to awake and be active made wise unto your own salvation. For in the work, putting forth all the strength his purpose let me assure you of His that is in you, and confident that if you readiness to help and to visit all who ask really do so more strength will be given Him-let me entreat your attention to -So that if the whole force which you that Bible, which with Him is the mighty have now be honestly and heartily diinstrument, whereby the understanding rected to the object, by force the kingdom and the heart and all the faculties of man of heaven will be carried are gained over to that truth, which is LECTURE LX. ROMANS viii, 29. "For whom he did forelnow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the frst-born among many brethren." THERE is a vast and immeasurable pro- sovereignty of God, to imagine of every gression of events, between the concep- one event as isolated from all the others; tion of God's will in the depths of the but which still, at some period of high eternity that is past, and the full consum- antiquity in the history of' the Godhead, mation of that will in the yet unresolved was made the subject of a distinct and mysteries of the eternity that is to come. authoritative ordination. There is anoAnd we occupy our given place along the ther mode, and by which the sovereignty line of that progression. We form one in would still be maintained in all its entirethe series of many generations; and, in ness-even to imagine of Him, that He in our assigned part of this mighty chain brought forth the universe, just as a skilwe can only see a little way on either ful inventor bringeth forth a piece of cuside of it-because from our post of ob- rious and complicated workmanship; and servation, and with our limited range of that He furnished it at the first with all faculties, it soon loses itself both in the the springs and the weights and the movobscurity that is behind, and in the almost ing forces, that fix and ascertain both the equal obscurity that is before us. Never- most minute and the mightiest of its evotheless we concede to Him who originated lutions; and that the wisdom by which the whole of this wondrous process, that He could frame the mechanism, is insepHis eye reaches from the beginning to the arable from the wisdom by which He end of it-thaf, from the lofty and uncre- could foresee all the particulars of its ated summit of His own omniscience, He operation: And thus, just as you might can descry all the successions of the uni- say of him who maketh and who windeth verse that Himself hath made-that in the up some orrery of human art, and who is single fiat of His power, by which the me- able to calculate and to predict all the chanism of creation was called forth, and consequent movements and positions of it all its laws were ordained, there were at any point of time that may be specified comprehended all the events that took -that it is he who by his own will hath place in the history of nature or of prov- determined through each of its separate idence-and that neither their variety can footsteps the miniature history of his own bewilder, nor their minuteness can elude little workmanship-in like manner may the one glance, by which he is able to you say of the great the stupendous appaembrace all worlds, and look ornward ratus of creation, that all the facts and through an infinity of ages. And He doth the futurities of its state at every moment, thus foreknow, just because He did pre- are determined by Him who called it into destinate-just because in the very consti- being at the first, and endued it at the first tution of His work, there are the princi- with all its properties. We do not affirm ples and the powers by which its every in which of these wavys it is that the afevolution is determined-just because the fairs of the divine government are consovereignty that He hath over it, is far ducted; but in either way, you concede mow absolute than that which the human to Him who presideth over it, the entire artificer hath over all the operations and and absolute sovereignty —in either way and results of the machinery that he hath you realise the idea of a predestinating framed. It is not the only mode of con- God. ception in which we might regard the And we seldom meet with any disposi 804 LECTURE LY.-CHAPTER. VIII, 29. tion to question this entire and unexcepted trees that have arisen in one place; and sovereignty of God, in reference to the the tufts of grass that abound in another; material world. In all the operations of and places of rank luxuriance, where ] purely unconscious materialism, there nevertheless there is not a blossom and Is abundant willingness to admrit a precise not a stalk of herbage, that has not been necessity, a rigid and unfailing ordination. set by an intelligent hand, and bidden There is not a more impressive exhibition into the very nook it occupies by that of this, than in the simple but magnifi- sovereign voice which assigns the bounds cent apparatus of the visible heavens- of every habitation. where, out of only two forces, those enor- Thus where there is nought but unconmous masses that float in boundless scious matter, we meet with no exception vacancy, have for thousands of years against the doctrine that God fixes all and persevered with mathenmatical certainty predestines all; and that each process, in thecourses that God hath ordained for however lengthened and however complithem-insomuch, that, even by the skill cated, is overruled throughout by Himof man, the mystic complexity of these so as that it goeth onward at every moment shining orbs hath been most beauteously of time, with the sureness of mnechanism: unravelled; and, sure as geometry itself; And, moreover, if, at any instant, you the place and the velocity and the direc- were to open your eyes on a landscape tion of every planet are most rigidly to be that had never been visited with human found. Now this is predestination; and footstep, or rather that had never been it positively matters not to the question, disturbed by the spontaneous movement whether the actual state of the heavens be of any animal whatever-then it is queswilled by God at every one instant, or be tioned by few or by none, that the whole the sure result of that invariable law existing arrangement upon its surface is which IIe at first impressed upon them. as it hath been ordered by thy will of And even in other departments of the God; and standeth forth in all its most material world, where the order of suc- minute and subordinate details as He hath ceeding events hath hitherto baffled all appointed it. Neither doth it disturb the human calculation, still it is held that conviction in our minds, that the influences there is such an order necessarily fixed which preside over this arrangement, or by the laws of nature, or by the will of' rather which actually gave rise to it, are Him who hath established these laws- so very complex, so very manifold, and insomuch, that even the fluctuations of' to us so very much beyond the reach of the weather are not at random; and a all foresight and all calculation. that we certain principle determines every fitful are disposed to apply to the whole distribreeze, and every forming cloud, and bution of the things and objects within every falling shower-though that princi- our contemplation the epithet ofaccidenrta pie hath not yet been seized upon by us, -as of the breeze which wafted the so as that wve can prophesy a day of rain, downy seed to the random situation of the just as we can proplhesy the day of an plant that afterwards sprung from it; or eclipse. The vastness of Nature's variety, of the stream upon which it had alighted, soon overpasses our feeble apprehension and which carried it down to the jutting -yet this does not hinder our belief, that, bank that detained and harboured it; or apart from life and thought and volition, of the capricious weather, that gave to there reigns throughout the whole of its the future vegetation the very growth that wide empire an unfhiling necessity; and, was actually experienced, and the very supposing that there were nought but strength and magnitude that were actually blind and unconscious materialism in the attained. We do make a heedless appliworld, we should not quarrel with the cation of' the term accidental to all these doctrine of predestination. We should varieties-just because they are far too recognise the appointment of God as complex and bewildering for us to follow descending even to the humblest event in them in their history, or to trace them tc the history of nature-as determining the their causes. Yet, nevertheless, when we force of every billow that breaks upon do summon our attention to the topic, we the shore —as prescribing both its velocity do not refuse that the hand of God hath and its path to every flying particle of been in one and all of these countless dust that to our eye had been accidentally diversities-that the flower which hath raised by some gale that blew over us- found its accommodation in the crevice as conducting every vegetable seed to its of the rock has had its bed prepared by determined spot; and so parcelling, as it Him, and that He hath planted anid wawere, over the soil of an uninhabited tered it-that over the whole face of this island, all the varieties of the produce wilderness, there is not an hairbreadth of that it bore-So that it is not according to deviation from that very picture of it, a fortuitous, but a rigidly preordained which was in the mind of the Divinity distribution of them, when we witness the before that He evoked it into being-that LECTUIE. LX.,-CHAPTER VIII, 29. 305 design and destiny, in fact, are imprinted, is as surely guided to crush the vegetain irreversible characters, on each indi- tion which God meaneth to be destroyed, vidual specimen of botany in this yet as are those invisible particles that float untrodden land-that an intelligent finger through the atmosphere, and are made to did assign the precise locality and limits fall in blight or in mildew on, those fields of every species, so that He hath fixed which they have spotted with diseasetheir residence, and marked their borders, that when the skipping deer hbath dibbled with all the sureness of geometry-and by his foot a soft receptacle for the fallthat, confused to our eyes as are these ing acorn, the law of gravitation hath not vast and varied assemblages which lie more determinately guided the one in a dispersed over some wide and solitary strict rectilineal path to that place, whence domain, yet, in this whole husbandry of the magnificentt oak of many centuries is nature, there is positively nought that to arise, than the law of animal nature hath fallen out at random, because under hath brought the other with all its light the absolute superintendence of Him who and airy and tremulous motion to be the hqth the elements in His hand, and each unconscious auxiliary therein. Hitherto of which renders in His service the pre- then all is destiny; and even when we cise accomplishment of that whereunto pass upwardly to the doings of conscion.. He hath sent it. and intelligent man, the sturdy predestiWe are all abundantly willing then to narian will not quit his holea; but affirms. admit of an entire and absolute predesti- that, even after the introduction of' this nation, in the world of' created matter; new element, all is in as strict subordinabut it is when the same doctrine is ex- tion to the will of God as before-that tended to the world of created mind, that though the now cleared and cultivated we shrink and are in difficulties. For ex- farms, and the wcll-kept gardens, and the ample, let this solitary island, where Na- beauteous shrubbery of rising villas, and ture hath so long reigned and luxuriated all the comforts and ornaments of civilized without a rival, at length meet the obser- lifse which grace the transformed.landvation of the voyager, and be recovered scape-that though these form a different from its deep oblivion of ages-let it now picture of the island from that which we become the peopled abode, both of ani- have imagined of it many generations bemals and men-let new powers and new fore-Yet that the picture now, was in the elements be thus brought to act upon its mind of the Divinity before the creation husbandry-let the skill and the labour of the world, as correctly and as vividly and the intelligence of human creatures, as the picture of it then-that IIe did not spread a refined agriculture over the sur- lose sight of it, when it passed from the face of it-So as to cause another distri- operation of His own unconscious elebution of the vegetable family, from that ments into the hands and the busy which obtained in the days of savage and management of His own living, nay even solitary grandeur. Now you will remark of His own planning and purposing and that the actual state of this territory is not rational creatures-that even then, it did resolvible- into the operation of physical not pass beyond the scope of God's precauses alone; but is the mingled result science and of God's predeterminationof the physical blended with the moral- that men are as certainly the instruments that the former influences, which wont to of His pleasure, as the fire and the air operate by themselves, are now compli- and the water that are said to be His mincated with other influences still more ca- isters-Insomuch, that, in the glowing pricious, or at least still less within the domains of art and population, every item reach of calculation-that human thought of the perspective which is afforded, realand human choice now share an influ- ised though it hath been by the busy ence, over that arrangement which before hearts and hands of human beings, was was determined by the elements of na- also all settled and made sure in the counture. Now what the predestinarian holds sels of eternity. is, that the determination is just as pre- And it does give a semblance of great cise and as necessary, after the accession consistency and truth to this whole specuof this new influence as it was before- lation-that, just as matter acts in virtue that though living creatures have taken of certain powers and properties wherepossession of the territory, yet that all its with the Creator hath endowed it, so mind changes and all its processes are just as also hath powers and properties to which rigidly and as absolutely as ever under all its movements can be referred-and, the sovereignty of God —that, in the dis- more especially, that the part which man ersion of plants for example, the flying takes in the husbandry of the ground, ird carries the seed to its destined spot may as distinctly be traced to the operawith as great sureness, as it could be tion of a law in his nature, as the part wafted there by the breeze of heaven- which the elements have can be traced to tWat the hoof of the unwieldy quadruped certain fixed and unalienable principeid 39 306 LECTURE LX. —CHAP~ER VI, 29. according to which they act on the phy- newly acquired features of the now culti. siology of the vegetable world. It is the vated island, were, one and all of them Maker of' all things who hath given to in the perspective of God from the begineach of them its own peculiar character- ning-nay that it is the hand of God Himistic according to which each moves in self which hath imprinted them all upon its own peculiar and characteristic way. the face of the altered landscape-thal It is lie, in particular, who hath adapted with man, as the tool by which His own the economy of nrian's frame to the fruits designs are carried into effect, every of the earth; and who goads him on by hedge-row hath been drawn, and every the ever-recurring appetite of hunger; acre hath been reclairmed, and every ediand who, making him wiser than the fowls fice hath been raised, and one definite of heaven, hath given to him a reach of space hath beer. pencilled over with anticipation through all the seasons of the sweetest verdure, and another made to year; and who baith enabled him to wave in foliage, and another to shine treasure up the experience of the past; forth in flowery decoration, and another and who hath supplied him with princi- left in Nature's untamed luxuriance; but ples on which he can calculate and select altogether, so as that with the agency of and determine according to circumstances, man, He hath as effectually imprest His and fix himself down in the abode of his own design and His own destination upon settlement and on the field of his industry. the whole of this territory, as when withAnd with these busy processes of choice out this agency He had nothing but His and deliberaltion and the agency of mo- own passive and unconscious elements to tives, doth God, not only decide the greater work by. mevements of his life, but in reality tills Thus far have we deemed it necessary, up all the subordinate details of it. And in justice to a topic, which, in the ordinary thus when iman goeth forth unto his la- course of our lecturing, hath come in our bour, he is all day long the creature of' way, to say something on the much concircumstances; and the soil, and the grain, troverted doctrine of pro:destination-Yet, and the exposure, and the local con- while we do not hesitate to affirm that all venience, and the right successions for a our convictions are upon its side, such is profitable husbandry, and the facilities our antipathy to any thing like mere that may be opened, and the obstacles speculation in the pulpit, that we are glad that must be overcome-these act upon to dispose in half an hour of an argument, him as so many effective considerations that would require a lengthened and every hour of the (lay, and they necessa- elaborate treatise for the full solution ot rily guide and influence him even through it. The particular illustration that we the minutest details of his agriculture. have chosen, is not perhaps the most And it is thus that we may detect a real eflfective for the purpose of convincingprocess in his part of the operation, as yet we have preferred it, because we well as in the operation of the uncon- think it the best that has occurred to us, scious elements-a series of causes and for elucidating all the particular uses that effects, by which the instrument man is stand connected with this article of faith. directed in the husbandry of art, along These we shall defer till a future oppor with all the other instruments that with- tunity; and, meanwhile, we shall barely out him carried forward the husbandry advert to one argument more, that, even of nature-an actual and a firm concate- apart from Scripture, (which according nation of influences, by which he is guided to my own view is altogether on the side to all his plans and all his performances. of predestination,) but that even apart and which descenids to every furrow that from Scripture, might we think be most he draws, and every field that he incloses, triumphantly alleged in its behalf. and every handful of corn that he strews The argument is, that, by admitting of upon its surface. And thus it is that in predestination in the world of matter, and the opinion, we shall not say of theologi- excluding it from the world of mind, you, ans only, but even of those who are pro- in fact, exclude God from the most dignifoundest in philosophy, the intervention fled part of His own creation. While you of man is not conceived to affect the pre- invest Him with an entire and unexcepted destination of God-the creature is re- supremacy over the mass of unconscious gardted as but an instrument in the hand bodies, you rifle from Him His authority of the Creator, which He wieldeth at His over the moral and the intelligent empire pleasure-the mechanism of thought and of spirits-Nay, by erecting each of these desire and determination is held to be only spirits into a principle of spontaneous ( ne of those countless diversities of ope- and independent operation, the capricious ration, through which it is God that work- movements of which God can neither eth all in all. And, accordingly, it is the predict nor predetermine, you lay open article of many a philosopher's as well as by far the noblest department of the uniof many a theologian's creed, that the verse, to an anarchy that no power can LECTUIE LX.-CHAPTER VITI, 29 307 control, and no wisdom can foretell the that we gave from a very critical passage' issues of. He who hath made, and who in the life of Mahomet-how he was prossustains all things, is represented as stand- served by the flight of a bird, and by the ing by, unable to foresee the turns, or to rapid process of inference which this gave direct the transitions of all those random rise to in the minds of his pursuers; and and unaccountable processes, that are that, had it not been for these two steps now in the hands of His own creatures; in the concatenations of providence, all and let the plans and wishes of the Divine the designs of the impostor would have Blind have been what they may, there is been arrested: And one of the greatest nought in providence and nought in his- moral revolutions in the history of our tory that is sure. It is but a poor cornm- species was thus made to turn on the most pensation that He presides over the mo- minute and familiar of all incidents. The tions of a sublime astronomy. It is but doctrine that would limit the predestina a poor compensation that the winds and tions of God to the world of matter, might the vapours, and the tides of ocean, allow that it was He who hallowed the and the changes of the atmosphere, and cave in which the pretender hid himself; even all the processes of the vegetable an.d guarded its entrance with shrubbery; kintdom —save when the usurper man and perhaps even detained the bird for hath wrested them from his grasp —It the purpose of turning away the footsteps is but a poor compensation, that both of the destroyers: But one step remains, the mechanism of the heavens above, and that hath been placed by the assertors and the whole of terrestrial physics of a self-determining power in man beyond on the earth below, are at HIis absolute the reach of the Being from whom he disposal,-if He be thus dethroned from sprung. It all hinged, you will observe, Hiis ascendancy over the best and the on a rapid volition in the breast of the fairest region of His works; and if, murderers. And if there be any thing when once the elements of thought and there to abridge God of His sovereigntylife and will aza. caused to mingle their if when it be the part of man to will, it is influence writh other things, He, from the part of God as it were to stand by and that moment, is struck with impotency, to wait on the uncertain decision-if the and must suffer the progress of events to Creator, instead of foreseeing all and take its own fortuitous and unmanageable determining all, m-ust thus attend on the wav. This consideration obtains great decisions of the creature; and shape the ad(litional strength, when we recur to the measures of His providence on earth, undoubted experience which I lately according to the signals that are given insisted on-even on the might and the out by all the petty and independent magnitude of little things, in regard to powers that swarm upon its surface — their bearing on the grandest passages of Then never, in the whole history of this history; and that therefore if God be world's politics we.wvill venture to affirm, wrested of His power and His providence never was there exhibited a more disjointed in That which is least, you in fact dethrone and tumultuous government —never have Him from His sovereignty over that which we read of a more helpless or degraded is greatest. You remember the example sovereign. LECTURE LXI. ROMANS Viii, 29, 30. or whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he mieht be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified." IN my last remarks upon the subject I into a right belief on the topic of predesconfined myself, nakedly and absolutely, tination, as for evincing that, whether to the truth of the doctrine of predestina- true or false, all your present energies tion; and had no time left for any moral should be given entire to the present or practical application. And yet it is for work of repenting, and believing, and a good and powerful application of the labouring with all diligence in the new truth in this instance that I feel greatly obedience of the gospel. As to the specmore anxious, than even for the truth ulative doctrine itself, I do not scruple to itself. It is not your curiosity but your aver, that, while a firm and unexceptea conscience that I want to address; neither believer in it myself, I do not regard it as am I so solicitous for dogmatising you one of those articles which are indispen 308 LECTURE LXI. —-CHAPTER VIII, 29, 30. sable to salvation-that many are the emi- Him crucified which he could not surrennent worthies, and more especially of our der, there were also truths in which he sister church, who have the root of the suffered a variety of conception on the matter in them; and yet who eye this part of his fellow-Christians; and so far doctiine, not with incredulity alone, but from scowling excommunication upon with a sort of keen and sensitive antipa- them because of it, he waits in hope and thy —who have, in short, a kind of' horror charity the progress of a more enlighten. at this most revolting feature of what they ed conviction in their minds. "Let as denominate a rigid and revolting Calvin- many as be perfect be thus minded, and ismn; anid deem, that, unfit for modern ears, if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, it should now be suff-red to be forgotten God shall reveal even this unto you. in the unwieldy folio, whose scowling Nevertheless whereto ye have already frontispiece represents the theologian who attained, let us walk by the same rule, let penned it. I, of course hold them to be us mind the same things." This he would wrong. I think that they misunderstand not have said of the doctrine of salvatioi the subject, and view it through a medium by grace alone. This, for aught that is of passion and prejudice which may at known, he might have said of the doctrine length be dispersed. Nevertheless, though of predestination. And it is sufficiently we count them in an error, it, like certain remarkable that the apostle Peter adverts sins mentioned by the apostle John, is an to certain things of Paul, not as indiserror not unto death. I do not see how pensable to be believed, but what is far they can get over the evidence that there more characteristic of our present topic is for predestination —both in the scrip- as hard to be understood-a topic that tures of truth; and in those independent has met us on our way, and which it were reasonings to which man, even unaided surely unworthy of the fearless believer and alone, seems altogether competent. in the authority of Scripture to decline Yet I am aware, that to a certain limit, from; but a topic which we at the same there may be varieties of opinion, and all time entertain, not with the purpose to of them alike consistent with reverence regale your curiosity, but if possible t( for (God and His communications, so far stimulate your conscience-not to make as the ability to understand them has been intelligible that which an inspired teacher given; and such varieties on the much hath pronounced to be dark-not to mnake controverted topic of predestination ap- you more learned in this redoubted dogma i'ear to nce within that limit. So that it is than the Bible is fitted to make its humntot in the spirit of Athanasian intolerance, ble interpreters and scholars, but to save that I have hitherto urged my convictions if possible, to save the unlearned and the upon this subject; nor indeed so much unstable from wresting this and the cther with a view to impress these convictions scriptures to their own destruction. as to demonstrate if I can-that the great I have already stated that the doctrine cause of practical Christianity remains of the text might be apprehended by a uninjured by a doctrine, which is con- series of historical events-each linked ceived by many to be fatal to it. in firm and necessary concatenation with The apostle Paul, however strenuous the other, and altogether forming a chain and resolute in his assertions of certain which extends from the first purpose of doctrines, was, in regard to certain others the Divine Mind to the final accomplishthe most indulgent and liberal of men. ment of it in eternity. The intermediate He admitted a certain latitude of senti- place at which each of us now stands ment even among his own converts; and, forms one of these links. It is a step of though there were errors for which he had that mighty progression which reaches no toleration, yet there were also errors, from everlasting to everlasting, and of both in opinion and in practice, which he whose distant extremities we are in proregarded in the spirit of a most benignant foundest ignorance. We may know that forbearance. There were articles of faith, there is a primary decree, either for or on which he would not give place even to against us; but of the decree itself we the slightest mitigation of them-no not know nothing. We may know that there for a single hour; and when the apostle is a fixed destination in reserve for us; Peter offered something like a compromise but which term of the dread alternative with the doctrine of justification by faith between heaven and hell is to be realised alone, he withstood him to the face be- on our imperishable spirits, of this we, cause he was to be blamed. Nay he have no information. called down the imprecation of Heaven We see but a little way on either side on any who should pervert the mind of of us; and from the visible place where his disciples from that gospel of free we now stand, each in the chain of his grace, wherewith he linked the whole of own personal destiny, does it soon lose ita sinner's salvation; and yet while there self, both behind and before, in a dim an, were truths respecting Jesus Christ and distant obscurity which we cannot pen LECTURE LXI.-CHAPTEP VIIi 29, 30.'S05 trate. And the question that I have to ad- which I should like to recall you; and dress to every plain understanding is, would rather quash all your thoughts on whether we shall be guided in the busi- the topic of predestination as so many ness that is now before us by that which hurtful vagaries, than that the urgencies we do know, or by that which we do not of' a free gospel should be held in abehoyknow-whether by our fancies of that ance. If you are not able to see the con. which lies in a conjectural region away sistency of this doctrine with the plain de. from us, or by our findings of that which clarations and entreaties of the New Tes. is at hand-whether by our vague specu- tament, do not bewilder yourselves. Mis. lation on the first and the last steps of that spend not that precious time in fruitless process which connects the pre-ordina- cogitation, which should be employed ilk tion of God with the future eternity of proceeding upon the calls of repent and man, or by those steps in which we now believe and be reconciled unto God. Put are actually implicated, the near and the away from you the doubtful disputations, besetting certainties of our own present and give your busy entertainment to tile condition. For, let it be observed, that honest assurances of the gospel. Be conthere are such urgent and immediate cer- tent with your ignorance of higher mystainties in your state as it now is; and the teries, and forthwith enter on the open question is, shall you proceed upon these, walk of reconciliation-being very sure, or upon the far-fetched imaginations which that, whatever doubt or darkness may you choose to draw from a territory that have gathered around the loftier summits is fithomless and unknown? A fool's of Theology, it hath also its safe and its eyes, says Solornon, are abroad over all patent road for the humble wayfhrerthe ends of the earth; and we appeal to that it has an offered pardon which you common sense-whether it be practical cannot too confidently trust, that it has its wvisdom or practical folly, to guide your revealed hopes of glory which you cannot tfootsteps by the uncertain guesses of what too joyfully cherish, that it has its proGod hath written regarding you in the mises of salvation which none of you can book of His decrees, or by what He hath too surely or too speedily embrace, that it written for your present direction in the has its prescribed path of holiness which book of IIis revelation. Grant that I am you cannot too diligently walk in. moving along a chain which hath one end You remember the illustration that I er:tainly fixed in the eternity that is past, have already given upon this subject, and another is certainly fixed in the eter- when I endeavoured to show how the nity that is to follow. The movement of doctrine of predestination could be exemthis day, at least, depends on the few links plified in the processes of nature and of that are within the reach of your present history-not only holding an unquestioned observation. It is not by looking distantly sway over inanimate things, and stamping aback, neither is it by shooting your per- a precise necessity both on the simpler spective ahead of all that is visible before movements of the heavens above, and the yo', it is not thus that you are practically more complicated operations that take carried forward on the line of your his- place in the physics and the physiology of' tory as an immortal being —it is by the the earth below; but, even when man mrinlinks that are presently in hand that your gles his energies and volitions with the un..present route is determined-it is to these conscious elements as he does in the plans that you have to look-it is upon the re- and proceedings of husbandry-that, thenii alities within your grasp that you are to too, there is as sure a presiding sovereign. decide the enquiry, what shall I do; and ty, which determines the site of every not upon the visions that float before the plant, and fixes the condition of every spot eye of your imagination. And what are of territory, as if nought but the wvinds these realities? What are the matters on and the waters, these unconscious minishand, that we would have you substitute ters of the Divinity, were in play. But, in place of the speculations about things granting this to be a true speculation, will beyond our reach, and things at a dis- it ever warp the designs and the doings tance? There is an embassy of peace of the practical agriculturist Does he from heav-n at your door. There is the ever think of the predestination that runs truth of the Godhead staked to the fulfil- through all his busy processes, or is it ment of your salvation, if you will only necessary that he should? Did ever in rely upon HIim. There is His beseeching this world's history a party of colonists voice addressed to each and to all, and tread on some before untrodden shore and saving "Come now let us reason together." begin its cultivation, under the impulse of There is the free offer of forgiveness, and such a metaphysical speculation? Did what is more, the assurance that if you the notion of God's prescience and of will only turn unto God Hie will pour out God's preordination extending to every His Spirit upon you. These are the mat- movement, supply one element of influters on hand. This is the business to I ence or direction in a single choice that 310 LECTURE LXI.- CHAPTER VIIi, 29, 30. they made, or a single labour that they certain fulfilment that is absolute an. put their hand to? It mlight be true, that irreversible. It is not the state of youi every resulting farm, with its fields and future eternity alone, that is decided by its crops and its boundaries, emerged, it; but the state of your fortune and after the busy willing and working of family in this world. Are you entering many years, into the very state that had upon business for example? If this doc. been pictured in the Divine Mind fiom all trine be true, even as I think it to be, the eternity-yet the truth never, for a single wealth to be realised, the height of affll. instant, be present to the mind of a single ence to be gained, the precise sum to be operator in this process. He was set bequeathed as an inheritance to your agoing by other considerations. He is children, are fixed and immutable as if decided by other influences. He never already written in the book of destiny vaults so high as to the first determinations Now attend to what that is which you of the Almighty. He never looks so far take your motive from, when you actively as to the remote transformation that the engage in the pursuits and speculations surface of the territory on which he now of merchandise. Do you ever think of labours is to undergo. He is moved both fetching it from the predestination that to will and to do by nearer elements-by has been already made in the upper the nature of the soil that is under his sanctuary What is it that sets you so feet-by the present weather which is busily agoing? Is it the predestination around him, and which calls him forth to that is past, and which has its place in his toils by the promises of a climate, that heaven. or is it the prospect which lies experience has told him warrants the hope immediately before you, and which is of a recompense for his labours. There furnished both by the present realities is nought of predestination in all his and the future likelihoods that be on the thoughts. He may exemplify the doe- field of your earthly contemplations? trine, but he does not recognise it; nor is Does the argument that all is already it at all essential to the practical result of determined, and there is no object to be a domain now rich in all the fruits of a gained by the most strenuous forth-putting prosperous agriculture. It. is the very of activity on your part-does ever this sanle in spiritual husbandry. It is the paralyse or impede any of your movevery same in that process, by which souls, ments Practically and really, I would now dead in trespasses and sins, are turn- ask, do you not resign yourselves as fully (d into well-watered gardens. It is a to what may be called the operation of transformation that may be effected, with- the continuous inducements, as if there was out one thought being bestowed, or one no predestination-as if this were a work intelligent regard being once cast, on this that you had never heard of, or a concepsublime mystery. The mind is decided tion that never had been presented to by nearer and more effective contempla- your thoughts 3 There is no such lofty tions-by the voice of a beseeching God- or aerial speculation that is ever permitted by the view of an open door of mediator- to embarrass this part at least of your ship to His throne-by the tidings of peace history; and, what is more, no complaint even to the worst of sinners, through the of hardship is ever uttered by you-beblood of a satisfying atonement; and by cause the affairs of your worldly business the honest and affectionate urgen('y where- are all chained down in adamantine with these tidings are pressed upon the necessity. The thought of this fated acceptance of you all-by the promises necessity as to this world's business, will of a spiritual climate, now rendered fit for neither provoke nor will it paralyse you the transformation of sinners, these thorns -provided that you could only see a good and briars, into trees of righteousness; and a likely opening for the prosecution for living water is made to descend on the of it. You will instantly forget the abprayers of every believer, the Holy Ghost stract speculation, and enter with all the being given because Christ is now glori- busy ardour of intense and unrestrained fled. Let these obvious considerations be faculties on the path of action. Givt you plainly and obviously proceeded on; and, only a hopeful enterprise —give you whether you have settled the high topic credit, and the countenance of steady and of predestination or not-be very sure, powerful friends, when you embark upon that he who strives to enter in at the strait it-give you the assurance of rising mar. gate shall save his own soul, that he who kets, and of a demand that will speedily presses into the kingdom of heaven shall absorb all the commodities which, either take it by force. by purchase or by preparation, you can If the doctrine of predestination be true, assemble together for the purpose of as I believe it to be, then it extends to all pouring into them-And then, only think the processes of human life; and, in virtue of the impetuous contempt wherewith you of it, every career of human exertion hath would overleap the paltry obstacle, if, in its sure result, and must terminate in one the midst of all this glee and animating LECTURE LXI.-CHAPTER VIII, 29, 30. $ 1 hurry, one of your cool metaphysical -and on that course, do we see him ply. acquaintances should offer to arrest you ing all its expedients, as if' God had cP. on the path of fortune, by the assurance creed nothing, and as if man had to do that fortune and every thing else had every thing. All that he needs to put him already a decree of' predestination laid into motion is an opening towards which upon thrm. You would no more think he may turn him, and along which he of giving up because of this, than you will be guided just by the events which would think of regulating the history of cast up —just by the circumstances an(l our present day by what you read of things that meet his observation. Suck history before the flood. And certain it is an opening in trade will at once make o. of all the operations of commerce, which, him an aspiring and indefatigable merif' predestination be indeed true, are as chant. Such an opening in family polimuch within the iron grasp of fatality as tics will at once set him, under the stimuany other of our concerns; that still these lus of his parental affection, to do all and are as much the spontaneous doings of to devise all for the future provision of busy active plodding and locomotive his offspring. Such an opening in near creatures, as if there was no such doctrine or distant colonies will, under the powerat all; and that, in respect of the calcula- ful operation of interest, bring out capital tions and the correspondencies and the and skill and personal activity, and make bargains and the voyages and all the him a busy agriculturist. Predestination other processes that prevail in the world of may, or it may not, have stamped a rigid trade, the doctrine, which some conceive and inviolable necessity on each and on would fieeze the whole into apathy and all of these processes; bLut whether the lay upon it a sudden congelation, leaves one or the other it matters not to him, who the affairs of human beings precisely on is directly and personally engaged in the footing in which it fobund them. them. He gives himself up to the play of It is just so in all the other processes those motives by which he is immediately of human life. It is so, for example, in beset; and under which he is powerfully the education and selttlement of children. urged forward on that course of activity, If the doctrine in question be true-then where he strives for his object, and where every footstep, and every advancement, he carries it. and the whole train of the future history It is even so in the business of religion, of each, are already the subjects of a prior Predestination no more locks up the acand unfailing ordination. But does this tivities of this business than of any other, encumber the activity and the outlook, and no more lays a hurt or a hardship on even of those parents who are of sturdiest those who are engaged in it. We never and most inflexible Calvinism! In the hear of the merchant or the parent or the -w-hole plan and conduct of their proceed- agriculturist, complaining that all his ings in behialf of their own offspring, it is energies are bound fast by a decree; but still the operation of the contiguous in- we see them instantly set in motion by a ducements that sets them practically ago- good opening. Neither ought we to hear ing. No one ever thinks of fetching one such a complaint from the adventurer for consideration to guide or to influence him, heaven, provided only that he too is prefrom that period of remoteness and mys- sented with a good opening. His proper tery when God made His decrees; but all and practical concern, is, not with the dethe influence which tells upon them, cree at all that is behind him, but with cometh fiom the circumstances that are the opening that is before him. It is with immediately around them, or from the the gate of Christ's mediatorship, now probabilities that are immediately before flung back for his access to the throne of their eyes. Give a parent an accessible God, and with the voice of invitation that place of best scholarship for some rising issues therefrom. It is with the call, member of his family-give him a likely " cease to do evil, learn to do well." It is avenue to some office of emolument or with the honest assurance, that, if we rehonour-give him a promising line of turn unto God, God will return unto us blusiness, a promise too that he reads not and abundantly pardon us. It is with the in the book of heaven's ordinations but in proclamation of welcome to one and to the book of earth's common and every- all; and, lest you should feel yourself day experience-give him these; and pre- secluded by the doctrine of election, it is destination will no more affect either the with such terms as all and any and whodirection or the activity of his movements, soever —terms that both embrace all and than any category of the old schoolmen. point specifically to each, and by which It may be a truth, and he may believe it therefore an obliterating sponge should be as such; but never does he suffer it to be- made to pass over the hurtful and the wilder him away from the plain course, withering imagination. These are what on which wisdom and observation and a you have immediately to do with, and sense of interest have urged him to enter with the question of your name being in 312 LECTURE LXI. —-CHAPTER VIII, 29, 30 the book of life, I speak unto those who widely sounding proclamation of "Lock meditate the great transition on which unto me all ye ends of the earth and be hingeth the whole of their future eternity, saved." It is the assurance of a welcome with this question at present they have and a good-will lifted from the mercy. positively nothing to do. The merchant seat, and made to circulate at large among would not so embarrass himself-'his love all the families of' the world. It is the of gain would urge him forward to the good news of a propitiation, the blood ot opening. The parent would not so em- which cleanseth from all sin; and of a barrass himself —the love of his children Spirit ready to be poured on the returning would urge him in like manner to take penitent, that it may both actuate the holy the practicable opening. Neither would desire and uphold his footsteps in the way the agriculturist-his love of a prosperous of holy obedience. And the truth of God settlement would lead him instantly to is staked to the fulfilment of' all these seize upon the goodly opening. And if declarations. He hath so framed the an opening goodlier than them all-if the economy of the gospel, that if you simply plain and practicable path to which you trust-then either you are saved or God are cheered forward by the invitation of' is a liar. He hath indeed descended very Heaven, and along which you have the far, that He might again make up the guarantee of Hleaven's grace and Heaven's controversy between Himself and a promises to assure you of a harvest of' sinful world. He bids one and all of' us glory-If this be not enough to arouse you only put Him to the trial. "Prove me, from indolent speculation-if this do not prove me," says God "and see whether I break you loose from metaphysical diffi- will not pour out a blessing upon you."' culties, as from the entanglement of so "'Plead your cause with me and put me many cobwebs-The inference, we fear, in mind of my own promises. "Take is too obvious to be resisted-that barrier with you words and turn to the Lord, say over which the love of gain, or the im- unto him Take away all iniquity and pulse of natural affection, so easily forced receive us graciously. I will heal their its way, hath withstood the impotent efforts backsliding. I will love them freely for of the religionist; for he had not the love mine anger is turned away." It is not with of God or of holiness that would have car- God, shrouded in the depths of His past ried him over it, and this is his condem- eternity-it is not with God, in that era nation that he loved the darkness rather of high and remote antiquity, where all than the light because his deeds were evil. His footsteps are unsearchable-it is not There are innumerable successive links with God in the secrecy of those unrein the chain of your destiny, and it is vealed counsels by which He fixes the only a few of the greater ones that are destiny of' all worlds, that you have to do. adverted to in the text. The first of all is You have no right to intrude into those coeval with the foireknowledge and pre- mysteries of the Royal Presence, and you destination of God. With this you have should count it enough, if you are included nothinsg at present to do. God at that in the benefits of a Royal Proclamation time vwas alone, and what He then did is and you are positively left without one one of those secret things which belong shadow of complaint-now that God hath unto Himself. The second link is the call broken silence-now that He hath set that He addresses to you:' Whom he Himself forth in that most winning and bath predestinated them he also called.' impressive attitude of God waiting to be With this you have to do. God at this gracious-now that He stands before you part of the series is not alone. lie makes like a Paient bereaved of His children, a forthgoing of Himself to the sinner. and longing for them back again. And There is now a converse between Him now that it is God beseeching you to be xnd you; and the particulars of this reconciled, and God entreating your acconverse are among the revealed things ceptance of His mercy, and God imporwhich belong to yourselves and to your tunately plying you with the offers of children. By this call He points out the pardon and the calls of repentance, and opening through which you may escape God swearing by Himself that He hath from the coming wrath, through which no pleasure in your death but rather that you enter upon friendship with the God one and all should come unto Him and whom you have offended. To this then I live-now it is with Himn and with Him would solicit your attention; and I warn only that you have really and practically you, that, with the dark and unknown to do. territory which lies behind this actual I can tell you nothing about the first communication from heaven to earth, you lin-k; but I am just fulfilling the duties have positively no mnore at present to do, of my office, when I bid you lay hold of than with the territory that lies beyond the second. I know not aught of the the confines of our planetary system. individual predestination of any of you; The matter in hand is the call. It is the but I do most assuredly know that each LECTURE LXI. —CHAPTER VIII, 29, 30 313 of you Is the fit and legitimate subject for upon predestination; and if carried to the an individual call. I therefore do most length of elbowing out the faith and freely and unreservedly call you. If you repentance' of the gospel, it is worse than respond thereunto with the question, But idle. it is ruinous. It finds you on the is not there only a certain number set grotund of alienation from God; and, if it apart for salvation and what may that take up the room that belongs to the plain number be? I know not how I can better matters of salvation, it will leave you reply than after the example of Jesus there. It is not your orthodoxy on this Christ, when asked Were there many point that will prepare you for heaven. that should be saved! He gave no coun- Nay i;. may only train you for the corntellance to the speculative interrogation, panionships of hell, for some of the emand simply bade the man look to himself. ployments that are carried on there, for " Strive you to enter in at the strait gate." converse with infernal spirits who have In like manner do I say Strive you to gone before you, make your calling and election sure. I am not able to trace.he chain of youi~ "And now apart sit on a hill retired. am n()t able to trace the chain of your In thoughts more elevate and reason high destiny backward. But here is one lilk Of providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, of it, the call; and could I gain your Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And find no end in wandering mazes lost." compliance with the call, could I get you to close with the chain at this part of it- Next to that of being called is the step then I can pursue it with certainty for- of our being justified, and lext to that of ward; and, in fullest confidence that he being justified is the step of our being who is called is also justified and that he glorified. There are some who feel as if who is justified is also glorified, I, in here a vacancy had been left in the sense darkness though I be about the secrets of that needs to be filled up, and they would the book of life, could read in the book of interpose between two of these terms the your own visible history in the world step of our being sanctified-making the your destination to the glories of an ever- whole to run thus,' Wh!)m he did predeslasting inheritance. tinate them he also called, and whom he Let me beseech you then to take your- called them he also justified, and whom selves plainly and practically to that he justified them he also sanctified, and revealed opening, through which all who whom he sanctified them he also oloriwill might find egress from death unto fled.' Now this is as good as done, though life. Suffer not ought to suspend this not so as to sustain a continued order of transition. Cease now your hands from enumeration. Tile called in a former disobedience; and submit now your hearts verse are designed to be those who love to that grace, which never is withheld God; and indeed this affection springs from those who truly and desirously seek directly in the bosom of the complying after it. Give speculation with all its sinner, after that he hath acceded to the doubts and difficulties to the wind, rather offers of peace and pardon which are adthan that another moment should elapse, drest to him in the gospel. And what ere you give entertainment to the free perhaps is stronger still-the predestinaovertures of the gospel, and render a full tion that is spoken of fixes all the interand a resolved compliance therewith. mediate steps, as well as the final and Christ knocketh at the door of every the glorious consummation; and, more heart; and let that knock be firstanswered, expressly, does it settle and make sureere you feel yourselves at leisure or at that all who are the objects of it should liberty for the controversies of an argu- be conformed to the image of Christ. It is ment that has baffled many, and that thus that virtue here is made the indisnever should be permitted to detain or to pensable stepping-stone to glory hereafter. embarrass you —whilst so urgent an in- It is thus that a doctrine, misconceived terest, as that of your salvation, is still in by many as superceding the need of dependence. The question, my brethren, holiness and all exertions after it, supplies is not Am I by election one of the saved? the strongest urgencies upon its side-by but the question is What shall I do to be giving us to know, that a moral excel. saved! This is the first question, and your lence, like unto the Saviour's, forms part highest wisdom is simply to adjourn the of the invariable order, which lies beother; and when pressed upon you so as tween the primary ordination and the to interrupt your progress on the plain final blessedness of all who are redeelned way of a plain Christian, then do as they by Him. The consistent predestinarian do in Parliament, when they want to knows, that every step in the series of a dispose of a topic, or rather to dismiss it believer's history, is as irrevocably sure from their deliberations —move the pre- as is its termination; and it is not for him vious question, or proceed to the order of of all men, to break up the alliance bethe day. It is a most idle expenditure of tween holiness in time and happiness in thought and energy that many do lavish eternity. To obtain the happiness, I muss 4(0 314 LECTURE LX1.-CHAPTER VIII, 29, 30. have the holiness; and, wanting the one out from among them, and to touch no' on earth, I shall never reach the other in the unclean thing, but give yourselves heaven. There is nought, we have affirmed singly to the invitation and service of already, in the doctrine, that should avert that Master-who without bar or hind. the eye of the inquirer from the call of rance, is willing to receive you all, and the gospel; and there is nought, we affirm be a Father to you all. These are the now, in the doctrine, that should exempt plain questions, oil which the step of him who hath acceptetd of the call from your worthy communion is suspended; the earnest prosecution of its holiness. and be very sure, that, if fit for this act Nay, it tells him more impressively than of fellowship with the saints on earth, ever, that it cannot be dispensed with- you are fit and on foull march, to the high that there is a necessity, as rigorous as joys and the holy exercises of the sancfate, for its being and for its power in the tuary that is above. person of every believer-that, wanting it, I conclude with an extract from the he is altogether out of the way of a commentary of Archbishop Leighton on blessed eternity-and that, having it, his Peter, of which I know not whether to calling and his election are sure. admire most-the exquisite skill, or the This doctrine then does not affect the exquisite beauty, of his deliverance on business in hand. It should neither deaf- this whole topic. But it will require your en upon the sinner's ear the gospel call attention to follow it. It is one of his of reconciliation-nor should it slacken, paragraphs on this verse, "Elect accordbut rather stimulate to the uttermost, all ing to the foreknowledge of God the his incentives to obedience. The direct Father, through sanctificatio n of the work of Christianity, either with or with- Spirit unto obedience, and sprinkling of out predestination, abideth as before; and the blood of Jesus Christ." "Now" he unable, as I have been fiom unlooked-for says, "the connection of these we are fol circumstances, to pursue this topic even our profit to take notice of; that effectual through the whole extent of its useful and calling is inseparably tied to this eternal practical applications-my main design foreknowledge or election on the one side, is fulfilled, if it no longer stand as a and salvation on the other. These two stumbling-block in the way either of your links of the chain are up in heave n in firmly trusting in God, or of your dili- God's own hand; but this middle one is gently doing good in His service. let down on earth into the hearts of His AMore particularly, the doctrine leaves children, and they, laying hold on it, have the question of your preparation for the sure hold on the other two-for no power Sacrament,* on precisely the same foot- can sever them; if' therefore they can ing as before. It fixes what must be your read the characters of God's image in character in time, as wvell as what must their own souls, these are the counterparts be your condition in eternity. It stamps of the golden characters of His love, in its own irreversibleness on the truth, that which their names are written in the grace here must go before glory here- book of life. Their believing writes their after; and it is not, my brethren, on the names under the promises of the revealed strength of your fancied predestination, book of life, the Scriptures; and so asbut on the strength of your felt and your certains them, that the same names are present holiness, that you infer yourself in the secret book of' life that God hath to be among the people of God-who by Himself from eternity. So finding the might now share in the ordinances of His stream of grace in their hearts, though church, and might afterwards look for they see not the fountain whence it flows, admission into the festivities of His para- nor the ocean into which it returns-yet dise. Do then examine yourselves, not by they know that it hath its source, and what hath taken place in heaven before shall return, to that ocean which ariseth you, but by what now you feel and know from their eternal election, and shall to be within you. I do not ask what are empty itself into that eternity of happi.. your attainments; but I at least ask what ness and salvation." are your purposes? Is it your desire to "Hence" he adds;' much joy ariseth to be conformed unto the image of Christ? the believer. This tie is indissoluble as Under the conscious load of imperfection the agents are, the Father the Son and the that is upon you, are you weary of sin, Spirit; so are election and vocation and and is it your. heart's earnest longing to sanctification and justification and glory. be translated into the element of sacred- Therefore, n all conditions, believers iray, ness 1 Have you resolved to give up all from the sense of the working of the Spithat you know to be evil; and breaking rit in them, look back to that election, and loose from the companionships of the forward to that salvation. But they that world is it your determination to come remain unholy and disobedient, have as Pobablypreachedon Sunday befe the Sacraen- yet no evidence of this love; and there. ws. Eabath. fore cannot, without vain presumptions LECTURE LXI.-CHAPTER VIII) 29, 30. 315 and self-delusions, judge thus of them- wherein we may attain, and ought to se. selves, that they are within the peculiar cure that comfortable assurance of the love of God. But in this let the righteous love of God." " Find then but within thee be glad, and let them shout for joy all that sanctification by the Spirit; and this arare upright in heart. gues necessarily both justification by the," If election, effectual calling, and sal- Son, and election by God the Father." vation be inseparably linked together- This Spirit will be given to yci.l pray. then by any one of them, a man may ers, and to your endeavours. Here:g hold upon all the rest, and may know that your opening; and it lies with yourselvehis hold is sure; and this is the way to enter it. LECTURE LXII. ROMANS viii, 31, 32.'What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? Iie that spared not his oost Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" V. 31. " WHAT shall we then say to into the world, that whosoever receiveth these things? If God be for us who can Him might along with Him receive peace be against us?" and pardon and reconciliation-Whence In this verse the apostle makes a special comes this peculiarity in the case of Paul application of what he had said immedi- and of his correspondents, that they here ately before to himself and his disciples. take comnfort, not in the redeeming, but in'What shall we say to these things?' the electing love-that they indulge in What inference shall we draw for our- strains of gratitude not because of the part selves from this train of reasoning? He they have in that book of revelation which takes encouragement from it you will ob- circulates at large among mankind and is serve. It is both to him and to his follow- addressed unto all, but because of the part ers a cheering contemplation, which it they have in that book of life where the only could have been on the presumption names of the blest have been enrolled that they had part and interest in that from before the foundation of the world election of which he had spoken already, -not because they have been spoken to and to which he afterwards recurs in the in that language of' welcome, which under course of his argument.' If God be for the economy of the gospel, hath gone forth us who can be against us?' —is a consi- among the sinners of all degrees and of deration that stands obviously allied in the every denomination; but because th-,ey mind of the apostle, with the question of have been singled out as the objects of a Who shall lay any thing to the charge of favoured and friendly destination, that God's elect 1 He must have believed then was coeval with the first purpose of the in his own election, and that of the con- Eternal Mind, and reaches from everlastverts whom he addresses; or, if he did ing to everlasting? not know it as a certainty, he at least This is an assurance which they, and grasps at it as he would at a strong and which no man, can gather from a direct pretty confident probability. Now how perusal of those secrets that are written in is it that any man arrives at this conclu- the book of destiny. This is a book which sion 1 And while all have a warrant to is never unsealed to the eye of any mortal rejoice in that offer of salvation which in here below. Paul, and his brethren in fact is universal-while any of our world the church, had access to none other truths ma y look unto Him who is set forth, as a than those which are made accessible to propitiation for the world's sins and be all in the book of God's testimony to the lightened thereby-while each and every world. They simply dealt with the matof our species may respond unto the gift ters of that book, just I would have you of eternal life, that is held out for the ac- to deal with them. They made the plain ceptance of as many as will; and may, and the practicable use of all that is rewithout let or hindrance, draw nigh and vealed in the preceding chapters of this touch that sceptre of forgiveness which epistle, before they felt themselves on the now hath been made to stand forth in the vantage-ground whence they could pour sight of the whole human family-while forth the utterances of confidence and joy, thus it is, that all without exception are wherewith the apostle brings the present invited to take comfort in that redeeming chapter to its triumphant conclusion, love which prompted God to send His Sonr They felt the conviction of their own sin 316 LECTURE LXII.-CHAPTER VIII, 31, 32. fulness, and this I would laboui that you around the pulpits of an abstract theology might be convinced of-" There is none -not among the mighty tomes that have righteous-no not one." They felt their handed down to us the ponderous erudiexposure to the wrath of the Lawgiver, tion of other days. I wan: no other school and this I would have you to feel —" How than that of your own individual experishall we escape the judgment of God?" ence-no other preparation than that of a They felt the preciousness of a satisfying heart smitten by the contrite sense of its atonement, and this too I would have you own deceitfulness, and heaving its aspiall to rejoice in —" to joy in God through rations towards Him who alone can cornthe Lord Jesus Christ by whomn you have fort and can heal-no other expedients receive(l the atonement." They, in the than those of which the very simplest face of nature's fears and nature's diffi- enquirer would bethink himself, when, culties, kept fast their confidence even as touched and awakened by the importance you slioud —" staggering not at the pro- of eternal things, he is made to know the mise because of unbelief. but being strong guiltiness of sin and the grace of an in faith and giving glory thereby unto offered Saviour. Should you come to re. God." They, in the exercise of this faith, pent of the one and to rejoice in the other felt not only a peace but a power, 1" be- -that transition is all which I want, and cause the love of God was shed abroad in all which I care for. After that you have their hearts by the Holy Ghost;" and really and historically made it, it is posyou also, upon the same belief; will most sible that you may review the way by surely be made to realise the same expe- which you have been led; and that you rience. And then, and not till then, it is may recognise both the finger of Provithat the evidence of one's election dawns dence and the power of grace, in tlhat you upon the mind. It is only upon your ob- are what you are. There is many a Christaining the earnest of' your inheritance, tian who refuses the doctrine in the genethat you should ever quote this doctrine ral; but seldom do you meet with a thoas any argument for the inheritance be- roughly christianised man, who refuses ing yours. It is only because now upon that it is altogether a higher hand which the stepping-stone of grace in time, that hath made him what he is-that it was in you infer your preference by the destina- the counsels of God to have brought hinm tion of' God to glory in eternity. It is not within reach of that preacher's voice, till you have dealt aright with the humble whose demonstration first arrested him by and school-boy elements of the Christian the conviction of' his danger-that it was faith, with the first principles of the ora- lie who directed his eye to that bible pascles of God, that you have any right to sage, which told with deciding efficacy associate this sublime mystery at all with upon his conscience —that the volume the question of your everlasting prospects. which first evangelised all his feelings This election, in fact, warrants no pros- met him upon his else heedless way, by a pect to any in heaven, but as seen by him direction impressed on it from HIeaventhrough the medium of his preparation- on that the family bereavement which for a earth. It is only in as far as you have season dispossessed the world of its power, aid hold on the link of' a present holiness, and laid him open to an influence from that you can infer of the chain of your above, was the preparative by God Himhistory that it is to terminate in paradise self for that mighty change on which hang No one can read in the book of God's de- the issues of his eternity-Above all, that crees, that he has been predestined unto it was the Spirit from on high which gave glory; but all may read in the book of enforcement to all that he heard, and all His declarations, what be the marks of that he experienced-Insomuch that he those who travel thitherward. These he has positively nothing which he (lid not can compare with the book of his own receive; and all the faith and all the fruits character and experience, and he can of righteousness which belong to him, he count upon his own special destination to of all men is the readiest to say,' Neveran eternity of bliss-only in as far, and theless not me but the grace of God that in no fk:rther, than as he is sanctified. is in me.' This man, whatever his general It is thus, and thus only, that I would notion may be, is a predestinarian in all have you to reach the settlement of your that relateth unto himself. tIe recognises creed on the high topic of predestination. the power and the will of God, in every Many do not reach it on this side of death. footstep of his own spiritual history. He Many a humble and genuine Christian may not dogmatise on the case of others; feels himself baffled and bewildered there- but, in his own case, it is one of the firmby; and many such there are, who fall est articles of his faith, and it ministers short of the blessed assurance that God nought but humility and thankfulness to hath so signalised them. I would have his bosom. He rejoices in the tokens of a you go to sshool upon this doctrine-not blessed ordination, that he already hath w the hall of controversial debate-not obtained; and the more that these evi. LECTURE LXII.-IICHAPTER VIII, 31, 32. 3;7 dences of G(od's electing love multiply and I will add the most sacramental, withupon his observation, the more intensely in the whole compass of revealed faith — does he feel a close and endearing rela- even to the love wherewith God so loved tionship with his Father in heaven. It is the world as to send His Son into it to be not on the foundation of an imagined de- the propitiation for our sins. I fear, my cree, but on the foundation of a felt and brethren, that there is a certain metaphyactual experience, that he grounds his sical notion of the Godhead which blunts confidence in God and joins the apostle our feelings of obligation, for all the kind. in exclairning — If' he be for us who can ness of' His good-will, for all the tender. be against us?" Hitherto the Lord hath ness of His mercies. There is an acade. helped us, and now He will not abandon mic theology, which would divest Him of the objects of His care. He hath begun all sensibility; which would make of Him the good work, He will carry it on unto a Being devoid of all emotion and of all perfection. He hath granted the earnest, tenderness; which concedes to Him power He will not withhold the fulfilment. We and wisdom and a sort of cold and clear have experienced the supplies of His and faultless morality, but which would grace in time, and they are the pledges to denude Him of all those fond and fatherly us of our coming glory. regards that so endear an earthly parent This is the period of your Christianity, to the children who have sprung from him. an advanced and an elevated period, at It is thus that God hath been presented to which your thoughts on predestination the eye of our imagination as a sort of may be profitable and may be safe. To cheerless and abstract Divinity, who has take up with it sooner, is cutting before no sympathy with His creatures, and who the point. It is wildering yourselves therefore can have no responding sympaamong initial perplexities, that only serve thy to Him back again. I fear that such to darken the outset of your religious representations as these have done miscourse. Insomuch that I have often been chief in Christianity-that they have had tempted to wish, that it had no place in a congealing property in them towards the Bible at all; or, at least, that it never that affection, which is represented as the met the eye of an enquirer, on his first at- most important, and indeed the chief attempts to understand or to realise the sal- tribute of a religious character, even love vation of the gospel. But the foolishness to God-And that just because of the of God is wiser than the wisdom of men; unloveliness which they throw over the and I must confess, that, in a goodly num- aspect of our Father which is in heaven her of instances of spiritual distress which -whereby men are led to conceive of I have seen, it was this very doctrine of Him, as they would of some physical yet election which first shook the soul out of' tremendous energy, that sitteth aloft. in a its lethargies-that it was the instrument kind of ungainly and unsocial remoteness for unsettling the natural man dut of' the fr'om all the felt and familiar humanities listlessness of nature; and thrown agog of our species. And so it is, we alppreby it, as it were, from the deep and fatal hend, that the Theism of Nature and of unconcern that might else have terminated Science has taken unwarrantable freein the sleep of death, he, alive and alarm- doms with the Theism of the Bible-ated and set on edge by this one obnoxious taching a mere figurative sense to all that article, hath gotten an impulse from it is spoken there of' the various affections upon his spirit, under which he has passed of the Deity; and thus despoiling all the from the state of a careless' sinner to that exhibitions, which it makes of Him to our of a hopeful and aspiring disciple. In world, of the warmth and the power to such a case as this, it seems to have serv- move and to engage, that properly beed as the projecting hook, by which to long to them. It represents God as altofaisten the else inert soul to the whole con- gether impassive-as made up of little templation; and what many, and myself more than of understanding and of power among the number, may at one time have -as having no part in that system of wished to be expunged from the field of a emotions which occupies so wide a space sinner's vision altogether, has occasion- in the constitution of man, made after His ally been the very word that startled him own image and according to Htis own as it were into spiritual life, and whence likeness. It is true that this image in us he may date the time of his having become is wofully defaced; but can you think, awake and at length intelligent about the that, after we are restored to it, all feeling things of salvation. and all fervency, whether of desire or of V. 32. "Hle that spared not his own fond affection, shall be extinguished with. Son, but delivered him up for us all, how in us-that we shall not then compassionshall he not with him also freely give us ate the sufferings of others; and feel the all things?" kindlings of a seraphic fire in the contemn It is with great satisfaction that I now plation of excellence; and have all the clear my way to a topic the most salutary, indignancy of pure and holy spirits at the 318 LECTURE LXII. —CHAPTER VIII, 31, 32. sight of worthlessness; and be actuated bosom of the Divinity —that a something by the kindest regards and the most affec- was felt, like that which an earthly father tionate longings of charity towards all feels when he devotes the best and the whom we can soothe by our simple re- dearest of his family to some high object gards, or benefit by our zealous and de- of patriotism. God in sparing Him not, voted services? But if all these emotions but in giving Him up unto the Jeath for us be ingredients of the renewed character, all, sustained a conflict between pity for and it be after the image of the Godhead His child, and love for that world for that the renewal is actually made, does it whom He bowed down His head unto the not prove that the Eternal Spirit hath sacrifice. In pouring out the vials of His emotions also-a characteristic of the Di- wrath on the head of His only-beloved vinity indeed, which beams upon us from Son-in awaking the sword of' offended almost every passage in the history of the justice against His fellow-in laying upon Saviour, who, though the brightness of Him the whole burden of that propitiation His Father's glory and the express image by which the law could be magnified, of His person, yet fully partook in all the and its transgressors could be saved-in sensations and all the sympathies of man; holding forth on the cross of Christ this who wept, and who rejoiced, and who blended demonstration of His love and was angry, and who was exceeding sor- His holiness, and thus enduring the specrowful, and who with all His meekness tacle of His tears and of' His agonies and and gentleness still delivered Himself cries, till the full atonement was rendered, with impassioned energy when denounc- and, not till it was finished, did the meek ing the hypocrisies of the worthless- and gentle sufferer give up the Ghost-At Surely if he who hath seen the Son hath that time when angels looking down from seen the Father also, then ought we to the high battlements of heaven, would conceive of tHim not as of some frigid have flown to rescue the Son of' God from and desolate abstraction; but that in the the hands of persecutors-think you that bosom of the High and the Holy One who God Himself was the only unconcerned inhabiteth eternity, there live and move and unfeeling spectator; or, that, in conand have their busy operation-all the senting to these cruel sufferings of hIis resentments of perfect virtue against the Son for the world, He did not make of sinner-all the regards of perfect love His love to that world its strongest and and of infinite compassion towards the most substantial testimony? righteous who obey, and the penitent who It blunts the gratitude of men, when turn to Him. they think lightly of ihe sacrifice which With this view of the Godhead, and God had to make when He gave up His which we hold to be the scriptural one, Son unto the death; and, akin to this let us look unto that great transaction on pernicious imagination, our gratitude is which all the hopes of our sinful world further deadened and made dull, when are suspended. The Father sent His Son we think lightly of the death itself. This for our sake, to the humiliation and the death was an equivalent for the punishagony of a painful sacrifice. There is ment of guilty millions. In the account evident stress laid in the Bible on Jesus which is given of it, we behold all the Christ being His only Son, and His only- symptoms of a deep and a dreadful endurbeloved Son. This is conceived to en- ance-of an agony which was shrunk hance the surrender, to aggravate as it from, even by the Son of God, though Iie were the cost of having given up unto the had all the strength of the Divinity to death so near and so dear a relative. In uphold Him-of a conflict and a terror that memorable verse where it is repre- and a pain, under which omnipitence sented that God so loved the world as to itself' had well nigh given way; and send His only-begotten Son into it, I bid which, while it proved that the strength you imark well the emphasis that lies in of the sufferer was infinite, proved that the so. There was a difference in respect the sin for which He suffered in its guilt of painful surrender, between His giving and in its evil was infinite also. Christ up another more distantly as it were con- made not a seeming but a substantial nected with Him, and His giving up one atonement for th-e sins of the world. who stood to Him in such close and affect- There was something more than an ordi. ing relationship. The kin that He hath to nary martyrdom. There was an actual Christ is the measure of the love that He laying on of the iniquities of us all; and, manifested to the world, in giving up however little we are fitted for diving Christ as a propitiation for the world's into the mysteries of the divine jurisprusins. What is this to say, but that in dence-however obscurely we know of this great and solemn mystery the Parent all that was felt by the Son of God, when was put to the trial of His firmness-that, the dreadful hour and power of darkness tn the act of doing so, there were a sore- were upon Him-Yet, we may be well Dess and a suffering and a struggle in the assured, that it was no mockery-that LECTURE LXI. —CHAPTER viII, 31, 32. 319 something more than the mere represen- amount, the expense of that mighty ser. tation of a sacrifice, it was most truly and vice which has been rendered-that he essentially a sacrifice itself-a full satis- deems it to have been what it really was, faction rendered for the outrage that had a costly sacrifice; and that he bethinks been done upon the Lawgiver-His whole him solemnly and tenderly of the deep authority vindicated, the entire burden of endurance of the cross. He should look I-Is wrath discharged. This is enough unto Him whom he hath pierced and on for all the moral purposes that are to be whom the heavy chastisement of' his gained by our faith in Christ's propitia- peace was laid. It is thus that the glad. tion. It is enough that we know of the ness and the gratitude keep pace with travail of His soul. It is enough that He each other; and that in very proportior exchanged places with the world He died as he rejoices because of his full deliver. fior; and that what to us would have been ance, does he feel the devotedness of all the wretchedness of eternity, was all con- his faculties to Him who hath achieved it centrated upon Him, and by Him was Christ gave up HIis life unto the death for fuily borne. The suretiship was an equiv- him, so he gives up his life in entire dedi-'lent for the debt, and the ransom laid cation to the will of Christ-living no Jown was an adequate price for the re- more unto himself, but unto Christ who dlemption that was achieved by it. When died for him and who rose again. And this thought takes full possession of the therefore it is, that, as you approach sinner's heart, it lightens him of all his these tables, I would have you look with fears. I-le feels the charm of an entire an intelligent eye on the affecting memo. deliverance; and great are his peace and rials that are laid thereupon. I would his joy, as he cherishes the full assurance have you light both your faith and your of all being clear with God. He goes out love at this altar; and when you see the and in by that way of access, which hath symbols of the body that was broken been consecrated by the blood of a satis- and the blood that was shed for you, I fying atonement; and there are a light would have you fully to recognise both and a gladness in all his approaches unto the service that has been achieved and God in Christ, which the world knoweth the suffering that has been borne in this not. And it is well that he rates at its full mighty expiation.* LECTURE LXIII. ROMANS Viii, 31, 32 What shall we then say to these things' If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared,not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?"'FOR US all.' The apostle may perhaps so die for all, as that all do actually reIbe confining his regards in this clause to ceive the gift of salvation. But He so died himself and to his converts, to those of for all. as that all to whom He is preached whom he had this evidence that they were have the real and honest offer of salvathe elect of God-even that the gospel had tion. He is not yours in possession, till come to them with power and with the you have laid hold of Him by faith. But Holy Ghost and with much assurance. He is yours in offer. He is as much yours, But, notwithstanding this, we have the as any thing of which you'can say I have authority of other passages for the com- it for the taking. You, one and all of you, fortable truth, that Christ tasted death for my brethren, have salvation for the taking; every man —and so every man, who hears and it is because you do not choose to take of the expiation rendered by thiq death, it, if it do not indeed belong to you. It is hath a warrant to rejoice therein; and because you have treated it as the worththat He is set forth a propitiation for the less thing that you trample under your sins of the world-and so it is competent feet, and will not stoop to seize upon. Or for every one in the world, to look unto it is because, ere you appropriated it, you this propitiation and be at peace; and would break it into fragments, and either that He gave Himself a ransom for all to choose or reject of these fragments at your be testified in due time-and so might pleasure. All of you are welcome even each of you who hears this testimony, now to salvation, if you are only willing embrace it for himself, and feel the whole for a whole salvation. I can promise charm of his deliverance from guilt and from all its consequences. Christ did not * Preached ou a Communion Sabbain. 3'20 LECTURE LX1II.-CHAPTER VIIIl 31, 32. nothing, nor can I hold out encourage- he maketh his first approach unto tkiz mrient, to the man wvho would grasp at the Saviour-how there is no barrier of exoffered immunity from punishment, but clusion around this ordinance, which the would nauseate the medicine that purifies Founder of the ordinance did not throw and heals him —who would cling with all around His own person, or around His his might to the pardon of the gospel, but own office as the High Priest and the would decline its expedients for his sane- Mediator between God and man; and tification —who can listen with a charmed thus have I never felt any restraint in apear to the report that is brought to him of plying to this great festival those precious the Sacrifice, but shrinks from that great calls, first of a prophet, and then of an moral revolution of taste and affection apostle: "Ilo every one that thirsteth and habit that is wrought in every be- come ye to the waters; and he that hath liever by the Spirit. Your mincing and no money, come ye, buy and eat; yea mutilating of the testimony of God will come buy wine and milk without money do nothing for you; but your entire faith and without price. Wherefore do ye spend in His entire, testimony will do every money for that which is not bread, and thing. And give me the man, who is de- your labour for that which satisfieth not? sirous of a full rescue both from sin in its hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye condemnation and sin in its hateful as- that which is good, and let your soul decendancy over hin —give me the man as light itself in fatness." This free invitaready to flee from the present worldliness, tion of the Old Testament is re-echoed by as to flee from the coming wrath-give the New: 1" And the Spirit and the Bride me the man who is earnestly set, both on say come, and let him that heareth say repentance from his sins, and the remis- come, and let him that is athirst come. sion of his sins-And.all the treasures of And whosoever will let him take the water the gospel are open to him. IHe may of life freely." come, even now, and share in all the It is thus that I should like to overbear spoils that have been won by the Captain the scruples of the fearful. It is thus that of our salvation. The everlasting right- I would divest the communion of that cereousness that Christ hath brought in may tain air of repulsiveness, in which it stands even now, be to iumn an investiture of forth to many a superstitious imagination. glory. The Holy Ghost, which is the It is thus that I would have you to regard promise of the Father, may even now de- it in its true character as a tibast of wetscend abundantly upon his prayers. The come and of good will, from which no gospel makes no man an outcast, though past transgression, if repented of and many is the man -who makes an outcast turned from, was ever ameant to exclude of himself. And so to prevail l.son them, even those, who, in the darkness of other as that they might move forward-so to days, were the most abandoned of' our make plain the gospel overture, as that species-And, even now, though smarting each may put in for his share of its pur- under the recency of some sore and melanchased and proclaimed amnesty-so to choly fall-though all trembling and manifest the way that leadeth unto the abashed, at some fresh discovery of your fountain opened in the house of Judah for weakness-though humbled to the very sin and for uncleanness, as a way that is dust, because of the tem)tation that aspatent and accessible to every man-so to sailed and overcame you; and under the vindicate the unexcepted goodness of God mortifying sense of which your memory unto each, as that each may feel himself still is agonised, and all the faculties of led thereby unto repentance-For this we your soul are in a wild uproar of turbuhave a host of testimonies in the Bible; lence and disorder-Even in these circumand riot the least impressive of these is, stances of' apparent desperation, if the that God spared not His own Son but de- sinner can only lift up his eyes to the livered Him unto the death for us all. mercy-seat, then may he move his footYou know how constantly I have been steps to that table on which its emblems in the habit of urging this representation and its memorials are laid. The heart upon you, at every returning sacrament- that can rise in humble and holy confihow, in the first instance I have laboured dence to the Saviour, should ever be acto impress upon every hesitating spirit companied with the hand that can stretch the perfect freeness of the gospel invita- itself out to the symbols of His death; tion —how I have attempted to demon- and often, have we reason to believe in strate in your hearing, that access to this the history of our church, often has the feast is regulated on the very same prin- appointed use of these been felt as a preciple, with access to Him who is the Mas- cious restorative to the broken spiritLer of the feast-how even he who, up to often have the weary and heavy-laden Lhis moment has been the chief of sinners, penitent risen from the festival, with a might draw as confidently nigh as when reanimated vigour for making good the LECTURE LXII. —CHAPTER VIII, 31, 32. 321 distance that he has lost, with all the vice in the feelings and inclinations of the energy of a man refreshed, for the toils inner man, as met the discernlng eye of jf new obedience. the apostle, when he looked upon Simon And you further know, how this lati- Magus, and could perceive in him a heart rude of invitation to the sacrament can.be not right with God. The compromise that made to harmonize with the pure and he wanted to strike was between godliness holy character of this ordinance. Just in and gain; and, in like manner, if you have.he very way that the gospel is at one and not the singleness of aimand'the singleness he same time, both a doctrine of free of desire —you would partition the matter grace and a doctrine according to godli- between the service of the one master and less. The past iniquities that have taken the service of' the other-if you cleave not place in your history form no barrier in fully unto the Lord, and are not resolved the way of your approach to these tables; to be His only and His altogether —You but the purposed iniquities that have now partake unworthily-you add the guilt place in your heart, these are what ought of hypocrisy to the guilt of your ordinary to form an invincible barrier. In coming transgressions-you do what is decent here, yours must be the very state and the and creditable, it is true, in the eyes of the ~ery preparation that are indispensible to world; but you do it at the heavy expense crery sinner on his coming unto Christ. of an insult to Him who made the world, He is fieely invited; but with the same of a solemn mockery in the face of Ileabreath of utterance he is told that he must yen. Beware of thus aggravating your forsake all. I-He has his salvation for the guilt and your danger —" Cleanse your taking; but he is not at liberty to divide hands ye sinners, purify your hearts ye it into parts, and to accommodate his own double-minded." taste by the selection of' one, by the refu- You may remember that precious verse sal of another. HIe must give himself of our great apostle —" For if' when we over wholly te Christ; and be as wvilling were sinners we were reconciled by the to make use of lirn as the Lord his death of His Son, much more being reconstrength, as to confide in HIin as 1he Lord ciled we shall be saved by his life." his righteousness. This must character- There is a close analogy between the senise his first movement to the gospel; and timent here, and that in our text of the this must characterise his first and all his day —'He who spared not his own Son following movements to the table of the but delivered him up to the death for us sacrament. The bread and the wine that all, how shall he not with him also freely he receives there, must be viewed by him, give us all things?' not merely as the symbols of that sacri- This, my brethren, is the great hold, the fice by which he is reconciled, but also as great security, if I may so speak, which a the symbols of that spiritual nourishment believer has upon God. Ile hath a pledge by which he is renewed. And he par- in his hand already, that to him is the taketh unworthily, he eateth and he drink- warrant or the guarantee of' the very eth judgment unto himself-if to the peace largest fulfilments. IHe hath accepted of of a reddemed creature, he do not add Christ, and, having Him in sure Dossesnow the firm purpose, and do not expe- sion-and the stronger his faith the surer rience afterwards the heaven-bestowed that possession is-he cannot doubt that power, of a sanctified creature. with Him he shall receive all things neYou will now perceive then, what the cessary to life and to godliness. God] principle is, on which all our debarments who hath bestowed upon him the greater from the table of the Lord do turn. It is gift, will not withhold from him the less. not on the magnitude or the number of Hie who for his sake put the soul of His your past offences-for the guilt of these, well-beloved Son to grief, will not fail, that blood of which the wine of the table now that the grief is past and the glory is the memorial, can wholly cleanse away. of an exalted mediatorship is entered It is not even on the weakness of your upon-will not fail to illustrate that glory present energies-for that nourishment the more, by the bright accomplishments from above, of which both the bread and and virtues of all His disciples. IIe who the wine are the symbols, can wholly in- gave up Christ unto the sacrifice, will vigorate and restore them. But it is the not fail through Christ to give out His duplicity of a heart, that wavers between Spirit unto the sanctification of all who its own will and the will of God. It is are redeemed by it. God made a painful the want of a thorough-going devotedness surrender, when He consented to the huto Him who died for.you and who rose miliation and death of our Saviour. But again. It is a vice not in the perform- now that the Saviour hath arisen-now Ance, for who is there that corneth not that the bitterness of the deep expiation is short of the pure and the perfect corn- past —now that the toil, and the conflict, mandment? Far more radical than this, and the agony are all over-now that the it is a vice in the purpose. It is such a sore obstruction is moved away, an(d 41 322 LECTURE LXIII.-CHAPTER VIII 31, 32 through the open portal of a reconcilia- thing which it is most intently set upon tion that Christ travailed in the greatness That which Christ signalised above every of His strength for the purpose of achiev- other privilege by calling it the promise lng, there is a free and unimpeded chan- of the Father that is the promise which nel, through which the mercy of God every worthy communicant is most in might descend in fullest exuberance on earnest to reallse-the Spirit given to all the guiltiest of us all-Now we have who trust in the Saviour —the Spirit that every reason for building ourselves up on helpeth all infirmities, and strengthens the assurance, that He will withhold no- with all might in the inner man-the thing which can make either for our grace Spirit that ever acts as the powerful in time, or our glory in eternity. After so though unseen auxiliary of the faithful, wonderous a demonstration of His love, amid the heat and the hurry and the fierce the believer hath nothing to fear. He is onsets of the Christian warflare-the Spirit on high vantage ground. He sees in the that, even amongr the familiarities of your mission of Christ to our world, a token daily path and the hourly occasions of and an evidence of friendly regard, that your business, operates with real though already overpasses his largest expecta- invisible agency in the secret chambers tions. IHe rejoices in the secure and of thought-l-He who writes the law of God the wealthy place that he now occupies, upon your h(lart; and is ever ready, if under the covering of the ample media- Hie only be prayedl and watched for, is torship; and wheii he thinks of the pledge ever rea;dy, with Ilis suggestions of wiswhich hath been already given, he de- dom and of moral energy and even of lights himself in the abundance of hope scriptural admonitions wherewith to meet -and peace floweth through his breast and to conquer the temptations of the like a mifghty river. cruel adversary-This is the gift that, It is thus that I would have you to now that lie htlath laid his confident hold on arise friom these tables, refreshed an(l the gift of the Saviour, every true Chrisreassured( by all that you have seen an(t tian most etarnestly covets, and whereof,isted and handled here of the Word of he is most insatiable. The gift of the Wie. In e;itng the bread, and in drink- Spirit is that for which he now wrestles ng the -wine, you have at least received in supplication with his God. Like the the symbois of the body that was broken, law which it imprints on his renovated andl of the blood that was shed for you; heart, it is more desired by him than gold and if there have been a correspondence yea than much fine gold, sweeter also between the heart and the hand in this sol- than honey and the honey-comb. ilnn transaction, you have really and sub- Now this is what I would propose as stantiallv received the atonement. Christ your defence and your main stay, against is yours, and ye are Christ's. The act of' the melancholy shipwreck of those who reconciliation between you and your of- return unto the pollutions of the world, fended Lawgiver has been struck; and are again entangled therein, and at length you may descend from the mount of ordi- fall away. It is the Spirit who keeps all nances with this song of triumph-' He who look for Him from this awful catashath given His own Son, and how is it trophe. This living water descendeth, possible that lie will not with Him freely not upon the heart in one wholesale mingive us all things t' istration; but, like your daily nourishThis is the very reflection by which I ment, it is dealt to you in occasional supwould have you to be sustained and com- plies. It is grace to help you in the time forted under a fear that might naturally of need, and therefore bestowed upon you enter your hearts, when you look onward as you need it. It is distributed in season, to the pilgrimage that is before you. and so as to suit the ever-recurring necesThe fear is lest you fail by the way; lest sities of the soul. You are therefore not you should again be surprised, and again to count upon an inherent stock of grace be overtaken; lest sin and Satan should You are at all times to go as at the first, have some fresh advantage over you; and, on the footing of a wholly void and vacant in the darkness of a troubled spirit, you and unfurnished creature; and it is when should lose the light of the divine counte- you go thus, that the promise is verified nance, and be cast aback, as it were, on of- "open thy mouth and I will fill it." that world from which you had emerged, " The height of creature-perfection " says and afellowsshiip with whichisdeath. The an eminent divine "lies in the constant main anxiety of a truly christianised heart habit of bringing our own emptiness to is for its own integrity. Its breathings Christ's fullness.' You are not to pre..fter perfect love and perfect holiness. sume on the store of your accumulated Rtiv mos' sensitive dread is of moral evil. energies; you are not to presume on your Its,os. cherished desire is spiritual ex- acquired habits; you are not to shift your cellentce. Of the all things which are confidence from the emanating fountain promised unto the believer, this is the I to that stream which, if not momently fed LECTURE LXIII.-CHAPTEIt VIII, 31, 32. 323 and upholden therefrom, would soon fleet one of these features, and many more, away, and leave nought but a dry and can be discerned by the men who are rocky and unfruitful strand behind'it. without, and call forth an applauding Your eye must ever be towards that foun- testimony from them all. And be it your tain, whence all the supply cometh. You care that your light so shine before menc may be grateful and glad, because of the that they, who see nought but mysticism glories of the ascending superstructure. in your orthodoxy, and in your high corn. But you do not lean on the superstructure, munions with God, and in your life of you lean on the foundation. And so it is, faith upon His Son, and in your habitual.hat I would have you at all times to have fellowship with His Spirit-that they, ao confidence in yourselves, but to rejoice utterly in the dark about the secret prin-,n the Lord Jesus-to fetch from Him all ciples of your character, may at least be those influences by which you are enabled compelled to render an homage to the from one hour to another, to serve God in visible exhibitions of it. It is thus, my the Spirit-ever to be intermingling your brethren, that Christ is magnified in your aspirations with your efforts, your prayers body. It is thus that H.is doctrine ts with your practice; striving mightily, yet adorned: and that your souls become a supplicating constantly; fervent in spirit living epistle, read and acknowledged not while not slothful in business: And be merely by your fellow-saints, but read assured that it is on the basis of pro- and seen of all men. They cannot underfoundest humility, that the noblest eleva- stand the high and the hidden walk of tions of Christian worth and excellence godliness. But they can understand your are reared. common honesty. They can understand That process by which the prayer of your.every-day usefulness. They can faith and the performance of familiar understand the courtesy of your manners. duty are made thus to reciprocate the one They can understand your patience under with the other, goeth on among the re- injuries and the noble sacrifices that you cesses and the intricacies of experimental make in the cause of humanity. They religion. It forms the main spring and can understand all the duties of that aliment of' that life, which is hid with I varied relationship, which you hold with Christ in (Gd. He who verifies this pro- your fellow-men. They know the discess in his own heart, realises fellowship tinction between a good and a bad parent, with the Father and with the Son. The between a kind and a quarrelsome neighsecret of the Lord is with him; and in bour, between a dutiful and a disobedient the busy chambers of the inner man, son, between a profitable and a pernicious there is a joy that the world knoweth not, nmember of society. Make it clear to and a spiritual mechanism at work which them as day then, that your Christianity the world cannot comprehend. But though which is a religion of faith is also a relithey see not the working of the mechan- gien of virtue-that all the fit and graceism, they may both see and admire the ful moralities of life follow in its trainproduce of that working-even as we and that, while it assimilates to the angels might have our eye regaled by the beauty who are above, it scatters beauties and of a pattern, though you have not an un- blessings innumerable over the face of derstanding for the complex machinery society in this lower world. Strive thus by which it is inlaid. Even so it is that to recommend to others the gospel which the eye of nature, cannot apprehend what you profess. Strive mightily according to that is which hath wrought the true and the grace of God that is given to your the lovely and the honoturable on the prayers, and that worketh in you mightily groundwork of your character-yet each LECTURE LXIV. ROMANS Viii, 31. "What shall we then say to these things 3 If God be for us, who can be against us I" THE apostle, in the utterance of these I' What shall we then say to these things?' words, evidently proceeds on the belief And surely it concerns us to search whal. that God is upon his side; and it is a be- the things were, that we too, if possi. lief grounded on certain things which ble, may realise the same glorious confi. may be found in the preceding context: dence; and be raised to tha highest van 324 LECTUiE LXIV.-CHAPTER VIII, 31. tage-ground on which a creature can be him that raised up Jesus from the dead." exalted, even the vantage-ground of the The very first address of the gospel mes. Divine ffivour, whereupon he stands se- sage to your understanding, should be cure amid the shock and the conflict and met by your faith. You should not post. the hostility of all those subordinate ele- pone your belief in the promises containments which be in the universe-and just ed there, till one or more of them have aecause he can count on the greatest Be- i been accomplished. You might see a in(g of the universe as his frie-nd. truth and honesty in all the promises In taking a retrespect then of this epis- from the first, and, anterior even to the tle, with a view to ascertain the footing very least experience, confidently wait upon which our apostle rests the assurance for the fulfilment of them all. Man's of' God being for him, we shall find that faith should come immediately on the there are two distinct considerations upon back of God's utterance; and my reason which the assurance turns. The first con- for insisting upon this is, if possible, to sideration is that of God's truth in His convince one and all of you —that even promise-a consideration which lays hold now you may step over to the place on on those who have faith, and which lays which the apostle is standing in our text, no hold on those who want it. What and join him in the triumphant aflirmafirst then led the apostle to count upon tion that God is upon your side. The most God as his friend, was faith in God-a alienated of God's rebellious creatures has faith that counted Him to be faithfl —a a warrant in the gospel for changing faith that hung direct upon the promises sides, and that immediately, from a state of God. Of this an example was given of variance with God to a state of'friendby Abraham, and is quoted by Paul, in ship and peace with Him. Wit'l che ut the preceding argument. The patriarch termost stretch of our charity we canno' reliedt upon God, from the time of his very believe, that all of this congregation are first communication. He did not wait the within the bond of taie covenant-that all experience of God's truth —he believed in i have entered into reconciliation, and are it from the outset. He did not ground his now encircled v;;thia the limit of God's confident anticipation of the whole pro- adopted family. Of more importance mise being fulfilled, from the fulfilrment of then is it that you should be told, that, one or any part of it. He trusted from among other grounds for the assurance of the moment of its utterance. Ile reckon- God being indeed your friend, there is onet ed upon God's friendship, so soon as God of which the most hopeless of outcasts had made any overture to him at all. Hle might instantly avail themselves-one believed, ere he set out fiom his native which brought Abraham out from the country; and prior to all the subsequent land of idolatry, and which should now tokens that he obtained of God's faithful- bring out you from amongst the idolatries hess, in the course of his journeying over of a present evil world-one upon which distant lands. He believed in IHim the the patriarch of old entered forthwith infirst time, and before that he met with Him to the friendship of God, and upon which a second time. The truth of God's whole you also might forthwith enter into the promise was more unlikely to the eye of same friendship, and that without the innature, before that Abraham had got any tervention of any given period during part of it made good to him, than after which you have to wait for signs and fulthat part of it was verified by an actual filments and for more of the reiteration accomplishment. But it was at the time of the gospel testimony in your hearing. of greatest unlikelihood, that his faith There is warrant and warrant enough for made its brightest display, and was most your proceeding upon the gospel testirnoacceptable to God. It was because that ny now. It is addressed to you as well against hope lie believed in hope-it was as unto others. The voice of "Abram because he staggered not at the promise Abram," heard from the canopy of hea of God through unbelief-it was because ven by the patriarch, was not a more spe fully persuaded that what God had pro- cific call —than the voice of "whosoever mised he was able also to perform-It was will let h:m come," read in your bibles, because of all this that his faith was well- is a specific call on each who is here prepleasing to God, and because of all this se-nt tc proceed upon this invitation; and that his faith was imputed unto him for to set out, not on that journey by which righteousness. he describes a great physical distance Now this very footing upon whichl fiorn the land of his fhthers, but most Abraham placed reliance upon God as h it assuredly to set out on that journey by friend, is a footing furnished in the gospcl which he describes a great moral distance of Jesus Christ to one and to all of as. from the vain conversation of his fathers: " It was not written for his sake alone that And with the very first footstep we con it is imputed to him, but for ours also, to tend, and it is a footstep that should be whom it shall be imputed if we believe on taken now, might there be this delightfilt LECTURE LXIV.-CHAPTER ViiI, 31. 325 confidence to urge and to animate the moment, —let me but make one short ut. whole movement-even that God will re- terance on the blessedness of the transiceive him and will be a Father unto him, tion itself-even of that wide and mo-ind that he shall be as one of His sons mentous difference which there is between ind daughters as saiththe Lord Almighty. what by nature you are, and what by It were doing injustice to the gospel, grace you might be-between being the lid we not hold it forth as charged with objects of God's wrath, and the objects friendly overtures, and that for the instant of His good-will —between the Sovereign acceptance even of the worst and most of creation, and having all its energies at worthless among you. Even now, are command, looking towards you with all you off'ered the justification that is by the displeasure of His broken law and faith. Even now, the sceptre is held out His incensed dignity; and that same to you of peace with God through Jesus Sovereign looking to you with as much Christ our Lord. Even now, could we complacency, as if His Son's unpolluted only awaken your confidence — even now, obedience had been rendered personally did the message wherewith we are en- by you, or as if His splendid righteous trusted but call forth a responsive trust in ness had been all your own-and so reyour bosom, might you rejoice in the joicing over you to do you all manner of conscious possession of that grace or good. Let God be your enemy, and Hto favour wherein the believer stands, and is the enemy of all who have not laid rejoice in hope of the glory of God. It is hold of the great propitiation; and what well to open up the way of your direct I will not say is your condition in time, translation into the friendship of Heaven; but what are your prospects for eternity l and, for this purpose, to insist both on the In time you may be comfortable, aind perfect freedom and the perfect univer- along with this you may be careless; sality of Heaven's invitations. They are and, amid the busy engrossments of a to you who are afair off; as well as to you little day, forget the dreadful reckoning who are nigh. There is an offer of for- and the dreadful retribution that await giveness of which you shall be held to you. But the danger is not less real, that have accepted, simply by your reliance you have shut your eyes against it; and, on the honesty of the offer. There is a amid the tremors of your approaching, proposal made to you for an exchange of dissolution, you may be visited with the conditions, even that you shall exchange fears and the forebodings of that which is your present condition of hostility for to come-or, as often happens, the agothat of entire peace and amity with God; nies of the perishing body might only and a faith in the reality of this proposal cradle the soul into a deeper lethartg) on your part, will be sustained on IIis about the interests which are imperishapart as the valid signification of your ble: And, falling asleep amid the profound having acceded to the proposal. It is insensibilities of nature,-not till the spirit thus that the agreement which had been is sisted in the presence of its offended God broken between Heaven and earth is re- -or not till the risen man comes forth at stored. It is thus, if I may so speak, that the sound of the last trumpet and stands the knot of reconciliation is tied. Your before the judgment-seat, will you have belief is the ligament that binds together full understanding of those dread realities the parts which had been dissevered. And by which you are now encompassed. there is not a surer concatenation in the And therefore it concerns you now, to whole expanse of Nature or of Provi- cleave unto the propitiation which God dence, than that which obtains between Himself has set forth, and for the very man's faith and God's faithfulness. It is purpose that peace may be made with upon your believing in the testimony of Him and that from your enemy He may God regarding His Son, that you pass become your friend-that it may be posfrom the ground of condemnation to the sible for Him the just God to be at the ground of acceptance; and we again re- same time your Saviour; and, sinner as peat, that there is not an individual you are, to fill your heart with the satisamongst you who lies without the scope faction and the triumph of those who of this generous and widely-sounding call know that God is upon their side. The -so that however much God is against very greatness of such a consummation is you at the present because of your unre- a barrier in the way of your. believing pented of and unexpiated sins, even now, it. The incredulity of nature is fostered upon the instant of your moving from sin into strength and obstinacy, by the very unto the Saviour, God at once will be for largeness of the offers wherewith nature you, God at once will be your friend. is addressed. The narrow and suspicious And now that I have said of this transi- heart of man cannot find room in it, for tion from a state of enmity to a state of the generosity of Him whose thoughts are peace with God, how it is a transition not as our thoughts and whose ways are competent to one and all of you at this not as our ways. He cannot bring him b26 LECTURE LXIV.-CHAPTER VIII, 31. self to believe, that heaven, with all its I fore now look forward to the purchase. glories, is indeed so open to him —or that possession, not merely because the pro. the gospel is indeed so free-or that eter- mise of it had been sounded in their ears( nity, in all the richness of its promised but because the pledge of it had been pu blessings, is indeed so much within his into their hands. They were like men reach-or that there is nought but the one who had gotten a first instalment puncstep of his own confidence in the message tually made good to them, and so were of peace that has come down from the confirmed in the hope of the whole enupper sanctuary, between the sinner's gagement being liquidated. Agreeably soul and the loving-kindness of that God to the promise, they had received grace who waiteth to be gracious. And there- in time; and therefore they confided the fore it behoves every minister of the New more on that which was also included in Testament, to be loud and frequent and the promise, even glory in eternity. Now importunate in knocking at that door, by Paul and his disciples had been preferred which the tidings of grace and pardon to this additional vantage-ground. Their may enter in; and often to repeat the experience was added to their faith. It testimony in the sinner's ear, that unto was this experience which confirmed to him a Saviour hath been born; and to them the hope which made them not protest on the side of Heaven that nought ashamed. They looked the more confibut good-will to earth is the feeling there, dently to the promised joys of heaven, if earth would only respond thereunto, that they actually felt the love of God to and not keep at so sullen and impracti- be already shed abroad in their hearts. cable a distance away firom it; and to They had brighter hopes of a place being spread abroad the assurance among all prepared for them there, that they were its rebels, of the Gcd whom they now conscious within themselves of a preimagine to be shrouded in darkest ire paration for the place going on in their and severity against them, how scon and own souls here. They believed when how certainly they might have Him for they first heard of a promised grace on their friend. earth and a promised glory in heaven. Let me now advert, but advert briefly, But now that they had been visited by to another ground on which Paul affirmed the grace-now that this part of the both fbr himself and for his converts, that promise, instead of being merely counted God was upon their side. The first ground on with faith, had been verified and made is the ground of a direct faith in the good to their own present finding, there promises a-d invitations of the gospel- was superadded one ground of trust to a ground placed before the feet of one another; and thev could say with the and all who now hear me —and on which Psalmist "As we flave heard so have we every one of you is free, nay is entreated, seen in the city of our God." nay more is commanded. and last of all Now my reason for treating of the one is threatened, that he might be persuaded ground distinctly and separately from the to step over upon it even now and be other, is that the first imay even now be safe. The second ground is distinct from entered upon by all-the second, I fear, the first, the ground of experience-that may have only yet been entered upon by ground which is occupied by those who few. The word of the promise may be are not merely infant believers, but who addressed to all, and it is the part of all have been believers for some time; aind to believe it. An experience of any of so, in addition to their first faith in God's the things promised may have only yet faithfulness, can now allege their actual been realised by a very small number. finding of this faithfulness. The distinc- Now I should like not to discourage those tion between the one ground and the who have never yet been on the second other, is exceedingly well marked by the ground, and to assure them that this apostle in his epistle to the Ephesians: ought not to check the instantaneous en-,"He whom also ye trusted, after that ye trance of themselves on the first ground. heard the word of truth, the gospel of They must not wait for the experience of your salvation." Here was the trust of the gospel, till they shall have the faith those who simply counted the word to be of the gospel; but they should enter upon true —a trust competent to you all at this the faith immediately, and from that they moment. -But then he goes on to say- will be conducted to the higher platform,"In whom also, after that ye believed, ye of' experience. The apostle and his diswere sealed with that Holy Spirit of pro- ciples had been elevated to this platform, mise which is the earnest of our inherit- and let me fondly trust that some at least ance." Here was the experience of those who are here present may now be standon whom the promise had been in part ing upon it —some who have had a find. fulfilled; and who esteemed that part, as ing and a foretaste of heaven in their a pledge or an earnest of the fulfillment souls-some who can look forward to the of the remainder; and who could there- good work being perfected upon them, LECTURE LXIV.-CHAI'TER VIII 31. 327 and tiat not merely because of their faith ble of His creatures? It is tantamount in the promise, but because of their find- to the sentiment which he expresses in ing within themselves a performance in his epistle to the Hebrews, "The Lord is that a good work is actually begun- my helper and I will not fear wihat mall some who can compare their memory of shall do unto me." The sentiment howthe past with their consciousness of' the ever might be so extended as to include present; and can now vouch for a hatred every species of adversity, though it to sin which they wont not to feel; for a should not proceed from the matlice ol discernment of Scripture, which they ill-will of any Being wiatcvcer. It migh wont not to have; for a distaste of worldly fairly be translated into this mlore general concerns and worldly companionship, the form,' If he be for us what ca.n be against very opposite of that tendency which us' There are many of the evils of liffe, wont to reign and have an ascendant though not the most severe and overover them; for a love to the people of whelming certainly, that cannot be traGod, whom perhaps before they nause- ced to any mischievous intent on the part ated as the dullest and the weariest of all of a living and willing enemy. There is society; and, if not for a love to God the death of relatives, and there are the Himself as their reconciled Father in accidents of' misfortune, and there are the Jesus Christ, at least for a grief' and a misgivings of' fond and promising specu. self-reproach in their hearts that they do lation-And in the walks of merchandise not love Him more and serve Him better. some of' you must oft have experienced Now these are the first-fruits of the Spirit how crosses and disasters accumulate upof grace, and the symptoms of a coming on you, and give a dreariness and dismay glory-the goodly evidences of your move- to the earthly prospect; and, (lid you look ment towards a destination of final and no farther than to what is visible or to everlasting blessedness-the marks and what lies before you on the region of' the recognitions of that very path which sense, all might appear to Le dark and leads through the pilgrimage of time to menacing; and you might figure yourthe promised land of eternity. They con- self to be a deserted creature, against stitute a most precious addition to the whom all the chances of fortune and all argument of God being on your side-for, the elements of nature seem to have enover and above his promises which you tered into a conspiracy for your ruin. rely upon by faith, they are His gifts And this is just the triumph of faith which you have realised by experience. over sense-when you can be upheld in They are to you the satisfying pledges of the thought, that, after all, the evils of life a friendship in which you have trusted are but the shadowy spectres of a pasever since you knew the gospel, but of sing scene that will soon flit away; and which you have now tasted the fruits and that, behind all which the eye of man can the actual verifications in your own per- reach, there is a good and an all-powerson. You can now affirm that God is for ful Spirit who smiles propitiously upon you, on the ground not merely of what those only interests which are worth the He has promised for you, but on the caring for; and that all the energies of ground of' what he has done for you; and this world, which look as if they stood in while I would have you to shake off their battle-array against your prosperity or distrust, and join even now in our apos- your peace, are nought but inst!'umefnt.s tle's exclamation —yet it is for you to feel in the hand of a presiding Deity, who, for a peculiar assurance, and with peculiar the trial of your confidence in Himself; emnphasis to say,' If God be for us who might brandish them over your head, but zan be against us?' only to dicipline and not to destroy you Having thus stated as simply as I could, -driving in all the props of your earthly the two main grounds on which it is that confidence, that you might lean the whole man may count upon the friendship of weight of your dependence upon HimGod; or, in the language of my text, up- self, and prove how firmly your soul is on God being for him-let me now pro- anchored upon its God by the very ceed shortly to the inference which the strength and violence of those agitations apostle derives from this blessed rela- which still cannot turn you away from tionship,'It God be for us, who can be Him. against us 3' There can be no doubt, however, that is evident, that, over against the con- the apostle, in the text, sets over, and in ception of God being his friend, he raises opposition to the actual friendship of his the con -eption of some other Being as God, the conceived Malice of some living nis enemy; and the question is, With a and designing enemy. Fr,.n such, he alld friendship so powerful as that cf the Cre- his fellowv-disc iples suffered in the perseuc itor, what have we to dread fromn a hostil- tions of tihat ei t; an I from such, all of us ty so feeble as that of the most formida- are still exposc d to suffer in the manifold 328 ILECTURE LXIV.-CHAPTER VIII, 31. collisions of numnan passion and human crets of all hearts shall be laid open, and interest that obtain throughout society. It when there shall be a right allotment both is hard to believe, that there should be in of the vengeance and of the vindication any of our fellow-men, a spirit that is But perhaps it is of more Christian im. trldy diabolical-a. fiendish delight in all portance, to advert to another kind of the pain and mischief and dissension and living adversary than the most fierce and disgrace which it can be the instrument formidable of our fellow-men. WVe think of scattering-a restless activity in the that Paul had such an adversary in his pursuit of evil, and of' cruel suffering to eye; for, in the enumeration of a few others-and a satanic satisfaction in the verses below, he speaks not of earthly success of their hateful and hated enter- plagues and persecutions alone, but of prises. Such a character, it is thought, angels and principalities and powvers as might do for some deep and darkly aggra- being against him. HIe reminds us here vated romance; but is never realised of what he says elsewhere, that we wrestle, among the familiarities of living and dai- not against flesh and blood, but against ly experience. Yet we do hold it to be a principalities against powers against the real, though llperhaps a rare and occasion- rulers of' the darkness of this world al phenomlenonl in human life. We think against spiritual wickedness in high that for the purposes ofasecret discipline, places. However much the doctrine of a a scourge of' this kind is at times permit- great moral warfare between the Captain ted to appeal', who might be the terror of of our salvation on the side of righteoushis relationship, and the torment of' all ness, and the arch enemy of all that is with whom he has ever had closely or in- good on the side of rebellion-however timately to do-a being, though in human much this doctrine is slighted and has beshape, yet in the whole purpose and poli- come now-a-days the topic of an infidel cy of his mind infernal; and, in the hid- scorn-yet, among the Christians of the den chambers of whose breast, the very New Testament, we find that a reference counsels are brooding that give their hell- to Satan and to his wiles is constantly ish occupation to the spirits which are mingling itself with the concerns of their below-a being whom it is unsafe to ap- sanctification. They speak of thle:nselves proach, lest we should be implicated in as being personally implicated in the his wiles; and lest, among the mysteries warfiare; and well they might-for the of his fell iniquity, some infliction or very field of contention is human nature, other should be preparing for us-a be- and an ascendancy over it is the prize of ing of whom the patriarch of old might victory. Practically and really, it cannot have said, "O0 my soul enter not thou into be a thing of indifference to us, if there his secret," recoiling from all fellowship be an actual and a busy competition at with such a spirit just as he would from the this moment between the powers of light pandemoniumn for which it is ripening. and of darkness for a mastery over our When the apostle exclaims I'Who can be species. There must be a something inagainst us' —ve are not to imagine that cumbent upon us, and that we are called a Christian, in his progress through the on to do surely, in connection with a world, is to be exempted from the hostili- struggle of which the object to each of ty of such characters as these. When the parties is the possession of ourselves, fully understood the apostle says,'If God and the sway of' a superior over the be for us who can be against us and pre- powers and the principles of our constituvail?'-There will ever in this world be a tion. We are not to sit, and merely look hostility that shall bruise the heel of the on as passive and unconcerned spectators, Christian, though its own head shall be during the pendency of a contest, by bruised under his feet shortly. For trial which our own interests are so momentand for exercise, the tares must grow along ously affected. And, accordingly, we are with the wheat —the good and the evil must called upon to resist the Devil, and he live together-the path of the redeemed will flee from us-to resist not the Spirit through time must be beset by the con- of God, and He will take up His abode in tempt or the calumnies of an evil world our hearts —to put away f'oron us every in-and perhaps in the way of sanctifying stigation of evil, as coming firom the evil him wholly, or of bringing upon him one-to cherish every instig ltion of' ood, some signal chastisem ent, an enemy may as coming from the Holy One and the be raised, in whose every word there is Sanctifier-Thus to view ourselves as endeceit, and the very tenderness of whose gaged in a warfare of which we are the mercies is cruelty, Yet if the Lord be subjects; and unseen but the lofty and upon his side, he most assuredly has no- supernatural beings are the principals: thing to fear. The short-lived triumph of And, to encourage us the more in the every earthly foe will speedily come to prosecution of this warfare, we are tol an end. The day is posting, when the se- that Satan shall be bruised under Qur fee LECTURE LXIV. —CHAPTER VIII, 31. 329 shortly, and that greater is He that is in Devil, and finally as in the text that if us than he that is in the world, and that God be for us, there is none who can suec Christ came to destroy the works of the cessfully be against us. LECTURE LXV ROMANS viii, 32.'He that spared not his own Son but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us aJ thilngst" WE have endeavoured to make it good, hold of this gift, that God is offended if that the encouragement of the last verse he do not —He feels it an indignity to might be taken on two separate grounds Himself, if you do not have confidence in - first on the ground of direct faith in the the honesty of His offer-He is affronted calls and promises of' the gospel, and by it as if by an imputation of falsehood, secondly on the ground of certain fulfil- saying that 1"he who believeth not the ments which personally and experiment- record which God hath given of his Son ally take place on those who have be- makes God a liar, and this is the record lieved the gospel. The first encourage- even that God hath given to us eternal ment then might be addressed to all-for life and this life is in his Son." All it might be embodied in the very first ought even now to close with this overovertures of the gospel; and these should ture: and on the instant of his doing so, be laid before allfor their acceptance, on he is instated in the full benefit of the the nioment of which a reconciliation with apostle's argument, and might confidentHeaven ensues and God is upon their ly join him in the question of my text side. The second encouragement is for i'He that spared not his own Son but dethose who have found and tasted that God livered him up for us all, how shall he not is gracious, in the change that by grace with him also freely give us all things?' He has Wrought upon themselves-in the This is an argument of which the apospledges which they have already received tle seems on more occasions than one to of a coming giory in heaven, even by a have felt the great strength and imporconscious preparation for it going on tance, and to have urged it accordingly within their own heart and upon their There cannot, in fact, be imagined a own history on earth-in the first-fruits firmer basis on which to rest our confiof the Spirit upon their souls, and by dence in God. He has already done the which the evidence of God's friendship greatest thing for us, and why not expect has been carried forward from promises then that he will do what is less The to gifts, from those promises which they great and heavy expense has already relied on at the moment of their first be- been incurred, and surely He will not lieving, to those gifts wherewith even in leave unfinished what with so much cost this life the believer is privileged. and difficulty He hath carried so far. He Now it so happens that this very dis- will not make abortive that, to begin tinction is still more obviously spread which required such a sacrifice at His before us in the 32nd and 33rd verses —for, hand; but now to end or to complete Instead of being enveloped under the which, will require but the free indulgence covering of one verse as in the 31st that of His own kind and generous desires for we have already attempted to expound, we the happiness of those whom He has find that of the two following verses, the formed. Before that He gave up His Son former is addressed to a belief which may unto the death, there was a let and a or may not have as yet been accompan- hindrance in the way of HIis. mercy to led with experience; and the latter is ad- sinners; but now that the let is overcome, dressed to experience alone. When He now that the hindrance is moved away spared not His own Son, He delivered now that justice and truth have been Him up for us all, and He is so far given vindicated and no longer forbid the exer. to every one of you, that, though not cise of His tenderest compassion towards your sin possession, He is at least yours in the men of our guilty world-now will ofler. In this sense God may be said to that compassion flow over in blissful and have given to each and to every eternal beauteous exuberance on all who shall life, which lith is in His Son. And so put themselves in its way; and He whc. much has every one a warrant to lay spared not his own Scn, but gave Him up 42 330 LECTURE LX' -CHAPTER VIII, 32. unto the death for us all, is now free and being not more hard to feel as we ought ready to give us all things. than it is to know the love of' Chris There is an expression used elsewhere which passeth knowledge, and to compre. by the apostle of the unsearchable riches hend the length and the breadth and the of Christ. We are apt to look at the depth and the height thereof. truth that is in Jesus, as if it were a mea- But, to go rapidly over a few of the gre and very limited sort of doctrine- leading points, First-God hath already consisting perhaps of a few bare cate- given the very greatest thing to set my chetical propositions, which we can get salvation agoing, and what security then by heart just as we do the rules of syntax is there that He shall give all other things or arithmetic; and which, almost as little which are needful to complete that salvaas these, excite any sensibility or awaken tion? He hath given what every parent any glow, whether of imagination or feel- who had but one beloved Son would ing, on the part of its disciples. It is surely feel the greatest of his treasures, marvellous how many there be, who, fa- He hath given His only and His wellmiliar with all the terms of orthodoxy, beloved Son for us all. In human transare utter strangers to the warmth and the actions, the first fruits of an engagement vividness and the power which lie in the are generally but a small fraction of the truths of it; and who, though they can whole-the pledge is but a minute prolistlessly repeat the whole phraseology portion of the final and complete perof evangelical sentiment, have not yet formance-the eartnest is a mere scantling entered into the life and substance, and of that main bulk which is still in revervariety of thought and of application sion-the instalment only a part, and genwhich belong to it. The interrogation of erally a small part, of the sum that is the tex.t we will venture to say, may have due-And yet in each of these cases, been read by some of you a hundred there is a distinct and additional hope times over, without your being aware of awakened of the entire fulfilment, from the comfort and poxu er of argument where- the token that has thus been put into your with it is so thoroughly replete —read hands. But in this transaction between with that sort of unmoved torpor in which heaven and earth, the matter is reversed so many prosecute their daily mechanical -the pledge is more dear and valuable to task of perusing a chapter in the Bible- Him who is the giver, than all that He run over much in the same way that a hath pledged Himself for-the earnest of traveller passes rapidly along in a vehi- what He will do in future, is a mightier cle whose blinds have been raised, so as surrender than all put together which He to intercept all the diversified loveliness hath promised to (do. It is true, that, in of that scenery which he has not once reference to our own interest and feelings, looked upon. He can speak of the miles the joys of the coming eternity may be he has described, as you can of the chap- of greater value to us, than all the first ters. Both of you have made progress; fruits and tokens, which, in the shape of but the one without having had his senses grace and a growing mnetness for heaven, regaled by the prospects of beauty and are conferred upon believers in time. But, fertility in the landscape, and the other in reference to God, He has already given without having had his spirit regaled by up in our behalf what to Himself was of aught in the promises of Scripture or in the greatest value. He has given up the the preciousness of its consolations. Son of His love to the death for us all; — Now this verse is so very pregnant with and, having done this, what a ground of these, that if I could but unfold the mat- confidence that He will freely give all ter aright —it might perhaps let you into things! the significance and the descriptive trutlh But secondly, take into acrcount the of the apostle's phrase-the unsearchable deep and mysterious suffering that was riches of Christ. The fruit of our search incurred, at this first and greatest step in may be such a view of gospel wealth, or the historical process of our salvationthe fullness of gospel blessings, as, not and that now the suffering is over. Take only to regale our spirits with all that we into account that the travail of Christ's have found, but as to convince us that soul hath already gone by; and that now there is as much more to find as might He has only to see of the fruit of this furnish the delightful employment of an travail and be satisfied. Remember that eternity. Ve may be made to see more when He set forth from His place of glory of the ways of God, than are yet known on the errand of our world's restoration or conceived by us; and yet after all say He had the dark imagery of persecution with Job,' Lo these are parts of his ways, and distress and cruel martyrdom before and how little a portion is heard of Him; and that what he thus originated Him!" The economy of our redemption with pain, He has only now to prosecute is a theme for the understanding, as well in peace and triumph to its final consum. as for the affections, to dwell upon —it mation. And remember that we estimate LECTURE LXV.-CHAPTERI VIII, 32. 3'1 ~he matter wrong, if we think not of His who would like to stop short of the debt leath as a substantial atonement-if we which they owe being fully paid, there measure not the sore infliction that He is none who would like to stop short of sustained, and that drew tears and ago- the desire which they feel being fully ac. nies and cries even from that Being who complished. The thing were a contrahad the strength of the Divinity to dphold diction; and more especially, if such was Hinm-if we measure not His big distress by the force of this desire that it bore itself that guilt of millions, which an eternity of through the struggles and difficulties of a manifold and multiplied vengeance could most arduous outset-it is utterly impossinot have washed away. And all this He ble that it will make a dead stand, and redid, and all this His Father consented that fuse to go farther when there is nought but He should do and suffer, in order to open an inviting and a gentle progress before it. up a clear avenue towards the restoration It was because of God's longing desire afof the human family-And think you it ter the world, that He gave up His Son possible, that, having done thus much unto the sacrifice; and, after the sacrifice with sore and heavy labour, He will not has been gone through, He will not turn go forward on the path that He Himself round upon His own favourite object, and hath struck out, and on which He can recede from the world which He has done now advance by easy and delightful pro- so much to save. That force of affection cession towards the full accomplishment which bore down the obstacle that stood of His great undertaking? Will not the in its way, will, now that the obstacle is Father who spared not His own Son from removed, bear onward with accelerated the indignities and the pains of a deep might and speed to the accomplishment humiliation, and that to commence the of all the good that it is set upon. To do enterprise of our recovery to God-will otherwise would be throwing away the He now refuse to magnify His Son, by purchase after the purchase-money had most willingly giving all and doing all been given for it; and well may Nve be asthat might be needful to perfect this re- sured that after God had freely given such covery, and bring the enterprise of Him a price for our salvation, He will freely who is the Captain of this glorious war- give all things necessary to make good fare to its most honourable termination? that salvation. In other words, after so much has been But-fourthly-it should still more be endured to set on foot the salvation of our recollected, that when He did give up his world, will He suffer it that all this endu- Son, it was on behalf of sinners with rance should go for nothing; and will not whom at.the time He was in a state of un He who has already given for sinners His reconciled variance. It was in the very only-beloved Son give to them also the heat and soreness of the controversy. P needful grace upon earth and the finished was at the period when hIis broken law and everlasting blessedness in heaven? had as yet obtained no reparation —when And thirdly-remember that all which insult without a satisfaction, when disoGod hath done from first to last in the bedience without an apology and without work of our redemption, has been entirely a compensation, had been rendered to Him of free will. It was not because He owed -when a blow had been inflicted on the it to us, but because His own heart was sovereign state and dignity of HIis governset upon it. It has all along been with ment, and a sore outrage laid on Heaven's Him a matter of' purest and most perfect high throne by the defiance of creatures freeness-not the reluctant discharge of whom its power could annihilate or sweep an obligation, but the forth-putting of His away. That was the time of Heaven's own spontaneous generosity. This makes love, and the time at which the Son of God it a wholly different case from that of a went forth unto the sacrifice. Now the debtor, who after having made payment state of matters is altered. The breach of so much, would like to get off from his has been healed. The debt has been obligation for the remainder. There is paid. The sinner has got hold of his nought of this kind to stint or to straiten surety, and may be no longer reckoned the liberality of God. There is no such with. The law has been set up again in straitening with Him, however much we vindicated dignity; and, by means of an may be straitened in our own narrow and expiation for the rebel's guilt, the monarselfish and suspicious bosoms. The truth chy of God rises in untainted honour is, that when IHe did give up His Son, it above the rebellion that earth had waged was because He so loved the world. It against it. And if God did so much for was IIis own love for us, that prompted sinners then, will He do nothing for them this wondrous movement on the part of now? If in the season of their unmitiga. Heaven, towards the earth which had ted guilt He gave up His Son, will He strayed into a wide and wretched depar- cease from giving now in the season of ture awav from if His desire is towards thei- atonement" If, when nought asa restoration; and though there be many i cended from the world but a smoke of 332 LECTURE LXV.-CHAPTER VIII, 32 abomination, the price of its redemption But I feel this subject to be inexhausti, was freely surrendered —will there be no ble. It is not the preciousness of Christ moverient of grace or liberality now that as being Himself a gift that the text leads there arises with every prayer which is me to expatiate on. It is the goodness of uttered in the name of' Christ, and every it as a pledge of other gifts. Unspeakamention which is made of His offering, ble blessing in itself, it is the sure harbinthe acceptable incense of a sweet-smell- ger of every other blessing in its training savour? If there was such a forth- rich in the promise of things to come, as putting of kindness to the children of men, well as great in the performance of a when looked to by God in the native de- present stupendous benefit; and, along formity of their own guilt-will there be with the full acquittal and the all-perfect no forth-putting now, when He'looks to rightousness which it brings along with them as covered and arrayed in the goodly it to the believer now, affording the best investiture of His Son's righteousness? guarantee for all the grace and all the And if in our state of condemnation then, glory that shall afterwards accrue to him. He delivered Him up for us all-is not the There are even other securities for this assurance doubly sure, that, in our state than those on which I have insistedof acceptance now, He will with Him also other aspects in which the sure and wellfreely give us all things ordered covenant may be regardedBut once more. He gave up His Son, other evolutions of' its solidity may and at a time when mercy was closed in as it sttength, that might well cause the bewere bv the other attributes of His nature liever to rejoice in it as in a treasure the -when it had not yet found a way through whole value of which is inestimnabe; and that justice and holiness and truth, which to delight himself greatly in the abundseemed to bar the exercise of it altogether ance of peace and of privilege that with -when it had to struggle therefore and Christ are invariably made over to him. make head against an obstacle, high as For will God stamp dishonour on this the dignity of Heaven's throne, and firm- His own great enterprise of the world's ly seated as the eternal character and redemption? Will He leave unfinished constitution of the Godhead. It was in that which He hath so laboriously begun? fact on very purpose to open an avenue Will He hold forth the economy of'grace through this else impassible barrier, that as an impotent abortion to the scorn of Christ went forth; and, by a substitu- His enemies; and more especially of him, tion of His own obedience for ours, and against whom the Captain of our salvaa sacrifice by His own death instead of tion has gone forth on a warfare, to root ours, magnified the law in that very act up his empire over the hearts of men and wherewith He averted its penalties from to destroy it? Is not the very hostility of the head of our devoted species. And is Satan to all the designs and doings of our not the inference as resistless as it is ani- Saviour in itself a guarantee, that we, mating —that the same mercy, which for- who have run to Him for refuge, shall be ced a passage for itself thorough the im- covered over with His protection and be prisonment of all those difficulties which at length brought out by Him in triumph? hemmed it in, will, now that they are It was to destroy the works of the Devil cleared away, burst forth in freest and that our Saviour went forth, and, after kindest exuberance among all those for having done so much to silence him as whom it scaled the mountain of separa- an accuser, will He then stop short and tion; and, now that the middle wall of leave him in full possession of his hateful partition between God and the guilty is ascendancy over the spirits of men? He broken down by this tide of compassion, hath furnished His disciples with the methat it will set in upon our world, fraught rit of His own obedience and death as with the richest blessings from that throne their plea of justification, and by which whereon sitteth the God of love-who re- they can repel the charges of their great joices over the success of that enterprise' adversary. Will He furnish them with by which He might again beckon to Him- nothing by which they might repel his self His wandering family. He who gave temptations? Will I-Ie only release them His Son while Justice was yet unappea- from the prison-house of condemnation, sed, will freely give all things now that and suffer them to remain as helplessly Justice is satisfied; and if when the ob- the slaves of corruption as before? Will structionlay between the lawgiver and the IHe not complete their deliverance from rebel, if then it was that the mightiest sur- the great enemy of human souls; and, render on the part of Heaven was made, after having so thoroughly purchased the conclusion is irresistible, that, on the their forgiveness at the court of hea-veoobstruction being done away, there is will He not give them all things that ready to shower down upon the earth the I might be needed to achieve their sanctifi. most plenteous dispensation of all that is cation also? goc l and generous and friendly. Never then, in all the views that can be LECTURE LXV.-CIIAPTER VIII, 32. 333 taken of it, was there a firmer basis for which prospered and carried forwlard the hope to rest upon, than that gift of Jesus sanctification of a believer, which furChrist that has already been bestowed- nished him with the grace and enabled regarded as the pledge or the guarantee him to render the services of now obedi. of all those future gifts, that make out for ence-those things which marked him as those who trust in Him a full and a fin- a new creature, and stamped that holiness ished salvation. Never was foundation upon his character here which rendered more surely laid, nor can we tell how'him meet for the only kind of happiness many those unshaken ptops are by that shall be enjoyed hereafter. In a which it upholds the confidence of a word, the great gift which is in reserve believer. We invite you to cast upon it for the believer after he hath laid hold of the whole burden of your reliance. In an offered Christ, is the gift of a clean the quietness and the confidence where- heart and a right spirit-whereby he is with you lie down upon it, you shall have inclined to walk in the way of those com strength. You will be in the very attitude mandments that he had aforetime violated wherein God delights to pour down upon whereby he renounces ungodliness; and you of the prodigality of' His blessings- that Being, who ere then was habitually when you stand before Him in the attitude forgotten, is now habitually referred to as of dependence. He will' not dishonour a Father to whomr he owes all filial and the trust that you lay upon His Son, by affectionate regards. "For as many as leaving you to the mortifying experience receive Christ, to them gave he power to that it is a vain treacherous reliance, and become the sons of God." wholly unproductive of any good to your You thus see how it is that the gospel souls. O then lean upon it the whole of Jesus Christ, ushers in all those who weight of your expectations; and be embrace it to a life of virtue and of provery sure, that He who hath g.iven you gressive holiness. Their purification is IHis Son, will with Him also fieely give as much a free gift as their pardon is. you all things. The Spirit called a free Spirit is as much'All things.' We are not to understand a ministration from on high, as is that act this absolutely —but rather appropriately of forgiveness which passes upon all at to the condition of one who has set forth the moment of their believing in the Saupon the good of eternity, as tile great viour. Christ is given, and all those and engrossing object of his heart. All things of which He is the pledge are things certainly which an immortal be- given also. Eternal life is a gift through ing, and who is in full pursuit of the bles- Him, and so is meetness for eternal life a sings of immortality, counts worth the gift through Him. The Christian disciple caring for-ail those things for which he is as much and more a man of performhas a warrant to pray, and which if he ance, than the disciple of mere morality pray for in faith he shall receive —all is. Only he performs, not with that those things which are held out to him in strength which he natively possesses; promise, and which go to complete his but he performs with that strength which privileges as a believer-all things qual- he has prayed for. It is this which forms lied in the way which Peter has done, the grand peculiarity of his practice. when, speaking of the great and pre- Most strenuous and painstaking in all his cious promises, he makes them embrace duties; but there is ever mixed up with all thing.s which are necessary to life and his various and unceasing activities the to godliness-all things that belong to the apostolical sentiment. "Nevertheless not relation of one, who, by receiving Christ, me but the grace of God that is in me." has become a child of God's adopted It is thus that his humility and his holifamily; and therefore, in a more special ness keep pace together; and he feels manner than all the rest, referring to that himself not more a pensioner upon God gift which by way of distinction has been for the pardon of his offences, than he is termed the promise of the Father-or, as for ability to think a right thought or to pre-eminent in the list of those things do a right and acceptable thing. which God bestows upon His now recon- The two gifts are inseparable. All who 2iled children. the Holy Spirit. " Because are justified are sanctified. All who truly ye are sons God hath sent forth the Spirit receive Christ enter immediately upon a of His Son into your hearts "-a gift so course of sanctification-in which course universally bestowed upon those who are they prosecute a departure from all iniChrist's, that it may be affirmed without quity, and press forward to the perfection exception ",if any man have not the of holiness as the mark of their earnes'. Spirit of Christ he is none of his." And and persevering ambition. Be assured so, were we called upon to specify the that you have not received Christ if you most prominent of those all things which have not received an impulse upon your God giveth unto all who receive Christ, we spirits on the side of goodness and righte. would say, that thev were those things ousness andtruth —that if He be not waslh. 334 LECTURE LXV.-CHAPTER VIII, 32. ing you, you have no part in Him-and not to you as a holy, but to you as a that in the very act of stretching forth sinful creature; and we entreat the most upon you the hand of a Saviour, He sinful of you to lay hold of Him. With stretches forth upon you the hand of a Him you shall receive holiness. After ye Sanctifier. tHence it is that there are cer- have believed, ve shall be sealed with tain tokens, by which a man may most the Holy Spirit of promise. I do not assuredly know that as yet he hath no want to embarrass the simplicity of your part nor lot in the matter. If he have not dependence upon Christ, when I speak yet begun a struggle with sin-if he do of holiness as the unfailing mark of your not feel a new tenderness upon his con- discipleship. I barely inform you what science-if he be not visited with a sight you have to look for as the fruit of and sense of his ungodliness-if he be not that dependence. Go to Him now and breaking off from that which ihe knows accept of the offered Saviour; and certo be offensive to God-if the state of his tain it is, that along with Him, you shall heart and practice be not a thing of prac- be made to accept of a clean heart and a tical concern with him-Then is there right spirit. But do not invert this order, every reason to fear, or rather every rea- else you shall never arrive at peace of son to conclude, that as yet Christ is not conscience; and as little will you ever his and he is not Christ's. If Christ had arrive at holiness of character. It is not really been given to him, a change of your sanctification that forms the stepspirit and of life would have been among ping-stone to your peace; but your peace the very first of the all thingsgiven along that forms the stepping-stone to your sancwith Christ. And if no such change has tification. Lay hold upon Christ as your actually taken place, there is as yet no peace-offering; and then the very God of interest of any kind in the Saviour. peace shall sanctify you wholly. Come This is a point on which we should like forward at the gospel call, and touch the you to have a clear and consistent under- sceptre of forgiveness which it holds out standing. Do not wait till you be holy, to you. There is a virtue in the touchere you shall cast your confidence on the a purifying as well as a pacifying virtue. Saviour; but cast your confidence on There is not merely spiritual comfort but Him even now, and you shall be made spiritual health in it; and the soul of the holy. It is not your faith that is the ac- patient is more than reconciled from a companiment of' your holiness-but it is state of wrath into a state of acceptance your holiness that is the accompaniment it is renewed from sin unto holiness. of your faith. The gift of Jesus Christ is LECTURE LXVJ. ROMANS viii, 33, 34. as Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." LET your first act be an act of reliance are wise, you do not meddle with the aocupon Christ for pardon; let this act be so trine of election at the outset-whatever repeated by you, day after day and hour comfort or establishment of heart you after hour, as to ripen into a habit of re- may draw from it, in the ulterior stages liance-and then shall we confidently of your spiritual progress. When you look for the marks and evidence of your go forth on the career of Christianity, regeneration. Arid these marks may at you look at the free offer of the gospel. length so multiply upon you-they might You perceive it to be addressed to you as so brighten and become palpable even to well as to others. You yield a complithe eye of your own observation, that you ance therewith. You enter into peace shall begin to suspect-nay further to with God-in obedience to His own call, guess-nay further still to be assured, and whereby He now beseeches you to be re to read the full assurance, that you are conciled to Him. It were great presump indeed one of the elect of God. That you tion indeed for you, to start with the asare among the elect is not a thing to be surance that your name is in the book of presumed by you at the first; but a thing God's decrees; which He keeps beside gathered by you afterwards, from your Himself in heaven-but no presumption subsequent history as a believer. If you, at all, to set out with the assurance that LEC'rURE LXVI. —-CHAPTER VIII, 33, 34. 335 you are spoken to in that book of God's in virtue of which he saw the very things declarations, which He circulates through that others saw also, and observed nothing.he world. The "look unto me all" and else or nothing more than those evidences'he 1"come unto me all" and the "who- of faith, those graces of holy and newsoever will let hini come"-these are say- born creatures, which were known and ings in which one and all of the human read of all men. family have most obvious interest. You My anxiety is that you do not embarrass presure nothing when you presume upon yourselves with this matter of election — Lhe honesty of these sayings. And if fur- for there is positively nothing in the docthermore you proceed upon them —if now trine which ought to encumber or in any you strike the act of reconciliation, and way to darken the plain and practical forthwith enter upon that walk by which work of your Christianity. What I fear they who receive Christ and receive along is that some may founder at the outset of with him power to become the children of' their discipleship, by prematurely and God are sure to separate themselves from previously meddling with it. I want that the children of the world-and pray for if they feel any speculative difficulty grace, that you may be upheld and car- about it now, that they may not waste ried forwvard therein-and combine a life their strength on the business of resolving of activity with a life of prayer-Then, it; but set out on the scholarship of the and after perhaps many months of suc- gospel in a plain way, and leave their cessful perseverance, you may talk of election to be gathered afterwards from your election, because now you can read the progress which they have made in it, not in the book of life that is in heaven, that way-which is neither more nor less but in the book of your own history upon than the -way of holiness. Then they earth-not that you have drawn out the may both perceive a consistency, and feel secret from among the archives of the a most precious comfort, in the doctrine; upper sanctuary; but because now it but now, and I speak to those who are stands palpablv engraven upon a charac- r;editating an entrance on that path which ter the light o'f which shines before the leadeth unto heaven, now their concern is eye of the world, and which is read and to accept of Christ as He is freely offered known of all men-not that you have ac- to them in the gospel, and to take full cess to that tablet which has been in- encouragement from the reasoning of scribed from eternity by the finger of God; our preceding text, "He that spared not but that you have access to the tablet of his own Son but gave him up unto the your own heart, and, by the eye of con- death for us all-how shall he not with science, can discern thereupon the virtues him also freely give us all things?" I of the new creature, inscribed by the would have them to close alike with the Spirit of God within the period of your pledge and the promise; and on the high own recollection. vantage-ground of Christ being theirs I Even the apostle went no higher than would have their hearts to be gladdened this, when judging of the state of his own even now with the assurance of faith, and onverts. Their election was to him not thence that they should pass forward to a thing of presumption, but a thing of in- the assurance that cometh from experiference —drawn, not from what he guess- ence-giving all diligence to make their ed, but from what he saw-brought, not calling and election sure, and assiduously from those third heavens which he had at labouring at those things of which it is one time visited, but lying palpably be- said in the New Testament, that if a man fore him and within the precincts of his do these things he shall never fall. own earthly home. When he tells the The point at which God begins in the Thessalonians that he knew their elec- matter of our salvation, is not the point tion, he tells them how he knew it, at which man begins. The apostle as"Knowing brethren beloved your election signs the order of' God's procedure when of God-for our gospel came not unto you he says, "Whom he did foreknow, he in word only, but also in power and in also did predestinate, and whom he did the Holy Ghost and with much assurance, predestinate them he also called, and as ye know what manner of men we whom he called them he also justified, were among you for your sake, and ye and whom he justified them he also gloribecame followers of us and were ensam- fled." It is at the call that man's part ples to all." He concluded them to be of commences. Let him listen to the callthe elect, not from any access that he had let him yield a compliance with the call to a book of mysteries, but simply from -let him take both the comfort and directhe manner of men they were. It was tion of the call-Understanding it to be not because of any high communication both a call from wrath unto acceptance, that he had with Heaven upon the sub- and a call from sin unto righteousness. It ject; but because of the daily compan- were well that he kept by his own share,nshin that he had with his disciples, and of the process, and encroach not on tho 83a. LECTURE LXVI.-CHAPTER V1II 33: 34, rart or the prerogative of God. These prayer, he reads the tokens of his cominambitious speculations about Goa's eter- destination. As tile present grace bright nal decree and man's eternal destiny, ens upon his person, the future glory often argue a creature misconceiving his brightens to his hopes. His humility anc own place, and making himself like unto his holiness keep pace together-till frorr. his Creator. IIe in fct comes in at the the increasing splendour of the one, hc raiddle, between the decree that went may without violence done to the othex tefbre and the destiny that comes after; conclude that his election is of God. He and, alike ignorant of both at the outset ascends from the platform of faith tc of his Christianity, his distinct and only the higher platform of' experience; and concern is with the matters that are in though, even on the former, he may join hand-with the guilt that can be charged the apostle in that strain of triumph upon his person —vith the vengeance that wherewith he brings this magnificent lours upon his prospects-with the offered chapter to a close-yet it is ifrom the interposition of a Saviour to cleanse away latter, because the more advanced and the one and wholly to avert the other- loftier elevation, that he has the fullest with the honest invitation of that Sav- confidence in saying,'Who shall lay iour to cast upon himn the burden of any thing to the charge of God's elect? every fear, and to make use of Him as the It is God that justifieth, who is he that appointed Mediator whose business it is condemneth!' both to reconcile and to sanctify. This is' It is God that justifieth, who is he that the opening at which man is admitted; condemneth' I have already said al, and be very sure that you misunderstand that I mean to do at present which bears the gospel, and are entangling yourselves relation to the first clause of the verse with mysteries that you would be greatly and shall now proceed to a few observa better to abstain from —if you have any tions on this last clause of it. I fear thaz other conception of it, than that there is it is to a very small degree experimentally most wiLe and welcome admittance for known, how much the light and love ana you all; and, let your obscurities be what liberty of a Christian's mind depend on they may about that high transcendental the sense that he has of his justification process which connects the first purpose and that he is in his very best and healthio.f the Divine Mind with your final place est condition, when, reviewing the grounds in eternity, there should at least be no of this justification, he feels his security to obscurity in that process which you have be rivetted as it were and himself securely personally and individually to do with, resting upon the strength of them. There and by which it is that whosoever believ- is one aspect of justification that is peeth shall be justified and whosoever is culiarly fitted to impress a comfort, and a sanctified shall be glorified. clear impression of deliverance, on the I would therefore say to all who profess heart of a believer-even tihe aspect set their faith in Christ, that the great busi- before us in the text, and where it is staress on hand is their sanctification. And ted as proceeding directly and of his own it is one of the all things which God gives personal act from God himself.'It is freely along with His Son to all who be- God that justifieth.' It is He to whom lhe lieve upon Him. It is this my brethren was liable, declaring that all was frilly which constitutes the great peculiarity of paid. It is He who alone was entitled to their practical habit. They work, not make the change against us, declaring upon the strength which they natively how amply and conclusively we stood possess, but upon the strength which they discharged from all further reckoning on have prayed for-given no doubt with account of our iniquities. It is I-e who freeness, but because asked in faith; and before was our offended lawgiver,' Himleading to vigorous obedience, but from a self undertaking our cause and pronounvigour that is infused, and not from a cing with His own voice unon the goodvigour which properly or originally be- ness of it. It is the God from whoml it longs to them. This is the great thing in one time we had nought to apprehend but which the strength of a Christian lies. the emphatic condemnation axnd the overHe works mightily because the grace of' vhelming vengeance-it is He filling Itis God works in him mightily; and one of' mouth with arguments upon our side, and the most beautiful harmonies in the ex- pleading our cause, and protesting how perience of every true Christian, is the much and how completely He is satisfied. accordancyv that obtains between the It is our vindication coming from the very worth of his performances and the fer- quarter whence our vengeance was looked vency of his prayers. It is in this walk of for; and that Being who alone had the secrecy that the secret of the Lord is at right to accuse, not merely acquitting and length made known to the believer; and so withdrawing from us all the dishonour' in those multiplied exchanges which take that is due to guilt; but raising us above iace between prayer and the answer of the midway state of innocence, and re. LECTURE LXVI.-CHAPTER VIII, 33, 34. 337 gardlng us with all the positive favour, which wreaks itself upon a work of ven. and as entitled to all the positive regard, geance, while with His Son lay all the that is due to righteousness. It is He who delight which compassion feeis in a work might have wreaked upon us of His sorest of mercy-that to the one there belongeth displeasure, now telling how much he is the jealousy of a vindictive nature, while pleased with us, and how rightfully we to the other there belongeth the cnga. are privileged to obtain from Him the re- ging generosity of a j(-alous nature: And wards of a happy and honourable eter- thus I fear, that, as the general effect in lnity. It is IHe of whom we might well many instances of the whole contempla. have dreaded, that when the arm of His tion, the government of Heaven is conjustice was lifted up it would be lifted up ceived to be in the hands of an inflexto destroy-it is Himself saying, that this ible tyrant, who, at the same time, has very justice demanded not only our exon- had his severity often appeased and turned oration from all penalty, but our prefer- away by a Son of popular and endearing ment to the glories that are due to righte- qualities; and under whose administraousness. They who have felt the terrors tion it is, that character of the divine juof the law-they who have been stung risprudence is disarmed of all those terwith the arrows of self reproach; and, rors by which it would else have been alive to the miseries of their spiritual con- encompassed. We greatly fear, that along dition, have shrunk from the dreaded eye with the general truth of their contemof a judge and an avenger, as it took plation, there is a wrong impression of cognizance of all their ungodliness-they the Godhead; and that, along with the who have laboured under the agonies of truth and justice and holiness of the a burdened conscience, and to whose in- Lawgiver, there are not seen the tenderner man this witness hath rung the alarm ness that He feels towards His own offof an angry God and of His utter intol- spring-th6 softness and sincerity of His erance for evil-They can report how parental longings, after the children who blessed the emancipation is, when through have wandered in the errors of their disofaith in "the tidings of the gospel, they bedience away from Him. come to see that the whole account be- Now, to rectify this impression and retween them and the Lawgiver is reversed; store you to a juster sense of that great and that He who before challenged them Being with whomn you have to do, I would because of their offence, now challenges have you to gather from Scripture the the whole universe to make good one part He has taken in the whole recovery charge or one ground of condemnation of our fallen world. The pity of God has against them-when from His own mouth in fact been working upon our side from they hear how valid is the plea that now the very outset of the human apostacy, they have got hold of; and how much lie and you do Him wrong —you bear in has reason to be satisfied-when, in the your heart the hardest and most injurious precious doctrine of our redemption; they thoughts of Him, if you conceive of Him are made to perceive that the suretiship otherwise, than as one bereaved of His was an equivalent for the debt, and the ta.nily, and bent on the object of calling atonement by Christ a full reparation to them back again. the dignity of Heaven for all the outrage It is true-that, for what in reference which sinners had inflicted on it; and so to the government of Hiis moral and intelthat all is clear with God, who now can ligent creation may significantly enough at once be a just God and a Saviour-can he called Reasons of State-it is true, be just while the justifier of those who be- that, to uphold tV a dignity of his throne lieve in Jesus-justifying them freely by -it is true, that, to vindicate the attributes His grace through the redemption that is of His nature, and to save the Universe in His own Son. which He had thrown around Htim from I might expatiate further upon how the spectacle of a dishonoured law and a thoroughly the conscience is unburdened degraded Sovreign-There behoved, ere of its guilt, by the very Being against sin could be passed by, there behoved, to whom the guilt has been contracted thus be a sacrifice. But with whom did tbs taking the work of our vindication into way originatel —with God Himself who His own hands; but I now pass on to re- found out the ransom —with Him who so mark upon that tendency which there is loved the world as to send His only. in us, to overlook the direct interest that begotten Son into it. At whose expense God the Father has felt, and taken all was the sacrifice made? Had the Pathel along, in the matter of our salvation. We think you to bear none of it, when IHe are apt to regard Him as having no great spared not the Son of His love but deliv. will for our deliverance, till that will was ered Him up unto the death for us all t wrought upon and prevailed over by the Was there no struggle do you imagine in services of the Mediator in our behalf- the bosom of the Divinity when Ile thus tnat with Him lay all the displeasure surrendered the object of His dearest affec 43 338 LECTURE LXVI. —CtIAPTER V11, 33 34. tiom:, and laid upon Him the full weight, believe, when He holds them to be invest. of the world's atonement In the suffer- ed with a righteousness which it is His ings of Christ will you overlook the pal- part to vindicate, because to Himself it pable expression of regard for our alien- belongs —dear to Ilim therefore as His ated species, manifested by Him who own character, and as ready to be assert.. consented to these sufferings?-and, after ed and made good by Him in the eyes of looking to this transaction in all its rela- a whole universe as the attributes of His tions and its bearings, will you refuse to own nature. allow, that, while judgment is the strange Over against, and ip counterpart to the though needful work of the Almighty, office of God as our justifier, there is put mercy after all is His darling attribute; the question, -Who is he that condemnand that to strike out an open conveyance eth' —suggesting the idea of another and by which it may be poured exuberantly an opposite party, who felt an interest in over the face of' the whole earth, was in- our guilt and was intent on making it deed a grand design in that economy of good —who had charges to prefer, and redemption, which Himself' did frame and laboured after the establishment of these which Himself hath instituted. All along charges-who delighted in the work ol He has taken a direct and an interested accusation, and felt a satisfaction and a part in the object of our world's restora- triumph should he succeed in this his tion. He did not wait in passive and f:lvourite employment. It instantly reunmoved indifference, till another should calls the title which is given to our great interfere; or cherish the stern purpose of adversary in the book of Revelation, as revenge within his bosom, till another the accuser of the brethren; and in the should step forward and satiate the xwrath history of Job there is given a very forcithat else was unappeasable. The truth ble exhibition of the characteristic pleasof Heaven, we admit, and the stable in- ure that he feels in pleading on the side terest of ITeaven's high monarchy, did of condemnation. We can fancy an inrequire an expiation; but it was the love terest in this, because, by every case in of God Himself that prompted the under- which he faiils of his object, he is abridgtaking-it was in love that he prosecuted ed of his monarchy; and each, who, it through all its obstacles and its hard either under his own personal righteousnecessities-it was in earnest busy and ness or under the provided righteousness persevering love, that He carried forward of the gospel stands justified in the sight the enterprise from one step to another; of God, is one man more wrested from and no sooner was the atonement render- the thraldom of' his power. But we allude ed, and the great moral difficulty resolved to this, not for the purpose of remarking whereby a just God might reinstate the on the gratification that every instance sinner in acceptance who had made open of made-out and established guilt yields defiance to the authority of His moral to his ambition, as on the gratification government-no sooner were the great that it yields to his malice. In like mansanctions and securities of this govern- ner as I would lure you to virtue, by setment provided for, than He opened the ting forth the graces of its pure and perprison-door of the grave, and raised to fect exemplification in Christ-so I would Itis throne of Mediatorship the once cru- warn you against all vice, by setting forth cified but now exalted Saviour-no sooner the hideousness of its deformity in the was the plea of His everlasting righteous- picture that is given of him whom Christ ness brought in, than Himself laid hold came to destroy: and, more especially, I of it; and it is now His delight to use it would have you to understand that satisfor the purpose of our vindication-So faction in another's guilt is diabolicalthat God Himself asserts for us the merits that in the complacency which is felt by of His Son's obedience; and, instead of some on the discovery of a neighbour's dissevering Him from the work of our weakness or his crime, there is that which salvation, we have the warrant of apos- savours of the spirit and the morale of tolical example for saying that God Him- pandemonium-that even in the zest self affirms our cause, and that it is God which is so currently felt when scandal, Himself who justifies. mixes up of its infusions with the gossip Thatrighteousness which Christ brought of an assembled party, there are the disin, is termed in various places the right- tinct traces of a contagion from beloweousness of God. The Jews stumbled and that there is a secret exultation of heart fell because they sought to be justified by on some humiliating exposure of an actheir own righteousness, and would not quaintance, which is absolutely fiendish submit to the righteousness of God. But — Nor am I aware of any test that so how great our security, if, instead of being decisively fixes the distinction between found in our own righteousness, we are a good and an evil sirit in man, as the found in that which God calls his own. emotion which arises in nis bosom, when Well mav Ile be said to justify those who there is brought tro nis ears the delin. LECTURE LXV:.-CHAPTER VIII, 33, 34. 339 quency of one to whom he had been grant of any human creature that he saw decustomed to vield the homage of unim- this to be a reality; and with wh,.t a light peached character. The grief of the for- and unburdened heart, he may rejoice mer and the gladness of the latter, serve and be in confidence before God. Let to mark two characterestics of the human him but figure the things which are above neart, which stand as opposed as do the as we have now represented them-let elements of light and darkness. It is him take a correct view of Heaven's mersaid of charity that it rejoices not in ini- cy-seat-let him look to the Throne of quity. But in the hateful temperament Grace as it is now constituted; and, if he which I am now labouring to expose, just see it as it is what should restrain him there is upon the sight or the report of from entering with all boldness thereunto. such iniquity a hellish joy —a gleam of The God who is upon it waiting to be, malignant triumph, that is peculiarly hi- gracious-The Mediator who is beside it deous; and were I called to fasten on beckoning with kindliest welcome the the one trait that forms the most sure chief of sinners to draw nigh, and underand specific indication of a satanic heart, taking to be the Advocate of all who shall I would say that never is it given forth put their cause for eternity into His hands so unequivocally as by him, who, on the -The Father delighting to honour the first opening to a brother's humiliation or Son, and give full effect to His great endisgratce, would eagerly seize upon it, and terprise-The Son presenting to Htis Farejoice in the hold that he had gotten- ther another and another application for who would now delight himself' with the mercy; and with this resistless argument ignominy of him, on whom he wont to of the Law itself' being more proudly lavish the hypocrisies of his seeming magnified by an act of pardon sealed friendship; and, like that great father of with the blood of His own atonement, lies to wvhom he bears a family resem- than it ever would have been by the obeblance so strikingly appropriate, would dience of the transgressor for whom I-,, convert the base advantage into an instru- pleads-The perfect unity of heart and ment by which he might tyrannize and of counsel between Him who intercedes entangle and destroy. for mercy, and Him who judgeth in righ-'It is Christ that died, yea rather that is teousness-And the golden harmony that riaen again.' I shall not expatiate fur- now awaketh among all the attributes of ther on the death of Christ as the basis of the Godhead, when, through Him that our justification; but only advert to the liveth for ever after the order of Ielc!hiwvay in which the argument for our con- sedec, His full and His finished salvation fidonce, is made more complete and con-, is accorded to the offender. It is by this elusive still by His resurrection. Instead wondrous economy of a perpetual and of looking to His death, let us look rather consecrated priesthood, that such music to His having risen again. In a former is now heard in Heaven; and that, in verse of this epistle where He is said to sweetest concord with the whole of Heahave been delivered for our offences, He ven's jurisprudence, love for the sinner is said to have risen again for our justi- mingles and is at one with the now vindification. And it would greatly tend to cated majesty of holiness and truth. The augment your security-did you only re- believer, before the eve of whose enlight. alise the contemplation of a now alive ened understanding these things stand in and risen Saviour, at the Lawgiver's right open and convincing manifestation, feels hand-were the eye of our faith open to all the glory of an elate confidence as he behold Him, sitting and holding converse looks to the grounds and the guarantees with Ihis Father there-could you only of' his safety; but then does he chiefly represent to yourself the present and the rejoice with joy exceeding and full of gloactual state of matters in the upper Sanc- ry, when he looks to Him who was (lead tuary, where lie, who by His own death. and is alive again. It is true that by I-Iis expiated the sinner's guilt, now interposes obedience unto death, He has furnished with God that the sinner's trust might not every sinner of the world with the materibe put to shame —where He who was Him- als of' a most substantial and satisfying self the surety, can allege the debt to plea; but by rising again He has Himself have been fully paid; and hands up His become the pleader-And let us not wonpeople's prayers to the seat of the Eternal, der if the apostle himself felt as if ascendmingled with the incense of His own ing upon a higher vantage-ground-when, merits, accompanied with the remem- passing from the consideration of the brance and the plea of His own sacrifice. death of Christ, he so exultingly adds This is a topic on which I cannot expect the that yea rather He is risen again, and is unbeliever to sympathise-for he would even at the right hand of God, and also need to have a spiritual revelation of the maketh intercession for us. objects, ere he could take on the distinct I may just here advert to that historical or the vivid impression of them. But only circumstancet which is connected with the 34l0 LECTURE LXVI.-CHAPTER VIII, 337 34. resurrection of the Saviour-e-ven that it establishment of his faith. They prove was achieved by a forth-putting of direct by a —striking historical event that tLe jusand plersonal agency on the part of' the tice of God has been satisfied-that He Father. On this subject we have several has accepted of the sacrifice as a full and express testimLonies in the Bible. "Whor a finished expiation-that in releasing out God hath raised up." "This Jesus hath Surety from the imprisonment of the grave God raised up." "Being by the right He has now ceased from all further legal hand of God exalted." "Whom God demand upon us-that in placing Him by hath raised from the dead." " Like as His own side in heaven, He testifies His Christ was raised fiom the dead by the complete approval of all that has been glory of' the Father." "If the Spirit of done for the salvation of the world —In a him that raised up Jesus from the dead word, that the great errand has been fuldwell in you." "Wherefore also God filled; and that, with the now admitted hath highly exalted him." There are presence of our forerunner within the veil many similar testimonies, and the be- to plead the accomplishment of' it, noliever has not overlooked the preciousness thing is wanting to the confidence whereof them. To him all scripture is profit- with we may now leave our cause in His able; and the infiormation of' those scrip- hand and look for the sure mercies of tures which have now been specifically David. cited, has not been without its use in the LECTURE LXVII. ROMANS viii, 35-39. " Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or swvord I (As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.) Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us. For I am per. snaded, that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from thre love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord To have the precise understanding of to effect a separation between Christ's this passage, you should remember that love to us an(l our own persons. The the love of' Christ in ver. 35, and after- tribulation and the distress and the persevwards the love of God in ver. 39, may be cution and the famine and the nakedness understood in two senses-either as signi- and the peril and the sword, to all of fyling His love to us, or our love to Him. which the Christians of that day lay so The whole context seems to decide for the peculiarly exposed-there was nought in first of these meanings-as in that part these that could of themselves alienate the of it which goes before, it is of God's regard of the Saviour from those who'had dealings with, and regards to His elect; enlisted themselves as His followers and it is of His being upon their side; it is of friends; but every thing, on the contrary, the surrender that Hie made in their be- to enhance the interest and the tenderhalf, when He gave up His Son unto the ness which He felt for them. But though. death, and with Him shall freely give they did not effect such a separation, yet them all things; it is of Christ dying and they might indicate it. At least, they interceding for our good; it is of the love who were weak in the faith might be disthat is felt in heaven and is pointed down- couraged into such a conclusion. They vardly to earth, and not of the love that might be led to infer, that, as the ills and is felt on earth and is pointed upwardly adversities of life were the portion of to heaven-that the argument is held: those who embraced the Saviour, there And in that part of the context which fol- could be little love on His part towards lows, it is still of Him who loved us that those whom He had the power to rescue he speaks. Notwithstanding however, from these, but did not choose to put it we shall find, I think, on a narrower ex- forth. When they saw that it was for amination of the whole passage, that oar His sake they were so pursued even unto love to Him is embraced therein, though the death, their couragre and their confiit be His love to us that is more directly dence might have given way, and they and obviously expressed by it. have stood in doubt of there being any You will observe that there is nothing regard on Heaven's part towards them. in all the adversities which Paul enumer- The terrors and trials of that distressing ates, that would in the first instance tend period might have prevailed'tgainst *hem LECTUk.:.X~VII. —CHAPTER VIII, 35-39. *l1 ana they, trusting no longer to thc afTec- I spiritual discipline, into a state of,,pirittion of Christ for their persons or their ual maturity. After that the apostles had interests, might have renounced their faith been threatened by the Jewish rulers to and along with this their affection for the desist from preaching, they did not pray Saviour. that no more threats might be uttered, or Now St. Paul in the passage before us, that the power of executing their menaces is bearing up his own mind, and that of should be taken away. They did not his converts, against the despondency of pray for a deliverance from the outward this unbelief. He, as it were, is not suffer- trial; but for a supply of inward resolu ing himself to think, that all these dark tion, that they might be upheld against it. and lowering adversities manifest either "And now Lord, behold their threatenthe decay or the dissolution of any love ings: and grant unto thy servants that with for them on the side of' their merciful all boldness they may speak thy word." Htigh Priest. He comes, in fact, to the And so with Christians of all ages. They very opposite conclusion. "1 Nay in all estimate the kindness of God towards themn these things, we are more than conquer- by His spiritual, rather than by His temors through him that loved us." He looks poral blessings. They count not that back to the great fight of afflictions that God has separated or withdrawn Hirhself, they had formerly been involved in. He because His earthly comforts have abanrecalls the manifold escapes, or, what is doned them. The most distressing sepmore characteristic of victory, the occa- aration to them were to be abandoned by sions on which they had been armed with the aids of His grace. That they fell into intrepidity for the contest, and were suffering, were to them no indication of enabled to face all the hostilities and H is faded or expiring regards for them; hardships of the Christian profession and I but, should they fall into sin, this we,;re to endure them. And he connects the the sad and sorrowing evidence of an inspiration of all that courage by which angry or of a withdrawing God. When they had been upholden so nobly, with IHe puts some dark adversity to flight, Him from whom it descended. They were this may prove that He has made thern to conquerors, only through Him that loved be safe. But higher far when he disthem. It was He who nerved them for charges this adversity upon them, and the conflict. It was He who gave them they come out, of erect and unhurt spirit, either wisdom to overcome in argument, from the onset and the uproar of its vioor strength to suffer under the inflictions lence-this proves that lIe maketh thema of personal violence. It was a moral to conquer, and to be more than conquewarfare in which they were engaged, and rors. in this He enabled them to conquer. It The great object in fact with every true was a struggle between pain and princi- Christian, is, not that the life of sense ple; and He so succoured and sustained shall be regaled with pleasures or prothe latter, as that they could bid defiance tected from annoyance; but, above this to the fiercest assaults of the former- and ulterior to this, that the life of grace causing the spiritual to prevail over the shall flourish and advance under all the animal nature; and between these two varieties whether of sensible pain or senelements, the infused heroism of the new sible enjoyment. In the prosecution,f man and the creeping fearfulness of the what may be termed this higher game, old, enabling the grace to make head in there is at least secured to him that which this internal conflict against the corrup- according to Lord Bacon forms one chief tion and to carry it. ingredient of human happiness —even heAnd here it is of great practical impor- roic feelings or heroic desires. The man tance to remark, that the way in which you will observe whose heart is thus set, God eften manifests His protecting and has a loftier aim than those of an everyfatherly care of us, is, not by obtaining day character, and he may be said to exfor us the safety of a flight; but, better patiate in a loftier region. They are and nobler than this, the triumph of a certain moral and spiritual points that he victory. In plainer words, He may neither tries to win; and that, in the face of cerwithdraw the calamity from us, nor us tain hurts or hazards to which'they are from the calamity; but, leaving it to bear exposed-and in this higher walk of profit with full weight upon our spirits, He and loss, you will at once see how wholly pours a strength into our spirits which dissimilar his engrossments are from those enables them to bear up under it. It is who travail in the ordinary pursuits and in this way frequently, that He makes speculations of merchandise. It is most good the promise of not suffering us to true that he may so travail and yet be a be tried beyond what we are able to bear. Christian; but there is all the distance in Hie does not lighten the suffering, but He the world between him who diligently adds to the strength; and, as it were, labours after riches as the ultimate land. cradles us, by the education of a severe ing-place on which his heart does termi. 340 LECTURE LXVII. —CIIAPTER VIII, 35-39 nate, and him who while not slothful in of God most assiredly cannot dwell; anm, business yet fervent in spirit labours to it is not till this dark imagery gives place keep that heart with all diligence. They to another view and another aspect of the look wholly different ways; and must be Divinity-it is not till the Mediator steps variously affected by the same events, between, and we see that economy of wis. according to what that is which mainly dom and grace by which the Law has occupies them. Now a man is never over- been disarmed yet the Lawgiver has been set, never plunges into helpless and irre- pacified-it is not till we behold Him as coverable despair, but on the giving way God in Christ, through whom truth and of that which hie holds to be his main in- mercy have met together, and good-will terest; and hence you will perceive, that to men has been made most firmly and the same visitation of calamity which harmoniously to unite with glory to God should make one man feel that he is un- in the highest-It is then, and not till then, done, might give to another a sense of' that the great moral revolution is brought noblest independence-in that he has met about in the sinner's heart, of a love for the poverty or the pain with a spirit un- that Being whom he before stood afraid hurt, if not bettered by the collision; and of; and kindest regard for that awful but that, in the triumph of a faith which looks now amiable Deity, who, in the gospel of onward and ahead of all that is visible, Jesus Christ, stands forth in all the graces he can rise superior to the disaster and of His manifested kindness towards a trample it beneath him. guilty world. Let but this persuasion find V. 38, 39. Before taking our conclusive entrance into the bosom; and it will clear leave of this subject, I should like to un- away the distrust and the alienation, and fold if I could, how it is that our love to I will add the hatred, that had before the (God and God's love to us act and react possession and the mastery therein. It is the one upon the other. There is an am- the exprest persuasion of the apostle in biguity in the general expression-the our text. He believed the love of God in love of God-that causes it to be signifi- Christ towards him; and, retaining this cant of either of these two affections; belief in the midst of disasters and of and we do think, that in order to arrive trials which would have shaken the conat the full spirit and meaning of the pas- fidence of other men-just as he kept by sage which is before us, reference must the persuasion that these dark and lowerbe made to both of them. ing appearances did not indicate any For, in the first place, our persuasion separation of God's love from him, so of God's love to us, is of all other things neither did they effectuate any separation the most fitted to keep alive within us our of his love from God. love to God. It is just in fact the spiritual It was the strength of his persuasion in process of faith working by love. We God's love to him, that so settled and sebelive in the love that God has to us, and cured his love to God. It was because his we love Him back again. It is His good- persuasion in the love of God did not will to us acting upon our gratitude to give way, that his love to God did not Him —a good-will however which must give way. It was a persuasion brought be perceived and trusted in, ere the res- to the trial and that stood its ground ponding emotion is awakened in our against it-and just by the very force of hearts. Apart from the view of Christ, that sentiment which made Job say, that and apart from the conviction of God's though he slay me yet will I trust in Him. good-will to us in Christ, we could not There was a storm that might well have possibly love Him. The heart would be made his confidence to falter. There preoccupied with another affection, which were, in those days, a desertion and a should keep love from entering; for if it dreariness in the profession of the gospel, be true that love casts out fear, it is just by which God meint to discipline the as true that fear keepeth out love. Now spirit of its converts; but which by the while the view of God in Christ awakens eye of sense might well have been interlove, the view of God out of Christ awak- preted into the manifestation of His disens terror. We then see Him as a law- pleasure. And it was because faith pregiver armne(l to destroy us-a God of sa- vailed over sense-it was because the credness whose hostility against sin is persuasion cf God's love to him availed unappeased and unappeasable-a judge the heart of Paul, like an anchor of hope sitting in the high state of His affronted that kept him attached and steady amid dignity, and roused by the jealousies of the conflicts and fiercest agitations of this His holy nature to an act of Vengeance on world's violence-it was because, like the creatures who had renounced His au- Abraham of old, he staggered not out of thor.ity, and cast despite and defiance upon his belief, for all that seemed menacing his throne. It is thus that the thought of in the persecutions and cruel sufferings God stirs up images of dread and distur- of that tempestuous age-it was because )ance in the bosom, amid which the love notwithstanding of these, he still held by LECTURE LXV1L.-CHAPTER VIIII 35-39. 34a the confidence that God's love was not from God, as well as what was painful oi separated from him-that neither was his terrifying and which might cause tha love separated from God. love to perish in a storm of calamity There was nothing, I have already said, And what we now propose is, to attend in all these adversities, that could effect little to each of these distinct influences the separation of God's love from Paul that you may beware alike of both, and and his disciples. The very most which suffer neither the joys nor the griefs of they could do, would be to indicate or to your earthly pilgrimage to separate you make them fancy such a separation-af- from God. ter which, and when driven from their First then as to the effect of that which trust, they would lose their hold of the regales and satisfies the life of sense, in very principle by which their love was withdrawing our hearts from their love tc alimented; and thus although there was God. There is nothing, we admit, in it, nought in this world's fortunes which that should induce the suspicion of God's could have any immediate effect in sepa- unkindness or hostility against us-or rating God's love from them, they might that should make us cease to be persuadbe of powerful effect in separating their ed of God's love to us, and so to uphold love from God. It is not to be imagined the love of our gratitude to Ilim back indeed, that the creature can have such again. We may continue to believe as influehtial operation on the mind of the before; and, in as far as faith worketh Creator, as to detach His affections from by love, it may be thought that there those to whom they had been given; but is every security we shall love as beit may have influence enough upon their fore. But in regard to the operation of mind to detach their affections from Him faith upon the character, there is a most -after which, no doubt, He ceases His important principle laid down by the regards from those who have thus cast apostle in one of his epistles to the CorinHim off. Their prayers for aid in the thians. He there speaks of our believing hour of temptation lose all efficacy, be- in vain, unless we keep the truth so be3ause no longer raised with the faith of lieved in our memory. The use of our.hose who utter them. The love of' God faith in any truth, is that we may ever be in Christ will never fail those who keep a recurring in thought and remembrance to firm and confiding hold of it. But they that truth, for the purpose of our ever let go their hold, and so fall away; and and anon keeping its appropriate moral thus, not because of the power which this influence close upon the heart. Without world's fortunes have over the mind of this, it would appear, that the faith is of God, hout because of the power which no use to us. There are a thousand things they have over the minds of men, there which we at one time believed, and which may come to be between these two parties we would believe again were they called a comllplete and conclusive separation. up to the remembrance, but which now It is on these considerations, that we lie as forgotten things in the mind's deem it the best practical way of closing dormitory. Our faith in them is of no our lengthened elucidations upon this further use. There are many events, passage, shortly to urge upon you the through the iears that have gone by, of tendency which there is in the world and private and personal history, which we its fluctuations to separate you from God; believed at the time on the testimony of and how, making head against this ten- others —many of which we have read, and dency, you should retain the love of Him read with conviction, in books of public in your hearts, and so retain His love to- and political information-many proposiwards you, under all the varieties whe- tions of science so demonstrated as to carther prosperous or adverse of this present ry our firm assent to their truth, and all scene. of which have now faded and escaped For you will observe, that, in Paul's from the memory for ever. We once beenumeration of those influences which he lieved in them, and were they recalled stood determined to resist, but which cer- into the mind's presence, we-should betainly exposed to hazard the steadfastness lieve in them again. But ceasing to be of his love to God, there is room allowed, thought of, all their practical influence not for the assaults of adversity alone, has ceased also; and the very same holds but for the wiles and the blandishments of and is indeed expressly affirmed by the prosperity. He says that neither life nor apostle, of the truths of Christianity. It death should separate him from the love is of no use that on some one day they of God-that neither things present nor have been acquiesced in-if day after things to come should do it-that no crea- day they are not adverted to. Even the ture of ally kind whatever should do it — death of Christ it would appear loses its All giving reason to believe that he had efficacy for salvation, if it have not been in his eye, what was agreeable to the life kept in remembrance. And even though of sense and which might seduce our love we should have once believed the love S44 LECTURE LXVII.-CHAPTER VIII, 35-39. which God has to us-this, if not dwelt tions of such a day banish all thought of upon in thought and cherished as our Him; and though the lake or the land. habitual recollection, is of no effect to scape on which you make delighted ex. perpetuate or keep alive our love to Him cursion be of His workmanship; and hack again. the happy faces by which you are sur. You will hence understand the hazard rounded be lighted up by a life and a to which this affection is exposed from spirit that He has breathed into every prosperity. It does not make us cease to moving creature; and all the luxuries by believe that God has a yet unseparated which your various senses are regaled to love to us; but it makes us cease to think the uttermost have been scattered from of it. We are satisfied with things pre- the hand of Him, who hath opened it sent, and we look no farther. Or we wide, and poured them liberally forth on dwell on the bright and golden hopes of the face of a world, which He hath most the things that are to come, and the mind bountifully stocked and most beauteously so occupied ceases to have God in its ha- adorned —Yet we ask you, on your own bitual contemplation. It is thus that both' recollection of the joyous party and all things present and things to come, neither that gladdened them in the shape of naof which the apostle was determined ture's brilliancy without, or the music should separate his love from God, do in and the dance and the plenteous hospipoint of flact separate and withdraw the tality and the costly decorations and the affections of many from Him, who is the ring of merry companionship within-we fountain of all that they have and all would just ask, if, amid the turmoil of all that they hope for. The mind is otherwise these bright and busy images which are engaged than with the thought of Him. then made to occupy the heart, there has The heart is otherwise engaged than with been room during one short minute of the love of Him. It is taken up with sen- the whole protracted gratification for the sible things, and forgets the unseen God thought of God as your reconciled Father, on whom they all are suspended. The of God as the friend to whom all the glory apostle, by way of contrasting two habits and the gratitude should arise? Now the of the soul which are opposite and incom- life of a prosperous man is one lengthpatible, says of one set of men that their ened holiday. His business is the game, conversation is in heaven, and that thence and the successfiul game at which he they look for the Saviour; and of another plays. His rapidly succeeding centages set of men, that they mind earthly things. are the stakes that have been won by Now the effect of our prosperity is to en- him, and which lead him onward to boldgross the mind with earthly things; and er adventures than before. His bills and to withldraw its conversation and its look- his bargains and his law-suits, are the ings from IHeaven, and from all the bene- moves and the checks wherewith he carvolence which is there. We cease to love ries the enterprise to a fortunate terminathe God whom we have forgotten. He is tion. In launching a speculation, there out of mind, and so out of heart. Ile is are felt by him the sport and the highdispossessed as an object of thought, and blown spirit of the race, and, in its run so is dispossessed as an object of affection. and prosperous return laden with spoils What is not present to our view, is not of and with profits, there is felt by him all power to stir up our emotions; and, not the exultation of victory.. Between the because prosperity has shaken us out of gains of the counting house and the any belief that we ever had in God's love hours of evening enjoyment with his famto us, but because it hath stolen us away ily —between the calls of his urgent busifrom the thought of it, therefore our love ness and the delights of his summer to Hirn waxeth cold. recreation-between the season at which This effect of prosperity in making us he hardly and heartily labours, and the forget God and His love, by fastening our season at which he relaxes amid the beauregards upon other objects, is palpably ties of his magnificent retreat and the evinced by the state and tendencies of blandishments of expensive luxury-We almost every heart throughout the winged see nought in the life of a thriving citizen. hours of a free and festive holiday-when but that still its reigning character is that we give ourselves wholly up to the fasci- of a busy and protracted holiday-a life nation bf things present; and, amid the taken up to the full with the interest and glee and bustle and vivacity of our suc- the urgency of present things-where cessive enjoytients, not the futurities alone that which is seen dispossesses the heart of an eternal world, but even all the futu- of all regard to that which is unseenritie, — of our earthly pilgrimage are for- where in the hurry and the splenlour gotten. We just ask you to compute how and the successive evolutions of one thing much or how little of' God there is in the to delight and occupy the heart after bosom that is thus animated-whether it another, the thoughts of God and of His ss not in reality true, that the exhilara. love are kept at a wide and habitual dis. LECTURE LXVII.-CHAPTER VIII, 35-39. 349 1ance from Wne oosom, anu, without once and so the affection which that object is caring whether the love of God be sepa. fitted to awaken is not kept in the heart rated from you, you have abandoned your When the one disappears the other dies feelings to the force and ascendancy of away; and it is this which explains the things present, and so separated your- decline and at length the utter extinction selves from all love to God. of Christianity with many, whose notions And in such a life there are not only were all evangelical andt even continue to things present, but things to come, that be so —but whose zeal, fervent and dewithdraw our hearts from the love of God. dared as it may at,one time have been, is Man lives in futurity. The desire which now scarcely ever felt, just because the stretches forth to a distant good has far things which awaken zeal are now scarcegreater mastery over the heart, than the ly ever thought of. The man does not delight wherewith it regales itself in the tinderstand the things differently from begood which is actually realised. The fore, but he does not look to it so frecharm of a coming prosperity, has more quently as before. He is otherwise taken power to fascinate and detain the heart up. The engagements of business have from every other object, than even all the gotten the entire hold of him. The muljoys of our existing prosperity. The titude of his prospects and affairs and mind is still more engrossed with the brooding speculations wields an entire prospects of a speculation that is still and absolute mastery over his spirit. He afloat, than with the actual proceeds of a lives under the power of things that are speculation that is now terminated. And to come, but they are not the things of it is this I imagine, which must constitute faith and eternity. They are altogether the main hazard to your souls, of that the things of a perishable world-the walk on which many who now hear me coming profits of some goodly adventure are to be found-hasting perhaps with -the coming result of some keen and too much eagerness after the wealth that busy negociation —the coming market, perisheth-giving, it may be, every affec- whose sales might elevate his fortune to tion and energy within you to some fan- to that of the most affluent and honourcied sufficiency that you have not yet able among the citizens. In the turmoil attained, and the possession of which you of such engrossments as these, the man hold to be enough for happiness-fasten- has never changed his creed-he has had ing all your thoughts and regards on this no time for it. He is every way as sound object which is placed below, and so and evangelical as ever-and if one time of necessary consequence shifting them the professor of a strict and serious orthoaway fiom every object that is above- doxy, may still have a name to live, while occupying the mind with that which is in spirit and in reality he is altogether earthly, and in that very proportion with- dead. And thus we have not to go back drawing the mind from that which is to the apostle's days-that we may witheavenly. We do not suppose that you ness the power either of present or future have admitted a wrong belief all the things to separate the heart from the love while into your understanding. If you of God. We see the vivid exemplificaonce gave credit to God's testimony of tion of it around us; and as much we His love to you in Christ Jesus, the like- fear on the walks of' peaceful and proslihood is that on the question being put, perous merchandise, as in any bygone you will profess the same credit still. age of persecuting violence-as much in You are not sensible of any such revo- the seduction of this world's good, as in lutibon in your opinions on this subject, as the terrors of this world's dark and meshould either change or in any way im- nacing adversity. pair the orthodoxy of your creed. The But we mistake the matter, if we think thing is credited as before, but it is not that sensible things derive their power to attended to as before. When the mind alie ate the heart from God, only from the does come into contact with the doctrine, deceit and the blandishment which lie in it just entertains it as it wont, and judges prosperity. It should never be forgotten, of it as it wont; but then it is not so ha- that there is no other way in which we bitually in contact with it as it wont. can be made to love God than by our We do not complain that now you think looking to His love for us-no other way of it erroneously, but we complain that by which we can keep ourselves loving now you seldom or never think of it at Hini habitually, than by our looking at all. The love to you of'od in Christ is Him habitually. Whatever then withseldom present to the eye of the mind, draws the eye of our mind from Him, will because the eye is elsewhere directed; withdraw the regards of our heart from and so it is that your love back again Him; and we just ask you to think, whe. waxes cold. When the good-will ceases ther the things that distress or terrify the to be seen-the gratitude ceases to be felt. spirit, have not to the full as great a masThe object is not kept in the memory, tery over the attention, as the things that 44 LECTURE LXVII.-CHAPTEIt VIII, 35 —39. 346 satisfy and regale it. Have not grief for more precarious than before, is felt as if some actual adversity, and fearful anxiety it tottered under them; and in expedients' for a corning one, have not these as great for putting off the evil day, and shifts for a power of engrossment as either the pre- temporary credit, and devices and dis. sent delight or the bright and joyful anti- guises innumerable, they flounder from cipations of prosperity l They affect the one difficulty to another-with a heart mind differently it is true; but each may wholly oppressed and overcharged. Even In its turn take up the mind wholly and had fortune smiled on their aerial voyage, exclusively, and so be alike mischievous there would, as we have already endeaIn keeping the thoughts at a distance from voured to show, have been, in the prosGod. And it argues an enlightened dis- perity that crowned it, an influence to cernment by Scripture of the human spi- war against their souls. But in the calarit and all its mysteries, that, while it pro- mity which crosses it, there may lie a nounces of this world's riches how they tenfold hostility; and when we look to beset the entrance of the kingdom of the sadly beset and bewildered man, as heaven, it also affirms that there is a sor- he writhes in secret under the necessities row of this world which worketh death; that encompass, or ruminates on the sad and you do well to notice that in the pa- explosion of disgrace that is before himrable of the sower, where the heart of an when we think of the way in which his engrossed and overcrowded man is com- heart is occupied, and that positively there pared to the ground that is overrun with is not room in it for any thoughts of God thorns, and on which the vegetation of the -when we consider thought as the aligood seed is stifled and destroyed-you ment of affection, and that we can only do well to notice, that they are not merely love our Maker in as far as we have time the riches and the pleasures, but also the and space for the leisurely and undisturbcares of this life, which choke and hinder ed contemplation of His love to us-when from ever coming to maturity the good we compute the manifold distractions of seed of the word of God. such a misguided individual, and the conSuch then being the effect of crosses stant weight or agitation that lie upon his and adversities on your spiritual condi- spirits-Then we can no longer wonder, tion-is it the safe plan for you as Chris- that, in reference to the things of faith tians to lengthen out or to contract the and of an eternal world, his soul should line of your exposure to them? Ought have been utterly dispossessed as if by you not to pause ere you comply with the the violence of fierce invaders-that other invitations for some new enterprise, that thoughts and other feelings should wholly shall bring along with it a train of hazards monopolize him; and that, with an outset and anxieties and fearful misgivings, ere perhaps of seemly professorship, he should the termination be arrived at; and per- at length, because pierced through with haps after all a termination of defeat and many sorrows, have separated between disaster that may utterly overwhelm you 3 himself and all sacredness, and become We know little of the details of your mer- an alien and an apostate frorm his God. chandise; but we know enough to affirm, There is danger to your soul from the in the general, that, if your means be li- abundance of this world's cares, as well mited, the field of your operations ought as from the abundance of this world's proportionally to be moderate and ma- comforts; and therefore it is that you nageable-that what is true in the busi- should avoid all wanton or unnecessary ness of other things is also true in the exposure to the former, even as you ought business of trade, you ought not to med- to be vigilant and sedate and sober minddie with matters too high for you-that ed amid the blandishments of the latter. every risk which you cannot meet with That there is a power in earthly sadness, your own property, and every daring ad- as well as in earthly joy, to dispossess venture by which that of others is brought the heart of its love for God, may be exto hazard, should be avoided as unlawful. emplified by what we sometimes see in a This much we know; and that neverthe- case of forlorn widowhood. It has occurless there is an insidious temptation that red that the sufferer under such a beis perpetually operating, and by which reavement has been irrecoverably woethe ambitious and the unwary are led into struck, and so abandoned herself to helpa higher game than they are adequate to less and hopeless melancholy —wholly all the chances of —that oft there is a unable to lift her spirits up from their floating vision which dances before their dejection, and, with a determination someeyes in the shape of some goodly or gain- what like impracticable sullenness utterly ful speculation, and by which they suffer refusing to be comforted. That under a themselves to be lured into a sea of trou- grief so immeasurable and absorbing bles-that thus their cares and their con- there are very many things which now cerns are greatly multiplied; and the cease to interest her, is not marvellous; ground on which they stand, now become but what most indicates the dispossessing LECrURE LXVII. —-CHAPTER VIII, 35-39. 347 power of this affection, is that now she urgencies by which you are surrounded, snould cease to love her own children- What I hold to be your peculiar necessity that even to those whom nature had so is, that you so arrange as frequently ta powerfully endeared to her, her heart has escape from these urgencies. It were well become cold and alienated; and, immov- that you had many a breathing-time, and ably fixed as it is on the departed object for this pu rpose it is not enough that your -if her tenderness, all its affinities with Sabbaths be hallowed to the exercises and present objects have been broken This the studies of sacredness-you should is rare we admit; but it proves what a have many a hallowed moment through force of separation there is in grief, if, the week-you should have a morning even once or at any time, the strong pa- and an evening sacrifice-you should rental attachment has been thereby dis- train your spitrit to the work of oft retirsevered: And much more does it prove ing within itself, and oft raisi!.g up its fahow possible it is, that an affection at all culties that it may lay hold of God. Even times so slender as that of love to the un- in the heat and bustle of the day there seen Deity, should give way under the might be room for the occasional aspirapower of a similar visitation-how in tion; and though nought more disparaggrief for the loss of fortune, there might ing to Christianity than to fancy it a relibe a force at least equivalent to that of se- gion of days and forms and stated puncparating us fiom the love of God-how tualities, yet, beset and occupied as many that which though rarely is the cause of of you are, I hold that the highest princia literal suicide inflicted upon the person, ple, as well as the highest prudence, is may frequently be the cause of a moral involved in your set and regular observaand spiritual suicide inflicted upon the tions of sacredness. The soul might else soul; and so, by hasting to be rich, have move adrift among the countless influenmany fallen into temptation and a snare ces that are ever and anon bearing upon and erred from the ftith; and, just be- it; and such is the actual opposition be cause they pierced themselves through tween all the things which are in the with many sorrows, have they also drown- world and the love of the Father, that the ed themselves in destruction and perdi- drift is away from God. To recover those tion. thoughts of God and Christ which the If then there be danger to the soul, both world would dissipate —along with the from success in business and from its stray thoughts to recall the stray affeccrosses and misfortunes-what, it may be tions, and so maintain and constantly reasked, should they who are immersed in new a fellowship of heart with the Father the prosecution of it do 3 Not withdraw and the Son-to light again and again the from their callings certainly; but so regu- flame of sacredness within, and so to keep late and restrain and rectify, as that their it'from expiring utterly-to lift yourselves callings shall not withdraw them from the from the deadness and degradation of the love of God. There must be a way of things that are beneath-I am aware of being not slothful in business, and yet of no better expedient than that you have being fervent in spirit; and, lest we your times of communing through the should be charged for having dealt in this Bible and prayer with the things that be important question with generalities alone above, and that you determinedly adhere let me conclude with one plain and prai- to them. Let not the urgencies of busitical direction to you. The thing which ness separate you from those precious separates your love from Christ, is, that, minutes, which you should give to the with so much of the earthly to think of, remembrance of God's love to you in you think but little and perhaps never of Christ Jesus; and then the fortunes of His love to you. What I hold to be in- business, whether prosperous or adverse dispensable for the preservation within shall not be able to separate your hearts you of spiritual life, is that you clear out from that lbve which you owe to God in for yourselves a season, and that too a Christ Jesus back again. Pray unceasfrequently recurring season, of contem- ingly for His grace to overcome the world plation and prayer. In the constant ap- and you shall be more than conquerors pliance of sensible objects and sensible through Him that loved you. interests to your heart, all the grace that It is high time to break away from this is in it must wither and decay; and, un- world's entanglements-to dispossess your less you take up the sentiment of the heart of things present, and turn them to apostle, and desire with him, that neither the things that are to come; and that not things present nor things to come, neither to the coming things of your earthly pilthe pride and prosperity of life nor the grimage, but overleaping these and the death of all our worldly hopes, nor any death which is beyond them, to look oncreature whatever shall have power to ward to the awful realities which lie upon separate you from the love of Christ- the other side. If you have not yet made your religion may perish amid the many the movement from the habit of walking 748 LECTURE LXVII. —CHAPTER VIIIH 35-39. by sight to that of walking by faith, it is multiply the ties by which 3 ou are re,ted a movement which must be made ere you and fastened down to a perishable scene die-else the life eternal, which is only to -that when at length overtaken and torn those with whom all old things have been forcibly away from it by the last messendone away and all things have become ger, you shall be found to be wholly of new, you shall never never realise. And the earth and altogether earthly-overrun it concerns you all to understand, that, by with carnality, and having a full part in every day of postponement, you are get- the saying that the carnal mind is death ting more helplessly implicated in the I ask you, not to be hermits and to abanslavery of sense and of sin than before — don either the world or its business, but I that if you seek not first the kingdom of ask you to be aware of the evil of it. I God, every other thing which you seek ask your instantaneous and habitual reand set your affections upon just widens currence to the objects of faith, that the your distance from Him the more-that objects of sight may no longer have the the love of all which is in the world sepa- ascendant over you. I ask you so to rerates and alienates the heart the more tire and separate yourselves from the love irrecoverably from Him who made the of things present, that you may not be world-that thus in every footstep you separated firom the love of God-not to make, there is a farther departure from give up the use of the world, but so to use the Being whose favour is life, but whose it as not to abuse it-not to cast away from frown is endless and irremediable destruc- you the good things of this life, but, by tion: And, more particularly, may every your habitual regard to the better things fresh speculation in which you engage, of another life, to strip them of their powand that constant trooping of successive er, so as that they shall not be able to cares and hopes and interests from one separate you from the high interests of an mercantile engrossment to another, so accountable and imperishable creature. LECTURE LXVIII. ROMANS iX, 1-3. "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have grea.t heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed froim Christ for my brethren, mly kinsmen according to the flesh." THE matter of which Paul here makes ]eastto appeal to. He does not simply assert such strong asseveration, is not one that that he says the truth but that he says it'in could be looked upon by the eyes of those Christ;' neither does he simply quote the whom he addresses; but one that himself testimony of his conscience, but his cononly could take direct and immediate science as bearing him witness'in the cognizance of: It had not its residence Holy Ghost'-most competent witnesses without, so that others should have access assuredly to the matter here spoken of, seeto it by any faculty of external observa- ing that both had thorough insight into the tion; but had its residence within-within recesses of the human spirit-Christ knowthe repository of the apostle's own bosom, ing what is in man —the Holy Ghost and he o.nly had access to it by the fac- searching all things, and how mnuch more ulty of conscience. He could not there- the things of man, when He searcheth fore say of it-this is true, for come and even into the deep things of God. see that it is so-he could not thus make In our readings of the Bible, we often his appeal to the senses of other men, for acquit ourselves of the task very currentno other earthly eye was upon it than ly; and are apt to speed our way over {hat of his own mind. He therefore had whole phrases, without being at all ar. recourse to the only expedient which those rested by any thought or feeling of their in general have, who feel that a certain significance-and that too with a bocok suspicion attaches to their testimony, and where there is nothing insignificant. The who have no additional testimony where- introduction of Christ and of the Holy with to confirm it-even that of strenuous Ghost in this verse, has perhaps with and repeated affirmation,'I say the truth, most of us never stirred up any enquiry I lie not.' into the mind and meaning of the aposBut Paul, in this necessary defect of tle, when he thus refers to them. We human witnesses, does make mention of recognise their names as well-known other witnesses; and which he seems at. sounds, that are quite familiar to the ear LECTURE LXVlII.-CIIAPTER IX, 1-3. 3i~ and the understanding therefore not start- doned any part of that friendsnip which led, as it were, into vigilance, by any he ever entertained for them. strange or rarely uttered vocable, remains There must be also a meaning which asleep and insensible to the thought which he intended to convey, when he spake of lies couched in the phraseology of the his conscience bearing him witness in apostle. It is thus that it fares, we ap- the Holy Ghost. It is competent for any prehend, in very many instances with rnan's conscience to take notice of any the Bible-that this mine of precious urgent or strongly felt affection thathings is passed over without being entered might be at work in his bosomn-as, foi into-that, full though it is of truth and example, of the great heaviness and conof meaning throughout all its clauses, tinual sorrow that was in his heart. It there is little drawn out of it by the daily needs not the special intervention of any perusals of the mere formalist in Christi- divine or supernatural agent to inform a anity, who, satisfied with running his eye human creature, whether it, be joy or sadover the pages of Scripture, obtains no ness or anger or fear that is the occuview whatever of the richness that is un- pant of his heart for the time being; derncath; or who content that with his and we should therefore like to find what mouth he should pronounce the language the precise addition was, or what the peof inspiration, although with his mind he culiarity which distinguished it from a never touches or comes close to the reali- mere ordinary intimation of conscience, ties which that language embodies, is tru- when Paul's conscience bore him witness ly one of those to whom the kingdom of in the Holy Ghost. God cometh in word only and not at all Apart from the force which the very ill power. mention of Christ and of the Holy Ghost It was for the sake of Christ that Paul gives to this asseveration of the apostle, made departure from the great body of as if calling upon them to be witnesses his countrymen. It was to win Christ, of its truth, and so giving to his utterance that he counted all the honours which his all the sanction and solemnity of an oath zeal and his talent might have earned for -apart from this, there is conveyed to us him among the Jews, and all the pleasure by the phrase in question, that the Holy which he had enjoyed in their society- Ghost was at the time of this affirmation that he counted them but loss in his esti- in Paul-that it had to do with his conmation. They looked on his association science while it testified of that which was with Christ, as the act by which he had in the heart of the apostle, and had to do broken friendship with them. He had at with his heart by putting and upholding least, however, given full evidence of his that affection in it of which his' consincerity by it. He had relinquished all science bare witness. The fruit of the Spihopes of earthly preferment, and had rit it is said is in all goodness and rightbraved all the terrors of persecution. In eousness and truth. It is by the last of speaking of his truth in Christ, he spake these friuits, by the truth which it puts inof that by which his truth was most no- to the inward parts, that it both enlightbly accredited. His being in Christ was ens and directs the conscience. It acts that which gave the fullest possible de- by enabling the conscience to look more monstration of his own uprightness; and, clearly on its own proper field of obserin the face of the Jewish apprehension vation-by shedding a greater brightness that because the friend of Christ he was and legibility on the lineaments of that an enemv of theirs, he in that very name inward tablet whereon are graven all the affirms his desire for their eternal welfare characteristics of a man's soul-whether to be the most urgent feeling of a bosom, that soul be now an epistle of Christ, so which still felt all its wonted affinities to that in reading it we examine ourselves his countrymen, and glowed with all its and ascertain that we are indeed in the wonted affection towards them. And be- faith-or it still behrs the unaltered insides, the joining of that name to an affir- scription of original and unrenewed naination was tantamount to the confirming ture, so that in reading it we become conof it by an oath. It was a name, they vinced of sin. It is thus, by revealing to might well have known, which he never the eye of conscience the real condition could have associated with the utterance of the inward parts, that the Spirit perof a falsehood; and so, to overcome the forms the office either of aiding in the impression which obtained among the work of self-examination, or of convincpeople of his own nation, as if he had ing a man of sin ere he becomes a Chrislost all his ancient and natural regard for tian. And He not only makes truth them, he appeals to that very Jesus for known to the conscience, but He makes whose sake he had abandoned the faith the man who professes to utter the intiof his countymen, in support of his so- mations of this conscience to be strictly.emn averment that he had not aban- observant of the truth-so that the man 350 LECTURE LXVII. —-CHAPTER IX, 1-3. whose conscience bears him witness in whom, so far from having lost all sense the Holy Ghost, is both a man who is not of their nobleness by having become a deceived himself in regard to the real Christian, he sums this heraldry of his nature of his own internal feelings, and nation by what he deemed the brightest neithefr would deceive others when he re- of all its ensigns-even that of them as ports what these feelings are. concerning the flesh Christ came, who is But3 further, the Holy Ghost not only over all, God blessed for ever, amen. enabled him clearly to apprehend the af- It may serve to guard you against a fec'ion by which he was actuated, not delusion-should you, on this subject, only guided him to make true and faith- make the proper distinction between that ful declaration thereof-but gave him the which was natural and that which was affection itself; and, in virtue of His fruit spiritual in this patriotic affection of the being goodness as well as truth, put into apostle. The former might be deponed him that good and gracious distress which to by an ordinary intimation of the conso overweighed his spirit when he be- science-the latter is wholly the work of thought him of the spiritual condition of the Holy Ghost; and can only be manihis own countrymen. What would have fested to the man who has it, by the conbeen a natural in others, was in the heart science bearing him witness in the Holy of Paul made by the Holy Ghost a sane- Ghost. It will perhaps make the distinctified affection. There was something tion between these two things all the most natural, and I could almost add jus- more palpable-if we only ask, what tifiable, even in the pride of Jewish pa- this high and heavenly ingredient has at triotism-for never was a nation so dis- all to do with those compositions of our tinguished; and never had a people, even recent poetry known under the title of among those whom history has most gor-'Hebrew Melodies.' It has truly nothing geously blazoned in all the honours of to do, either with the genius and enthusiancestry and of great achievement, such asm of those who framed them, or with marvellous distinctions to boast of: All the delighted admiration of those who the trophies of conquest and of literature listen to and perform them. The poetry, and of all earthly renown, make not out the pathos, the music, the beauteous and a crown of traditional glory for any of touching imagery, the recollections of the states or monarchies of other days, domestic tenderness, the resolves and the which is at all like unto that crown of vows of lofty patriotism-these are natutranscendental glory, that halo from hea- ral feelings, and must all be put down to ven, which sits on the character and the the account of nature. But it follows not, fortunes of the children of Israel. There ye sons and daughters of song, alive is nought in the sages, and in the warri- though ye be to the fascination of these ors, and in all that is recorded either of touching numbers, that, because you kinthe prowess or the philosophy of any dle at the inspiration of genius you have other land, which serves so to irradiate any part in the inspiration of Heaven. It its name,-as the name and the land of is not for us to pronounce on the Christhe Hebrews are irradiated by their pa- tianity of the men who emanated these triarchs and their prophets and their holy magical effusions; but we affirm it to be men of God. The traveller, whose ima- possible of the very rman whose hand has gination has been sublimed among the so embellished these sacred themes, that historic remembrances which he saw in his heart there might not have been a around him in the classical territory of particle of sacredness. And so with you, Greece and Rome, has confessed a deeper who melt in all the luxury of emotion visitation of awe and of lofty emotion, as over these strains of ancient psalmody; he w=alked over the priestly and consecra- and which only now, when set to the cated land of Judea. Even the very hum- dence of modern versification and the blest of that outcast race, kindles in the music of our modern drawing-rooms, recollection of his own ancestral dignity, have become strains of enchantment. and feels a sort of conscious superiority V. 2.-' That I have great heaviness ana to other men-when he thinks of himself continual sorrow of heart.' as one of that selected nation whom seers But to return from this digression. In did instruct, and whom angels visited; the heart of Paul, we have no doubt, that and that they were forefathers of his, who both the natural and the spiritual were heard from Sinai's flaming top the words blended; and, in the estimation oi unconof the Eternal. Paul seems to have felt verted men, the former might of itself some such patriotic inspiration-as he account, for the great sorrow and contin. made mention of the Israelites to whom ual heaviness that was in his heart. He pertained the adoption and the glory and felt for the overthrow of such a nation. the covenants and the giving of the law He had sympathy for its fallen greatness. and the service of God and the promises- It would seem, from the enumeration that whose, he says, are the fathers; and of he made of its glories, as if its proud and LECTURE LXVIII.-CHAPTER IX, 1-3. 351 prosperous days had passed in recollec- warm and benevolent affectlor.s which tlon before him; and he could not but have their living play in the bosom of mourn over the prostrate condition that almost every family, and by whose work. awaited it, when it should be trodden un- ings it is that the society of earth is up. der foot of the Gentiles, and become the held. The lesson of the text is not that outcast and the mockery of all people. we should love our relatives, for this is He would have sorrowed, and that most what untaught and instinctive humanity profoundly, although he had felt no more can do. But to love the souls of our than other Hebrews feel, because of their relatives-this comes of something higher dispersed nation, their ruined temple, their than the motives or the tendencies of profaned and desolated sanctuary. The spontaneous nature. Any man's consadness of nature would have been enough science may bear him witness that he has to overwhelm him in such a contenmpla- parent's instinctive fondness for his own tion; but the heart of our apostle was children; but, ere he can vouch with weighed down by a still more oppressive truth for a regard at all so strong or so sadness. He was not insensible to the lively to their imperishable souls, there sorrows of wounded patriotism, but his must be a higher agent than nature at were the deeper and more distressful sor- work with him. Ere he can say it with rows of reflecting piety. He sorrowed truth, he must say the truth in Christfor his countrymen after a godly sort. Ere his conscience bear witness to it, it -I-e had his eye upon their rejected souls, must bear him witness in the Holy Ghost. their now hopeless salvation, their undone But let us dwell at greater length on eternity. And of fhr more bitter endur- this phenomenon of character and teeling ance to him than even the slaughtered -for it is in truth an exhibition of humanhosts and the captive farmilies of Israel, ity, most pregnant with inference, and was the miscarriage of his heart's fondest fitted more especially to prove how wide desire for them that they might be saved. an interval there is between the things ot V. 3.-'For I could wish that myself sense and the things of sacredness. The were accursed fiorom Christ for my breth- agony of an infant's dying-bed is not more ren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.' real, than the agony inflicted by it on a Whatever be the precise import of those mother's bosom. The sufferings endured terms in which the apostle here expresses by the one have not a more stable or unhis affection for the Israelites, there is doubted certainty, than the sympathy one thing of which there can be no mys- which is felt for them by the other. They tery or mistake-and that is, the strength alike belong to man's sentient nature-in and exceeding urgency of the affection virtue of which there is scarcely a parent itself The circumstance of their being to be found, who bears not in his heart a his kinsmen according to the flesh, gave thorough devotion to all the earthly interhim a special interest in their welfare; ests of' those who have sprung from him; arnd the interest which he thus felt was and shares not in all the distresses, to mainly directed to the welfare of their which, by pain in their bodies, or disapimmortality. On whatever other question pointment in their fame or in their forcriticism may stumble and go astray, tunes, they as earthly creatures are exthere can be no misunderstanding of this. posed. In other wvords, all that belongs to The literal sense of the verse may in one our sensitive economy which is taken thing be somewhat unintelligible. But its down at death, is most feelingly sympamoral and spiritual expression is alto- thised with; and what we affirm is, that, gether obvious. We have here the long- with all that belongs to our spiritual ecoing earnestness of an apostle after the nomy that survives death, there might be salvation of his countrymen; and those no concern and no sympathy whatever. sympathies of kindred, which in the After all then, this tenderness for relatives hearts of ordinary men lead but to earth- might at the very best be but a mere anily gifts and earthly services, we see them mal sensibility-an instinct, which has in the instance before us taking a heaven- just as little of' fellowship with the thinx. ward direction, and prompting the efforts of faith and of eternity, as has the similar and the expostulations and the prayers of instinct of any inferior creature. And it this great Christian minister-not for the is indeed most striking to observe, under temporal but the everlasting welfare of how many a parental roof, all the amenithose to whom he stood related by the af- ties of nature's charity and of nature's finities of blood. We cannot doubt the care are absorbed, and have their full terstiength of these affinities, even in the mination in earthliness-how, while the hearts of the veriest children of this bodily wants of every little nurseling is world; and that innumerable are the most tenderly provided for, it is forgotten kindnesses and the charities of domestic all the while that their spirits are imlife, to which they give rise. We cannot perishable —how, amid all the sighs and refuse, even to unsanctified nature, those all the tenderness of family affection LECTURE 5LXVIII.-CHAPTER IX, 1 —3 scarce one effort is ever made to secure future hell or their future heaven cost us and scarce one alarm is ever felt lest they one moment's agitation. should fall short of a blissful eternity- That such is experimentally the fact So that while we, alive at every pore to we have, I am persuaded, the responding all that is present or visible in the condi- testimony of many a conscience amo ng tion of our children, do watch over their yourselves; and melancholy as the con. sick-beds, and weep over their tombs-we templation is, we should like to prolong rarely ever think of those fearful possi- it througn one or two lectures more, for bilities, which, on the other side of death, the sake of those practical uses to which may still be in reserve for them; and sel- it is subservient. dom does the dread alternative of their LECTURE LXIX. ROMANS ix, 3. "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." AND first, it may be employed to recti- or to secure for them that felicity which fy that meagre theology which is so far is the most glorious-Wihy there is indeed satisfied with man as he is, that it would such obvious demonstration in all this of hold a few slight and superficial amend- time being regarded as our all, and eter. ments to be enough of themselves for nity being counted by us as nothing —sc changing him into man as he ought to be. light an esteem in it of that God, an inThis is one use to which we should turn heritance in whom we treatas of far less what we have just observed of the paren- value for those who are dear to us than tal affection. The earthliness of its whole that they should be mlade richly to inherit drift proves man to be a creature alto- the gifts of His providence —such a prefergether earthly; and the very strength of ence for ourselves, and for the fleeting the affection serves to aggravate this les- generations that come after us, of the son the more, and to betray all the more short-iived creature to the Creator who palpably our state of spiritual destitution. endureth for ever-As most strikingly to That the same parent who is so intent on mark, even by the very loves and amiathe preferment of his children in the ble sensibilities of our hearts, how proworld, should be so utterly listless of foundly immersed we are in the grossest their prospects, nor put forth one endea- carnality-that after all it is but an earthvour to obtain for them preferment in ly horizon that bounds us, and an earthly heaven-that he who would mourn over platform we grovel on-that Nature, even it as the sorest of his family trials, should in her best and most graceful exhibitions, one of them be bereft of any of the corpo- gives manifest token of her fall, proving real senses; and yet should take it so herself an exile from Paradise even in easily, although none of them have a the kindest and honestest of the symparight sense of God or a right principle of thies which belong to her-that, retaining godliness-that he, who would be so sore- though she does many soft and tender afly astounded. did any of his little ones finities for those of her own kind, she has perish in a conflagration or a storm, been cast down and degraded beneath the should be so unmoved by all the fearful high aims and desires of immortalitythings that are reported of the region on accursed even in her moods of greatest.me other side of death, where the fury of generosity, and evil in the very act of an incensed Lawgiver is poured upon all giving good gifts unto her children. who have fled not to Christ as their refuge But another lesson than that of rectifyfrom the tempest, and they are made to ing the meagre theology of the general lie down in the devouring fire and to public, is that of rebuking those peculiar dwell with everlasting burnings-that to few who disown this theology, and hold avert from the objects of our tenderness themselves to be sound in the faith. We the calamities, or to obtain for them the greatly fear, that, in many instances, this good things of this present life, there soundness in the faith is little more than should be so much of care and of busy a holding of the form of sound words. expedient, while not one practical mea- The expression of the truth is acquiesced sure is taken either to avert from them in, but the truth itself is not realised. A that calamity which is the most dreadful, mere holding of the dogmata of a cree LECTURE LXIX.-CHAPTEP IX, 3. 353 Isr not faith. It is not the substance of who know not God and obey not the gosthings hoped for, neither is it the evidence pel-the ceaseless moanings that ever and of things not seen. The man who looks anon shall ascend from the lake of living onward to some station of emolument for agony-the grim and dreary imprisonhis son, who provides him with the best ment whose barriers are closed insupcraeducation to qualify him for its duties, bly and for ever on the hopeless outcasts who himself superintends the preparation of vengearence-'These, ye men who veail and strenuously plies him with the fit ex- the form of godliness but show not the ercises for his training and future habits, power of it in your training of your famiWho bestirs himself in the work of secur- lies-these are not the articles of your ing friends and soliciting patronage —this faith. To you they are as the ixmaginaman may be laudably employed, but he tions of a legendary fable. Else why this is walking, by sight. To look onward apathy. Why so-alert to the rescue of for your children to a place in heaven- your young from even the most trilling of to enter them accordingly into a process calamities, and this dead indiilerence of spiritual education-to watch and ex- about their exposure to the most tremenamine and labour, until the spiritual prin- dous of all? O, the secret will be out. ciples be established and the spiritual The cause bewrayeth itself: You have character be formed in them —to besiege not faith; and, compassed about though in prayer the upper sanctuary, that you you be withl sabbath forms and seem-ly may obtain the patronage of' the great observations and the semblances of a Intercessor who is there in behalf of your goodly and well-looking profession, yet, family, and through Him the grace and if you labour not specifically and in prac.. liberality of the King upon the throne- tical earnest for the souls of your children, Let me practically see this, and I would your doings short of this are we fear but say of it that it was whalking by faith. It the diseased and lame ofibrings of hypois not the mere verbiage of an orthodox crisy-your Christianity we fear is a dephraseology that constitutes you a believ- lugion. er. You believe substantially only if you Let me therefore, in the third place, do. It is not by the professing of these charge it upon parents, that they make things that you show faith. It is by pro- proof of their own Christianity by lookceeding on the reality of these things. ing well to the Christianity of their chiiThe man, upon whose work and upon dren. They profess the rewards anrd thle whose walk the futurities of the unseen glories of Paradise to be the noblest obworld have the same deciding power, as jects which an imimortal being can aspire the futurities of the seen and the sensible after. To these objects then, let thenr world that is before him-he it is who guide the ambition of those young im has the substance and not the shadow, mortals who are under their own roof the faith unfeigned. It will show itself in and, instead of regarding them as the in. the regulation of the family, as much as mates of a habitation that is to last fol in any other of his personal affairs. The ever, let them be treated as passengers ir man wvhose heart is set on the conversion the same vessel with themselves-as fel of his children-the man whose house is low-voyagers to an eternal home. In the their school of discipline for eternity-He work of their common preparation foi it is, and we fear he only of all other such a home, let them never cease to ply parents, who lives by faith. If you love the household with their precepts, or to your children and at the same time are ply Heaven with their prayers. Paul listless about their eternity, what other travailing in birth that Christ may be explanation can be given than that you formed in his converts, is fit to image forth believe not what the Bible tells of eter- the effort, the assiduity, the intense moral nity? You believe not of the wrath and earnestness, wherewith parents should the anguish and the tribulation that are long and should labour for the conversion there. Those piercing cries that here of their children. Be assured that this is from any one of your children would go an object for which one and all may be to your very heart, and drive you frantic instant in season and out of season; anti with the horror of its sufferings, you do that no application, however pointedly not believe that there is pain there to call directed and however urgently borne them forth. You do not think of the home on the consciences of any of your mneeting-place that you are to have with offspring, if under the guidance of that "hem before the judgment-seat of Christ, wisdom which winneth souls, is too much and of the looks of anguish and the words for an achievement so precio'us. O reof reproach that they will cast upon you, member that under the roof of your lowly tor having neglected and so undone their tenement, there might happen an event eternity. which shall cause the high arches of The awful sentence of condemnation- heaven to ring with jubilee; and that surthe signal of everlating departure to all passing far the pomp of this world's his. 45 354 LECTURE LXIX.-CHAPTER IX, 3. tory, is the history of many a cottage home them, a dead and immovable silence, and -at which a son or a daughter turned into which for the world they cannot break; righteousness becomes the reward of a and though posting on to eternity togeparent's faithfulness, the fruit of a parent's ther, yet on all the prospects and all the prayers. preparations of eternity their lips are But-fourthly-let me not forget that sealed; and while onevery other partnerthe affection of Paul, as expressed in the ship, whether of interest or of feeling, passage before us, was not that of a Chris- there is the frankest and the easiest corntian parent for his children, but that of a munication-yet, on this mightiest interChristian man for his kinsmen in general. est of all, each wraps himself in his own It was in love for the souls of all his rela- impregnable disguise, and positively dares tives, that he could have endured any sa- not lay it open. It is so very singular, crifice by which he might have procured that it almost looks like a satanic influsalvation to them. It was an affection ence-a sorcery by which the prince of which went round the whole circle of his darkness obstructs this sort of r-eciprocal relationship; and, under the impulse of interchange in families, lest his kingdom which, we would not confine our apostolic should suffer by it-a levice by which zeal and activity to the single obtject of he guards the very approaches of reliChristianising the young of our own fa- gious conversation; and so scares even mily, but would lay ourselves out for the the devout and desirous Christian away souls of others of our kindred-whether from it, that he stands speechless and awethey lived with us under the same roof, or struck even in the presence of his own exchanged with us the visits of a familiar brother. It is indeed a curious anomaly and firequent hospitality. And we cannot of our nature, and mi ght well excite to look upon this extension of the dtly, philosophic speculation; but it has a without adverting to a most powerful and higher claim upon our notice, in that it a most peculiar obstacle in the way of it stays the operation of the gospel leaven — a certain mysterious delicacy, most arnong men, and forms one of the sorest deeply felt in many a bosom, though most impediments to the growth of' Christianity difficult to be analysed-a repugnance so in the world. much as to talk of Christianity in the We feel the whole difficulty of advising hearing of parents or brethIren or more in a matter which so many have found to distant relatives, in the spirit of' religious be unconquerable; and yet, formidable tenderness-and a repugnance that would as the difficulty is, we cannot help being almost strengthen into a moral impossi- assured of this as of all other temptations bility, did we propose to urge upon them -that if you resist the devil he will flee the Christianity of their own souls. How- from you. We are persuaded that had ever undescribable this antipathy is, yet you only courage to break the accursed we are confident of our speaking to the incantation, a most cheering and triuminward experience of' many, when w? phant result would often come out of it. affirm the existence of it; and that in It is our conjecture that by a frank and truth it is often stronger and more sensitive intrepid management of the case, it would far in reference to our own kindred, than in many instances have an issue more in reference to any of our more distant pleasing and more prosperous than we at and general companionship. The solitary first do apprehend. We believe, that, did Christian of that household, where all but you openly avow to your kinsman achimself are yet carnally-minded and of cording to the flesh the recent awakening the world, feels as if spell-bound among that had come upon you, and did you the entanglements of an insuperable deli- pour into his ear the affectionate urgency cacy; nor can he find utterance at all for of your now christianized regards for the things of sacredness, among the pa- him-there might ensue a gratitude and a rents and the sisters and the other inmates confidence that to your old and previous and daily familiars even of a much-loved fellowship was altogether unknown. We relationship; and the seriousness, where- are hopeful, that by taking the direct way with his heart has of late been visited, with that relative whom you want to assolodges there in solitude and in silence- ciate with yourself on the path of heaven, as if ashamed to disclose itself in the and telling him plainly both of sin and of midst of a now uncongenial society; and, the Saviour-that in his kindliness to you, marvellous to tell, it can experience a and perhaps in the conversion of his own greater fireedom and facility of religious soul, your fearlessness and your faithfulconverse with the irreligious neighbours, ness would have their reward. We have than it can with the irreligious members no doubt, that, did every Christian come of his own family. And thus, by an in- forth in the bosom of his own household explicable peculiarity of temperament, with more bold and explicit testimonies, do the nearest of relatives often maintain we should at length have vastly more of on that topic which most nearly concerns Christianity in our land; and that, did LECTURE LXIX. -CHAPTER IX, 3. 355 our love for souls and our sense of the fore men, be the cruel est indifference to wcrth of eternity so far prevail as to force the fate of their eternity. The benevo. a way for us through the tremors and the lence of nature may expatiate among all. delicacies of this our mysterious nature, the kindnesses and courtesies of the life we should at times realise within the pre- that now is-while the benevolence of cincts of' home the noblest achieve.nents faith is most profoundly asleep to the moof the missionary. That there would be mentous interests of the life that is to a frequent, and even perhaps on occasions come. In a word, because of our criminal a fierce resistance, is unquestionable: and reserve, souls may have perished everlastthen the generous adventurer for human ingly; and,just because Christianity is left souls would be put upon his charity and out by us in conversation, many perhaps his wisdom. " Give not that which is holy there are who have been confirmed in the unto dogs," and "' cast not your pearls be- habit of leaving it out of their concern altofore swine," these are the precepts which gether. Surely that which even the friends might afterwards have their turn when he of the gospel deem not worthy of a place had acquitted himself of' the duty to con- among the other topics of science or of fess Christ before men, and proved him- taste or of' politics or of trade or of agriself not to be ashamed of' His testimony. culture, which take their respective turns Yet even in suffering and in silence he in every party-we may well deem not would preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, worthy of any large or very prominent and perhaps more emphatically than if place in the general system of our affairs. with all eloquence and all argument. Let It is that by our shrinking timidity, a counbut the meekness of wisdom never aban- tenance is given to that spirit of wxorldlidon him-let peace and truth and kind- ness wherewith the earth throughout all ness be at once the guide and the orna- its companies is overspread; arnd, just ment of his walk-let him command that because Christians are not so free arind homage to his practice which he failed to frequent in their avowals as they s}hould, obtain for his principles-let him carry the mischief is propagated more swidely that admiration for tne virtues of his lif'e (nd settled more inveterately than before. which by the doctrines of his creed he We are aware, at the same time, that evil could not carry-And thus what he did might ensue from unbridled and unreanot by his expostulations, he might do by sonable urgencies of talk upon this subhis example and by his prayers. ject; and that there is a time to refrain, It were well that we had a conscience as well as a time to venture forward. It altogether clear in this matter-that we were well, however, if amid the excuses stood fully acquitted of what we owe to and exonerations of which we are so fain each others' souls-that we could lay our to avail ourselves, we, like Paul, could hands upon our hearts; and say that we vouch to our own consciences for the had done all which we ought, for the pur- perfect sincerity wherewith we longed afpose of rescuing from the delusion that is ter the salvation of those who are around unto death, him who is ready to perish- us. He could speak for himself in this that we held faithful and intrepid dis- matter-his conscience bearing him witcourse with our fellow-pilgrims on the ness in the Holy Ghost. This heavenly high topics of eternity; and did whatever judge is now looking towards us; and, wisdom could approve, even among those agreeably to that impressive passage from that are without, for awakening them firom the book of Proverbs, He knows whether the lethargy of nature, and impressing to charge us with the barbarity that would that movement upon their spirits by which neglect the means of averting from others they might turn from the world unto God. their awful and everlasting condemnation. We know that there are difficulties and "If thou forbear to deliver them that are delicacies in the way; but we also know drawn unto death, and those that are reahow gladly it is that many a desirous dy to be slain; if thou sayest Behold we Christian takes shelter under them. We knew it not-doth not he that pondereth know that the formal attempt to Chris- the heart consider it? and he that keepeth tianise has often misgiven; and that there thy soul doth not he know it?-And shall have been occasions, when the whole ef- not he render to every man according to feet of a rash and misguided enterprise his works?" has been just to call forth from the heart It were well if what I have said should the reaction of a stouter and more resolute subserve, not merely its own proper and hostility than before. And, upon this con- immediate purpose, but should serve the sideration, there are men, even of reli- purpose of a general conviction regarding gious earnestness, who have exonerated the state of your own souls. Ere you c-an themselves from the task of religious con- I be practically in good earnest about the versation altogether. Now there may in eternity of your children, you must have this be a guilty cowardice. God knoweth. in your own spirit a sense of the worth There may, in this inveterate silence be- of eternal things. Ere you can labour for 356 LECTURE LXIX.-CHAPTERt IX. 3. the good of their immortality, there must'heart in regard to the affection which it be a faith in that immortality-e.vein the J bears for the souls of your children-from faith which is the substance of' things these we may gather the evidences, we hoped for, and the evidence of things not i fear, of the entire spiritual destitution of seen. Ere yoi can make a distinct and I any Nwho are here present. In urging business object of their conversion from the Christian duty which lies upon you sin unto the Saviour, you must be imprest of watching over their souls, we feel as if with the guilt and danger of the one, as we had to go back to a duty more ele. well as the all-sufficiency of the other. mentary still-that is, of fleeing, for your. And, on the other hand, your habitual selves, from the wrath that shall come listlessness in the matter of family reli- upon all those of carnal and unrenewed gion. is an experimental proof that you nature, who have not yet made the transi. are destitute of all these things. From a tion from death unto life; nor taken refuge thing so familiar, as just your domestic in that Saviour whose blood alone can and daily habit in reference to those of make atonement for the past, whose Spiril your own house; and from a thing so ac- alone can revive and rectify the future. cessible, as just the state of your own LECTURE LXX. ROMANS ix, 3. "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.;' BEFOnRF bidding a final adieu to this to- recognising in man, wherever he is to be pic on which I have at such length de- found, the same wandering outcast from tained you, I may take notice of another the light and love of heaven, and the same interesting aspect which it opens to our befitting subject for the offers of a frne view. You will observe that the ferven- salvation. We cannot therefore sympacy of affeiction professed by Paul in this thise with those who affect an indiflerence passage, is all in behalf of his own coun- to the Christianization of the heathen, till trymenr; and yet none more zealous and the work of Christianization shall have more indlefatigable than he, in the la- been completed at our own door. Let bours of' a Christian missionary'among them be carefill, lest there do not lurk the distant climes and countries of the within them a like indifference to bothworld. What gives more importance to lest the feelings and the principles of all this remark is the tendency in our own true philanthropy lie asleep in their boday to place these two causes in opposi- soms; and they, unlike to Paul who found lion to each other-as if they were con- room for the utmost affection towards the flicting interests that could not both be spiritual well-being of his own kinsfolk befriended by the same heart, or helped and the utmost activity among the aliens forward by one and the same hand. It and idolaters of far distant lands, shall might serve as a useful corrective, to look be convicted of deep insensibility to the at Paul, and at the one comprehensive af- concerns of the soul, of utter blindness to tection which actuated his bosom —cleav- the work of eternity. ing with utmost tenacity, and with all the It holds out indeed a marvellous exhidevotedness of a thorough patriot, to the bition of our nature, that, with such dread families of his own land; and yet carry- realities as the death and the judgment ing him abroad and beyond the limits of before us, we should be so unmoved by a contracted patriotism, among all the any fear for ourselves and by any symfamilies of the earth. The truth is, that pathy for our fellow-men-that such home and foreign Christianity, instead of should be our heedlessness or our hardiacting upon the heart like two forces in hood, that we can drown every gloomy opposite directions, draw both the same anticipation; and spend Xwhole hours of way —so that he who has been carried joyous corrpanionship with those whom forward to the largest sacrifices in behalf yet, according to our own principles, we of the one, is the readiest for like sacri- still deem to be in the abyss of impenifices in behalf of the other-The friends tenev —that we can view them as on the of the near being also, as they have op- brink of a precipice whence they are to portunity, the most prompt and liberal in be engulphed in, irreversible wretchedness their friendship to the distant enterprise- and woe; and, without so much as a LECTURE LXX.-CHAPTER IX, 3. 3O7 friendly whisper by which to warn them stood-Thus throwing a painful suspicion of their state, can thus while away the over the whole record of Christian docprecious intervening moments in the jest trine; and reducing those who are carried and the song and the various other fasci- about by every win(l of new and fancinations of a free and festive society- ful interpretation, to the state of' ever that even they who wear the semblance learning and yet of never corning to the of a more declared and ostensible seri- knowledge of the truth. ousness, can so lend themselves to a deep Now it might serve to disarm this oband ruinous illusion-and be the instru- jection, did we compare the real value of ments of cradling into a still profounder that which is palpable with that which is infatuation than before, those familiars of hidden or obscure in the passage before their own who are speeding merrily on- us. Grant that this imprecation of Paul ward to a hopeless and undone eternity. upon himself does resist all our attempts It is not that we are wholly destitute of at explanation, and abide an unsolved feeling-for often they are the very men mystery in our hands-shall we therefore with whom we should not only rejoice say of the casket which holds it, that any when placed beside them at the hospita- moral or intellectual treasure it may conble board, but with whom we should weep tain is useless to us, because locked in in the hour of their dark and distressful the concealment of a disguise that is imvisitation-stretching forth a hand of rea- penetrable Whatever we may make of dy assistance in the midst of their diffi- the terms by which he expresses his affecculties, and bearing in our bosom a heart tion, is not the affection itself patent as the of kindest sympathy towards them. light of day! Can the most unlettered What other possible explanation can there reader here mistake the high worth which be then for a phenomenon so glaring, an apostle sets upon eternity l This at than that we are destitute of faith?-and least stands forth most unequivocally, did the Saviour now descend to the judg- along the course of these few sentences. ment amongst us, and did the sound of the The sense of one little clause may be unlast trumpet bring the world to a pause, der shade, but the sentiment of the whole we fear, we fear, that, even in this age of passage is most broadly and openly manigoodly profeission and of gathering re- fest. The longing of the apostle's heart spect for the forms and the doctrines of after the salvation of his countrymengodliness, there might be room for the the largeness of the personal surrenders question which Christ put to His disci- that he would make to obtain it-the imples, " Verily, verily, when the Son of man pressiveness of all this in the way of' excometh shall he find faith upon the citement and example to ourselves-the earth 3" entire moral and practical force of the We now come to a less important mat- lesson which is thus held forth to us-Of ter-the difficulty which occurs in the these we have a most fully lucid exhibithird verse of this chapter, where Paul tion-nor are we aware' that any critical says that he could wish himself accursed solution of the difficulty in question, from Christ for his brethren, his kinsmen would at all sensibly or materially add to according to the flesh. Before however the power of them. In other words. within attempting our solution of it, on w.hich the limit of these verses there is enough by the way we lay no great stress, let us of revelation for the conscience, though premise one observation on the subject not enough perhaps for the curiosity of of those occasional puzzles in Scripture, the reader. The spirit of them might be which have often exercised and some- caught by the very simplest of Christ's times even baffled all the ingenuities of disciples, although in the letter of them criticism. We are aware of the objection there may be a something to baffle our that has been founded on them, as if they profoundest commentators. WVe have tried threw an air of hopeless and impractica- to expound some of the obvious instrucble mystery over the pages of inspiration tion wherewith this passage is replete — -as if they were utterly at variance with and if there be not enough in it to satisfy the character which the Bible assumes, the ambition of that knowledge which and which infidels say it should better puffeth up, there is at least enough in it to ha7e supported, of being a light unto our light up in every soul the glorious inspifeet and a lamp unto our path —as if they ration of that charity which edifieth darkened that road to heaven, of which it There may lie within its confines a vet is written that a wayfaring man though a undeveloped mystery, even as there is a fool should not err therein-and as if they spot in the sun which sensibly impairs not made the faith of Christians to rest on the the force or the splendour of that lumiprecarious foundation of controversies nary. And so, in the words of doubtfulthat never can be settled, of hard and ness upon which we at present have enigmatical sayings that never can be alighted, there is nothing that can obscure satisfactorily explained or clearly under- the general character of the whole 358 LECTURE LXX.-CHAPTER IX, 3. nothing to cloud or to enfeeble the ex- all _ands. The prying telescope of th, pression of its great principle; or that astronomer may find spots upon the one, can in any way dim the manifestation of which nevertheless casts a broad efful. that Christian philanthropy, which so gence among the habitations of men. blazed forth in the soul of our devoted And the keener scrutiny of critics or comapostle, whose heart's desire and prayer mentators may lead to the view of diffito God for Israel was that they might be culties in the other, which nevertheless saved. escape the notice of ordinary readers, Now we need not have stopped perhaps who find enough of guidance in its genefor the utterance of such an observation, ral illumination for the business of their did it not apply to the whole Bible. It souls. And many isthe unlettered peasant cannot be denied that in this book, there who rejoices in the light thereof. It has are some things hard to be understood; translated him out of darkness; and he and that the intellect of man is still kept feels surrounded by an element of suffiat bay, by some of its yet unravelled diffi- cient transparency, both for the direction culties. And still, notwithstanding, it may of his footsteps and for the irradiation of be as fit an instrument for the general his hopes. It may not be an altogether illumination of our species-as the sun, unclouded luminary, yet a luminary of with all the partial obscurations which force and light enough for all peoplelie scattered over its surface, is fit for be- providing them with a medium of nooning the lamp of our world. For, in t:ruth, day through which they may walk, and witit all its occasional difficulties-it, in casting a general brightness and beauty every great lesson which it concerns man over the whole field of their spiritual to know, shines forth with most unam- vision. biguous splendour. Who, for example, And striking indeed is the difference in can misunderstand the high power and point of manifestation, between the acpresidency which it throughout ascribes complished theologian who has nothing unto God-the subordination in which it but the light of erudition to carry him places all creatures to their glorious and through the Bible, and that simple Chrissovereign Creator-the great moral cha- tian in whose mind a light has been struck racteristics of truth and consistency and out between the doctrines of Scripture and awful sacredness which it everywhere the depositions of his own conscienceassigns to -lJim —His deep antipathy to between him who can argue from Greek sin, and the sad ruin which has followed the doctrine of the atonement, and him in the train of this plague and destroyer who believes it to be true because he disof our species? And the grand scheme cerns it to be the very aliment that is of man's recovery; and the mission to needed by his soul —between the scholar our world of that great celestial Being who is convinced by his study of its who is at once its author and its finisher; proofs, and the sinner who is convinced and the tidings of a purchased forgive- by his feeling of its preciousness. The ness in His name; and the offered aids one sees his Bible to be true by the light of a Spirit to begin and to perfect that of a by-gone history-the other sees it to repentance, without which we shall all be true by the light of a present consciouslikewise perish; and the great lessons of ness. To him belongs a deeper scriptufaith, and of charity, and of' heavenly- ral wisdom than all scholarship can bemindedness, and of' self-renunciation, and stow-a wisdom grounded on his percepof crucifixion to the world that now is, tion of the internal evidence, as made and of living in the hope of a better and known by the adaptations of all the doclovelier world that is beyond it, and of trine which is without to all the felt ne. grateful dedication to the Saviour, and of cessities of the spirit which is within. piety to God, and of peace and truth and That is no visionary evidence which is unbounded kindness among all our fel- thus evolved between his readings of the lows, and of long-suffering in the; midst Bible and the responses of his own heart. of provocation. and of hallowed purity not It is as stable and satisfying, even to the in speech or in action only but in the eye of intellect, as the other; and is as secret imaginations of our own heart- much more impressive as the vivacity of these, whether in the shape of doctrine or sentiment surpasses the coldness of mere of duty, are all written as with a sun- speculation. beam on the page of Revelation: And, let After these general remarks I shall not the occasional blots or shadings of a take up so much of your time with the darker cast be what they may-these give critical solutions which have been offered an over ruling splendour to the whole mass of the difficulty in the letter of the pasand assemblage of those materials whereof sage, as I have done in attempting to this book is composed. And thus again, unfold and to impress upon you the unlike the glorious lamp of heaven, is this doubted spirit of it. We hold it to be a Spiritual Sun a light that may enlighten triumphant vindication of' the Bible from LECTURE LXX.-CHAPTER IX, 3. 359 the charge now' adverted to —that while changed one set of privileges for what he the letter is occasionally shaded with of course did conceive to be nobler and obscurities, which however by dint of highelr privileges still; and Paul meets scholarship are gradually clearing away, this imagination by assuring them, that yet, in the whole spirit of it, all is direct there is not a privilege belonging to the and intelligible and decisive. In other Christian Society as a visible church words, there can be no mistake in regard upon earth, which he would not give up to that which is really of most impor- most willingly if they were only to take tance; and if, at times, the curiosity of up his place, and enter into the fellowship man should be left unappeased-yet that from which himself had been cast out. far higher principle of our nature, even It is not that he would give up his fina. the conscience o' man, is never left with- salvation, but that he would give up all out the most explicit and satisfying light which was short of his final salvationon all which concerns, either a Christian's that, for example, he who made himself peace with God, or the regeneration of all things to all men if by any means he his heart and his walk before Him. Be might save some, would make every lawassured, that it is not he whose curiosity ful approximation in order to reconcile is all alive to the difficulties of Scripture, his countrymen to Christ, even though in while his conscience is asleep to the clear doing so he should give such offence to all and impressive simplicities thereof —who other Christians, as to bring about his own -, the most hopeful of its disciples. And expulsion from their society. He would X shall therefore count it enough if you consent to all temporal infamy and sufhave caught the inspiration of the apos. fering-rather than that his compatriots tie's ardour in behalf of human souls, and the Jews should persevere in their obstifeel how incumbent it is both to long and nate rejection of the Saviour, and incur to labour for the good of their immortality. that awful destruction which he saw to be I accordingly do not hold it necessary, approaching. He was addressing himself to detain you by the solutions which have in fact to men who in a great degree were been given of the difficulty in the verse strangers to the conception of a spiritual that is before us. If understood in the economy, or of those its spiritual privistrictly literal sense of the English into leges which had their chief place and which it has been rendered, it would be fulfilment in eternity. Apart from these startling enough-for, high and heroic as altogether, the expression of the text had the virtue of a devoted patriotism is, we all the strength which it could possibly could never reconcile our feelings to a have to a Jewish understanding, although sentiment so monstrous, as that of wishing Paul's imprecation upon himself was felt oneself to be eternally damned, were it to extend no further than to the loss of possible to obtain by this step that others those present distinctions which belonged should be eternally saved. We are requir- to him, while in communion with the ed to love our neighbours as ourselves, Christian church, and as a recognized but this were loving them better than our- member of the Christian society. It is selves —besides involving in it somewhat somewhat in this strain that commentalike the impiety of a voluntary exile from tors have attempted to vindicate this efful God and enmity towards Him, and that sion of the apostle-though after all it everlastingly. The common interpreta- may not be capable of full vindication. tion that is given of this passage, though There might really have been a distemby no means the unanimous one, is, that pered extravagance in the mind of the the word anathema in the original, and apostle upon this subject, even as there which we read here accursed, was the seems to have been in Moses, when, technical expression applied to that sen- pleading for the forgiveness of the childtence of excommunication by which the ren of Israel, he offered himself as an members of the Hebrew church were put expiation for their sins. " Yet now if thou forth of' its communion, and so rthade out- wilt forgive their sin: and if not blot me lasts from all those privileges on which I pray thee out of the book which thou the countrymen of the apostle set so high hast written." The proposal met with a value. He had become the member of rebuke and resistance in the answer that another church that had distinct privi- was given to it — And the Lord said unto leges of its own; and whereof the Jews Moses, whosoever hath sinned against nme would naturally imagine that Christians him will I blot out of my book." must have the same preference, and hold Before leaving this part of the subject, them in the same sort of exclusive regard I may just take notice of an interpretation which themselves felt for the proud dis- which I do think the original admits of, tinctions of their own establishment. although not much insisted on by scripTlhey would think more particularly of ture critics. The translation really apour apostle, that, in renouncing the one pears more literal, when, instead of being and passing over to the other, he ex. rendered'I could wish,' it is rendered 360 LECTURE LXX.-CHAPTER IX, 3. that I did wish that myself were accursed of fervent and de;oted attachment to or separated from Christ for my brethren those of his own nation, still remained my kinsmen according to the flesh. This with him-although under the guidance signification has the further advantage of' of other views, and now directed to other being historically true. Paul at one time objects. It is analagous to other appeals did for the sake of his countrymen, did, made by the apostle, when called to make for what he conceived to be the honour his own vindication. " I have served God and the good of his nation, embark in a with all good conscience unto this day." most resolute opposition to Christ and to " This I confess to thee, that so worship 1 His faith, and would gladly have con- the God of my fathers-believing all the sented to be in a state of everlasting dis- things which are written in the law and union from Him: And this is quite perti- the prophets." And then in this place, I nent to quote now, in proof of the affec- protest that I have great heaviness of tion which he still retained for the children heart, for on your account, I did indeed of Israel. Ile appeals to the zeal mani- wish myself separated from that very fested then in their behalf; and assures Christ, whom now I press upon your acthem that the same spirit, misdirected ceptance. though it was at a former part of his life, LECTURE LXXI. RoMANS ix, 4-10, 12. "Who are Israelites; to whom pertaineth the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the.aw and the service of God and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom, as concerning the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen. Not as though the word of God hath taken none eliect. For they are not all Israel which are of Israel: neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, in Isaac shall thy seed be called; that is they which are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of promise are counted for the seed. For this is the word of promise, At this timie Vw_. zmne, And Sarah shall have a son. And not only this, but whenI Rebecca also had conceived by one, even by 3or father Isaac, it was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger." V. 4.' Wio are Israelites, to whom per- the mighty and mysterious descendant in taineth the adoption and the glory;ttil( the whom it may be said to have terminated covenants and the giving of the law and -even Him who at once is the root and the service of God and the promises.' the offspring of David, and with the menAfter the utterance of' his affection for tion of whose name our apostle finishes this the Jews, he enters upon the record of stately climax of their honours-' of whom their distinctions; and to no nation under as concerning the flesh Christ came, who the sun does there belong so proud, so is over all God blessed for ever. Amen.' magnificent a heraldry. No minstrel of They are far the most illustrious people a country's farme was ever furnished so on the face of our world. There shines richly with topics; and the heart and upon them a transcendental glory from on fancy of our Apostle seem to kindle at high; and all that the history whether of the enumeration of them. They were classical or heroic ages hath enrolled of first Israelites. or descendants of a venera- other nations are but as the lesser lights ble patriarch-then, selected fiom among of the firmament before it. all the families of the earth, they were V. 5. Whose are the fathers, and of the adopted children of God: and to them whom as concerning the flesh Christ came belonged the glory of this high and who is over all God blessed for ever. heavenly relationship; and with their an- Amen.' cestors were those covenants made which We do not insist upon this very uneenveloped the great spiritual destinies quivocal expression of our Saviour's diof the human race; and the dispensation vinity, in proof of the doctrine. This is of the Law from that mountain which not necessary, for in every simple and smoked at the touch of the Divinity was unsophisticated mind an instantaneous betheirs; and that solemn temple service lief must be lighted up-provided only where alone the true worship of the Eter- that the Bible is held to be true. There is nal was kept up for ages was theirs; a delusion to which the very controversial and as their history was noble from its style of almost all our theology has given commencement bythe fathers from whom rise-that our chief business with every they sprung, so at its close did it gather doctrine of Christianity is to prove it, upon it a nobility more wondrous still by Now this is not true. Our chief business I ECTURE LXXI.-CHAPTER IX, 4-10, 12. 36 with every doctrine is to proceed upon it. own things but every man also on the To bring it home to our conviction, there things of others;" and 1" let this mind be may be often, as in the present instance, in you which was also in Christ Jesus, no need of argumenv-for it may effectu- who, being in the form of God, thought it ally be brought home, and that immedi- not robbery to be equal with God, but ately, by a simple and authoritative state- made himself of no reputation, and took ment. And it is a deep practical delusion, upon him the form of a servant, and was that after you have lodged a truth in the made in the likeness of men, alnd being understanding where it lies stored among found in fashion as a mnan, he humbled the other articles of your orthodoxy, your himself and became.-edient unto death, concern with it is all over; and you may even the death of the cross." now regard it as a matter settled and set It is for the enhancement then of this by. Now, instead of this, your concern moral lesson, that we are told of the digwith it is only yet beginning; and, so far nity of that Personage who lighted upon from being done with it because you now our world, and that on an errand of behave reached a faith in its reality, that neficence and mercy to its sinful generafaith is but the commencement of those tions-that it was not the visit of some various influences which it is fitted to fellow-subject from some distant place of have upon the heart and history of a be- the creation, but a visit fronom the sovereign liever. The effect of our controversial Himself, who owned all creation as His theology is to make us regard the doctrine monarchy, and upholdeth all the things itself as the ultimate landing-place, at that are therein by the word of His power which when we arrive we may go to rest. -that the earth which we tread upon was But in Scripture, instead of the place at on that occasion honoured by the footwhich we land, it is in fact regarded as steps, not of angel or of archangel, but by the place from which we start. A doe- the footsteps of God manifest in the flesh trine is never revealed to us merely for its -and that lte, in bowing Himself down own sake. It is for the sake of something to the lowliest offices of humanity for our produced by itself, and therefore ulterior sakes, did so for the purpose of an examto itself: In the contests of human author- ple as well as for the purpose of an expiship, the terminating object is to gain the ation, even that we might look on no intellect of man to some doctrinal position. living and created thing as beneath the In this book of divine authorship, the in- notice or the condescension of our sertellect is but the avenue through which a vices. The distance upward between us new impulse may be given to his affec- and that mighty mysterious Being who let tions, or a new direction may be impressed Himself down from heaven's high conupon his conduct. And thus the divinity cave upon our lowly platform, surpasses of our Saviour, so far from being but one by infinity the distance downward beof the articles or abstractions of a meta- tween us and any thing that breathes. physical creed, is proposed to us in the Under the impulse of such a contempla Bible chiefly for the moral and spiritual tion, not only might the lordliest of' us all account to which it is capable of being condescend to the wretched and worthturned; and, agreeably to this, let us very less of our own species, whom either misbriefly advert to two of those lessons fortune or crime has made the veriest which may be urged upon you from the outcasts of humanity; but we feel ourconsideration that Christ is God. selves carried by it beyond and beneath The first lesson is that of condescension the limits of our species, and that it should to those of lower estate than ourselves. extend the compassionate regarls of every This is the very lesson which the apostle Christian over the whole of sentient and urges upon the Philippians; and it is just suffering nature. The high court of parfor giving enforcement and a motive to liament is not degraded by its attentions this plain and practical and every-day and its cares in behalf of inferior creamorality of the Christian life, that he an- tures-else the sanctuary of heaven has nounces to us the divinity of the Saviour. been degraded by its counsels in behalf He brings down this mystery from heaven, of the world we occupy; and in execufor the purpose of lighting up by it a mu- tion of which the Lord of heaven Himselt tual kindness between man and man upon relinquished the highest seat of glory in earth-So that in his hand, instead of be- the universe, and somire.rned amidst coning as in the hand of Athanasius a fire- tempt and cruelty and contradiction of brand to burn up and to destroy, it is that sinners in this its humble and accursed mild and peaceful luminary, which sheds territory. By our benevolence to all that over the face of human society the radi- is beneath us, we only imitate the glorious ance of a virtue the most beautiful and munificence that is above us; and though the most gracious. "In lowliness of mind, we have non lingered for such a time let each esteem other better than them- upon these few verses, that even the beau. selves; and "look not every man on his ties of a lesson so delightful must not 46 362 LECTURE LXXI.-CHAPTER IX, 4-10, 12. tempt us to expatia,e any further-yet we that expiation, which to us Is the most cannot refrain from one observation on precious of His services. However linthe contrast which is suggested by it be- fathomable in all its depth, that mystery tween the theology of the Bible, and the might be which angels desired to look theology although made up of the very into, certain it is, that the most unlettered same doctrinal positions but urged by Christian can apprehend a sufficiency, human expounders in the spirit of a fierce and can draw a comfort from the reflecand intolerant dogmatism. That article tion that the Saviour who died for him of faith which in the one theology is a was God. There is none, we deem, who moral principle, and carries us forward has ever trembled at the thought of that. at once to its moral application, so that offended sacredness against which he ha, we instantly find ourselves in the midst sinned, who has not felt a most significant either of the most easy and faimiliar graces, and a most substantial consolation from or of the most noble virtues by which our the thought that there is an equal sacrednature can be adorhed-undergoes in the ness in the atoneme(nt which has been other theology a transmutation into a made for sin. There is none who has been thing of another air and aspect altogether, duly arrested by a sense of that guilt, a dry hard ferocious metaphysical dogma, against which the truth and the justice glaring frightfully upon us with an eye and the holiness of the divinity are all of menace, and set round in characters of leagued together for its everlasting condread and denunciation against all who demnation; who, if a solid and satisfying shall refuse to fill down and worship it. hope have arisen from the midst and thea This is not the way in which the triumnphs profoundness of this despair, does not feel of genuine orthodoxy are won; arid the that it is intimately linked with the diviman, who exemplifies the godlike virtues nity of Him, who poured out His soul unto of Him who is at once our God and the death-even that the world's guilt Saviour, will do more to recommend the might be washed away. That the dignity truth as it is in Jesus, than the stoutest of the sacrifice which has been made is and sturdiest polemic who has nought but commensurate to the dignity of the law the armour of controversy to brandish in which has been violated-that the force its cause. The benign condescensions of of the divine wrath against moral evil has a Howard who went about continually had the force of' a divine propitiation to doing good, will do more to accredit that neutralise it-that if the sin of tche transevangelical system which he embraced gressor brought forth an arm of' infinite so cordially, than the boisterous invec- strength to destroy, the sacrifice for sin is tives ofa Horsley-even with all the might one of' such prevailing force and efficacy and momentum of that polemic arm which as to have brought forth an arm of infinite he lifted in defence of it. It is not that strength to save him-In all this, my brehis victory was doubtful, or that on the thren, there is something more than the field of conflict with his adversary he did unmeaning jingle of a mere sonorous or not achieve a most signal and conclusive scholastic antithesis. There is many a triumph. But it was a triumph on the disciple who feels it to be the very aliarena of intellect alone; and there is not ment of his confidence and peace, that a truth in Christianity, which is not Christ is God over all blessed for ever, divested of more than half its power to Amen. convince and conciliate, if, propped up V. 6.'Not as though the word of God only by argument, there is no exhibition hath taken none effect. For they are not given of its mastery over the affections all Israel which are of Israel.' and the principles of our moral nature. He had just said of his brethren, his It is not by the warfare of argument, but kinsmen according to the flesh, that they by the meekness of wisdom, that we ob- were Israelites; and that to them belongtain the cpnquests of the faith. It is when ed the promises. And yet it might appear urged in the gentle and peaceable spirit that these promises had not been verified which is from above that truth is omni- upon them-seeing that they were on the potent, instead of being urged in that eve of being rejected by God, for that by wrath of man which worketh not the this time they had rejected His Son. This righteousness of God. calls out the apostle to a vindication of The second lesson is founded on the God's truth in the promises which He had subservience of this doctrine to the peace made of old respecting this people. His of the believer, even as the first is founded word in these promises had not failed in on its subservience to his charity. We its effect, although the whole of nominal have already said that the divinity of Israel should not be saved. All the deChrist enhanced the worth of His exam- scendants of Israel were named after his ple, in those condescending services which name, but that did not constitute them to Mie rendered to the world. We now say be of the true Israel-in like manner a: that His divinity enhanced the worth of he had said before that he is noi a Je, LECTURE LXXI.-CHAPTER IX, 4-10, 12. 363 wthiih is one outwardlv, neither is that giving one instance of i disinheritance circumcision whichl is outward in the that God had passed even on the posterity flesh; but he is ta Jewv which is one in- of the patriarch in whom they gloried; wardly; and circumcision is that of the and of another posterity being formed for heart, ill the spirit and not in the letter, him in virtue of a gracious promise on wNhose praise is not of men but of God. the part of God, and of' a faith in that pro. V. 7.'Neither because they are the mise on the part of man. It is thus that tccd of Abraharm are they all children, he laboured, by such types and symbols but in Isaac shall thy seed be called.' as their own history furnished, to bring The promise was given to Israel-yet down the arrogance of those who vaunted it no more followed from this that all the in Abraham as their father, and said " we descendants of Israel should have an in- be his seed and were never in bondage to terest therein, than that all the seed of any man." It is thus that he prepared Abraham should be included in the fulfil- the understandings of those whom he adment of the promised blessing-because, dressed for another disinheritance-even when announced to him at the first, it of those who grounded all their imagined was nakedly and generally expressed, privileges on a carnal obedience, ann without any restriction of it to one part sought not to be justitified by faith. And of his seed more than to another. In the it is thus also that he typified by Isaac, twelfth chapter of Genesis, it is stated the child of promise and given out of the that the Lord appeared unto Abraham course of nature and experience to that and said, that "unto thy seed will I give patriarch who against hope believed in this land." Yet we afterwards read in hope, all those who shall afterwards walk the twenty-first chapter of a very numer- in the steps of faithful Abraham, and beous division of his posterity, who were to come the children of' God by faith in have no part in this inheritance, even the Christ Jesus —who are born again, not of descendants of Ishmael —"for in Isaac blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of shall thy seed be called," and the bond- the will of man, but of God. woman and her son were cast out accord- V. 9.' For this is the word of promise ingly. This part of the Old Testament At this time will I come and Sarah shall history is adverted to in another of Paul's have a son.' epistles; and for the very purpose of In this verse he specifies the limitation illustrating thd distinction between the that was actually made on the general nominal and the true Israel, between the promise unto Abraham's seed,-wherebv children of the flesh and the children of the descendants of Ishmael, although they the promise, between the earthly Jerusa- could plead the same natural relationship lem which then subsisted in the bondage to the patriarch, were nevertheless exof her yet une:xtinguished ritual and the eluded from that more close and pecuJerusalem which is above and is free- liar relationship to the God, into which he and so of vindicating that great step of was pleased to admit the descendants of the divine administration, by which so Isaac. many even of Israel's natural descend- V. 10, 12.' And not only this, but when ants were put forth of God's spiritual Rebecca also had conceived by one, even kingdom, and admittance was given to the by our father Isaac' — It was said unto her men of other tribes and other families. The elder shall serve the younger.' V. S.' That is, They which are the chil- He here states a further limrnitation, and dren of the flesh, these are not the children shows still more strikingly of how little of God; but the children of the promise avail the general promise given at the are counted foi' the seed(.' first was, for all and every of the descendThe, object of the apostle is to break ants of' Abraham. There might appear down that confidence in the flesh (as he a good natural reason why Isaac should terms it in his epistle to the Philippians) be preferred before Ishmael-the son of by which his countrymen were so gen- the wife before the son of' the bondmaid; erally blinded; and in virtue of which and besides, as this preference took place they arrogated so much of what might be after their births and after the insolent termed a religious nobility to themselves, behaviour of the one in mocking the other, just because of their literal descent from it might warrant the idea that his rejection tilhe patriarch Abraham. To meet and was a thing of desert and of moral governrectify this imagination, he goes back with ment, and not a thing of absolute and them to their own primeval history. He antecedent sovereignty on the part of God. first shows how Isaac superseded Ishmael It therefore brings this out more une— how the child of faith, born out of due quivocally, when the election is made time and in opposition to all the likeli- between two children of the same mother; hoods of nature, superseded the child of and, moreover, when, in opposition to the ordinary descent and in whose birth there natural claims of seniority, the elder is rewas nothing of the miraculous-thereby jected and the younger is chosen. There 364 LECTURE LXXI.-CHAPTER IX, 4-10, 12. is even something in this latter peculi- comparison of passages bl,)th in the Old arity, that might be made to bear on the and the New Testament, which were more fulfilment which took place in the days properly addressed through the medium of the apostle, when the first were made of authorship to a student in his closet last and the last first; or, in other words, than from the pulpit to a listener in the when the Jews that ancient people were church, I cannot make full exhibition of rejected, and God, in the course of His those mystic harmonies between the one now more advanced administration, chose and the other, which, though less obvious the Gentiles in their place. This was to the general eye, are, to the devoted enmatter of prophecy and preordination quirer after the truth and meaning of the anterior to the birth of the children, as sacred volume, both most satisfying and is evident from the intimation of God most precious; and which serve to conhimself to Rebecca, of which we read in vince him that it is one wondrous design the book of Genesis. And as by the for- which runs through this composition of mer instance of a limitation on the gen- many ages-one great presiding Spirit eral promise, the apostle teaches that the that has harmonised and that actuates the children by faith and by miraculous re- whole. We feel most thoroughly pergeneration have the preference over the suaded, that, without entering upon the children of nature-so, by the present regions of fancy at all, even the most litInstance, he rather points to the sove- eral and sober of our ordinary Christians, reignty of God. In looking to the one, we if he only give time and patience to the are led to connect an a(lmission into the study, will reap the most substantial congreat spiritual family with the new birth viction of a marvellous, a supernatural that takes place in men upon earth. In accordance between the two dispensalooking to the other we are led to connect tions; and that, as on the one hand he it with the mysterious counsels and desti- will find even the books of Moses to be nations of eternity, with the high pur- impregnated with gospel-so, on the other poses of God in heaven. hand, he will find the doctrine which Thus much at all events is clear in the apostles taught, after being visited with apostle's argument. There was a promise the light and enlargement of Pentecost, to given to Abraham in regard to his pos- be but the expansion of an earlier dawn, terity; yet one branch of that posterity the development of truths that were dimly was rejected without invalidating the shadowed forth in the imagery of the Motruth of' the promise. After this first re- saic ritual. We ask but the perseverance striction the promise was to the seed of of his attention, and without any aid from Isaac; yet one great division of his off- the imaginative faculties of' his nature, we spring was also rejected, without those promise him the discovery of many traJews against whom the apostle ni-ow rea- ces and analogies that are now hidden soned deeming the promise to have been from his eyes; and which, as evincing at all violated. Last of all it was restrict- that the one economy has given its imed to Jacob or Israel; and what the apos- press to the other, will, at the same time, tle argues is, that a still further rejection evince that both are the productions of a might take place even of his descendants, I loftier and more recondite wisdom than and yet God not be chargeable with hav- that of man, and that both have proceeded ing uttered a promise that was of none ef- from the same author. And this holds, not fect. As with all the former and successive alone in the peculiarities of the Jewish excisions that were made on the posterity ceremonial, but also in the passages of of Abraham, still a portion was reserved the Jewish history-which things, says on whom the promised blessings had their the apostle of one of its plainest narraverification or their fulfilment-so, in the tives, are an allegory. It is thus that the tremendous excision that was about to age of our earliest patriarchs was but the take place by the utter destruction of the morning of a lengthened day, whose Jewish polity, a remnant might be saved. gradually increasing light shone more And not only so, but by movements yet brightly along the track of its advanceundisclosed in the womb of futurity, and ment; but still shone on the samne truths by the new light which these should now disclosed to the eye in fuller manifesevolve on the sense and bearing of the tation-even as the sun in the firmament ancient prophecies, might there be evinc- has not altered the landscape on which ed such an enlargement of the fiamily of there rested his twilight obscurity a few Abraham, as should harmonise with all hours before, but only invests the same the former passages of scripture history in objects in a clearer element of vision, only regard to it, and, so far from falsifying, irradiates the whole more gloriously. shed a lustre of consistency and truth And I might here advert to a very fre. over all its declarations. quent experience of Christians; and that I have the feeling on this part of our is their growing relish, as they advanc:e in;hapter, that, without a very extended life, for the types, and the: prophecies LECTURE LXXI.-CHAPTER IX, 4-10, 12. 365 and the sketches of character, and the ger Bacon having written upon witchcraft strains of olden inspiration, and the many brings forward also that of' Sir Isaac beauteous passages of most pleasing and Newton having in his declining life writpicturesque history, (and the description ten a commentary upon the book of Revof that whole machinery even to the mi- elation. nutest parts in it of Israel's figurative or Now fully admitting, as we do, that symbolical church, which are so abun- manifold have been the visions and the dantly met with in the Old Testament. vagaries of those who have adventured Even those stories which wont to charm too far either on the field of prophecy or them in early boyhood, while they pre- in the work of spiritualising the Old Tes serve all the delight of' this association, tament, yet we confidently affirm, that now recur to them with the force of an none can enter upon this walk of contemaugmented interest, because they now see plation with intelligence and candour, them to be throughout pervaded by the without being satisfied of a most substancharacter and the meaning of their own tial accordancy between the Old and New spiritu'al dispensation. Like the disciples Testaments-that they are indeed the two of Emmaus their hearts burn within them. %witnesses of Ileaven speaking the same while their understandings are opened things; and, instead of emitting such to understand these scriptures; and when cross lights as are fitted to bewilder the recognising Christ in every page, they eye of the observer, they are the two are made to behold the bearing and the candlesticks which man hath not planted, significancy of the things which are written but which stand before the God of the in the law of Moses and in the Prophets whole earth. And as to our great philosand in the Psalms concerning Him. Very opher, who transferred his mighty intelpleasant as to the mind of good Bishop lect from the study of the works of God Horne were the songs of Zion, when ev- to the study of his word, this may have ery morning called him anew to their taken place at the decline of his years, but study, and every evening found his spirit not most certainly at the decline of his more satisfied than before with their rich- understanding. The truth is that he felt a ness —very pleasant to many a humble kindredness between his old and his new Christian, are the things which God, at contemplations-that after having seen. sundry times and in diverse manners, further than all who went before him into spake in time past unto the fathers by the the godlike harmonies of the world he prophets. It is as if the delights of ima- was tempted to search and at length did gination were superadded to the delights behold the traces of a wisdom no less of piety, when the doctrines of the New marvellous in the godlike harmonies of are beheld in the drapery of the Old dis- the word-that after having looked and pensation; and if there be any aged here with stedfastness for years on the mazy present, who, exempted from the cares face of heaven, and evolved thencefrom that engrossed the morning or the middle the magnificent cycles of astronomy, he of' their days, can now afford to live and then turned him to Scripture, and found, to look more heaven-ward than before- in the midst of now unravelled obscuriwe promise them, not a different gospel in ties, that its cycles of prophecy were the earlier from what they have found in equally magnificent —and whether he cast the later scriptures, but the same gospel his regards on the book of Revelation or seen through a veil of' ever brightening on the book of Daniel, who, placed on the transparency, and heightened by the zest eminence of a sublime antiquity looked of many dear and youthful remembran- through the vista of many descending ces. It is thus that, in the study of the ages, and eyed forom afar the structure Old Testament, the faded spirits, the dim and the society of modern Europe, he, and the decaying lights of age have been whose capacious mind had so long been revived again; and in the solace and sat- conversant with the orbits and the periods isfaction of its repeated perusal, they of the natural economy, could not but have exoerienced of the things that be acknowledge the footsteps of the same recorded there, that they are written, not presiding divinity in the still higher orbits alone for older generations, but for our of that spiritual economy which is unadmonition also to whom the latter ends folded in the Bible. And while we cannot of the world have come. but lament the deadly mischief, which the We are aware that some will concur second-rate philosophy of infidels has with us, in looking upon these as the be- done to the inferior spirits of our world; fitting studies of age, just because they we feel it an impressive rebuke on their regard all typical and all prophetical in- haughty pretentions, that all the giants lerpretations as so many senilities-even and the men of might in other days, the as Voltaire, in the examples which he has Newtons and the Boyles and the Lockes quoted of the aberrations of the human and the Bacons of high England, have understanding, along with the case of Ro- worshipped so profoundly at its shrine 366 LECTURE LXXI.-CHAPTER IX, 4-10, 12. But chief of these is our great Sir Isaac, that he who stands forth to a wondering who, throned although he be by universal species of loftiest achievement in science sufferage as the very prince of philoso- shoult nevertheless move so gently and phers, is still the most attractive specimen so gracefully among his fa:llow-men-not of humanity which the world ever saw; more honoured for the glory he won on and, just because the meekness of his the field of discovery, than loved by all Christian worth so softens while it irradi- for the milder glories of his name-his ates the majesty of his genius: And never being the modest the unpretending graces was there realised in the character of of a child-like nature-his being the pious man so rare and so beauteous a harmony, simplicity of a cottage patriarch.* LECTURE LXXII. RMvIANS ix, 11, 13-24.'For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stanld, not of wuorks but of him that calleth."-" As it is written Jacob have I loved but Esaun have I hated. W\ihat sh-all we say then'. Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he saith to Moses I will have mercy onl whom I will have mercy, and I will have comnpassion on wvhom I will have coilpassion So then it is not of him that -willeth, nor of him that rultneth, but of God that showveth mercy. Foi- the Scripture saith unto Pharoah, Esven for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee and that my name might be declared throuhliout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he rwill lie hald,-neth. Thou -wilt say tlhen unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? for who hath resisted his will? Nay but, 0.o In, who art thou that repliest against God'I Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thoi,'.ade me thus? ITath not the potter power over the clay, o( the same lump to make one vessel unto honowur aii e.ther unto dishonour 3 \Xha.t if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his p ower knownl endureth with r.i long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction; and that he mighlt make knlown the riches of his?.e. an the vessels of' mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us whom he hath called, not of the:f J. - _y but also of the Gentiles 2" Wr 1-,r.'cad these verses at once and ficulties as I hold to be conquerable in togethe.,,,r.cause of the one principle this high argumnent —I will frankly conwhich.r.s through them all-even the fess, what the other difficulties are which unexpjcr..d sovereignty of God, in the appear to me beyond the treatment of exercisc of which He is so absolute, human strength or human sagacity to deal and at the same time so incomprehen- with; and before which we should bow sible. Many of you will recollect, in silence, till the mystery of God is that, in former parts of this epistle, the finished and made known to us. We same doctrine met us on our way; and think that the passage now read, brings that we at the time bestowed very length- that line of demarcation into view, which ened discussion upon it. To revive that marks off the one set of difficulties from agument in all its fulness, merely because I the other; and it is our honest aim in the months have elapsed since its delivery, management of this question, instead of would, in fact, be making a barrier of' ministering to the gratification of an idle this passalge through which we should or speculative curiosity, so to shap)e our never find our way, and compelling our- observations as that they shall rec(m-nmend selves to be forever stationary. I must the gospel of Jesus Christ to the free actherefore be content with as summary ceptance of all, and have a bearing on a recapitulation as possible, that we may 1 the great interests of practical godliness. be enabled, ere taking leave, to bring not The first point then which we have merely this passage but also this chapter already laboured to impress is, that there to a conclusion. My apology, as hereto- is no such thing as chance or contingency — fore, for meddling at all with a topic that in any department of -nature —that this is deemed by many to be so stubborn and principle so readily admitted in regard to go hopeless, is, that we really are not at the world of matter, should also be exliberty to blink any of those informations tended to the world of mind-that if the which the Scripture sets before us; and one have its laws of motion and its reguif, on the one hand, we should not go out lar successions and its unvarying proof our wvay to meet a theme that has been so burdened with controversy as this-'It must be owned however, that with all the sound so burden ed~ with controversy asthis philosophy which he evinced in the general question of neither ought we to go out of our way to the Christian evidences-even as Bacon did in the genera shun this theme, whenever obtruded upon view which he gave of the methods of investigation-So, as the latter failed in his more special disquisitions on our notice as it is here in the record of the particular phenomena and laws of Nature-did the the counsel of God. While I have alrea- former alike fail, there is good reason to believe, in his understanding both of particular texts in the B.ble, and dy erdeavoured to grapple with such dif- particular doctrines of Christiahity. LECTURE LXXII.-CHAPTE.K IX, 11) 13-24. 367 ceases, the other has its laws of thought either a prescience over all,he futuriiies, and of feeling; and, in virtue of these, has or a sovereignty over all the events of all its processes alike regular and alike un- that universe which Himself did create, varying-that in neither is there ought so or that, sitting as we conceive Him to do monstrous as an event uncaused, or cornm- on a throne of omnipotetnce, there should ing forth of the womb of nonentity with- be so much as one department of His out having a progenitor in some event vast empire, where His power does not that went before it; and ift' not uncaused fix all, and His intelligence does not fore. then necessary, having the same certain see all. It greatly enhances this arig, and precise dependence on something ment, when the department in question preceding itself' which the posterior has happens to be far the highest anid noblest on the prior term of any sequence-So in creation; and it does seem to place that the phenomena of thinking and feel- our doctrine on very secure vaintageing and willing and doing in the spiritual ground-that the denial of it would apdepartlnecnt of Nature, do as surely result pear to involve the deradation of heafroml the previous constitution which has ven's high monarch from entire and unbeen given to it, as any of the varied phe- excepted supremacy, not over the matenomena in the material department result rial world, but certainly over the spiritufrom its constitution. According to this al world. The apostle contends for as view the history of our species may be re- great a mastery on the part of God over garded as one vast progression, carried for- the spirits which lie has form-id, as ward by definite footsteps; and with the the potter has over the clay which he state of each individual as surely fixed at fashions as it pleases him; but the adverevery moment of time by the laws of' saries of an overruling necessitr in mind merltal nature, as is the.Situation of' any as vwell as in matter, woult limit God as planet above or of' any particle of dust | well as man to a mere dominion of clay l)elow by the physical jaws which are -or, in other words, while they admit establislhed in the material world. This that it is the strength of His almighty is that doctrine of philosophical neces- arm which gives impulse to all the pa-rtisity, whose ablest advocate is President cles, and both their place (and their Edwards of Am.erica-a clergyman of movement to the most unwieldy minasses whom we might have feared that the of mute and passive and unconscious depth of his philosophy would have spoil- materialism, they would strip Him of the ed him of the simplicity that is in Christ, like ascendency over the morall world; did we not recollect that it is not against they would people the whole of His livall philosophy that we are warned in the ing creation with a host of wayward and Bible, but only against vain philosophy; independent forces, in the agency of tand of whom we might have feared that which the world of intelligence and of his transcendent ability for science would life took its own random direction, and have hurt his sacredness, did we not re- drifted away from the control of Him collect that it is not all science which who formed and who upholds it. For, the Bible denounces but only the science really, should any thing happen not bethat is falsely so called: And it does re- cause the Creator hath so appointed it, concile us to the efforts of highest scho- but because of some power and liberty in larship in the defence and illustration of the creature, that thing is beyond the our faith, when, looking to Edwards, scope of the sovereignty of God-it hath we behold the most philosophical of all made its appearance in this universe by theologians, at the same time the humblest Him unbidden and unwilled-the history and the holiest of men-the most power- of men is abandoned to a wild misrule, ful in controversy with the learned, and through the caprice and confusion of vet the most plain and powerful of ad- which not even Omniscience itself can dress to the consciences of a plain unlet- descry beforehand any character of certered congregattion-the most successful tainty; and, in as far as the history of 1 finding his way through the mazes of men is at all mingled with or has influmnetaphysic subtlety, and yet the honour- ence on the history of things, there is a ed instrument of many awakenings, the vast progression of events over which most successful in the work of winning God has no hold, and that wilders in souls. loose and lawless contingency away from This first consideration on the side of Him. We vainly try to reconcile with a strict and determinate necessity, even this imagination, either the foreknowledge in the world of mind as in that of matter, or the supremacy of God-impossible as might be suggested by a mere view of it is that the eye even of His prophecy nature to the philosophical observer of can look any way through the descend. its sequences and its laws; but our second ing steps of a series liable at every turn consideration is founded on the view of to the intervention of what is purely self. hature's God. It seems hardto deny Him, originated and spontaneous, or that the MS LECTURE LXXII.-C'HAPTER Ix, 11, 13-24. hand of His power can have the entire influences of shower and of sunshine guidance and government thereof. This from the heaven above. And it is equally consideration obtains great additional so for the attainment of any good in huforce on seeing, as we do experimentally mIan life-in pressing forward to which, every day, how cl:osely interwoven man never thinks of acting upon that excauses the most mnihute are with conse- tended contemplation, which reaches fiom quences the most momentous, in the his- the first decree of God in eternity, to t!.e tory of' humain atltirs. It is quite famil- final destination in which that decree has iar to us, that the woivd or thought or feel- its accomplishment. He comes in as it ing of' amiodme(nt might germinate a big were at an intermediate part of the series; and a busy story-that on what appeared and enters at once into close and busy enthe acdident'al meeting of two individuals gagement with those terms of it, which in a street, such events and arrangements succeed to each other at the place that he might turn' as shall give a wholly new di- occupies. In labouring for example afrect'ion to the futurity of both-that in ter an earthly fortune, he never thinks this'-way, on the very humblest of inci- of mounting upwards to the purpose defits'the very greatest passages of histo- of the divine mind regarding it; anti ryvhave been suspended; and could all scarcely ever of reaching his anticipathe movements of' a nation's policy be tions forward, either to the sum which traced to their mysterious springs in the shall be realised at death, or which, after character or circumstances of the actors the accumulation and perhaps the reverconcerned in them, that, what in itself ses of' future years, shall fall into the looked an unimportant casualty, drew hands of his children's children. There the fortune of many nations, and the sue- is a (larkness which hangs over the discessive evolutions of many centuries in tant past, which he makes no attempt to its train. In a world, so linked and con- penetrate. There is a. darkness which stituted as ours is, if' the destination of hangs over the distant future, that he as God do not reach to its things of great- little attempts to plenetrate. Insteadl of est minuteness, then are its things of acting the part of a speculatist with the greatest magnitude beyond the reach of things which lie remotely away from him, His ascendency. If' He ordain not the he acts with all intensity and practical fail and the flight of every sparrow, then earnestness on the things which are at it is not He who ordains the rise and fall hand. They are the likelihoods of the of empires. If Ile reign not supreme in present adventure-they are the means every little chamber where the passions which he possesses, and the arrangements and the purposes of men are formed, then which are held out to him, for his next speis He divested of all power and. of all culation-they are the openings of trade presid-hncy in the larger transactions of and of correspondence which lie immediour Wor'ld: If He have not the command ately before him-they are the calculations over every Il'tent spring in the mechan- which he makes upon existing appearanism of human society, then must that me- ces, of the returns that might arise from chanism drift uncontrollably away fiorm his existing operations-These are what Him. And thus, it is argued, that, if all set his utmost desire and his utmost dilithings do not fhll out with fixed and de- gence agoing, and just under the exciteterminate certainty upon earth, Ile who ment of a hope after the proceeds which has been styled its governor occupies in he longs and which he labours to realise. heaven but the semblance of a throne. His ambition, his keen and unsated appeHis are the mock ensigns of authority; tite, his legitimate aim for the provision and if man be not a necessary agent, God and then his interminable arpirations afis a degraded Sovereign. ter the splendour of a rising family, the Our third consideration is, that, let this ardent spirit of rivalry with competitors necessity be as rigid and adamantine as on the same gainful walk of merchandise it mav, it leaves all the motives and all with himselt; and the powerful charm -he influences of human activity precisely which the fortune and the magnificence where it found them. Although God is that lie in golden perspective before him the primary, the overruling cause of every have over his sanguine imagination-these one event,, whether in the world of mind may be the instruments in the hand of or of matter, this does riot supersede the God for ensuring some precise destination proximate and the instrumental causes that may have been in the view of the which come immediately before it. Al- divine mind fiom the infinity that is bethough He worketh all in all, yet if it be hind us; and yet with man who never by means that He worketh, the application once looks backward to that infinity, these of these means is still indispensable. It is may be the very stimuli which operate on so for the consummation of a good har- his heart, and make; him the busy earnest vest, which never comes round without and aspiring creature that he is. And labour on our earth below, and the genial I just, my brethren, as with the business of LECTURE LXXTI. —CHAPTER IX, 11i 13-24. 369 working for your interest in time, so it is the high predestinations of Heaven affect with the business of working for your not the proceedings or the business of interest in eternity. I have no wish to practical Christianity upon earth; and theorise you into the doctrine of predesti- that while God, on the one hand, preornation; but rather to convince you of dains all the children of I-Iis election unto. predestination, article though it be of my life-man, on the other, presses forward own and our church's creed, that it has unto life by putting to the utmost strenuno more to do with the present and the ousness of' their laborious and busy play practical business of your Christianity, all the activities of' his nature. than it has to do with the present and the Our next consideration and the last we practical business of your counting-hou- can propound with any degree of confises. It is in the religious as it is in the dence-feeling, as we do, that we are now trading world. You fetch not your induce- approaching that limit which separates ments from the hidden things that lie the known from the unknown-is, that, shrouded to mortal eye in the eternity as the doctrine of necessity thus underwvhich is past, neither do you fetch them stood seems to affect not our most familiar from the things that be alike hidden to us motives to human activity; so neither in the yet untravelled depths of the eter- does it seem to affect the familiar estimate aity which is to come; but you walk in which we are in the habit of forming.le light which is immediately around every day, with regard to the moral charyou. With the decree that is written in acter whether it be a character of vice or the book of heaven, with its correspond- of' virtue in human actions. There is a ing fulfilment to be manifested on the clos- species of force that does exonerate and ing day of this world's history, these are excuse a man from all moral responsithe secret things which belong unto God, bility-the force of external violence, and and these you have positively nothing to by which he is compelled against his will do with. But there are revealed things to do that which in the matter of it is which belong unto yourselves and unto wrong; as to inflict, for example, some your children, and with these you have to dire and dreadful perpetration with his do. Repent or you shall perish —with that'hand, which in his heart, and with all the you have to do. Believe on the Lord Jesus feelings and principles of his spontaneous Christ and you shall be saved-with that nature, he utterly recoils from. The case also you have to do. Cease to do evil and is altogether different, when, instead of learn to do well-these are matters in the deed being against the will, the will hand and with these you have to do. Seek goes.long with the deed; and when, inye the Lord while He may be found, call stead oni being driven thereto by a strength ye upon Him while He is near-this car- that is wits.-t him which he finds to be ries in it the urgency of a very pressing resistlesss, he is prompted thereto by the and present application, and with this you strength of an inclination within him have to do-God has His designs, and He which also turns out te be resistless. The employs the very passions and the very first necessity does away all the moral interests which we are now addressing characteristics; but the second necessity, for the accomplishment of them. Yet it will be found, so far from doing away, man's part is not to speculate on these serves to fix and to enhance them the designs, but to be moved by this passion, more. The man into whose hand you even the fear of the coming wrath; and have forced the instrument of death, and to proceed upon this high interest, even compelled against all his strong and strugm the good of his coming immortality. We gling antipathies to plunge it unto the are now standing together at one link of bosom of a friend, you would never rethat extended chain which reaches fiom gard as the object of any condemnation. IGod's first decree to your final destina- The man, on the other, who has done the ion; and the fastening of that link is by same act, but done it wilfully, either to Him who alone gives earnestness to the execute his revenge or to satiate his thirst voice of the preacher, who alone gives for blood, you never fail to execrate as a susceptibility to the heart of the hearers monster; and if told of' one who had. -Yet the one is at his post when, igno- doubly a greater strength within him of rant as he is both of decrees and of des- murderous disposition than another, so thb, tinies, he, arrested by the worth of your you incurred twice a greater danger bv imperishable souls, beckons you to that meeting him in a lone place, you would plain and palpable way whereon they hold him to be doubly the more fiendish shall be saved; and you are at yours, and execrable of the two. And it is the when, alike ignorant of matters that are same with all the other vicious?:ropensi indeed too high for us, you catch the im- ties. The stronger they are The more pression of a kindred feeling from his hateful, nay the more criminal and wor. lips, and simply and practically betake thy both of reprehension and of punish yourselves to that way. It is thus that ment do you regard the owner of themn. 47 S70 LECTURE LXXII.-CHAPTER IX, 11, 13-24. If of two men you felt it necessary to be the strength of his antipathies to all that greatly more on your guard in an act of is perfidious or base, that he would rather negotiation against the one than the other, die than be dishonourable; or such his because the first if you be not on your unswerving fidelity to every utterance utmost vigilance will be greatly more which falls from him, that you may count sure to deceive and to defraud you than with as great certainty on the fulfilment the second-this greater sureness, arising of all his promises as you would on any of course from the greater strength of his predicted eclipse in the firmament of sordid and selfish appetencies, will, in- heaven; or, in a word, let such be his unstead of palliating, just fasten the taint of faltering adherance to rectifude in the a greater delinquency on his character. midst of strongest temptations, that you And this is true of' the good as well as might reckon on his constancy to truth of the evil propensities of our nature. The and to virtue with as firm an assurance God, for example, who cannot lie-whose as you would on the constancy of Nature very omnipotence is thus limited by the -why, my brethren, all these are so many force of a moral necessity-who could necessities, and yet they are necessities, certainly lie if He would; but with whom, which, so far from annihilating the moral from the very revoltings of His holy and characteristics of him who is their subrighteous nature against all that is evil, it ject, only serve to enhance and to illusis impossible that He would-We say of trate them the more. And they do prove, this necessity, that it enhances the worth that while there is a necessity which, of His character, and enthrones Him in acting on the muscles of the outer man, the higher reverence of' all His worship- would sweep away the distinction beers. And it, is just so with any of our fel- tween good and evil-there is another lows, who, if so constituted as to lay upon necessity, which, acting on the motives him a moral necessity to be righteous of the inner man, would but shed a which he felt to be invincible-would brighter moral exaltation over the one, just be all the more good and estimable and put a stigma on the other of a deeper in our eyes. Let such be his inward me- moral debasement: And, so far friom nulchkanism, that he could not find it in his lifying the difference between them, would iheart to do an act of cruelty or unkind- aggravate the characteristics of both. ness to any thing that breathes; or such LECTURE LXXIII. ROMANS ix, 11, 13-21. UFor the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works but of him that calleth."-" As it is written Jacob have I loved but Esau have I hated. \What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God 3 God forbid. For he saith to Moses I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the Scripture saith unto Pharoah, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whoml he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? for who hath resisted his will'1 Nay but, 0 man, who art thou that repliest against God 1 Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Whly hast thou made me thus? Ilath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto dishonour 3 What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, cldured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction; and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles 3" WITHIN the circle of the preceding re- he walk his earthly rounds with as great marks there lios enough for the guidance security as if all were at rest-so, amid of man's conduct in time, though not the lofty and comprehensive movements enough for scanning the counsels of God of the great spiritual economy, man has in eternity. The high doctrines of pre- a definite and prescribed path, in which it destination leaves all the scope which is simply his business to move forward; they ever had, to the active and moral and, let the past decrees or the coming principles of our nature; and just as not- destinies which begin and which end the withstanding that great planetary move- mighty cycle of Heaven's administration ment of our world, in the tremendous i be what they may, it is our part if we but velocity of which man it might be fancied knew the place which belongs to lls-it is would be hurried off its platform, yet can our part to work, and to watch, and to LECTURE LXXIII. —CHAPTERP IX, 11, 13-24.' 37. strive, and to pray, and to go through the who is within the reach of his voice. It whole walk and warfare of practical is when, in the discharge of his ample and Christianity, just as before. upexcepted commission to all who are This should be enough for one who is sitting and listening around him, he insimply bent on the attainment of his sal- vites each, and forbids none, to cast their vation, though not enough to satisfy the confidence on the great propitiation; and proud the restless spirit of soaring adven- then it is impossible they can perish. It turous and speculative man-who, not is when on the strength of' this precious content with knowing all that belongs declaration, that whosoever cometh shall unto himself, would lift ap the enquiries in no wise be cast out, he both sends the of his mind to matters that are greatly invitation abroad among the multitude, too high for it; and seize, as if within the and brings it specifically home and with lawful domain of his intellect, on all that all the power of his tender and most belongs unto God. It is precisely at this earnest solicitations to the heart of each point, we think, that the real difficulties individual. With him there is no distincof the question begin; and they are just tion between the elect and the reprobate, such difficulties as it is our wisdomn, not for he knocks at every door; and while it to brave, but to retire from. This is the is most true, that some do welcome, and very point at which the apostle repels the others do most obstinately and impregnaquestion which he is either not willing, bly withstand him, yet his business is to or more likely not able even with all address a free gospel unto all, and to lift his apostolical endowments, to resolve- in the hearing of all the assurance-that,'Thou wilt say then Why doth he yet for each and for every of our species, find fault, for who hath resisted his will.' there is an open mediatorial gate to that You will observe that in these words, mercy-seat where God waiteth to be gErathere is an arraignment of God, and a call cious. Again it may be asked to explain or a challenge for His vindication. The this wondrous diversity of influence among part which belongs to man, when plied as men, and why it is that some do reject he is most urgently and most affection- and others do receive these tidings of salately by the offers of the gospel, is abun- vation? Our answer roundly and absodantly clear. But in point of fact some lutely is that we do not know. But this do accept these offers, while others turn we know, that the way to lessen the numaway from them; and when this difference ber of those who shall reject, and to add between the one and the other is traced to to the number of those who shall receive, he power and predestination of God, this is just to ply these tidings as heretcfore in brings the high policy of' the Eternal into the hearing of all and for the behoof of view, and the reasons of that policy are all. It is most true that God has the power not so clear. Were the question never over human hearts, to turn them whitherstirred as to the part which God has in soever he will; and if demanded why the matter, there inight be nouoght to em- then do not all the hearts of men receive barrass or disturb us-for all is simple that touch from the hands of His omnipoand shining as the light of day, about the tence which might turn them unto the part which man has in the matter. Could way of life, our reply is still that we canwe only prevail on him to bestow all his not say. But this we are empowered to intensity on the things which properly say, that there is not a hard-hearted sinbelong unto himself, and which himself ner amongst you, who is not within the has personally to do with, all would be scope of the invitation, Come ye also and plain and practical; and the great work be saved; and to your prayers for the of salvation would go on most prosper- clean heart and the right spirit, a softenously. But we will be meddling with the ing and a sanctifying influence will be things which belong unto God; and thus made to descend upon you. For aught it is that a theology floundering beyond we know our world might have never her depths, and compassed about with fallen, or after having fallen, a voice may difficulties through which she cannot have gone forth again from Heaven, armed make her way, gives forth her hard sen- with a force and an efficacy of grace, to tences and her cabalistic sayings-when recall every individual of its departed she might be otherwise and far better em- generations; and if again the question be ployed, in lifting the direct and the urgent reiterated, why is it not so with the world and withal the clearly intelligible calls of we occupy, again it is our answer that we the gospel. It is when in the act of ply- cannot tell: But this we can truly tell, ing these calls that the minister of the that not an individual ishere present, who New Testament stands upon his vantage- has not the word and the warrant from ground. It is when charged with the over- Heaven's high throne, to believe in Christ tures of forgiveness to guilty men, he, in that he might be saved. That thing may the name of a beseeching God, presses the be conceived, whereof we have the woful acceptance of them upon every creature evidence that it has not been realised — 372 LECTURE LXXIII. —CHAPTER IX, 1 1) 13-24. even a sinless universe, whose every sun more especially that passage which forms lighted up the habitations of unspotted a most remarkable counterpart to the one holiness, and whose every planet was last quoted, and where the long-suffering, proof against the inroads of every ruth- instead of being related as it is by Peter to less destroyer; and if called upon to vin- the salvation of sinners, seems as if reladicate either the entry or the continuance ted by Paul to their destruction-", What of moral evil, we sink under the burden if God, willing to show his wrath and to of the deep and the hopeless mystery, make his power known, endured with and feel it to be impracticable; but of much long suffering the vessels of wrath this we can assure you, even a plain and fitted to destruction; and that he might a practicable way of escape for ourselves, make known the riches of his glory on both from the tyranny of evil and from the vessels of mercy which he had afore the terrors of that vengeance which is prepared unto glory, even us whom he due to it. And O if we but stopped at the hath called not of the Jews only but also place, where apostles stood silent and of the Gentiles." solemnized and did reverently stop before We shall go over a few of the verses of us-if, forbearing a scrutiny into the coun- this chapter, arid lay aside that in them sels of Ieaven, we simply betook our- which is hard to be understood from that seives to that bidden walk upon earth, which is otherwise. It will be uniformly which will at length conduct us both to found that all that is difficult, attaches to the light and love of its unclouded habita- those prior steps which belong to the part tions-if; waiting and working at our wherewith God had to do, before that allotted task here below, we wvould but man's part fell to be performed-leaving suspend that judgment, which we can as clear and as comprehensible as before, neither pluck from the mazes of the eter- both the part which man has to do, and nity that is past, nor fiom the yet unex- also those posterior steps of' the divine plored distances of the eternity before us administration which follow on the part -in a word, if, instead of speculating we which we shall have taken in the world. were humble enough to submit, and, Or, in other words, if there be not enough instead of dogmatising were teachable of revelation to appease the restless curienough and obedient enough to do-This osity of man that would pry into the conwere the way for arriving at the resolu- cerns of God, there is enough to enlighten tion of all difficulties; and we should at his conscience and to guide his hopes in length, when the mystery of God was every thing which relates to his own profinished, emerge into that region of purest per and personal concerns. transparency where we shall know even In the eleventh verse then, we cannot as we are known. refuse the statement that God had before Peter says of Paul in one of his epis- the birth of Jacob and Esau an anterior ties,; "and account that the long-suffering purpose respecting their destinations; and of the Lord is salvation, —even as our be- that the actual and historical difference loved brother Paul, according to the wis- which afterwards took place between the domn given unto him, has written unto you, two, was the effect of that purpose. Of as also in all his epistles, speaking in this election on the part of God I can give them of these things, in which are some no account-I submit to be informed of things hard to be understood, which they the fact, but I am utterly in the dark as that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as to the reason of it. I have to remark, they do also the, other scriptures, unto however, that, although this purpose actlheir own destruction." cording to election is not of works but of CWe doubt not that in the reference HIim that calleth-although the purpose which the one apostle makes to the writ- of the divine mind was the primary, the ings of the other, he in the first instance originating cause of the favour shown had in his eye that passage in the second to Israel, yet it followeth not, that works chapter of the Romans, where Paul says, on the part of those whom He does favour " Despisest thou the riches of his good- are not indispensable. You would say of ness and forbearance and long-suffering, a stream of water that issued first from not knowing that the goodness of God a fountain-head, and then was collected leadeth thee to repentance? but after thy into a reservoir or second fountain whence hardness and impenitent heart, treasurest it flowed anew, you would say that though up unto thyself wrath against the day of it came through the lower fountain, it came wrath and revelationof the righteous judg- from or of the higher. And so of this ment of God, who will render to every high predestination on the part of God. man according to his deeds." But we have All that regards either our history in time, as little doubt, that he, in the second in- or our final condition in eternity, might stance, had in his eye some of those very originate there; and yet it may be true, things which now engage our attention in that we cannot pass onward to glory in this ninth chapter of the Romans; and heaven without passing through a course LECTURE LXXIII.-CHAPTER IX, 11, 13-24. 37* of personal righteousness upon earth. beforehand, on the creatures whom -Ie The primary will of God may be the calls into existence. He gives us only aboriginal fountain of all the blessings assertion for this in the fourteenth verse, which the children of life are to enjoy; and no more than the bare assumption of and, yet there may be a secondary foun- a sovereignty for God in the fifteenth taiL derived thereftom —even a fountain verse. It is true that in the sixteenth verse, of grace struck out in the heart of man, he makes a statement which admits of' beand whence all the virtues of moral worth ing qualified in the very same way with and of spiritual excellence overflow upon the previous statement that the purpose his history. It is thus that we can harmo- of God according to election is not of nize the doctrine of an absolute preordi- works. In like manner as the predestination on the part of God, with the indis- nation on the part of God should be antepensable necessity of a conditional obe- dated before the performances or the dience on the part of man-So that while works of' righteousness on the part of we admit the one as true on the strength man, and yet these works are indispenof the passage now before us, we can, in sable-so the predestinating mercy of perfect consistency therewith, admit to be God should be antedated before the willing true, and on the strength of other pas- and the running of man, and yet this sages, that without holiness no man can willing and this running are indispensasee God-that all shall receive according ble. The way in which this prior will of to their works-that those who are pre- God goes forth and takes effect upon us, destinated unto life eternal are predesti- is to set us a-willing. The way in which nated to be conformed beforehand unto this prior work of' grace by God goeth the image of Christ, so that they shall not forth and taketh effect upon us, is to set be ushered into the place of His exalta- us a-working. tIe works in us, not tc tion, without being first adorned by the supersede, but to stimulate our working virtues of his example-and lastly, which for ourselves. He works in us to will and describes the successive steps of this pro- to do of His good pleasure. Arid He do.,s cess, that " by grace are ye saved through so, by the efficacy which He gives to faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the those familiar and every-day instruments, gift of God, not of works lest any man which are within the reach of man. He should boast, for we are his workmanship does so by the moral urgency of bibles, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, and pulpits, and zealous messengers of which God hath before ordained that we salvation, and Christian parents labourshould walk in them." So that though ing for the immortality of their children, God's primary decree is not of works, it and bringing the truths and the lessons is at least to works-insomuch that even of revelation to bear upon their conamong the children of the predestined sciences-so that, while behind the curIsrael, the rewaids and the preferments tain of our visible world there is a -preof eternity follow in the train of good destinating God, the movements of whose works; and among the children of rep- finger we can neither trace nor account robate Esau, the disgrace and the wretch- for, yet before that curtain there is a scene edness of their irretrievable condemna- of movements, which correspond to those tion followed in the.train of their evil that be veiled from observation on thte works. In the thirteenth verse we have other sid(e, and which being on this sidte a quotation from Malachi, where the are palpably before our eyes; and what love and the hatred might not be the we behold of all those destined heirs of ftelings on the part of the Godhead which immortality is, that they are striving to prompted Him to His respective acts of enter through the gate which leads to itelection, but the feelings wherewith He and working out their own salvation-ana regarded the respective characters of the so willing and running as that they may good an(l the evil-not the prior affection obtain-and putting forth all the activiwhich caused the difference; but the pos- ties of their nature, in quest of a blissful terior affection of a Being of whom we eternity-and carrying their point, only distinctly know that He loveth righteous- by urging onward with an intensity of ness, and as distinctly know that He hateth effort which our Saviour Himself has iniquity. characterised by the epithet of violence — Ti. posterior affection is all that we Insomuch that He hath told us, how, under have to go by, for indicating the moral that economy which He has instituted, the character of God. The prior one is hid- kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and den in a depth that is behind us, and is to the violent take it by force. us unfathomable. On this point we can I cannot bid you too often, my brethren. say no more than the apostle has done (listinguish between the anterior part of before us. He can but assert, for he makes this process which belonged to God, and no attempt to argue, that God may with- the present or the posterior parts which out injustice thus affix His distinctions I belong to man-between those secret foot. 374 LECTURE LXXIII.-CHAPTER IX, 11, 13 —24. steps of the Almighty which preceded the forth his hand upon the families of Egypt. ushering of His creatures into the theatre nor Pharaoh and his mighty hosts have of their actual existence, and the parts been overwhelmed in the Red sea. But which now that they have been intro- after every n.ew chastisement, did he duced upon the theatre they are called gather into a stiffer and a prouder attiupon to perform. The darkness of thick- tude than before; and alike cast the judg. est midnight may rest upon the one quar- ments of Israel's God and the remonter of contemplation, while the other is strances of Israel's patriarchs away from lighted up by the blaze of noon-day efful- himn; and, in despite of that sore and bitgence. The question of what man ought ter cry which reached to his inner chamto do, may be met by the promptest and ber from all the weeping families of a the plainest deliverance. The question people to whom his own had owed their of what God has done amid the counsels preservation, did he send forth from his and the measures of His past eternity, or despot throne the mandates of a still more what He is now doing behind that impene- reckless and relentless cruelty-aggravatrable mantle which lies on the hidden ting a bondage that was already intolerapart of His ways-this question may be ble, and trampling more fiercely and one of deepest and most hopeless obscu- scornfully than ever on the trembling vicrity. I may know the present counsel tims of his wrath. We again say, that which should be given to my fellows. I we positively are not able to pronounce know not the past counsels of the pro- on the movements of that secret but found, the predestinating Deity. supreme power, in whose hands the whole This is a reflection that falls with over- power of Egypt's monarchy was but an whelming force on the perusal of the two instrument for the accomplishment of following verses, and with mightiest em- higher purposes; but, looking to him who phasis of all when we come to the last filled that monarchy, we instantly and clause of them. To the demand for a vin- decisively pronounce upon the doom that dication of God's proceeding in this mat- rightfully belonged to him-nor, while the ter, I can only reply with the apostle in heart of man remaineth as it is, can hQ the three following verses; but, while pro- keep it from revolting against this false fossing all the impotence of a child when and unfeeling oppressor, or from rejoicing vi(ewing God's part of the question, I can- in the destiny which hurled him from his not look to man's part of it without such throne. And should, in this world's latdistinct and decisive feelings, as I am sure ter day, the scene be acted over again, will be sympathised with by all who hear between the struggles of a patriot nation me. It was the part which a haughty and the stern resolves of a lordly and bartyrant had taken against the liberties of a baric despotism-neither what is told and captive and subjugated people, whose authoritatively told of the mysteries of a piteous moanings had now reached unto predestinating God, nor what is reasoned heaven, and theblood of whose slaughtered and irrefragably reasoned of the metalittle ones cried aloud for vengeance. But physics of an unveering necessity, shall ere the stroke of vengeance should fall, ever overbear the judgment or the sensithe voice of warning was sent unto him; bilities of our moral nature; but, in spite and repeated miracles were wrought be- of ourselves, should the spectacle again fore his eyes; and demonstrations were be offered of a triumphant people and a given of a power that was long brandished tyrant overthrown-still, as heretofore, over his head, before it came down upon should we feel it to be a retribution of him with the fell swoop of a final and Heaven's high justice upon the one; and irreversible destruction; and, at each of still unite with the other in their lofty the ten successive plagues, there were acclaims of gratitude, loud as from the space and opportunity given for repent- hosts of Israel when the horses and the ance; and if' he would but have been chariots of Pharaoh were cast into the righteous and redressed the wrongs of a sea, and joyful as the song of Moses ever solely outraged and oppressed nation, his now liberated nation. neither wo ild the angel of death have put LECTURE LXXIV.-CHAPTER IX, 11, 13-24. 375 LECTURE LXXIV. ROMANS ix, 19- 24 Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault, for who hath resisted his will? Nay but. O mall, wl o art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus t Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour and another unto di'. honour? What if God, willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much lolng-sufforino the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction; and that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory, even us whom he hath called, not of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles?" BUT before entering upon the affirma- destruction, are only those who in the tion of Peter, we again recommend your language of the 2nd chapter shall be attentive comparison of the two passages found to have despised that long-sufferin Paul-in the one of which the part ing-that they who are called vessels which God has in the processes, either of of wrath and whom God is said to have man's ruin or of his recovery, is adverted hardened in the obscare passage. are they to by the apostle; and in the other of who in the cleat passage are said after which the part is adverted to that man their own hardness and impenitent heart to himself has in these processes. The first treasure up unto themselves wrath against passage is in Romans, ix, 22;-24: o "What the day of wrath and revelation of the if God, willing to show his wrath, and to righteous judgment of God-that while in make his power known, endured with the one God is represented as preparing much long-suffering the vessels of wrath aforehand unto glory, yet in the other He fitted to destruction; and that he might is represented as rendering to every man make known the riches of his glory according to his deeds-that while in the on the vessels of mercy, which he had one He is set before us as calling Jews or afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom Gentiles of His own past ordination, yet, he hath called, not of the Jews only, but this must be in harmony with that which also of the Gentiles." The second in is our present concern, even that God Romans, ii, 4-11: " Or despisest thou giveth eternal life to those who have obthe riches of his goodness and forbear- served a patient continuance in wellance and long-suffering; not knowing that doing; and tribulation and anguish to the goodness of God leadeth thee to repent- every soul of man that doeth evil, whethance 3 but, after thy hardness and impen- er Jew or Gentile, for there is no respect itent heart, treasurest up unto thyself of persons with God. And thus again wrath against the day of wrath and reve- while a hopeless and as yet impracticable lation of the righteous judgment of God; obscurity sits on God's part, there is none who will render to every man according whatever which sitteth upon ours. We to his deeds: to them who, by patient do not know why He may have selected continuance in well-doing, seek for glory us as the individuals in whom He workan.i honour and immortality, eternal life; eth to will and to do; but we do know but unto them that are contentious, and what is incumbent on us, which is to do not obey the truth, but obey unright- work out our own salvation. Wre do not eousness, indignation and wrath: trib- know why any individuals ever come into u.ation and anguish upon every soul contact with the first influences of that of man that doeth evil, of the Jew first, hardening process which shall terminate and also of the Gentile: but glory, hon- in their destruction; but we know it to our, and peace to every man that work- be the pressing, and we shall add the eth good; to the Jew first and also to practicable duty of all individuals, to harthe Gentile: for there is no respect of den not their own hearts-and that if any persons with God." You will observe individual here present shall but awaken that what the inspired writer says of unto a concern for his own soul, and beGod's anterior processes regarding the take himself in good earnest to his peruvessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy, sals of the Bible and to his prayers, God is in the form of a query and not of an is in readiness to descend with an influexpress deliverance. This is not a sub- ence that shall soften and shall save him, ject on which he lays himself out for the saying unto one and all " Turn unto me satisfaction of his readers, and so it re- and I will pour out my Spirit upon you." mains an unrevealed mystery. But what This brings me to the utterance of is of chief because of practical impor- Peter " that the long-suffering of the Lord tance to us is, that they, of whom it is is salvation"-not willing, as he says satd in the 9th chapter, that the long- some verses before, that any should perish suffering of God will terminate in their but that all should come to repentance ~376 LECTURE LXXIV.-CIIAPTER IX, 19-24. We are aware of the distinction made by and ask for more. Think not that the theologians between the secret and the re- way of your salvation is one of hidden vealed will of God; and the only use we and impracticable mystery. It is indeed should like to make of it is this, that a plain and a practicable way, and the whatever is secret belongs unto Him and way that we now want to reduce you to. we have nothing to do with it-whatever Never was there a more distinct and open is revealed belongs unto us and with that path laid down by any sovereign for the we have to do. What God's past ordina- return of his offending subjects, than the tions are in regard to us we do not know. Sovereign of heaven and earth has laid Paul singles out no individuals. He treats down for us His apostate creatures. He the doctrinle generally, and even then bids offers you forgiveness through the blood adieu to it with a question which he leaves of Christ. He promises you strength and unsolved; and so let us leave it. What sanctification through the influences of God's present attitude is iu regard to us His own free Spirit. IHe tells you what we do know; for Peter, instead of gues- the new obedience of the gospel is. And sing at it by a question, tells us of it by He bids you enter on that obedience, an affirmation the most distinct and deci- trusting in the Lord and doing good con. sive —and not only so, but bids us beware tinually. To incite your earnestness, He of suflbring ought that has been said by addresses Himself' to the various feelings Paul to detlat or to do away the impres- and principles of your nature-at one sion of it. Our wisdom is to forbear the time moving your fears by His report of question, and to proceed upon the affir- the coming vengeance, and at another mation; to imitate the one apostle in his your desires and your hopes by HIis respeculative reserve, and to take from the presentation of heaven and its unfading other apostle the impress of his practical glories. And, to crown all, He stretches earnestness-assured, that, however im- out even now to the guiltiest of you all penetrable the haze may be which hangs the hand of a purchased and a proffered over the path-way of God from His first reconciliation-declaring that if you will decrees to the present moment of our only come over fiorn sin unto the Saviour, history, there is now a clear path-way for He will be forthwith a Father unto you, man; and on which God Himself invites your guide in time, your guarantee for one and all of you to enter. He has suf- an inheritance in eternity. Surely the fered you so long, that He might still ply God who is doing all this is wiping His you with the offers of a free salvation. hands of you. Your blood Nwill be upon He did not cut you down yesterday, that your own heads; and He, clear when He this day you might be met by at least one speaketh and justified when He judgeth, call more; and have another opportunity when He says what more could I have of making good your reconciliation; and done for my vineyard that I have not be again told of the open door of Christ's done for it, will leave you without a rnediatorship; and that deep as is the speech and without an argument. crimson dye of your manifold iniquities, This doctrine of predestination ought and provoking as the indifference has never to be a stumbling-block in the way been of your past feelin(rs to that gospel of your entertaining the overtures of the which has so oft been sounded in your gospel. Leave it to God himself to harhearing and sounded in vain-yet this one monise those everlasting decrees, by day more if you will but hear His voice, which He hath distinguished between the are we empowered to say to each and to elect and the reprobate, with His present every that God is still willing and still declarations of good-will to one and to all waiting to be gracious. of the human family. Your business is And there is one way in which you to let the decrees alone, and to east your might turn to plain and practical account joyful confidence upon the declarations. the doctrine of God's agency. You may Should an earthly monarch send a mespropitiate it by your obedience. You sage of friendship to your door, must you may obtain it by your prayers. Instead reject it either as unintelligible dr unreal, of probing into the mystery of God hard- because you have not been instructed in ening the heart of Pharaoh, know that all the mysteries of his government there is one way in which you may realise Because you cannot comprehend the pola hardening process upon your own heart icy of his empire, must you therefore not — even by your resistance of our present receive the offered kindness which had call. That will harden you the more come from him to your dwelling-place e against the impression of every future And ere you can appreciate the gift which call. Or, instead of waiting for a special he holds out for your single and specific and a satisfying operation upon your acceptance, must you first be able to trace own sroul, know that there is a way by all the workings and all the ways of the which you may work for it. Give all your vast the varied superintendence which present strength to the dfoing of God's will, belongs to him. It is truly so with Gou LECTURE LXXIV.-CHAPTER IX, 19-24. 377 who, although presiding over a manage- after having laboured with all diligence, ment which embraces all worlds and and being compassed about with all the reaches fiom everlasting to everlasting, virtues of heaven, they shall attain the has nevertheless sent to each individual assurance therefrom that heaven is their amongst us, the special intimation of His destined habitation. Then indeed may perfect willingness to admit us into fa- the doctrine be contemplated both with vour; and must we, I ask, suspend our safety and with profit by aged and ad. comfort and our confidence therein, till vanced Christians, when they reflect on we, the occupiers of one of the humblest all that way by which they have been led, tenements in creation and only the erca- and recognise in it the grace and provi. tures but of yesterday, till we shall have dence of a God who has so evidently spi. mastered the economy of this wondrous ritualised them —when they shall adopt universe and scanned the counsels of the language of the apostle that it is by eternity? the grace of God I amn what I am; and Although I have expatiated at such when, to the comfort and the gratitude length upon this subject, it was not for the which such a reflection is fitted to inspire, purpose of schooling you into the doe- they shall add the humility of this other trine of predestination-for, while we sentiment, It is God alone who hath made deem it to be true in itself, we deem it not us to differ, and we have nothing that we to be a truth the belief of which is essen- did not receive. tial to salvation. It is not even in the V. 24.'Even us, whom he hath called hope that our argument in its favour not of the Jews only, but also of the Genshould be understood by all; nor do we tiles.' hold such an understanding to be at all I recur to this verse for the purpose of indispensable. Far less was it in the pre- noticing a distinction of sentiment besumptuous imagination, that I could vin- tween two classes of theologians on that dicate all the ways of God to man-for subject which has recently engrossed us small indeed is that part of His ways to -the first of whom would extend the which we have access. But it was solely doctrine of predestination to individuals, with the view to urge upon you, that, and make the final and everlasting condiwhatever obscurity was cast by this high tion of each single man the subject of an doctrine on the ways of God to man, the absolute and rigorous decree from all ways of' man to God were not altered, eternity; and the second of whom, reand should not at all be obscured by it- volted by what they feel to be the utter but rather that the hopes and the obliga- harshness of such a representation, would tions and the whole business of' your at the same time yield so far to the au practical Christianity, are left by it on thority of Scripture, as to advocate a certhe same familiar footing as before; and tain application of this doctrine to whole that with the view of averting a great nations or collective bodies of' men. That mischief incurred by those unstable and is-they will allow, not of certain indiunlearned who wrest this scripture, even viduals being predestinated to life eternal as they do the others, to their own destruc- in heaven to the exclusion of all others tion. You may not even understand how but they will allow of certain nations be it is that God's predestination affects not ing predestined to the light of Christian. your practice, but be assured that so it is; ity upon earth, while others are left in tht. and grievous indeed will be your condem- darkness of superstition or of paganisn, nation, if one principle about which you They cannot refuse, for example, that thel are confessedly in the dark, shall be found call of the Gentiles and the rejectioi of ro have bewildered you away from the the Jews were both of them matters of light of those other principles which are prophecy and of predestination in the C'ear atod conspicuous, and by proceeding counsels of heaven. But this they conwith honesty and in good earnest upon tend for as the whole length to whic'h the which it is that you are saved. We can doctrine of God's fixed and irreversible truly own that we entered upon this sub- decrees ou(ght to be carried-arguing, in ject with reluctance, and only because it fact, that the only purpose of the apostle stood in our way. We now leave it with- was to vindicate the great national move. out regret, unwilling to say more and yet ment which the true religion made in hos feeling that we could scarcely have said day away from his people, and onward tc less-though, after all, there is perhaps a the other countries and people of' the remaining obscurity essentially inherent world. They hold the doctrine to be tolin the subject, and which no explanation erable thus far, and chiefly because iv can do away, does not infringe on the warrant of eacui But let me hope that a time. is coming, individual man to embrace the gospel in when many here present shall fondly and those places where the gospel is pro. with felt advantage recur to it-even when claimed; and appears to leave uatouhed 48 378 LECTURE LXXIV.-CHAPTER _X, 19-24. all the practical influences, by which men to himself and labour for his own salva. are led to choose, and to resolve, and to tion. The reply was strive to enter ill a, endeavour, and to strive, and to put forth the straight gate-for many shall seek to all the activities of their nature in the enter in and shall not he able. And so business both of willing and of working my brethren, would I have you to turf out their own salvation. yourselves from the general survey ot We have already laboured to assure God's arrangements, to a personal search you, that the most staunch and sturdy ad- and application of your own case and vocates of a predestination which reaches interest, therein. He has at least intro. even to individuals, would contend as duced the light of the gospel to that coun. earnestly as others for the unexcepted try in which you dwell. He has at least range of the gospel call, and for the freest visited you with Christian Sabbaths and and widest scope to all the activities of Christian opportunities. The effect of gospel obedience. And we further con- His having so selected and signalised our cede the great object of the apostle nation is, that He has selected and signalthroughout the whle argumentation of ised each individual amongst you by a this chapter, to have been just to establish pointed personal offer of reconciliation. a national predestination; and that with This is the matter that concerns you; the purpose of justifying the transference and, could we only prevail upon you duly which was about to be made of the true to entertain this matter, we should hold it religion fiom Jews to Gentiles. Neverthe- a far higher achievement, than to furnish less, he, in the course of his argument, you with all the arguments, ard exhibit unfolds to us the power or the predestina- even to your full conviction all the parts tion of God as extending to individuals and proportions of our systematic theolalso-to the good destinies of Isaac and ogy. We tell you of God's beseeching Jacob on the one hand-to the evil desti- voice. We assure you, in His name, that nies of Ishmael and Esau and Pharaoh He wants you not to die. We bid you upon the other. The truth is, it is by an venture for pardon on the atonement influence upon the hearts and the histo- made by Him who died for all men. We ries of individuals, that He gives a direc- bid you apply forthwith to the Spirit of tion to the fortune and to the history of all grace and holiness, that you may be nations; and again, on the state of a na- qualified to enter into that beatific heaven tion may turn both the present character from whose battlements there wave the and the future nay eternal condition of signals of welcome, and whose gates are each individual belonging to it. They wide open to receive you. We would who admit of a predestination in regard bring this plain word of salvation nigh to the larger historical movements of this unto every conscience, and knock with it world's kingdoms, cannot escape from the at the door of every heart; and, commisnecessity of this predestination having an sioned as we are to preach the gospel not influence upon individuals and upon farm- to a chosen few while we keep it back ilies. More especially upon the light of from the hosts of the reprobate, but to the gospel having been predestinated for preach it to every creature under heaven, any nation, may there depend the eternal we again entreat that none here present life of every separate man in that nation shall forbid themselves-for most assurwho shall have embraced the gospel. edly God hath not forbidden them. But But we now bid our final adieu to the come unto Christ all of you who labour general argument; and we should like to and are heavy-laden, and ye shall have do it in the very spirit wherewith our rest. Look unto him all ye ends of the Saviour met the speculative question of earth; and, though now placed at the farthat enquirer, who asked him if there thest outskirts of a moral distance and were many that should be saved. He was alienation, even look unto Him and ye bidden to recall his attention from this shall be saved, wide and general survey, and simply look LECTURE LXXV.-CHAPTER IX 25-33. "79 LECTURE LXXV. ROMANS ix, 25-33. k As he saith also in Osee I will call them my people which were not my people; and her beloved which was not beloved. And it shall come to pass, that in the place where it was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there shall they be called the children of the living God. Esaias also crieth concerning Israel, Though the number of the children of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved: for he will finish the work. and cut it short in righteousness; because a short work will the Lord make upon the earth. And as Esaias said before, Except the Lord of sabaoth had left us a seed, we had been a- Sodoma, and been made like unto Gsmorrha. What shall we say then? That the Gentiles, which followed not after righteousness, have attained to righteousness, even the righteousness which is of faith: but Israel, which followed after the law of righteousness, lath not attained to the law of righteousness. Wherefore? Because they sought it not by faith, but as it were by the works of the law: for they stumbled at that stuniblini-stone; as it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stuibling-stone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on im shall not be ashamed." V. 25.' As he saith also in Osee, I will feared God and wrought righteousness call them my people which were not my was to be a cepted of Him. Still prosepeople; and her beloved which was not lytes from every nation under heaven beloved.' came to Jerusalem at the time of their The apostle, with his usual skill and great festival; but now, without any such dexterity of argument, addressed himself annual migration, a priesthood and a as a Jew to the Jews; and so brings their religious service and an acceptable worown scriptures to bear upon them. He ship were to be established in the very first quotes a prophecy from Hosea re- seats of idolatry. In the place where it garding the Gentiles; and of whom it is was said unto them Ye are not my people, most distinctly stated that they were to be there shall they be called the children of admitted to the same favour, by which the the living God. children of Israel had been specialised, V. 27.'Esaias also crieth concerning and from which themselves had hereto- Israel, Though the number of the children fore been outcasts. HIe thus takes shelter of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnunder the old and venerable authorities, nant shall be saved.' which the very people against whom he The prophecy of' Hosea respected the contended held in equal reverence with Gentiles; and is quoted for the purpose himself, and proves that it is no new idea of reconciling the children of Israel to -this extension of the family of God, in their participation, in what had been hi. such a way that other nations might enter therto the distinguishing privileges of but into the same close relationship with Him one people. The prophecy of Isaiah reof His people, which had hitherto been spects Israel itself; and is quoted for the confined to the descendants of Israel. purpose of showing, and from the mouth V. 26.' And it shall come to pass, that of their greatest Prophet, that, although in the place where it was said unto them, God had uttered promises in behalf of Ye are not my people, there shall they be a seed numerous as the sand of the seacalled the childrlen of the living God.' shore, yet that He regarded not these proT'his verse seems necessary for describ- mises as broken although they were made ing the precise manner in which the ex- good only to a remnant of them. That tension was to take place. It had been prophecy referred, in the first instance, no unwonted thing for Gentiles to become to a fell destruction which came on the proselytes; but still the land they occu- children of Israel, and reduced them to pied was regarded as an outcast region but a remnant-proving it to be no of heathenism, and thty looked to Judea strange thing in God, to have abandoned as the Holy Land-to Jerusalem as the to their ruin a vast majority of the chilpriestly and the consecrated place where- dren of Abraham, even notwithstanding unto they looked as the great metropolis the word of promise which He had made of religion, and whither many of them to the patriarch; and therefore that this repaired every year to join in the solemn promise would be as little falsified now as services of the temple. It was not in this it was then, although the great bulk of the sense however that the coming enlarge- nation should be reft of the divine favour, ment was to be brought about. In the and but a small fraction of them should language of our Saviour to the woman of remain in that favour by embracing ChrisSamaria, the hour was at hand when tianity. "Esaias also crieth concerning neither in this mountain nor yet at Jeru- them, Though the number, the predicted salem the Father was to be worshipped. and promised number to Abraham, of deEven the local affinity, between the true scendants who should spring from him, religion and the country or the cities of was that they should be as the sand of the the people of Israel, was forthwith to be sea, yet but a remnant shall be saved." dissolved; and in every nation he that V. 28.'For he will finish the work 3t60 LECTURE LXXV.-CHAPTER IX, 25 —33. and cut it short in righteousness, because blessed predestination. The reprobate a short work will the Lord make upon the are they who decline that offer. How. earth. ever tremendous it may look when viewed This alludes to the work of vengeance, by us from afar, among the sublime and knat in His righteous indignation was ex- mysterious altitudes of' that past eternity ecuted upon the children of Israel; and where be the primary links of a vast pro. that, by a sudden and overwhelming in- gression reaching from the decrees of th6 vasion of their enemies. The same work unsearchable God to the yet unrevealed was speedily to be done over again by the destinies of all tHis creatures —certain it forces of the Roman empire; and, in like is, that God when, instead of being conmanner as the truth of God's promise to templated in His place at the commenceAbraham stood unimpeachable and firm ment of this chain where He stands at so because of the remnant that survived the lofty and incomprehensible a distance sweeping destruction of these former away from us, is contemplated in the days-so the impending destruction of the place He occupies at the present and the latter days would also leave a remnant contiguous links, appears to us under a which should vindicate the word of God very different aspect from that in which from the charge of having taken none our imagination arrays Him, when we cast effect. our regards athwart the boundless interV. 29.'And as Esaias said before, Ex- val of those ages which are past. And cept the Lord of sabaoth had left us a whether is it better, we ask, to take our seed, we had been as Sodoma, and been impressions of the Divinity in the act of made like unto Gomorrha.' looking to Him as God at a distance-or The Lord of Sabaoth signifies the Lord in the act of listening to Him as a God of Hosts. Had He left no remnant, had who is at hand? Whatever He may have He made a clean and total destruction of purposed or done then, when creation and Israel, then it would have shared in the all its issues were fixed by an act of prefate of Sodom and Gomorrah-cities of ordination, that reached forward unto all which now no vestige is to be found, and and embraced all-this is what He is of whose people the descendants are alto- doing now. He is stretching out for your gether lost in the history of our species. acceptance the title-deeds to an inheritIt is not so with the Jews. A goodly num- ance of glory. He is offering to put into ber of them were obedient unto the faith, your hands a right of entry into the city and in them all the blessings promised to which hath foundations. He is making Abraham had their richest accomplish- the issues of your eternity, at least, to turn ment. Even those who stood obstinately upon this-whether, accepting of Christ's out in their rejection. of the Saviour were righteousness as a gift and so coming into nol all cut off; and their posterity main- possession of a valid plea for the honours taiil a separate and a monumental charac- and rewards of heaven, you shall obtain ter to this very day-at once affording a sure entrance thereinto, or, declining this most impressive evidence of that special offer and casting the die upon your own part which the Divinity takes in their righteousness, you shall utterly fail of affairs; and forming a reserve, as it were, everlasting bliss. Grant that you are the for the fulfilment of such restoration upon objects of a blessed predestination, here is them as shall pour a lustre on all the the way in which you make itgood-even prophecies which have been delivered ill by accepting through faith the righteoustheir behalf; and make it obvious, that, ness of Christ as your meritorious plea of after the many dark reverses and humili- acceptance with God. Grant that any of ations which this singular people have you shall turn out to have been the obundergone, that, after all, there is not a jects of dire reprobation, this will not be promise which has been uttered to their without your refusal of an offer complied patriarchs of old which has not obtained with by others, but made also unto youa splendid verification in the subsequent made without reserve and without excephistory of the race. tion unto all. Let me entreat you then, V. 30.''What shall we say then?-That once more, to forego the distant, and to the Gentiles which followed not after take up with the near contemplation. righteousness have attained to righteous- Attend not to God's past decrees, but to ness, even the righteousness which is of God's present dealings with you-not to faith.' what He has written of you in that book It might well disarm predestination of of His secret counsels which is up in all its terrors, when we look to the way heaven, but to what He has written to you in which its fulfilments are practically in that book of His open declarations brought about. There is the offer of' a which is now circulating freely on earth, justifying righteousness made unto all; and on a copy of which each may lay and they who accept, as the Gentiles in his hand. In the language of the next the present instance, are the obiects of a chapter-try not to pluck the secret of LECTURE LXXV. —CHAPTER IX, 25-33. 381 vour destiny from heaven above, or from its reward. On the contrary, their dis the recesses of that eternity which is be- obedience, both in transgressing and it hind —try not to fetch it into the light of coming short-their sins, both of commisr day from the profundity that is under sion and of omission, brought them under your feet, or flrom the yet untravelled its clear and decisive condemnation. depths of that eternity which is before; They may have fulfilled in some things, but take all your direction, and the but they failed in many things; and guidance of every footstep, flrom the word though toiling with all the strenuousness which is nigh unto you. There yoiu read of' men whose eternity was at issue, none of God's beseeching voice-of His pro- could overtake the whole length and testations, nay of His very oaths, that in breadth of its commandments. your death lHe has no pleasure —of this Now observe the precise effect of this proclamation the sound whereof reaches state of matters. However willing God from the mercy-seat to the farthest out- might be that all these transgressors skirts of His sinful family, even that should be admitted into Heaven-yet this " whosoever calleth upon the name of his admittance of them might not be possible, Son shall be saved." And if; on looking so long as they on the other hand are not across the medium of that endless retro- willing to be admitted there, but on the spect where clouds and darkness at last footing of a remuneration for their obeterminate the vision, you could descry dience. There might be enough of the nought to cheer you into confidence, learn disposition of kindness on the part of God now to regard the present attitude, and to bestow heaven upon them as a present; hearken to the present accents of a God- but there might be a disposition on the all whose thoughts to those who seek after part of man to decline it in this character, Him, are thoughts of graciousness, and and to demand it as the term of a contract who now holds Himself forth unto all as which they challenge the other party to a God benign and placable and tender. fulfil. This brings the parties to a stand, It is said of the Gentiles that they fol- and it is no light matter which they stand lowed not after righteousness and yet ob- for. It is for a high principle of divine tained it. The righteousness of that law jurisprudence, of which we are taught which was written in the books of Moses, in the Bible that there is a moral imposthey were generally ignorant of. The sibility that it should be violated. Upon righteousness of that law which was writ- the difference between heaven as a thing ten in their own hearts, they knew but of free grace to the sinner, or heaven as they dlid not follow; but there was a a thing of due and merited return to him righteousness followed after, even till it for his obedience as it is, there just turns was finished, by Christ Jesus as the sub- the difference between a vindicated and a stitute of sintiers. This was declared to dishonoured law. This difference man, them as a righteousness in which they obtuse and deadened as he is in all the might a;ipear with acceptance before God sensibilities of his moral nature, might -a deciaration believed by'many, and fleel to be a slight one; but it was not so accordin.g to their belief so was it done felt among the pure and ethereal intelliunto themi. gences of the upper sanctuary. The anV. 31.' But Israel which followed gels who are there saw the dilemma, and after the law of righteousness hath not looked on with most intense earnestness attain(d to the law of righteousness.' to the evolutions of that great problem by The law of righteousness here is the which it might be extricated. It was a samle with the righteousness of the law. question of pure and lofty jurisprudence; They strove by their obedience to its pre- and, however shadowy it might appear to cepts after a right to its rewards.'It was beings of our grosser faculties, and withal not with a view of simply adorning their darkened and made dull in all our percharacter by the graces or virtues of the ceptions of what is due to Heaven's high law, nor was it from the impulse of a love sacredness by the blight which sin has for its righteousness, that they so labour- cast upon them-it was truly a question ed. It wvas with the view of making good for which all heaven was put in motion; that condition, on which they conceived and on which the King who sitteth upon that the reward was suspended-after its throne, put forth the resources and the which they could challenge that reward energies of a wisdom that is infinite. And as their due, as a thing that they had as IIis authoritative declaration to this our much won as either the wages for which rebel world is, that the sanctions of IIis they had served, or the goods for which law could not be nullified-that all crea. they had paid down the purchase-money. tion must pass away rather than that any This was that after which they laboured, of its promises or any of its threatenings and this they fell short of. Their obe- should fail-that the truth and justice and dience did not come up to the high requi- righteousness of the lawgiver, admitted of sitions of the law, and so they missed of nothing short from the rigid execution of 382 LECTURE LXXV.-CHAPTER IX, 25 —33. all its penalties-that sinners could not be of the human heart prompts the men of admitted to His complacency, till their sin all ages to do. Our first, our natu:a. had been branded with the mark of an tendency, is to seek after a righteousness adequate condemnation; and, more par- -and that by a conformity to the rule of ticularly, that He would not descend to perfect righteousness. Did we attain the any compromise with those, who, instead righteousness, we would thereby acquire of trembling as they ought lest the fire of a title to the reward. But the universal an offended jealousy should go forth upon fact is that none do attain; and hence, them to burn up and to destroy, persisted with all who persist in seeking life by the for their plea of acceptance in an obedi- law, there is but one or other term of this ence so paltry and so polluted, as being alternative. They either live in the apahonourable enough to the Law and as thy of a false and an ill-founded peace, every way good enough for the exalted or they live in the alarm of a well-foundLawgiver. ed terror-on good terms with themselves V. 32.'Wherefore? Because they because of their imagined adequate fulfilsought it not by faith but as it were by ment of the demands of the law, or on the works of the law. For they stumbled bad terms with themselves because of at that stumbling-stone.' their sad distance and deficiency thereThis is a most important question, and from. And so they sink down into the a most instructive reply to it-more espe- state of mere formalists in obedience, or cially when we view it as given by the into the restless unconfirmed and withal apostle newly emerged from the subject most unfruitful as well as unhappy state of predestination, on which he had just of a perpetual fearfulness. In either state been arguing. All fresh as he was my they are destitute of an availing right. brethren from the high topic of God's de- eousness for their acceptance with God crees, yet, on the moment that he turns He will not, on the one hand, merely behimself to consider the reason why Israel cause men are satisfied with themselves fell short of the promised blessing, he recognise the incomplete and tainted offerlays it on the familiar topic of man's do- ings of their human imperfection-as if ings. The cause of their not attaining to they made out a full and satisfying homage righteoursness, and so of their being ex- to that law, all whose demands are on the eluded from life everlasting, is here re- side of a personal spiritual and universal solved, not into the destinies of the Crea- holiness. Neither, on the other hand tor, but into the doings of His creatures- will He sustain the dread and the distress not into the predestination that is made and the painful anxieties of those who by God above, but into the wrong and the are not satisfied with themselves, as a wilfully wrong direction that is taken by sufficient homage done to His law. What man below. Instead of speculating on He wants with them further is, that they the incomprehensible mystery of that will should do homage to His gospel. It is in heaven by which some are elected into well that they have such a true discernlife, he tells us of the way upon earth ment of God's law, as clearly to perceive, which all men should take in order to ar- that no effort of theirs can reach upward rive at it. And the reason simply why to its sublime and empyreal elevation. the children of Israel missed the object But it is also essential, that they should of a blissful eternity, at least the only have such a true discernment of His reason which either they or we have to do grace, as to perceive, that, by its condewith, is that they took the wrong way. scensions and by its offers, it reaches They sought a righteousness which might downward even to a worthlessness as iustify them before God by the works of humbling and as polluted as theirs. It is the law; and this proved a stumbling- right that they should defer to the terror stone at which they stumbled and fell, and of those penalties which are denounced that very far short indeed of the goal to by the one; but it is equally right that which they were pressing forwards. they should defer to the truth of those They tried to master the requisitions of promises which are held forth by the the law, in order thereby to get at its re- other. They ought to tremble, when beward; and the law proved too hard for thinking them of' their violations of the them. They chose to enter the lists with law; but they ought to feel re-assured, the judgment of the law, and that judg- and to cease fiom trembling when bement therefore must take effect upon thinking themselves of the sufficiency of them. They have sped accordingto their the gospel. If it be an offence to have own choice. They threw their stake on done disobedience to the precepts of His the commandments of the law; and, not authority, it is also an offence to have having won the length of perfect obedi- done discredit to the overtures of His ence thereunto, nothing remains but that good-will. And so we read of the fearful they must abide its condemnation. and the unbelieving, as well as of the preNow what they did, the natural legality sumptuously secure, that both alike have LECTURE LXXV.-CHAPTER IX, 25-3- 383 a plact assigned to them in the abodes of glaring inconsistency here, which does condensnation. embarrass even honest enquirers; and V. 33.' As it is written, Behold I lay in put them at a loss for the right adjustment Zion a stumbling-stone and a rock of of this whole question. It is a question offence and whosoever believeth on him which stumbles them, which perplexes shall not be ashamed.' them, and has all the efiect of a painfu Our only method of escape from this is and puzzling ambiguity upon their minds. Dy fleeing unto Christ, and casting a con- It is not too much to say that the disgrace fidence upon Him which shall never be and the disparagement which appear to put to shame. He is represented as being be cast by the men called evangelical, on to some a stumbling-stone and rock of of- the worth and the importance and the nofence. It were entering upon a subject ble character of virtue, constitute at least far too wide for us at present, did we en- one of the offences, one ground of strong large upon all the varieties of that repug- and sensitive aversion, against the truth nance which is felt by men towards Christ as it is in Jesus. -the absolute nausea of some at the very I cannot pretend to a full deliverance utterance of His name-the utter distaste upon this subject; and will therefore only for all conversation regarding Him-the suggest a distinction which can be stated antipathy, nay even hatred, which rise in in one sentence; and should, as.far as the bosoms of many against His pecu- that goes, be all the more memorable; liarly marked and devoted followers; and which, if' duly pondered upon, will and, along with the toleration which very achieve for you I think the extrication of generally obtains for a meagre and mo- this whole difficulty. The distinction is derate and mitigated Christianity, the se- between the legal right to heaven which cret revolt and the open declaration obedience may be supposed to confer, and against those, who carry the doctrines and the moral rightness of obedience in itself' the demands of' Christianity to what is When the New Testament affirms the apprehended to be a great deal too far. nullity of good works, it is their nullity In a certain decent and regulated propnr- fiom their not being perfect to the object tion, it is borne with; but very apt to be of' establishing our legal right to the reimpatiently or indignantly flung at, when wards of eternity. When the New Tesit offers to engross the whole heart, or to tament affirms the value of good works, make too large or ostensible an inroad on it is their value, even though not yet perthe state and history of human affairs. feet, in regrard to their moral rightnessBut for a field-of so much extent and la- which moral rightness brightens nmore and titude, we verily at present have no time; more unto perfection, till at length it and must be content now with but one passes into the sacredness of heaven, and observation on a certain apparent cross- becomes meet for the exercises and the ness or contrariety of sentiment in the joys of eternity. A Christian utterly redoctrines of Christ and His Apostles- nounces all good works, as having any which has an effect rather to gravel the value in them to confer a legal right t.c understanding, than to alienate the affec- heaven. And yet a Christian devotes tions of' men. We advert to the place himself assiduously to the performance wvhich the law and the works of the law of good works, as having in them that have in the theological system of the virtue of moral rightness which is in itNew Testament-where at one time they self the very essence of heaven. For his are set aside as utterly insignificant; and legal right to heaven, his whole reliance at another it seems to be represented as is on the obedience of Christ, as that which the very end as the ultimate landing-place hath alone won and purchased it. For of Christianity, to make its disciples his personal meetness for heaven, he plies zealous and perfect and thoroughly fur- all the strength that is in him, whether by nished unto all good works. There is the nature or by grace, in order to perfect his semblance of a most obvious, nay very own obedience. LECTURE LXXVI. ROMANS X, 1. " Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved." THE words of this text derive a special position which it here occupies. You will and an augmented interest from the very I observe that it is at the close of a very LECTURE LXXVI. —CHAPTER X, 1. elaborate argument held by our apostle should be a most distinct and discernille an the high topic of predestination; and path which winds around its basement, from which the reader is fully warranted and by which the lowliest of Zion's travelto imagine, that those Israelites, in whose lets may find an ascending way, that at behalf he plies Heaven with such fervent length when the toils of his pilgrimage importunity, liad already been the objects are ended, will land him in a pllace of of Heaven's irrevocable decree. It is alto- purest transparency, where he shall know gether worthy of notice, that, in this in- even as he is known. There are some stance, the preordination of the Creator whose vision can carry them more aloft did not supersede the prayers of the among the heights of arduous speculation. creature; and that he who saw the far- Yet let none be discouraged-for there is thest into tne counsels of the Divinity a way of duty that may be practised and above, saw nothing there which should of doctrine that may be understood which affect either the diligence or the devotions is accessible to all-a way the entrance of any humble worshipper below. We upon which requires but the union of a believe that there are some men with desirous heart with adoing hand-a union loftier reach of intellect than their fel- this that is often realized by the veriest lows, who can discern the harmony be- babe in intellect; who, wholly unable tween these two things; or how it is that though he be to scan the awful mysteries the seat of the Eternal might be assailed of a predestinating God, yet can lift the with prayer, on a matter wlhereabout the prayer both of affection and confidence, purposes of the Eternal have been unal- while looking to Ilim in the more legible terably fixed from the foundations of the as well as more lovely aspect of a God world. They can perceive that either the that waiteth to be gracious. prayer, or the performance of man, is but Our first remark then is that predestia step in that vast pro0gression which con- nation should be no barrier in the way of nects his final destiny with the first pur- prayer. Our second is, that unless the poses of God; and that, being as indis- desire of the heart goes before it, it is no pensable a step as any single link is to prayer at all. Prayer is the utterance of the continuity of the whole chain, it must desire, and without desire is bereft of all be made sure else we shall never arrive its significancy. The virtue does not lie at the right or prosperous termination. in the articulation-but altogether in the In other words, if' man will not address wisii which precedes, or rather which himself to the business of supplication, prompts it. Prayer is an act of the soul, the blessing of salvation will not follow; and the bodily organ is but the instruand, however indelible the characters ment and not the agent of this service. may be in which the ultimate futurities of The soul which thinks and wills and mnan are written in the book of heaven, places its hopes or its affections on any this, it would appear, should not foreclose given object-this and this alone is thb but rather stimulate both his prayers and agent in prayer. Insomuch that although his efforts upon earth. There be a few not one word should have been framed by who can clearly discern the adjustments the lips, or emitted in language from the of this seeming difficulty; but for these, mouth-the man might substantially be there are many, who, should they attempt praying. It is thus that he might pray to resolve, would sink under it as a mys- without ceasing. In company, or in busitery of all others the most hopeless and ness, or in any scene whatever whether impracticable. To these we would say of duty or of discipline, there might at that they should quit the arduous specu- least be a prayerful heart apart from the lation, and keep by the obvious duty- formalities of prayer-a supplicatory, a taking their lesson from Paul, who,.though kneeling attitude, on the part of his inner just alighted from the daring ascents man, and to which he is bowed down which he had made among the past or- continually by an aspiring earnestness dinations of the Godhead, forthwith busies on the one hand to be and to do at all himself among the plain and the present times as he ought; and by a lowly sense duties of the humble Christian; and so on the other hand of his native insuffimakes it palpable to the Church through- ciency and dependence on a higher power out all ages, that, however deep or hard than his own, for being constantly upto be understood his article of predestina- holden in the way of rectitude. This wilt tion mav be, there is nothing in it which be sustained as prayer by Him who) should hinder performance, there is no- weigheth the secrets of the spirit; and, on thing in it which should hinder prayer. the contrary, all expression disjoined friom Theology has its steeps and its alti- this will be dealt with as an affronting tudes-pinnacles far out of sight, or shoot- mockery of Heaven. It is true that in the ing upwardly to heaven till lost in the case of prayer, God has committed Himcloudy envelopment which surrounds self to the amplest promises of fulfilment; them. Yet this does not hinder that there And all nature and providence would be LECTURE LXXVT — CrTPTER XI 1. 385 at our command, if the mere verbality of sacredness-We cannot but recognise a petition upon our part were to bring somewhat like the dregs of our ancient upon God the literal obligation of' these superstition in this great periodical horn. promises. But IIe is not pledged to the age, founded as it often is on a sort of ma. accomplishment of any prayer where the gical or mystic spell which is ascribed to desire of the heart does not originate the sacraments. utterance of the mouth. The want of Be assured of this and of every other such desire nullifies the prayer; and to ordinance of Christianity, that, unless im imagine otherwise would be to revive the pregnated with life and meaning, it is but superstition of' other days-when a reli- a skeleton or framework-a body without gious service, instead of' being held as a a soul-a mere service of bone and mus community of thought and spirit between cle-which the hand can perform, but the creature and the Creator, consisted in which the heart with all its high functions the mere handiwork of a certain and of thought aLnd sensibility has no share stated ceremonial. And be assured-that in. It stands in the same relation of in neither the counting of beads nor the con- feriority to genuine religion, that the ning of Pater-nosters is at all more irra- drudgery of an animal does to the devotional, than are those devotions, whether tion of a seraph. This is not the service of the closet or the sanctuary, which the which God who is a Spirit requires of his heart does not emanate. or the heart does worshippers —who, to worship IHim acnot go along with. ceptably, must do it in spirit and in truth. This remark, obvious although it be, Religion is no doubt the homage of creashould be urged more especially on the tures who are immeasurable beneath the coming round of every great religious Sovereign whom they address; but still it anniversary. Although Popery in respect is the homage of' intelligent creaturesof denomination may have gone conclu- the homage of. the subordinate to the Susively forth of our borders-yet in respect preme intelligence-of beings, therefore, of spirit and character may it still abide who look with the eye of their mind toin the land, and be as inveterately rooted wards Him who sits in presiding authoras ever in the hearts of our polpulation. ity over the universe which Ile has made; Even long after that the creed of these and who at the same time are conscious, realms has been purified of all that is erro- that they are looked upon with the eye of neous in the dogmata of Catholics, might a Mind that discerns all and that judges the conscience be infected with a certain all. In one word, if in the doing of any Catholic imagination, which in truth forms ordinance there be not the intercourse of by far the most misleading heresy of the mind with mind, there substantially is noChurch of Rome. It consists in the charm thing; and yet we fear it to be just such which is ascribed to mere handiwork, to a nothingness as is yielded by many who performance separate from principle, to are regular in prayer, and who walk that bodily exercise whereof the apostle with decency and order through the saith that without godliness which is a rounds of a sacrament. In this wretched thing of soul and sentiment altogether it drivelling, both superstition and hypocrprofiteth little. Their delusion is that it sy appearto be blended —avainconfidence profiteth much; and we fear it is a delu- in the efficacy of forms, and at the same sion which has left deep and enduring time a willing substitution of them for traces behind it, even among a people the purer but more arduous services of a who have abjured the communion of Po- moral and spiritual obedience. It is this pery, and would treat its disciples wifh last alone which availeth. Your sacraintolerance. Under all the disguises of ment is vain, if the dedication of the our Protestantism, the inveteracy of the whole life to God do not come after it. olden spirit breaks forth at sacraments. Your prayer is vain, if, unlike the aposAnd when we behold of many who tle's in the text, the desire of the whole breathe the element of irre-ligion through heart have not gone before it. the year, how at the proclamation of this But let us now attend to the subject of great religious festival they come forth in the prayer-even that Israel might be families-how although on any other Sab- saved. And here we may remark that bath the ordinary services of the house although desire be a constituent part of of God should be honoured with but half prayer and therefore essential both to its a congregation or with half an attend- reality and to its acceptance-yet it is rnce, yet on the Sabbath and the service not all desire thus lifted up from earth extraordinary, the place should teem to that will meet with acceptance in heaven. an overflow with worshippers-how an It were an attempt much too unwieldy at importance so visible should be given to present, yet none more interesting, to this solemnity, and by those who have specify what all the desires are of creanot habitually in their hearts any solemn tures here below which are sure of welreverence for the things-or obligations of come and of a willing response in the 49 386 LECTURE LXXVI.-CHAPTER X, 1. sanctuary above. It is not every random sion of it. At least there seems, in'hai desire that will meet with such a recep- -gracious economy under which we live, lion-for the same scripture which holds to be but one stepping-stone betweer out the promise of "' ask and ye shall re- them; and that is prayer. So very near ceive," has also held out the warning that and accessible to us has God made the many ask and receive not " because they blessedness of our eternity. He has posask amiss, that they may consume it upon itively committed His attribute of truth to their lusts." Still, believing as we do, the declaration, that if men will but ask that Scripture does furnish the principles He will bestow. He has invested, as it by which to discriminate the warrantable were, every honest petitioner with a from the unwarrantable-and so, if I may power over his own future and everlast thus speak, to classify the topics of' prayer ing destiny; and made the avenue so — we know not any exposition of greater open between the earth we tread upon practical importance, than what those and His own upper sanctuary, that if the things are which we may confidently bent or aspiration of our soul be towards seek at the hand of God even till we have heaven, heaven with all its glory and its obtained them; and what those other happiness is our own. This at least is things on the seeking after which the the object of a most legitimate desire, and Bible lays such discouragement, that we thiat prayer is a most legitimate one which dare not or rather cannot though we proceedeth therefrom. Ask and ye shall would pray for them in faith, or pray f)r receive, is a promise which embraces them in that which gives to every request within the rightful scope of it, all that is its prevalence and its power. As an ex- good for the soul and for the soul's eterample of what now I can but briefly nity. And so let us ask till we receivetouch upon, it is written " that if' we ask let us seek till we find-let us knock till any thing according to his will he hear- the door of salvation is opened to us. eth us." This does not confer a sanction But thus to say that we may have salvaupon every suit or solicitation that we tion for the asking; certainly points out may press at the court of heaven, but what may be called a very cheap way of certainly upon a vast number of them. obtaining it-Cheaper far than we naturalThus surely, every petition in that prayer ly or usually have any imagination of. For which He himself hath dictated, even the what may be easier it is thought than the Lord's prayer may, as according most utterance of a prayer-and even although thoroughly with His own will, be prefer- desire should be indispensable to the sucred with utmost confidence on our part; cess of it, we will not on that account and so it is that while we have no war- lose our object in the present instancerant to pray for this world's riches, we for who is there that desireth not the salhave a perfect warrant to pray for daily vation of his soulS Is there a human bread. The same principle of agreeable- creature that breathes, who would not ness to the will of God sustains our faith, like to be assured of his exemption from when praying in behalf either of our- the agonies of a hideous and intolerable selves or others, for the riches of a glori- hell, and who would not prefer to spend ous immortality-being expressly told his eternity in the palaces of heaven 1 Put that God willeth such intercessions to be the question even to the most reckless made for all men, and on this ground and abandoned in all sorts of profligacy, too that He willeth all men to be saved. would it not be his dread and his averSuch is the large and liberal warrant sion to lie down amongst the everlasting that we have from God Himself for turn- burnings of the place of condemnation; ing our desire into a request, when the and would it not be his choice rather, to object of that desire is salvation. No be regaled throughout the unceasing ages imagined desire on the part of God, or of a glorious immortality, by those rivers imagined destiny on the part of man, of pleasure, and amid those sounds of jushould lay an arrest on this plain exercise. bilee, which cease not day nor night in Let there be but a desire in our heart the paradise of God? There is an inafter salvation, even as there was a desire stinctive horror of pain which belongs to in the heart of Paul for the salvation of all, and there is an instinctive love of his countrymen the Jews; and the patent enjoyment which equally belongs to all; way of arriving at our object is just to and these it may be thought, will guaranvent this desire in confident utterance tee a desire and an honest desire with before the mercy-seat of Heaven. So every possessor of a sentient nature for near does God bring salvation to us-So his salvation from the one, and for his fully does lie place it within the reach of secure inheritance of the other. So that all, and at the receiving of all. It is just if it be enough for the salvation of any as if we had it for the taking; or as if no that it should be his heart's desire and obstacle whatever intervened between our prayer to be saved-who after all wants mquecre wish for it, and our secure posses- the desire, and who is there that might LECTURE LXXVI.-CHAPTER X, 1. 387 not prnay' This of all subjects, it may ments and the everlasting security of hea. well be reckoned, should be one where yen. The one takes place after death, the instigation of the heart is in unison The other takes place now. At least it with the utterance of the mouth; and has its commencement in time, though its thus while God wills the salvation of all, perfect consummation is in eternity. and man both wills and asks it, what You will now understand what the le. obstacle can exist in the way of Heaven gitimate desire is which should animate -or why should there be the distance of the heart when the mouth utters a prayer a single hairbreadth between any soul and for salvation. There is the desire it is the certainty of its salvation? true for a future and everlasting happiThat you may apprehend aright how ness —but there is also desire for present this matter stands, let me state to you the holiness. There is no other salvatior whole extent and import of the term sal- held out to us in promise or in prospect vation. We are aware of its common throughout the New Testament. It is the acceptation in the world-as if it signified only salvation which man has a warrant but a deliverance from the penalty of sin. to ask; and it is the only salvation which Whereas, additionally to this, it signifies God is willing to bestow. Nothing more deliverance from sin itself. He shall be true than that if man really wills the called Jesus said the angel, for He shall thing which he prays for, and if the thing save his people from their sins-save them be agreeable to the will of God, he will from a great deal more let me assure you certainly obtain it. Now God, on the one than the torment of sin's penalty, even hand, willeth all men to be saved; and if fiom the tyranny of sin's power. The any one of these men, on the other, will one salvation is spoken of' when it is said for his salvation, every barrier appears to of' Jesus that he hath delivered us from be done away, and the sinner is on the the wrath which is to come. Th'e other eve of a great and glorious enlargement. salvation is spoken of when it is said of But be sure that you understand what this Him, that lie hath delivered us from the will for salvation means. It is not merely present evil world. The first secures for that the hand of vengeance shall be lifted the sinner a change of place. The second off from you. It is also that the spirit of secures for him a change of principle. By glory and of virtue shall rest upon you. the one there is effected a translation of his It is not merely that you shall obtain a person, from what is locally hell to what is personal exemption from that lake of livlocally heaven. By the other there is ef- ing agony into which are thrown the outfected a translation of his heart and spirit, casts of condemnation. It is also that you from that which is the reigning character shall obtain a spiritual exemption from of hell to that which is the reigning charac- the vice and the voluptuousness and all ter of heaven. The one is but a personal the worldly affections which animate the emancipation from the agonies of a tre- passions and pursuits of the unregenerate mendous suffering which is physical, to upon earth. It is not alone for some the Joys of an exquisite gratification which vague and indefinite blessedness in future. is also physical. The other is a higher It is for a renovation of taste and of charfor it is a moral emancipation from the acter at present. The man in fact who thraldom of sensuality and sin to the light desires aright and prays aright for the and the love and the liberty of a new object of his salvation, is not merely on heaven-born sacredness. This last is an the eve of a great revolution in his prusinseparable constituent of the gospel sal- pects_ for eternity. HIe is on the eve of a vation-or rather I would say that it is great moral revolution in his heart and the constituting essence of it. The other in his history at this moment. this prayer is more the accompaniment than the es- to be saved embraces it is true the transsence. The essential salvation surely is ference of his person on the other side of that which stands related to the moral death, from the torments of hell to the economy of man, even his deliverance transports of paradise-but without a from sin unto holiness. The subordinate transference of character on this side of or the accessory salvation is that which death the thing is impossible; and so stands related to his animal or sentient there is enveloped in the prayer this cry ecororny, even his deliverance from the of aspiring earnestness-" 0 Godt create fire and brimstone of hell to the music in me a clean heart, and renew a right and thel splendour and the sensible enjoy. spirit within me." 358fi8 LECTURE LXXVII.-CHAPTER XI 1. LECTURE LXXVHII ROMANS X, 1.'Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.,: MAN on the one hand might like to be I im, it must be a land of uprightness put into a state of happiness without holi- and love must be the music which glad Iless; but God on the other han(l does not dens it; and the atmosphere which blows like that such a happiness shall be con- and circulates around its habitations must ferred upon him. Let a sinner pray with be one of ethereal purity. Himself will all fervency for his deliverance from hell lay out and decorate the precincts of His and translation into heaven —he prays f6r own dwelling-place —nor will He suffer that which is not agreeable to the will of aught to settle there which can violate God, if he desire not at the same time to the moral harmony of such a scene, or be filled with heaven's charity and mar the spectacle of its perfect and unheaven's sacredness. Heaven we are told spotted holiness. is that pure and holy place into which Now remember that in praying to be nought that is impure and nought that is saved, you just pray that such a heaven unholy can enter; and the sinner who may be the place of your settlement cries for salvation yet would keep by his through all eternity. Else there is no impurities, is wasting the desirousness of significancy in your prayer. It is not his heart on an object that is impossible. enough.that you seize by faith on a deed It is most assuredly not God's will that of justification. You must with diligence heaven should be peopletl with any but and effort and all the expedients of moral those, who, of the same family likeness and spiritual culture, enter forthwith on a with Himself, reflect His own image back busy process of sanctification. It is well again upon that throne which is irradia- that Jesus Christ hath by the expiation of ted with the lustre anid the loveliness of the cross, moved away that barrier which all virtue. It is said that when HeI first obstructed our access to the Jerusalem willed the visible creation into existence, above. But, now that a way for the ranand looked over that terrestrial platform somed of the Lord is open, let us forget which His hand had goarnished with so) not that it is the way of holiness. There many beauties, I-He pronounced it to be all is a work of salvation going on in heaven, very good. Eveu for the graces of mute and by which Jesus Christ in some way and unconscious materialism the Divinity that He hath not explained is there emmay be satid to have a taste and an appro- ployed in preparing a place for us. "1 go bation; and in the tints and the forms of to prepare a place for you." But there is Nature's glorious panorama, its ocean and also a work of salvation going on in earth, its landscapes and its skies, hath the Su- and by which Jesus Christ through His preme Architect of our universe embodied word and Spirit is here employed in preHIis own primary conceptions of the fair paring us for the place. And our distinct and the exquisite and the noble. He de- business is to be, ever practising and ever lights in beauty, and is revolted by de- improving ourselves in the virtues of this formity even in the world of matter; and preparation. It is not a selfish affection the far higher characteristics which ob- for happiness in the general which forms tain in the world of spirits, call forth pro- the leading principle of Christianity. It portionally higher and stronger affec- is a sacred affection for that happiness tions in the breast of the Godhead. He which lies in holiness-or rather for that loves the happiness of His creatures, but holiness, which, to every being possessed He loves their virtue more. And so from of a moral nature, brings the best and the that moral landscape in paradise by highest happiness in its train. In one word, which His own immediate presence is if' you take the right aim for salvation, tt surrounded, all that offendeth shall be must be a moral heaven to which you asrooted out. There is nought of the sinful pire; and ere you can find entrance into or the sordid that can be admitted there. such a heaven you must be moralised. The God who loveth righteousness and This desire for salvation then, if rightly hateth iniquity would not tolerate the understood, is desire for a present holisight of what is evil. Heaven is the place ness. This longing after heaven at the of His own especial residence; and He last, is, with every honest and intelligent will fill and beautify it according to His disciple, a longing after the virtues now own taste for the higher graces of the which flourish there. There will be an mind, to His own conceptions of spiritual immediate entrance on heaven's uprightworth and spiritual excellence. To suit ness and heaven's piety. So long as we LECTURE LXXVII.-CHAPTER X: -. 389 a S in this world, we have neither reached and degrading superstition, In the thought.he hell or the heaven of eternity. We that your claim for heaven can at all be are only on the one or the other of those improved by an act of sacredness which paths which lead to themn Now to turn leaves not one habit or one affection of from the wrong to the right path, is just sacredness behind it. This we particu. to turn from sin unto sacredness. And, in larly address to those who make due prethe very. act of so turning, we receive sentation of themselves on the communion strength for all the faitigues of that new Sabbath, and discharge themselves of all journey which leadeth unto Zion. Turn the punctualities of the communion table, unto me says God, and I will pour out my and yet the whole year round cleave most Spirit upon you. This influence from on tenaciously and with hearts full of secunigh will be given to your efforts and larity to the dust of a perishable world-. your prayers. Your prayer for some ab- who in hand and in person intrornit with stract and indefinite beatitude in another all the forms of' the ordinance, but catch state of' being, is not a prayer which ac- not so much as one breath upon their cords with the will of God; and can no spirits from the air of the upper sanctumore be listened to by Him or meet with ary-or, if they do experience among the acceptance, than any sordid or selfish solemnities of' a rare and remarkable petition for some luxury or splendour of occasion some transient inspiration, all is this world which your heart is set upon. dissipated, and goes to nought, when they But when, instead of this, the prayer is return to their homes and thence lapse for that beatitude which lies in holiness; again into all the earthliness of their unwhen it is a prayer for the very beatitude changed natures. Be assured that the of the good and the glorified spirits in part you thus take in what may be called heaven; when the desire for a joyful the mechanism of a sacrament, without any eternity above is thus consecrated by a part in the mind which should animate and desire for grace and godliness below; in pervade it, will leave no other bearing on one word, when, in place of a mere ani- your immortal state than just to aggramal or selfish aspiration for the comfort, vate your condemnation; and therefore it becomes a moral and a sacred aspira- to escape the guilt which lies in this tion for the character of heaven the mockery of Heaven, and to turn the norprayer to a holy Creator from a creature ron's service into the real purposes of desirous to be holy-then, in the answer your salvation, let me entreat you to open of such a prayer, will the gospel make full your heart to the affecting realities which vindication of that gracious economy are couched in the symbols and shadowed which it announces to the world. The forth as it were in the acts of the institupardon of his sins through the blood of tion. The broad and the wine which are Christ, is as free to him as are the light the memorials of your atonement should and air of heaven to the commoners of encourage even the guiltiest of' you all to nature. The spirit who gives him vic- draw nigh in fhith —fr there is no guilt tory over his sins and upholds him on beyond the reach of that atonement. But his advancing way to all ri:ghteousness, is remember that you also draw nigh Fwith alike free to him-nor does there exist full purpose of heart after the new obed(ione obstacle in the way of his salvation, ence of the gospel. Corning thus, you who is honestly intent to be as he ought are warranted to sit down at the table of and to do as he ought. the sacrament; and the prayers ot;a heart This argument is not wholly inappli- desirous of a present holiness as of a cable at a sacramental season, which gen- future heaven, will most surely meet with erally mere than usual is a season of devo- acceptance, and as surely be answered tion.'lhere comesnow upon many a spirit a with power. Your prayer to be saved greater than its wonted desirousness about from the punishment of' sin, lifted while the things of eternity; and there is withal the emblems of the Redeemer's sacrifice the imagination that what you are to do are before you, will most certainly pre upon the morrow,* is somehow connected vail. Your prayer to be saved friom the with the furtherance and the security of power of sin, lifted in the presence of your everlasting interests. Now the im- Him who is Master of the assembly and pression which I want to leave upon you to whom the dispensation of the Spirit;s, that your good in a future world can has been committed, will as certainly prein no conceivable way be promoted by it, vail; and your joining in this ordinance but in so far as it subserves your good- will contribute to save, just as far as it ness in this world. The literalities of a contributes to sanctify you. sacramental observation will of them- But I have all along spoken as if this selves avail you nothing; and,here is were a direct prayer for the object of superstition, at once the most deceitful one's own personal salvation. Whereas it is an intercessory prayer, and suggests Preached on the day before Sacrament. what we ought to do for the salvation of 390 LECTURE LXXVII. CHAPTER X, I. those who are cear to us. Paul had made warnings, all his friendly but ineffectuwt many a vain effort for the salvation of his protestations. All these may, like other countrymen. In every city where he zealous missionaries, have had but a hard found them, he began with the Jews ere experience. They may have long been he addressed the overtures of the gospel in contact and collision with the power to the Gentiles. His obligation to them of sin and unbelief in the hearts of others, was the first obligation of which he ac- and had much to discourage them. Their quitted himself. In the discharge of it fidelity may have given offence-their afhe incurred many a hazard; and brought fectionate counsels may have been spurn. upon himself the hatred of those who had ed-their moral earnestness may have been formerly his friends; and made pro- been laughed at-all their expedients to digious exertion in the way of travelling, impress or to convince may have vanishand preaching, and doing all the labours ed into impotency-their very speech of the apostolical office, in behalf of these may at length become a signal for the his kinsmen according to the flesh; and attitude of suspicion and of prompt resistnot till compelled by the hostility of a ance on the part of their fellows-And so whole nation either to flee from place to their every argument might only strengthplace, or turn him to the Gentiles, did he en, might only confirm, the impenitency desist from the strenuousness of his efforts which it was meant to soften or do away. to secure the immortal well-being of those In these, and in many other ways, might in his own family or ill his own land. they receive most palpable intimation And even after every effort failed, still he that they are doing no good; and even had recourse to prayer. The desire of perhaps but fixing more inveterately than his heart was not extinguished by the dis- before the distaste of children or of friends appointment he met with upon earth; for God and godliness. And so might but when baffled and thrown back upon they be tempted to desist, even as the him there, it took an upward direction to apostles desisted, from their countrymen. heaven-when obstructed on all sides by Yet let them never forget, that what has the resistance of man, it ascended without heretofore been impracticable to performobstruction to the throne of God. Even ance may not be impracticable to prayer. in the busiest period of his work and his With man it may be impossible; but warfare for the conversion of these ob- with God all things are possible. That stinate Israelites, he mixed with his ac- cause which has so oft been defeated and tivities his prayers-but after that the is now hopeless on the field of exertion activities were repressed, the prayers may on the field of prayer and of faith be continued to arise. He was forced to triumphant. Never cease then your sup) desist from the labours of the hand —but plications to the sanctuary above: for the love in his heart still abode un- that power to turn the unregenerate and quenched and unquenchable: and when subdue them-which all your experience he could do no more, he prayed for them. has told you does not reside unless it be This survived the longest and the last of' given, in the earthen vessels that are all the other expedients; and lonog after below. Let those anxieties for the Chrishe had found it was vain to labour, he did tianity either of your household or of not think it was vain to pray. your aquaintanceship, which have hitherThis might serve as admonition to to been so unproductive of good-let those whose hearts are set on the eternity them still continue to be unbosomed as of relatives or friends —to the mother who before in the ear of your Father in heaven. has watched and laboured for years that He willeth intercessions to be made for the good seed might have fixture in the all men, and He willeth all men to be hearts of her children, but does not find saved. These declarations place you on that this precious deposit has yet settled firm and high vantage-ground in praying or had occupation there-to the sister for human souls; and never, we may be whose gentle yet earnest remonstrances well assured, never, can any intercession have been wholly unable to control a be lifted with greater acceptance than brother's waywardness-to that one mem- that of a Christian parent, when he asks ber perhaps of a family whom the grace in behalf of those children who now gladof the Spirit hath selected, and who now den his home upon earth-that they shall strives and supplicates in the midst of an be preserved and permitted to spend with alienated household, that all may be ar- Him their eternity in heaven. rested in their way and turned unto God It must not be disguised however, that -to that holy and heaven-born disciple, this is a matter on which parents may whomrn the pollutions of the world have delude themselves —that in their disincli. touched not; but who standing alone in nation to spiritual things, and their indo.' companionship of scorners, mourns lence together, they may be glad to stand 3ve(r the profaneness and the profligacy exonerated from the fatigues of performthat hitherto have marked all his solemn ance, and take refuge in the formalities LECTURE LXXV1I.-CHAPTER X, 1. 39 i of prayer-that under the semblance of mises of the Bible nobly accredited by doing homage to the omnipotence of the verifications of experience; and tha grace, they may omit the doing of those interchange of petitions and their responthings which it is the office of grace to ses between heaven and earth would de. make effectual for the conversion of the monstrate to the eye of observation, that human spirit-that in contemplating the there was indeed a living reality in the part of the Holy Ghost as the agent, they gospel. Even as it is, though we cannot may forget their own part as the instru- just say that Christianity always runs in ments of this mighty operation; And families, yet frequent enough are the intherefore would we warn them lest they stances of a transmitted faith and a transturn the orthodoxy of their creed, into a mitted holiness from parents unto chiljustification for the laxity and remissness dren-to assure us that did the former but of their conduct. That prayer never can acquit themselves in all strenuousness avail which is not the prayer of honesty; and with all supplication, of their duty, and it is not the prayer of honesty, if, the blessing of an efficiency from above even though you pray to the uttermost would descend upon the souls of the latfor the religion of others, you do not also ter; and manifold more than at present perform to the uttermost. Could we only would be the examples of those who were purge the prayers of men of all their hy- born unto Christian parents being also pocrisy, then should we behold the pro- born unto God. LECTURE LXXVIII. ROMANS X, 2. "For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge." VER. 2. It is evident from this verse some great and palpable unlikelihoodthat the Israelites had one good quality as in praying for that which you either while they wanted another. But the re- know to be agreeable to the will of God, markable thing-I had almost said the or to be in harmony with the established strange thing of this verse-is, that the processes of nature and of providence. It apostle should make their possession of is thus that you could not pray so hopethis one good quality the reason of his fuily for the salvation of a thorough and prayer.' It is my prayer that they might confirmed reprobate, as for that of a man be saved-for I bear them record that in whom you could perceive some lurking they have a zeal of God.' They had zeal, remainders of good-some aspirations tobut they wanted knowledge. One would wards a state of betterness-some sympthink, that, if they wanted both, they toms or promises of a coming penitency would at least stand in greater need of his or coming amendment. When all these prayers; and the mystery is, how it comes are utterly extinguished, then faith is exabout, that their having something of tinguished, and the tongue of prayer is what is good should be the moving cause either put to silence or paralysed. There why Paul should be led to pray for their is the despair of any reformation; and supreme good, even the everlasting salva- whosoever asks for that which he despairs tion of their souls —a pretty plain intima- of; let not that man think that he shall tion, that if they had not been in the pos- obtain it of the Lord. There is a dlepensession at least of this something, if they dance affirmed constantly in the New had not had thus much of good, even zeal Testament between that faith wherewith for God, he would not have prayed for a prayer ascends upwardly to heaven, them. and that fulfilment which comes in anThe only explanation I can give of swer thereto downwardly upon earth; and this peculiarity, and it appears to me a whatever therefore shall tell adversely or very probable one, is this. You know favourably on the faith of supplicants that it is only the prayer of faith that below, must tell adversely or favourably availeth; and that in proportion as this on the fulfilments that are granted in the faith is staggered or weakened in any sanctuary above. And so it is just as if manner, in that proportion prayer loses all chance of a man's salvation were done of its efficacy. It is thus that you have away, when all hope of it had died away not the same heart, the same encourage- from the hearts of those who should pray ment, the same confidence, in praying for for it. 392 LECTURE LXXVIII.-CI~APTER A, k. There is an observable harmony here all prayer about them. He still observed between that process which takes place in one good point or property in the charac. the hearts of believers, and that process ter of that nation-a zeal of God, even which takes place in the counsels and that very zeal which actuated himself acts of the upper sanctuary. You know when he breathed forth threatenings and that according to the usual methods of slaughter against Christians-And so he the divine administration, the Spirit is still could hope, and still could pray for given in larger measure and larger mani- them. festations to those who have duteously From the materials of such an arguresponded to His earlier intimations, or meont as this there may be constructed a made right and faithful use of' His first powerful appeal, by which, if possible, to and feebler influences upon their hearts- arrest the headlong way of that moral whereas He is more and more withdrawn desperado, who, hastening on from one from those who quarrel or who resist enormity to another, is fast losing all the these first impressions of His upon the delicacies of' conscience, the truth and the conscience-so that at length He may tenderness of other days-in whose breast take a final and irrecoverable departure that light of the inner man which has away from their souls, and abandon to been termed the candle of the Lord is their own infittuation the unhappy men, fatding away to its ultimate extinction; who, growing every year in moral hardi- and whom the Spirit, tired and provoked hood, live in the recklessness of' all that by the stubborn resistance of all His is sacred, and die at the last in fatal ima- warning, is on the eve perhaps of' abanpenitency. With this view of it you will don ing, andd that forever, to his own heart's be at no loss to understand the saying — wickedness since he will have it so. Every that to him who hath, more shall be given; year finds him a more confirmed alien and from him who hath not, there shall from God, and stouter in all the purposes be taken away even that which he hath. of rebellion than before. The disease of Paul himself, who served God with good his soul grows and gathers in inveteracyconscience from his youth, though then till, encrusted all over with that judicial in ignorance and in unbelief; had at hardness to which he has been delivered, length a full revelation given to him- all the touching demonstrations of Proviwhereas those of' his countrymen who dence and all the loud artillery of menaceven against conscience maligned and re- ing sermons play upon him in vain. Even sisted the Saviour, and so put away from when age and disease overtake him, even them the things which belonged to their the alarum bell of his coming mortality peace, were delivered up to that state of might bring no terror to his ear; and with judicial blindness in which they were for all his sensibilities lying prostrate under ever hid from their eyes. The life of a the power of that corruption which has Christian is made up of perpetual acces- withered them, he may be alike unapsions of grace from oiie degree of' it to palled by the demonstrations of his guilt, another, till he arrives at perfection, and and the fell denunciations of the venis ripe for glory. The life of an impeni- geance which is due to it. The truth is tent is made up of perpetual and succes- that he is sunken, he is profoundly sunken sive extinctions of one good feeling, of in spiritual lethargy; and now beyond one lingering sensibility after another, till the possibility of recall, he affords the he pass away into utter darkness, and is dire and the dreadful spectacle of a helpripe for the awful the irremediable de- less a hopeless creature, whom the Spirit struction which follows it. There is a point of God hath irrecoverably forsaken. Know somewhere in this dismal this descending then all ye regardless hearers who have pathway, where the irrecoverable step is etclred and are now walking on a path taken, and he has sinned unto death. of t'ilful iniquity, that this is the state to You will here be reminded of the apostle wnhch you are descending. Your fiiends John, who bids us pray for. those who behold the progress of this impenitency. have not sinned unto death; but who They sigh and they even supplicate Hieaadds that there is a, sin unto deaLh and ven on your account; but the time may I do not say that he should pray for it." speedily arrive, when the characteristics Now, as the last symptoms of any re- of your impiety shall look so indelible maining good die away fiow the charac- and so desperate, that to supplicate in ter of these reprobates, so the Jast sparks faitith is beyond them. And 0 is it not of a hope for their recovery die away time to retrace your footsteps on this way from the hearts of by-standers who are of destruction, unknowing as you are how looking on, and who at length cease to near or how soon you shall be on the persuade and even cease to pray for them. verge of that condition when the Spirit Paul had not just sunk so low in despon- of God shall cease to strive; and the very dency with regard to the Jews, He was parents who gave you birth may weep, not yet discouraged out of all faith and but cannot pray for you LECTURE LXXV1LI.-CHAPTER X, 2. 393 The Jewish character was not yet so many are said to perish for lack of know. utterly desolated of all worth and good- ledge. When Christ shall come in flaming ness, as to drive the apostle from hope's fire and amid the elements of dissolving last refuge-even prayer. They wanted nature, it is to take vengeance on those knowledge, but they had zeal; and this who know not God. Knowledge and so far propped his spirit in that exercise, ignorance in fact are dealt with, even as to the success of which a certain faith. righteousness and sin are dealt with and a certain hopefulness are so indis- They are dealt with morally, or as the pensable. That must have been a valua- proper subjects of a moral reckoning; ble property, in virtue of which they and whereas under our existing economy cculd still be prayed for. But that on the the pleasures and preferments of a joyful other hand must have been a most impor- eternity in heaven come in train of the tant and essential property, from the want one, hell and destruction and all the penal of which they eventually perished. Had consequences of guilt in most frightful they added knowledge to their zeal, they aggravation are made to follow in train would still have remained the favourites of the other. of Heaven; and fromrn the actual history Now the question is, ought this in of the Jewish people, we may learn what moral fairness to be? The equity of such a serious want the want of knowledge is. a dispensation has been stoutly and openly That day of' their tremendous visitation, denied. It has been asked if man be re. in the prospect of which our Saviour shed sponsible for knowledge or understanding tears over their devoted city, came upon or belief, just as he is responsible for the them, to use His own language, just be- dispositions of his heart or the doings of cause they knew not the things which his hand. Theyv can understand how man belonged to their peace. Their ruin as a should be punished for his wrong behanation was the effiect of their ignorance; viour. But they understand not how man and in that fearful that overwhelming should be punished for his wrong belief. doom which our Saviour wept over, but The difficulty is to conceive on what would not recall, we have experimental ground the mere views of the understandproof of that alliance which obtains, by ing should properly be made the subjects the ordinations of the gospel, between the of count or reckoning at all. Are the knowledge of man and his salvation, on wrong views of the understanding to be the one hand, and between the want of resented or revenged upon, just as you that knowledge, and his utter and irre- would resent or revenge the wrong voliversible wretchedness, upon the other. tions of the will? You at once perceive The judgment which went forth against the justice of retribution for the conduct. them because of their ignorance, had in But you do not perceive the justice of it as much of the spirit and character of a retribution for the creed. You would vengeance, as if it had been inflicted on never think of blame or of vengeance the worst moral perversities whereof either for the height of a man's stature, humanity is capable. It is true that the or for the hue and the features of his awful extermination came upon them, countenance. And in like manner the because they had killed the Prince of opinions of the judgment are held by life. But it was in the spirit of a blind some to be equally exempted, as things zeal, and as Peter and John testify, through of physical and organic necessity, from ignorance that they did it. Their con- blame or fromr vengeance. Man is held demnation still resolves itself into the by them to be responsible for his doings, want of knowledge —for had they known, which he can help; but not for his docPaul says, they would not have crucified trines, which they say he cannot help — the Lord of glory. Let us not then under- And so the God of Christianity has been rate the importance of knowledge in charged with unrighteousness; and Chrisreligion; nor, under the imagination that tianity itself with this dread inscription ignorance is not a responsible or not a upon its forehead that "He who believeth punishable offence, hold that men might not shall be damned"-has been indigbe in safety however defective in point nantly exclaimed against as a hard and 6f information, however wrong in point a most revolting dispensation. of mere understanding. Now we shall not enter on the consideBut in addition to the historical proofs, ration that the punishment consequent on for what may be called the religious im- the unbelief is not all for the unbelief, portance of knowledge, which might be but for the guilt of a broken law, the drawn from the narratives of Scripture, condemnation of which takes its own there is abundance of still more direct proper and primary effect upon you, beproof in its merely doctrinal or didactic cause you have not found your way to the passages. On the one hand the know- place of refuge or of protection thereledge of God and of Jesus Christ is said from. This is very true-yet it is further to be eternal life. And on the other hand true, that the guilt of a broken law is 50 394 LECTURE LXXVIII.-CHAPTER X, 2. every where spoken of as enhanced and either the light of the natural heavens, ot deepened to tenfold aggravation by the the light of Heaven's revelation is around guilt of a rejected gospel. There is a you. It is thus that the will has virtually wrath that abideth on unbelievers-even to do with the ultimate belief, just because that wrath which their sins had excited in it has to do with the various steps of that the bosom of the Deity, and which they process which goes before it. Where have not escaped from by the way an- there is candour, which is a moral pronounced and intimated in the New Tiesta- perty, the due attention will be given; and ment. But there is also a wrath added to the man will arrive at the state of being the former, and augmented' on the head right intellectually, but just because he of unbelievers, just because they have riot is right morally. When the.'e is the oppo. betaken themselves to that way. In other site of' candour-athing pro.nounced upon words, there is a displeasure on the part by all as a moral unfairness-the due of God towards unbelief; just as there is attention will be refused; and the man a displeasure towards any moral viola- will be landed in the state of being wrong tion. The creed of' the infidel is dealt intellectually, but just because he is with as his crime; fand the question still wrong morally. remains, how comes it that the mere You find a most impressive exemplifierrors of the understanding should have cation of this in the history of those very the same sort of delinquency affixed to Jews whom we now are considering. them, as the wilful errors either of the During the whole of our Saviour's rninisheart or of the conduct? try upon earth, they were plied with eviIn reply to this interrogation, we fully dences, which, if they had but attended admit that no man is punished for what to would have carried their belief in the he cannot help, but then we affirm that validity of His claims and credentials as his belief in certain circumstances, (and a Messenger from heaven. But the bewe think that Christianity is in these cir- lief was painful to them; and at all hazcumstances) is that which he can help. ards they resolved to bar the avenues of We admit that a moral delinquency their minds against the admittance of it. should be charged on that which is not This was the attitude, the wilful, the harwilful-but we affirm that many are the dy, the resolved attitude in which they occasions in which the belief or the un- listened to all His addresses and looked belief is wilful; and that therefore, there upon all His miracles. That unwelcome might be no contravention of obvious doctrine which so humbled the pride, and justice in pronouncing the one to be a did such violence to the bigotry of their duty, and in proceeding against the other nation, was not to be borne with-and, as you would against a crime. It is utterly rather than harbour a thing so intolerably a mistake to imagine that knowledge and offensive, they shut their minds against opinion and belief; and in a word the all that truth which lay both in the words various states of the understanding, are in and in the works of the Son of' God; and no way dependent upon the will. It is by they shut their hearts against all that an act of the will that you set yourself to tenderness as well as truth which fell in the acquisition of knowledge. It is by softest accents from a Saviour's lips, or an act of the will at the first, and by a beamed in mildness and mercy upon them continued act of the will afterwards, that from a Saviour's countenance. Who does you first commence, and then continue a not see that the will had a principal conprolonged examination into the grounds cern in all this opposition-that the pride of an opinion. It is at the bidding of the and the passion and the interest and the will, not that you believe without evi- ease, that these propensities of man's dence, but that you investigate the evi- active and voluntary nature, had undence on which you might believe. In doubted sway and operation in this warall these cases the will either gives its fare; that their love of darkness and consent, or withholds it. It cannot create their hatred of light affixed to their unbethe light of evidence any more than it lief the stigma of a moral condemnation can create the light of nature. But it lies -their love of that which left a veil over with it whether the evidence shall be their corruptions, their hatred of that attended to or regarded with the eye of which laid them open to the display and the mind, even as it lies with it whether the disturbance of an exposure which the illuminated landscape shall be looked they feared? It was on the strength of upon or regarded with the eye of the these moral perversities that they resisted body. It is in your power to shut or to avert and withstood the Saviour, and at length the mental eye, just as it is in your power perished in the delusion which themselves to shut or to avert the corporeal eye. It is had fostered. Theirs was not the dark. in no way your fault, that you do not see ness of men whom no light had visited, when it is dark. But it is in every way but it was the darkness of men who ob. your fault that you do not look when stinately shut their eyes-who had lulled LECTURE LXXVIII.-CHAPTER X, 2. 395 their own consciences asleep; and whom last would manifest its own truth and di. neither the voice of pitying friendship, vinity to the conscience of him who atnor the voice of' loud and angry menace tentively regarded it. And you are not could again awaken. They were in this sending forth earnest prayer to the wit. state when Christ wept over them, as He ness in heaven, that is to the Holy Spirit, pronrl-Anced the doom of their approach- whose office it is to pour the light of a ing overthrow-a doom that fell upon convincing and an atffecting demonstrathem, not because of' their mental delu- tion over the pages of the written record. sion, but because this delusion was the fruit You are not doing what you might if you and the forthcorning of their moraldeprav- so willed-and if you do not see the light ity-not because they had minds that did of that evidence which belongs to the not receive the truth, but because they had truth as it is in Jesus, it is positively behearts that did not love and would not lis- cause you are not looking for it. In ten to it. other words, if you die in mental darkAnd this is for our admonition to whom ness, it is because you live in moral unthe latter ends of the world have come. concern; and whatever the damnation be In this our day, the want of faith is still which rests on unbelief it is altogether due, we believe, as heretofore, to the want due unto yourselves. Often are you visof a thorough moral earnestness. Did we ited with the misgivings of a conscience only prevail upon you to seek after; to which tells you that your present state is enquire as you ought, we have no doubt f:ar from satisfactory; but these you conthat you would come to believe as you trive to stifle and suppress. The whole ought. If blind, we fear that you are business of your souls is postponed and wilfully blind; and if short of that faith wilfully postponed from one day a-ad which is unto salvation, it is because you from one year to another; and, abiding are not honestly and with all your heart in darkness because you choose the darkin pursuit of salvation. You are not ness, you remain to the end of your lives giving earnest heed to the witness upon in a voluntary destitution of that knowearth, that is to the Bible, which is a light ledge for the lack of which men perish shining in a dark place; and which at everlastingly. LECTURE LXXIX. ROMANS X, 3-5. For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God. For Christ is'the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth. For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doth those things shall live by them." THERE should be no difficulty in fixing righteousness there spoken of-it being whether the termr righteousness in this such a righteousness as could have given passage must be understood according to life, and which is viewed therefore not in its personal or its legal sense-whether the moral graces of' which it is made up, that righteousness which designates a but in the rewards, even those of' a blisscharacter that is marked by its virtues ful eternity, which are judicially conferred and its graces; or that which is pro- upon it-just as the ministration of' death nounced by a judge, or him who is en- in 2 Cor. iii, 7, is clearly juridical, it being titled thereby to its honours and rewards. termed in ver. 9, the ministration of conIn this place, as in others, the context demnation, for death is the penalty of sin: clears up the text. For example in Mat- And so the ministration of' righteousness thew, v, 20-the righteousness which is contrasted therewith must be juridical there spoken of cannot be mistaken for also, it being the ministration of life, even any other than the personal-that being that life which is the reward of righteousmade obvious by the illustrations which ness. In like manner when one looks to follow, and whence it appears that its the verse before us in conjunction with superiority over the righteousness of the the verses which immediately succeed, scribes and Pharisees lies in the higher there should be no difficulty in settliing style of certain virtues which are there the judicial import of the term righteousspecified. And again in Galatians, iii, 21, ness throughout this whole passage of the there can be as little mistake, when we apostle's argument —as being, not the affix the legal oi judicial meaning to the righteousness which has its place in the 396 LECTURE LXXVIII. —CHAPTER X, 2. character or person of a disciple, but the of Jesus Christ. The will has to do with righteousness which can be plea'd or the want of obedience; and so far as the stated by him at the bar of jurisprudence want of knowledge is punishable, the will when he stands there as a claimant for the has to do with that want also. There is rewards and honours of eternity. In short a wilful resistance to the light-though a it is the righteousness which gives a right resistance this it must be admitted which to eternal life or which challenges eternal the light itself may overcome by the life as its due-that righteousness which greater force of its evidence, by the greater the Jews fell short of; because they sought brightness and intensity of its own mauito establish it by the merit of their own festation-just as Paul's ignorance and doings, while they refused to make use of unbelief were overpowered by the light the plea which God offered to put into that shone upon him near Damascus; and their hands as a righteousness that He as the faith of converts in the present day would accept-this being a righteousness is carried, when God is pleased to reveal of which they were ignorant, or would Christ in them, by commanding the light not acknowledge, or would not submit to shine out of darkness, or by calling themselves thereto. "For they being ig- them out of darkness into the marvellous norant of God's righteousness," or of that light of the gospel. righteousness on the ground of which or Ver. 4.'For Christ is the end of the consideration of which He would take law for righteousness to every one that man into.acceptance; "and going about believeth.' There is one obvious sense in to establish a righteousness of their own," which Christ is the end of the law; and seeking to make good their title to heaven, that is when the law viewed as a schoolas rightful claimants to its inheritance on master brings us to the conclusion, as to the strength or merit of their own proper its last lesson, that Christ is our only services-", they would not submit them- refuge our only righteousness-thereby selves unto the righteousness of God," shutting us up into the faith. But this is but sought to be justified in their own not the sort of end which is meant here. way which was by their own works, rather We should have a more precise underthan by His method of justification. standing of the verse by taking the word My only additional remark on this end as equivalent to purpose —and that a verse is, that, in the ignorance there spo- purpose too which the law was fitted to ken of, there is something more than the serve not merely after it was broken; but mere passive blindness of those who can- at the time of its original institution, and not help themselves because of the total when it was first set tip for the moral darkness by which they are encompassed, government of men. Now that the law It was very much the ignorance of those has been violated, and we are the outcasts who would not open their eyes. There of its rightful condemnation, it is good to was an activity, a will in it, as much as be schooled by it into the lesson that there was in the other things ascribed to Christ is our only hiding-place, in whom them in these words-in the'going about' there is no condemnation; and thus to to establish a difflrent righteousness fiom make Christ the end or the final landingthat which they would not acknowledge, place of that educational pr'ocess through or would not submit to-resisting it, in which we are conducted, when studying'fact, because of their not liking it. This the high precepts and authority of the forms the true principle on which the law, and our own immeasurable distance condemnation of unbelief rests.; They and deficiency therefrom. It is not thus love the darkness rather than the light;" however that this verse is to be underand so the ignorance or unbelief is crim- stood; and for the right determination of inal-just as far as there were affection what it signifies, we should go back to one and choice in it. Even as the Gentiles of the purposes for which the law was "liked not to retain God in their know- given at the time of its first ordination — ledge"-even so the Jews liked not in this a purpose to be gained, not after the instance to admit God into their know- breaking of it, but which would have ledge, or give entertainment in their minds been gained by the keeping of it. One to that way of salvation which Hie had of these purposes was to secure the moral levised for the recovery of a guilty world rightness of man's character and conduct. -even the transference of man's sins to But another of these purposes was to sethe person of Christ, and the transference cure for him a legal right to eternal life. of Christ's righteousness to the persons The one was the end of the law for his of'all who believe in Him. It is the part personal holiness. The other was the end which the will has in it that makes igno- of the law for his judicial righteousness, rance the proper object of a vindictive and this is what we hold to be precisely retribution; and so when Christ cometh, the'end of the law for righteousness' in He will take vengeance on those who our text. Its direct and primary object know not God, and obey not the gospel was that man should be justified Itv hi LECTURE LXXVIII.-CHAPTER X, 2. 397 obedience thereto; but man falling short It is on the giound of the moral law of this object or end by fhlling short of and of it alone, that this trial for eternity perfect obedience, can only now obtain now rests.. We'of the present (lay stand it in Christ, in whom alone we have delivered from the obligations of the Jew. righteousness, even a part and an interest ish ritual, and of its burdensome services in thai everlasting righteousness which Should we decline the gospel, we shall be He halh brought in, by His obedience- dealt with purely and exclusively as the which righteousness, with all its associ- subjects of the moral law; and still it ated privileges and rewards, is unto all holds true that the man who doeth these and upon all who believe. It is the merit things shall reach everlasting life without of His obedience imputed unto us and a gospel and without a Saviour. If the made ours by faith, which forms our right law, the moral law, be sufficient to any Dr title-deed of entry into the kingdom of man for this object-then to him the gosheaven. Ele is the Lord our righteous- pel is uncalled for. It is thus that the ness; and in receiving Him we receive economy of grace may be brought to the that righteousness which it was the end trial of its worth and its importance; and of the law to have secured for us had it to this very law the man who yields a been by us fulfilled; but which we in vain perfect moral obedience may challenge seek by the law, now that it has been for himself the right of neglecting its broken.* offiers-the claim to an inheritance in heaVer. 5.'For Moses describeth the righ- yven without the need of a passport from teousness which is of the law, That the Him who is represented to us as the Auman which doth those things shall live by thor of a great salvation. them.' One expedient by which men have The two ways to eternal life here attempted to dilute or do away the sub- brought into comparison are clearly and stance of the gospel, is to represent the distinctly contrasted. The one is by doing insufficiency of the law for salvation as -the other is by believing-The one by attaching only to the ceremonial law of doing a fu11 and finished righteousness for Moses. In the passage now before us ourselves-the other by believing that however, the righteousness which is of Christ has done a full and sufficient the law is said to be superseded by the righteousness for us; and makes each and righteousness which is of faith; and the all of us as welcome to its rewards as if former righteousness, or that which is laid they had been earned in our own person, aside, attaches to the law whereof Moses by the merit of our own services. It is said that the man which doeth those things either in the one or the other of these shall live by them. This surely must in- ways that heaven is at all accessible-so elude the moral as well as the ceremonial. that should we both fall short of the first, The great lawgiver of the Jews nowhere and refuse to enter upon the second, we represents the doing of the things of the are hopelessly and helplessly barred from ceremonial law as enough for life. "Cursed the paradise of God. is every one," he saith, " who continueth There are two places, as it were, at not in all the words of the book to do which these respective ways may be com. them." And so far is any sufficiency of pared with each other-either at the enthis sort from being awarded to the cere- trance of them before we set out; or monial alone-there is many a prophetic anywhere, after that we have set out, remonstrance founded on the insignifi- along the pathway of each-whether cance of the ceremonial, when compared cheered on by the encouragements, or with the worth and lasting obligation of struggling with the difficulties peculiar to the mnoral. "To what purpose is the mul- the one or the other of them. titude of' your sacrifices unto me? Put I. Let us first take a view of the state away the evil of your doings and learn to of matters at the entrance of the two ways do well." It is not, if a man do the things -when man, under the first effectual of the ceremonial —it is if he do the things visitation of earnestness, resolves to go of the whole law, that he shall live. It is forth in busy search and prosecution after our sufficiency for the righteousness of the good of his eternity. And here aconthe whole law which is here brought to sideration meets us at the very outset of the trial; and if found wanting, which the way of doing; and that is whether the eventually it will be in every instance, we condition of eternal life in that way be not must infer that man can no more attain to already fallen from, and so the eternal life everlasting life by his most strenuous ob- itself already forfeited. It is he who doeth servation of moral righteousness, than by all things that shall live. Have we hithnis most faithful and laborious discharge erto done all things 1 Are we in circumof the Mosaic ritual. stances now, for making a clear outset on this enterprise for heaven. It is not'For a fuller elucidation of this verse, see our sermon enough that there be the purpose of unlon Romans, x, 4, in vol. iii of our Congregational Sermons, being vol, x of the Series. versal, of unreserved, obedience in all 398 LECTURE LXXIX.-CHAPTER X7 3 —,5. time coming. There must have been the they paralyse his hopes. The likestthing performance of an obedience alike uni- to it in human experience is,'when a de. versal, alike unreserved, throughout all creet of bankruptcy without a discharge the stages of the history that is past. has come forth on the man who has long Can the memory and the conscience of struggled with his difficulties, arnd is now any man living depone to this? Can he irrecoverably sunk under the weight of lay his hand upon his heart, and say them. There is an effectual drag laid without misgiving-that throughout all upon this man's activity. The hand of the successive days of his past existence diligence is forthwith slackened when all in the world, there has ascended to hea- the fruits of diligence are thus liable to ven the continuous incense of a pure and be seized upon-and that by a rightful sinless otfering? Has he altogether loved claim of such magnitude as no possible God as he ought? Has he altogether strenuousness can meet or satisfy. The lived among his fellows as he ought? processes of business come to a stand or Has his hand done all that it might in the are suspended-when others are standing services of benevolence 3 Has his heart by ready to devour the proceeds of' busibeen filled as it should have been-If not ness so soon as they are realised, or at with the sensibilities, at least with the least to divert them from the use of the purposes and the aspirations of piety 3 unhappy man and the good of his family. Has the will of the Creator, in no one in- The spirit of industry dies within him stance, made place for his own wayward- when he finds that he can neither make ness 1 Has that law, every jot and tittle aught for himself, nor, from the enormous of which must be fulfilled, had this unfail- mass of his obligations, make any sensiing this unswerving this unexcepted ful- ble advances towards his liberation. In filment rendered to it by him 1 Can he these circumstances he loses all heart and appeal to every hour of his by-gone his- all hope for exertion of any sort; and tory; and confidently speak of each, either breaks forth into recklessness or is having, without one flaw or scruple of chilled into inactivity by despair. And it deviation, been pervaded by that loyalty is precisely so in the case of a sinner toof principle, by that grateful recollection, wards God. If he feel as he ought, he by those duteous conformities of a heart feels as if the mountain of his iniquities ever glowing with affection and of a hand had separated him from his Maker. There ever glowing with activity, which the is the barrier of an unsettled controversy creature owes to the Creator who gave between them, which, do his uttermost, him birth? These are questions which he cannot move away; and the strong must be settled, ere he can advance one though secret feeling of this is a chief hopeful footstep on this way to heaven by ingredient in the lethargy of nature. the deeds of the law. Should there be There is a haunting jealousy of God one single deed either of' sin or of defi- which keeps us at a distance from Him. ciency to soil the retrospect of his past There is the same willing forgetfulness experience, it nullifies the enterprise. By of Him, that there is of any other painful a single act of disobedience the power of or disquieting object of contemplation making good our eternity in this way is God, when viewed singly as the Lawgiver, gone, and gone irretrievably. Heaven is also viewed as the Judge who must may still become ours by a deed of mer- condemn-as the rightful creditor whose cy. But that it should be ours by a judi- payments or whose penalties are alike cial award of law, and of law sitting in overwhelming. We are glad to make our cognizance over our deserts and our do- escape from all this dread and discourings, is a thing impossible. agement into the sweet oblivion of Nature. If the conscience be at all enlightened, The world becomes our hiding-place from this will be felt as a difficulty which the Deity —and in despair of making overhangs the entrance of the proposed good our eternity by our works, we journey to heaven in the way of obedi- work but for the interests of time; and, ence. The sense of a debt which no ef- because denizens of earth, we, estranged fort of ours can possibly lessen, and far from the hopes of heaven, never once less extinguish-the sense of a guilt that set forth in good earnest upon its prepaby ourselves is wholly inexpiable-the rations. sense of an impassable gulf between us These are the impossibilities, which, at and God, seeing that when viewed as our the very commencement, beset this way Lawgiver and ere reparation for the in- of making good your eternity by your jury of lHis outraged law shall have been doings; and from which there is no re made, His attributes of truth and justice lease to the spiritual bankrupt, till the and holiness unite tolay an interdict on gospel puts its discharge into his hands any terms or treaty of reconciliation- By this gospel there is a deed of amnesty these are what paralyse the movements made known, to which all are welcome of a conscious sinner; and just because There is revealed to us a surety who hatk LECTURE LXXIX.-CHAPTER X, 3-5. 399 taken the whole of our debt upon Him- prayer might be instituted. There might self-having fulfilled the ample acquit- be allotted hours for the exercises of satance of all our obligations, and so made credness; and these in full tale and mea. us clear with God. Even to the worst and sure may be observed most rigidly. In most worthless of sinners the offer of this short, a thousand punctualities may be great deliverance is made. It is our faith rendered-and all with the view to estabin the reality of this offer which consti- lish a merit in the eye of heaven's Lawtutes our acceptance of it; and whereas giver, which never can be effectually done in the wviy of doing, the very entrance without a full and faultless adherence to was impracticably closed against us-this Heaven's law. Now, we say, that if coninitial obstruction is entirely moved aside science feel as it ought, there will throughfrom the way of believing. In the lan- out this whole process be a festering, an guage of the Psalmist, the bond is loosed; inappeasable disquietude-a self-jealousy, and restored to hope, we are restored to and a self-dissatisfaction which no doings alacrity in the bidden services and pre- or deserts of our own can terminate-a parations of eternity. With the conscience feeling of unworthiness which in spite of lightened, through the peace-speaking every effort will adhere to our best serblood of Jesus, of its guilt and of its vices, and turn all into hopelessness and fears-we are made to walk with the feel- vexation-For, let it be observed, that, ing, with the hopeful inspiration of men reach what elevation of virtue we may, at liberty. The debt is cancelled; and there will in proportion as we advance we can start anew in that enterprise for and we ascend, be further heights and heaven; on which but for the ransom of distances in moral excellence beyond us the New Testament, there lies a burden and above us. The higher we proceed in of utter impotency atnd despair. Like the this career, we shall command a fairther emancipated debtor to whom the fruits of view of the spaces which still lie before all his future toil and diligence are now us; or, in other words, we shall be more fully assured to him, a weight is taken off filled with a sense of the magnitude of from the activities of' nature. Our la- our own short-comings. The conscience, bour is no longer in vain-because now it in fact, grows in sensibility, just as the is labour in the Lord; and every effort conduct is more the object of our strict becomes a step in advance towards hea- and scrupulous regulation; and so, with ven, when thus the old obedience of the every advance wve make towardsl the perlaw is exchanged for the new obedience fection of the law, does the law appear to of the gospel. rise ulpon us with her exactions-and we II. But we might imagine the conscience feel as if more helplessly behind than at of man not to be enlightened at the outset the outset of our enterprise. The preof his religious earnestness; and that sumptuous imagination of our sufficiency therefore, instead of the stillness of his comes down when we thus bring it to the despair under a sense of nature's insuffi- trial; and that impotency of which we ciency for the righteousness of the law, were not aware at the outset, we are made he actually sets forth in the pursuit of this to know and to feel experimentally righteousness, and makes the weary strug- Meanwhile that is a sore drudgery ir. gle it may be of months or of years in which we are implicated; and all the order to attain it. It is oftenest in this more fatiguing that it is so utterly fruit way that the first movements are made less-that the peace which we seek tc under the first powerful visitation of seri- realise by our obedience recedes at every ousness. The law in its unsullied purity- step to a greater distance, because new the law in its uncompromising rigour-the heights of obedience are ever rising on law in its unexcepted right of sovereignty the view, and baffling every effort to subover every desire of the heart and every stantiate a valid plea for the rewards of deed of the history-These may not be immortality. This is that law-work, of adverted to at the time of the soul's inci- whose aspirations and toils and frantic pient concern about these things; and so unavailing struggles, like those of a capthe attempt might fairly be made, to corn- live to break loose from his prison-hold pass such an obedience as might found a or to scale the precipice which hems him, claim or title to the rewards of eternity. we read in the affecting history of so In the prosecution of this object there many a convert-whose awakened connray be the forth-putting of great strenu- science only spoke to him in louder terms ousness-the anxious feeling of great of reproach the more he did to appease scrupulosity-the new habit, at least of its endless upbraidings, and whose every toiling at the servilities, if not the new attempt to flee from the coming wrath heart which had a taste for the sanctities made it glow the more fiercely upon his of religion. At all events, many laborious imagination. Not ten thousand punctu. drudgeries might be gone through. The alities of the outer conduct can purify a regularities both of private and family heart that is every day obtaining some to00 LECTURE LXXIX.-CHAPTER X, 3-5. "resh revelation of its own worthlessness, offended. He passes from death unto hfe, and which when brought to the touch- Individually he is freed from the penalties stone of a spiritual law finds itself desti- of sin, and judicially he is vested with an tute of all right affection or affinity to- absolute right to the rewards of a full and wards God. This is the grand failure. finished obedience. The righteousness of His hand can labour; but his heart can- Christ is reckoned to him, and he is dealt not love —And after wasting and wearying with accordingly. No wonder that the himself in vain with the operose drudg- tidings of a salvation so marvellous should eries of a manifold observation, he still be so generally met by the incredulity of finds that he is a helpless defaulter from nature, opposed as it is to all the expecta the first and the greatest commandment. tions and all the tendencies of nature, Now, it is when thus harassed and beset which, when awake to the concerns of among the impracticable obstructions another world at all, is ever prompting which lie in the way of doing, that he man to make good his own way to a blissfinds the very outlet he stands in need of ful eternity, and that by a righteousness when the way of believing is opened to of his own. It is when delivered from the him. The righteousness, which he has so burden of this felt impossibility, that man ineffectually tried to make out in his own breaks forth on a scene of enlargement; person, has been already made out for when in the secure possession of a right him by another; and now lies for his ac- to heaven in the righteousness of his acceptance, as a simple and unconditional cepted surety, with. all the alacrity of an offer which he is invited to lay hold of. emancipated creature whose bonds have The sin, which hitherto has so hardened been loosed, he proceeds to offer the sacrihim with despondenecy and remorse, is fiees of thanksgiving, and to call on the now washed away by the blood of a sat- name of the Lord. isfyiing expiation; and God in the gospel And let us not be afraid lest this judicial of Jesus Christ calls upon him to draw salvation, if it may be thus termed-so nigh, with the erect, the joyful confidence full, so free, so competent to every sinner, of one who never had offended. The Sa- however vile, if he but place his confident viour has completely done for him, what and unembarrassed reliance on it, so with so much of strenuousness but with so ready, nay so importunate for the acceptlittle success he has been trying to do for ance of all, and that without the least dishimself; and he is warranted to step im- trust or delay on their part-let us not be mediately into the hopes and the happi- afraid, lest this judicial salvation should ness of one, not merely reconciled to God, not bring a mortal salvation in its train, as but vested with the same right to His if exemption from the penal consequences favour, as if he had earned it by the of sin were not to be followed up by exworth of his own services, by the merit emption from the power wherewith, anteof his own full and f'alltless obedience. rior to our reception of the gospel, it lorded What a mightyenlargement when the title- over us. The great author of that econodeed to heaven, for which he had been my under which we live will not leave stretching forward with many long and any of its parts or any of:.ts provisions laborious efforts, till he at last sunk down unfulfilled upon us. He will sanctify as into exhaustion and despair, is put into well as justify; and if we but trust in his hand; and the gifted creature, now Christ, we shall be sealed with the Holy set loose from bondage and terror, ex- Spirit of promise, who will superadd the changes the services of constraint for the personal to the judicial righteousness, and willing services of a grateful and affec- make us meet in character as well as meet tionate loyalty! in law for that heaven, ttie door whereof It is thus that the guiltiest of sinners, Christ hath opened to us-for the sersimply on believing the testimony which vice of that glorious irheritance which GCd hath given of HIis Son, is instated, eIt hath purchased by HIls obedience, and a;d that immediately, in all the titles and is the fruit of the everlasting righteousness privileges of a pure and perfect righteous- which Himself hath brought in. gess before the Lawgiver whom he h1a LECTURtE LXXX. —CIAPTErt X, 6 —C. 40l LECTURE LXXX. ROMANS X, 6-9. ".t the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven X (that is, to bring Christ down froin above;) or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring tp Christ again from the dead.) But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart: that is, the wora of faith, which we preach; that if thou snalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." l'HIs passage in the Epistle to the Ro- ousness of the law from the righteousness rmans is taken from a similar one in the of' faith to be exemplified and upholden book of Deuteronomy; and it has been by the earlier of these Hebrew covenants, made a question, whether it be strictly a even the covenant of Horeb-under which quotation in the sense of its being applied we have this promise of hopeless fulfilby the two writers to one and the same ment, that the man who doeth these things subject, or if it be used only by Paul in shall live by them; and this denunciation the way of accommodation, and applied of terror and despair, universal because differently because related to an essen- inclusive of the whole human racetially different covenant from that which "Cursed is every one who continueth not is spoken of by Moses. For the covenants in all the words of the book of this law tc being the same, it is argued that the words do them." of the text as they occur in the Old Testa- But we must not spend further time in ment were not uttered on the occasion of the settlement of this question. Whether that covenant which was made with the the words of our text were employed both children of Israel at the promulgation of by Moses and Paul to characterise the the law from Mount Sinai, but years after- same or two different economies, there is wards, and on the eve of their entrance a common property ascribed by each to into the land of Canaan-when the ad- that one economy of which he is speaking. dress containing the sentences from which The condition upon which its blessings are our text is taken was delivered by Moses, suspended, anL, bv the fulfilment of which and with the following prefatory an- these blessings will be realised, is not a nouncement-" These are the words of distant and inaccessible secret-either Imthe covenant, which the Lord commanded bedded in the fathomless depths below, or Moses to make with the children of Israel placed far out of sight among the unscal, in the land of' Moab, beside the covenant ed heights of the firmamenrt above us which he made with them in Horeb."* "For this commandment," it is said by the And certain it is, that in this latter cove- founder of the old dispensation, " the cornnant there are evangelical privileges held mandment which I command thee this forth, and evangelical promises, which day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is enter not into the description of that it far off." "But the word is very nigh righteousness which is of the law, "That unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart, the man which doeth these things shall that thou mavest do it."* And, in counlive by them." For we therein read of' terpart to this, it is said by the chitefamolng forgiveness to the penitent, " When thou the apostles of' the new dispensation, " The shalt return unto the Lord thy God, he word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and will have compassion upon thee"t-and thy heart: that is, the word of faith which of regeneration, " The Lord thy God will we preach; That if thou believe, thou circumcise thy heart, to love the Lord thy shalt be saved." God with all thine heart and with all thy But the great peculiarity in the verses soul"t-and not only of forgiveness, but of my text, and to which I would at pres. of positive beneficence and favour, 1" For ent direct your more special attention is. the Lord will again rejoice over thee for the precise and particular object of the good."Q These perhaps may identify this ascent and the descent respectively which latter of the Old Testament covenants with are there spoken of' by the apostle. These the covenant of peace and mercy under objects are different from that which is which we now live, and so identify the spoken of in the book of Deuteronomyapplication of the words both as uttered where to bring the commandment or the by the Jewish legislator and by the Chris- word from afar, is the assigned purpose tian apostle to one and the same subject, both of the imagined ascent into heaven, even the gospel of Jesus Christ-leaving and of the imagined descent into the abyss the distinction which there is in the righte- or bottom of the sea. In the New Testa. ~ Deut. xxix. 1. t Deut. xxx, 2, 3.'Deut. xxx, 11, 14. Dentt. xxx, 6. ~ Deut. xxx, 9. 51 402 LECTURE LXXX.-CHAPTER X, 6 —9. ment this is stated differently-the assign- the thunder, nay, by the voice and al' ed purpose of the ascent being' to bring those signals of a present Deity, whichi Christ down from above,' and of' the de- convinced and overawed the thousands of scent being to bring up Christ again from Israel-we may well believe that the book the dead.' It is still possible, notwithstand- written by Moses, and which recorded all ing this difference-that Moses and Paul the precepts whether ceremonial or judimay after all have been dealing with the cial or moral, tixtt were delivered to this same truth, and looking to the same quar- great prophet in the converse which he ter of contemplation —the first, as is cus- held with God, and which also described tomary in the Old Testament, giving all the usages and forms of their earthlyutterance to a doctrine, but couched in service, conformably to the pattern show. enigma or shrouded in hazy obscuration; ed him in the mount, by which were rethe second, as is customary in the New Tes- presented the ministrations of the upper tament, giving utterance to the identically sanctuary, or things of the tabernacle inr same doctrine, but evolved from the dim- the heavens-that this book, in all its conness in which it lay hidden, and with the tents, would be deferretd to by the Hebrews light of a clearer and broader manifesta- of old, as the rightful and authoritative tion thrown over it. However this may directory both of their solemn worship be, let. us now hasten to our explanation and of their every-day conduct: And beof the verses here before us; and which ing read at stated seasons by the priests we think fitted to throw a new and inter- to the prople, as well as read by parents esting light, over the gracious economy to those children whom they were strict that has been instituted for the salvation ly charged to teach diligently in the stat, of our world. utjes of the Lord, it might well be said of In the parallel verses of Deuteronomy this word that it was in their mouth as well there seems no difficulty. The children as in their heart. They had not to gc of Israel are there simply told-that, in- abroad, as sages of old, are said to have stead of having to seek afar or among done, when they travelled in quest of wisremote and impracticable places for the dom. They had neither to search for it rule of life, this rule brought fiorn heaven as for hid treasure in the depths of the to their door, now stood within reach of' earth, nor to pluck the secret from unseen one and all of them. Tbh same could or mysterious altitudes beyond the sky. have been said of a law anterior to that It had been brought down from thence to of Moses, even the law of the heart-that Sinai; and imparted to Moses; and placvoice within the breast, which is heard in ed by him in a volume of little room withthe homestead of every human conscience; in the reach and reading of every man; and gives forth lessons that serve, in part and so, passing into the hearts and homes as least, for the guidance of all men. And of all the people, the word of life was thus the law of Moses, though brought from made nigh unto them. the heights of the upper sanctuary, might But the law has not given life-neither be said, as far at least as viewed in the that law of the heart which is of univergeneralities of its ethical system, to have sal obligation, its voice having been heard placed itself in the hearts of those who all the world over; nor that law of a writheard it —responded to in all its great un- ten revelation proclaimed in the hearing changeable principles by the light and of a special nation, to whom were comthe law of every man's conscience-thus mitted the oracles of God. Be it the one finding a voucher, as it were, for its own or the other law, there is not a man who truth and authority in every bosom-and liveth on the face of the earth who has in virtue of this its ready introduction to not fallen short of its righteousness. It has the innermost recesses of our moral na- proved the ministration of a universal ture, of the prompt and familiar recogni- death —and that because of a universal tion which it meets with there, so estab- disobedience. It is not that the law fell lishing and so accrediting itself as the short; but that man, the subject of the rightful inrmate of humanity all the world law, fell short. The rule of righteousness over, as both to warrant and explain the as given to him at the first was perfect. saying, that this word framed'though it It is because of defects and deviations was in the highest heavens, and thence from that rule, that ruin, a universal ruin, brought down to the earth we live in, still has come upon our species; and another this word is in thy heart. And then as to righteousness had to be devised, on the the ritual and the positive of this great re- basis of which man might recover the ligious directory, though it could awake blessings which he had forfeited, and be no consenting testimony from within, and reinstated in that favour with God from could therefore meet with no internal evi- which he had fallen. Such is the design dence to welcome or to own it —yet inforc- of the gospel, or of that righteousness of ed as it was by every demonstration of faith which the gospel has made known authority from without, by the smoke and to us; and our enquiry now is into tho LECTURE LXXX.-CIHAPTER X, 6 —-9. 403 nature of that common property which outcasts of a hopeless condemnation, the has been claimed for this last as well as children of a wrath that was to come, to for a former revelation-insomuch that that of the expectants and the heirs of a Paul could reiterate what Moses had sub- coming glory. We are not able to disstantially said before him —" But the criminate among the various passages of righteousness which is of faith speaketh His history, between the endurance by on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who which He bore the chastisement of our shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring peace, and the obedience by which He Christ down from above;) or who shall won for us the prize of immortality. But descend into the deep X (that is, to bring there is a real and substantive distinction up Christ again from the dead.) But what between these two services-a dislineaion saith it 3 The word is nigh thee, even in recognised in Scripture-between the parthy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the don by which we cease to be reckoned word of faith which we preach; That if with as sinners, and the justification by thou shalt confess with thy mouth the which we are reckoned and dealt with as Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart positively righteous. And as the event of that God hath raised him from the dead, His death is clearly set forth as related to thou shalt be saved." the one, that death being an atonement for For our better understanding of these sin-so the event of His resurrection, or remarkable verses, and more especially rather of His re-admission into paradise, of the two parentheses which are peculiar though not so frequently yet is clearly set to this passage, there being no trace of forth as related to the other, that exaltathem in the parallel passage of the older tion being conferred on Him as the rescriptures-let me state, in a few words, ward of His obedience, by which He what may be termed the two great steps opened the door of heaven both for Himor stages of that redeeming process, by self and for all His followers. It is thus which man has been restored to that place that He who is said to have reconciled us of' relationship with God which he now by His death, is also said by His life to occupies. Man by transgression had done have consummated our salvation. And dishonour to the law of God; and we may thus if, as we have already said, the fruit learn or estimate the magnitude of the or final object of His descending moveoutrage, from the magnitude of the steps ment was His being delivered for otur which were taken for repairing it-even offences-so the fruit or final object of that the Son of God, the second person of His ascending movement is tHis being the Trinity, had to descend from heaven; raised again for our justification. had to put on the shroud of humanity; There are other passages in Scriphad, during the whole period of a sinless ture which intimate the same relation that yet suffering life, to sustain a mysterious we have now stated-between, on the one conflict with the temptations and infirmi- hand, the death and resurrection of our ties of our nature; and, finally, had to Saviour; and, on- the other, the two distake upon Himself the whole burden of tinct points of that salvation, (removal of the penal infliction to have been other- the penalty and a right by service to the wise discharged on a rebellious world, by positive reward) which He hath achieved bowing down His head unto the sacrifice: for us, and by which He hath completed And thus, as the fruit or final object of our title-deed to an entry and a purchased His descending movement, was He de- possession in the paradise of God. But livered for our offences. But this is not that I may come at once to the lesson of the whole amount of the boon Hie has our text, I would only now bid you think achieved for us. There is something a of these two great movements, from he(, great deal more than the cancelment of ven to earth and from earth to heaven, our debt, or blotting out of the sentence and of the illustrious Person who had to that was against us in the book of con- make them-ere the high demands of the demnation. He not only suffered, but He divine jurisprudence could be fulfilled, or served. He not only absorbed for us the a way of access be again opened for guilty penalty of a wretched and undone, but He man to the Lawgiver whom he had offendearned for us the reward of a blissful eter- ed. It was a question in the policy of nity. lie who, to use the language of Heaven which angels desired to look into, Daniel, " made an end of sins," also did and the highest wisdom as well as highest more, 1" He brought in an everlasting strength of these upper regions had to be righteousness." In other words, Ile not put forth for its settlement. For this, the only worked out our legal release from Eternal Son had, from amid the wonder the forrents of a hideous and everlasting ing hosts of the celestial, to leave the hell, He made good our rightful inherit- bosom of His Father; and He,:hose ance aniong the triumphs and the felci- forthgoings were of old, even from eventies of heav.n —not only annulling but lasting, had to veil all His primeval glories reversing our condition fret. that of the in an earthly tabernacle; and, when God 404 LECTURE LXXX.-CHAPTER X: 6-9. mnanifest in the flesh, did He partake to is laid already, can no man lay. bu!:he full in the infirmities of our assumed they, unchecked and unhumrbled by any and associated nature; and beyond the sense of their own utter impotency, labour ken of mortal eye, were there sufferings with all their might to construct and lay unknown of which we read a few mvste- over again a foundation of merit and of rious outbreakings in the agonies of the dependence for themselves. In other garden; and unknown struggles too in words, they would usurp the office of the still deeper passages of His history, as Saviour; or, as if that office had been when He engaged in conflict wvith the imperfectly fulfilled, and left unfinished, forces of darkness, and spoiled principal- they would lay aside His work and subities and powers and made a show of them stitute their own work in its place-in the openly. And after a death of deep and proud imagination that their own strength dreadful endurance, an equivalent sacri-l was commensurate to the mighty enterfice for the guilt of a world; and a de- prise, that enterprise of toil and conflict scent into the lower parts of the earth, the and suffering and at length of triumph purpose whereof, from the imperfect which brought Christ down from heaven, glimpses which revelation gives of it, is and brought Him up again from the deep to us an unsolved enigma-did the once and secret places of the earth. In despite crucified, retrace His way to the position of this great achievement, their constant and pre-eminence which He at present inclination is for another basis of accepoccupies of the now exalted Saviour — tance on which to lean than that which First by the reanimation of His body, Christ hath so laboriously reared; or, as then by IIis resurrection from the grave, if' to supersede and set at nought the plea then by His sublime ascension above the of' His righteousness-which alone is adworld, where He slowly withdrew from equate to the dignity of Heaven's juristhe gaze of chosen witnesses; and last prudence-would they thrust forward their of all by His entrance into heaven, and own puny and polluted righteousness as the assumption of His Mediatorial place being good enough for God. You may at the right hand of the Father-and that, now understand the principle on which we may well believe, amid the hosannas this self-dependence of man becomes so of an angelic host, who, in numbers with- high an offince in the sight of Heaven. out number, welcomed and did Him hom- It implies the disparagement and the age as the Author and the Finisher of a mockery of all that has been already mighty enterprise-Even the enterprise done for the world's salvation. We read by which He brought in an everlasting of Christ as the Captain of this salvarighteousness, in the merit and investiture tion-and that Ile trode the wine-press o' which, the guiltiest sinners of our alone-and that of the people there were fallen, our dishonoured species, may, none with Him. Say not then in thy without disparagement either to the law heart, that thou canst make atonement or or to the Lawgiver, stand with acceptance amends for thine own disobedience-a before the throne of God. We ask you work so arduous, as to have brought down to ponder on these things. Slighted, dis- Christ from heaven for the achievement regarded, scarcely recognised at all in of it. And say not in thine heart that the hazy atmosphere of earth-we ask thou canst substantiate a right by thine you to think of the movement and the own services to the rewards of immortalstir, if I may so express myself, which ity-a work of Christ's also, and for the they made in heaven, and of the lofty es- victorious fulfilment of which He was timation in which they are held by the brought up from the dead, and highly intelligences there. Above all, keep a exalted to a place of advocacy and interfast and firm hold of this consideration. cession at God's right hand, where even To reinstate our fallen world, the Son of within the precincts of that august sancGod had first to descend and die for sin; tuary of which justice and judgment are and then to ascend even to the place the habitation, He, on the single strength which He now occupies-where, as the of His own righteousness, can make good fruit of the travail of His soul, He com- the claims of all who believe on Him. To pletes and effectuates our salvation. turn from such a salvation as this, and With this fully in your mind, we are in labour for the achievement of it with one's u fit condition both for your understand- own arm, is indeed to stumble at a stuming and for our enforcement of the lessons bling-block. It is affronting to God. It is in the text. And first, as a lesson of re- ruinous to man. buke to those of whom we read in the But this is not all. There is in this paspreceding context, who, refusing to take sage not only a lesson of rebuke to the up with this righteousness of God, vainly nroud-but the far kindlier and more conand presumptuously sought to establish a genial lesson, and the one we are most righteousness of their own. Other foun- anxious to impress, a lesson of highest en. dation, the Bible tells us, than that which couragement to the humble, For it is not LECTURE LXXX.-CIHAPTER X, 6 —9. 405 alv ways pride that actuates a man, when have ascended into heaven, and there seeking to establish a right to heaven by brought down Christ from above who has his own righteousness. Apart from this, poured out His soul unto the death for me, there is the natural legality of the human I can no more earn or establish my own heart —a most natural imagination,. and right to the high rewards of eternity, than upheld by a thousand analogies in the I could have descended into the deep, and transactions of man with man, that obedi- there brought up Christ again from the ence is the work and heaven is the wages dead, who, in virtue of that everlasting -the one the purchase-money, the other righteousness which Himself alone hath the purchase-related to each other like fulfilled, was raised to the Mediatorial the counterpart terms of any contract or throne which He now occupies, and from bargain in the numerous exchanges of which tie welcomes the approaches of all human society. It is not always in the and casts out none who come unto Him. spirit of pride that the aspirant after sal- Let me say not in my heart then, that vation falls in with this conception and there is a strength in me commensurate acts upon it. He simply thinks it the di- to the work which called for either the rect way of going to work, that he should one or the other of these movements; but try to earn God's favour by deserving it; dismissing the vain imagination, let me and accordingly he labours to be right, forthwith rejoice that it is a work no and to be even with the law, and to bring longer to do, because already done-that up his conduct to the level, or rather to it is a work which has already passed the high standard of its acquirements. through such able hands, even of Him But in very proportion to his sincerity, who travailed in the greatness of His and if his conscience be at all enlightened, strength for the full and finished perform.the more he labours the more is he op- ance of it-that a ready-made righteouspressed and borne down by a helpless ness is now looking down upon me from sense of deficiency-heavy-laden under heaven, made to my hand, and which I the weight of his past delinquencies, and am simply invited to lay hold of —that wearied by efforts alike fruitless and personally and practically, my concern fatiguing to recover his unmeasurable dis- now is not with the doing, but with the retauce from God's lofty commandment. It port of the doing-not with a work which is when thus toiling in pursuit of' impossi- is far above my reach, but with a word bilities, that the true understanding of which is nigh unto me, and in whichl with these verses, as if by the letting in of light the felt helplessness and docility of a little into his mind, dissipates every cloud, and child, my only part is to acquiesce-a at once releases him from his anxieties word now standing at the door, and soliand fears. Let him only learn that the citing admittance from every one of us; identical enterprise at which he now la- and which, when once it finds entrance bours as in the very fire, the Only-begot- into the home of a believer's heart, makes ten, the Son of the everlasting Father, good his interest in the whole of this wonHimself the Mighty God and Prince of drous salvation. Peace, hath already put His hand to; and The question and the remonstrance now left not off till, in the triumph of its full held with the men of our fallen race is consummation, He called out that it was not, Who of you hath made good the finished. He first had to descend from righteousness of the law; but " Who hath heaven, that He might become sin for us, believed our report, and to whom hath the and in out nature bear the punishment arm of the Lord been revealed " that we should have borne; and then did We can at present expatiate no further ascend into heaven, having by His obedi- on this high topic; but will conclude with ence unto death, completed the titles of a brief reply to one question which may entry and inheritance there both for Him- have been suggested in the course of these self and for all His followers-and so that, explanations. If salvation, it may be in the nerit and acceptance of His high ser- asked, is brought so nigh and made so vice, we might become the righteousness free to us, might not all exertion on our of God. Let the weary and the heavy- part cease or if the righteousness of laden sinner but submit to this righteous- Christ be thus made to supersede the ness and be at rest-nor seek to establish righteousness of man, then under such an for himself, that which cost the incarna- economy as this, what place for human tion of our crucified, and has been re- virtue is to be found? We answer, that warded by the exaltation of our risen all exertion for the object of establishing Saviour. And thus would we explain a valid and challengeable right, or of these parenthetic clauses. Strength to making good a judicial claim, or claim it. do the thing implies a strength to wield law to the kingdom of heaven, ought to, the alone instrument that was adequate cease; and that because human virtue for the doing of it. I can no more make has no place in the title-deed, or forms no atonement for my own guilt, than I could part of the price and purthase-money by 4 06 LECTURE LXXX,-CHAPTER X, 6-9.'which that glorious inheritance has been the aids of the all-powerful and regene. earned for us. But if to be meet in law rating Spirit, advance, and that ind(efiitely is indispensable for our entry into para- his own holiness. The righteousness ot dise, to be meet in character is alike in- faith, so far from operating as an extin. dispensable; and though for the former, guislier on the righteousness of works, or the legal meetness, human virtue is of affords the only opening by which, under no possible avail, for the latter, or the the impulse of gratitude, and the inspirapersonal meetness, human virtue is all tion of' a heaven-born hope, to enter with in all. The truth is, that the doctrine of alacrity and comfort on the labours of a our justification, our forensic justification new obedience. " I am thy servant, I am by faith, so far from acting as a drag or thy servant, thou hast loosed my bonds, I discouragement on the virtue of man, sets will offer the sacrifices of' thanksgiving, him at large, as if by the removal of an and call on the name of the Lord. I will incubus, for the busy cultivation of all its pay Imy vows now unto the Lord in the graces, for the diligent performance and presence of all his people." Justification disc-harge of all its services. So long as is not the landing-place of Christianity. the endeavour or the task, was to bring It is but the commencement, or the startup his obedience to the standard of the ing-post-where the emancipated children jurisprudence of heaven, and so as at of' love and liberty break forth on all the once to meet all the demands, and clear activities of a willing service. And so in all the penalties of God's high and incom- our text, confession with the mouth is mutable law, the burden of a felt impossi- joined as the inseparable accompaniment bility weighed him down to inactivity and to faith in the heart-such a confession as despair. But when told that the work on many of you witnessed yesterday* —Only, which in vain he might have wreaked and however, a good confession, if your walk wasted all his energies is already done- and conversation afterwards be such as in other words, when told of the complete becometh the gospel of Christ. " Why atonement and perfect righteousness of call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the Christ —human virtue is not overborne or things which I say?" If the main lesson extinguished thereby; it is only turned I have tried to expound be understood and away f'rom the fulfilment of an object by acted on, you will "hold fast your conitself impracticable, but now achieved in fidence and the rejoicing of your hope another way, and set forth on that more firm unto the end." In one word, let me hopefu! career along which it presses for- follow it up by the lesson of another scripward by successive footsteps from grace ture. "Bestedfast and immovable, always to grace, till it appears perfect before God abounding in the work of the Lord-forin Zion. Man could not, in the strength asmuch as ye know that your labour is of his own energies, either implement the not in vain in the Lord." obligations of God's perfect, or far less sustain so as to liquidate the penalties of ~ Delivered on the day after a Communion Sabbath. God's violated law. But altan can, with LECTURE LXXXI. ROMANS X, 10-13. 6 For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek; for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.' BEFORE entering on the consideration ing; yet though thus identified, there is a of these verses, we would briefly advert distinction made in Scripture between to one lesson, which, if' not contained in the them. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, passage that we have just left, has at least faith is defined the assurance of things been suggested byit. To bring Christ down not seen. A belief through tile medium from above, or to bring Him up from the of the senses is differently regarded, and dead, would be to present Him to the view we may add far less valued than a belief of the senses, and make Him an object of I in a testimony-belief in the word-belief sight-after which there could be no doubt in what prophets "have spoken."* It is of His resurrection. One of the common thus that after His resurrection He up. and curient aphorisms which we hear most frequently is, that seeing is believ-'Luke, xxiv, 25. LECTURE LXXXI.-CHIAPTER X, 10-13. 407 bTaids those disciples, not who believed experience an animation and a comfort, Him not after they had seen, but who be- as he dwells on a contem.n;ation which lieved not the report of those who had the conceiving faculty has made for the seen Him.* It was on this principle too time so bright and joyful to him. Now it that He valued less the faith of Thomas, must be obvious to the experience of ali after he had at length given way under that this conception flits and fluctuates, as the power of an ocular demonstration. if dependent on the ever varying mood of "Thkmas, because thou hast seen me, the spirit —at one time gleaming forth tothou hast believed: blessed are they that wards the vivacity of sense, and at another have not seen me, and yet have believed." fading almost onward in deeper and deepWhen faith supports itself under the want er shades of obscuration to extinction and of sensible helps and accompaniments- utter vacancy. But the remarkable thing then it is that the "trial of it is precious" to be observed is, that, under all these va-when, though not seeing Christ, yet we rieties of conception, the faith might relove Him; and in whom, "though now main invariable, a constant quantity as it we see Him not, yet believing, we re joice were, an element which abideth stedfastly with joy unspeakable and full of glory."t and substantially the same amid all those We meet with the same high estimate of changing hues which affect the colour or faith in many other places —that is, when representation of the object, but do not in it is faith in the naked word, faith without the least affect our belief in its reality. the aid of vision, the faith which rnain- There may be a dimness in the contemtains its strength and constancy against plation, without the slightest mixture of a even the likelihoods of nature and expe- doubt in the object contemplated. The rience, which simply reckons that what man never lets go his confidence in his God hath said is true, and is " fully per- friend-though, just as this power of con. suaded that what He hath promised He is ception is in languid or vigorous exercise, able also to perform."+ he may sometimes have greater and someNow there is another, a third way, in times less degrees of sensible comfort in which an absent thing might be viewed the contemplation of his friendship. by us-not as an object of sight, for we What is true of an earthly friend, is true are supposing it so separate or removed as of our Friend in heaven. He is far reto be unseen by us-neither as an object moved out of sight, but may become the of faith; but as an object of conception, object of faith through the word that is an act often conjoined with faith, yet per- nigh unto us. And he might also become fectly distinct from it-so distinct as to be the object of conception, which is a sort referred by certain mental philosophers of substitute for sight, brightening and to a special power or faculty of its own. clearing as it sometimes does towards the One might conceive a thing without any vivacity of a sensible demonstration. But belief in its reality; and, on the other let us never forget, that as faith without hand, though one can scarcely believe sight is all the more pleasing to God in that without some conception of the object of it subsists on its own unborrowed strength faith-yet may that conception be so dull without the aid of the senses-so might and languid and hazy, as almost to justify faith be in the absence of any lucid or enthe expression of our believing in the dark. livening conception, having nothing to We should like you to discriminate be- sustain it but the simple credit which it tween belief in a thing and the conception gives to the word of the testimony. Yet af that thing. You might believe not only we hold these bright and exhilirating views in the existence of an absent friend, but of the Saviour to be unspeakably prein the reality and warmth of his intense cious-the manifestation of which He affection for yourself; and this belief Himself tells us* —a most refreshing cormight be as strong to-morrow as it is to- dial to the spirit of a believer; and of day-and yet it is possible, that your con- which we have no doubt that, if analysed ception of all this might not be so lively into its ingredients, it will be found, that or strong to-morrow as it is to-day. His it consists not merely in the greater force benignant smile, his looks of graciousness, of evidence wherewith we are made to behis whole countenance and manner and hold the Saviour, but in the quickened tones of voice, bespeaking the utmost cor- fhcility and power of conception wherediality and kind affection-these may all with we are enabled to set Him more tell more vividly on the imagination at one vividly or impressively before us. Nevertime than another; and in proportion to theless we should distinguish between the the vivacity and force, wherewith they conception and the faith-because while are thus presented and pictured forth as the one may be a minister of sensible coinit were to the eve of the mind, will the fort, it is the other which is the guarantee spirits be exhilirated, and the whole man of our salvation. The man who, to repair Marx, xvi, 14. t 1 Peter, i, 7, 8. X Romans, iv, 21.'John, xiv 21. 408 LECTURE LXXXI.-CHAPTER X,.0-13. the insufficiency of the word, would bring conveying to his soul the glimpses and down Christ from heaven, but exemplifies foretastes of his coming glory in heaven the man, who, as if to make tup for the and so yielding him a refreshment and same insufficiency, strains butineffectally strength for the fatigues of his journey to frame some graphical or picturesque through this lower world. There is a felt idea of Him there. The danger is, that ecstacy in this transcendental light, like he may compass himself about with sparks that which the apostles experienced when of his own kindling, or walk in the light they beheld the transfiguration of our of his own fancy or his own fire. Let Saviour, and exclaimed it is good to be him keep then determinedly by the word here. How to attain or find our way to which is nigh, rather than by the imagery this light is a question therefore of deepwherewith he peoples the distant and lof- est practical interest to all who make a ty places which are away from him. He real business of their eternity; nor are who has conception but not faith, will at we aware of aught more interesting in the length lie down in sorrow. He who has economy of the gospel, than that connecfaith, but from t1he want of conception tion which it reveals between the plain walketh in darkn?-ss and has no light, is duties of the Christian life, and the highstill bidden trust in the name of God and est attainments, be it in grace or in knowstay upon His wor:d. He who conceiveth ledge, of the Christian experience. The may have sensible comfort; but, with or way to get at the light after which we without this, he who believeth is safB.* aspire, is to work for it. It is to deal Faith and conception may be so dis- aright with the word which is nigh unto joined, that the one may be strong and us, and to do aright with the things which never give forth a stronger exhibition of are nigh unto us. Whatever the sublime itself; than when the other, faint and fee- mysteriousness may be of those higher ble, is utterly unable to figure aught of manifestations which shine on the soul of the unseen and eternal thitngs which are the advanced Christian, there is no mysabove. It may trust in the name of the tery in the initial footsteps of the path Lord, even when the Lord Himself is which leads to them. It is not by the shrouded in darkness from its view. it transcendental flights of an imagination may stay upon God, even when the light labouring to realize Christ in heaven, and of God's endearing and paternal counte- foiling as signally in the enterprise as if nance is not shining in its wonted force the attempt had been to bring Christ down of manifestation upon the soul. The light from heaven. It is by a humbler but of God's glory in the face of Jesus Christ moro solid pathway-an every-day walk may be hid for a season in deepest obscu- with God in the bidden obedience of the ration-yet during the whole of that gospel-that path of the upright which as season may the spiritual mourner, even in the shining light, shineth more and more the midst of' heaviness and discomfort, be unto the perfect day.* fixed and settled on the certainties of the Ver. 10.'For with the heart man beword; and this he may prove, if not by lieveth unto righteousne-ss; and with the the raptures of a seraph, at least by the mouth confession is made unto salvation.' obedience of a servant-evincing by thie Because in the Old Testament passage toils and the sufferings and the sacrifices whence the quotation is taken, Moses of his daily and devoted walk, that he can makes mention both of the heart and stake the world and every interest he has in mouth, Paul does the same, attributing to it on the truth of Christ, that he could give each such functions as are severally up all for Him, that He could die for Hlim. proper to them-as be icf to the heart and Yet while the primary and most essen- confession to the mouth. It is true, that tial requisite is our belief in the objects of by our modern idea. tnhe heart is the seat faith, let us not undervalue the enjoy- of the affections; and we should ascribe ment and the spiritual good which lie in belief rather to the mind, which with us the luminous conception of them. Con- is the seat of the intellect: And hence the ception may lead astray, bringing us into inference of many commentators is, that converse with mere things of tancy. But the belief of the New Testament-unlike conception deals with the true as well as to what it is in the common sense of the the fictitious, brightening and enhancing term,-is a thing of feeling as well as our view of unseen realities, and thus mere faith; and that the consent of the bringing us into clearer and more intimate will as well as of the judgment, formed converse with- the things of faith. To be a constituent part of it. We, however,,gifted with suct a fatculty, even to be are more inclined to think that the anvisited though only at times and intervals cients, whether Hebrew or Greek, did not with such illumination, is an inestimable,privilege to the Chr:stian wayfarer-as ~ For Scriptural intimations ofth.s connection between duty and discernment, see John, xiv, 21; Acts, v, 32; Matt. vi 22; Matt. xxv, 29; Isa. lviii, 5 —9; Psalm cxiA ~Isaiah, 1, 10, 11. 100; x: v, 14; 1, 23. LECTURE LXXXI.-CHAPTER X, 10-13. 409 proceed on the discriminations of our world. It becomes ours on believing. We recent philosophy; and that the heart believe unto righteousness —this rightwith them being equivalent to the whole eousness being the object in which our of the inner man, might be the seat of all faith terminates, the landing-place to that proceeded therefrom, and so both of which it carries us. the emotions and the intellect-and this'And with the mouth, confession is without merging the two into one, although made unto salvation.' The apostle prothey should emanate from the same foun- ceeds from an inward sentiment to the tain; and so we read of men understand- expression or manifestation thereof in aor ing with their heart, nay of' laying up in outward act; and such an act, as, in these their hearts* —making the heart the seat days, was, very generally speaking, the of memory, even as is done by ourselves sufficient token or pledge of' a universal in the vulgar phrase of learning by heart. obedience. For then it held pre-eminently Still in point of just and sound metaphy- true, that he who confessed Christ forsook sics, we hold faith to be an act of the un- all, gave up all, made surrender or (which, derstanding alone; and that though affec- as a manifestation of principle, was equition may be both an immediate cause, and valent thereto) exposed themselves to the as immediate a consequent of the same, it surrender and loss of all. by following is never properly an ingredient thereof. after Christ. We read,* " that if any man We confess ourselves not partial to this did confess that he was Christ, he should confounding of the various functions and be put out of the synagogue;" and this faculties of the mind which are really was but a specimen or sample of that distinct from each other; and we confess larger excommunication which every man our preference for the views of those, underwent, or at least hazarded, in the who conceive of faith that, however it act of becoming an ostensible and demay have sprung beforehand from the clared Christian-an excommunication desirousness of a heart visited with moral from all that was dear to nature-becomearnestness and prompting both to prayer ing liable thereby not merely to be put and to enquiry; or, however it may issute out of the synagogue, but to be put out afterwards in the feelings and desires of of society; to incur the loss of all which holiness-yet that faith in itself is an act they had; to renounce or be renounced, of the mind purely intellectual, the judg- to forsake or bo forsaken of, house and ing of certain testimonies or certain pro- brethren and sisters and father and mother positions that they are true, the simple and wife and children and lands, yea of credence of such statements as are laid their own lives also, for the sake of Christ before us. We fear of any view different and of His gospel. No wonder then that from this, that it tends to embarrass or to confession was so honoured in these days, darken the freeness of the gospel salva- it being the exponent in fact and symbol tion-while the view that we contend for of a universal discipleship. It gave eviis the only one which does full honour to dence, that even as Christ suffered in the the grace of God as all in all, and is at flesh, so these ready and resolved followthe same time eminently subservient to ers of His had armed themselves likewise the practical righteousness as well as with the same mind-and prepared not comfort of the believer. Though faith only to suffer in the flesh but to cease should be regarded as belief and nothing from sin,f that they should no longer live else, this is not to hinder but that it may the rest of their time in the flesh to the have originated in a virtuous or good lusts of men but to the will of' God. Well affection, or that the affections and deeds may it be said of every spirit who thus of virtue might follow abundantly in its confesses Jesus Christ, that he is of God, train. and we may now understand, whenever'For with the heart man believeth unto such a confession is meant, how no man righteousness.' Yet neither is it the per- could say that Jesus was the Lord but by sonal but the judicial righteousness that the Holy Ghost. All who were so actuis here spoken of-the righteousness of ated were in full readiness to drink of the faith-that righteousness which is unto all cup which Christ drank of, and to be and upon all who believe-not the right- baptized with the baptism, that baptism eousness here which is wrought in us by of deep affliction which He was baptized the Spirit; but that righteousness of with; and we may well conceive of this Christ which is reckoned to us, and in fixity of principle and purpose, that, imvirtue of which we are invested with that possible to mere nature, it could not be right to heaven which He by His obedi- attained unto but through the washing ot ence hath won for us, or are presented regeneration and renewing of the Holy with a part and a lot, in that inheritance Ghost. The confession of these days ir which He purchased in behalf of a guilty fact, as being the best evidence and pledge * Luke, i, 66. John,.ix 22. t 1 Peter, iv, 1, 2. 52 410 LECTURE LXXXI.-CHAPTER Xx 10 —13. of a man's sincerity, was an effectual salvation are not perfectly synonymous guarantee for his good works as well as The former is part of the letter, but not his good words; and was therefore held the whole of it. To complete one's sal. in as great honour and demand, as obe- vation, there must be deliverance from the dience itself was. And as we read of power of sin as well as from its punish. those unworthy disciples who in works ment; and accordingly, while reconciled denied God-so may we learn from this by the death of Christ, we are saved by expression that by works too we may His life* —that is, because lIe li ves, we confess Him; and though it be only the shall live also; or because He hath overconfession of the mouth that is spoken of come, we shall overcome also; or because in our text, yet when we consider the of the grace dispensed upon us from the actuating spirit in which it originates, we hands of a risen Saviour, He, through the are not to wonder though the same high work of His Spirit in us effectuates our ascriptions should be given to it, as we sanctification-even as by His work in find given to the conformity of the whole the flesh for us, He hath effectuated our man with the will of God and the pre- acceptance with God. In like manner, if scriptions of the gospel. " Whosoever shall no man in these days could say that Jesus confess me before- men, him will I confess is the Lord but by the power of the Holy before my Father which is in heaven." Ghost, then to be saved by the confession It was because of their confessing Christ, of the text, which is really tantamount to that they had to endure a great fight of our thus saying, is to be saved by the afflictions; but he that maintained his operation of this heavenly agent-in persteadfastness notwithstanding, had the fect keeping with another declaration of truth of our text literally fulfilled upon the apostle, when he tells us that we are him. The confession he made was unto saved by the washing of' regeneration and salvation-for 1"he that endureth to the renewing of the Holy Ghost. end shall be saved."* Ver. 11.'For the Scripture saith, WhoUnderstanding then, that, for reasons soever believeth on him shall not be now given, confession was placed in the ashamed.' That is either-First, Shall not same rank, and had the same powers and be ashamed by the nonfulfilment of' that consequences ascribed to it, with general which is the object of their confident exobedience-it follows, that the apostle pectation. It is a confidence which they who tells us so often throughout his wri- might well cherish and avow-secure as tings that we are saved by faith, in effect they are from the mockery of any failure tells us at this place that we are saved by or disappointment in their hopes. All the works. You must all have heard of the promises of God in Christ Jesus are yea alleged contrariety between Paul and and amen; and it is because of' their cerJames upon this subj(lct; but here there tain and punctual accomplishment, that appears to be almost as strange a seeming the hope which they inspire is a hope contrariety between Paul and himself- which maketh not ashamned.t When the not a real opposition of course in either verse is regarded in this view, its referinstance, but the mere semblance of one, ence is to the distant future-not to the and which has been so often and so suc- time past when the promises were made, cessfully disposed of by the explanations not even to the present time when the of those who undertake to effect a recon- promises are believed, but to that future ciliation, as they term it, between the two time when in act and by performance the apostles, that we shall not at present re- promises will all be made good. When peat any of them. We shall only call found in very truth that the glory, now onattention to a distinction in the language ly revealed, and looked forward to, but of the apostle, when he expresses the in perspective or by anticipation, is fully several effects of faith upon the one hand, realised-then will the believer lift up his and of confession upon the other. When head and rejoice. Otherwise, ashamed man believeth it is unto righteousness- of the vain and illusory imagination on whereas when he confesseth, or confession which he had before rested, he would is made by him, it is unto salvation; and sink into despair. understanding righteousness, as it unques- Or, secondly, the text may be undertionably ought to be in this place, in its stood in reference to the present time, when forensic or legal meaning, we learn from the promises are only as yet believed, and the first clause of the verse before us, the fulfilment of them is still in reserve. that by faith we are justified —while un- Even at this earlier stage, might faith have derstanding confession as the equivalent a present and powerful effect in repressof a universal obedience, we are told in ing shame, and more especially the shame the second clause that by works we are of making the avowal of itself, and so of saved. The truth is, that justification and testifying for Christ. Like every other * Matt. x, 22.' Romans, v, 10. t Romans, Y, L LECTURE LXXXI. —CHAPTER X, 10-13. 41. principle of strong and felt urgency with- cred themes of the soul and the Saviout in, it may delight in the vent and forthgo- and eternity, amid the companionship of ing of its own utterance, and in bearing this world? When do we ever meet with down the restraints whether of shame or the free and copious utterance that would of fear, which might have otherwise inter- flow from the mouth on these subjects, if cepted the expression of it. "1I believed, only the heart was full of them. The therefore have I spoken."* "My heart general emigration of a whole neighbor. was hot within me, and the fire burned- hood from one country to another in thi; then spake I with my tongue."t "Out of world, would be the constant talk of all its the abundance of the heart the mouth parties and throughout all its families, for speaketh."t These verses point not to the months before the embarkation, and while future vindication and triumph of our the busy work of preparations and outfit. faith by the verification of its object; but was going on. H-low is it that we meei to the present antagonism and victory, so with nothing like this, on the subject of to speak, of the principle of faith over the that universal emigration from one worhl principle of shame-as exemplified by to another, which, by successive transpor our Saviour, who, for the joy that was set tations across the dark valley and shadow before Him, but was only yet in prospect, of death, will so surely and in so short a endured the cross and also despised the time overtake the whole of our living pop. shame. T'hus too the apostle was not ulation 3 Is it because there are no outashamed, and that because of the certain- fits, no preparations, and therefore nc ty he felt in Him whom he believed, and prospects to talk about?-these having the firm persuasion he had of His ability no place in the converse, just because to save him. And so he bids Timothy not they have no place in the business or in be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, the hearts of men 3 They are seldom or who Himself tells us-that whosoever never the subjects of speech, just because shall be ashamed of Him and of His words, they are seldom or never the subjects of of him also shall the Son of man be ashan- thought. Or if there be any who think of ed, when he cometh in the glory of His them, but are ashamed to speak of themFather. It is therefore a present feeling, such we say is the overbearing magnitude a present sensibility, that is spoken of in of the interest at stake, that it needs but a all these passages; and of which it is re- realising sense of them to put to flight quired that in the strength of our faith it both the fear and the shame of this world should be over-ruled, and not given way The engrossing affection of the great and to. We like this view of the text. It the one thing needful would displace und binds so together the belief of its first subordinate every inferior affection of our clause with the confession of its second nature; and, on the other hand, the total — making them, if not so identical, at want of a practical earnestness or conleast so inseparable, as fully to explain cern therein, as evinced by the tenor and the common virtues or common effects talk of almost every company, might well which are ascribed to each of them; and justify the question-Verily, is there such fully to harmonise the saying, that'con- a thing as faith upon the earth 3 fession is unto salvation,' with the say- Ver. 12, 13.'For there is no difference ing, that " the end of our faith is the salva- between the Jew and the Greek; for the tion of our souls."11 same Lord over all is rich unto all that From the proposition of this verse, a call upon him. For whosover shall call certain converse proposition might be upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.' drawn, that might well be used as a crite- But even a universal apostasy or unberion by which to test and to ascertain the lief would not make the faith of God to reality of our faith. If it be true that who- be of no effect. He is true, though every soever believeth on Him is not ashamed, man should be a liar; and the precious then it should be true that whosoever is truth announced in these verses invests ashamed of Him doth not believe. Or in with an ample warrant the messengers the terms of the preceding verse, Whosoev- of salvation, who might go forth the bearer maketh not confession of Him with the ers of a full and unexcepted commrission, mouth, believeth tHim not with the heart. to assail even a whole world lying in How comes it then, that Christ and all wickedness and unconcern, by plying which is expressly Christian, are so habit- with the overtures of a free salvation, ually and systematically excluded from each and every individual of th6 great society as topics of conversation. What human family. God, it is said here, shall we say, even of those who are de- makes no difference between the Jew and nominated the professing people, what the Greek; and there are some, who, in shall we say of their silence on the sa- defending the articles of their own scientific theology, would make the universalPsaim cxvi, 10. t Psalm Xxxix, 3. ity of the gospel offer lie in this-that, t Matthew, xii, 34. 1 1 Peter, i, 9. now when the middle wall of partition is 412 LECTURE LXXXI. —CHAPTER X, 10-13. broken down, it might be offered to men every minister and cvery hearer —which of every nation. But the Scriptural the- is for the former to knock at every single ology carries the universality farther door, and crave admittance for the gospe down than this-and so as that the gospel into every single heart, making an honest, might be offered, not merely to men of' and in the most obvious sense of the term, every nation, but to each man of every a real tender of salvation to every man, nation. God is not only no respecter of and for the latter to respond with the nations, He is no respecter of persons. same honesty and in full confidence, to It is not only whatsoever nation shall call the call that has been thus sounded in his on the name of the Lord shall be saved; hearing-So that his call back again Dut whatsoever man of that nation shall shall not be of words merely. For as the call upon the name of the Lord, he shall confession which availeth is not with the be saved. WVe are not now probing into mouth only, but proceedeth from faith in the depths of' the Almighty's government; the heart, so the call which availeth is or speculating on the counsels of a pre- not one of utterance only, but proceedeth destinating God. But on the authority of from desirousness in the heart; and whothese verses, we are attempting to give soever so calleth on the name of the Lord forth the plain and palpable duties of shall be saved. LECTURE LXXXII. ROMANS x, 14-21. W IIow then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed. and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard t and how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach except they be sent; as it is written, How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, and bring glad tidings of good things! But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, Lord, who hath believed our report t So then faith cometh by lhearing, and hearing by the word of God. But I say, Have theinot heard? Yes, verily, their sound werit into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world. But I say, Did net Israel. nowx I First, Msos saitli, I will provoke you to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish na;:'l,r-1 anger you. But iEsaias is very [)old, and saith, I was found of them that sought me not; I was maae manifest unto them that asked not after me. But to Israel he saith, All day long I have stretched forth my hands unto a disobedient and gainsayillg people." THE gospel should be preached to every with a promise, Lo I am with you always, creature-it beinlg a universal message even unto the end of the world. It is not fiom hea;ven to earth, co-extensive with time to charge the Almighty, or to arraign the species; and not only to be carried the methods of His admninistration-till forth over all, but to be pressed on the we have enquired in how faar this precept specific acceptance of each. A commrnis- has been carried into operation; and thent sion thus universal should have had at our what the instances are in which, when hands a universal fulfilment; but we have the precept was fully acted up to, this only to open our eyes, and see how pal- promise has ever been withheld. Man's pably short it has come of this-both in- prone and precipitate inclination is to ternally or within the limits of Christen- reckon with his God, and to leave unsetdom, and externally or abroad and over tied all the while that reckoning which the face of the world. And yet we affect we ought first to hold with ourselves,-a to wonder, as if it were something myste- transgression this both of piety and of rious and inscrutable, at the partiality of sound philosophy-it being the dictate of the Divine government, in having limited each, instead of speculating on His part the blessings of the Christian religion to in the matter which is secret and belongs so small a portion of the human family. unto Him, fully to examine how we stand Before carrying the reproach so far up- acquitted of our own part which is reward, we had better first take account of vealed and belongs to us and to our our own immediate share in it; and deal children. with the proximate cause of this pheno- Ver. 14, 15.' How then shall they call menon; ere we take cognisance of any of on him in whom they have not believed. its remote and anterior causes. We corn- and how shall they believe in him of whom plain of a limited Christianity, but there they have not heard 1 and how shall they was no limit in the terms of that comrnis- hear without a preacher? And how shall sion which was put into our hands at the they preach except they be sent? as it is outset of' this dispensaticn —and that in written, How beautiful are the feet of the form of a precept, Go and promulgate them that preach the gospel of peace, ar.d this gospel every where; accompanied bring glad tidings of good things!' These LECTURE LXXXII.-CHAPTER X, 14-21. 413 verse, give the first answer, the answer men but in the power of God. It is for which is readiest and most within reach, Him however, and not for us, to make to the question-How is it that the whole choice of His own pathway for the conearth is not Christianised? God could, veyance of His own blessings, and the by an exercise of power and unlimited propagation of His own spiritual insovereignty, achieve this result at the in- fluences into the souls of men; and if He stant bidding of His voice-even as on the choose to make one man His vehicle for first day of creation, He said let there be the transference of light and grace into light, and there was light. But God hath, the heart of another, it is the part of him in the exercise of wisdom, to us perhaps whom He has thus selected as His instruinscrutable, yet in perfect analogy with ment, to labour with all his might and asthe many thousand processes of' nature siduity in the sacred duties of that vocaand providence, He hath chosen to ordain tion whereto he has been called. This an instrumentality for the diffusion of the preference for the agency of men in the Christian religion over the world. Now work of Christianisation is conspicuit so happens that men are component, ous in every age of the church; and nay thechief parts of this instrumentality; at no time more than in the first age, and we should first enquire how they have even though it was the period of miradone their part-so as to ascertain whe- cles and supernatural visitations. We ther it be not we the men who are in fault, have often looked on the history of the before daring to lay the fault upon God. conversion of Cornelius as a striking illusIt is a sound doctrinal theology which tration of this. God could have workacknowledges, amid the countless diver- ed a saving faith in the heart of Cornelius, sity of operations around us, that it is by an immediate suggestion from His own God who worketh all in all. But God Spirit, or through the mouth of an angel. worketh by means; and when a certain And He did send an angel to Cornelius, prescribed human agency enters into that not however that he might preach the gossystem of means which Iie hath instituted, pel to him, but that he might bid him send it is a sound practical theology to labour for Peter, and receive that gospel at the as assiduously in the bidden way, as if lips of' a fellow-mortal. And God also man worked all. It is one of the highest sent to Peter a communication froin heapoints of Christian wisdom, to combine yen to prepare him for the message-thus,he utmost dependence on God with the doubling as it were the amount of miracutmost diligence in the prosecution of all ulous agency, in order that the gospel those activities which He Himself hath might be heard by a yet unconverted appointedl-insomuch that though the child of Adam, not through the mediHoly Spirit be the undoubted agent of um of a supernatural and angelic, but every conversion, Paul held it no infringe- through the medium of a natural and a hument on orthodoxy, to say as much as man utterance. Yet not so as that the that, under our present economy, the con- natural should supersede or displace the version of the world, without the instru- supernatural-for while Peter spake, the mentality of men, is impossible.'How Holy Ghost fell on all them who heard. shall they believe, unless they hear? How The function of Peter was the same with shall they hear without a preachert How that of a minister or missionary in the shall they preach except they be sent' present day-it was to tell Cornelius the lie himself was converted, by a direct words by which he and all his house communication from heaven, apart from should besaved. And the function of the all converse with flesh and blood, receiv- Holy Ghost for the purpose of giving deing the gospel not of man nor taught it by monstration and efficiency to the word, is man, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ the same now as ever —te falls on us still -yet'none more strenuous than he, in even as He did on them at the beginning. affirming the necessity of human co-opera. Let no man put asunder the things which tion, in the great work of evangelising the God hath joined; but let all in deed and world. Not butthathe imagined, in every in performance strive mightily for the instance as well as in his own, that faith spread and prevalence of the gospel en is not of ourselves but is the gift of God; the earth, and give no rest to God in prayand that even when conveyed by the er, that by His grace He might work in preaching of one man into the mind of them mightily. another, it is but the pouring from one The application of all this to the ques. 3arthen vessel to another of a treasure tion of missions, whether home or foreign, which had come down from heaven-so is quite obvious. Let these be multiplied that whenever, in any age or country of to the uttermost, so as to fill up all the vathe world that precious faith which is unto cancies which are within, or to spread salvation is deposited in any heart, it is abroad over all the mighty spaces which established by a supernatural agency, are beyond the limits of Christendom. Yet and standeth there not in the wisdom of all will be useless and effete, if unblest or 414 LECTURE LXXX-. —CHAPTER X) 14-21. unaccorm:panied by the Spirit of God. and to reason with them out of their own Some there are, men of devotion, like ma- scriptures. And the quotation before us ny perhaps of the Puritanic age, who have seems eminently fitted to subserve, what a contempt for machinery, and who think was evidently a great object with Paul, to succeed by prayer alone for the exten- throughout the whole of this epistle-that sion of our Redeemer's Kingdom. Others of reconciling his countrymen to the adthere are, men of bustle and enterprise, mission of the Gentiles into a religious like many perhaps of our present age, equality with themselves. It is taken who live, if not in the contempt, at least frorim one of their own most illustrious wri. in the neglect of supplication; and think ters, to whom they could not turn back, to succeed in the work of Christian phi- without reading in almost immediate conlanthropy, by the busy prosecution of tiguity with the passage to which he rethose schemes and societies which have fers them, of the salvation of the Gentiles recently sprung up in the religious world. along with the comfort of their own peo. Neither will do singly-neither the hu- ple and the redemption of Jerusalem man instrumentality alone without the "The Lord hath made bare His holy arm agency from above; not yet the celestial in the eyes of all the nations (Gentiles); agency, which refuses to come forth but and all the ends of the earth shall see the through an earthly apparatus which itself salvation of our God."* But how could prescribes, and to the working of which they behold that salvation-or, to underit gives all its vitality and all its vigour. stand their seeing in the mental sense of Without the conjunction of these, both the term, how could they believe in it, unthe men of prayer and the men of per- less they were told of it, unless it was formance will fall short of the object preached to them, unless messengers were which their hearts are set upon. He who sent to them as well as to God's peculiar knows rightly to divide, or rather rightly to and favored people? In other words, as compound the word of truth, knows how to the Gentiles were under the gospel econoconjoin these, and so gives himself wholly, my to be made partakers of the same not to pra;yer alone or to the ministry of the faith, and so of the same high privileges word alone-but like the apostles of old to with themselves, and as they could not prayer and the ministry of the word. The believe without hearing, nor hear without one sets up and works a machinery upon a preacher-it was necessary that the earth. The other brings down from hea- message of life should be propounded to ven that inner element which actuates the them also; And thus he vindicates his movements, and imparts to them all their own peculiar apostleship, in that he was living energy. It is to this prolific union commissioned as a chosen vessel to bear of devout and desirous hearts with busy the tidings of salvation before the Gentiles hands, that the church of Christ stands as well as the children of Israel. indebted for all its prosperity, in those Ver. 16, 18-21.' But they have not all seasons of gracious revival, when the fre- obeyed the Gospel. For Isaias saith, Lord, quent and earnest preaching of the word who hath believed our report?-But I say, has been preceded or accompanied by a Have they not heard? Yes verily, their spirit of frequent and importunate prayer. sound went into all the earth, and their Thus alone can the word of God be caus- words unto the ends of the world. But I ed mightily to grow and to prevail-be it say, Did not Israel know'! First, Moses in a household, or a parish, or an empire, saith, I will provoke you to jealousy by or through the world at large. them that are no people, and by a foolish' How beautiful are the feet of them that nation I will anger you. But Isaias is vepreach the gospel of peace, and bring glad ry bold, and saith, I was foiund of them tidings of good things.' Nothing can ex- that sought me not; I was made manifest ceed the admirable tact and sagacity, unto them that asked not after me. But wherewith Paul adapts his argument to to Israel he saith, All day long I have the tastes and partialities of those with stretched forth my hands unto a disobewhom he at the time is holding converse. dient and gainsaying people.' We have In an upright and honorable sense he was already said that ere we charge God with all things to all men. To the Greeks he partiality in that the blessings of the was a Greek-as in his address to the peo- Christian religion are so limited, we should Dle of Athens, when he quoted from their first acquit ourselves of the universal own poets, and reasoned with them from commission to go and make a tender of the mythology of their nation. And to these blessings to every creature under the Jews he was a Jew-as in the pas- heaven; and so make trial of the promise sage before us, in which we can discern which accompanies this injunction-" Lo the same principle of accommodation-as I am with you always, even unto the end indeed in all his recorded addresses to the of the world." But ere we bring this ex. men of that nation, when he never fails to quote abundantly from their own prophets, ~ Isaiah, lii, 7, 9, 10, 15. LECTURE LXXXII.-CHAPTER Xx 14-21. 415 periment to any thing like a full and fin- free appliance of that remE dy to all upon ished completion, we are anticipated by the face of the earth,-which involved a decisive fact, and from which we know, the admission of those, who were before beforehand, that though the gospel were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel. preached to all, and by competent mes- to the same faith and the same high pKr. sengers too, sent forth by God Himself- ileges with themselves. This aim, which yet that all would not receive it. It had from first to last he never lets go or loses been so preached in many distinct neigh- sight of, appears so early as in the first borhoods even by prophets and inspired chapter, where he speaks of the gospel apostles-yet without effect upon many, (i, 16) as being the power of God unto who heard but did not believe. It was salvation, to the Jew first and also to the prophesied by Esaias, that all should not Greek. After which, he enters more disobey the gospel, even though brought to tinctly and at greater length on the theme their doors, or though reported to them, and in the second chapter (ii, 17-29) where so placed within the reach of their hear- he argues for the common religious f)ooting it.'Lord, who hath believed our re- ing on which these two now stand-eviport.' Or who hath believed the hearing dently not without the apprehension, or which they have heard of us 1 The word rather the actual experience of a strong translated report in this verse is the same repugnance on the part of the Jewish with that translated hearing in the next. mind to the conclusion which he was laThere could be no mistake then as to bouring to establish. He then-as if a their hearing.'But 1 say, Have they not truth revolting to the prejudices of those heard? Yes, verily.' He might have whomn he was addressing should be un. given historical proof of this, by quoting folded gradually-he ventures, if I may his own experience and that of his col- say so, in the third chapter, on terms of leagues in the apostleship-who had so greater expressness and particularityoften in the past course of' their ministry charging the Jews with the same sinful, lifted their testimony in the hearing both ness as the Gentiles (iii, 9); and holding of countrymen and others who rejected forth to both the same salvation, even it.to whom they preached the gospel, that righteousness by fiaith which is unto which, though to some it was the savour all and upon all who believe (iii, 22)'for of life unto life, was to many the savour there is no difference'-nlo difference he of death unto death. certainly means between Jews and GenBut in order to trace the line of con- tiles, though he does not here make use tinuity in this whole passage, we must of these designations, as if he shrunk at look to the verses more in connection first fiom naming the two, when for the with each other. first time he places them on the same even Ver. 16-'21.'But they have not all platform of acceptance with God. Yet ere obeyed the gospel. For Esaias saith, the chapter closes, and as if waxing bolder Lord, who lath believed our report? So in the progress of his argument, he does then faith cometh by hearing, arid hearing make distinct utterance, though under an by the word of' God. But I say, Have. aspect of greater generality, of the one they not heard? Yes verily, their sound Father in heaven being the God not of went into all the earth, and their words the Jews only but also of the Gentilesunto the ends of the world. But I say, nay of His justifying the one whom he Did not Israel know? First Moses saith, there calls the uncircumcision, in the I will provoke you to jealousy by them same way that He justifies the other that are no people, and by a foolish na- whom he distinguishes as the circumcistion I will anger you. But Esaias is very ion, which titles he keeps by throughout bold, and saith, I was found of them that the whole of his remaining argument in sought me not; I was made manifest unto the chapter which follows. He had exthem that asked not after me. But to perienced the sensitiveness of the Jewish Israel he saith, All day long I have prejudices, when the name of the Gentiles stretched forth my hands unto a disobe- was introduced in connection with any dient and gainsaying people.' It is obvious such preferment as brought them up to a that one main design of this epistle is to level with the men of their own nationestablish the common ground, on which more especially on the occasion of that lews and Gentiles now stand under the public address he ma( e in person to a Christian dispensation-in regard first, to great multitude at Jerusalem, who heard the like disease or condemnation that him patiently till this word escaped from were upon them both; then to the like him; "and they gave him audience unto remedy which they equally stand in need this word "* —after which there were no of; and, most offensive of all, or what bounds to their indignation. We can required the most strenuous effort on the fancy as if it were due to that admirable part of the apostle in reconciling it to the minds of his own countrymen, the same A cts,xxii, 22. 416 LECTURE LXXXII.-CHAPTER X, 14 —21. delicacy which is so palpably one of our.o them; and this he confirms in the 15th apostle's great characteristics-that if, verse by a passage taken from one of the when holding converse with Jews, he has most celebrated of their prophets. But occasion to mention the Gentiles as of here he interposes in verse 16th, a needful equal rank and consideration with them- and qualifying remark which might have selves, he does it so frequently under the been suggested indeed by another passage cover of a quotation from their own from the same prophet very near to the Scriptures. former one, and to which at all events the It is obvious from the whole substance apostle expressly appeals. It follows not, and texture of his argument in this epistle that though preaching should be the ordito the Romans, that he feels himself nary or even the indispensable prerequidealing throughout with Jewish under- site to faith, it follows not that faith should standings, and with men of Jewish edu- always be the result of preaching. A cation. lie never loses sight of the Old given cause might be indispensable to a Testament; but seems at all times glad certain effect, and yet not always produce of an opportunity, whenever he can for- that effect. Though the hearing of the tify his reasonings by passages and iilus- gospel were necessary to the believing of trations taken out of these Scriptures. it, it follows not that all who hear should There is great richness of such allusion necessarily believe; and accordingly the in the fourth chapter; nor is it wholly apostle tells us,'They have not all obeyed absent from the fifth and seventh; and the gospel'-by which he undoubtedly makes a full reappearance in the ninth, means, that, of the all who have heard it onward to those verses wherewith we are so many have not obeyed it. And he fornow occupied. In an earlier part of the tifies this assertion by the quotation from epistle which we have quoted, where the Isaiah,'Who hath believed our report 1' apostle speaks of the righteousness by The question implies that few had befaith being unto all. he adds — for there lieved; but it also implies, that though is no difference." And again in the part belief does not alway follow in the train to which we have now come (x, 12)-in of a previously heard report, yet that when conjunction with those terms of glorious it does take place, it is always or generally universality, ",all" and "whosoever," he in the order of;his succession-Or, in adds the very sarme words —" for there is other words-Though hearing:s not no difference"-only telling us fuirther- alwvays followed up by a subsequent faith more between whom-l no diffierence be- as its effect-yet that seldom or never tween the Jew and the Greek." lie had does faith arise in the mind, but from an before affirmed of Jews and Gentiles, that anterior hearing as its cause. And this they laboured under the same disease, explains the dependence of the 17th verse and that the same remedy was provided on the last clause of the 16th-a dependfor them in heaven; and he is now em- ence more obvious to the reader of the ployed in demonstrating, that, in order to original than it is in the translation; for the remedy having effect, the hearers of the word'report' in the one, and the word it on earth must carry it equally home to' hearing' in the other, are both rendered both-or that both must be alike preached from the same term (IKo07) in the Greek. unto, and plied with the same calls and It helps also to impress the connection overtures, by the messengers of a common more strongly-that whereas in our Engsalvation. And so he evidently feels hirn- lish bibles the belief in the one verse a-nd self again to be in contact with certain faith in the other, though they signify the points of repulsion in the Jewish mind; same thing yet sound so differently, in the and, for the purpose of gaining access original the same radical is employed in thereunto, recurs to h is usual expedients- both (=rtrev-,S and,r..d.); and these two speaking to their own familiar recogrni- verses would therefore have been transtions, and reasoning with them out of lated more synonymously at least, if in their own Scriptures. the 16th it had been translated, Who hath He begins this work of quotation at the believed in the hearing that we have 5th verse, and continues it downward-till sounded in his ears, (which though a comhe had established the necessity of send- plaint and implying therefore that few ing men over the world, to bring men to had believed, implies also that belief, if the faith of the gospel-Whence it follows, not the actual, was at least the proper as the Gentiles by the new economy were consequent of hearing,) which -would have to have a part in the same salvation brought out the inference in the 17th more through the medium of the same faith palpably, Therefore belief cometh by with the Jews, that, in order to their be- hearing, and hearing by the word of God. lieving alike, they must be preached unto The question, What plants have arisen alike, for how can they believe without from the seed which has been cast into hearing, or hear without a preacher -- the ground?-clearly implies, that, while which preacher or preachers must be sent all seeds do not germinate into plants, yet LECTURE LXXXII. —CIAPTER X, 14-21. 417 a plant never arises but from a seed, and general manner was, he goes back upon that the one is the proper and causal an- earlier times —for even then it may be tecedent of the other. said that the gospel was preached to th( se The question then is naturally started of that remoter period as well as unto us at this place, Whether the hearing indis- of the present day; and from the moulhs pensable to faith,has been carried abroad? of two of their own most honoured writers, -and a reply is given in the affirmative, he gives the same answer, and pronounces couched in language all the more con- upon them the same condemnation. First genial to the Jewish ear, that it was taken Moses, who, on a former occasion, had from Scripture, and which conveys thus said of them, i" What nation is so great, much at least, that the gospel ought to go that hath statutes and judgments so rightforth as freely and universally through- eous as all this law which I set before out the world, as the light of the sun is you this day?"-this same Moses who spread abroad over the surface of it. And, thus affirmed the knowledge of the peoin point of fact it had, even when the ple of Israel to be above that of all the apostle was writing, been proclaimed far other people upon earth, says afterwards, and wide beyond the limits of' Judaism; and in the words here quoted, that, as and now there was no let or hindrance, in they had abused these privileges, God the nature and design of the economy would transfer them to others who hadt itself, to restrain the diffusion of it through not been so distinguished, and so provoke, every place and territory where men were them to jealousy by a people who hit. to be found. And accordingly it had erto had been no peculiar people to Hin; sounded forth to the outskirts of the Ro- and anger them by a foolish nation, a man empire, which was then spoken of nation destitute of the knowledge which in terms that properly signified the whole had been so plentifully communicated to of the habitable earth-insomuch that themselves. And in verses 20th and 21st. Paul says of' the word of the gospel', Isaiah expresses himself in still boldel " which is come unto you as it is in all arind clearer terms. By the boldness the world," and " which was preached to which he ascribes to Isaiah, the apostls every creature which is under heaven."* very distinctly intimates, that he felt him So that to the question, Have men heard self treading on delicate ground —engagee the gospel — there could be no difficulty as he was in telling the Jews of their na in giving the prompt and decisive reply, tional misconduct, and of the forfeiture'Yen verily.' which they had thereby incurred of the Ver. 19. After having replied in the national honours, which at one time preceding verse generally and for all singled them out and signalised them mankind, the question is reiterated with a above all the rest of the hurnzn flrnily. special reference to the children of Israel. " I was found of them that sought me not, Did not they in particular know? — I was made manifest to them that asked had they also the advantage of being not after me." All day long had God made to hear and be acquainted with the stretched forth His hands unto Israelsubject-matter of preaching? This Paul addressing them, and bringing H-imself might have replied to in a clear and de- near unto them, and giving them the cided affirmative-grounding it on the knowledge of His will and of Ilis ways. events of his own age. They had a pre- Verily they have not all obeyed the gos. ference over the Gentiles in every re- pel, even though pressed upon their ac. spect. They saw Christ in the flesh- ceptance-forthese Israelites in paiticu. they witnessed HIis miracles-they heard lar, to whom the closest approaches he c his discourses-even after His ascension, been made, and the fullest revelation had and a commission was left with the apos- been given, turned out after all a disobe ties to go and preach the gospel unto all dient and gainsaying people. nations, still the priority was given to This somewhat unmanageable passagu them: For though the apostles went may be thus paraphrased. "There is nc forth with the message of salv;ttion over difference between Jew and Greek, for all the earth, it was after beginning at the same Lord and Maker of all, is rich to Jerusalem; and in every place or nation all who call on' Him. For whosoever they came to, it was their practice to seek shall call on His name shall be saved. after the Jews and preach to them first- But how can they call on Him till they be. till wearied out by the obstinate rejection lieve in Him, and how can they believe of their doctrine, they made this protest unless they hear of Him, and how can against it-Since you hold yourselves they hear but by a preacher And in unworthy of eternal life, lo we turn to order to this, preachers must be sent, even the Gentiles. Paul could have thus an- as those were of whom Isaiah speaks, swered in his own person: but, as his when, hailing them as the messengers of good, he exclaims, 1" How beautiful are the Col i. 6,23. feet of them that preach the gospel of 53 418 LECTURE LXXXII.-CH APTERC X, 14-2 1. peace, and bring glad tidings of good stick to the other and darker places of things!" Yet it follows not that all who the earth; and the highest of their proare thus preached unto shall believe. In phets told them in still more decisive point of fact, all did not put faith in the terms, that those high preferments of good tidings; and accordingly the same which they boasted, should be taken away Isaiah complains of the smallness of their from them, and given to others-and that number —saying, Who hath believed our because of their continued resistance to a testimony? Yet though belief does not beseeching God, who had so long but in always come after a testimony, a testi- vain, pressed on their acceptance the mony always, or at least ordinarily comes overtures of His great salvation.' before the belief-for faith cometh by There are various and important topics hearing, though not by all or any sort of for reflection presented throughout the hearing, but the hearing only of the word passage which forms the ground-work of of God. Has not this word then been pro- this Lecture. But we forbear the further claimed to all? Yes truly-the barrier consideration of them at present; and all between Jew and Gentile is now moved the niore readily, that the opportunity for away; and the Sun of Righteousness a future treatment of them will not be should be made as free and patent to all wanting in what remains of the epistle. as is the sun of nature. But did Israel For the views which have been already share in this light? Yes, and that in a given by us of the 17th verse we refer to more signal and preeminent way: But, a Setrmon published many years ago.* unworthy as they proved themselves of the privilege even their own legislator First printed in 1812, and now to be found in our volume of' Public and Occasional Sermons.' being vo). Xf threatened the removal of their candle- of the Series. LECTURE LXXXIII. ROMANS Xi, 1-5. i I say then, tIath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, df the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the Scripture saith of Elias I how he maketh intercession to God agaiinst Israel, saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets and digged downtl thine altars; and I am left alone, and thev seek my Miff. But what saith the answer of God unto him. I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of BaaL Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace." IN the preceding chapter we are told all censure and crimination on account of the perfect and unqualified freeness of of it. Certain it is, that a full and unrethe gospel-insomuch that it may be held stricted commission has been put into our forth, nay urged, with all simplicity and hands-Go unto all nations, Go and preach earnestness on the acceptance of every the Gospel unto every creature. Have man; and in virtue of this, whosoever we fulfilled this task? Before speculating calleth on the name of the Lord shall be on the part which God may have had in saved. It follows therefore, that there is this result, would it not be well to inquire not a human creature under heaven, from how far we stand acquitted of our own whom the offers of this said gospel ought part in it? Ere we put the question, Why to be withheld; and it is on the undoubted is it that all men do not believe-is there truth of this position that we have founded not another question which seems to have at least one reply to a question put, and the natural precedency, Have all men sometimes in the form of a charge or been preached unto? Have missionaries complaint argainst the equity of the Divine yet gone abroad over all the dark places administration, Why the blessings of of the earth; or, even at our own doors, Christianity should be so limited in point has the message of salvation been enough of extent, or, Why a religion expressly sounded forth, or pressed with sutlicient designed for all mankind, should have importunity on the attention of all the appropriated or taken full possession of families within the limits of Christendom? so small a part of the human family? If in this we have failed or fallen short, Our answer then was, that, ere we ar- which we have most glaringly, it is raigned the policy or procedure oe the scarcely for us at least to charge God.Almighty in this matter, we should first with partiality —the God who has put into hold a reckoning with ourselves, and de- our hands so liberal and large a warrant, termine whether we stand exempted from and accompanied it with the promise too, LECTURE LXXXIII.-CHAPTER XI, 1 —5. 419 that, In the discharge of it He would be I to draw what we conceive to be the limit with us always even unto the end of the between the knowable and the unknowworld. Have we worked enough under able in this question; and have also there the preceptS —or prayed enough over the stated the principles on which I hold, promise? It is scarcely for us at least to that, whatever difficulty there may be in cast reproaches on the high government explaining the procedure of God, this of Heaven, ere we first addressed our- carries in it no excuse for the wickedtness selves and that wvith diligent hands and of man. The moral certainties in the dependent hearts, to our assigned task one field, are not in the least bedimmed upon earth; and then, after having over- or overshaded, by the metaphysical obscu. tured the gospel to all men, seen whether, rities which rest on the other and the more as the effect of a universal proclamation, arduous field of speculation. MAn's una universal Christianity did not follow in belief; if resolvable into man's wilf'ulness, its train. and our Saviour does resolve it into the But this, however justly or pertinently evil of his own doings,* stands as clearly it may be said, is yet far from a complete out a rightful object of condemnation, or adequate solution of the phenomenon whether the policy and jurisprudence of in question. It is not enough to tell us HI-eaven are thrown open to our view, or that the gospel might be declared unto shrouded in deepest secrecy. If the quesall men, and that all who believe shall be tion be put, Why are some only preached saved-when in point of fact all do not unto, and not all? we reply, that as far and will not believe it. As to the objec- as this proceeds from the indifference of tive presentation thereof, there might be those called Christians to the souls of the the utmost possible latitude and freeness perishing millions around them, the fault in the gospel; but, in order to its taking lies clearly with man. If the question be effect, there must also be a subjective put, Why do some only of those preached consent thereto on the part of those to unto believe and not all? we reply, that whom it is addressed. Now it appears as far as this proceeds from the love of from thousands and thousands more of darkness and the power of depravity, the successive specimens, in the as many dif- perversity and the fault stil lie clearly ferent localities where the experiment has with man. But if the question be put, been tried, that all who hear the gospel, Why is it that the Spirit from on high even however rightly and authoritatively selects some only, whom he disposes to preached to them, do not obey the gospel; receive and obey the gospel, and not all. and this difference, this subjective dif- we confess ourselves overawed by the ference between one man and another, is difficulties- of a theme so transcendentally a fact or phenomenon which remains to and so hopelessly above us; and would be accounted for. We shall not here say join the apostle in saying, Who art thou, over again what we have already said, O man, that repliest against God? when, expounding former chapters in this Ver. 1.'I say then, Hath God cast epistle, we were led to discuss the high away his people? God forbid. For I altopic of predestination. We then admit- so am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, ted, and stilt with all confidence repeat, of the tribe of Benjamin.' At the concluthat while there is diversity of operations, sion of the last chapter we find the apostle it is God who worketh all in all-that He sayinr, that, all day long, or during the is throned in universal sovereignty-as whole period of their political subsistence supreme in the inner and unseen world as a nation, God had held converse, whethof spirits, as I-e is absolute and uncon- er in the way of remonstrance or entreaty, trolled in fixing, all the events which be- with the children of Israel-Sending them, long to the visible history of nature and firom one age to another, prophets and providence. On this principle, we cannot lrighteous men, whom they slew and perlook to the fact of one man believing the secuted-till at length they crucified the gospel, without connecting it with the Lord of glory, after which, by an act of fact that God has ordained it so-and terrible retribution, the whole Jewish econneither can we look to the fact of another omy, both civil and. ecclesiastical, was utman disobeying the gospel, without con- terly exterminated, or swept off by the necting it with the fact that God has left " besom of destruction" from the ftce of it so. If asked to assign the reason of the earth. The question of our present God having so done, or the cause of this verse follows quite naturally in the train difference between one man and another, of such a contemplation. Hath God then and that with the view of explaining or entirely rejected His ancient people? Hath vindicating the counsels of the upper He wholly and conclusively cast them sanctuary-we have no other answer to away 1 to which question Paul's answer make, but make. it frankly and imme(li- is a prompt and emphatic negative; and, ately, that we cannot tell. At an earlier stage of this exposition, we have attempted' John, iii, 19. 420 LECTURE LXXXIIT. —CHAPTER XI, 1 —5. in confirmation of which, he quotes him- less than seven thousand, when the proph. self as a specimen. HI-e himnself was an et, gifted and endowed as he was, could Israelite, of the seed of Abraham arid not fix on a single individual. God knew tribe of Benjamin, or as he elsewhere them now as well as foreknew them (ver says, an Hebrew of the Hebrews-yet, so 2) from all eternity; but it is altogether far from being an outcast, was a convert worthy of observation, that it is not by to the new faith, and in full possession their election that He marks them out to both of its hopes and privileges. It is Elijah. He does not read their names to Perhaps somewhat gratuitous in some to him out of the book of life in heaven, or imrnagin that he particularises his tribe, be- make any revelation of the secret purposes bause it was the last and least of the respecting them which He had from evtwelve, and at one time indeed on the eve erlasting. -Ie singles them out to the of its extermination —as all the more strik- prophet by a sensible and a present mark, ing illustration or proof; that, great and by a great and palpable act of obedience signal though the days of their calamitous to His will upon earth.'But what saith visitation had been, yet "the Lord will not the answer of God unto him? I have recast off his people, neither will he forsake served to myself seven thousand men, His inheritance."* But, instead of strain- who have not bowed the knee to the ing at ingenuities of this sort, let us be image of Baal.'-Ver. 4. satisfied with the idea, that Paul meant Now we hold it of great theological imnothing more by the specification of his portance to notice this peculiarity God tribe than simply to authenticate his ge- might have told Elijah of His primative nealogy as a Jew, and so make it all the decree respecting these men. But no-He more palpaple that he incurred no forfeit- prefers telling him of their present doure thereby-seeing that he was not only ings. Known to Himself are all His works. himself gifted with the unsearchable rich- and among the rest, the state of these seves of Christ, but commissioned to preach, en thousand men from the beginning of and thus make a full tender of them to the world; and on this high and trancenothers also. dental ground, He could have told the Ver. 2, 3.' God hath not cast away his prophet of their safety. But, instead of people which he foreknew. Wot ye not this, He choses what may be called a lowwhat the Scripture saith of Elias l how er and experimental ground, on which to he maketh intercession to God against indicate or make known to him the condiIsrael, saying, Lord, they have killed thy tion of these men as children of God's prophets, and digged dlown thine altars'; own family. They had not bowed the and I am left alone, and they seek my knee to Baal; and this IIe thought to be life.' God did not reject all Israel. He ground enough on which to satisfy the did not cast off those of' whom He fore- mind of Elijah-thereby maintaining and knew, and who were the objects not of his exemplifying the distinction between the prescience only, but of His predestination secret things which belong unto God, and to eternal blessedness. "Whom he did the revealed things which belong to us foreknow them he did predestinate." We and to our children. are here reminded of the expression, that And surely if God, even at the time of a " they are not all Israel which are of Is- special and extraordinary communication rael." God knoweth His own. He hath to one of His highest prophets-when tellknown them from the beginning, and all ing him of these seven thousand menHis purposes regarding them shall stand. reserved the secret of their predestination, And these gracious purposes of the Al- and laid all the stress upon their practice mighty often extend to a greater number -Surely it is not for us, unvisited by any than we think; and of this the apostle such illumination, to explore the dark regives a most memorable historic illustra- cesses of a past eternity, or seek to open tion in the case of the prophet Elijah-who the book of God's decrees, that we may cast a despairing eye over the land of find the names of the persons who are reIsrael, and could not. recognise over the corded there. There is a better method, whole length and breadth of it, even so and one nearer at hand, by which to asmuch as one true worshipper. He made sure ourselves that we are the subjects of complaint to God of a universal apostacy a blessed ordination, even by doing as -grounding as is often done in all sci- these Hebrew saints in the days of Elijah, ences and all subjects, a hasty generalisa- by keeping ourselves unspotted from the tion on his own limited and personal world. The Lord knoweth them that are experience. But, God seeth not as man His, and so knew them from all eternity. seeth. Ic knew the children of His own But man knoweth them that are the Lord's election, His own " hidden ones," as they in another way; and this in virtue of the have been termed; and could discern no perfect, the never-failing harmony, which obtains between the election and the sanc-'PsaRlm iV, 14. tification. It is true that God predesti, LECTURE LXXXIII.-CIIAPTER XI; 1-b. 421 nates to eternal life, but never without might "declare plainly that they seek a predestinating those whom He designs for country"*-and thus, by leading tc a this glorious inheritance to be conformed greater mutual acquaintanceship, might to the image of His Son.* Election is an- bring these fellow-travellers to Zion more terior to character-Yet so unbroken is closely and constantly beside each other the connection betweenthem, that charac- It were well in these expectants of a ter becomes a criterion by which to as- higher citizenship, these voyagers for certain the election. For this we need not heaven, to seek out each other by the aspire to the inaccessible steeps which are way-and that not merely for a benefit to above, but have only to persevere in the themselves, from the fellowship or comtoils of our appointed task below.', The munion of saints here; but for the greater Lord knoweth them that are his," and command which it would enable them to some there are who love to carry upward wield over the moral destinies of the their speculation there, even to the highest world.t Union, it has often been said, is point of a high and supralapsarian Cal- strength; but it is not in the secret, but vinism. Let not this supersede the care- in the ostensible union of the friends an(l fulness wherewith every Christian should followers of Christianity, that the great observe, nor yet the earnestness where- strength of their cause lies; and what with every Christian minister should urge with the greater force of that cementing the saying-" Let every one that nameth principle which binds them together, as the name of Christ depart from iniquity."t well as the mighty hold which their peBut there is something more in this culiar objects have over conscience, the verse which we have not yet adverted to highest faculty of our nature, we should — fitted to animate and cheer the heart of' look for the greatest possible results from him who eyes with despondency the pre- their visible combination-in speeding sent moral and religious state, whether of onward the triumphs of the faith, or the the country or of the world. We mean full and final establishment in the world the superiority by which God's estimate, of the empire of Truth and Righteousness. or the true estimate, of what was still good And it is not enough that we look to in Israel, exceeded in amount that of the the state of Christianity as it now stands. prophet. The'even so' of the next verse We should look to Christianity in pro. warrants our making this application. gress. For by however small a fraction Elijah's imagination was, that he stood we may compute its hold of our species alone; but God knew better, and told him now, a time is coming when we shall of seven thousand who were like-minded cease to count it by minorities and renm. with himself. And so are there many in nants. The eye of God not only explores this our dayv, and sometimes the more the present; but, with a thorough cognisaintly and spiritual are the most liable zance of time as well as space, it reaches to this miscalculation, who, as they con- onward to the most distant futurity. He template the prevalence of infidelity and not only knows, but He foreknows. By wickedness around them, underrate the the voice of an immediate revelation, He Christianity both of their own neighbour- gave comfort to the despairing heart of hood and of the nation at large. The Elijah, when He told him of the numbers, number of God's hidden ones may be who, even at the time of what seemed an greater than we think of-known only to all but universal defection and idolatry, Him, and in places where we have no still held by the true religion. And by the suspicion of their existence. It is thus voice of prophecy in Scripture, He gives that the pleasing discovery is sometimes the like comfort to us, as we cast perhaps made within the bosom of vicinities and a desponding eye over thee moral state and households where we least expected it; prospects of the world —in the bright per. and manv. we trust, even at short dis- spective which He there has opened up to tances from our own habitation, are the us, of the enlargement and the triumphs unseen heirs of grace and immortality, that still await the gospel of His Son. whom we shall never recognise as such For amid all that is fitted to darken and till we meet them in heaven. It were bet- discourage, we should recollect of the ter certainly for the interests both of per- present that it is but the infancy of the sonal and public Christianity, that all real Christian religion, and that we are yet disciples of the truth as it is in Jesus, among the struggles and the,uncertainties should know each other better, and com- of its embryo state. To have some idea,lany with each other more. And this of the glorious and magnificent expansion.nakes our obligation all the more imper- before us, we have only to look at the ative of "conf:essing with the mouth the millennium of our regenerated world in Lord Jesus,"I or of coming forth with the dimensions of prophecy, where every hose frank andt intrepid avowals which day is a year and every year is made up Rom. viii, 29. t 2 Tim. ii, 19. I Rom. x, 9. * Heb. xi, 14 t John, xvii, 21. 422 LECTURE LXXXIIl.-CHAPTER XI, 1 —5. of centuries-insomuch that what may be their liberality, so rendered from the ori. termed the middle age of Christianity, is ginal word, commonly translated into reckoned by only three years and a half, grace throughout Scripture. And there compr=.hensive though it be of many can be as little misundersanding of it in generations. And beyond this spectacle the latter sense, when the same Greek of blessedness and glory, we have the word is translated into favour in Luke, ii, glimpse of furth.r and larger develop- 52, where we read, that Jesus increased in ments, which, in the closing chapters of favour with God and man. In those the book of Revelation, retire onward instances where the gift is specified in from the view till lost in the distances of connection with the grace which origieternity. Could we see the whole in the nated or conveyed it, this leaves no other light of the Infinite Mind, the perfect meaning for the grace than the kindness, wisdom and perfect goodness of all His which is a very common and perhaps purposes would be seen most gloriously; its primary signification. For example, and as even in one of Israel's darkest "The grace of God that bringeth salvadays, when He told of the seven thousand tion,"* where salvation is the gift, and whom He reserved to Himself, He allevi- grace the kindness of the giver. -" Grace ated the brooding imagination of the reigneth unto eternal life,' where eternal prophet, and taught him not to think so life is the gift, and grace the goodness despairingly of the state of his nation-so which prompted it of Him whose gift it is could we be made to behold across our..-"Being justified freely by his grace," present day of small things, the evolutions where the being justified or justification of a greatness and prosperity still in re- is the gift, and grace is the kind or geneserve even for a world now lying in wick- rous disposition of Him who hath conferedness; or did the mighty and successive red it. And to close our list of instances er-as of the Divine administration rise in with the verse which is before us —'The vision before us, then, instead of looking election of grace'-where grace is the forward with dejection or dismay, we cause, election the effect; or where elecshould lift up our heads and rejoice in the tion is the gift, and grace is the kinddestinies of our species. ness of the Giver to him on whom He But though the apostle, in the course of hath bestowed it. It is thus that the electhis chapter extends his regards to futu- tion of' grace has been defined gratuirity; and lays before us, though in dim tous election-the election of pure kindtransparency, the varying fortunes both ness or good-will-the fruit of a generosof Jews and Gentiles in distant ages-he ity altogether spontaneous-a present in has not yet quitted the consideration of short, and not a payment in return for matters as they stood at the time when he any service or in consideration of any was writing, and accordingly tells us in merit on the part of him who is the object the 5th verse, that even of his own country- of it. men there was at that moment a remnant Now this distinction between the kind. who should be saved. We may indeed ness which prompts a gift and the gift gather directly from the Scriptural narra- itself; or between the generority as it extive, the evidences of a goodly number of ists in the bosom of the dispenser and the converts to the gospel, or at least of' pro- fruit of that generosity, as imparted in the fessing disciples, from among the children shape of a service done or a benefit ran. of Israel. We have first the apostles; dered to him who is the object of it-in a and doubtless so many of Hebrew extrac- word, between the beneficence and the tion, in the hundred and twenty who were benefaction, enables us to discriminate with them on the day of Pentecost; and between the different kinds of grace, also of the thousands who believed ante- which, though all emanating from the rior to the calling of the Gentiles; and same fountain, even the good-will of Him further, (all of that great company of the who is in heaven, yet are each character. priests who were obedient to the faith* ised or specified, and so as to distinguish -all in harmony with the assertion of them from the rest, by the distinct and parPaul, that,' Even so then at this present ticular good done to him in behalf of whom time also there is a remnant according to the grace and goodness of the Father of the election of grace.' all spirits has been exercised. Thus there Ver. 5. Grace in the New Testament might be a justifying grace, as when God signifies either a gift, or the kindness justifies the ungodlyv: or a sanctifying which prompted the gift. There can be grace, as when God uestows His Spirit to no misunderstanding of it, for example, in help our infirmities; or comprehensive the former sense, when in 1 Cor. xvi, 3, of both, a saving grace, as-t when it is the apostle speaks of bringing their libe- said 1 by grace are ye saved and that not rality to Jerusalemn-that is the fruit of of yourselves —it is the gift of God:' Or A.ts, vi, 7.' Titus, ii, I1. t Ephesians ii, 5, 8. LECTURE LXXXIII. —CHAPTER XI, 1-5. 423 finally, the grace of our present text, the His distinguishing favour, were torne on electing grace, here termed the grace of ward in safety through all the dangers election-that in the exercise of which and temptations of their earthly pilgrimHe set His special love on certain of I-lis age, till admitted into secure and everlastcreatures from all eternity, as on the sev- ing enjoyment to the blessedness of en thousand of Israel whom lHe reserved heaven. unto htimself, and who, in virtue of this LECTURE LXXXIV. ROMANS xi, 6-10.'And if by grace, then it is no more of works; otherwise grace Is no more grace. But if At be of works, then it is no more grace; otherwise work is no more work. What then X Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketl for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded (according as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumbnher, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling-block, and a recompence unto them: let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway."'rHERE is one very obvious distinction We have already said of the great and between the electing grace of God, and primary act of grace, the grace ofelection, the other sorts of it which have now that at the time of passing it, God was the been specified. In the election of any alone party; and in this respect it stands man thus favored and thus signalised, distinguished from the other or subordiGod stood alone. The act look place be- nate acts of grace. For in these last man fore that the man was born, nay before bears a part-nay we should hold it the the foundation of the world.* It is not evidence of a sensitive and extreme, and only prior to all the other forthput- in fact ill-understood orthodoxy, toshrink tings of Divine grace, but it gives birth to from the assertion, that in these last man them all. If' it be true that none but the acts a part. By saying so, we infringe elect shall obtain the kingdom of heaven; not in the least on the supremacy of' God; and it be also true that unless we are nor abridge by ever solittle the agency of iustificd, and unless we are made holy, His grace, as being all in all in the business we shall not enter therein-then must of man's salvation. It is most true that He every elect sinner have both the justify- worketh all in all; but he worketh on ing and the sanctifying grace put forth every distinct subject of His power agreeupon hirn, ere that he reaches his final ably to its distinct and characteristic nadestination; and the connection is not ture. When working in the world of inmore inseparable between any conse- organic matter, He does not change the quents in nature or history, and the ante- elements or bereave them of their respeccedents from which they have sprung, tive properties and forces; but upholdthan that which binds together the justi- ing them in these, and preserving the fication and the sanctification which take distinction between them-he maketh the place on earth with the election which winds and the waters and the lightnings, took place in heaven-the one, in fact, and even the inert and solid earth we being the source or the fountain-head tread upon, the instruments of His pleawhence the others flow. They follow sure. When he worketh in the animal or each other like the links of a chain vegetable kingdoms, He reverses not one stretching backward to the eternity that is law or process of physiology; but opepast, and forward to the eternity which is rating on every thing according to its to come. Paul enumerates a few of these kind, and without violence done either to links, not all of them contiguous,-for the generical or specifical varieties of other links than these he mentions, and each-still it is He who "causeth the grass intermediate between them, could be sup- to grow for the cattle, and herbs for the plied both from other Scripture and from service of man, that he may bring forth experience. "Moreover whom he did pre- food out of the earth;"* and it is He also, destinate, them he also called; and whom who maintains the powers and the inhe called, them he also justified; and stincts of every living creature, as when whom he justified, (them he also sanctifi- in the sublime language of Job, He giveth ed; and whom he sanctified,) them he to the horse his strength and clotheth hits also glorified." neck with thunder. Ephesians, i, 4.' Psalm civ, 14. 424 LECTURE LXXXIV.-CHAPTER XI, 6-10. And it is even so in the moral world. have germinated. It is obvious that man Every where lie is all in all-supreme in had no part in the primary act, any more the higher as in the lower departments of than he has had a part in his own crea. nature; and yet neither obliterating the tion. But it is alike obvious that he has a characteristics, nor overbearing the func- part in the subordinate acts, though - tions of any individual thing in which or part of as entire subjection as is that of by which He is pleased to operate —whe- the clay in the hands of the potter. It is a ther it be a plant, or an animal, or finally part however; and such a part as properly a mana-over whom He has the entire and and characteristically belongs to a willing resistless sovereignty, yet exercises it with understanding, purposing, and acting crea. perfect conformity to all the feelings and ture. And so he believes, perhaps after infacultifes of his moral nature-his con- quiry and prayer, in order to his justificascience-his intelligence-his choice — tion; and he obeys, with prayer and pains. and the whole busy play of his emotions taking both, in orde.r to his sanctification; and purposes and endeavours. God and while nothing is more true than that worketh all in all, and as completely in by grace alone he is saved, yet in perfect man as in any other of His creatures. harmony with this, and as being a grace But what is it that He worketh in him? which both teaches and enables him to lHe worketh in him to will and to do. So live soberly righteously and godly-it is that there is room both for the sovereign equally true that it is for him to work grace of God the Creator, and the spun- out his own salvation with fear and taneous acting of man the creature. In trembling. all that is good, and therefore agreeable Now we hold it of capital importance, to God's good pleasure, the creature acts both for rightly dividing the word of truth just in the degree, be it great or small, and for the guidance of our practical in which the Creator actuates. And there- Christianity, clearly to understand-that fore it is that in those acts of grace, there is nothing in the consideration of which, as contradistinguished from its the primary grace passed in heaven long great and primary act, or the grace of ago, which should in the very least affect election, we termed its subordinate acts — or embarrass the part we ought to take we say- not merely that man bears a part, on earth in that subordinate grace wherebut even acts a part-As in believing, with we have presently to do. Wve are though faith be indeed the gift of God;* the more anxious to press this home, or in understanding, though it be the because of the imagination-that the one Spirit who opens the understanding to is a barrier in the way of our dealing understand the Scriptures; or in attend- freely and confidently with the other, just ing, though it be the Lord that openeth as is prescribed and plainly laid down for the heart to attend, as He did that of us in Scripture. Whatever your capacity Lydia;t or in praying, though it be from may be for the doctrine of electionalove that the Spirit of grace and suppli- whether it be a strong meat that you are cation is poured upon us;t or in willing, able for; or, if fit only for the milk which though it be God alone who makes us serves to the nourishment of babes, you willing for good in the day of His power; ought not to meddle with it-this cannot or in striving, though we can strive change, nor should it in the slightest mightily only according to His working darken, those stable categories of Scripwho worketh in us mightily;i and finally, ture, that concern either the duties to be in the business of purifying ourselves and done by all, or the calls and the promises perfecting our own holiness, though this which are there held out to all. This can only be as fellow-workers with God, doctrine must be profitable to some at who have not received His grace or His least, else it would have formed no part promises in vain, when God will dwell in or parcel of Scripture,* though perhaps us and walk in us.~ In all these instances it may not yet have been profitable to there is a grace put forth from on high, you-nay in danger, it may be, of being and this responded to by being acted on so perverted and misunderstood, as to be from below. This may serve to establish wrested by you to your own hurt. God our discrimination between the primary may at length, or He may not, reveal act of grace, even that of election, in even this unto you, as He does to others which man has no part, and the subordi- who are perfect.t But be this as it maynate acts, in which man has a part-and let that great and prirnaiy deed of grace termed by us subordinate, not only be- which took place amid the counsels of cause posterior in time, but because de- the past eternity, and was transacted pendent in the order of cause and effect when God stood alone-let that be to you on the preordination from which they all a lofty and transcendental theme which you cannot lay hold of, but which must *Egph. ii, 8. t Acts, xvi, 14. t Zech. xii, 10. ~ Pea. cx, 3. I Col. i, 29. % 2 Cor. vii, 1; vi, 1, 16.' 2 Tim. iii, 16. t Phil. iii, 15. LECTURE LXXXIV.-CHAPTER XI, 6 —10. 42 remain an inaccessible mystery till the tianity our way is equally clear-which time cometh when you shall know even is, for ministers, on the one hand, to as you are known-There is, posterior to preach it urgently and freely in the hearthis and subordinate to this, a grace, in ing of' every man; and for aspiring disthe operation of which God standeth not ciples, on the other, to read and to supalone, but which He brings to bear on plicate and to reform the evil of their earth's lowly platform-that here it may doings, and not only to seek but to strive, circulate at large and come into busy nay even to press with all vigour and converse with the hearts and among the violence into the kingdom of heaven, till habitations of men. Of this grace as they take it by force. placed within the reach of all, it is the Ver. 6.'And if by grace, then is it no duty of all to avail themselves. "Ask, more of' works; otherwise grace is no and ye shall receive; Seek, and ye shall more grace. But if it be of works, then find" —Pray for the Holy Spirit, and He it is no more grace; otherwise work is no shall be given to you-Believe, and ye more work.' For the full and clear exshall be saved; and, in order to this be- position of this remarkable verse, it must lief, give earnest heed to the things which be taken to pieces, that several distinct are spoken-These are all so many parts things may be adverted to. and manifestations of that subordinate, or'And if' by grace.' If what by grace as it may be termed, of that accessible or Look to the preceding verse.'I There is a available grace whereof I am now speak- remnant according to the election of ing, and of which each man is called on grace, and if by grace.' If it be by grace to avail himself; and that without once that there is a remnant-or if it be of bestowing a thought or a conjecture on grace that God has elected; or, looking the question, whether he has or has not a to the anterior verse, if God have reserved part in the grace of election. These are them to Himself by grace.* The apostle the revealed and the patent and the pal- is here making statement of the cause or pable things we have to do with here; origin to which the selection of a certain and they ought not to be complicated number as God's own peculiar people, is with the hidden things, which lie far out to be referred. Their selection is by grace.of sight among the viewless eminences — a matter of mere favour-of free geneof the region that is above us. We cannot rosity and good-will, and so altogether a in any possible way change our election, gift on the part of' God. or make it surer than it is in itself. Nei-'Then is it no more of' works.' Grace ther can we make it surer than it already is not only the cause of God having reis unto God. Yet there is a way, and that served a certain number to Himself; but too a way of diligence in certain things,* it is the sole cause. He makes mention by which we may make it sure unto our- of another and a rival cause which has selves —" for if ye do these things ye often been assigned for this preference of shall never fall." No doubt it is by the the elect by God; but he does so for the election of grace, that a remnant of Jews purpose of rejecting it-and thereby forwas preserved to the exclusion of the rest tifies the simple assertion which he had of the nation; but there is no such elec- mnade, or makes a more strenuous assevetion as should foreclose the application ration of' it. He utterly repudiates the to that outcast people of all that available idea of its being a reward or recompence grace, the means and instruments of for works done, or we may add, for works which have been so amply put into our foreseen. It is not of works in any way; hands. It was upon their seeking wrong- but altogether a thing of sovereign and ly, and not on election (ix, 32) that their spontaneous bounty. It is a present, not rejection immediately or proximately a payment-a thing freely conferred by turned; and again upon their seeking God, not rightfully claimed or challenged rightly will their restoration as immedi- by man. Yet though not of or by works, ately turn. "If they bide not still in un- it may be to works. That is a different belief," they will certainly be recalled; matter. Though it is not bet:ause we have and there is nothing respecting them in lived righteously that we are made the the book of secret destiny which will objects of this grace, yet because the obhinder this result. Let the things which jects of this grace are we both taught and are written there be as impenetrably enabled to live righteously.t'"Not of shrouded as they may, our way is clear- works, lest any man should boast." Yet, which is, to ply the children of Israel after all, created unto good works-for with the offers of salvation, and give no tho same God who ordains to everlasting rest to God in prayer till He make Jeru- life, ordains also the heirs of a blissful salem a praise upon the earth. And for eternity to walk In them.I It is interest, speeding onward the work of home Chris* Ver. 4, rareXtrov — Ver. 5, Xcpl/ta.' 2 Peter, i, 10. t Titus, ii, 11, 12. X Eph. ii, 9, tO, 54 426 LECTURE LXXXIV.-CHAPTER XI) 6-10. ing to observe that the same high and ab- having ought to do in the matter of our solute torms which guarantee the final acceptance with God, so works would at salvation of the elect, guarantee also the wholly and effiectually dispossess grace. v-irtuolisness of their character and con- That this holds true of God's electing duct. They are ordained, it is true, to grace is quite obvious, both fiom the naeternal litb*-yet aare they ordained also ture of the grace itself anc from other to walk in good works.t And they are parts of Scripture. The chilrlen ofelecpredestinated to be Ilis children —yet tion are made so before that they are predestinated to be conformed unto the born, or had yet done either good or evil image of Iis Son.6 And they are chosen -and this that the purpose of God might before the foundation of the world-yet stand according to election, and not of chosen to be holy, and without blame in works, but of SHim that calleth.* In the love.jl And they are elect according to act of choosing or predestinating at the foreknowledge-yet is it an election sealed first, works could have no place; and and confirmed by the sanctification of grace was all in all. Then God was alone. the Spirit, as well as belief of the truth.~ Out and out the destiny of the blest to'Otherwise grace is no more grace.' their everlasting happiness is a thing of By this clause there is an advance made His determination-a determination inin the apostle's argument; and we are cluding, no doubt, the previous or premade to know of grace and works, that, paratory works of each, as well as his not only are they distinct, but in the mat- final salvation, but still a determination ter at issue they are opposites, or incom- which was at once the primary cause and patible, nay mutually destrtuctive the one fountain-head of both. of the other. What is earned by service And, what to us at least is of practically is not received as a gift. As far as you greater importance, the same holds true make it a thing of favour, you annihilate not of electing grace merely, but of justiit as a thing of merit; or as far as you fying grace also. We hold it as being of make it a thing of mnerit, you annihilate it prime and vital magnitude, for else the as a thing of favour. Neither must we gospel were nullified, that we should ununderstand it to be so far of works and so derstand our justification to be altogether far of grace, or compounded and made up of grace, and not in the least, not at all of as it were oft these two categories. The works. Our meritorious acceptance with doctrine of the apostle here, as of the New God, or as it may be termed our judicial Testament everywhere, is, that God's right of entry into heaven, rests upon a friendship is either of works wholly or of' basis that is one and homogeneous, coilgrace wholly. There is no intermediate sisting of but a single ingredient, even ground between the first and second cove- that of grace-grace through the rightnants-the one being altogether of works, eousness of Christt-at least to the utter and the other altogether of bounty. It is exclusion of our own works as the other not of works in part, and of grace in part, ingredient, the admixture whereof; though but either of grace entirely and works in but the smallest item or iota, would not at all, or of works entirely and grace operate as a vitiating flaw to deteriorate, not at all. It is by grace and not of works nay utterly pervert the pure quality or by ever so little, lest to the extent of that essence of that which constitutes the, little any man should boast,** or lest to the available righteousness of a sinner before extent of that litile it should be of debt.tt that Lawgiver, of whose throne justice and These two elements are not only separa- judgment are the habitation. Let a man's ted, but placed in opposition to each own deservings be admitted by ever so other, and so in fact as to make it a war little, as forming part of his plea in law of extermination between them. The at- for the rewards of eternity; and the questempt of' piecing the one to the other, or tion would instantly be stirred-has that of mixing together the two covenants, is little been male out -on which we utterly repudiated in Scripture, as fatal to should have aspirants for heaven of two the peace of the believer, and subversive sorts-First, they of more delicate and of the whole economy of the gospel. enlightened conscience, who always and' But if it be of works, then it is no more with good reason dissatisfied with themgrace; otherwise work is no more work.' selves, would be incessantly seeking rest This whole clause is by critics of greatest and never finding it. Secondly, they of authority rejected as an interpolation. It blunter moral sensibility, who, under their is but an expression, or more properly a system of at least a little human virtue to reiteration of the same truth; aiid signi- eke out the price of purchase-money for fies that, of the two elements in question, as a place in heaven, can sit at ease, and grace would utterly dispossess works from just because they can make so little serve. The two elements of our text, the grace' Acts, xiii, 48. t Eph. ii, 10. t Eph. i, 5. 9 Rom. viii, 29. 1 Eph. i, 4. 1 Pet. i 2. -. Eph. ii, 9. tt Rom. iv, 4. *Rom. ix, 11. t Roan. v, 21. LECTURE LXXXIV.-CHAPTER XI, 6 —10. 427 and the works, in the matter of justifica- ence in the practice of men. Israel did'ion, will not amalgamate-for let works not obtain that which he sought for, be. but enter in proportion and degree how. cause he sought it wrongly, that is by the ever small: And it either, on the one works of the law instead of fiith. Only hand, wakens up again all the jealousies they of the election obtained it, and why. and disquietudes of the old covenant; or -for the primary does not supersede the infuses that mercantile and mercenary proximate-because they sought it rightspirit which, labouring to drive a hard ly. Yet he recurs again fiom the part bargain for heaven, both limits the amount which men had in it to the part which and secularises the character of our obe- God had in it, when in the last clause of dience-making it as unlike as possible, this verse, taken along with a few sucwhether in respect of indefinite progress ceeding verses, he tells us that'the rest or willing alacrity and delight, to the ser- were blinded.' vices of' heaven-born love and liberty. Ver. 8-10.'(According as it is written, We may hence see the moral purpose of God hath given them the spirit of slumber, the Epistle to the Galatians as part of the eyes that they should not see, and ears Bible. In the Epistle to the Romans, the that they should not hear;) unto this day. doctrine of justitication without works is And David saith, Let their table be made presented with great force and fulness as a snare, and a trap, and a stumblinga general proposition. In that to the Ga- block, and a recompence unto them: let latians, we have the apostolic treatment their eyes be darkened, that they may not and disposal in a specific case of a claim tee, and bow down their back alway.' put in, for one virtue at least, to a share One might imagine that on the back of in the office of building up a meritorious the assertion in the last clause, even that righteousness before God-so as that con- the rest were blinded-the question might sideration and a place might be given to be put, Who blinded them? and the an. it, however small or subordinate it may swer be given in the verses now placed be, in the title-deed of Christians to the before you. We are sensible that this Jerusalem above. This was the solitary would be felt by many as a harsh and in rite of circumcision-the main observance, jurious representation of the Deity; and if not the all, which the Jews contended we are also aware of the softening expefor. To whom Paul would not give way, dients which have been resorted to, in no not for an instant; but withstood to order to mitigate or do it away. For this the face, in the spirit and with the deter- purpose ingenious men have drawn upon mination of a mortal warfare-as if a the hypothesis, that like as all matter is question of lifei or death to the gospel of essentially at rest* till put in motion by Jesus Christ. -And so he fought with all his an external cause-so every created being, might against it, giving no quarter-for though endowed with both moral and inhe saw the evil of it in its full extent — tellectual capacities, is essentially deThat it would make the cross of none voidt of all spiritual light or spiritual effect; and revive the bondage of other goodness, till these are communicated by days; and reinstate the whole law, with Him who is the author of every good and its unsatisfied demands and unappeased perfiect gift. It is thus that they would terrors, over the consciences of men-so repel the charge of God being the author as to substitute the obedience, either of of sin, by denying that God makes men slavish dread or of a lifiless form, for the, sin-for that He only withholds the grace free and grateful and confiding services of which would make them righteous. And the gospel. We cannot but admire the in like manner would they deny that God exquisite wisdom of thus keeping the blinds the eyes of any, but that Ile only ground of a sinner's acceptance with God withholds the light which would make intact and inviolable; nor let us wonder them see-insomuch that He is no more at the intense earnestness of' Paul, when, the author of spiritual, than the sun is the in every form of strenuous asseveration, author or fountain-head of material darkhe maintains the doctrine of justification, ness. And so they view the matter thus not by faith, but by faith alone-as being — That all which is evil springs fiom the the only solid foundation of peace, the creature or fiom beneath, but all which only outle(t and incentive to virtue along is positively good from the Creator —le the career of a progressive holiness. often leaving men to themselves, but Ver. 7.' What then? Israel hath not never putting Himself forth or operating obtained that which he seeketh for, but efficiently upon them, save for the purthe election hath obtained it, and the rest pose of illuminating or making them were blinded.' The same apostle who holy. tells the primary cause of thq difference Now for ourselves we feel it not neces between Jews and Gentiles by tracing it upward to the predestination of God, also By its vis inertia. tells us the proximate cause of this differ- t By the essential defectibility of the creatuzx 4 W8 LECTURE LtX1XV.-CHAPTER XI, 6-10. sary, either to adopt this hypothesis or tion. Let us not wonder then, if we should decisively to reject it. For aught we find it to be the same in the spiritual pro. know there may be-grounded on some cesses of Christianity; or if there should deep-hid physical necessity, which we are be a distinction here too between things vtot in circumstances either to affirm or present, which we know how to deal with, deny-be that essential defectibility in and things remote, which elude our every every created thing which the schoolmen effort to grasp or comprehend them. This tell us of; and if so, it looks a plausible is remarkably exemplified in the subjectconclusion that all the direct moral influ- matter of the passage now before us. We ences put forth by God upon His crea- can say little or nothing of anterior, and tures are on the side of what is good,- especiailyof first movemcnts-just as little while all the evil which they exhibit is in fact as we can clekar our way upward to not worked in them by the Divinity, but the electing grace of God. And yet we can only left to its own working, as it comes see thoroughly to the movements in hand, inherently and properly from themselves. and wherewith we have most emphatically We have no quarrel with this argument- and most urgently to do. If' we indulge in for though not convinced by it, neither do listless and spiritual sloth about the high we feel ourselves able to overturn it; and rmatters of our salvation, God will give us so long as it remains a plausibility which the spirit of slumber. If we refuse to look infidels cannot dispose of; then it rests on with our eyes, God will take away that at least as good a footing as their own ob- which we have, and so darken our eyes jection; and both therefore — both the that we cannot see. If we hearken not hostile consideration of' religion's enemy, diligently now at the call of principle, the and the defensive consideration of its conscience within will afterwards emit a friend-may be kept alike at abeyance. feebler voice; and even the loudest re. It is thus that we are sometimes led to monstrances from without of the word and look with indulgence on this one and that the preacher, may, in the growing obtuseother scholastic ingenuity, conjured up ness of faculties that we will not exercise for the protection of the faith-for though be altogether unheeded by the moral ear not in itself absolutely proved, yet, if in- If the store of' comfrts wherewith provi. capable of being disproved, it may at dence has blessed us, prove but a snare least neutralise many an objection, in- and a provocative to our unbridled appetended by their authors as so many dead- tites-these too will be made to war against ly trusts at the Christian revelation-a our souls. In short, by that economy of revelation which stands secure on the ba- grace under which we sit, there may be sis of its own evidences, amid the conflict- an ever-growing blindness and evergrow. ing and sometimes alike shadowy specu- ing hardness, which follow judicially in lations both of its fiiends and its adver- the train of guilty indulgences; and, on saries. But as we said before, for our the other hand, let the most be made of own satisfaction these conjectural theories the light and the strength we at present are in no demand with us; and though have-and then, in the order of God's adwith some minds they should serve for ministration, or on the principle of the the removal of' stumbling-blocks at which Holy Ghost being given to those who obey they might otherwise have fallen, yet for Him, this will be followed up by a supply ourselves we can take these verses as of larger powers and larger manifestathey stand, and in their obvious meaning I tions. Here then is a view of these partoo —a meaning all too plain to require I ticular Scriptures now before us, eminentthe exposition of them. We expect enig- ly subservient to the business of our mas in theology as well as in nature; and discipleship as Christians; and, whatever as in the one department, we do not per- obscurity may rest on the initial steps of mit them to overbear the manifestation of this process —it is surely our part among the senses-so in the other, they ought not the actual steps of it i-n which we are now to overbear either the lights of history in implicated, if we cannot solve the difficulfavour of the Bible, or the manifestation ties of the past, at least to busy ourselves of its truth unto our consciences. with all diligence in the duties of the presAnd yet in these verses, hopelessly re- ent-That is to awaken from our letharcondite and intractable as they might ap- gies, and Christ will give us light; to order pear, we can read a lesson of signal value our conversation a right, and God will show in practical religion. Even in philoso- us His salvation.* These are the matphy, with the objects which we most fami- ters on hand wherewith we plainly have liarly handle, and the processes which to do; and even the history of the Jews pass most currently before our eyes, we may be turned to the practical account are soon baffled and get beyond our sound- which we are now making of them. For ings, when we attempt to trace present though the primary cause of their being appearances into the past, though but a few steps back among the depths of causa- Ephesians, v, 14; and rialm 1, 2W. LECTURE LXXXIV.-CHAPTER XI, 6-10. 429 cast off may be traced upward to a degree more-Insomuch that in the view of their of election (ver. 5), its proximate cause apploaching desolation. when the pitying was their own misconduct. Their per- Saviour wept over them, lie pronounced sonal rejection by God came on the back as the final result of their impenitency in of their own rejection of the Saviour. not minding the things which belong te They had withstood His miracles. They their peace-that now they were hid from had turned a deaf ear to all His invita- their eyes. Well then did the apostle tions. They had shut their eyes and steeled supplement the quotations from writers of their consciences against such eviden- an ancient period, by a clause which ap ces of Hlis mission as ought to have over- plied their description to the Jews of his powered thein; and the effect was, that own time —'Unto this day.' it just hardened and blinded them the LECTURE Xi,:X-(XV. ROMANS Xi, 11-22. I' say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fatll of them be the riches of the world, and the dinminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness? For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office; if by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my tilesh, and might save some of them. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead? For if the first-fruit be holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken oil,t and tnou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; boast not against the branches: but if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken oft; that I might be graffed in. Well; because of unbelef they were broken offl and thou standeth by faith. Be not high-minded, but fear: for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off." ONE of Paul's maxims was, that, for the on the coming enlargement of the childsake of the gospel, he should be all things ren of Israel; and with that exquisite to all men; and, more especially, that to wisdom he manages, if I may so speak, the Jews he should be as a Jew. No one between them and the Gentiles, with both could practise with greater skill or delica- of whom he at the time is jointly holding cy than he did, the art of conciliating those converse-claiming kindred with the one whom he addressed-though, of course, he because of his office, and with the other beonly carried this so far as truth and princi- cause of his relationship. In short, unlike ple would let him. Nothing could be to the polemics of our modern day, and more sturdy and determined than his re- yet as uncompromising and bold as any sistance, as we may see in his whole Epis- of them —whenever an agreeable thing tie to the Galatians, when any great or can be said, he says it-So that while, in cardinal doctrine of the gospel was trench- truth and substance, he had the stern ined upon, though by ever so little. Yet tegrity of an old prophet when dealing when it possibly could be avoided, none with principles-he, in manner, had the. more sensitively fearful of giving offence pliancy and nice perception of an accomthan he was; and when unavoidable, plished courtier when dealing with perwhich it very generally was, he was al- sons-and all this for the sake of the ways at the greatest pains to soften it to gospel, all for the purpose of gaining the uttermost. Even in the verses we sonle. have just quitted, and in which he had to Ver. 11.'I say then, Have they stumpronounce an awful sentence of abandon- bled that they should fall l God forbid: ment and utter degradation upon his coun- but rather through their fall salvation is trymen the Jews, still he does it as a Jew come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke -interposing their own writers as a sort them to jealousy.' And so in this verse of screen between him and them; and, as he hastens to inform them, and that with if more efiectually to secure their convic- all promptitude and decision, that theirs lion though not their acquiescence and was but a temporary stumble-what the consent, speaking to them not in his own stumbling-block was he had before told person, but in the persons of their most them*-not an irrecoverable fall. After revered prophets and holy men of old. laying his rebuke on the perversities of And in the succeeding verses we can very men, he looks onward wvith the eye of a obviously see, with what congeniality, as prophet to the yet unfilfilled purposes of if to redeem and compensate the severities which he had just uttered, he breaks fobrth ~ Romans, ix 32; x, 3. 430 LECTURE LXXXV.-CHAPTER XI, 11 —22. God, in whose hand men are but the in- have been partially but not fully ex. struments of His policy; and who causes plained, either in regard to the eflicien even their very sins redound to Ills own or the final causes which are concerned glory, and subserve the accomplishment in it-so that it remains in great part still of all His pleasure. When as a preacher a mystery in the counsels of' God, of he views them morally, he connects these which the most we have to say is, that sins with the wickedness of man-When such is the will and the appointment (if as a prophet he views them historically, Him our Almighty Sovereign. WVe must (for prophecy is but history in anticipa- not expect, that, at least in our present tion, or the history of the future,) he state, we shall ever so master the philosolooks to them in connection with the phy of the question, as to leave no room sovereign power of God-first put forth for the exclamation of the apostle, 0 the at election by Him who ordains all, after- depth and unsearchableness of God's wards carried into effect by Him who judgments, and how past finding out! worketh all in all throughout the succes- Yet let us not forget that, in the language sions of nature and providence. One of of Job, there are parts of His ways which these successions he distinctly announces do lie open to our observation, though it in the verse now before us, when he af: be indeed a little portion that we know of firms the fall of the Jews to have been the Him. And of His ways as of His works, salvation of the Gentiles-as if these two it is well that they should be sought out events stood related to each other in the of all them who have pleasure therein*way of cause and effect, or of anteced- as far as they are shone upon by the ent and consequent. The same connec- lights, whether of Scripture or of experition he reasserts several times in certain ence. Let us attend then a little to what clauses of the verses which follow, and these enquirers have got to say about whichwemay nowsingleout, andthussave this question, and what the fruit of the the necessity of our again adverting to consideration which they have bestowed them-as in the 12th verse, where we are on it. There are certain palpable things told that the fall of the Jews was the which lie on the surface, as it were, of this riches of the world, and the diminution of hidden mystery; and which it were quite them the riches of the Gentiles; and in legitimate to notice. the 15th verse, where we read that the Hfad Christianity been received by the casting away of them was the reconciling great bulk of the Jewish nation, and had >f the worldl; and in the the 28th verse, they in consequence been animated by where we learn, that by their treatment that spirit of proselytism which essenof the gospel they became the enemies of tially characterised it —a spirit heretofore God fior the sake of the Gentiles, to whose new to them, though under its influence benefit therefore this rejection of the Jews now they might have laboured for the was in some way subservient; and final- diffusion of their new faith over the whole ly, in the 30th verse, which gives us ex- earth-still it might well be imagined, pressly to understand, that through the that coming as it would with one mind unbelief of the Jews mercy was obtained and by one effort, from the whole people, by the Gentiles-All suggesting the idea it was but a development of their old of a metaphysical sequence, or of a con- Judaism, still unchanged, or changed nection between these two events in the only in this, that, whereas it used to be order of cause and consequence; and tolerant though unsocial, it had now bethis again has set curiosity on edge to come restless and aggressive, —making discover what the ligament could be which inroads on all other countries which they so bound together the infidelity of the had hitherto let alone. It might have Jews with the faith of the Gentiles, or been most plausibly conceived, that such what the operating influences were in the a national enterprise, sanctioned by all first which could bring the second in its the authorities of their state, as well as by train. the enthusiasm of a unanimaous populaNow if God affirm that the two are thus tion, would have provoked a national linked together, it is our part so to believe resistance every where; and fatr more it, whether all the cementing links and readily awakened the suspicion of those influences have or have not been submit- ambitious designs, which would array ted to our observation. We hold it the every community whom they invaded, in more necessary to premise this, because an attitude of all the more resolute and we think that with all men's powers of ex- prepared hostility against them. Nothing, ploralion, they have not been able tho- it might with all seeming fairness be rea. roughly to unravel the process which in- soned, nothing could more effectually tervenes between the rejection of the gos- disarm this adverse imagination, than pel by the Jews, and either the diffusion that the new religion should be carried or acceptance of the same gospel among the other nations of the earth. It may ~Psalm cx;, 2. LECTURE LXXXV.-CHAPTER XI, 11- 22. 43 abroad by a few persecuted outcasts, but that they might be sound and good whom the Jews as a nation had disowned explanations, although they very much -a better vehicle surely for a religion proceed on the natural influence of cirwhich wis to owe all its triumphs to the cumstances, as they were brought to bear unaided force of principle and truth over upon human nature, such as it is. For the consciences of men. It was thus in though it lies within the power of' God to fact that it first made way upon the earth- overrule all the ordinary influences for protected for a time, rather than withstood the furtherance of His designs-yet we by the Roman authorities; and certainly know it to be the general policy of His not calling forth the whole power of the administration that He should be exceedemnpire against it, till it had acquired a ingly sparing of any conflict with, or magnitude which alarmed the civil ma- that there should be an exceeding rarity gistrate for the safety of existing institu- of deviations from, the laws and the tions, but not at the same time till it had regular processes which He Himself has acquired a strength which weathered and established; and so with the exception survived all his efforts for its extermina- of a few select miracles to accredit His tion. Arid as this great national resistance various revelations, it seems the rule of of the Jews, with the consequent disper. the Almighty's government, that its pursion over all countries both of Jews and poses shall be carried into effect in the Christians, acted most powerfully as see- uniform course of things, and not by a ond causes for the propagation of Chris- series of violations upn that uniformity. tianity at its outset in the world-So it And thus it is thut it comes within the has further been contended, that to us philosophy of history to assign what the who look retrospectively on past ages, the connections and methods were, by which evidence for the truth of our religion is the unbelief of the Jewvs opened a way thereby presented in a far more impres- for the gospel, and so as to speed its sive form than it would otherwise have progress and acceptance among all other been-the testimony of its first disciples nations. But yet though in this way we being thus far more decisively tried and may have a deal of valid and satisfactory found to be of purest stamp and quality, reasoning on the relation or the subserwhen thus delivered and thus persevered viency of one event to another, under our in before the presence of these resolute existing economy of moral and physical and implacable adversaries, who yet causes-there remains unresolved, and could no' overthrow it; but who rather we think in our present state unresolvahave contributed and that mightily to its ble, the transcendental question, Why strength, both as the depositaries, and the such an economy wvas instituted, so as to unexceptionable, because hostile witnesses necessitate evil that good might follow, for the elder Scriptures of our faith, and and so as to postpone for many centuries so for all the corroborative argument, and generations the reign of universal whether of doctrine or of prophecy, that virtue and happiness in the world. It is is contained in them. And certain it is, well for man to be made sensible of the that we have an evidence before our eyes limit within which his faculties are beset in the present state of the Jews, which, and encompassed; and so as to acknowbut for their unbelief persisted in for so ledge, with all his certainty of a thing many centuries, we could not have ap- that so it is, his own profound ignorance pealed to-the evidence of their singular of howi it is. Let our attempts then be preservation, unprecedented iri all other successful as they may, to explain the history; and bespeaking the special pro- actings and reactings of Jewish infidelity vidence of God, both in upholding this and Gentile faith upon each other, they wonderful people as a remnant of former must carry us at last to the inscrutable revelations, and in reserving them for will of God; nor do they supersede that fulfilments and further evolutions in the apostolic reflection which follows, and schemeof the Divine administration which which we again anticipate, of "0 how are yet to come. Altogether it is a phe- unsearchable his judgments, and his ways nomenon charged with argument on the past finding out!" Yet with all this sense side of Christianity; and having in it all of a present darkness and a present diflithe power of a living voice, to rebuke, culty, it is our unbroken confidence, that if not the infidelity, at least the neglect what we know not now we shall know and heedlessness of those who look on afterwards; when we join in the triumthe Bible and all its revelations, as a phant song of eternity, " Great and marthing of nought. vellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; Such are some of the explanations just and true are thy ways, thou King of which might be given for the actual foot- saints!" steps of the Divine procedure, in thus'For to provoke them tojealousy.' But regulating the advances of Christianity however unable to make out the whole throughout the world. Nor does it hinder meaning and mystery of this proce. L12 LECTURE LXXXV. —CHAPTER XI, 11 —22. dure by reasons of our own, yet when we should imagine, when all the periods Scripture condescends to give a reason, of their computation have run out, must me may adopt it with all safety, as part finally expire. And in the second place, at least, if not the whole of the explana- it lies with us to fulfil the part which is tion. The effect stated in this verse was here assigned to the Gentiles. We should predicted by Moses many centuries before make Christianity the object (f emulation (x, 19). The calling of the Gentiles tend- and desire to the Jews and to all others, ed to provoke the Jews to jealousy or em- by our exemplification of it. Let us not alation; and the use of' this, we are told wonder that this influence has hitherto Dy the apostle in the 14th verse, was, that come so little into play.'This is not alto. it'might save sotne of them.' And in fu- gether owing to Jewish insensibility. The ture verses of this chapter the same ftiilure is ours-at least as much, if not thing is hinted at, as in verse 26th, where, more, than theirs. If their minds have after mention has been made of the full- not been excited to an attention or a reness of the Gentiles to come in, it is re- spect or a longing after Christianity, it is presented that so all Israel shall be saMed; because we have done so little, or done and in verses 30th and 31st, where it is nothing at all, to excite them. The light intimated, that in like manner as the un- of our religion has not so shone upon beliefof the Jews was the medium through them, as to make it glorious in their eyes. which mercy comes to the Gentiles, so the It may have told in the first ages, when mercy shown to the Gentiles was after- the very heathen could exclaim, "Behold wards the medium through which mercy these Christians how they love each should come to the Jews-And the impel- other." But it ought to be no surprise to lent cause for this result we gather from us, that, when Christianity declined, this the clause now before us, even that the moral force, which the apostle ascribes to sight of Gentile Christianity had in it it, should decline also-so that men would something which moved a desire on the cease either to imitate or admire it. This part of the Jews after, and so as to turn its constraining and attracting power is them to the faith-when no longer biding obviously discernible in apostolic times, in unbelief, they shall be again grafted as may be gathered from distinct and reinto their own olive tree. (Ver. 23.) peated traces in the book of Acts;* and We cannot say that we have seen much perhaps for a century or two it may not yet of the distinct operation of this mo- have altogether expired. But we are not tive among the children of Israel. Indeed to marvel that we so entirely lose sight there has been little hitherto of conver- of it in the miserable degeneracies which sion to Christianity from among the Jews, followed —as in the middle ages, when, when compared with the whole bulk and instead of their examples or their guides, bodyof the people; but even in the indi- Christians became their fierce and convidual cases of such conversion, we are temptuous persecutors; or even in the not aware that the principle adverted to present times, when such a wretchedly in the text has had much of an efficient or inadequate exhibition is still made, either actuating influence, for bringing about of the virtues of the gospel or of its consethis change from one religion to another. quent effect on the peace and prosperity of Before we could affirm this, we should re- men. We have indeed a mighty distance quire to know more the history of par- and declension to recover, ere we can ticular conversions, and have greater ac- make the Jews emulous to be what Chriscess to the minds of those who have un- tians are —whether by an exhibition of dergone the transition, than we have had the grace and beauty which our fhith imthe privilege of enjoying. We cannot parts to the character of its individual therefore say in how fiar the observation professors, or of its beneficial influences of Gentile Christianity, and of its good on the well-doing of society. Were they effects on those who had embraced it, has made distinctly to see what Christianity acted as a provocative on the Jewish mind, does for the virtue and happiness of men, and impelled to such efforts and enquiries we can understand how the principle of as may have led in more or fewer instan- the text might, even at this day, come into ces to the faith of the gospel. But as the powerful operation. But as it is, the sad great national conversion is yet to come imperfection of Gentile Christianity oper-so we can anticipate how the motive ates as a barrier in the way of Jewish specified in our text might gather strength conversion. with the lapse of time and in the course of It is this which makes the task of a successive generations. In the first place, Christian missionary among the Jews all their own hopes of the Messiah on whom the more arduous; and lays an awful rethey still calculate as a Prince and De- sponsibility on us, if, instead of being in. liverer yet to come, other than Jesus Christ struments for the furtherance of the great the only Son of God, must every year become more languid; and at length, Acts, ii, 47; i, 21; v, 13,14, 26; vi, 7. LECTURE LXXXV.-CHAPTER XI, 11 —22. 433 design unfolded in this passage, by adorn- but observe the effect of these, not merely ing the doctrine of God our Saviour in in gracing the individual possessor, but in all things, we shall, by an opposite con- upholding the spectacle of peaceful and duct, inflict a discredit and injury on the well-ordered homes, of nappy and harnmo religion which we profess, and so as to nious neighbourhoods in every territory hinder its progress in the world. which Cl ristianity blest and enlightened We are here distinctly told by what by its presence-Did all this stand forth sort of efficacy it is, that the disciples of in manifest and undeniable contrast with our faith, in the very act of being its the selfishness and impiety and moral patterns, might becotne its propagators degradation of their own accquaintances, among God's ancient people-even by the men of their own kindred-then the exhibition of its virtues, and so of should we be at no loss to understand, the health andt melody which dwell in how it is that Gentiles might provoke the habitations of the righteous. Some Jews to jealousy and emulation; and devoted men there have been, the apostles what the process was by which, through of our modern day, who, single-handed, the mercy bestowed on the former, mercy and with the force of the Christian argu- at length accrued to the latter also. ment seconded by the demonstration of Such then is our part in this scheme of their own example, have, through the moral government, and such the mighty grace of God, effected genuine conver- importance of our right bearing toward sions here and there among the children the Jews. We have a task and a duty laid of Israel. They have been the instru- upon us for the fulfilment of their restoments of' saving some,' (ver. 14). But ere ration; and, accordingly, the rest of the a general efftct can be anticipated from passage now on hand is Inainly taken up this cause, there must be a far more with the manner in which we Gentiles general representation of the worth of ought to comport ourselves towards them. Christianity-and that both in its family We shall therefore close our observations and social pictures, as well as in those oc- on the verses or clauses of verses which casional specimens which one person has remain, by briefly noticing the points and given after another of its ennobling and proprieties of our incumbent conduct to beautifying influences on the characters the now scattered tribes of Israel. of men. If we would be fellow-workers No wonder then that the conversion of with God in His great and gracious the Jews should all this while have been designs for the recovery of the whole at a stand, when our treatment of them earth; and if we would not, as far as in has for so many a long century been us lies, incur the guilt of frustrating the utterly and diametrically the reverse of objects of His Divine administration-it that which the apostle here prescribes to mightily concerns us how we should us. Verily if the times once were, when comport ourselves before the eyes of this the Jews looked.with intolerance and dis. select and peculiar nation, whom the (lain on all the world besides, this has Father of the human family at one time been amply repaid by the wholesale con separated from all the people of the tempt and contumely which these outcast world, and for whom the highest moral people have since received at the hands destinies are yet in reserve. If it be of all the nations. Truly we are in fault through our mercy that they are to obtain in having thus made them a reproach and mercy let us remember that it is a mercy a by-word over the whole earth; and which saves us by the washing of rege- though the part we have acted be the fulneration;* and that the graces of this filment of a prophecy, this for us is no regeneration must appear palpably and extenuation-any more than for the murconvincingly before their view, ere we derers of our Saviour, in that with wicked can expect that we shall win them either hands they did that which God had pre. to the love or admiration of the gospel, determined should be done. It swould Did they but see the evidence of God have been more godlike, had we held being in the midst of us, whether in our them beloved for their fathers' sakes, preparation for the life that is to come, or (ver. 28). The sacredness of heir origin in the promise which never fails to go might well have given there some place along with these of the life that now is- of sacredness in our consideration. Tho did they but witness in bright exemplifi- descendants of such ancestors should cation on our persons the virtues of our have been honoured because of them — holy religion, its exalted faith, its heaven- for'if the root be holy, so are the born charity, its unwearied patience under branches,' (ver. 16). So ought this latter calumnies, its ethereal sanctity, and with- clause of the verse to be understood — al its gentleness of spirit and tenderness while as to the former clause,' If the first for every thing which breathes —did they fruit be holy, the lump is also holy'-we incline to the view of those who regard'Titus, iii, 5. the first-fruits as the first Jewish converts 55 434 LECTURE LXXXV.-CHAPTER XI, 1 i-22. to the Ifith —to whom the apostle appeals promised, He was able and also willing as proof; because samples of the capa- to perform (iv, 21). It is thus that faith bilities of the whole nation for readmis- essentially carries one out of himself, and sion to the great spiritual family. Nay by its very narture must, at every moment he argues for their greater capability, of its exercise, accredit another with the (ver. 24)-Seeing that they were the natu- blessings which itself cannot earn, but ral, and we only the exotic branches of only can appropriate as the fruit of a the olive tree which now bears us, (ver. generosity from without. It is thus that 17)-they being by descent, and we by faith necessarily excludes boasting, as faith the children of Abraham, who is the much so as one antagonist principle must father of the faithful, and from whom our displace and exterminate the other which Saviour, the Son of David according to is opposed to it.* And thus also nothing the flesh, came. We are therefore told could be more pertinently adduced to to boast not against the branches, (ver. restrain the boasting of the Gentiles 18)-more kindred than we are to the root against the Jews — against the branches' which bears us; and which, though for a -than the consideration that themselves time broken off, will at length be graffed were standing only by faith, and that in again. Our part meanwhile is to be therefore they should not be high-minded, more lowly and diffident of ourselves, but fear. and more reverential of the Jews-' Thou But how, it may be asked, can faith and bearest not the root, but the root thee.' fear exist contemporaneously in the same Ver. 19-22.'Thou wilt say then, The bosom? Is nottheonefitted to supplant the branches were broken off, that I might be other? Is not faith or confidence allied graffed in. Well; because of unbelief with courage, rather than with timidity they were broken off, and thou standest or terror? Does not faith work by love, by faith. B,., not high-minded, but fear; and is it not said of perfect love that it for if God spared not the natural branches, casteth out fear? What then can be the take heed lest he also spare not thee. object of the fear in my text?-a fear, it Behold therefore the goodness and severity seems, which might co-exist with faithof God: on them which fell, severity; for while the apostle tells these Gentiles but toward thee goodness, if thou continue that they can only stand by faith, he bids in his gootdness: otherwise thou also shalt them at the same time not to be highbe cut off.' These verses are instinct minded, but fear. with principle, the full exposition and To these questions a reply might be enforcement of which would require a given from two contiguous verses in the succession of sermons. WVe shall but state Epistle to the IIebrews-the last verse of the leading, ideas which they are fitted to the third, and the first verse of the fourth suggest. This passage altogether is an chapter. The Israelites were kept out argument by which the apostle would of their promised land because of urberepress the arrogance of the Gentiles, lief; and let us therefore fear that we, because they now occupied the place for the same reason, shall fhll short of which the Jews before monopolized; and our promised land. The fear is lest we what, with this view, he presses on their fall away from the faith, lest we lose attention, is the tenure of that occupancy sight of its unseen objects, and so by an which they now gloried in-a tenure, the evil heart of unbelief depart from the due consideration of which would anni- living God. Nature is prone to forget hilate all boasting, and lead them to carry the things of faith, and to lose all sight with all humility and meekness the privi- or sense of these in the objects of vision; legQs wherewith they were invested. and therefore is required to give earnest They held them altogether on the footing, heed to these things, for fear she at any not of their own merits, but of another's time should let them slip.f The man goodness —and which goodness they can who, unable to swim, has fallen among only continue in by the respect and refer- the waves and had a rope thrown out to ence'of their minds towards it —for with- him, would know what it is to have faith out such respect or reference there can and fear in contemporaneous operation be no faith, and it is by faith we stand. within his heart; and in very proportion The whole distinction, whether of su- to his fearful distrust of himself, would.perior happiness or superior honour, he cling to the support that had been exconferred on us by the gospel, is exclu- tended to him from above. The child sively and altogether of grace-not a who is beginning to walk, alike distrustthing worked for, but a thing given; And ful of his own strength, keeps firm hold the precise office of faith is to receive it on the nurse who leads him; and his on this footing, to see and acknowledge faith and fear, so far from conflicting it as a gift, and to depend for it on the forces, work most harmoniously into each truth and liberality and withal power of the Giver trusting that what He had ~Romaws, iii, 27; Eph. ii, 8. 9. t He. i 1. LECTURE LXXXV.-CHAPTEIR XI, 11 —22. 435 other s hands. And so the Christian, The goodness and the severity of God aware of there being no sufficiency in as brought into juxtaposition in the 22nd himself to withstand the temptations of verse, would require a treatment which we an evil world, keeps fast and firm hold forego for the present, and more especiof that grace and sufficiency which he ally as we have made it the subject of a knows to be in God; and so the moral distinct sermon.* We recur to the aposdynamics of the gospel will be found in tle's argument respecting the Jews. perfect keeping with the machinery of the human constitution, with the laws - See Sermon XVI, in vol. i of my'Congregational and the working of man's moral nature. Sermons,' being vol. viii of the Series. LECTURE LXXXVI. ROMANS xi, 23-32. " And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree, which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree; how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive treer For I would not, brethren. that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits, that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy throllugt their unbelief; even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have nrrrcy upon all." THE general objection to missionary for the apostolical work of our present work is comprehensive of Jews as well as day. They carried forth the gospel to all Gentiles —" Go preach the gospel to every nations —yet beginning at Jerusalem. Anwl creature." But the duty of labouring for into whatever city they entered, it was the conversion of God's ancient people is their general practice first to seek out the furthermore laid on a distinct and special Jews-entering into their synagogues, and ground of its own. All that is said of them reasoning first with them out of their in Scripture serves to enhance the obliga- Scriptures.* And when Paul arrived a tion of attempting, in every possible way, prisoner at Rome, the first thing he did to find access among them for the doc- was to send for the Jews. They seem still trines and dispensation of the New Testa- to have acted in the spirit of that charge ment. This is an employment whereof which our Saviour while on earth gave to we are told that the good of it will come His disciples, when He bade them go first back with double interest upon ourselves. to the *lost sheep of the house of Israel. Or rather, and without putting it into this Nay the apostles expressly alleged a neselfish form, we learn from the Bible that cessity for this order-even that the word the Christianity of Jews will be followed of God should first be spoken to the Jews up by a mighty enlargement in the cha- before they turned to the Gentiles.t At racter and state of Christianity through- that time the unbelief of the Jews was a ott the world-so that in labouring for stepping-stone to the faith of the Gentiles; this, we become in a peculiar manner the and by their being first preached to, this fellow-workers of God, and instruments unbelief came into open manifestationin His hand, for prosecuting and carrying which both served as an intimation for the forward to its fulfilment one of the high- apostles to desist, and seems not to have est objects of His administration. It were been without its influence on the new the most germinant of all our missionary hearers to whom they then turned thementerprises-or the one most prolific of a selves.' But this period of Jewish unberich moral blessing to the great family of lief is now drawing to a close; and by a mankind. The full return of the Jews sort of reverse law, it is the faith of that will be the riches, we are told, of all other people which will now be the steppingnations (ver. 12;) and by entering there- stone to a great and general expansion of fore on this peculiar walk, we may well Christianity among men. Surely then be said to enter on the highest department when the conversion of the Jews is so of missionary labour, and in which we much more hopeful, the duty of preaching most harmonise both with the designs of to them is not less imperative and at least Providence and the schemes of prophecy. The procedure of the first apostles in this "esDect might serve perhaps as a model tActs, xiii, 46; xviii, 6. Acts, 4 436 LECTURE LXXXVII.-CHAPTER XI, 23-32. greatly more attractive than before —and to the Lord, when they shall look upon especially now that the ulterior good is Him whomn they have pierced, and mourn itarrived at by a medium so much more fir Him as for a first-born. But to hasten bright and beautiful, than that through onward this consummation, we should which the first teachers of Christianity turn from the evil of our way towards had to find their way ere they came into them, and mourn over all the insults and contact with the Gentiles. Theirs was a the wrongs which for two thousand years rugged path, from the rejection of the gos- have been heaped on this people of noble pet by their own countrymen, to the pro- ancestry and of still nobler destination. clamation of it over a world where it was It might be looked on as a strange infeyet unknown-And ours, on the other rence to draw from our almost total want hland, we should feel an inviting path, of success hitherto-that on this retrospect from the reception of this same gospel by of Jewish obstinacy and hatred of the the children of Israel, to the spread and gospel for so many ages, we should ground the revival of it among all nations. It is the bright and hopeful anticipation, not such a receiving as will be life from the of a few individual conversions as heretodead (ver. 15.). Under all the views of it, fore, but of their national return to Him the evangelisation of the Jews should rank who is the Hope and Saviour of all the as a first and foremost object of Christian ends of the earth. But the inference is policy. more sound and legitimate than it may be And here it occurs to us, that the ex- at first taken for. We count on this change ceeding rarity as yet of Jewish conver- of'result in the Jewish mind, because we sion, so far from a reason for despairing perceive a change in the causality which of future success, should, if taken in con- is being brought to bear upon it. On nection with the whole history of the case, looking back to the sullen inveteracy lead rather to an opposite conclusion. It of Jewish prejudice for so many ages, is through our mercy that they at length we cannot but observe that the instruare to obtain mercy-or through the me- mentality wherewith it has been plied is dium of Gentile Christianity, that the light not only not the same, but the very oppoof the gospel is to find entry into the site to that which the apostle would have hearts and understandings of this ancient put into our hands —whereas on looking people of God. We, whether by our ex- forward, we can perceive that a reverse amplk or our exertions or both, are, some- influence is to be put in operation; nor how or other, to be the instruments of can we deem the conclusion to be illogieffecting this mighty change in the Jew- cal, when we reckon on the effect being ish mind; and the question is, how have different just from the cause being differwe acquitted ourselves in this capacity- ent. It is like the promise of a first and or what has hitherto been our treatment hopeful experiment, and to which we adof those, who have been thus devolved on dress ourselves with all the greater confiour custody and care, and of whom we dence, that, instead of some gratuitous or may be said especially to have been put hap-hazard trial in the hands of a pi'oin charge. Looking then to this matter jector, the very means are to be now set generally and historically through a sue- agoing, which are not only most fitted by cession of ages, we find this treatment to nature to soften and disarm the antipahave been the very opposite of that which thies of the human spirit, but which have is here prescribed to us; and that, speak- been expressly sanctioned and enjoined in ing in the gross, we have not only neg- the oracles of a wisdom that is infallible. lected the apostolic rule, but have actu- We speak not of the modern liberalism ally reversed it-So that, instead of warm- which but ministers to the secular pride ing these outcasts of the Almighty's dis- and interest of this nation of aliens; and pleasure by our kindness, or conciliating seeks for nothing further than their adthem by our respect, or inspiring them mission into courts and parliaments. We with confidence by our justice, or awaken- speak of the unutterable missionary longing their admiration of the gospel by our ings now felt on their behalf; and of the exemplification of its virtues and graces- efforts now making, not by single ad(venwe, in the great bulk and majority of our turers only, but by societies and whole proceedings, have brought all the oppo- churches, to recall these hapless wandersite influences to bear upon them, and ers, and entreat them by every moving done every thing we could to alienate and argument to come within the limits, and repel and put them to an impracticable be honoured as at once the highest ornadistance away from us-Acting the tyrants ments and best-loved inmates of the spiritand persecutors of a forlorn race, who ual family of God. There is doubtless a have become the veriest abjects or off- wide contrast, between our hopes of the scourings of humanity in our hands. We future and our recollections of the past-.. know that at length their heart is to turn* but not wider than the contrast tetween out 2 Corinthians, iii, 6. haughty, injurious, and oppressive treat LECTURE LXXXVII.-CHAPTER XI, 23-32. 437 ment of the Jews then; and the meek- their iniquity: And it shall be to me a ness, the gentleness, the perfect frank- name of joy, a praise and an honour beness and sincerity, the heart-breathing fore all the nations of the earth, which desires after their salvation, the earnest shall hear all the good that I do unto them."* and affectionate persuasion, the unwea- That the fulfilment of these prophecies is ried, we hope the unconquerable kindness still to come, we may well conjecture wherewith they will now continue to be from such passages as Isaiah, xliii, 18, 19' assailed, in the face, it may be, of dis- Jeremiah, xvi, 14, 15; xxiii, 7, 8. But the couragements and insults-All to tell at conjecture advances to a certainty, by the length, we trust, with the omnipotence of quotation of the apostle in Romans, xi, Christian charity, giving forth the authen- 26 —where he looks onward to the accomtic exhibition of herself in the whole plishment as yet future of the glorious bearing and demeanour of the men who prediction of Isaiah in lix, 20-" And the thus long and thus labour, not perhaps Redeemer shall come to Zion, and unto for their civil immunities and privileges, them that turn from transgression in Jabut for the glories of a higher citizenship, cob"-the undoubted reference of Paul, for their readmittance to the household when he alludes to it as a thing written, of God, as the great and one thing need- that "There shall come out of Zion the ful-mightily to be striven, and mightily Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodlito be prayed for. ness from Jacob." Thus as the apostacy of the Jews led to We have already tried in some slight the calling of the Gentiles; so will the degree, to explain how it was, or what the Christianity of the Gentiles, when fully connecting influences were, by which and consistently proceeded on, lead on- Gentile Christianity followed in the train ward to the effect ual recalling of the Jews. of Jewish unbelief; and again, we have But the succession of benefits and bless- also said a little on the operation which ings will not stop here —for, by a further this Gentile Christianity, when rightly step in the progress will this conversion exercised and fully manifested, should of God's ancient people to the truth as it is have, in opening the eyes of the Jews, in Jesus operate by a mighty reaction, in and so turning them to the faith. But the further extension and establishment there is still a third sequence in this proof the gospel throughout the world. We gression of moral changes, whereof prohave the traces, nay the distinct intima- phecy tells us that so it will be; and the tions of this, in more than one clause of curiosity of man prompts him, as in the the passage now before us-as in verse other cases, to enquire, how it will be? 12th, where we are told that the fulness of And here too, we can to a certain extent the Jews will augment the riches of the meet the enquiry —for it appears pretty Gentiles; and in verse 15, that, the re- obvious, that a great national movement ceiving of them will be life from the dead. towards Christianity on the part of the We gather the same information from Jews, and their actual adoption of a faith other Scriptures both of the Old and the which they have so long held in detestaNew Testament-as when Isaiah tells us tion, must tell ivith mighty and decisive (lx, iii), that "the Gentiles shall come to effect on the rest of the world. If the very thy light, and kings to the brightness of existence of the Jews as a separate peothy rising;" and that the abundance of ple be in itself the indication of a provithe sea, and the forces of the Gentiles shall dence-a singular event in history, which be converted and come unto Israel (Ix, 5) demonstrates the part taken by Him whu whose seed shall be known among the overrules all history in the affiairs of men Gentiles; and all who see them shall ac- -how much more impressive will the knowledge them, that they are the seed evidence become, when this same people which God hath blessed (lxi, 9); for then shall describe the actual evolution, which will the Gentiles see their righteousness, it was predicted they should do, more and all kings their glory (lxii, 2). This than two thousand years ago; shall, after reflex influence, if it may be so termed, the dispersions and the desolations of of Jewish upon Gentile Christianity, is many generations, reach at last the very still further intimated by the Psalmist as landing-place, to which the finger of follows —" Thou shalt arise and have prophecy has been pointing from an mercy upon Zion," and "so the heathen antiquity so high as that of the patriarshall fear the name of the Lord, and all chal ages. We know not if this splendid the kings of the earth thy glory."* Hear era is to be ushered in by palpable and also the prophet Jeremiah —"I will cause direct miracle. We would not affirm this, the captivity of Judah, and the captivity but far less can we deny it. But should of Israel to return, and will build them as there be no such manifestation of the at the first, and cleanse them from all divine power conjoined with this marvel-' Psalm cii, 13, 15.' Jeremiah, xxxiii, 7 9. 438 LECTURE LXXXVI. — CHAPTER XI 23-32. lous fulfilment, there will at least be such the reason why such a process shoult a manifestation of the divine knowledge, have been instituted, rather than any as will incontestably prove that God has other, for the purpose of making it good had to do with it; and so as that history especially if it be a process which in. shall of itself perform the office of reve- volves in it the perdition, endless and irre. lation, or men will trace the finger of the mediable, of the millions and millions Almighty in the events which are sensi- more of many generations. The difficulty bly passing before their eyes. And be- is aggravated a thousand-fold, when the sides, we have reason to believe of these Author and Originator of the whole is a converted Jews, that they will become Being of infinite power, but a power unthe most zealous and successful of all der the direction of infinite goodness and missionaries; or, like Paul before them, wisdom-prone as we are to wish, and the preachers of that faith which they therefore to imagine, that He may have persecuted in times past, and once la- will,-and by the energies which belong boured to destroy.* It is said of a single to Him, have also brought forth an instant Christian that he may be the light of the creation of perfect light and perfect virworld.t How much more will be a whole tue; and secured it against all the inroads, nation of Christians-glowing in the full by which either wickedness or woe could ardour of their new-born convictions have ever entered. This is the mystery with apostolic fervour; and the very of God-not the glorious consummation fruit of whose conversion will tell with of a regenerated world, but the deep-laid a hundred-fold greater effect than even necessity for the evil which preceded it; that of St. Paul, as a testimony or evi- and why it had to be reached by so long dence for the faith. Verily like him, and dark and laborious a pathway, strewn their great prototype, they will pre-emi- as it were with the ruins of many succes. nently and emphatically be the apostles sive ages. The origin of evil comes into of the Gentiles; and there will be a light view while we meditate on these things; to lighten these Gentiles, in the very glory and the difficulties of this transcendental of the people of Israel.i We must look question serve still more to beset and to futurity for this great accomplishment- baffle our ambitious speculations. for, most obviously, it has not yet been It might be felt by some to alleviate, realised. It will be "in the last days, that though most certainly it does not resolve the mountain of the Lord's house shall the mystery, if we can state some anabe established in the top of the mountains, logy between the process laid down in this and shall be exalted above the hills; and chapter and other parts or passages in the all nations shall flow unto it. And many history of the Divine administration. For people shall go and say, Come ye, and example, the apostle elsewhere tells us of let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, the law having entered, that the offence to the house of the God of Jacob; and might abound.* It looks inexplicably he will teach us of his ways, and we will hard, that the law, or aught whatever, walk in his paths: for Qut of Zion shall should have come directly from God for go forth the law, and the word of the such a purpose-or that sin might be mulLord from Jerusalem." This is all yet to tiplied: But the difficulty seems to be at come-else how could it be spoken, as an least mitigated, if not wholly done away, immediate sequence of its fulfilment- when the apostle further tells us, that that "He shall judge among the nations, " where sin abounded, grace did much and shall rebuke many people; and they more abound"-a grace all the more ilshall beat their swords into plowshares, lustrious, it is certain, from the magnitude and their spears into pruning-hooks: and enormity of that guilt over which it nation shall not lift up sword against triumphed. Nay we are told of another nation. neither shall they learn war any great moral design which was accommore."2 plished by sin being thus placed in conBut, after all, we are but attempting an nection with the law —"that sin by the explanation of the efficient causes in this commandment might become exceeding prociess-which, though fully and satis- sinful"t —as if the worth'and excellence factorily made out, would still leave the of that which is good, and the exceeding final cause of the whole an unresolved deformity of that which is evil, were, by mystery. We may be able to follow and juxtaposition, brought into more bright understand every step of a mechanism and vivid manifestation. And the case which has been set up for the production before us looks like another specimen of of a given result-yet not understand the the same thing-characteristic of the Dimeaning of the result itself, and still less vine administration; and in keeping with, or in the style, of its general policy. He' Galatians, i, 23. had first illustrated the mercy of the gos. t Matt. v, 14.-See much that is interesting on this whole subject in Bickersteth's' Restoration of the Jews.' I Luke, ii, 32. ~ Isaiah, ii, 2-4; Micah, iv, 2.' Romans, v, 20. t Romans, vii, 13. LECTURE LXXXVI.-CHAPTER XI, 23-32. 439 pel, and all the more palpably, by its tak- manner would we infer, that it is to exhiing effect, at least chiefly and primarily, bit the Divine character in another of its on the Gentiles, wholly given over to idol- phases —even the riches of His glory, speatry, and disfigured by all the atrocities cified in Ephesians, i, 6, as the glory of of humanr wickedness-rather than on the His grace-when we read, that, also after decent, formal, well-seeming Jews, the much long-suffering it may be, the longprofessing worshippers of one God; whose suffering which-is termed salvation by the vices, of more deep and subtle and spiri- apostle Peter,* He heaps His choicest tual a character, did not glare so on the preferments and blessings on the vessels eye of' general observation. But these, in of mercy, and thus makes known the riches their turn, and after ages of seemingly of HIis glory.t One main end of the Dihopeless alienation, during which they vine policy in the government and final acquit themselves with all the despite and destiny of men seems to be manifestation defiance and resolved hardihood of out- — that both heaven and earth might learn laws-on these, obviously reared by Pro- thereby the more to hate all evil, to love vidence for some of its high designs, shall and admire all worth and goodness and we yet behold the second great iliustra- true greatness, whether in themselves or tion of gospel mercy; all the more en- as exemplified by Him in whom all greathanced, it is certain, by its breaking forth ness and goodness are personified. In in the train of Jewish perversity and Jew- harmony with this view, we read of the ish unbelief, at length giving way, after Lord Jesus being revealed with His mighty they had stood their ground and been dis- angels, on that dread occasion when the tinctly persisted in for many generations. glory of His power and sacredness shall This is one undoubted effect of His hav- be displayed in the destruction of sinners; ing concluded all in unbelief; that He and the glory of His infinite love for the might have mercy upon all (ver. 32). The holy in the triumph and happiness of the one, so to speak, is set off by the other- saints.: And so His disposal of the church like the effect of light and shade in paint- does not terminate in, but has an ulterior ing; or when any object in nature is seen object to itself-even " to the intent that all the mnore strikingly and conspicuously now unto the principalities and powers in because of the dark ground on which it is heavenly places might be known, by the projected. In a school of virtue, one chief church, the manifold wisdom of God." end were the enforcement of great moral There is evidently here a something pointlessons; and this perhaps were best ef'- ed at beyond the immediate concern which fected by bringing out in boldest possible men have in the Divine procedure —a rerelief the evil of sin; and in all their ference to the distant as well as to the fubeauty and brightness the characteristics ture; and our felt ignorance of this larger of highest moral perfection, or, which is and more comprehensive policy should tantamount to this, the high and holy at- serve to humble and chasten and repress tributes of Him, in whom all perfection as our ambitious speculations. Yet though well as all power have had their everlast- we see but in glimpses, we cannot fail to ing dwelling-place. Now providence is discern in Scripture the traces of a conpre-eminently a school of virtue; and we stant respect to manifestation as one great may therefore expect that history, and in drift or design of God's universal governa more especial manner sacred history, ment-and that too the manifestation of where the manifestations of providence contrasts, or of things made more striking are seen in nearest connection with the and conspicuous in themselves, by being designs of grace, will abound in such les- presented along with their opposites. So sons. And accordingly, such is the mani- essentially and characteristically indeed fest purpose of many revealed evolutions is holiness a repugnance to moral evil, or passages in the history of the Divine that some have been satisfied with this as administration-of God's dealings with the a sufficient explanation for the enigma of world. We have already noticed that a its existence-that but for the reality, or law was brought in, and for the purpose at least the conception of evil, there could that sin might become (or might appear) have been no exhibition of that jealous exceeding sinful-like a foul blot on a and invincible recoil from sin. wherewith tablet of resplendent purity. And though perfect virtue must ever regard the oppoin the form of a question, yet it is no ob- site of itself. For our own parts, we can scure hint which is conveyed, when Paul profess no absolute satisfaction with any asks, Whether it might not be God's will of the solutions which have been proposed to show His wrath, His righteous indigna- of these high mysteries. We look upon tion at moral evil, and to make His power them all as hypothetical, and yet of use, known-when lie destroys those vessels because fully adequate to the work of siof wrath which He had before endured lencing, and so placing in abeyance the with much long-suffering.* And in like infidelity alike hypothetical which has Romans, i, 22.' 2 Peter, iii, 15, t Rom. it, 23. X 2 Thess. i, 7 —1. 44C LECTURE LXXX I. —-CHAPTER XI, 23-32. been grounded on the questions where- continue while the elect among the Gen. with they deal. The real and effective tiles were gathering,* be they few or evidence for the truth of the Christian re- many: or till all such of them as were velation is thus left uninjured; and while ordained to eternal life should believe; we gladly accept of these friendly expla- or, more generally still, " until the times nations for all that they are worth, we of the Gentiles should be fulfilled." This cannot view them to be so complete, as to leaves the extent of conversion among leave no sense of a difficulty yet unfa- the Gentiles undetermined; and also thomable, and no room for the apostolic leaves us at liberty to judge, whether, reflection —' O the depth of the riches while there is reason to believe that about both of' the wisdom and knowledge of the time when the Jews are brought in God! how unsearchable are his judg- there will be a great enlargement in the ments, and his ways past finding out!" general Christianity of the world-whether But we ought now to enter on a separate that enlargement is to precede the Jewish treatment of those few verses in the pas- conversion, or the Jewish conversion is sage which might require any explana- to precede the enlargement. We are intion. We must forbear the consideration dlined to believe that, looking to these of such prophetic views as are here sug- two events in the order of cause and gested, and to which full justice could effect, they will have a great reciprocal only be rendered in a distinct work. influence on each other-or that there Ver. 25.'In part.' So great a part as will both be an action and a reaction. to impress a cursory observer with its If' it be a likelihood, on the one hand, totality. It was not just this however- that Gentile Christianity, when purified for a certain though very small propor- in its quality and made larger in its tion of the whole nation had bven con- amount, shall, both by the exhibition of verted. Paul gladly avails himself of its graces and the efforts of its missionary this, that he might be enabled to charac- zeal, tell with great and sensible effect terise the blindness only as partial; and on the obstinacy of Jewish unbelief-the so be allowed to soften, as his manner is, likelihood is not less, that when a movethe representation which he here gives to ment is once made on the part of' these those Jews whom he is addressing in this heretofore resolved aliens to the truth as epistle of the unbelief of their country- it is in Jesus, it will tend mightily to open rnen. —'Until,' or'during,' or'while.' the eyes of all nations, so as to impress The season of Jewish unbelief will be millions and millions more in favour of that of Gentile conversion. We could not that gospel, whose predictions shall then from this single verse infer, that, contern- be so illustriously verified; and to which poraneous with the restoration of Israel, so impressive a testimony will be given, there was to ensue a remarkable enlarge- when its most inveterate, and long its ment of general Christianity in the world. most hopeless enemies, shall, after the This idea, however, might well be sug- lapse of many generations, look in gested by the expression-especially mourning and bitterness to Him whom when taken in connection with other their forefathers had pieti:ed, and, casting parts of' the chapter and other prophecies away their weapons of rebellion, shall of the Bible. Apart from these, the ful- fall down to worship Him. ness might be understood to mean, not But our further remarks on particular the great number who were to come in, verses, we must postpone to the next but the whole number who should be lecture. converted, whether that number was great or small. The blindness was to Mark, liii, 27. LECTURE LXXXVII. —CHAPTEIt XI; 26-36 -4 LECTURE LXXXVII. ROMANS Xi, 26-36. Ani so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Si-,n he Delive.elt and st.-all turn awal nrgodliness from Jacob: for this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take xwa.y their'ins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, the- ale beloved ft r,he fatl'ers' sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times past have not be.iev,'d God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief; even so have these also now not be!ieved, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mntrc) upon all. 0 the depth of the riches bot.fi of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his jude'mel1ts, anl his ways past findtug out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who ha:h been his counsellor cer who hath first given to tl;m, and it shall be recompensed unto him again. For of him, and through him, and to hina are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen." VER. 26.'All Israel.' Some would in- The conversion intimated here is descfil-et.erpret the clause thus-All of Israel who in substantially the same terms in Jere. are to be saved. All of them who are miah, xxxi, 33, 34, and in Hebrews, vil. ordained to eternal life. There is as much 8-12; x, 16, 17. It consists of the same of force in these interpretations as to make steps, and is attended with the same it possible, nay we think even likely, that blessed results all the world over; and in the meaning here of the word all, is not every instance, whether of Jew or Gentile, such an absolute and entire totality, as to who is turned to Christianity. The taking include each and every one of the nation away of their sins in this passage seems a at the time of their predicted conversion. blotting out of the guilt incurred by their Yet something more must be conveyed by transgression of God's laws-as equivathe term, than that merely all the elect lent to what in the other passages is said were to be saved-for, whether many or to be a remembrance (in judgment) of few, this holds true of them in every age. their sins and iniquities no more. The The' all' must be held to denote so gene- turning away of their ungodliness is their ral, as should amount to a national con- sanctification, even as the other was theii version; and as the'part' in the verse justification; and is equivalent to what is foregoing, signifies some, though so very spoken of elsewhere, as a putting of those few as to make an insensible fraction of laws —from the condernation of having believers among the Jewish people-so broken which they were delivered-of the'all' of the verse before us, signifies putting these laws into their hearts, and at least so many as should form a great writing them in their mintls. The cove. corporate change from Judaism to Chris- nant with each individual believer is one tianity, and so as to leave the unbelievers, and the same, in all ages and among all if any, but an insensible fraction of the nations. whole. Ver. 28.'As concerning the gospel,' Out of Zion.' The passage referred to they are enemies for your sakes: but as is Isa. lix, 20-where the prophet repre- touching the election, they are beloved for sents the Deliverer as comning to Zion, the fathers' sakes.' Their being enemies while the apostle represents Him as for the gospel's sake-points to the subcoming from Zion. These two inspired servience of Jewish infidelity, as the inmen reveal to us a glimpse of one and the strument of diffusing Christianity through same process, though at different but per- the world. We know that historically the haps nearly, if not altogether contiguous rejection of the gospel by the Jews was parts of it-the one stating a previous in- followed up by its large anti rapid furgress of the Saviour to Jerusalem, the therance among the Gentiles; nor can we other a consequent egress in the.prosecu- doubt that this passage in the administra. tion of His great undertaking. The light tion of God's providence had its deep-laid of prophecy here, as in many other in- reasons, whether we fully comprehend stances, but permits us to contemplate the them or not, in the counsels of the Divine event as a general reality, without ena- policy.-Again their being beloved for the bling us to enter on very full or explicit fathers' sake, points to the regard which details of it. Its still undoubted futurity, God had for Abraham, and to the promise however, is manifest from this-its being which He made this patriarch, even in the spoken of in the language of prediction form of a reward for his faithfulnessboth in the Old Testament and the New; that He would signalize his posterity, and and a prediction which has not had the make them a blessing to the nations of semblance of a fulfilment since the days the earth.* This is analogous to other of the apostles. instances in the procedure of the Al. Ver. 27.'For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.' Gen. zxii, 16; Lev. xx vi, 42; Deut iv, 37. 56 442 LECTURE LXXXVII: —-CHAPTER XI, 26-36. Inighty's government-as when for the cepted constancy of an order that never sake of David and other good kings, He changed. We are aware of certain trancontinued His favour to Jerusalem and scendental difficulties, which, we forbear the kingdom of Judah.* to grapple with; but assuredly the task And yet this tinial salvation of the Jews, of' harmonising the character of an adthough thus holding on the worthiness of ministration as being of perfect moral their filthers, holds also on election, and goodness. with the characteristic of' its so on the sovereignty of God. It is as strict and rigorous and irrevocable neces. touching the election, that they are be- sity, is not one of' them-even though a loved for the fathers' sake. To those who necessity settled and ordained in the coun. have made a profound study of this ardu- sels of the Almighty from everlasting ous topic, there swill appear no discre- And thus particularly might the future pancy between these two things; and in- and final salvation of the children of deed their perfict harmony is often as Israel be viewed both as the fruit of a obvious to the wisdom of a plain Christian, primeval decree of election, and as at as it is to the man of philosophic discrim- once the fruit and the reward of the obeination. There is no incompatibility dience of Abraham. The first does not whatever between the order of an admin- supersede the second; nay the second is istration being fixed, and fixed from all one of the stepping-stones along which eternity, and yet its being a moral admin- the first is carried, and will at length be istration. Whether a process be absolute made good. Nay it will require another and irreversible is one question. What great stepping-stone, ere the decree is the special terms of that process are, or consummated-a work of grace in the what the footsteps in it which follow each hearts of Abraham's children; their turnother, is another It is the latter question ing to the Lord, that the veil which now which determines the character of the blinds them might be taken away;* their process; and should the former question deep and mournful penitence, and that be resolved in the affirnmative, this, so far worked in them by the Spirit of God;f from changing or giving uncertainty to and lastly, their biding not in unbelief, the character of the process, just rivets and their ungodliness being turned away. and makes it all the more sure. Give me Ver. 29.'For the gifts and calling of a process, all the parts and connections God are without repentance.' That is, of which are bound together by an ada- repentance on the part of God. What mantine necessity; and this hinders not He hath resolved, he shall certainly fulfil. but that in the laws and tendencies and 1"God is not a man, that he should lie; particular sequences of such a process, neither the son of man, that hie should we may read both its own character and repent: hath he said, and shall he not do the character of Him who has ordained it it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not -and all the more distinctly and surely, make it good?" His original purpose, if the process be indeed unalterable. If and promise too, respecting the children in any human government, the deed of of Israel, in His own good time, will be virtuous patriotism were generally fol- accomplished; and the necessary gifts lowed up by the acknowledgment of a will then be imparted, as well as the nepublic reward-this might serve to charac- cessary calling brought to bear upon terise it as being on the whole a virtuous them for carrying it into effect. This government; and surely it would not calling, as being in execution of the dedilute, but rather stamp and confirm this cree of' election, must, of course, be character the more, if, instead of being internal and efficacious-as distinguished thus followed up generally, it were so fol- from the ordinary and outward calling, lowed up always. In like manner, if, un- such as that wherewith they were plied der the divine government, goodness were at the time of the Saviour, and which always followed up in the long run by then proyed ineffectual, the things belongenjoyment; and righteousness, though ing to their peace being hidden from even after a series of discouragements in their eves. At the calling of our text, the way of trial, by happiness and honour; their eyes shall be opened, and they shal, and holiness by heaven; and, in a word, behold Him whom they have pierced, and the regeneration of every creature into a say Blessed is He that cometh in the state of perfect excellence, by his secure name of the Lord.t and immortal well-being —no one could Ver. 30, 31.'For as ye in times past question the title of such a government to have not believed God, yet have now the highest moral reverence, and a title obtained mercy through their unbelief; all the more firmly established, if these even so have these also now not believed, several effects followed in the train of that through your mercy they also may their respective causes with the unex- obtain mercy.' It is obvious, as we have t 1Kings. xi 13 36. *'2 Cor. iii, 16. t Zech. xii, 10, 11. 1 Matt. xxiii, b LECTURE LXXXVII. —— CHAPTER XI, 26-36. 443 already said, that there was a connection, that true religion in the attitude of reclpi. and that too in the way of promotion and ents, which, otherwise, they might have subserviency, between the unbelief of the conferred on us in the attitude of disJews and the Christianity of the Gentiles. pensers. It is thus, perhaps, that by a This is again affirmed in the verse before lengthened course of preparation, the us; and a sort of parallelism founded on training of' a spiritual husbandry carried it, between the respective changes already onward through a series of centuries, the experienced in part, and to be completed world may come to be matured for the afterwards, on these two great divisions establishment within its limits of one of the human family. What the Gentiles great spiritual family —" where there is had been in times past when they be- neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor lieved not, the Jews were now. The Gen- uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, tiles passed out of their former unbelief, bond nor free; but Christ is all, and in and obtained mercy through the unbelief all." of the Jews. The Jews will pass out of Ver. 32. There may be reason to believe their present unbelief' and obtain mercy, from other passages and other prophecies not through the unbelief, but through the in Scripture, that there remains to be vet mercy bestowed upon the Gentiles. We revealed an infidel antichrist, and so a can see howthe grace of God is magnified general falling away from the gospel Dy a mercy bestowed on men in a pre- among the nations of Christendom; but vious state of' rebellion and apostacy. this is not one of these passages. The Its display is all the more illustrious, in unbelief in which God hath concluded that it is shed forth on men in a state of all, is first the unbelief' of the Gentile resolute hostility or of deep and settled world before the promulgation of the alienation, rather than on men in a state gospel, out of which they then emerged of expectancy and desirousness of the into Christianity; and second, the present blessings from heaven which they need; unbelief of the Jews, out of which they and so it serves to brighten and enhance also will emerge into Christianity when the character of Him, whose thoughts the time of their restoration comes, It is are not as our thoughts, nor ways as our the present unbelief' of the Jews which is ways-that His mercy should thus de- spoken of in this verse; but it is the past, scend on places the darkest and most and not a future unbelief, of the Gentiles repulsive, whether on the depravity of which is there spoken of. It is thus that the heathen world or on the obstinacy the apostle adjusts and balances, and if I and perverseness of the children of may so say, equalises the account beIsrael.* tween the Jews and Gentiles-a main The analogy between the two cases of topic with him, from the commencement the Jews and Gentiles, is, that each shall and throughout the whole of his epistle. at length have obtained mercy-making He had before spoken of their common transition thereunto from their own pre- vices. He now speaks of their common vious state of unbelief. The distinction infidelity-that, after representing both is, that the Gentiles arrived at their bles- as having fallen into one and the same sing through the unbelief of the Jews: abyss, he might reconcile both to one and The Jews will arrive at theirs through the same method of' recovery; and, along the mercy before shown to the Gentiles. with this, establish the great doctrine of One can perceive how the Jews might justification by faith, as the common and have been confirmed in their arrogant, equal footing on which both are taken exclusive, and unsocial spirit, had Chris- into acceptance with God. The whole of tianity sprung up amongst them, and his argument, whilst intended to harmontaken possession of their nation under ise the two parties into one, is fitted also the direct and immediate influence of our to humble each of them, and especially Saviour's teaching, the Author and Fin- the Jews. Yet one cannot fail to perceive isher of our faith. It might then have how studious he is of mitigating to the come forth upon the world as Judaism uttermost the painfulness of his demonperfected, and in such a way, as, instead stration-that he might "give none of. of humbling the Jews, might have in- fence, neither to the Jews, nor to the flamed still further their extravagant Gentiles, nor to the church of God, but sense of superiority over all the other please all men in all things, not seeking nations of the earth. But corning as it his own profit but the profit of many, that will through the medium of a previous they may be saved." In the execution of Gentile Christianity, this strong national this task, ne acquits himself with a tact partiality, this fond and rooted prejudice and a delicacy and an address altogether of many ages, may at length give way- worthy of the most accomplished courwhen, so fair humbled as to take from us tier-yet only with the skill of this profession, and not with its duplicity; for on'Romans, v, 8, 10. the ground of principle, and when aught 444 LECTURE LXXXVII.-CHAPTER XI, 26-36. of truth had to be defended or of error was which called forth this high exclamato be rebuked and put down, none more tion fi'om the apostle, we cannot but few resolute in assertion or more fearless in that we are not altogether in a fit state remonstrance than Paul. This union of fully to sympathise with him. The events an uncompromising firmness with a del- which thus excited him to reflection have.ca('y the most sensitive, we had almost been too long familiar to us. And this said the most tremulous, lest unnecessary rejection of the Jews, or admission of the violence should be done to the feelings Gentiles, or even reunion of both into one of other men-we have always held to be faith and one family-so long as but read a leading character in the mind and man- of in prophecy, and not yet seen in living ner of this great apostle. fulfilment-these as little move us, as do Ver. 33, 34.'0 the depth of the riches any of those great historical changes both of the wisdom and knowledge of which have long passed over the world, God! how unsearchable are his judg- and are now as current as household ments, and his ways past finding out! words in the pages of well known authorFor who hath known the mind of the ship. But we must not estimate from our Lord! or who hath been his counsellor 3' indifference now, the effect which such a It were wvell to discriminate the precise revolution then must have had, and espesentiment of that sublime effusion, where- cially in all the force and freshness of with the apostle here concludes and sums its novelty on a Jewish understanding — up the whole of this contemplation. We before the wonder and recency of the should say in the general, that they are great passing changes had subsided; or the natural rather than any of the moral men, with the education and prejudices attributes of the Divinity, which have of an Israelite, had recovered from the evoked it. It is not of His mercy that the sensation of that violence inflicted on all apostle now makes mention; nor yet of their previous habitudes of thought and Hiis justice; nor yet of His unswerving feeling, when, God abandoned His antruth or fidelity; nor yet of His holiness cient people, and made proffter to all men or dread antipathy to sin. They are His of those blessings and distinctions which wisdom and knowledge, and the depth of till now had been exclusively theirs. And the riches of these, which he celebrates in there was something more in it than a this place; and the unfathomable mys- reversal to excite surprise. There was tery, both of His counsels and processes; an enlargement which must have served and lastly, the absolute and entire own- mightily to expand the mental perspecership, and therefore disposal or sove- tive, particularly of those Christian Jews, reignty which God has of creation-see- who had just cast off the limitations that ing that lHe is at once the origin and the so fettered and confined the general unend of all things. It is true that Hisjudg- derstandings of their countrymen. It ments, if' not His ways, stand related to was a transition fi'om the local to the unithe principles of His righteous adminis- versal. This enlargement of view from a tration-Yet here they are not spoken of country to a world in the economy of the as righteous, but simply and generally as Divine word, was fitted to awaken and inscrutable. The jurisprudence of a law- amplify the mind of its admiring obgiver cannot be appreciated Lightly, but iservers-just as a few centuries ago, when by a reference to its moral character- in the economy of the Divine workmanwhich, indeed, is the most important ele- ship, the mystery of these sensible heament of all in the reckoning. But the vens was laid open, and the human mind very thing affirmed here respecting the made its large and lofty transition from jurisprudence of Him who is the great the view of a world to the view of a uniLawgiver of heaven and earth, is, that in verse. Relatively to the state of previous our present state at least it is not appre- conception at each of these periods, there ciable by us, that it is beyond our reck- is a striking similarity between them; oning; and though a time be coming and the respective discoveries, the one when the mystery of God shall be fin- moral or spiritual the other natural, are ished,* and we shall be enabled to say, fitted to beget a like sense of greatnessnot only 1" Great and marvellous are thy whether in the objects contemplated, or works, Lord God Almighty," but "Just in the magnificent designs of Him whose and true are thy ways, thou King of government reaches to all ages and emsaints," and "thy judgments are made braces all worlds. It was a mighty stretch manifest"-Yet now must we join the at the earlier of these periods, when the apostle in the utterance of our text-'How view was carried forward from a single unsearchable are these judgments, and nation to the whole human family; and these ways how past finding out!' mightier still at the later of them. when In attending to what that specifically carried forward from the earth we live upon to the vast, and for aught we know, aRevelation, x, 7. the boundless assemblage of those suns LECTURE LXXXVII.-CHAPTER XI, 26-36. 445 and systems which Astronomy hath un- the time of Paul, of another dreary nay tfolded. The mind of' the apostle seems, a double millennium of exile and mora. in the passage now before us, to have wretchedness for his own outcast country. fully shared in the first of these expan- men, ere the goodly consummation should slons, and even elsewhere to have bor- arrive, or the latter-day glory was to shine dered, nay actually to have entered on forth on a then happy and regenerated the second of them-when on this very earth-These are the eventful changes in theme of a one Christianity for Jews and the contemplation of which the mind of Gentiles, he tells us of Him from whom our apostle seems to be labouring, as if the whole familv in heaven and earth is the footsteps of a series which he felt named, and by whom all things were himself unable to trace, or at least unable created, visible and invisible, whether to account for. And certainly to us it they be thrones or dominions or princi- does look inexplicable, that the same God palities or powers; and then gives us to who could will as we imagine into present know, of this evolution in the government effect, an instant and universal blessedand history of the church, that it was ness-that He should rather choose to meant as an illustration to the whole compass the fulfilments of His wisdom.lniverse of the manifold wisdom of God.* and goodness by so lengthened, so laboBut these are reflections on the great- rious a pathway. Thed(ifficulty isathouness rather than on the incomprehensibil- sand-fold aggravated-when we think of ity'of the King eternal and immortal- the failures, the abortions, the woful and on the riches and extent of His creation, wide-spread degeneracies, lighted up by rather than on the mysteriousness of His intervals few and far between of the good government; and bespeak more the ad- or the beautiful in the moral history of miration of a magnificence beyond all the world. We cannot but wonder at such our previous conceptions, than our won- a preparation being right or necessary, der in the contemplation of depths and ere the secure, the everlasting empire of difficulties utterly beyond our present un- truth and righteousness shall be ushered derstanding. Now it is not mere expan- in. And yet these are parts of a scheme, sion in the field of view which calls forth and of a scheme in progress, reaching or exhausts the whole sentiment of this forward to a great and glorious accompassage-as the adoption, f;r example, of plishment, though by initial stages of a whole species, instead of but the people darkness, depravity and disorder, the full of a single nation, into one and the same meaning or effect of which we cannot spiritual family. It is not so much the comprehend. They are the deep-laid magnitude of the result, as the rationale movements of a policy to us inscrutable; of the process, which engages and baffles and as we have just borrowed an analogy the mind of the apostle; and which there- from one of the sciences, we may here fore he pronounces to be unsearchable, avail ourselves of another, and point to and past finding out. It is the selection the yet hidden enigma of those successive of one household from a world left in creations which geology has unfolded, darkness and alienation from God-it is and which prove the developments both the committal to them of the divine ora- of animal and spiritual existence to be cles, and the preservation amongst their alike inexplicable. There is the prodescendants of the true knowledge and foundest mystery in both; and whether worship of the Deity-it is the history of we try to explore the moral or the physithis singular people, through whom was cal departments of His administraion, it is kept up the only remaining intercourse good to feel the infinity of our distance between heaven and earth; and which from Him, whose way is in the sea, and was finally broken off, after the dealing whose path is in the great waters, and of many centuries, in the various forms whose footsteps are not known.* "For of chastisement at one time and of mercy who hath known the mind of the Lord, or or endurance at another, till the perver- who hath been his counsellor?" sities of stiff-necked and rebellious Israel Ver. 35, 36.' Or who hath first given could be no longer tolerated, and the to him, and it shall be recompensed unto things of peace and salvation were hence- him again? For of him, and through him, forth hidden from their eyes-it is con- and to him, are all things: to whom be temporaneously with the rejection of the glory for ever. Amen.' These verses Jews, the call of the Gentiles just awoke strike at the root of that lofty pretension from the profound lethargy of ages, dur- which it is the great aim of the apostle to ing which the millions of unvisited and overthrow-that of man having any rightunblest heathenism were suffered to perish ful claim upon God, who is at once the in their iniquities-and then, to close the origin and the end of all things. To Him enumeration, it was the prospect still at we owe not all the objects of enjoyment'Colossians, i, 16; Ephesians, iii, 10, 15.' Psalm lxxvwi, 19 446 LECTURE LXXXVII, —CHAPTER XI, 26-36. merely, but all our capacities of enjoy- we consist or keel) together, and whose ment. This is a theme too big for utter- right hand upholds us continually. It is ance, and more to be dwelt upon in our part even here, and in the dimness of thought than dilated on in language-the our present embryo being, to award HIiw entire subordination of the creature to the all the glory. This will be the song of Creator, of the thing formed to Him who our eternity, when we shall see Him tas He hath formed it, by whose care it is that is, and know even as we are known. LECTURE LXXXVIII. ROMANS xii, 1, 2. " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, accep. table unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God." VER. 1.'By the mercies of God'-Those nation be more complete than that which mercies of which he had just spoken as is proposed in these verses?-and proalike applicable both to Jews and Gen- posed too on the ground of those mercies, tiles, whom he now addresses as the sub- or because of them (therefore,) as the rightjects of a common discipleship, and under ful and proper return to God for the benethe common title of brethren. The style fits of this new dispensation. We are of his address is eminently litted to con- called on to present our bodies a'sacriciliate the men, with whom he had just fice'-not by giving them to be burnt, as been holding what at least one class of were the slain carcases of the Jewish them might have felt to be a somewhat offerings, but to present them'a living stern and repulsive argument. And his sacrifice;' or, in other words, not by the manner is, he omits no lawful expedient, extinction of our animal life, but by the by which to disarm the repugnance of his utter mortification of all that is evil or pupils to aught which might prove hard forbidden in our animal desires, which, if or distasteful in the reasonings which he not the death of the body, is at least the employs; and so he stands before them, death of that which was formerly dear to not in the attitude of a master to school it even as life itself. The voluntary surthem into submission, but of a friend and render Of that in which the chief enjoyfellow-disciple, to supplicate their gifts ment of life consisted, is a self:-denial, or and services at the altar of their common rather a self-infliction, which, if not equivChristianity. At this part he makes the alent, is at least analogous to a literal transition from doctrine to practice; and sacrifice of the person; and is thus deon the groundwork of those mercies which nominated in various parts of Scripture. he had just demonstrated, tells them what And certainly it may require a strength the returns are which are expected at of resolution as great as that exhibited in their hands. That gospel mercy which the martyrdoms, whether of principle or proclaims so full an indemnity for the patriotism. And accordingly we read of past, is flagrantly misunderstood by those, being " crucified with Christ," of them who conceive of it as holding out a like *that are His having L"crucified the flesh full exemption from the toils of a future with its affections and lusts," of our being obedience-instead of which there can- "buried with him in baptism," of our not be imagined a more entire renuncia- "being made conformable unto his death," tion of an old habit and an old will, than of our putting off by a circumcision "the what takes place, and takes place invari- body of the sins of the flesh," of' our being ably, in the economy under which we sit. " baptized into his death."* There is And there is no dispensation from it. The nothing surely in these expressions, to covenant of works began with service, countenance the immoralities or the inan:: ended with reward. The covenant of dolence of antinomianism; and we may grace begins with mercy and ends with well understand how that, to be carried service; and most certainly a service not into effect, the kingdom of heaven suffershort of the former, either in the univer- eth violence, and the violent take it by sality of its range over the whole domain forcet. Truly it is not by a slight or easy of our moral nature-or at length with process, by a listless seeking after life, every single disciple in the School of Christianity, in the tale and measure of Gal ii,20; v, 24; Col. ii,11,12; Phil..,10; Rom. Vi.3 his perforniances. And can any subordi- t MattGal. i, 1,; Ro. LECTURE LXXXVIII.-Ch~EIER XII, 1, 2. 447 that we shall make good our entry there- our foot from the path of sinners, and to into, or work out our salvation; but by refrain our tongue from evil and eschew dint of a'lard and laborious striving, so it. The policy of the Christian is first to very hard and far above the powers of flee the temptation of alluring objects nature, that it needs the working of that when he can, and then resist it to the utgrace which worketh in us mightily.* termost when he can not. He does the it is no more a literal sacrifice that we first when he sets no wicked thing before are called to, than Paul's was a literal his eyes,* or rather avoids it, passes not crucifixion, when he tells us that he was by it, turns from it, and passes away.i crucified with Christ. Nevertheless he He does the second, when in such- cirlived. Yet, to signify the actuating power cumstances as that he cannot withdraw, which'thus enabled him to stifle and over- but may at least withstand-as when he bear the strongest and most urgent irn- sits to eat with a ruler, and considers portunities of nature, he further says that diligently what is set before him; and it was not he but Christ who lived in him; puts a knife to his throat if he be a man and, still more to explain the principle or given to appetite. The world we live in rationale of this great achievement, he is a world full of temptation to those dislets us know that his life (for the cruci- tempered, or as the apostle terms them, fixion he underwent did not, as in the case these vile bodies; and it is only by a of the Saviour, imply any surrender of strenuous avoidance and a strenuous rethis life) that the life which he lived in the sistance together, that we can maintain a flesh was a life of faith on the Son of holy separation from the objects which God —and he adds, " who loved me and would otherwise lord it over us, and bring gave himself for me." Let us in like us under the dominion of those evil afmanner take the same firm hold on the fections which war against the soul. sure mercies of' David-the identical mer-'Acceptable unto God.' There is a cercies of our text; and on the strength of tain rigid and overstrained orthodoxy, this confidence, or faith which over- which would banish this term altogether..nmeth the world, we shall accomplish from the doings or the services of men; the same victory and make good the same and has thus, we fear, done a world of sacrifice which it was the incessant labour mischief to practical religion. It is most of his life to perfect in the sight of God. true, as they contend, that the perfect Let the grace of Christ rule in our hearts, obedience of' Christ is the only ground and then sin will no longer have the do- of our meritorious acceptance with Godminion over us. If we walk in the Spirit, the only consideration on which the rewe shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh; wards of' eternity can be challenged oi but keep under our bodies and so bring claimed for us as rightfully our due. But them into subjection, keep them in sancti- this is no reason why acceptance, nay fication and honour, keep them with that acceptance with God, should be so utterly holy guardianship which is due to the dissociated as some would have it to be temples of the Holy Ghost-and finally, from the obedience of man. On this subto complete the surrender, or merge our ject the Bible is far more free and fearwill wholly into God's will, we shall not less than are many of our sensitive theobe satisfied with one act of self-denial; logians. It can tell us to walk worthy of buf, making it the symbol and earnest of the Lord unto all well-pleasing; and of a universal obedience, whether we eat or the value which He has for our personal drink, or whatever we do, we shall do all virtues, as, for example, a meek and quiet to the glory of God. The supremacy spirit, which in the sight of God is of ascribed to Him at the end of the last great price; and of the love He bears to chapter is universal; and, in keeping with the possessor of good moral qualities and this, the submission laid upon us at the habits, as when it says that God loveth a commencement of this chapter is univer- cheerful giver; and of the chief imporsal also. tance which it assigns to the services of And this is a sacrifice which may well our new obedience, making these the end be called'holy'-a term properly ex- or terminating object of our Saviour's pressive of separation. The best and death, who gave Himself for us, that He indeed the prescribed way of keeping might redeem us from all iniquity, and down the appetencies of the body, is to purify unto Himself a peculiar people keep at a distance from the objects which zealous of good works; and of the real excite them. And thus it should be our substantive effect or virtue that there is prayer and our endeavour to turn away in an endeavour for adding to our treaour eyes from beholding vanity; and we sures in heaven, or to the rewards and are told not to look upon the wine when joys of our eternity, as when it bids us it is red; and we are bidden to refrain be steadfast and immovable and always * Luke, xiii, 24; CoL i, 2. Psalm ci, 3. t Proverbs, iv, 15. 'k-2 LECTURE LXXXVIII.-CHAPTER XII 17'2. abounding in the work of the Lord, for- through the fetters which an artificia asrnuch as we know that our labour in theology may have laid upon it; ant the Lord shall iot be in vain: And, in resolutely, yea hopefully do the work of one word more, of its incessant demand obedience, whether we can rightly assign for the right conduct of every disciple, or not the place which. it holds in a reguand for the graces and accomplishments lar and well-built system of divinityof a right character, as shining forth trusting in the Lord and doing good-,throughout all the gospel, and in each of giving ourselves up to the practical and the epistles. Now we cannot say of all prescribed labour of Christianity; and or any part of this, that it is expressly this cheerfully, courageously, and with denied by our evangelical Christians. the comfort of knowing that our labour Nay rather, it in words is expressly a1d- in the Lord shall not be in vain. mitted by them; and it has a place in the'Which is your reasonable service.' formularies of' every Protestant church; Perhaps a reasonable, in contradistinction and is harmonised by theologians into a to a ritual service-the one applied to the consistency with the great doctrine of living sacrifice of our own bodies, the justification by faith-for they tell us, other to the sacrifice of animals under the and tell us truly, that it forms no part of' Jewish law. Not that it is not altogether this justification, and that if our services reasonable to do a given thing, simply or sacrifices be acceptable at all, they are because it is the will of God. But there only acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, are certain things of which we see the in whom alone it is that we can find ac- reasonableness, prior to and apart from ceptance either for our persons or services. the voice of any express revelation; and All this is very distinctly laid down; and others again in which there would have yet with many a mind it does not coun- b.een no reasonableness, had it not been tervail the effect of those denunciations for the distinct and positive injunction of which orthodoxy has launched forth on them by authority of the great Lawgiver. the presumption and vanity of human There would have been no reason, for exworks. Such is the evil of fierce contro- ample, in the prescribed form of the taversy, that, after all the attempts to cor- bernacle, or in the prescribed offerings of rect or to qualify its previous fulmina- the Hebrew ceremonial as laid down by tions on good works, there is still in many Moses, had it not been for the things an anxious and agitated spirit, a general showed to him or the things told to him on fear of them. So much has been said the mount. There is an analogy between respecting the danger which there is of what we now say of the' reasonable,' and arrogating a merit because of our good what might be as well said of the' right.' works, that we almost feel as if there An observance may be right in itself, or was a merit in renouncing them-could only right and the matter of obligation, almost wish them undone, because of' the because made the subject of a positive or hazard incurred in the doing of them. It statutory enactment on the part of God. is thus, we apprehend, that, as the com- It is truly a most right thing that we should pound result of all the arguments and do what He hath commlanded, though asseverations which have been uttered in solely on the ground of the commtnddefence of the true system against the ment. But the thing thus commanded heresies of gainsayers on the subject of may, anterior to the commaindment, have our acceptance with God-a freezing in- a primary and inherent rightness of its terdict has been laid by them on the own. " Children," says the apostle, " obey activities of the Christian life. Surely it your parents in the Lord, fi)r this is right" is a precious encouragement on the side -not right only because God had comof gospel obedience that God is highly rnmanded it, for this might be alleged of pleased with it, though he will not admit every precept which cometh out of His it as forming our right to the inheritance lips; but, separately from this consideraof heaven-just as the father of a family tion, having a proper and independent on earth may be delighted with the ser- rightness of itself. And in like manner, vices of his children and their efforts to as a service may in its own proper chado his will, though it be not these which racter be right, so may it in its own proconstitute their right, their legal, forensic, per character be reasonable; and this and challengeable right to a place and a applies pre-eminently to the service of maintenance under the parent's roof. Let the text-that is, the presentation of our us dismiss, then, the chilling fears of a bodies unto God as a living sacrifice. Faor misplaced and mistaken orthodoxy on not only is He Lord of the body, and its this subject; but enter with all alacrity rich and bountiful Provider, and the Upon the path of duty, and in the full sense holder for every instant of its complex of a complacent smile from the upper and curious workmanship by the word of sanctuary to cheer us on. In betaking His power; and what more reasonable ourselves to this walk, let us break than that the thing which so thoroughly LECTURE LXXXVIII. —CHAPTER XII, 1, 2. 449 and in all its parts subsists by Him, should the time past of their lives should suffice in all things be subject to Him — But let them to have wrought the will of the Gen us think of the effect, if, instead of our tiles, when they walked in lasciviousness bodies being made by us a sacrifice unto lusts, excess of wine, revellings, banquet God, we should come under the degrading, ings, and abominable idolatries-then di( the brutalising influence of its vile affec- the unconverted, the world as contradistions, and so become slaves of the body, tinguished from the church and lying i, the wretched bondsmen of one or other or wickedness, think it strange of these Chrisall of' its tyrant appetites-when the in- tians that they ran not to the same excess tervals of a worthless enjoyment should of riot with themselves, and so spake evil be filled up by the languor, the remorse, of them.* The distinction may not be so the disgust, and self-dissatisfaction, where- glaring now-a-days, nor force itself so with remaining conscience, so long as it necessarily and irresistibly on the eye of keeps alive exercises the unhappy victims the senses. But the enormities of the heaof sordid indulgence and excess. Or then world in these days, and of which should conscience die, and so the man we read in the descriptions both of the sink into the animal, let us but think of New Testament and of profane authors, the moral ruin which ensues, when the were as little scandalous then-as the master-faculty is put out; and all that is gayeties and the amusements and those distinctive of a superior or spiritual na- various companionships from which all ture is obliterated; and the hopes of eter- sense of God and all the conversations of nity are extinguished, while perhaps the godliness are excluded, of the festive and dark imagery of terror, as the only badge fashionable and general society of our and relict of an immortal capacity, might modern world can possibly be now. The still continue at times to haunt and ago- distinction is the same, though its insignia nise him; and the Spirit of God takes be different. There is as wide a differHis final departure from that foul and ence of spirit still between the children loathsome tenement, which, under another of light and the children of this world, regimen, might have become a glorious whatever reforms or refinements of mantemple of the Holy Ghost; and the abject ner and external decency the latter may devotee of those pleasures which he can have undergone. The distinction is not no longer resist though they now pall the less real, that it is perhaps more latent upon him, and present him with but the and lurks now under the subtlety of a dismockery of enjoyment, renounces for ever guise which serves more to humanise all, that service which he would have experi- and so seems more to assimilate all. And enced to be perfect freedom, had he only it requires now as deep and radical and yielded up his members to be instruments searching an operation to effect the indisof righteousness —and thus barters irre- pensablevchange, or translate the one charcoverably away from him the light and acter into the other, as it did in those days the liberty of God's own children. That when the apostle, addressing those of his truly is an unreasonable service, by which own disciples, who at one time were forReason is disposted from her supremacy; nicators, or idolaters, or adulterers, or and all the objects of a rational and im- effeminate, or abusers of themselves with mortal creature are given up in exchange mankind, or thieves, or covetous, or drunkfor'those short-lived pleasures of sin, ards, or revilers, or extortioners, saidwhich are but fior a season. " And such were some of you; but ye are Ver. 2.' And be not conformed to this washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are world; but be ye transformed by the re- justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, newing of your mind, that ye may prove and by the Spirit of our God."t This was what is that good, and acceptable, and the process of separation from the world perfect. will of God.'' And be not con- then, and it is the process still-though it formed to this world.' The sacrifice of be a world now less revolting in its general our corporeal affections, involves in it this aspect, and having on it a fairer face of civ-' bidden nonconformity. We should then ilisation and social morality. The same not fashion ourselves according to our mighty agent is needed for the work of reformer lusts.* The grossness of Pagan- generation in all ages; and the same totaL ism made the nonconformity between revolution of spirit and character must be Christians and those who wcs:e without achieved on every son and daughter of all the more palpable in these days. And Adam, ere they can inherit the kingdom accordingly when the disciples of Jesus of God. Christ entered on their new course-re-'But be ye transformed by the renewing solving no longer to live the rest of their of your mind.' This single clause proves time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but the magnitude of the transition. In order to'the will of God; and reckoning that to our being not conformed, we must be 1I Peter, i, 14. 1 Peter, iv, 2-4. t 1 Corinthiars, vi, 9 —!1, 57 450 LECTURE LXXXVII1.-CHAPITh-Ii XII, 1, 2. transformed-and that not by a superfi- renewing ourselves and transforming ourcial amendment, but by a renewal, and, selves, so our faith in these forms our very more decisive still, a renewal in the very instrument for the achievement of the task interior of our system-a change not which he puts into our hands. merely on the outward walk, but a change But this is not all. Even in the high in the central parts of our moral nature, and transcendental matter of our regene or at the place of command and presiding ration, we have a something to do as well authority, alnd where the main spring of as to pray for. Indeed the apostle, in the every deed and every movement lies. passage now in hand, tells us thus much, Some would have the body in the first when in the preceding verse before he had verse, on the principle of the part for the bidden us be transformed by the renew. whole, to signify the entire man. But this ing of our minds, he tells us how to disis unnecessary; and we should beside pose of our bodies-that is, keep their lose the impressiveness of a distinct refer- every appetite under restraint, even though ence to each of the two great departments it should be with such a violence to our in the human constitution, which we ob- inclinations as might amount to the feeltain when passing on to the second verse, ing of a most painful sacrifice. And so we find the subjection of the mind pro- also the prophet Ezekiel in the place vided with an express and authoritative already quoted, and before he had bidden lesson, even as in the first verse is the his countrymen make them a new heart subjection of the body to the will of God. and a new spirit, lays it in charge upon It is thus that the whole of the living and them to cast away from them all the willing and intelligent mechanism is not transgressions whereby they had transonly mended, but is virtually though not gressed.* But most significant of all is literally and in substance, made over that saying of Hosea, when he complains again. The carnatl mind is changed into of the people, that 1" they will not frame the spiritual; and we are led to glorify their doings to turn unto their God."t God in our body and in our spirit, which Amid such explicit testimonies as these, are God's.* the trumpet surely cannot be said to give It is re;narkable that this should be the an uncertain sound. We can neither pray subject of a precept, or that we should be too earnestly, nor work too diligently; as good as bidden to transform ourselves. and if it be asked, which of these should It is not more remarkable, however, than have the precedency,-better far than any that we should be told in Ezekiel, to make metaphysical adjustment is the sound us a new heart and a new spirit.t The practical deliverance, that we can neither solution is found in this-that for every pray nor work too soon. On the one hand, precept, we may be said, under the econ- we should make haste and delay not to omy of' grace, to have a counterpart keep the commandments.t But on the promise. And. accordingly by the mouth other, the cry of our felt helplessness can of the same prophet, God, in His own per- never ascend too early.'The aspirations son, sends forth this gracious proclama- of the heart and movements of the hand tion — A new heart also will I give you, should begin and keep pace together. and a new spirit will I put within you; Paul's first question at the moment of conand I will take away the stony heart out version was, What wilt thou have me to of your flesh, and I will give you an heart do; and his first recorded exercise is, Beof flesh. And I will put my Spirit within hold he prayeth. Let us dismiss the idle you, and cause you to walk in my question of the antecedency between these statutes."t And what we have to do be- two things. Let there be no self'-indultween this precept on the one hand and gence in praying, for thus should we be this promise on the other, how we must antinomians; no self-sufficiency in doing, turn ourselves for the purpose of making for thus should we be legalists. It is not them good, is distinctly intimated in a by sitting still in the attitude of a mystic following verse of this chapter-"- I will and expectant quietism, that we shall yet for this be enquired of by the house carry our salvation. But neither is it by of Israel to do it for them."j In other activities, however manifold or boundless, words, we have to seek and pray for the without a constant sense of dependence offered blessing. It is by'the mercies of upon God. From the very outset His God' that Paul conjures us to be trans- helping hand must be sought after. He formed by the renewing of our mind. To not only puts His Spirit within us; but these mercies we should make our confi- He causes us to walk in His statutes.~ dent appeal; and as these form the sub-'That ye may prove what is that good ject of his invocation, when he delivers to and acceptable and perfect will of God.' us the seemingly impracticable charge of The man who lives in and is led by the Cor. vi, 20. t Ezek. xviii, 31. - Ezek. xvtii. 31. t Hosea, v, 4. $ Ezek. xxxvi, 26, 27. ~ Ezek. xxxvi, 37. $ Psam cxix, 60. ~ Ezek. xxxvi, 27. LECTURE LXXXVIIL-CHAPTER XII, 1, 2. 451 Spirit of God, will come to know, in the know best the laws and lessons of the new and heaven-born desires of his own Holy Ghost, who are the immediate subregenerated heart, what the will of God jects of His teaching; and even they wh(c is. That fruit of the Spirit, which is in see their good works recognise in them all righteousness and goodness and truth, the lineaments of that divine image in must be best known in these its various which they are created-and so, on lookcharacteristics and excellencies, by him ing to the righteousness and the true who is the bearer of it. When God put- holiness of those whose light thus shines teth His law into the inward parts of men, before men, discern in these virtues the and writes it in their hearts-then they very will and character of God, and are need not to be taught of others, saying led thereby to glorify their Father who is unto them, Know the Lord, for all who in heaven.* are thus enlightened know Him from the least even to the greatest.* They surely Ephesians, iv, 24; Matthew, v, 16.'Jeremiah, xxxi, 33, 34. LECTURE LXXXIX. ROMANS xii, 3-8. " For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself monre highnly than hie ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of' faith. For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one ot' another. Ilaving then gifts differing according to the grace that is given. to us. whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to the proportion of faith; or ministry, let us wait on our ministerirg; or he that teacheth, on teaching; or he that exhorteth, on exhortation; he that giveth let him do it with simplicity; he that ruleth, with diligence; he that showeth mercy, with cheerfulness." VER. 3.' For I say, through the grace to say was through the grace given unto given unto me.' the particle'for' estab- him. He had just acquitted himself lishes a connection between the present throughout the foregoing chapters of this and the preceding verse, and which I epistle as a teacher of truth; and he now think might be made out in this way- tells them how he came by his qualificaPaul had just as good as said, that, by tions for discharging the office on which being transformed through the renewal he was about to enter of a teacher of of our minds, we should be enabled to righteousness. He was on the eve of prove or discriminate or ascertain what giving forth so many practical lessons-a the will of God is. We should be "re- list of particulars respecting the will of newed in knowledge."* We should not God-which he through grace was enaonly be made right in our wills, but right bled as their apostle to reveal; and which in our understandings also. Indeed the they, if indeed his genuine disciples, would one righteous is a sort of guarantee for also through grace be enabled to recogthe other-He that willeth to do God's nise. as those very lessons of righteouswill shall know the doctrine of Christ;t ness which proceeded from God, and had of Him who pre-eminently and indeed in them the character and seal of the upexclusively is the Teacher of the things per sanctuary. Between him and them, of God, seeing that no man knoweth the there would be the tact and sympathy of Father save the Son, and to whom- a common understanding. They would soever the Son will -reveal Him.t it hear his voice. If gifted with spiritual is thus that he who wills aright shall discernment,* their eye would see and be made to know aright, and more espe- acknowledge the rightness of what their cially to know the character and will teacher set before them.t They would of God. Now this rectification of the not be unwise, but understanding what the will, and consequently of the understand- will of the Lord is.t In knowledge and in ing, is done by a renewal of the mind, all judgment would they approve] the which itself is an operation of divine things that are excellent;11 and so filled grace; and so there is a peculiar signifi- with the knowledge of God's will in all cancy and connection in Paul telling the wisdom and spiritual understanding,~l Christians of Rome, when proceeding to would both teacher and taught give proof unfold the vill of God for the regulation of their conduct, that what he was going 1 John, iv, 1. t Isa. xxx,'20. t Eph. v, 17. Df their conduct, that what he wa s going A At,afC. —The same is the original word fot "44 prove" in Romans, xii, 2.' ol. iii, 10. t John, vii, 17. X Matt. xi, 27. I Phil. i, 10. o Col. i, 9. I Phil. i, 10. ~~~ Col. is 9. 452 LECTURE LXXXIX. —CHAPTER XII, 3-8. to their common discernment of the good The expression-every man's measurs and acceptable and perfect will of' God. of faith-implies that the faith of each i To every man that is aniong you.' I-e was limited; which it might be, either in comprehends all in the advice which he degree, as the general faith which makes offers; but with the special design, we one a Christian is stronger or weaker with have no doubt, of reading the lesson which different individuals; or in kind, as some they stood most in need ot, to those in the special faith, the exercise of which was church, who, like Diotrephes, loved to followed up by a forth-putting of some have the pre-eminence-whether they one or other of the special gifts or endow-'were boastful Jews* who still retained ments of that period. Thus there was the somewhat of their old leaven, or arro- faith of miracles, which enabled one man gant Gentiles who boasted against the towork them;* and a faith having respect branches.t It was precisely the lesson, to a different object, which empowered which, i'f it but took them all in, was the another to prophesy, or a third to speak most fitted of all others to hush and to tongues, or a fourth to interpret them, or harmonise the discordant elements of the a fifth who was qualified by his peculiar society whom he was addressing. faith for his peculiar office which might'Not to think of himself more highly have been the discernment of spirits, or than he ought to think, but to think so- some one or other of those numerous diberly.' This may be regarded either as a versities which in that age of preternatugeneral dissuasive against pride, and we ral manifestations made part of the full shall not go astray though in part we so complement of a Christian church. Each understand it; or, it may be viewed as man had his own sort of faith, and, approhaving a special reference to the temper priate thereto, his own sort of function. and conduct of the various ecclesiastical Believest thou that I, the Lord of these functionaries-each signalised by his own various administrations, am able to do for distinct gift, and holding his own distinct you this?J-And according to the;sek their office in the church. The'following con- several faiths, was it severally dnu unto text clearly proves that this latter object them. It might well have humbled them too was in the mind of the apostle, which to consider, that, not only were the tgvt's of in no way precludes our looking to it in one and all received by them, but the nrethe former light also as a morality of uni- ceding and preparatory faiths proper to versal application. We cannot but think, each gift were respectively dealt out t? however, that, in the direction here given, them. God dealt out to every man hin the casa of the church's office-bearers, if measure of faith; or, understanding it it not chiefly, was at least fully in his eye. its more special and restricted sense, Got He wanted them in particular not to think gave to each of these privileged men that highly of themselves, lest they should particular faith which led or opened the aspire to such offices as they were not fit way to him for his particular acquirement. for. What he desired was, that each And the very same consideration ought should be satisfied with his own special powerfully to tell in the humbling of all gift and his own calling-just as he re- spiritual pride-for it holds true of the ceived it from t:hat Spirit who divideth to general faith, the faith by which we are every man severally as He will.t He saved, that, not only is the salvation a gift would have each to keep by the part as- (by grace are ye saved;) but the very signed to him, without taking upon him, faith is not of ourselves, it being the gift and still less without despising or under- of God.t And indeed, in the exercise of valuing the part which belonged to ano- faith, from the very nature of it, all is fitther. The next clause presents a conside- ted not to exalt but to humble-for the ration eminently applicable to this under- greater our faith, the greater is our selfstanding of the matter.-' According as renunciation; and the more singly, as God hath dealt to every man the measure well as more strongly, do we draw and of faith.' The very consideration that it depend on One who is higher than ouris God who determines for every man his selves. It is thus that the loftiest in faith place, should not only make the man is necessarily the lowliest in self-distrust satisfied to keep within it; but, if a place or self-abasement. It is altogether an of honour, it should lead him to bear act of self-emptying, the very opposite of meekly and modestly the distinction thus arrogance or self-elation; and is clearly conferred upon him by a higher hand. so viewed by the apostle, when he checks "What hast thou that thou didst not re- the boastful disposition of his converts, by ceive?" And then it is but given in the consideration that thou standest by measure-as if in contradistinction to Him faith, and therefore be not high-minded, who was the great Pattern of humility, and but fear.to whom it was given without measure. Ver. 4, 5.' For as we have many mem.'Luke, xvii, 6. t Matthew, ix, 28, 29. Rom. ii, 17, 23. t Rom. xi, 18. I1 Cor. xii, 11. I Ephesians, ii, 8. ~ Romans, xi, 20. LECTURE LXXX]X.-CHAPTER XII, 3-8 453 hers in one body, and all members have representation too of the same thing to not the same office; so we, being many, the Ephesians, it is the grand lesson of are one body in Christ, and every one love which forms the main end and bur. members one of another.' Now follows den of his argument. the context which determines the more But before proceeding to the enforce. special of the two meanings assigned to ment of this lesson, either in its general the preceding verse-as bearing, though form, or in its various applications, as set not an exclusive, at least a very distinct forth in the last half of the chapter on reference tothe office-bearers of a church hand-let us first follow the apostle in -namely, that each keep within his own his enumeration of the diverse acts or particular sphere; and no one thrust him- offices, which in his days appertained to self into the duties, or usurp the office of a Christian church, and must of course another. As in other Scriptures,* he have been of beneficial operation in subhere avails himself of the human body serving the designs of this great moral as a figure, by the various members of institute. But before entering on the exwhich he would illustrate the mutual position of the verses where these are helpfulness of the church's several fune- specified, we would remark on the great tionaries to each other, as well as the in- number of distinct services which were dispensableress of each to the well-being laid each on a distinct set of office-bearand perfection of the whole-they being ers in apostolic times, coupled with this one body in Christ the Head, and in virtue maxim of church government which of their common relation to this one body, seems generally to have obtained at that being every one members one of another. period-even that each distinct functionThe same is expressed otherwise in 1 Cor. ary should keep by his own distinct funcxii, 27; and signifies the mutual subser- tions, as if these were enough for all his viency and use of the parts to each energies. This subdivision of employother, as well as their harmonious adjust- ment, and that too in the proper work of ment into one system. And upon this a Christian church, was greatly proceeded analogy does he ground his lesson of the on, and that too in the best and most prosconfusion and disorder that would ensue, perous an(l efficient period of its history, Aid each encroach on the proper business when it had just come fresh from heaven ot the other-as if the foot were to at- upon the world, and drew direct. or at tempt the work of tne hand, o. any one first hand, from the fountains of inspiramember were to undertake the functions timn. But the principle which was so of any of the rest. And his two-fold di- much respected then, we grieve to say it, rection is, that each should abide by his is signally traversed in the present day. own duties, while he maintains the utmost One might well have imagined, that in deference for the place and performance that season of extraordinary and preterof the others-being at once helpful to all natural endowments, the Spirit of God and doing honour to all. It is thus that could have overborne the varieties of nathey would best demonstrate their being ture; and, without respect to the separate in Christ-and that not by an ostensible talents and dispositions of each mental or merely economical, but by a vital and constitution, could have fitted one man personal and real union. We can never for the discharge of many offices. But overrate the vast importance for Chris- this is not His method; and, instead of tianity of such a unity as this among a overbearing, He imitates the variety of church's members and church's office- natufe-dividing to every man severally bearers. This is powerfully manifested as He will: And so we behold in the in our Saviour's prayerS —that all His dis- spectacle of a primitive church, the econciples might be one, even " as thou Father omy of a complex and variegated service art in me, and I in thee, that they also made up of many offices-not accumumay be one in us: that the world may be- lated on one man, but parted with a right lieve that thou hast sent me.' It is further and proper adaptation among many ofworthy of observation, that to save t'Vic lice-bearers, where each laboured;,l Jine heats and the heart-burnings incidental to task he was fitted for, and meddaiud not the complex and economical structure of with the employments or the services of a Christian society, the description of its other men. Surely now, and in this far mechanism is similarly followed up by less gifted age, it is all the more necesthe apostle in his Epistles to the Corin- sary to consult the special ability of each thians and the Romans-there by a glo- for the special work in which, whether by rious persuasive to charity, and here by nature or grace, he is most qualified to a series of verses, which together make excel. We should suit the objective to up the brightest tablet of the social moral- the subjective-a great lesson, and as ities ever presented to the world. In his well in the business of the church as in the business of general society. In this 1 Cor. xii, 12; Eph. iv, 15; v, 30. t John, xvii, 21. matter a wise Christian policy, or sound 454 LECTURE LXXXIX. —CHAPTER XII, 3-8. policy of the church, is at one with the man, that thou didst not receive 1 Ano. policy of the world. We should, as far better, both in the church and ill so. much as possible, humour, even as the ciety, that each should be provided with Spirit Himself does, the constitutional his own sphere of labour; and that it varieties of taste and talent among men should be the kind of labour for which, -a maxim this, which has been signally by his specific endowments, be they of traversed in our present day —when min- genius or habit or grace, he is bes isters are made men of all works; and adapted. But let us look to the matter each, more especially if he have earned ecclesiastically, and with a strict referan eminence for something, has many ence to the promotion of Christianity in things laid upon him; and so is drawn our respective neighbourhoods; and we away from his own favourite, which, gen- shall come nearer to the main object of erally speaking, if permitted to keep by the apostle, who recognises the difference it without molestation, would to him be between the gifts of one man and another, the far most productive walk of Chris- as due to the grace that was respectively tian usefulness. What makes it all the given to each of them. This does not more ruinous is, that rarely indeed is one necessarily limit our view to the varieties man eminent in more than one thing; of official service —though these be inand the sure way therefore of degrading eluded in it, and indeed form the cases him from eminence to mediocrity, is to of chief consideration. Still the lesson bustle and belabour him with more than of these verses is a lesson for the memone thing. In the time of the apostles, bers of a church as well as office-bearthe work of the Christian ministry was ers —it being alike the duty of all to lay broken down into manifbld departments; themselves out for the cause of religion, and wve then beheld the goodly spectacle and that according either to the opportuof a well-going church, having its busi- nities which are without, or to the talents ness conducted and carried forward by and capacities which they feel to be means of a well-stocked agency. The within them. But let us attend to what tendency now is in an opposite direction these services particularly are, as speci. -to abridge and economise, and thus fled and enumerated in the verses before mutilate and impair to the uttermost the us. original machinery of a Christian church.'Whether prophecy, let us prophesy And so not only have many of its primi- according to the proportion of faith.' In tive offices been lost sight of and fallen the following induction of the gifts'difinto desuetude; but the few remaining fering according to the grace' given, we office-holders, on whom the whole bur- may remark, that there are none of those den is devolved, instead of operating extraordinary powers which the apostle each with intense efficiency and power specifies in the wider enumeration of his of observation on his own separate em- Epistle to the Corinthians, where he tells ployment, is forced to generalize and do of the "diversities of gifts" which are by all slightly, or to neglect and leave much the same Spirit.* There is not one of the undone. And no wonder, therefore, at functions spoken of here, which might the complaints of our having lighted on not to a certain extent be discharged by a day of small things, and among the Christians in an individual or private, as pigmies of a slender and superficial gen- well as in an official capacity. So that eration. while we have no doubt the apostle had Ver. 6-8.'Having then gifts differing chiefly in his eye the officials of the conaccording to the grace that is given to us, gregation, the lessons which he gives are whether prophecy, let us prophesy ac- of catholic application, and might be apcording to the proportion of faith; or propriated by all. To prophesy was ministry, let us wait on our ministering; without question the professional emor he that teacheth, on teaching; or he ployment of a distinct class of officethat exhorteth, on exhortation: he that bearers in those days — "And he gave giveth, let him do it with simplicity; he some, propbets."t It is well known, that ruleth, with diligence; he that show- however, that prophesying in Scripture eth mercy, with cheerfulness.' Whether is not restricted to the foretelling of what ours be the gifts of Providence, or of is future. In this passage there is no what is properly termed grace-that is, cognisance taken of any miraculous ofwhether they have been conferred on us fice. The prophesying here spoken of by nature, or more especially through is tantamount to ordinary preaching. In the channel of faith in the gospel of Je- the Scriptural sense of the term, any sus Christ, the very same lesson is appli- man of God is a prophet, whether he be cabie to both. It is alike our duty to con- endued with the preternatural knowledge secrate them to the service of God arid of coming events or not-simply if he the good of mankind. They alike proceed from Him-for what hast thou, O 1 Corinthians, xii, 4. t Ephesians, iv, 1i. LECTURE LXXXIX.-CHAPTER XII, 3-8. 455 be all instructor in the things of God; of official, and in all the instances, we and that whether the instruction in which might add, of general service. The lesson he deals be instruction in doctrine or in- primarily and specially directed to the struction in righteousness, or is compre- church officers is applicable to every hensive of both. Here we think it used man. "As every man hath received the in its generic sense; and that these its gift, even so minister the same one to two species are particularised afterwards another, as good stewards of the manifold under the heads of teaching and exhort- grace of God."* Looking again ecclesiation. astically and not generally to the matter, And these prophets are called on to exer- the ministry in this verse may be distin. cise their vocation according to the pro- guished from prophecy in the one before portion of faith. We cannot think that -as that which properly appertaineth to by this is ineant what theologians term 1"the outward business of the house of the analogy of faith. This clause we God."t hold to be of the same force and import'Or he that teacheth, on teaching; or with the final clause of the third verse- he that exhorteth, on exhortation.' The'according as God has dealt to every apostle now returns on the prophetical man the measure of faith'-that measure, office, and specifies two distinct branches in fact, which regulates both the kind of of it. The faculties of teaching and exgift and the degree of its exercise. The horting may be combined in the same same qualifications then may b)e applied, individual; and indeed in these days, not to the office of prophecy alone, but to they are best laid upon one person, the each of' the offices that are mentioned af- ordinary minister of a cong.regation. Yel terwards. And if instead of offices we the two faculties are so fir separate, as regard themn as duties, certain it is, as we in other tnr..s:o have given rise to sepsaid before, that they are competent to the arate functions; and accordingly, in the members of a church as well as to its machinery of more churches than one, office-bearers. That private Christian. have we read both of the doctor and the acts as a prophet in whom the word of pastor as distinct office-bearers. The one Christ dwells richly in all wisdom*- expounds truth. The other applies it, when out of the abundance of a heart and presses it home on the case and conthus charged, his mouth speaketh.t He science of every individual. The didacbelieves, therefore he speaks;J or, agree- tic and the hortatory are two distinct ably to the expression before us, his utter- things, and imply distinct powers-insoance is in proportion to his faith. It is much, that, on the one hand, a luminous, not for clergy alone sure to monopolise logical, and masterly didactic, may be a this branch of Christian usefulness-a feeble and unimpressive hortatory preachusefulness not confined to the pulpit, but er; and, on the other, the most effective which might spread and be multiplied of our hortatory men, may, when they amongst the social parties of every neigh- attempt the didactic, prove very obscure bourhood, when they that fear the Lord and infelicitous expounders of the truth. speak often one to another.[ It is not for Both are best; and we should conform ministers alone, but the duty of every man more to the way of that Spirit who diso to season his speech, as that it should videth His gifts severally as He will, did be always with grace.ll It is surely not we multiply and divide our offices so as to ministers alone that the apostle says- to meet this variety. It were more con"Let no corrupt communication proceed sonant both to philosophy and Scripture, out of your mouth."If As little then does did we proceed more on the subdivision that which immediately follows apply ex- of employment in things ecclesiastical. clusively to ministers, but is intended for' He that giveth, let him do it with simall-Let what proceedeth out of your plicity.' If the duty here specified be mouth be good to the use of edifying, regarded as a function in the hand of a that it may minister grace unto the functionary, it is that of a deacon or dishearers. tributor of the church's arms. The word Or ministry, let us wait on our min- in the original for simplicity has been vaistering.' Ministry'** we hold also to be a riously interpreted, and made to stand for generic term, like prophecy in the verse. a great many different virtues. Its proper which goes before; and comprehensive of signification is singleness; and wherever the two things which come afterwards its place or connection determines its under the heads of' giving and showing meaning to some one of these virtues, it mercy. The great lesson, however, Let will mean that virtue in a state of purity; each mind his own business, is still kept and as free from the alloy of any corrup. iup and carried out to all the departments tion, or the influence of any principle ad. verse to, or different from itself. Thus in ol. ifi, 16. t Matt. xii, 34. $ Psalm cxvi, 10. ~ Mal. Li, 16.,q Col. iv, 6. IT Eph. iv, 29. ** LaKovta.' 1 Peter iv, 10. t Nehemiah, xi, 16. 456 LECTURE LXXXIX.-CHAPTER XII, 3-8. 2 Cor, viii, 2, there can be no doubt of its bours, the amplest encouragement, in meaning a strong and single-hearted lib- that most delightful of all employments, erality; in 2 Cor. i, 12, a single-hearted the prosperous management of human conscientiousness-and that too in the nature-to be followed up in God's good midst of distracting forces; in Eph. vi,.5, time by that most delightful of all rea simple devotedness to the will of Christ; wards, the elevated morals and piety the same in Col. iii, 22; in 2 Cor. xi, 3, an of those neighbourhoods over which entire and undivided credence in the doe- they expatiate. Here too, it is evident, trine of Christ; and the passage before that the Christian usefulness which might us, a singleness of aim on the part of our be achieved by the elder of a church, lies deacon to do aright the duty of his call- within the reach of all in a g: eater or less ing-a oneness of purpose to fulfil the degree; and that it is the duty of all, thus end of his appointment, which was not to lay themselves out for the furtherance the satisfaction of the poor for the sake of religion in the world. of his own popularity, but so to deal'lie that showeth mercy, with cheerfulwith them in the office of a distributor, ness.' There was an official channel proas might best subserve the good of the vided for this species or modification of poor, or be most conducive to their real benevolence too in the ancient Christian and substantial well-being. Such sim- churches. It formed a distinct office plicity as this might lead him to a large from that of deacon or almoner, whose distribution of money or not, according business it was to act as a dispenser to circumstances. Its aim is not the great- among the poor of the charities of the est possible amount of liberality, but the faithful. Besides these, there were those greatest possible benefit of those who are whose part it was to officiate among the the objects of its care. That Christians distrest from other causes than that of in general have a part in this rule is quite mere poverty, as the afflicted in any other obvious. They are called to be willing way, and especially the diseased. They to distribute, and ready to communicate, were distinct too from those "elders of and to consider the poor, and to open the the church," of whom we read in James, bowels of their compassion towards them. and who were sent for by the sick to What the office-bearers are required to do pray over them, or in the discharge of a for the paupers of the church, all are re- spiritual duty. The visitors of whom we quired to do as they have the opportu- now treat had the charge rather of a temnity and the call for the poor of society poral ministration-attending the sick at at large. their own houses, to whom they gave the'He that ruleth, with diligence.' There comfort of their presence, and the help seems to be interposed here a function of their personal services. For the betnot exclusively confined to the business ter execution of this trust, there was apeither of prophecy or deaconship, but pointed an order of deaconesses, who ofwhich may extend to all other ecclesias- ficiated then very much as do the sisters tical business, and has been specially ap- of charity in later times. It was quite plied to the discipline of the church. It an appropriate lesson for them that what is true that of the ruling elders some they did they should do with'cheerfulthere were who laboured in word and ness'-or with perfect good will and a doctrine; but in modern practice they congenial liking for the task, that, from who owned this title have had chiefly to their very smiles and looks of kindness, do with matters of discipline. And were the objects of their care might derive a but the territory of a parish, with its happiness in sympathy with their own. population, rightly parcelled out amongst This too is obviously a lesson for all; and xhem-did they but take cognisance of is as applicable on the walk of general the moral and religious habits of their philanthropy as within the economy of a respective families-would they but pros- church. Whoever has leisure for such ecute their weekly or periodic rounds of services of humanity, would do well to visitation, and do the'i'.tl ci'most in stimu- study this advise,.' the apostle-though lating the educationt and the economy primarily designted by him for the officeand the temperance and thechurch-going bearers of an ecclesiastical community. and the family worship of all the house- The goodly equipment of offices in the holds within their charge-In this high ancient church for all sorts and varieties walk of philanthropy, there is ample of well-doing, carries with it a severe re. scope for as much diligence as they can proach on the meagre, stinted, and parsi. afford to expend upon it: But along with monious apparatus of modern times this, by, the Divine blessing on their la. LECITURE XC.-CHAPTER XII, 9-13, 15, i6. 457 LECTURE XC. ROMANS Xi, 9-13, 15, 16.'Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which Is good. Be kindly affeo tioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another: not slothful in business; ferven in spirit; serving the Lord; rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant ill prayer; distributing to the necessity of saints; given to hospitality...........Rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep. Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. B.- not wise in your own conceits." THOUGH the apostle may be regarded in and that evil which springs as immedithe few last verses as addressing himself ately from the opposite affections of in a more especial manner to the few hatred, mnalice, or revenge. It is the same office-holders of a select society-yet cer- good and evil as that spoken of in the last tain it is, that the instructions which he verse of this chapter-where the apostle gives them are based on the soundest prin- tells his disciples to overcome evil with ciples of a general ethics, that had a per- good-that is, to meet the persecution and manent and universal application; and the injustice of enemies, not with the wherewith he now breaks forth on a field maledictions of anger or returns of ven. as general, as are the principles them- geance, but with blessing and kindness selves which he had just been urging and and peace. The good which he bids them enforcing on the occupiers of a narrower cleave to in the one verse, is that which sphere. No one can question that in what he also tells them not to quit their hold of follows, they are not rules limited to but a in another, but to keep by and wield as few cases or situations, but the wide and the instrument of a great moral victory. catholic moralities of the species in which And the evil which in the first of these he deals, of the same extent and compass two places he bids them abhor having any with humanity itself, or in every way as part or performance in themselves. is the general as Christianity herself is general. very evil which he tells them not to reWe may therefore omit henceforth the taliate, should it ever be inflicted on them consideration of the church's office-bear- by others. ers, and feel that they are now those Ver. 10.'Be kindly affectioned one to duties of unexcepted obligation which another with brotherly love; in honour men owe to their God and to each other preferring one another.' The words in wherewith from this time we have pro- the original convey more strongly and perly to do. specifically the affection of our text, than Ver. 9.'Let love be without dissimula- has been adequately rendered in our tion. Abhor that which is evil; cleave translation. The being kindly affectioned to that which is good.'' Let love be with- is expressed by a term which means the out dissimulation.' Or, as we have it in love of kindred, or by some called inother Scriptures-let ours be "love un- stinctive; and which at all events is far feigned."* The spirit of this direction is more intense than the general good liking the same with that which the apostle, a that obtains without the pale of relationfew verses before, had laid upon the ship between man and man in society. deacons —" Let him who giveth do it with It is an affection distinct from, and in simplicity." There is the frequent sem- general greatly more tenacious and tenblance both of faith and love without the der, than that of ordinary friendship. reality of either; and so he speaks too of And, to stamp upon it a still greater peunfeigned faith.t He elsewhere speaks culiarity and force, it is added that Chrisof the sinceerity of our love.+ The charge tians should be kindly affectioned one to here given is tantamount to that of the another with brotherly love-an affection, apostle John —" Let us not love in word, the distinctness of which from that of neither in tongue; but in deed and in charity, is clearly brought out in the enutruth."h meration of virtues or graces made by the'Abhor that which is evil; cleave to apostle Peter.* And to brotherly kindthat which is good.' I think with Calvin, ness add charity-the same with brotherly that it is not moral good in the general, love in the original; and as distinct from or moral evil in the general, which is here general love or charity in the moral, as intended; but that good which springs the magnetic attraction is from the geneimmediately from love to one's neighbour, ral attraction of gravity in the material world. This more special affinity which'2 Cor. vi, 6; 1 Pet. i, 22. t I Tim. i, 5; 2 Tim. i, 5. $2 Corintnians, viii. 8. ~ 1 John, iii, 18.' 2 Peter, i, 7. 58 458 LECTURV E XC.-CHAPTER XII; 9-13, 15, 16. binds together the members of the same ing counsel and information; bu the fur family; and even of wider communities, ther purpose seems to be insinuated of as when it establishes a sort of felt gaining them over by the homage before. brotherhood, an esprit de corps, between hand of his recognition and respect. And citizens of the same town, or inhabitants even should we discern in this policy of of the same country, or members of the our great apostle, the offering of a little same profession, and so originates the incense to the personal vanity of those on several ties of consanguinity or neigh- whom he waited-we see nothing in this bourhood or patriotism-is nowhere ex- but the marvellous identity of human naemplified in greater force than among the ture at all times and in all places of the disciples of a common Christianity, if world; or that the leaders and men of theirs be indeed the genuine faith of' the consequence then should be of' the same gospel. It is in fact one of the tests or affections with the men of consequence badges of a real discipleship. "We know now-the ecclesiastical somewlhats of the that we have passed from death unto life, present day.* because we love the brethren."* It gives Ver. 11.' Not slothful in business; ferrise to that more special benevolence vent in spirit; serving the Lord.' The which we owe to the " household of faith,"t word here translated' business,' is the as distinguished from the common benefi- same with that in which in the 8th verse cence which we owe "unto all men"- is translated "diligence." Its proper and and which stood so visibly forth in the primitive signification is'speed,' and first ages among the fellow'-worshippers hence the affection which prompts to of Jesus, as to have made it common with speed-or earnestness, intenseness, the observers to say-Behold how these Chris- desirousness of a heart set on some partians love each other. ticular object, and therefore setting one'In honour preferring one another'- busily to work for its accomplishment; each leading the way in acts of respect and thus the fervency of spirit in the and courtesy-the contest being which next clause may be looked to as the anishall render the other the greatest defer- mating principle of' that diligence in buence and honour. 1"Let each esteem other siness which is here inculcated-even as better than themselves."T This would re- in the case of Apollos,j who "being fermove one of the greatest obstacles in the vent in the Spirit," did-in consequence way of mrutual afflction-the great lesson speak and teach diligently the things of of our passage, as it is the great lesson of the Lord. But whether we retain the the evangelic morality tnroughout the word business, or render it into any other New Testament. Self-preference and of the relative terms, there is no misjealousy of each other's reputation, have taking the sense of this first clause, which in all ages of the Christian church been is not to be slothful but diligent; and the greatest provocatives to that envying that whatever the business may be, if an and strife which are opposed to the meek- expedient and a lawful one. The quesness of the wisdom that is from above. tion whether it be a sacred or secular Hence in a very great degree the un- employment which is here referred to, seemly contentions of ecclesiastical men, will not embarrass him whose honest aim which have ever proved the worst hin- is to leaven with the spirit of the gospel drances to the adoption of measures for every hour of his life, and every work the good of Christianity. This love of which he puts his hand to. The man power and of pre-eminence has in all ages who studies to observe "; all things whatbeen adverse to the objects of a sound and soever" Christ hath commanded him,t disinterested ecclesiastical patriotism. It will still feel himself religiously emmight be traced even to apostolical times. ployed when following the preceptPaul seems to have been sensible of its, Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do presence among the chief men of the it with thy might."P He will see no difcouncil at Jerusalem, and to have felt the ficulty in making the advice he.re given necessity of protecting himself against it. to be of universal application, who asAnd so before he would submit his ques- pires to a conformity with the sayingstion to a public assembly, he took care by ", Whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory a round of previous attentions to propi- of God" —" Whatsoever ye do in word or tiate those of them who were of reputa- in deed, do all in the name of the Lord tion by communicating with them pri- Jesus." vately, lest by any means he should run Neither in the absence of any express or had run in vain. He with a most justi- utterance from Scripture itself, will he fiable wisdom went first to those "who be careful to determine, whether it be the seemed to be somewhat"-it might have Spirit of God or the spirit of man that is been perhaps for the purpose of obtain- spoken of in the next clause-if suffi, n Galatians, ii, 6. t Acts, xviii, 25. 1 John, iii, 14. t Gal. vi, 10. I Phil. ii, I3. Matt. xxviii, 20. ~ Eccl. ix, 10 LECTURE XC.-CHAPTER XII, 9-13, 15, 16. 459 ciently indoctrinated by Scripture at And then in the second instance, they were large in the truth, that all right fervency exposed to persecution from without; and in the spirit of man is from the Spirit of hence another and a distinct set of God alone —is the product of fire from charges-hope, and patience, and prayer, the sanctuary, and not of his own kin- and sympathy for the afflicted among dling.* It is thus that in practical Chris- their brethren, and succour to those of tianity there is a conjunction of prayer them who were spoiled of their goods; with performance; and the disciple and, most of all, meekness and f;brbearstriveth mightily according to the grace ance and unquelled charity under all that worketh in him mightily. the provocation and injustice that were'Serving the Lord.' There is a differ- heaped upon them. ent reading adopted now by the most'Rejoicing in hope'-and that even in learned of our Biblists; and that because the midst of tribulations.* This must of the number and authority of those have been the hope of glory in another manuscripts which present the Greek life-the only hope which could rejoice word for "time." We should then un- the hearts of those, of whom Paul derstand the direction to be-' Do dili- says, that if in this life only they had gently each work in its own season'-or, hope, they were of all men the most'I Let each hour be busily filled up with miserable.t Theirs was a hope which its own proper employment.' We should reached beyond the grave-the hope of have given our assent to this emendation, those who walked by faith and not by but for the word'serve,' which in the sight, or who looked beyond the things Greek implies subjection, and in the most which are seen and temporal to those entire and submissive form; and in which which are unseen and eternal. It was sense it stands in far more suitable rela- this which made all their afflictions light tion to a living superior, and most of all unto them-the contemplation of that to Him who liveth and is Supreme. It exceeding great and eternal weight of were apposite enough to speak of suiting glory, which was to follow their present the time, but not of submitting to the time trials, and for the full enjoyment of -whereas nothing can be more appropri- which these trials were fitted to prepare ate than that in all things we should sub- them.t mit ourselves unto the Lord.'Patient in tribulation.' The very same Ver. 12.'Rejoicing in hope; patient in hope which ministers joy in the bright tribulation; continuing instant in prayer.' prospects of the future, ministers patience There are some commentators who en- under the sufferings of the present. Even deavour to run a thread of continuity Jesus Christ, "for the joy that was set bethroughout the various precepts of this fore him, endured the cross."p chapter; and so to force a dependence of'Continuing instant in prayer.' For one upon another contiguous to it, as would though hope will elevate and sustain in perhaps somewhat pervert the obvious the midst of adversities; yet the hope of meaning of certain of these rules. In- unseen realities on the other side of stead of siupposing that each rule sug- death requires to be itself sustained by gested its fellow, and that they all follow a power that is above nature-else nature each other, like the terms of a series on gives way. WVe are made to "abound the principle of the association of ideas in hope through the power of the Holy -it seems to us the better theory, that Ghost.'[1 It is thus that the faith and they are also in part suggested to the fortitude of the Christian are alimented mind of the apostle by his direct view of by constant supplies of light and grace the exigencies of that society which he from above, and which supplies are kept was addressing; and that therefore we up by instant prayer. For this purpose behold in these precepts as much and as we must pray and watch for the Spirit little of the miscellaneous, as there was with all perseverance.T Prayer is not of the miscellaneous at the tine in the confined to the occasions of its sat and chief temptations and circumstances of formal utterance. It might alternate in the Romish Christians. Now in the first brief and frequent aspirations with the instance, they were exposed to jealousies familiar business of life. Nay it may and contentions from within, to meet exist as a prayerful disposition in the which we have one class of charges- heart, or in the form of a perennial tenmutual respect, and mutual cordiality; dency upward and heavenward; and he and more especially the duties of office- who owns such a disposition, whether he bearers, whose part it was to reft ain from have the power and opportunity of sendall lordly contempt or usurpation of the ing forth articulate supplications or not, work of other functionaries, and each to may be said to pray without ceasing. keep rightly and assiduously at the appropriate business of his own calling.- Rom.v,2, 3; James,i,2. tl Cor. x,.9. X 2 Oorinthians, iv, 18; v, 7. ~ Hebrews, xii, a,' Isaiah, i, 11. I Romans, xv, 13. ~ Ephes. vi 18. 460 LECTURE XC.-CHAPTER XII, 9-13, 15, 16. Ver. 13.'Distributing to,he necessity scribe these reciprocal convivialities of of saints; given to hospitality.' The view the middle or higher classes-burdensome of the church of Rome as a suffering though they often are, and wearisome to and persecuted church might well have an extreme from the entire destitution, suggested these rules also-not but that whether of the intellectual or the spirit. they are of permanent and universal obli- ual, in the conversation of our every day gation, but that there was a more press- parties. Our religionists might in a great ing and peculiar call for them in these degree be protected from this latter days of violence-when the very profes- annoyance, were they but consistent sion of Christianity exposed them who with themselves; and did they aim at an held it to the loss of their substance, or to entire, instead of a partial Christianity. be dismissed from the service of their em- Had they more of openness and intreployers. And the word is expressive of pidity in their talk-when they sit at the something more than a simple giving. It same table, did they meet together on the means to give with a fellow-feeling, and footing of a society of immortals —would as if the case of' the sufferer was one's they speak of the country whither they own. It is our duty to give unto all, if it were going, and of the character which be for their good, as we have opportu- prepared for it-A goodly number even nity. But here the apostle speaks of giv- of their present society might be amalgaing for the necessities of the saints-of mated into a conformity with their own giving therefore with that special sympa- spirit, while the rest might be scared thy which he enjoins in another form, away from those resorts, in the atmoswhen he bids his disciples rejoice with phere of which they could not breathe them who rejoice, and weep with them with congeniality or comfort. There who weep. The common danger of these would thus be brought about a thing times disposed men all the more readily mainly wanted in our day —a broader line so to give, as if they had all things com- of demarcation between the church and mon. the world. It might seem a paradox, but'Given to hospitality.' And this too is is not the less true, that it is easier to far from being a local or merely occa- be an altogether than an almost Chris. sional virtue-though doubtless there was tian. a more urgent occasion for its exercise in Ver. 15, 16.' Rejoice with them that do these days. The proper sense of' hospi- rejoice, and weep with them that weep tality is kindness to strangers, or to those Be of the same mind one toward another. who were at a distance from their own AMind not high things, but condescend to home-a wholly different thing from the men of low estate. Be not wise in your conviviality which opens one's house to own conceits.' Passing over at present a festive parties made up of acquaintances verse which regards the deportment of from the immediate neighbourhood. This the persecuted Christians to their enemies, was the common lot of Christians in those we, in the next two -verses, still find the days-often scattered abroad by persecu- apostle occupied with the matters of that tion,* and dependent both for food and internal morality which should subsist shelter on the compassion of their breth- among themselves, or with the directory ren in the faith. Let it not be imagined, of their conduct to each other. however, that this is a duty confined to'Rejoice with them that do rejoice.' He, any one period, or called forth by the a few verses before, had bidden them reextraordinary circumstances of the church joice in hope; and certainly it is well that during the first ages-a common expedient Christians, for their mutual encourage. this for diluting the peculiar morality of ment, and to uphold the steadfastness of the gospel, or blunting the force and ap- their faith, should speak often together of plication of its most authoritative pre- that heaven which is the home of their cepts. There is here an obligation laid common expectations. But beside this, on Christiano of all times as indelible as the sympathy of congratulation seems to the recort- which contains it-distinct, be recommended in this cllluse, even as however, from that expenditure on the the sympathy of' pity forms the subject of enjoyments of the social board, which the next. A sincere happiness in the hapnow forms almost all that is known under piness of others, argues not merely the the name of hospitable-as distinct as strength of our affections, but our freedom the feasts enjoined by our Saviour to from envy towards them. the poor and the helpless are from the'And weep with them that weep.' merry companionships, that alternate or There is a charm in the fellow-feeling of pass in rounds from house to house, others, distinct altogether from the pleaamong the children of fashion and lux- sure we have in any material benefit that ury. Not that we would utterly pro- we might receive from them. This last is provided for in a foregoing verse, under Acts, rii, 1, 4, xi, 19; James, i. 1. the heads of'distributing to the necessity LECTURE XC.-CHAPTER X:I, 9-13, 1, 16. 46 Of saints,' and being'given to hospital- doxy, or of one opinion in matters cf doc. ty.' But to complete either the code of trine or theology; but that whatever the charity, or the happiness of that society diversities of our rank or station migh, over which it reigns, it is indispensable be, we should, on the ground of our corn that the moral should be superadded to mon Christianity, hold each other irt the substantial or physical; for certainly equal or like estimation. The original apart either from gifts or services, there presents a counterpart between the'each is enjoyment, and that of the highest or- other' of the first clause, and the'yourder, both in the mere exercise of kind and selves' of the third, which coupled in brotherly affection on the one hand, and each with the same radical word, imin being merely the object of such affec- presses the idea that when taken together, tion on the other-whether it be that of they signify that we should mutually sympathy with the prosperous, which hold each other in the same estimation, heightens the felicities; or of sympathy and not confine our estimation to ourwith the afflicted, the ills of humanity. It selves.* If' in Phil. ii, 3, we are told that is thus that independently of all aid from in lowliness of mind each should esteem the hands, there comes a direct and most other better than themselves-in this precious contribution to the happiness of place, and to our minds it gives the prethe species from the hearts of men —and cise sense of the passage, we are told that that by instant transition, in the play of each should esteem other at least as good their reciprocal emotions from one spirit as themselves. And in keeping with this to another. The apostle was no stranger view, we are disposed to think that in thie to the balsamic virtue, as of some hidden middle clause they are not men of low essence or elixir, which lay in this more estate to whom we are bidden condescend, ethereal part of well-doing. In these days but low or humble things that we are it operated with all the speed and force bidden be content wilh. Do not aspire of a pulsation, throughout the widely after high things, but consent to be extended community of the faithful. evened wvith low things. Honour all " Whether one member suffered, all the your fellow-Christians, and that alike on members suffered with it; or one member the ground of their common and exalted was honoured, all the members rejoiced prospects. When on this high level, do with it."* not plume yourselves on the insignificant The three clauses of the 16th verse distinctions of your superior wealth or serve, we think, to qualify and determine superior earthly consideration of whatthe meaning of each. The general lesson ever sort. Rather let the rich rejoice in of the 15th is, that all, and more espe- that he is made low; and thus let the cially if saints or members of the same monopoly of honour, or self-respect, give Christian society, should, if in like cir- way to the respect of each other. We do cumstances, be alike sharers of our sym- not lose the benefit of the precept in our pathy. And we are inclined to view the version-' condescend to men of low esgeneral lesson of the 16th, as being, that tate'-by our substitution of things for these same parties, as ail members of the men. He who for the sake of the gospel Christian church, shonld at least in far can put up with low things, with poverty the highest and noblest distinction of and all its humble accommodations, will which humanity is capable, have the like not refuse to associate with Christian place, or be alike sharers in our estima- men, who are lovers and followers of tion. We do not regard them as mean- the gospel, because of their poverty. ing that we should all think the same things,-that we should be of one ortho- * To aVTo Eis aXXiXovrspovovvrss, and Mq ytveast -povlpL Trap eavrotg. 1 Corinthians, xii, 26. LECTURE XCI. ROMANS xii, 14, 17-21. % Bless them which persecute you; bless, and curse not....Recompense to no man evil for evil. Pro! ide thlnr g honest in the sight of all men. If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all rr.nt Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath; for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. Therefore if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good." THE apostle does not satisfy himself 1 the duties which they owe to each other; with pressing home upon his converts but in the verses now read, teaches them 462 LECTURE XCI. —-HAPTER XII, 14, 17-21. further how they should walk towards with Him all things are possible. Neithei them who are without —and this, as is it enough to tell us of the Spirit given Christians at that time formed a suffer- to our prayers, that He might help our ing and outcast society in the world, was infirmities and enable us to do all things. tantamount to telling them, how they Nothing can be more true and nothing should conduct themselves to enemies more important than these announce. who heaped upon them all sorts of injury, ments; and indeed they may be said to even to the length, if they could have form the reasons of the apostle John for achieved it, of' their extermination. The his assertion, that the commandments are subject therefore of the passage before not grievous-even that whatsoever is us, is the right treatment, not of fiiends, born of God overcometh the world; or, but of adversaries-that great peculiarity as he expresses it elsewhere, Greater is in the ethics of the gospel, which con- He that is in us, than he that is in the flicts most perhaps with the natural ten- world-greater is the Spirit of God than dencies of the human heart; and by the spirit which worketh in the children which it is most distinguished from all of disobedience. All this is most true; those moral systems which are of merely but then we are not to imagine of the human origin. Spirit, that in making man the subject of This brings us to the consideration of His operations, He thwarts or overbears what has often been advanced in argu- the laws of man's moral machinery. IHe pnent, though not so much by speculative does not make inroad and innovation on Infidels as by worldly men, against what the order and working of the human faculthey deem to be the utterly romantic and ties. In particular, He does not repeal the impracticable morality of the New Tes- affinity which obtains in the way of cause tament-as if it were so transcendentally and effect between the view of a certain above the powers of our nature, that it object in the mind, and the counterpart were altogether hopeless to think of re- feeling or emotion awakened thereby in alising it in practice. It is not so much the heart. He does not thus traverse the for a controversial object that we propose fitnesses of things. For example, did He to meet this alleged difficulty, as for the wish to fill the soul with a sense of beauty, purpose of doing away a certain mistaken it would be by sights or images of beauty, sense of' it in the minds even of honest and not by sights or images of deformity. and aspiring disciples, who are bent on Did He wish-to excite our compassion, it.he perfection of gospel obedience, but would not be by turning our thoughts on yet are paralysed in their efforts to attain a scene of enjoyment, but on a scene of it, by the felt impossibility of such pre- distress. Did tHe wish to disarm us of our eepts, or of such performances rather, as anger, it would not be by causing us to are here enjoined by the apostle; and had dwell in memory on the injustice that we indeed been prescribed, and in still higher had suffered, but by the power of other terms, by the Saviour before him, who considerations-fitted, and let me add, bids us not only do good to our enemies, naturally fitted, to call fbrth other and but even love our enemies-not only to better sensibilities. And so if IIe wanted render them acts of beneficence with the us to love, even to love an enemy, it would hand, but far more arduous achievement, be by the presentation to our notice of an to mould our hearts into such a union object proper to be loved; and most cerwith foes and persecutors, as to bear a tainly that object never can be moral turpositive regard or affection towards them pitude-so as that we should look on the -Thereby aggravating ten-fold the hard- enemy who has evinced fraud or falseships of the Christian obedience, just as hood in the dealings that we have held it is all the more difficult to command the with him, with aught like the love of sensibilities or emotions of the inner, moral complacency. These are still very than it is to command the movements of general explanations; but general as they she outer man. It is obvious that ve are, we hope it may appear already, that shall not succeed in disposing of this it is not a mere theoretical explanation on abjection to the morality of the gospel, which we are now to enter-but such as but on the strength of such considerations might help to set you on the right way for as might serve not only for the adjust- carrying the precepts of our text into ment or satisfaction of a speculative dif- accomplishment, and direct you aright for ficulty, but for the practical guidance of this purpose what you are to do and how those who are pressing onward to the you are to turn yourselves. things whidh are before, through every Our first remark then is, that the aposobstacle in the work and walk of their tle in these verses, does not, immediately sanctification. or expressly at least, enjoin how we are For this purpose it is not enough to tell to feel towards enemies and persecutors, us in the general, that what is impossible but what we are to do for them. It is ac. xith man is possible with God-for that tion, not affection that he here speaks of-, LECTURE XCI.-CHAPTER XII, 14, 17-21. 4b6 not the dispositions of the heart, but the under control, our outwaid wzilk and condeeds of the hand; and if it be a more versation towards them. practicable thing that we should compel But we must not disguise that acts, when ourselves to right bodily performances, but looked to in themselves, and apart than call up right mental propensities — from the affections which may have this might alleviate somewhat our dread prompted them, like mere bodily exercise; of these precepts, as if they were wholly profit but little. Grant that the duties unmanageable or incompetent to human- here set before us, when viewed literally, ity. Before then taking cognizance of are nothing mLore than deeds of forbearwhat should be the -ward temper of ance. Yet we must not forget, that in Christians to those who maltreat or op- every Christian virtue there is a spirit as press them, we would bid you remark well as a letter, and that according to the that the outward conduct to them is that moral estimate of the gospel, the letter which forms the literal subject-matter of without the spirit is dead. And indeed on the commandments here given. The dis- I this very lesson of forbearance, it is well ciples are in this place told, that, what- that we can refer to the express quotation ever the inward risings of nature might of c" forbearing one another in love,"* be against those who injure and oppress, There is something more then enjoined they are to utter no imprecations, but on the followers of Jesus, than a resolute blessings upon their head-praying for abstinence from those deeds of hostility those who despitefully use them: And by which an injured man seeks to retaliate that however nature might incline them upon his adversary. lie must not have o resent, they are at least not to retaliate the feeling of hostility against him. It is — recompensing to no man evil for evil: not enough that he worketh no ill. He And that, hard as it may be under their must have the charity of love that worketh cruel provocations, to keep unruffled no ill; and not only that worketh no ill min'ds and feel peaceably, they, as much to his neighbour, but it must be in the as imn them lies, are to live peaceably: spirit of love that he worketh no ill to his And that, however nature might prompt enemy. But to come at once to the duty tile desires of vengeance, they must wholly in all its extent and all its arduousness, abstain from the deeds of vengeance- the distinct requitrenent laid on us by the leaving these to Him whose rightful pro- Saviour is, that we should love our enevince it is, and who hath said that He will mies. If ere we can make this out, we must repay. Nay they are wholly opposite make war with the most urgent propensideeds which we are called on to perform ties of nature-it is a warfare from which -to feed our enemy if' he hunger, arid there is no discharge; and the question give him drink if he thirst-So that while still remains, not only by what power (for it may not be the tendency of nature so this can be answered generally, and with to desire, our bidden obligation is so to the most perfect doctrinal or theological dto-for in so doingr thou shalt heap coals soundness, by replying, the power of the 9f fire upon his head. Finally, we are Spirit) but, more than this, by what pronot to be overcome of evil; but if his cess, by what series of mental exercises treatment of us have been evil, our treat- on the part of the disciple, is the high ment of him must be good. In short, spiritual achievement carried, of love, real these various duties are set before us, inward cordial love, even to our deadliest more as virtues of forbearance, than as so enemies, to those who hate and calurnmany virtues of forgiveness; and to un- niate and oppress and betray us. derstand the distinction between these, To allege the doctrine of the Spirit in the one should be looked to as bearing a merely general and unintelligent way, more of reference to the heart, and the will not suffice for this explanation. It other to the conduct. Forgiveness to be is no function of His to obliterate or concomplete must be cordial, or rather if not found the distinction between one virtue cordial, it is not forgiveness at all. One and another; and should we confound can imagine forbearance from all retalia- them in our thoughts, this might land us tion by the hand, even while the heart in a difficulty from which even He, so tumultuates and suffers all the agitations long as the misunderstanding continues, of a fierce internal war under the brood- may not extricate us. That He can extriing sense of wrong. This distinction cate us is a thing most certain —that Iie perhaps might serve to allay in some de- will extricate us is a thing to be hoped gree our fear of being laid in this passage and prayed for. But then His very first under a wholly impracticable require- step will be so to enlighten us in the ment-seeing that in its first and most knowledge of God's will, as to remove obvious aspect, itdpeaks not so much of this mis,understanding-so as that we shall the inward will that we should cherish towards enemies as of something more Ephesians, i-r, 2. 464 LECTURE XCI.-CHAPTER XII, 14, 17-21 not be unwise, but understanding what not merely with the same sense of secu the will of the Lord is. To be fully rity, but even with the same moral com. equipped for the work of obedience, it placency as if he were a faultless manseems indispensable that, in the language viewing him just as we should have done, of the apostle, we should be filled with that is, with the same confidence and the knowledge of God's will in all wis- esteem, as if' the offence had been blotted dom and spiritual understanding-for then altogether out of our recollection, or as only shall we walk worthy of' the Lord if he himself had never been an offender. anto all pleasing. Even to begin aright Now to feel thus on our part, we should the work of obedience, we must begin hold repentance upon his part to be with knowledge-for ere we can do our wholly indispensable-or that repentance duty, we must surely be first made to know is as indispensable to forgiveness, as the what it really is; or ere we can rightly element of' light is to vision. The Spirit, address ourselves to the work of practical in the working of miracles, might cure Christianity, we must know what the a man of his blindness, but we never exthings are which God actually requires pect that He will enable him to see in the of us. To make this plain by an exam- dark; and no more should we expect that ple, let us recur to the two virtues already He will enable us to rejoice over the resospoken of-those of forgiveness and for- lutely and contemptuously impenitentbearance. By forbearance I understand just as we might rejoice, after we had that we abstain from all retaliation on an fully readmitted him to friendship and enemy, whether he repents or not- respect, over the sinner who hath rewhereas forgiveness, as I understand it, pented. We might abstain from the acts presupposes repentance. It is true that in of retaliation, even under all the provocamany places of Scripture, forgiveness is tions which in the state of his hardihood enjoined briefly and absolutely, without and defiance, we suffer at his hands. But any express notice of repentance as the this is forbearance only —not forgiveness. condition or necessary accompaniment To have the full affection of forgiveness, thereof. But then one part of Scripture such a forgiveness as the father of the requalifies another; and as to be spiritually turning prodigal extended so promptly wise we must compare spiritual things and freely to his son, the hardihood must with spiritual-so to be scripturally wise, be dissolved and done away, the defiance we must compare scriptural things with be no longer persisted in. There is a difscriptural. If thy brother trespass against ference between forbearance and forgivethee rebuke him, and if he repent forgive ness; and in adaptation to this, there is a him. This establishes the need of repen- counterpart difference between the objects tance in him whom we are required to of these tsvo virtues. And the whole difforgive; and in so doing it alleviates our ference seems to lie in this, that the one sense of difficulty-just as in another has not repented-the other has, or at case, when we are told by one evangelist least stands with the profession and the that they who have riches shall hardly aspect of repentance before us. We do enter the kingdom of God, there is a cer- not think that even the Spirit, who is tain sense of relief from a feeling of the given to help our infirmities, ever helps unattainable and the hopeless, when told or enables us to forgive in any other cirby another evangelist, that they who trust curnstances than these. His great office in riches shall hardly enter that kingdom is that. of restoring us to the likeness of — a distinct and additional relief from that God, or making us perfect, even as our which we experience in the general an- Father in heaven is perfect. Now though nouncement of both evangelists, even He be a God ready to forgive, His forthat though impossible with men, it is giveness is only to the penitent. Under possible with God. It is a great matter to the economy of grace, the forgiveness be precisely informed both of the actual of the Sovereign and repentance of the thing to be done, and of the circumstances sinner are never separated. And on this in which, as a duty, it is required of us. footing also are we required to forgive Now in the grace of forgiveness there is one another, to forgive as God does-so something more than an abstinence from that repentance in every instance is prerevengeful deeds, or even from revengeful supposed, when called on, as we are by inclinations. Forgiveness from the heart the apostle, to forgive our fellow men, implies more than this-not only that we even as God for Christ's sake hath for. should forget the injury, but that we should given us. have the samre feeling towards its author, be Now the like explanation applies to the restored to the same state of mind in re- duty of forbearance, or to all the duties gard to him, as if the injury had never of the passage now before us, which too been c~ommitted. That the forgiveness be might be done, we apprehend-not with complete, that it be perfect and entire that violence to our moral nature which wanting nothing, we should look on him, is figured by many, and which leads them LECTURE XCI.-CHAPTER XII, 14, 17-21. 465 io view a performance as impracticable- upon our property; or finally, the bloodout done sweetly and spontaneously and thirsty persecutor who lays violence,n the spirit of love. One can image a upon our persons-Then we need not ixed, resolute, and dogged abstinence, if try, for really we are not bidden, to love? may so call it, from all the deeds of re- that man with the love of moral com..aliation-even under provocations and placency..nsults the most galling to nature which Still we are required to love even such zan be thought of; and this were forbear- a man, and if not the love of complacentnce in act, or literal forbearance. But cy, what love is it! There is a love.n these circumstances to forbear in love, distinct from this, even the love of kindis that which looks so hard of execution, ness —which when felt towards one in so incongruous with the very frame and distress, is modified into the love of comconstitution of the heart, as shall amount passion. Of its operation in the breast, to a moral or mental impossibility. If the apart from the love of moral esteem, we Spirit, in acting on the possessor of this have a high example in the breast of the heart, do not overbear its mechanism or Godhead-when He so loved the world, the law of' its workings-then to do away as to send His only-begotten Son into it. the sense of a difficulty insuperable, What then precisely was that love of when called on to forbear one another, which the apostle speaks, when he says though even our deadliest enemies, in — " Herein is love, not that we loved love, something more would require to God, but that he loved us, and sent his be said, than merely that what we cannot Son to be the propitiation for our sins." do of ourselves the Spirit can do in us It could not be the love of moral complaand for us-something more specific than cency, for it was love to a world lying in the bare generality, that though with men wickedness. It was the love of compas. it is impossible, with God all things are sion, and of compassion on creatures arpossible. rayed in enmity and lifting up the cry of And so we have always deemed it a rebellion against Him. Because of their great alleviation of the felt and the wickedness it could not possibly be the feared difficulty, when, attending to the love of complacency; but because of distinction between various kinds of love, their wretchedness it was the love of we come to understand what the love of pity: And the enquiry is-Whether, forbearance really is. There is no as- while there is a like impossibility in surance, however strong, of aids and in- our regarding with aught of moral esfluences from on high, which would ever teem a dishonest or a despiteful adver. make us believe it possible, that we sary-whether still there might not be a should love the man, who in hatred to something about him fitted to engage oui ourselves does with all falsehood and sympathies on his behalf, so as not only cruelty inflict upon us every species of to restrain our hand from all mischiet wrong, with the love of moral esteem or against him, but so as that we could not moral complacency. To suppose for a find it in our heart to do him harm-nay moment that the Spirit, in effecting the so as to make it abundantly possible that work of our renovation, would so change we should both pity and should pray for our nature as to make us love ou:' enemy him. thus, were just as great an outrage on And now that we have got clear of the possibility of things, as to suppose this impracticable element, for we really that He would change the nature of vir- cannot love morally a wicked adversary tue, would turn evil into good and good -the thing with man is impossible, and into evil. That we should be required to though with God all things are possible, take into our esteem the man who stands yet this most assuredly is an impossi. palpably before us in the character of a bility over which even His Spirit will treacherous friend or a blood-thirsty per- not help us-but now that this difficulty secutor, is just as conceivable as that we has been set aside, and it is granted that should be required to love the iniquity in the case of a deceitful and malicious which God hateth-an achievement this enemy, there is nothing in his character no more to be attempted or thought of, because of which we can love him mothan to hate the righteousness which God rally-still might there not be something loveth. And likeness to Him is the great in his state because of' which we can object of that regenerative process which, love him kindly, love him compassionunder the economy of the gospel, we are ately? It might be true that we cannot made to undergo-so as to make it very at present forgive-for as yet there might sure, that when we suffer from the hand be no symptom of repentance on his part; of an enemy, whether he be the calumni- but in the career of a resolved impenitence ator who falsely and ungratefully as- may he be fully set, either on the artifices perses our name; or the wily practition- of a hostile policy or on the cruelties of er in basiness or in law, who has designs a hostile violence against us, And i 59 66 LECTURE XCI. —CHAPTER XII, 14, 17-21. might also be true, that in his present state, geance ourselves; and there is no such we can find nothing to compassionate- incompatibility, we repeat, between tne for he might be prospering in his way, sight of a creaturein torment and our love and in the hey-day of success be rejoic- of pity, as there is between the sight of a ing in his iniquitous triumph over us. creature doing palpable iniquity, and our But though there be nothing palpa- feeling as complacently towards him as ble to the eye of sense which can move we should towards an innocent or descrvour pity, it is for the Christian to look ing man. The requirement here laid onward and with an eye of' anticipation upon us inflicts no jar, or felt infraction to the things, which, if he be not previ- on any law of our nature. True, it calls ously visited with the spirit of repent- for a strenuous effort; but this is mainly ance, shall happen to him shortly-to the and properly an effort of consideration, agonies of his coming death-bed, when, which as being on things future and una helpless and a prostrate creature, all tri- seen, is an effort of faith. It is the effort umph shall be gone —Or to the still more of a mind looking forward to the day of awful day of his last reckoning, when he retribution, to the dread realities of a shall stand a naked and a trembling cul- coming judgment and coming eternity. prit before the dread judgment-seat-Or, That in the strength of this faith we can looking on him in the light of eternity to forbear and love and pity and pray for the never-ending period of that ven- even our deadliest enemies, and are thus geance, which it is for God alone to min- enabled to lay an arrest on the most urister, and from which therefore He bids gent propensities of aggrieved and sufferus refrain our own hand. Did we but ing naturi —-is a glorious verification of realize all this, then should we find, that the power -scribed to faith in the New though we cannot yet forgive, yet even Testament. 1, is in truth our great instrunow might we forbear, and that in the ment by which to achieve the sublimest midst of cruellest provocation-forbear moralities of the gospel. For not only in love too, for though to the tyrant or doth it work by love, but overcometh the the tormentor the love of complacency world. "This is the victory that overmight be impossible, yet is it possible to cometh the world, even our faith." It is love even him with tenderest compassion not overcome of evil, but gains the noblest as we behold in perspective the sentence of all victories over a world lying in wickand with it the tremendous sufferings edness, by overcoming its evil with good. which await him. We must now quit the general arguThus at all times, and even in the worst ment; and finish our lecture by a very imaginable case, might the love of for- fewv explanatory remarks on the two or bearance and pity be practicable; and three verses of this passage which seem there are even cases, though not of con- to call for them. scious or resolved iniquity, yet of blind In the 17th verse it may appear someinfuriated violence, in which an outlet is what out of place, as not altogether in given for the higher love of forgiveness. keeping with the subject-matter of the There are cases of ignorance. It was on other precepts, when the apostle tells his this ground that Paul obtained mercy disciples to provide things honest in the though a persecutor, because he did it sight of all men. But the truth is, that ignorantly and in unbelief. This too was nothing is more graceful in the eyes of the palliation which Peter alleged for the others than the grace of forbearance; and murderers of our Saviour-" And now, nothing more fitted to engage the sympabrethren, I wot that through ignorance ye thy of.by-standers, than a mild and patient did it, as did also your rulers"-" for had demeanour under injuries, more especially they known it," it is said elsewhere, if it be the obvious effect of conscience ", they would not have crucified the Lord and not of cowardice, not a pusillanimous of glory." It is in striking accordance surrender of oneself to the insolence of with this-and it serves to establish on oppression, but an act of obedience to the the highest authority the need of certain high behests of principle. It is thils that prerequisites in the objects of forgiveness in early times, the Christian religion was -that our Saviour prays thus amid the indebted foi much of its progress to the agonies of His crucifixion — " Father, for- gentleness of converts under persecution; give them, for they know not what they do." and so among the other sustaining forces But the duties of our present text are which upheld in the breasts of these dethose Of Jforbearance; and though it voted men, the charity that endureth all should be forbearance in love, yet is there things, was there the exalted motive of no incompatibility between the object adorning the doctrine of God their Saviour, and its counterpart emotion. For we are that it may find a growing esteem and expressly bidden look forward to the readier acceptance in the world. vengeance which awaits our persecutors, In the 18th verse it is evidently sup. when we are bidden abstain from all yen- posed that it might not be possible even LECTURE XCI. —-CHAPTER XII, 14, 17-21. 467'or the best of Christians, and that it And lastly, by heaping coals of fire on night not lie within the capacities of his the head of an enemy, we should under. moral system, to live peaceably with all stand, that in returning him good for evil, men. He must first be pure and then and persisting in this till we shall have peaceable; and till the first object is se- heaped our kindnesses upon him-it wili cured, it is his part not to acquiesce but to either melt his spirit into another and a contend earnestly. And then as to what gentler mood; or, failing this, it will ag. lies in him, let me state, by way of one gravate his condemnation. example, that it is not in him to look com- In conclusion let tme observe, that per-' placently on moral evil. He cannot though secution may again' revisit these lands, he would; and neither will the Spirit help or though not, that still in ordinary life, him to this, or put this in him. And thus under the domestic roof, or amid the fahe might forbear, though he cannot justify miliar dealings of human society, there — even though his enemy should seek for is ample scope for the wrongs and the more than toleration, should seek an ex- heart-burnings of most grievous injustice, press approval or vindication at his hands. andtherefore full and constantopportunity This he cannot do with truth or honour, for the exercise of those virtues which and therefore will not do at all; and hence are here prescribed to us. By the sacria contest which he cannot heal, or one fice of our natural interests, or what is case among others which could be named still more difficult, as being at times well in which peace is impossible. nigh uncontrollable, by the sacrifice of In the 19th verse we are told to give our natural resentments, we prepare the place unto wrath-not to our own wrath, way for those highest of all conquests in for this we are forbidden, just as else- the world, the conquests of principle.where we are forbidden to give place We set forth the graIces of personal unto the devil. We must not give range Christianity, and exhibit it to men both or licence to any resentful fieelings of in the most sublime and the loveliest of our own: but the meaning is-either that its aspects. It is not when we are bufwe give place to the wrath of our enemy, feted for our faults and take it patiently, not resisting but rather giving way be- but when we suffer for well-doing and fore him: Or, that we leave the matter to take it patiently-it is then that thu glory God, and do not preoccupy by any ven- of religion is advanced upon the earth. geance of ours, that vengeance which it Then it is that we are both acceptable is for Him alone to inflict-and so com- to God and approved of men. mit ourselves to Him who judgeth righteously. LECTURE XCII. ROMANS xiii, 1-7. "' Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are or. dained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God; and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: for he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake. For, for thls cause pay ye tribute also; for they are God'a ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is'due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to lwhom honour." THERE are certain speculatists in so- us of rights elective and rights heredicial and political philosophy, who would tary; and on the basis of certain juri. measure the duty of subjection by what dical dogmata, would assign how much they are pleased to imagine the right of or how little it is that the individual sovereignty, and would make the one de- members of a community owe in the pend upon the other-so that there shall way of allegiance to the actual rulers, be no incumbent loyalty on the one side, who, whether rightfully or not, vet re. unless there is a legally constituted go- ally and by actual possession and exervernment on the other. And thus to cise bear authority over them. It has make out the obligation of subjects, they long appeared to us, that the Bible cuts would go back on the theory of an ori. short all this reasoning, in that while it ginal compact, and carry us upward to defines the duty of the subject, it does the first construction of society, and tell not define the nature or composition of 468 LECTURE XCII.-CHAPTER XII) i —-. the government to which that duty is that the embers of long past injustice owing, It does not say that we should should be extinguished, or the wrongs of be subject to the powers which were other centuries be forgotten —than that rightly originated or have been rightly they should so fester and be kept alive, constituted, but subject to the powers that as to perpetuate and accumulate the be. It is not the kind of character of heart-burnings of the world, or unsettle any government, but the existence of it the present order of society. It is thus which invests it with its claim on our that both our subjection to the actual obedience, or at least which determines powers, and our acquiescence in the for us the duty of' yielding subjection actual properties which are upon the thereunto. Its mandates should be sub- earth, seem to rest on the same foundation nlitted to, not because either law or jus- of divine wisdom-whether as put forth tice or respect for the good of humanity in the lessons of' revelation, or as manipresided over the formation of' it, but fested in that constitution of humanity simply because it exists. It is true that which God hath given to us. the apostle affirms of those powers to And let it not be said, that by this docwhich he requires our subjection, that trine of an entire unconditional passive. they are ordained of God; but this is ness, oppression and injustice roust at merely because they are the powers that length have unlimited sway upon the be, arid in the sense that whatever is is earth. God hath provided a security ordained of God. It is Hle who overrules against this in the reactions of outraged all history; and to His sovereign will do nature. But still it is nature which both we refer the rise and continuance of all prompts and executes the resistance; and the actual dynasties in our world-al- not Christianity, the disciples of which in though in their establishment, fraud and their simple, self-denying, and elevated force and barbaric cruelty, and that walk of duty, but act in the spirit of their wrath of man which H-Ie so often makes high calling, when they abandon this and to praise Him, may have been the in- many more sucl offices to others; or struments of His pleasure. It is thus that when, in the language of our Saviour's the duty of our text is of universal ap- injunction, they leave the dead to bury plication, whatever be the country, and their dead. And God will not leave them amid all the political diversities which to suffeir for their meekness and forbearobtain on the face of our g)obe —inso- ance even in this world, but will glorimuch that the Christian who lives in ously accredit every promise and every Turkey or China or under any of the declaration which He has made in their iron despotisms of the East, is as much favour. It is a manifold experience, we bound to obedience by this unexcepted believe, in private life, that the humble law of the New Testament, as if his lot and the patient and the long-suffering, as -were cast in those more favoured regions if shielded by an invisible defence against of civilisation and equitable rule, where all violence from without, do walk more all the caprices and the cruelties of arbib safely and more prosperously than others trary power are unknown. through the world; and on a large scale And to this order of actual power in too will the same experience be verifiedthe world, there seems a perfect analogy insomuch as to be found both morally ill the order of this world's property. No and historically impossible, that a tyrant one thinks of remounting to a distant shall long bear the rule over a Christianantiquity-so as to take a view of its ori- ised nation. gination, or to ascertain in how far jus- It is hoped that by these preparatory tice presided over the first distribution of' remarks we have anticipated the necessity it, and conducted it onward through its of entering much into detail upon the successive descents and exchanges to the verses of this passage. hands of its actual occupiers. What is Ver. 1.'The powers that be are ortrue of the powers that be, holds also true dained of God,' because not only with His of the properties that be. The same def- permission, but by His providence in the erence is rendered to both of them-and sovereign disposal of all things, they have that too in the utter ignorance of every been established in the world. other claim than actual existence or actual Ver. 2.' Whosoever therefore resisteth possession. Such is the strength indeed the power, resisteth the ordinance of of this felt possessory right, that both law God: and they that resist shall receive to and nature do like obeisance to it; and themselves damnation.' The lesson of our many thousands are the estates seized last lecture graduates into the lesson of upon in days of marauding violence, the our present one by a nearer and more boundaries of which are as sacred from natural transition than a cursory reader encroachment, as if they had been fixed in may apprehend. You were then told to an assembly of righteous sages, or by the resist not persons, you are now told to reawards of a judgment-seat. It is better sist not powers. The one non-resistance LECTURE XCII. —CHAPTER XIII, 1-7. 463 was a duty, even when assailed by unlaw- this, and apart from this, it, in its own ful violence; and how much more then is essential character is a pre-eminent blessthe other non-resistance a duty, when the ing to the world. Amid all its conspicumandates of a rightful authority are ous aberrations, we must not forget the brought to bear upon us-for in every many thousand benefits, which, beyond country, the authority in force at the time the reach of sight or of calculation, it being, or the authority of' its actual re- works in each little vicinity and throughcognised government, is the ordinance of out the mass and interior of every nation, God.'Tlhe existing property and the ex- in the maintenance of peace and equity isting power are both of them the ordi- between man and man-a mighty interest nances of God, who, in the progress of this, which it is never the policy of any events under His own absolute direction government to contravene; and seldom, and control, hath determined for every if ever, the wish even of the most capri man the bounds of his habitation. It were cious and blood-thirsty tyrant, whose am. by the violation of one commandment, if bition would in no considerable way be we encroached on the property; and it subserved by the dissolution of all the sowere the violation of another to resist the cial ties in that community over which power. There is a certain metaphysical the providence of God has placed him;urisprudence which hath mystified, and Let but the controlling and regulating would attempt to subvert, both of these power wherewith he is invested cease obligations. But Scripture is alike clear fromn its operation; and the vast importand alike imperative with each of them; ance of such a power for the general welland its dictates, we are persuaded, will be being would soon be felt, after that society tfound best to accord with the real philo- had fallen to pieces, and without a king sophy of human nature, as well as with or without a government, each man did the peace and good order of human so- that which was right in his own eyes. ciety. Verily law or goverment is the minister Ver. 3-5.'For rulers are not a terror to of God for good; and, in the great bulk good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou and majority of their doings the administhen not be afraid of the power. Do that trators thereof are not a terror to good which is good, and thou shalt have praise works, but to the evil. If then we have of the same: for he is the minister of God just been taught in the former passage to to thee for good. But if thou do that which resist not evil, when assailed by the unis evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the bridled violence of evil men, how much sword in vain: for he is the minister of more should we abstain from the resistGod, a revenger to execute wrath upon ance of that which is good, even of that him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must government under which we live, and needs be subject, not only for wrath, but which is God's own ordinance-and whose also for conscience' sake.' The apostle function it is to protect us from evil. For, speaks not only of the proper design, but generally speaking, rulers are not as inwe are persuaded also of the general and dividuals often are-who, at the instigaactual effect of all government. We be- tion of envy or avarice or hatred, may at lieve that in every land, the institution, times do grossest injury to the righteous. even when administered by the most hate- The loyal and peaceable have nothing to ful of tyrants, is productive of good upon fear from laws which they do not offend; the whole. It is true, that in the career but if ever brought before the judgmnentof savage and ambitious despots bent on seat, to be taken cognisance of by these, personal aggrandisement; and in whose will obtain sentence of acquittal or justihands crime is the familiar instrument of fication at their hands. They are the evil, conquest, whether over the thrones of the criminal, who need to be afraid-for other nations or the liberties of their own the very design of a civil government in -it is most true, that in their career we society, which is at once the effect and read of little else than of' those sufferings evidence of God's moral government in and sad disorders which history has so the world,* is to repress and punish all often recorded in characters of blood. such. His institution will not be firusStill in every such economy, we mean of trated, or fail of' that express purpose for laws with power for the enforcement of which it has been set up among men, them, we hold that there is an immense which is not only to protect the innocent, preponderance of good to society-inso- but to execute vengeance on the evil-doer much that the worst of governments will -being armed with the power of the bear to be contrasted with a state of anar- sword to fulfil the resentment which it ehy. Like every other property or power, feels against the disobedient. Did our at-,hviether of mental or material nature, it is tention stop short at the secondary ordiin the hands of' wicked men, occasionally, nance, did we look no higher than to the nay often perverted from its own proper and beneficent end-yet notwithstanding See Butler's Analogy. 470 LECTURE XCII.-CHAPTER XIII. 1-7. judge or the magistrate-even then, to error which would dissever the social shun their wrath, we should yield subjec- from the sacred; or which looks in the tion to government and law; but when we great amount of them on the moralities rise upward from the earthly to the of human conduct, though specified and heavenly Sovereign, and with the apostle prescribed in the Bible, merely in the view the authority that is beneath as an light of so many week-day proprieties. It emanation or deviation from the authority is now high time that Christianity should of Him who ruleth over all-then will our stand forth in another aspect, and that subjection be rendered, not alone from another exhibition of it should be given fear towards man, but also from con- to the world-not as a system of cabalistic science towards God. dogmata, but as a pervading and living Ver. 6, 7.'For, for this cause pay ye principle, which takes ascendancy over tribute also: for they are God's ministers, the whole man, and graves upon the tablet attending continually upon this very of his character all that is lovely and thing. Render therefore to all their dues: honourable and virtuous and of good retribute to whom tribute is due; custom to port. This is the way to adorn the docwhom custom; fear to whom fear; hon- trine of God our Saviour in all thingsour to whom honour.' The apostle now not to dissociate religion from morality, passes from the institution of law in the but to impregnate morality with religion, general, to the institution of tribute, and and make it out and out the guide and the which he here singles out as part and sovereign of' all our actions. We are parcel of the same, and as therefore too aware that a certain feeling of the strange comeing directly from God-the payment and even of the ludicrous is often awak. of which, therefore, we should not only ened, when such topics are handled graph. render as a thing of force that we must ically and experimentally in the pulpit, do, but as a thing of' conscience that we as purloining, and eye-service, and fairought to do. It is a lesson greatly needed dealing, and the full and regular payment in this our day-that the payment of our of taxes-or when men of various conditaxes should be held as much a matter of tions are plainly spoken to on the duties principle and punctuality as the payment of their respective callings, as household of our debts. Indeed it is regarded by the servants or field-labourers or artizans or apostle as quite on the footing of a debt, men in the walks of business, when being included by him in the general severally addressed on the virtues of' the)recept of' Render unto all their dues. It shop and the market and the exchange is a lesson altogether worthy of strenuous and the counting-house. Now all this and repeated enforcement from the pul- proceeds on an utter misconception as to pit-from which there ought to be ex- what sort of thing Christianity is; and posed and denounced with all fidelity, the because of which we forget that godliness shameful laxity which obtains in this de- has to do with all things-insomuch that partment of moral obligation. It is a ere a disciple can be perfected into a commost befitting topic for the ministrations plete man of God, he must be thoroughly of a clergyman; and it were well could furnished unto all good works. He must he lay open with a vigorous and faithful be a good family man, and a good neighhand, the frauds, the concealments, the bour, and a good member of society; and dexterous and unprincipled evasions finally, to return on the observations which which are often practised to the injury of the apostle here lays upon his converts, the public revenue-and by men too who he must be a good subject, in which capaacquit themselves honourably and with city he will pay custom or tribute with perfect it irness of all their private engage- cheerfulness, and reverence his superiors, ments. There is a hebetude of conscience and award his comely and complaisant on this subject which needs the quicken- homage to station and rank in societying of an earnest and solemn and scriptu- and, giving fear to whom fear is due, will ral representation. This were not to first and foremost, in the words of another secularise religion; but, what is mainly apostle, "fear God;" and honour to whom wanted, it were to sanctify the business honour, he will follow out the injunction Df human life. Whatever can be fixed of the same apostle, to "honour the king;" upon as a test of religious sincerity, must and will obey magistrates; and live a be deermed peculiarly valuable, both by quiet and peaceable life in all godliness the minister who feels it his business to and honesty. This is the way of making hold up, and that in all its features and his light shine before men-so that seeing details, a true picture of Christianity to his good wvorks. they may glorify his his hearers; and also by all honest disci- Father who is in heaven. ples, who, intent on their own personal A government in the discharge of its sanctification, press onward to the high ordinary functions is a great blessing to ubject of standing perfect and complete society; and it is upon this consideration in the whole will of God. That is a fatal that the duties of the passage now under LECTUR E XCII. —CHAPTER XII, 1-7. 47 l review are grounded and enforced by the discipline of God, should this be again apostle. But a government may depart brought to bear upon us, as at once the from its proper and ordinary character; test and the exercise of our Christianity — and, instead of a protector, may become after such an example, and still more with a tyrant and a persecutor. It may abuse such a lesson as the apostle has recorded its powers. The sword of justice in its for our guidance in the foregoing passage, hands, it may wield as an instrument of we should know how to acquit ourselves. iniquitous violence-turning it from its We should, for conscience toward God. own righteous purpose, as an instrument endure the grief and suffer wrongfully. of venageance on iebels and murderers. We should take it patiently. We should Instead of this, it may become a murderer commit ourselves to Him that judgeth itself, and bathe its feet in the blood of righteously. We should leave to Him the the innocent. And the question is, What cause of our redress, and that work which is duty towards a government in this new is exclusively His own, the work of venattitude and style of acting; and when, geance. If we want to obtain a like conno longer a minister to them for good, it quest with our predecessors in the church, becomes an executioner of wrath on the then not overcome of evil ourselves, we peaceable and the praise-worthy-the ter- should overcome the evil with good. ror and scourge of the righteous? Still in the very passage from which This question has already been an- we have borrowed some of these expresswered in the chapter immediately before sions, there is a limitation imposed on our our present one-where we are told to duty of'living peaceably with all men.' bless them which persecute, to give place This is only if it be possible and as much unto wrath, to avenge not ourselves.' as lieth in us. Now we have already And it has not only been answered didac- stated in what circumstances it oiuight not tically in the Bible, but has been answered be possible to yield a pacific acquiescence historically and by example during three in the will of a private individual-so that long centuries of persecution-beginning if he is resolutely bent on our compliance with the Author of our faith, and conti- with it, a rupture between us is wholly nued onward to the reign of Constantine. unavoidable. We could not, for example, If when the hand of a private individual give up our conscience into his hands, or inflicted outrage and injustice upon them, renounce a profession or a principle which they were commanded to forbear all retal- we conceive to have been laid upon us by iation-this forbearance was still more the authority of God. And thus it was imperative when it was an injustice which that the apostles' converts could not have came from the hands of the magistrate. given up their Christianity at the bidding And accordingly, in those ages of martyr- of friends or relatives-a fertile cause of dom we have a bright verification of the dissension in these days; and so as to meek and passive moralities —of the vir- verify the forewarning of our Saviour, ues which belong to a state of sufferance " Think not that I am come to send peace -so strenuously recommended by the on earth: I came not to send peace but a apostle. And it was not only in the fee- sword. For I am come to set a man at varibleness of their infancy, when the Chris- ance against his father, and the daughter tians formed but a very little flock, amid against her mother, and the daughter-inthe overwhelming majorities that abode law against her mother-in-law. And a in the ancient faith, whether of Jews or man's foes shall be they of his own Gentiles-it was not only then, that they household." And if they would not subgave themselves quietly up to torture and mitin this matter toa relative or neighbour, death, as if' in imitation of their great they could as little submit in it to a maMaster, who was led like a lamb unto the gistrate. They could not belie their own slaughter-But even in the strength and fitith, or say of what they did believe, that maturity of their manhood, when they they did not believe it. There is the same far outnumbered their adversaries and impossibility here which is even affirmed could have taken the power of govern- of the Godhead, when it is said of HIim ment into their own hands-even then do that He cannot lie, and that it is impossible we read of their weathering in meek en- for God to lie. If the faith of the gospel durance the last and bloodiest of those was indeed in them, then it lay not in them, great persecutions which they had to un- nor was it possible for them to abjure dergo. They might have risen against that faith. Nay, as if to aggravate the their enemies, and achieved over them the moral impossibility, they could not, at the victory of force-but, still more glorious, bidding of the highest power on earth, their's was altogether the victory of prin- make the denial of Christ, but in opposi. ciple; and it serves for our admonition, tion to an express bidding from the highon whom the latter ends of the world have est power in heaven, by which they were come. Should the fires of persecution be required to confess him before men —even again lighted up in our lan i-in the holy when delivered up to councils and brought 472 LECTURE XCII.-CIIAPTER XIII, 1 —7. before governors and kingsfor a testimony. renouncing their profession, and thus deny. And what had thus been laid upon them ing the Lord who bought them. This at by precept, they exemplified in practice- all hazards they behoved to resist. Against as when called before the rulers of Israel, this, and this alone, they strove; and as to and straitly threatened and commanded their lordly persecutors, instead of striving not to teach or preach in the name of against them, they placidly and submis. Jesus, they replied, "Whether it be right sively gave themselves up unto their hands. in the sight of God, to hearken unto you And thus too at this moment, the Church more than unto God, judge ye. For we of Scotland-submitting to the civil power cannot," and here is their express allega- in all that is civil; and only refusing her tion of its not being possible for them to obedience, when that power assumes an live peaceably with all men, " we cannot authority over things sacred. Many are but speak the things which we have seen not able, perhaps not willing, to discrimiand heard." And so with boldness they nate in this matter; and so, at their hand, continued to speak, i" not as pleasing she suffers the obloquy of being a rebel men but God" —and this under the neces- against the laws-and this because one of sity which was laid upon thenm, for woe the subordinate courts in our realm, has was upon them if they preached not the transgressed her own limits, even as the gospel.* To the superficial it might ap- sanhedrim or supreme court of Judea pear an anomaly, nay a contradiction, did theirs, when they forbade the apostles that the same Christians who were to preach any more in the name of' Jesus. charged with the duty of resisting not evil, It is a great and a vital cause; and has should nevertheless have resisted so stur- led to a contest which is not yet terminadily upon this occasion; and it seems to ted, and perhaps only begun. Heaven deepen still more the inconsistency, that grant an apostolic wisdom, as well as an it was a resistance to the mandates of apostolic boldness, on the part of her those rulers, who, as the powers that be, ministers-that they may acquit them. were ordained of God-so that whosoever selves rightly of all which they owe both resisteth them resisteth the ordinance of to God and to Cesar; and so that, while God-and shall receive to himself damna- faithful to their Master in heaven, their tion. But theirs was not a withholding loyalty to the powers which be on earth of fear where fear was due. It was but may, in all that is possible, and as far as the subordination of a lower to a higher lieth in them, become patent and palpafear-the fear of him who was able to ble to all men. Meanwhile, in the eyes kill the body, to the fear of Him who is of some she may wear the aspect of a reable to destroy both soul and body in fractory member in the body politic, hell. Thev did not resist the inflictions more especially in an age when the prin. of the earthly power on their persons and ciples are forgotten on which our Nonproperties, and all on earth which belonged erastian Church is based-principles to them. These they submitted to the ab- which at one time the sustained and at solute disposal of the rulers of this world; length triumphant controversy of several and it may serve perhaps the object of a generations, had made as familiar as right discrimination in this matter of re- household words, even to the peasantry sistance —if in the following verse where of our land. 0 Lord, may Thy grace and the term is introduced, it be considered Thy guidance be with the present majorwhat precisely that was which Christians ity of our Church-so that whether they are there spoken of as resisting. The shall achieve a victory or sustain a deapostle in the Hebrews tells his disciples feat, TWisdom may yet be justified of' all that they had not yet " resisted unto blood, her children. If theirs be the victory, let striving against sin." This was wholly it become manifest, O God, that a rightly different from the resistance of war, when administered, and withal an established the soldier strives against those who are church, in the fiull possession of her seeking after his blood; and, for the de- spiritual independence, is the great palliverance of his own life would embrue ladium, not of freedom alone, but of stahis hand in the blood of an enemy. This bility and good order in the commonis one way of resisting unto blood; but it wealth. But if it seem good unto Thee is altogether distinct from, nay opposite that it shall be otherwise, and that defeat to, the resistance unto blood which Chris- and disappointment shall be theirs-we tians were often called to in these days. will not let go our confidence in the final The object of their resistance was not to and everlasting establishment of Thine save their own blood by shedding the own divine supremacy over the nationsblood of their enemies. It was not against when, after it may be the fearful period this that they strove, or against their ene- of a wasteful and wide-spread anarchy, mies that they strove. The precise object the kingdoms of this world shall have beof their striving was against sin-the sin of come the kingdoms of our Lord and Corinthians, ix, 16. Saviour Jesus Christ. LECTURE XCIII. —CHAPTER XIII, 8-'0. 473 LECTURE XCIII. ROMANS Xiii, 8-10. Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandmenit, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the'OWE no man any thing.' This precept of an aphorism or dictation-that hc of the apostle, limited within these few should never become a debtor to any words, may signify one or other of these man, be it for a single month or even sintwo things-either to leave not our debts gle day. Yet will we proclaim it as a unpaid; or, higher, and many would say very high and undoubted ethical propriety more scrupulous still, never get into debt. -that each man, if in business, should so The clause now quoted of our present square his enterprises to his means; or, verse may be looked to as a repetition of if in whatever else, should so square his the clause in that verse which goes imme- expenditure to his income, as to be at all diately before it-," Render unto all their times within the limits of sufficiency or dues"-what is due, (debitum, debt,) being safety-so that, should the computation the same with what is owing. And in this at any time be made, and were the settleform too it admits of both the interpreta- ment of all reckonings and claims whattions now given —either let every debt be soever to take place at the moment acat length cancelled, or let no debt ever be cordingly, it be found of him at the very contracted. Never let it become a debt- least, that in customary phrase he was Be in no man's books. If he be an indi- even with the world, and so as that he vidual with whom you are dealing, pay could leave the world and owe no man the moment that you buy. Or if it be the any thing. government, and so the liability is not a But though unwilling to press the duty price but a tax, pay on the day that it be- of our text in the extreme and rigorous comes due. According to the usages of sense of it-yet I would fain aspire tosociety, the injunction in this latter or wards the full and practical establishment more rigorous meaning of it is far from thereof, so as that the habit might become being generally adhered to. Perhaps it at length universal, not only of paying all may not at all times suit the conveniences debts, but even of making conscience or even the possibilities of business, that never to contract, and therefore never to each single transaction should be what in owe any. For although this might never familiar phrase is termed a ready-money be reached, it is well it should be looked transaction. Perhaps even in the matters at, nay moved forward to, as a sort of of family expenditure, it might save optimism, every approximation to which trouble, instead of paying daily and in were a distinct step in advance, both for detail, to pay at certain terms; and so the moral and economic good of society. with the consent, nay even the preference For, first, in the world of trade, one canof both parties, is there often a running not be insensible to the dire mischief that of accounts, and a discharge or settlement ensues from the spirit often so rampant, of these periodically. We shall not there- of an excessive and unwarrantable specufore insist very resolutely or dogmatically lation-so as to make it the most desiraon this rule of the apostle, in the literal ble of all consummations that the system or extreme sense of it. Perhaps it were of credit should at length give way, and an over-sensitive casuistry, a sort of ultra- what has been termed the ready-money ism in morals, to urge the unexcepted ob- system, the system of immediate payservance of our text in the very terms of ments in every commercial transaction, this its second interpretation. There can should be substituted in its place. The be no doubt, however, that in the first in- adventurer who, in the walks of merchanterpretation of it, it is a matter of absolute dise, trades beyond his means, is often and universal obligation. Though we can- actuated by a passion as intense, and we not just say with full and perfect assu- fear too as criminal, as is the gamester, rance, that a man should never in any who in the haunts of fashionable dissipacircumstances get into debt-we can feel tion, stakes beyond his fortune. But it is no hesitation in saying, that, once in, he not the injury alone, which the ambition should labotir most strenuously and with that precipitates him into such deep and all his might, to get out of it. I will not desperate hazards, brings upon his own therefore be so altogether intolerant and character-neither is it the ruin that the peremptory, as to give it forth in the style splendid bankruptcy in which it termi, 60 474 LECTURE XCIII. —CHAPTER XIIT, 8-10. nates brings upon his own family-These of this precept, to me the most interesting are not the only evils which we deprecate of all —because of all others the applicae -for over and above these, there is a fatr tion, which if fully carried out, would tell heavier disaster, a consequence in the more beneficially than any other on that train of such proceedings, of greatly wider high object of enlightened philanthopy and more malignant operation still, on the greatest happiness of the greatest the habit and condition of the working number; and so make a larger contribuclasses, gathered in hundreds around the tion than any we have yet specified to the mushroom establishment, and then thrown well-being of a then happy and healthful adrift among the other wrecks of its over- society. What I advert to as a thing of throw in utter helplessness and destitu- pre-eminent worth and importance is, tion on society. This frenzy of men hast- that men in humble life, our artizans, our ing to be rich, like fever in the body natu- mechanics, and labourers, should be efral, is a truly sore distemper in the body fectually taught in the art of owing no politic. No doubt they are also sufferers man any thing; and learn to find their themselves, piercing their own hearts way from the pawn office to the savings' through with many sorrows; but it is the bank-so that instead of debtors to the contemplation of this suffering in masses, one, they should become depositors in the which the sons (and daughters of industry other. That it is not so, is far more due in humble life so often earn at their hands, to the want of management than to the that has ever led me to rank them among want of means; and it needs but the the chief pests and disturbers of a com- kindness and trouble of a few benevolent monwealth. attentions to put many on the way of it. But again, if they who trade beyond It is this which, among other objects, their means thus fall to be denounced, makes it so urgently desirable-that every they especially in the higher and middle town should be broken up into small classes of life, who spend beyond their enough parishes, and every parish into means and so run themselves into debt, small enough districts; and an official merit the same condemnation. Perhaps superintendent be attached to each, who, they who buy on credit, certain of their in perfect keeping with his character as inability to pay, as compared with those a deacon, might charge himself with the who borrow on speculation, and though economics of the poor, and tell them how uncertain of its proceeds, yet count on the so to husband their resources, as to save favourable chances of success, so as that themselves from a sore and heavy burden, they shall be able to pay all-perhaps which often presses on them like an incuthe former are distinctly the more inex- bus that they never can shake off-we cusable of the two. But without entering mean the debt usually contracted at the on this computation, we can imagine no- outsetofa familyestablishment,and which thing more glaringly unprincipled and keeps them in a state of difficulty and deselfish than the conduct of those, who, to pendence to the end of their days. It is uphold their place and take part with not to be told how soon and how easily their fellows in the giddy rounds of the by a few cheap and simple and withal festive and fashionable world, force out a friendly advices, the whole platform of splendour and luxury which their means humble life might come to be riaised, and are unequal to; and thus either build or the working classes be guided to an enadorn or entertain in a style so costly, largement and sufficiency, which, save by that it must be done not at their own ex- dint of their own sobriety and providenpence, beggared as they are by extrava- tial habits, can never be realised. Though gance, but at the expence of tradesmen we cannot offer here the scientific demonand artificers and shopkeepers, whom stration of this great and glorious result, they hurry onward to beggary with them- we may at least be suffered, as an act of selves. I do not need to expatiate on a homage, to make this acknowledgment delinquency so grievous and undeniable in passing-that, in the practical departas this. But you will at once perceive, ment of Christianity, only second to our how both the rage of speculation, prompt- admiration of its perfect ethical system, ed by what the apostle calls the lust of is the admiration we have ever felt, and the eye, in the work of making a fortune; the unbounded confidence that we repose and the rage of exhibition and excess, in the sound political economy of the stimulated by the pride of life, in the New Testament. work of overspending it-the one sowing' But to love one another.' The apostle the wind, and the other reaping the whirl- here speaks of love as a debt, as a thing wind-how both of these would be effect- owing. He would have it to be our only ually mitigated and kept in check, were debt; and that this alone is what we all men to act on the sacred prohibition should still continue to owe, after having of " Owe no man any thing." so acquitted ourselves of all other obliga. But lastly there is another application tions, as to owe nothing else. The point LECTURE XCIII. —CHAPTER XIII) 8 —10. 475 to be remarked upon is, that the apostle we all would that men should love us should speak of love as a debt at all, as rather than that they should hate us; and a thing that we owe-thus placing in the it is a precept which at once announces same category the duty under which we its own equity, that what we should like lie to love one another, as the duty to pay from men, we should do to men. If we up the price of that which we had bought, wish them to love us, it seems a selfish or the sum that we had borrowed from and unequitable thing, that we should not him. It is certainly not soregarded in the love them back again; or that we should light of natural conscience. We should not be willing to give them that, which we never think that we did the same injustice at the same time are abundantly willing to a neighbour by withholding our love to get from them. We do not just say from him, as we did to a creditor by with- that, even on this principle, the obligation holding from him the payment of a debt. to love others is placed on the very same In that play or reciprocation of moral footing with the obligation to pay our feeling and moral judgment which takes debts-yet if on this principle we do not place between men and men in society, strictly and literally owe them our love, those two things are not so confounded. the moral sense of all men will go along It is true that should God interpose with with me when I say, that on this principle the commandment that we should so love, we at least ought to love them. Surely if we owe every thing to Him; and would we should like all men to love us, it is therefore, on its being intimated to us as nothing but a fair and legitimate moral His will, owe love to those who are around conclusion from this, that we in return us, and love to all men. But we at pre- should or ought to love all men. sent speak of our natural sense of justice Now I would have you attend to the two as it decides and operates irrespectively terms, the owe and the ought. They have of God's will in the community of human a common origin; and though not absobeings; and are considering how it would lutely identical, this of itself demonstrates, pronounce on the matter of obligation- if human language be at all the interpreter between the duty of paying an ordinary of human feeling, a certain affinity bedebt, and the duty of loving. twixt them. And accordingly they do Now we must be conscious of a wide substantially resemble each other thus diversity in our moral sensation, if I may far, that both of them-the payment of so term it, of these two things. I feel that what we owe to others, and the love we I have a right to the payment of that are required to bear them-that both of which is owing to me; and that for the these are duties. But though generally exaction of it I might bring the fear and and to this extent, they are alike-still the force of law to bear upon my debtor. there is a difference between them; and I have no such feeling of a right to his on looking narrowly into it, we shall find love; and did I assert or prosecute such a what the difference is. In the one duty, right, did I try to seize upon the man's af- the payment of debt, there: s not merely fections in the same way that I might an obligation upon the one side, there is seize upon his goods, did I prefer a claim a precise and counterpart right upon the to his heart, and for the making of it good other-it being not only my duty to pay puteitherfearorfo-rceintooperation-there what I owe to a creditor, but his right to would soon be found an element wanting, challenge and enforce the payment. In and which made this attempt at the corm- the other duty, the love of a neighbour, it pulsion of another's love to be altogether might be my obligation thus to love, but a thing most outrageously and ridiculously not necessarily his right to demand it of wrong. The question still remains then me. That there are other such duties, as to any possible analogy between things will appear still more clearly from this which at the first blush of them appear so example-the duty of forgiveness. Htere different; and how it is, that while in the there may be an obligation, and most most strict and literal sense of the word certainly no corresponding right-an we owe a man the full value of all that obligation on my part to forgive the ofwe may have bought or borrowed from fender, while it were a contradiction in him-how it is, that with any propriety terms to say of him that he hath a right or by means of any figurative resem- to be forgiven. The distinction is quite blance, I can be said to owe him my love familiar to ethical writers; and they have also. had recourse to a peculiar nomenclature What gives the strongest impression of for the expression of it. In the cue case, a reciprocity in this matter, and brings it as with the virtues of truth and justice, nearest to a thing of mutual and equita- where there is both a duty on the one ble obligation is, that celebrated moral side and a counterpart right upon the sentence of our great Teacher —" Whatso- other, they are termed virtues ci perfect ever things ye would that men should do obligation. In the other case, as with beunto you, do ye even so unto them." Now nevolence, whether in the form of mercy 476 LECTURE XCUII.-CHAPTER XIII, 8-10. or hospitality or almsgiving or a kind- vain one-when he says, "Wherefore ye ness and courtesy beyond the general must needs-be subject, not only for wrath habits or expectations of any given neigh- but also for conscience' sake." bourhood —these, though all of them vir- It is well that you should keep hold of tues in themselves which serve to grace this distinction between a lower and a and exalt the giver, yet for which no right higher regimen-the regimen of fear, and or claim can be alleged by the receiver- the regimen of conscience-as it might these are but the virtues of imperfect prepare you for understanding another obligation. regimen, even higher than that of conThis leads us to observe, that there are science; and lead you along to another two distinct regimens, and both on the distinction-we mean the distinction that side of morality. There is the regimen we now announce between the regimen of fear and the regimen of conscience. of conscience and the regimen of love. Each might be brought to bear upon man In every exercise of the conscience, there at the same time, when the duty to be seems a balancing between the right and performed is one of perfect obligation- the wrong-a comparison of opposites, which it is not only right for every moral grounded on the knowledge both of good agent to observe; but in which also there and evil, whereupon, in virtue of its sense is, counterpart to this, the holder of a of rectitude, it enjoins a preference for right, who might by legal enforcement the one, and an avoidance of the other. compel the observance of it, whether it Now this work of comparison on the part be for the payment of a debt or the ful- of a moral agent, might as unnecessary filment of a promise. On the side then be dispensed with-if in doing what is of one and the same virtue, there might right he always did that which he liked both be the coarser regimen of fear, and best; or, in other words, if the taste and the finer regimen of conscience-the one affections did of themselves prompt, and put into operation by a government with- at all times. that very conduct, which, had in the breast, which tells of the right and the arbitration of conscience been rethe wrong, and, by the force of principle quired, it would have pronounced to be alone, persuades to the former, and res- our righteous and incumbent obligation. trains from the latter-the other put into It might seem hard to say that conscience operation by the government of a country in this case would be superseded-yet which institutes a law, and ordains its there is a certain sense in which it would penalties against all the aggressions of be true-for it is obvious enough, that if injustice. One could imagine a virtuous we abandon ourselves to our own heart's society where conscience was omnipotent desire, and that desire was ever, spontaand universal-in virtue of which the neously and of its own full accord, on government of principle might have per- the side of that which is most righteous feet and unlimited sway, and so the go- and best, the office of conscience, at least vernment of law might be dispensed with. for the purposes of guidance or regulaAnd there are many individuals, whose tion, would then be uncalled for. And honour and integrity are full guarantees however difficult it might be to say that for their punctual discharge of all the love would supersede conscience, we need equities of social life; and of whom go no farther than to our text for decisive therefore it may be said that the law is instances of love superseding the comnot needed for such righteous persons- mandment. For certain it is, that if we of which indeed they often give proof, by thoroughly loved a neighbour, loved him the admirable way in which they acquit as we do ourselves, we could no more inthemselves also of the generosities of so- flict pain or violence upon him than upon cial life, those virtues of imperfect obliga- our own persons-no more rob him of his tion, wherewith the law of the heart alone property than cast our own into the firehath to do, and the law of the state or of the no more deceive him by a falsehood than statute-book has, or ought tohave no con- willingly give ourselves up to the wiles cern. But though the law of conscience of an imposter —no more wish aught debe sufficient for these, it needs, in the ac- sirable thing of his to be ours, than we tual state or character of humanity, and for should aught of ours to be either abstractthe effectual regulation of the common- ed or destroyed. To a man thus actuated wealth at large-it needs to be supple- the prohibitions of kill not, and steal not, mented bv the civil and criminal law of and lie not, and covet not, were altogether the country. And accordingly both in- superfluous —nor would his conscience fluences might tell at once on the same need at all to ruminate, on the rightfulindividual. Both considerations are ness, either in respect of matter or aupressed by the apostle upon his converts thority, of any of these commandments. -and this by the way proves that the What under the regimen of conscience distinction on which we insist is not a would be a thing of obedience-the very LECTURE XCIII.-CHAPTEF iIII, 8-10. 477 amne, under the regimen of love, would be for whoremongers, for them that defile a thing of inclination. Love would be an themselves with mankind, for men-steal. equivalent, nay a greatly overpassing ers, for liars, for perjured persons, and it substitute for law. Under its simple and there be any other thing that is contrary spontaneous impulse, there could be the to sound doctrine." To this purpose working of no ill. Of itself it would do serveth the law. "It was added because the work of all the commandments. of transgressions." Every commandment Where such an enlargem-ent takes place in the decalogue, with the exception of upon the character of man, the will might the fifth-for we do not except the tourth, with all safety be left to take the place which tells us not to work upon the Sabof conscience. The law of God would be bath-is of a negative or prohibitory, his delight; nor could there be any haz- rather than of a prescriptive character. ard of disobedience at the hands of him, It tells us not of the things which we are the delight of whose heart lay in the ful- to do, but of the things which we are not filling of the law. to do; and most certainly they are such Now the question comes to be, Which things, that if the moral dynamics of love is the higher moral state-that of him who to God and love to man had full operation loves his neighbour as himself, and in in our heart, we should have no wish for virtue of this affection would abstain the doing of' them. from doing him any evil; or of' him, who And yet, as already hinted, we should without this affection, but in virtue of the feel it a hard and difficult thing to say commandments, and under a sense not that love might supersede conscience only of their authority, but their right- and so as that the element of moral rightness, would alike abstain from doing him ness, or the consideration of what we any evil? Were it because of their author- ought or of what we owe, might never be ity alone, then the obedience might pro- present to the mind-merely because there ceed from an apprehension of the threat- reigned an affection there, which formed ened penalties, or be a forced obedience a sufficient and a practical security for under the regimen of fear. Were it be- the observance of them. We apprehend cause of their rightness, then would it be that if destitute of the conception or knowa higher, for now a duteous obedience, ledge of'the moral character of actions, as under the regimen of conscience. But right or wrong, we should want an essenwhat we ask is, Whether, when not be- tial feature of that resemblance to the cause he thinks of the commandments, Godhead, the restoration whereof is one but because he realizes the saying in great object of the economy under which which they are briefly comprehended, we sit*-even His admiration of the one even loves his neighbour as himself- and His abhorrence of the other, so that whether, when it is because of this that like Him we may love righteousness and he kills not and steals not and lies not and hate iniquity. It is true that Adam was covets not-whether it be not now a still interdicted in paradise from the tree of higher, being now a willing obedience knowledge of good and evil-and thereunder the regimen of love When he fore that, apart from this knowledge and has gotten so far as that love supersedes by the spontaneous tendencies of his own law, has he not reached a higher stage in perfect nature, he may have been kept this moral progression from one degree close to the one and altogether clear of of excellence to another 3-and were this the other. But instead of this there was consideration thoroughly pondered and one commandment laid upon him-and pursued into all its consequences, might by the way a negative one,. or not a bidit not serve to elucidate an else mysteri- ding but a forbidding-even that he should ous passage of the Bible-where we read not eat of this tree. It was on his transthat the law was not made for a righteous gression thereof that his eyes were opened; person, for a person thus far refined and and his conscience we have no doubt, his exalted in his principles and feelings-but sense of good and evil and of the differfor those in the ruder or more rudimental ence between them, would then come and initiatory stages of their moral disci- into vigorous play. But we must not pline; and who for the restraint or regu- therefore imagine that in the process of lation of their conduct needed that the man's regeneration this sense of good and coarser appliances of law, its obligations evil behoves to be extinguished. He will or even its terrors, should be brought to be "renewed in knowledge;" and as a bear upon them? It is thus we might un- proof that, though heaven be that holy derstand the apostolic averment —"That place into which sin doth not enter, yet the law is not made for a righteous man, that the knowledge or conception of sin but for the lawless and disobedient, for will be there, is evident from this, that the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy holiness will be there; and what is holi. and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for man-slayers,'Colossians, iii, 10. 478 LECTURE XCIII. —CHAPTER XIII, 8-10. ness but the fearful and determined recoil spirit of bondage gives way to the spirit of perfect moral excellence fiom all that of adoption, or the oldness of the letter to is opposite to itself — a property of such the newness of the spirit; or as when the high estimation, that some would vindicate terrors of the law are succeeded by a dethe origin of evil on the principle that it light in the law; or as when the comrnafforded a scope for the display and the mandment, formerly graven on tables of exercise of holiness. However this may stone, comes to be graven on the fleshly be, certain it is that the love or charity of tablets of the heart; or as when the law heaven will not supersede there the con- fulfils but the office of a preparatory science or moral sense, which takes cog- schoolmaster for bringing men to Christ, nizance both of the good and the evil- or guiding them onward to their higher as manifested both by the song of the re- lessons of the gospel; or finally, as when deemed to Him who washed them in His the supremacy of law makes place for blood, and by their intelligent ascriptions the supremacy of love, even of the charity to Him who sitteth on the throne of Holy, which never faiileth, but abideth and Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty; and reigneth everlastingly in heaven, after Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King that the means and the preparatives for of saints; this great consummation have all vanished At all events, there seems to be a pro- away. gression, an ascent by successive stages from a lower to a higher discipline, in the That could surround the sum of things, and spy moral education and moral history of our The heart of God, and secrets of His empire, Would speak but love; with him the bright resudt species-whether we comprehend or not Would change the hue of intermediate scenes, the various footsteps of it-As when the And make one thing of all theology." LECTURE XCIV. ROMANS xiii, 11-14.'And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand; let us therefore cast off the works of' darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lasts thereof." VER. 11.'And that, knowing the time, great and universal lesson, for Christians that now it is high time to awake out of of all ages, which carries its own obvious sleep: for now is our salvation nearer recommendation alongr with it; and is in than when we believed.' Some commen- harmony with many similar irjunctions tators would refer the nearer salvation of delivered in other places of Scripturewhich the apostle here speaks, to the de- as, Brethren, the time is short, and let us struction of Jerusalem, as standing some- not therefore abuse the world; or Let us how or other connected with a great work while it is dayc, the night cometh enlargement to the professors of Chris- when no man can work. tianity. Others again would refer it to'And that, knowing the time, that now the expected second coming of our Lord- it is high time to awake out of sleep.' in which it is thought that even apostles The clause of'knowing the time' seems were not yet so fair instructed or inspired, to strengthen one or other of the more as to be free from the then prevalent im- special interpretations of this verse-as agination that he would shortly revisit referring to the knowledge of a something the world-nay make His appearance which the Christians of that period had before the present generation had passed been made to see in the light of prophecy away. Without deciding on either of or inspiration, whether the rightly anticithese interpretations, we hold it a sounder, pated destruction of Jerusalem or the or at least a safer application of the ad- then misunderstood reappearance of our vice here given; to understand the nearer Saviour. We however shall still keep by salvation of every disciple, as signifying the more general meaning that we have the greater nearness of his death-seeing already assigned to this verse-underof that event, that it is indeed a great standing it thus, that it is now high time to salvation to all who fall asleep in Jesus, bestir ourselves, and make diligent prepafor with them to bu absent from the body ration for that blissful eternity which is Is to be present with the Lord. When the so fast approaching; for that this is the verse is thus apprehended, it becomes a great work to be done, and there remains LECTURE XCIV.-CHAPTER XIII, 11-14. 479 but little, yea a rapidly lessening time for is at hand: let us therefore cast off the the doing of it. works of darkness, and let us put on the But how zomes it that Christians should armour of light.' The imagery of this be called upon to awake out of sleep? verse requires the same explanation as Are they not already awakened! Did did that of the preceding. It is true that they not at the first outset of their disci- the proper night of the soul —the moral pleship yield obedience to the apostolic night-is anterior to conversion; ani that call of "Awake, 0 sinner, and Christ when this event takes place, the soul shall give thee light!" Has not every passes out of darkness into marvellous believer already passed out of darkness light. And accordingly the true disciples into the marvellous light of the gospel; of the Lord Jesus are said to be no longer and why then should he be so urged, as the children of night, but the children of if he had yet to shake himself from the light and of the day. Still it is true that sleep of carnality or spiritual death, or so long as we abide in this world, ours is to arouse him out of the lethargy of but a state of comparative darkness-for nature? here though we see it is but through a It is because of the constant and cleav- glass darkly; and that it is only in the ing earthliness which continues to subsist next world where we shall live in the full even after regeneration; and which, light of the risen day, when we shall though weakened and under process of know even as we are known. The soul extinction, is not wholly exterminated of a saint on earth, still in twilight obwhile we remain in the body-it is because scurity, has not yet made its conclusive of this that we need to be reminded even escape from the region of darkness; and of the incipient calls, and that we need to not till ushered into heaven, or among be put on the incipient duties of the the cloudless transparencies of the upper Christian life. Thus it is that to be kept sanctuary, will it in God's light clearly from lapsing into unbelief, we must hold see light; Such then are the night, and fast the beginning of our confidence; and such the day spoken of in our text; and lest our love should wax cold, we must it is because this night is far spent, and remember the strength of it at the outset this day is at hand, that we are called on of our discipleship. In a word, we must to cast off the works of darkness, and to be ever recurring to the exercises of our put on the armour of light. first faith, our first love, our first obedi- There are works of' darkness which ence; and more especially should awaken shun the light of day, or would shrink out of sleep, or keep awake, amid the from exposure, even in this world-such opiates of sense and of a deceitful as the deeds either of shameful dishonworld. esty or of shameful licentiousness. There Thus understood, it is the charge of are other works again, which, though the apostle, that we should open our eyes alike condemned in the eye of Heaven, to the realities of that unseen world, to we should not here on earth call works which we every day are coming nearer. of darkness, such as the overt acts which WVhat he teaches in this verse is the wis- transgress no social law, yet bespeak a dom of considering our latter end, to heart of deep irreligion, and utterly dewhich we are hastening onward. In order void of all sensibility to the sacredness or to meet the salvation which then awaits authority of God's spiritual law-as when us, our distinct aim should be to perfect His Sabbaths are secularised in convivial our holiness; or to give all diligence that parties; or, in the intent prosecution, we may be found without spot and blame- whether of the amusements or the business less; or so to run as to reach the prize of of life, decisive manifestation is given our nigh calling, and be presented fault- forth of a preference for the creature over less before the presence of God. The sal- the Creator, for the things and interests vation here spoken of is the salvation of time over the things and interests of that we are called upon to work out-a eternity. These last, as being the mere task from which we are not the less ex- fruits of nature's carnality, and springing empted, though it be said that God works universally forth of the habits and affecin us.* We are justified on the moment tions of natural men, we should not call of our believing; but our sanctification works of darkness-for they are exhibited is the business of a lifetime. For there daily and without a blush in the face of is a life of faith as well as a birth of society-not however because not utterly faith;t and it should be our care that ere worthless in themselves, but because done this life is finishedt its object should be before the eye of spectators, who have no fillfilled; which is, that we stand perfect perception of their deformity, done on the and complete in the whole will of God. theatre of a world which has been rightly Ver. 12.'The night is far spent, the day denominated the land of spiritual blindness and spiritual death. But if seen in hil. ii, 12,13 Gal. ii, 20. 2 Tim. iv, 7. the light of the divine law, and placed .480 LECTURE XCIV. —CHAPTER XIII, 11-14, before the rebuke of the divine counte- palpable in the eyes of all men; and so nance, they will then be recognised as as that they might recognise it to be works of darkness, and ranked as they something more than what they often apought with the worst atrocities of human prehend it to be-the mere teaching of a wickedness. And accordingly on the cabalistic orthodoxy. Instead of which great day of manifestation, and when the it is pre-eminently a practical systemprinciples of a higher jurisprudence are striking at once at the evil habits, while brought to bear on the characters of men, its higher aim is to regenerate the evil many, the most esteemed and honourable hearts of men-So that in commanding among their fellows, will awaken to them everywhere to repent and turn unto shame and everlasting contempt. Ungod- God, it charges them, at the first and earliliness will then appear in its true esti- est outset of their religious earnestness, mate, as the great master-sin —being in- to do works meet for repentance.* deed the seminal principle of all misrule But there are other and higher graces and anarchy in creation; and therefore more distinctive of Christianity, an,. to be exiled and put forth into everlasting serving more specifically to signalise ani darkness, as a thing unfit to be seen on separate the children of light from the the open panorama of a harmonious and children of this world; and which are well-ordered universe. altogether beyond the reach of unaided Yet it might subserve a practical ob- nature. There are certain things which ject, to view apart from each other those nature, by the sheer force of her own grosser offences which are usually stig- resolute and sustained purposes, might be matised as works of darkness; and those able to cast off; but there are certain more subtle delinquences of the heart and other things which nature in her own spirit, which are universal as the species, strength cannot possibly put on. She and none therefore are at pains to con- may of herself cast off many of the works ceal, because none are ashamned of them. of darkness; but of herself she cannot It might help to distinguish between the put on the graces and virtues which serve incipient and advanced duties of the more specially to characterise and adorn Christian life. At the very outset, nay the children of light. Thus to array heranterior to their conversion, though with self, she needs other instruments than a view to it, nay in the aim of carrying it those which natively and originally beer bringing it to pass, we should call on long to her-an instrumentality which is all men to abandon their drunkennesses here significantly termed the armour of and dishonesties and impurities, or what light, because, in the utter inadequacy of themselves would all understand -and ad- those implements or faculties which we mit to be works of darkness. This is a ourselves possess, we require the use of voice which should be distinctly and other tools, other instruments of action audioly given forth at the first call of than these, that we may have power to the gospel, or first sound of the trumpet walk as children of light and of the day; which it lifts in the hearing of all men. or, which is tantamount to this, that we It is a work often done in fact at the bid- may have power to become the chiildrep ding of natural conscience, or on the still of God.t lower impulses of prudence and calcula- Still to cast off the works of darkness is tion-as when, to use a familiar phrase, to throw aside a great obstruction, which the profligate, making a pause in his if suffered to remain, would prove a fatal career, turns over a new leaf; or becomes, impediment to the access of all spiritual in the worldly sense of the term, a re- and saving light into our minds, It may formed man. Such a reformation is often be nothing more than a mere shaking of achieved without Christianity; but on the dead bones, ere the Spirit of life is the other hand, there can be no Christian- blown into us-that mere awakening of ity without such a reformation. And it the sinner, which is previous or preparais a reformation which should be peremp- tory to the act of Christ giving him light.t torily demanded of all enquirers at their It is an essential step, however, in the provery entrance on the way of life-as be- cess of our regeneration. There is a ing an indispensable part, or even pre- something to cast off, as well as to put on. liminary, of that movement by which men The former we should give our immediate pass out of darkness into the marvellous hand to. The latter we should give our.ight of the gospel. Else they are not immediate and earnest heed to. And it framing their doings to turn unto God.* may perhaps help to elucidate the singuThey are not turning unto Christ, if they lar expression,'armour of light'-if we are not turning from their iniquities.t It attend to the manner in which, under the is thus that the moral character of gospel economy of the gospel, the power of a beteaching should be vindicated and made liever to serve the Lord Christ is made to Hosea, v, 4. t Azts, iii, 26.' Acts, xxvi, 20. t John, i, 12. $ Ephesians, v, 11-14 LECTURE XCIV. —CHAPTERP XIII, 11-14. 48, statnd allied with his perception of the truth tion in our text, that the night is far spent its it is in Jesus. It is in the right views and the day is at hand. In particular, it of his understanding in fact, that his great should tell most emphatically on those who strength for obedience lies. And accord- have now entered the vale of years, and ingly we read of his being sanctified by may now regard themselves as walking faith, of his being renewed in knowledge, on the shores or along the brink of eterof' his receiving power to become a son nity. And if the righteous scarcely be of God on the moment of' his believing in saved-where shall the ungodly and sinthe name of C hrist. But our best explana- ner appear — an appalling thought truly, tion perhaps of the armour of light, which and most of all to such as him of whom in the verse before us we are called to Hosea speaks*-" Yea grey hairs are here put on-is to be had in Paul's description and there upon him, yet he knoweth it of the armourof God, which in his Epistles not:" " And they do not return to the to the Ephesians and Colossians we are Lord nor seek him for all this." These also called to put on; and where we learn premonitory symptoms of a dissolution, that the main furniture of a disciple, and and so of a reckoning at hand, fail to by which he is equipped for the work and alarm them; and so they go on in nature's warfare of Christianity, lies in such acts torpid infatuation, when they should be and acquisitions as are altogether mental, lifting this fearful cry —" The harvest is nay chiefly intellectual-as having our past, the summer is ended, and we are not loins girt about with truth, and our taking saved." the shield oc faith, and our putting on for Ver. 13.'Let us walk honestly, as in a helmet the hope of salvation, and our the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, having a constant respect unto the word, not in chambering and wantonness, not in with prayer for the Spirit, that in the strife and envying.' The term honest clear element of His manifiestations we is now of different meaning from what it ight be enabled rightly to discern and was at the time that our translation was to, make the right application of it-To executed. It then signified that which is which word therefore, we in the language seemly, decent, reputable. It bore an esoft Peter, should give earnest heed, as unto pecial regard to the aspect of our doings, a light that shineth in a dark place, until and so we are called on to provide things the day dawn and the day-star arise in honest in the sight of men. It is accordour hearts. ing to this. the proper and original sense or Before quitting this verse, it is well to the word, that we are here bidden to walk remark, that as even the most advanced honestly as in the day-that is, so as that Christians are required to be constantly our whole conduct shall bear exposure, nolding by and keeping in exercise their and be sustained as riespectable and right first faith-so there is a call upon them though lying patent to the observation of too to be ever practising at their first obe- all our fellows in society. There was a dience. For they too are still beset with mighty stress laid by our apostle on aptheir old temptations-insomuch, that if pearance-on the creditable bearing of his niot vigilant and jealous of themselves, disciples-on their character, not abso they may be precipitated back again into lutely and in itself only, but on their chathe most enormous and disgraceful works racter in the eyes of the world-Insomuch of darkness. The injunction therefore to that, all sensitive and alive to the honour cast off these is not yet superfluous, of his Master's cause, he wept over those although Paul here addresses himself to professors who gloried in their shame, and men who had long embraced the truth through whom the way of truth was evil and had long walked in it. There spoken of. It was obviously not as an is room for the utmost strenuousness end but as a means, that he so valued the even to the end of' our days-lest we good report of his converts-even that should fall short of heaven; or, at all their light might shine before men, and events, lest we should fall short of that men might of consequence be won to the rank in its blessedness and glory which gospel by their conversation. Thus alsc we might have otherwise attained. Nay Peter, in warning his converts agains there is a most grievous misunderstanding fleshly lusts, adds-" having your con. of the gospel, if we be not as diligent versation honest among the Gentiles; that and watchful and painstaking, as if whereas they speak against you as evil overhung by the risk or the possibility doers, they may by your good works. of losing heaven altogether. There was which they shall behold, glorify God in nothing in the orthodoxy of Paul that the day of visitation."f relaxed his self-discipline, and this too It is with this view that he first warns u Ider the apprehension lest he himself them against those vices which most shul, sliould turn out to be a castaway. With the light, and are peculiarly unfit for ex. tl ese views we can imagine nothing more a gent or impressive than the considera- Hosea, vii, 9, 10. 1 Peter' i, 12 61 482 LECTURE XCIV.-CIIAPTER XIII, 11 —14. hibition in the face of others-the vices specifically opposite, we are told by the of low and loathsome dissipation-drunk- apostle, to the lust of the flesh.* So that, enness and impurity-of so offensive a if the love of God were but admitted into description, that it was held a sore arra- the bosom, and had ascendency there, it vation of their wickedness who practised would not only cast out fear,t but would them, if thlle counted it a pleasure to riot cast out, or at least keep down lust also In the day-tinme. They are vices of inhe- When called to abandon lust, it is by rent turpitude in themselves; but it means of the sweetest and softest affecevinces a higher degree of moral hardi- tion of which nature is susceptible-and hood, when it was a turpitude in which that affection directed too to the best and men could glory —and highest of all, in an the noblest of all objects. Did we love ostensible disciple of the Lotrd Jesus, who God with all our heart, there would be nc could thus bring disparagement and dis- room in it for those base and foul an(. grace on that sacred cause which he was unhallowed imaginations, which in the bound by every tie of gratitude and sin- expressive language of the prophet, turn cerity to adorn. it into a cage of unclean birds. Under It is not, however, the object of Chris- such a regimen, instead of being frighttianity to conceal vice, but to exterminate ened from the indulgences of nature as it-not to give its disciples but the face by the scowl of an anchoret, we are and appearance of virtue, but to give gently yet irresistibly weaned from them them virtue in substance and reality-and as by the mild persuasions of a friend; so as that they shall glorify the Lord with and we feel it to be in beautiful accordtheir soul and spirit, as well as with their ance with this, that the apostolic dissuabodies. And it is worthy of remark, that, sives against licentiousness are so often for the achievement of this great moral couched in terms of so much endearment change, it proceeds-not in the style of an and tenderness. " Dearly beloved, I beascetic-that is, not in the way of exci- seech you, as strangers and pilgrims, absion, but in the way of substitution-Or, stain from fleshly lusts, which war against in other words, when it calls for the sacri- the soul." " Be ye therefore followers of fice or the expulsion of one affection, it is God, as dear children; and walk in love by replacing it with another-and not by as Christ also loved us, and hath given an act of simple dispossession, leaving himself for us an offering and a sacrifice the heart in a state of desolation and to God for a sweet-smelling savour. Budreariness. Even the disposition to mirth fornication and all uncleanness, or covet. it does not propose to extinguish, but ousness, let it not be once named among rather provides with the outgoing of a you." "Set your affection on things kindred exercise-Is any merry let him above, not on things on the earth." sing psalms, making melody in his heart "When Christ who is our life shall apunto the Lord. We can fancy it to be pear, then shall ye also appear with him another exemplification of the same de- in glory-Mortify therefore your mernsign, another specimen of the same bers which are upon the earth." reigning character-that when it charges He concludes his enumeration of those the disciples not to be drunk with wine works which are unfit for the light of day wherein is excess, it follows up the admo- with strife and envying-which in another nition, by telling them to be filled with place he ranks among the works of the the Spirit; and so to exchange the mad- flesh.t They belong to the malignant, dening influence of a mere animal excite- and not as the former to the licentions ment for another influence, glorious and vices of our nature —but like these too are elevating too, and fitted, though in a of such a character, as to shun the obhigher and holier way, to transport the servation of general society. This holds soul above the cares of a present sordid especially true of envy, of which all men and earthly existence. And as this holds dislike the exhibition; and which there true of the rioting and drunkenness, it fore is left to eat inwardly on him who is holds alike true of the habits or practices actuated thereby, because ashamed of which are specified immediately after-a showing it. Every strife, when it breaks thought suggested to us by the proximity forth in outrageous expressions. soon beof the advice given a few verses before, comes too much for the sympathy of our where the apostle subordinates all virtue fellows; and so restrains at least its utto the law of love, and would supplant all terance, or its deeds of open retaliation, vice by the same law. And certainly for the sake of decorum. There is a there is a high and holy and heavenly grossness in resentment, as well as a affection of love, which, if present and grossness in impurity-both of which repredominant within us, would most effec- quire to have a veil thrown over them, tually overrule, if not eradicate those even from this world's toleration; so that evil affections which war against the soul. The love of the Father is directly and 1 John, ii, 15, 16. t 1 John, iv, 1l, t Gal.; 2t Al. LECTURE XCIV.-CHAPTER XIII, 11-14. 483 over and above the spiritual propriety of exemplified and carried into effect. The denouncing and denominating all sins as active and the passive of this conjunct works of darkness, there is a natural or operation work most prosperously into social propriety in affixing this denomina- each other s hands; and the experience tion to the latter as well as the former of of' the apostle, who when he wvas weak the sins enumerated in our text. yet was he strong, reflects while it explains Ver. 14.'But put ye on the Lord Jesus the beautiful saying of the prophetChrist, and make not provision for the that in quietness and in confidence ye flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.' -But put shall have strength. A reposing confiye on the Lord Jesus Christ.' This figu- dence in Christ gives efficacy to prayer, rative expression is more readily con- and by the gratitude which it awakens, ceived by us as bearing application to the gives impulse to all the springs of obediimputed lrighteousness of Christ, rather ence. Creature perfection, says old than to the graces of His example. That Riccalton, lies in the habit of bringing everlasting righteousness which he hath our own emptiness to the fulness that is in brought in, is viewed by us under the Christ Jesus. image of' a garment, wherein we are in-'And make not provision for the flesh.' vited to appear before God, clothed upon' Provision.'* The word implies a fore. as it were, or invested with an order of casting of the mind; and the prohibition merit, won not by ourselves but by the therefore is against all deliberation or Captain of our salvation; and because devising of means or expedients for of which, God looks upon us, not in our the gratification of our lusts. These base own characters, but in the face of His affections of our nature may be excited anointed. There is undoubted truth in even involuntarily, on the sudden suggesall this-yet it hinders not the application tion or unforeseen presentation of the of the very same phrase, the putting on objects which awaken them. Even then of Christ, to the adornment of our per- it is our duty to shun these objects, tc sons with those identical virtues which turn our sight and our thoughts from made H;n to be chief among the sons of vanity, and so to flee the lusts which war men, and. altogether lovely Such a re- against the soul. But a far greater depresentation, beside that it is correct doc- pravity than thus to feel them, is it to go trinally, harmonises with the Scriptural forth upon them. One should be ever on expression of it-as when called to put the watch lest he is surprised into tempon the new man, to put on bowels of tation; but it evinces a greater height.mercies kindness, humbleness of mind, and hardihood of' profligacy to seek after meekness, long-suffering. And thus too, it, and when so far from a defensive vi"Be clothed with humility." gilance against the inroad of evil desires, And we confess our exceeding value for there is an aggressive vigilance in quest that view, which puts our sanctification of methods or opportunities for their inon the same footing with our justification, dulgence. He is a confirmed and adin that it subordinates both to our faith in vanced learner in the school of wickedChrist. We feel it to be a truth inestima- ness, who can thus in his cooler moments bly precious, that our personal holiness bestow care and calculation on such an is a thing received by us, and from the enterprise, and in short make a study of hands or at the giving of' another-just as the likeliest methods fo)rsecuring to himself our judicial acceptance is. It would the enjoyment of unhallowed pleasures; mightily speed onwards our practical and this is the pronoia, the unholy proviChristianity, did we habitually look unto dence, if it may be so termed, on which Jesus as the Lord our strength, as well as our text lays its interdict. the Lord our righteousness. The greatest But it is not against all pronoia, all res lesson we have to learn in the school of peCt to things future, even though the preparation for heaven, is the efficacy of futurities of this life, that the Bible warns believing prayer for grace to help us in us. Some might think so, because of such every time of need-that we might not texts as i" Take no thought for your life." only have His propitiation to shield us, "Tiake no thought, saying, what shall we but His power to rest upon us. Then eat." "'Take no thought for the morrow."t should we know what it is to strive Take no thought, merimrnna.t Not pronoia, mightily according to the grace of God but merimna-which latter word does not working in us mightily. The mystery properly mean thought, but anxious would come to be resolved, because then thought; and is accordingly better transexperimentally realised, of the utmost lated so in the following places. "But I Jiligence in performance along with the would have you without carefulness" — utmost dependence in praver-a happy not without thought, but without carefuil and fruitful combination, rmysterious to the general world, but not to the fellow- * HIlpov.sa. t Matthew, vi, 25, 31 34. workers with God, because by them 1 Corinthians, vii, 2 481 LECTURE XCIV.-CHAPTER XIII, 11-14. ness. And the same word is also thus introduced it at all into a popular exposi. rendered in Philippians, iv, 6-," Be care- tion of Scripture-had n(,t our quotation ful for nothing." We are not therefore from Matthew been one of those very few to imagine, that because told not to be passages in holy writ, where the emencareful or not to be thoughtful for to- dation of our present version is of ant morrow, we must take no thought of' to- real popular or practical importance. morrow at all. True, it were highly'Tofulfil the lusts thereof.' Although criminal to make provision for to-morrow's there is no word for fulfil in the original, lusts. But it is not unlawful on that ac- but is supplied by the translators-yet, count to make provision for to-morrow's as it is rightly supplied, we might here necessities. Nay, there is another part of remark on the difference between the the Bible in which we are told that it feeling of a lust and the fulfilment thereof. were highly criminal not to make such To feel a lust implies the presence of' sin provision. The pronoia of our text were in us. To fulfil a lust implies the power criminal, but not the proncdia (the word of sin over us. The one is the sad evithere too) of the following verse —" But deuce that sin still dwells in our mortal if any provide not for his own, and spe- bodies. The other is the far sadder evicially tir those of his own house, he hath dence that sin has still the dominion over denied the faith, and is worse than an in- them. When made, not of our own seekfidel."* We should not have adverted ing but by surprise, to feel an evil desire, thus minutely to the original Greek, or it is our part to flee from it. But greatly worse than to feel is to follow it; and' I Timothy, v, 8. worst of all is to provide for it. LECTURE XCV. ROMANS xiv, 1-16. Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that ne may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not judge him that eateth: for God hath received hini. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant'l to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up; for God is able to make him stantd. One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every mnan be fully persuaded inl his own mind. Ile that regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. IHe that eateth, eateth to the Iord, for he giveth God thalnks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth God thanks. For none of us liveth to himself and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the I ord: whether we live therefore, or die. we are the Lord's For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of' the dead and living. But why dost thou judge thy brother 1 or why dost thou set at nought thy brother' tor we shall all stand before the j udgment-seat of Christ. For it is writtet, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumblingblock, or an occasion to fall, in his brother's way. I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is unclean. [lut if thy brother be grieved with thy meat, now walkest thou not charitably. Destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died. Let not then-your good be evil spoken of."' THE church at Rome was made up of uniformity to harmonise their underpartly of Jews and partly of Gentiles; standings, so as that they should think and one great and obvious design of this alike; but he did attempt, by the mild epistle, as might be seen in various pas- persuasives of gospel charity, the far sages from the beginning to the end of it, likelier fulfilment of harmonisinog their was to reconcile them so far as that they spirits, so as that they should feel alike should be brought to one mind-if not in in their love and benignant toleration of [ll matters of' opinion, at least in mutual each other. Paul was pre-eminently and,iffection, which, when there happen to be characteristically a peace maker-up to!iversities of sentiment or practice, can- the limit within which peace was at all tot possibly be sustained without mutual practicable, or in as far as the high deforbearance. Their common faith, while mands of principle and purity would implying a full agreement in certain allow-for beyond that limit none more great and essential principles, did not unyielding, and none more uncompromissupersede the diversities here spoken of; ing than he. It was only as far as lay in and the object of Paul was not that in him, or as far as it was possible, that he these they should cease to differ, but that lived peaceably himself, or would recom. in these they should agree to differ. He mend others to live peaceably with all did n t vainly attempt by a stern decree men. He was first pure; and it was after LECTURE XCV.-CHAPTER XIV, 1-16. 485 ne had provided for this high interest-it youth and manhood, till they had become was then that he was peaceable. babes in Christ, and continued babes or This beautiful combination, this blend- were still in the childhood of their Chrising together of truth and charity, is more, tianity, at the time when his epistle to the Cully and intimately seen by us, as we i Romans was penned. We conceive that pass in detail over the successive verses J they would be chiefly the Gentiles who deof this truly catholic and enlightened spised such. Paul, and those of the Jews chapter. I who like him had had experience of the Ver. 1, 2.'Him that is weak in the trial, would we imagine, with a fellowfaith receive ye, but not to doubtful dis- feeling for the doubts and difficulties putations. For one believeth that he may which themselves had mastered, view eat all things: another, who is weak, their wveaker, but still their conscientious eateth herbs.' Who is meant by him that brethren, with respect and tenderness. is weak in the faith we learn from the se- Accordingly in arbitrating between the cond verse, where we are told that the weak weak and the strong, it is on the side of man was he who ate herbs-leaving us to the weak that his first apostolic deliverinfer, of course, that the strong man was he ance is given. Ile bids them be received who believed that he might eat all things. but not to doubtful disputations-to be reHe who was strong in the faith that Christ cognised on the footing of their common had fulfilled for him all righteousness, brotherhood in all the great and essential and left him nothing but the law of love principles of Christianity; but not to be would in very proportion to the force of harassed with contentious argumentation this conviction, feel exempted from the about those matters of indifferency, which scrupulosities of a mere formal or exter- with their yet abiding prejudices, were hal observation; and not only assert, not of indifterency to them. If' they had without compunction or fear, but also not the understanding to be convinced of live in the liberty wherewith Christ had the nullity, because now the expiration made him free. It was easier, however, of the Mosaic ceremonial-or at least if for the Gentile to do this than for the Jew, they could not attain such a strength of who had to overcome the prejudices of conviction as to displace their feelings on his early education and make a conquest the side of certain Hiebrew observances to over his yet lingering sensibilities on the which they still so fondly and tenaciously side of' what he had been taught to look clung, it was not the part of their brethren upon as right and religious in other days. to overbear these feelings, or even to anFor the genuine exhibition then of a noy them with vexatious controversies, at strong and enlightened conscience, we once endless and unfruitful. These are should look not so much to the Gentile what the apostle in his other writingschaconverts as to those Jewish disciples who racterises as vain janglings, and foolish did not judaise. And to them too should questions, and contentions, and strivings we look for greater tenderness towards about the law, which were unprofitable those mere sensitive of their brethren, and vain. What he inculcates, instead who felt themselves not able to surmount of these, is a discreet silence, and meanthe native partialities wherewith the recol- while a respectful toleration-in the conlections of their birth and of their here- fidence, we have no doubt, that with mild ditary worship had inspired them. They and patient forbearance, all would come would all the more readily sympathise right at the last. Hte felt as if' the irmporwith feelings in which they themselves tant gospel truths which they laid hold of, had shared-though with a struggle they would, by their own direct influence, dishad got the better of them. They could possess the mind of all itsJewish absurdimake greater allowance for these their ties and trifles. Seeing that at least the brethren in the flesh than could others; foundation on which they rested was and this is not the only example of first- sound, he trusted that the wood and hay rate men, the highest in strength and in- and stubble would at length be consumed.* tellect, being at the same time the most This is in perfect keeping with his treatgenerous in their indulgence to the in- ment of the disciples in other instances. tirmities of others. Paul, himself a con- They agreed in all that was essential, verted Jew, and who now regarded as else they could be no disciples of his; but superstitious that which he formerly held they did not therefore agree in all things as most bindingly and inviolably sacred- He knew however that they were in the he nobly interposes to throw the shield of faith, and so under the teaching of the his protection over those kinsmen and Spirit; and he trusted more to this countrymen of his who had embraced the thlan to the efficacy of any disputatious gospel, yet could not altogether and con- argument. And accordingly, instead clusively quit the dear associations which of attempting to force them all pre. had begun with their infancy, and were strengthened along the successive stages of ~ 1 Corinthians, iii, 11-15. 486 LECTURE XCV.-CHAPTER XIV, 1-16. niaturely into one way of thinking-he, God. It is not improbable that these ex, on certain matters of inferior moment, traordinary gifts were shared alike by left them very much to themselves, as he both parties-a lesson therefore to both lid those Philippians who were not yet of mutual respect and toleration. At all perfect in all their views —Telling them, events, they had the express authority of hat "if' in any thing ye be otherwise the apostle, who, in the first verse, bade minded God shall reveal even this unto the strong receive tne weak; and, in the you." Meanwhile he was satisfied if, third verse, tells the weak that God had with all their differences and shortcomings received the strong. And it is thus that in things of lesser consideration, his own he would guard the one party against paramount charity took but full posses- contempt of their fellows, and the other sion of them. "Nevertheless whereto we against censoriousness. have already attained, let us walk by the Ver. 5, 6.'One man esteemeth one day same rule, let us mind the same thing." above another: another esteemeth every This was admirable and exquisitely good day alike. Let every man be fully permanagement-the same indeed with that suaded in his own mind. He that reof our Saviour, who refrained from put- gardeth the day, regardeth it unto the ting new wine into old bottles; and, in- Lord; and he that regardeth not the day, stead of dogmatising His apostles either to the Lord he doth not regard it. He into truths or observances which they that eateth, eateth to the Lord, for he were not yet prepared for, spake to them giveth God thanks; and he that eateth only as they were able to bear it. It was not, to the Lord he eateth not, and giveth in this spirit that Paul treated his Jewish God thanks.' The same lesson is exconverts; and he wanted all who were tended to days, respecting the observance alike enlightened with himself to treat of which there obtained a like diversity them in the same way) of sentiment. The apostle brings the There are other general lessons envel- same enlarged and enlightened casuistry oped in this passage; but, before expa- to bear on both.* He wanted each man tiating any further on these, let me prose- to act in conformity with his own percute a little longer our examination of suasion, whatever that persuasion might particular verses. be-only he wanted each man to be fully Ver. 3, 4.'Let not him that eateth de- persuaded in his own mind. He did not spise him that eateth not; and let not him care so much about what the persuasion which eateth not judge him that eateth: specially was in such matters, as that for God hath received him. Who art thou the conduct should be agreeable thereto. that judgest another man's servant! to his He therefore forbore himself, and would own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, have his disciples to forbear also, from he shall be holden up; for God is able to all argumentation between the right and make him stand.' The apostle, in his the wrong persuasion in these matters; even-handed manner, deals alike with but held it imperative that as the persuaboth parties. After having told the strong sion, which he wanted to be as thorough that they should not despise the weak, he and decided as possible, so ought in all tells the weak that they should not con- consistency the performance to be. The demn the strong. Let not him that eateth persuasion might be wrong, but this were not judge him that eateth. In the state of only an obliquity of intellect. But if the his conscience, it were a profane thing in performance were not as the persuasion, him to eat-for this would be to eat what this were far more grievous —a moral obhe still thought was forbidden. But let liquity-sin against the light of a man's him not judge others who do not think so own conscience-the dereliction of' what in the same way. Let him not look upon he thought to be his duty towards God. them as profiane persons. though they To think in one way of God's will and should eat what he would religiously re- act in another, were to renounce the coil from. God has received, or taken authority of His will-an abjuration of them into acceptance. It is likely that the principle of living unto God —Whereas they had some palpable evidence of' this men might think diversely of that will, acceptance in the visible and extraocrdi- and yet the will of God be alike respected; nary gifts of that period-conferred on or the principle of living unto Him be some of those, who, in the full use of their alike retained and alike proceeded on by Christian liberty, looked on all meats as all. Paul generously grants the benefit alike: And so they might make out the of this fair and liberal allowance to both same conclusion for themselves that Peter parties in this controversy, whether of did respecting the Gentiles of the household of Cornelius, after that they had re- For our views in greater fulness cn the usau'try of ceived the Holy Ghost. Have a care then, meats and days, and certain other cognate qoueloLslest, in refusing fellowship with these, y(u see seven sermons, from the xii to the xvi. of ihe sec. eond volume of our I Congregational.Sermon s,' being the withstand or contravene the judgment of ninth volume of the Series. LECTURE XCV. —CHAPTER X1V, 1-16. 48" meats or of days. fhe Lord may be alike Christ still, whom to win he counts all the object of' regard with him who ob- things but loss. It is he and he only who serves the day and with him who ob- both lives unto the Lord and dies untc serves it not-or with him who eateth and the Lord-so that whether he live or die, him who eateth not. In the hearts of both he is the Lord's —it being his great aim, these IHis supremacy may be alike felt and that of all genuine disciples so to and recognised; and there may be a like labour, that, whether present or absent, devotedness to IIis service in the lives of whether living or dead, they may be acboth. cepted of Him. Ver. 7, 8.'For none of us liveth to him- Ver. 9.'For to this end Christ both felf, and no man dieth to himself. For died, and rose, and revived, that he might whether we live, we live unto the Lord; be Lord both of the dead and living.' and whether we die, we die unto the.ne naturally enquires here how it is, Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, that the death and resurrection of Christ we are the Lord's.' Paul, as his manner stand connected with His right of dois, stops at the passing suggestion which minion or lordship over both the dead had occurred in the course of his argu- and the living. That His death in partiment-to render homage, by the way as cular, gave Him a rightful sovereignty it were, to the principle which it embodied. over the living, is otherwise expressed by That principle is the entire surrender of the apostle in the following passage —" If the creature, in all his desires and doings, one died for all, then were all dead; and to the Creator who gave him birth. It he died for all, that they which live, is our part to make ourselves wholly over should not henceforth live u nto themselves, unto God. All true Christians, whether but unto him which died for them and the observers or not of meats and days, rose again." It is indeed a most rightful are alike in this; and cannot possibly be thing, that as He poured out His soul otherwise without the forfeiture of their unto the death for us, we should give up discipleship. Each real convert liveth our souls in absolute and entire dedicaunto God, and not unto himself'; and each tion to Him. By His death He purchased man dieth unto God, and not unto himself. us, and made us His own. We are His We think that there is a diffe'ence be- property, as bought with the price of His tween these two clauses, which, however blood;* and therefore it is our part to minute in expression, is worthy, in respect glorify the Lord with our soul and spirit of substance and meaning, to have per- and body, which are the Lord's.-And haps a greater stress laid upon it than is again, as to the effect of His resurrection, usually done. It is'none of us,' who we are told that Christ is the first fiuits liveth to himself; but it is' no man' who of them who slept-that because lHe liveth dieth to himself. None of us, none of the we shall live also-through death He household of faith, no real Christian, but destroyed him who had the power of who liveth unto God and not unto himself death and so, in virtue of the powel'-for at the commencement of his new wherewith He is now invested over healife he made a voluntary dedication of ven and earth, He can, in behalf of His himself unto God; and the constant, captives in the grave, open for them the while throughout the voluntary habit door of their prison-house, and make of this life, is to yield himself up in all them sit together with himself in heavenly things unto the will of God and not unto places, even around that throne of exalhis own will. Whereas universally no tation to which He has Himself been man dieth unto himself. When he dies raised-and this 1"that at the name of it is not by a voluntary act of his own; Jesus every knee should bow of things in but at the decree of God, to whose absolute heaven and things in earth and things disposal of him, whether at death or after under the earth; and that every tongue it, he must helplessly and passively give should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, himself over. When it comes to this, to the glory of God the Father." In this then it is true of every man without ex- and many other Scriptures, there is enough ception, that he can have no choice, but of harmony with the verse before us-to is wholly in the hands of God —if not a explain the dependence here stated beChristian to be judged, and consigned by tween, on the one hand, the lordship of Ihim as a vessel of wrath to the place of Christ over both dead and living, and everlasting condemnation; and if a Chris- His own death and own revival, upon the tlan to be judged by Him, but that in other. in order to his preferment as a vessel of Ver. 10-13.'But why dost thou judge mercy in the realms of everlasting bles- thy brother? or why dost thou set at sedness and glory. It is only, however, nought thy brother? for we shall all the dying of the Christian that is of a stand before the judgment-seat of Christ. piece with his living. If with him to live is Chl ist with hirm also to die is gain, or 1 Peter, i, 19. 488 LECTURE XCV.-CHAPTER XIV, 1-16. For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, our province-although there be another every knee shall bow to me, and every judgment which Paul does allow us ta tongue shall confess to God. So then exercise, and which indeed he himself every one of us shall give account of him- exemplifies-the judgment not of ano. self to God. Let us not therefore judge ther's character, but of our own duty-the one another any more: but judge this duty, not of pronouncing on] what others rather, that no man put a stumblingblock, are, but of performing what we owe to or an occasion to fall, in his brother's them, and owe them too in this very way.' The consideration stated in these malter. No doubt he tells us authoritaverses is so very obvious, and put so tively what this duty is; but he leaves us clearly and conclusively, that it requires at liberty to form our own judgment in no lengthened illustration on our part. It regard to the real truth and principle of had indeed been already put-in the the question, and to act accordingly. We fourth verse —' Who art thou that judgest are free to judge, whether we should eat another man's servant? to his own nas- or not; but he lays it down as our clear ter he standeth or falleth.' It really does and imperative obligation not to eat, if not belong to us —it is not ours-thus to thereby we are to put a stumblingblock be judging and censuring one another. or an occasion to fall in our brother's Speak not evil then one of another, and.way. None more tolerant than Paul in judge not thy brother-for thou thyself thinks doubtful or insignificant-yet art but a doer of' the law, and not a none more peremptory or uncompromisjudge. Your business with the law is to ing than he, when once the light of a obey it, not to judge out of it. Who art clear and great principle breaks in upon thou then that judrgest another'?* The him. IHimself the strongest of the strong, reason given by the apostle last quoted he was yet the most indulgent of all men for not reckoning with, arid not grudging to the infirmities of the weak; nor can against one another, is, that the coming we imagine a more rare and beauteous of the Lord draweth nigh, and that the combination than was realised by our Judge is at the door.f The habit of sit- apostle, who, without disturbance either ting in judgment on each other, so preva- to his enlightened conscience or manly lent not only in the world at large, but in understanding, could eat fireely of all sorts the professingly religious world, is a pe- of food-yet would eat no flesh while the culiarly dangerous one-because it pecu- world standeth, lest it should make his liarly exposes us, and that in the way of brother to offend.* reaction or recompence, to the judgment Ver. 14-16.'I know, and am persuadof God. And accordingly we are told to ed by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing judge not "that we be not judged;"t and unclean of itself: but to him that esteemthat if we will judge others, we must not eth any thing to be unclean, to him it is think that ourselves shall "escape the unclean. But if thy brother be grieved judgment of God;"Q and finally, that we with thy meat, now walkest thou not should abstain from this practice, lest charitably. Destroy not him with thy ourselves " be condemned."ll But the meat for whom Christ died. Let not then consideration urged here is not properly your good be evil spoken of.' Paul here the danger of it, but rather, if I may so asserts his own right of judgment on the speak, the impertinence or the presump- absolute merits of the question, and tells tion of it. It is intruding on the office of us the result of it-even the persuasion, another-an office wherewith tle and He nay more positive than this, the knowalone has been invested; and which it is ledge that no meat was unclean in itself. competent for Him only to discharge. In He further tells us, that he was so perthe language of the Psalmist-when we suaded by the Lord Jesus-yet so unesthus venture on a function so sacred and sential was this persuasion, so unimporso lofty, we really are meddling with a tant the point in question, that the same matter too high for us.~I It is really not Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our for us, who ourselves are to be sisted at faith, did not interdict him from allowing the bar of judgment, thus to usurp the to others the liberty of thinking differentplace of its tribunal, and take the judg- ly. And accordingly at the very time of ment upon ourselves. This is the exclu- giving forth the sentence, and on the sive office of Him, before whom every highest of all authority, that there is knee is to bow and every tongue to con- nothing unclean of itself, he yet leaves fess; and our right place is that of them others at liberty to esteem any thing unwho do this homage, not of' Him who clean. We are not sure, if anywhere else receives it. This sort of judgment there- in Scripture, the divine authority of' tolefore, the judgment of others, is not within ration is so clearly manifested; or sodis.. tinct a sanction given to a certain amount James, iv 11, 12. t James, v, 9. T Matt. vii, 2. l Romans i, 3. U James, v, 9. T Ps. cxxxi 1.' 1 Corinthians, viii,..3. LECTURE XCV.-CHAPTER XIV, 1 —16. 489 ot liberty in opinion-even though it them for the accomplishmtnt uf certain shou.d be branded as latitudinarianism by rites prescribed by the law —these things those strainers at a rigid uniformity, who, he did under the influence of the first as appears from this whole chapter, consideration, "because of the Jews which might carry their intolerance too far. were in these quarters," as we read in Even at the expense of absolute, though one place; and in the spirit of charitable not, it would appear, of indispensable accommodation to "the many thousands truth, were men allowed to think of meats of the Jews which believe," as we read that they were unclean-and this in the in another. Paul was quite satisfied that face of the apostolic deliverance that on all such questions, the Gentiles should they were not unclean. But while Paul let alone the Jews; and that the Jews, on suffered them to think so, he made it im- the other hand, should let alone the Genperative, that, if they thus thought, so tiles. But when the Jews, not content also should they act. They were at lib- with a toleration for themselves, turned erty to think any particular meat unclean; upon the Gentiles, and would compel but, so thinking, they were not at liberty them "to live as do the Jews"* —then it to use it. This would have been to sin was that the influence of the second conagainst the light of their own minds-to sideration came into play. And so the trample on the high prerogatives of con- same Paul who circumcised Timothy,. science, which, even though mistaken, and purified himself according to the does not therefore forfeit the supreme au- ritual of Moses,t and that because of true thority which belongs to it. brethren, who advised this deference to' But if thy brother be grieved with thy the Jews that he might not grieve or dismeat, now walkest thou not charitably'- turb their consciences-would not suffer or better and more impressive to the Eng- Titus to be circumcised,} and that because lish reader-now walkest thou not in of false brethren, who would have made love. We are aware of nothing more at- this deference to the Jews an occasion for tractive or amiable than the way in which bringing the Gentiles into bondage. To Paul lets himself down to the weak; or them he gave place by subjection, no not than the flexibility of his accommodation for an hour, and this for sake of "the to the harmless peculiarities even of' the truth of the gospel." Nay, when Peter perverse and erring —all the more en- gave way in so fiar to this scheme of comgaging in that when the slightest inroad pulsion, Paul withstood him to the fatcewas offered upon essential principle, none and this again for' the truth of the gosmore resolute or inflexible in withstanding pel." A generous and voluntary complit than he. The explanation of these two ance with Jewish scrupulosity is one different, though by no means opposite or thing; a forced compliance with Jewish inconsistent aspects, in the mind of our intolerance is quite another. Paul would great apostle, seems to be this. He, on have yielded the former, because he felt the one hand, a strong man himself; could for those whica were of the circumcision, be all respect and indulgence to the weak; anrd is therefore to be applauded. Peter and he pressed upon others strong as he would have yielded the latter, because he was, the duty of being alike respectful " feared them which were of the circumand alike indulgent. But should these cision," and is therefore "to be blamed." weak, on the other hand, not satisfied We can never sufficiently admire the with this full allowance to themselves of honourable and consistent way which our their own peculiarities, impose these pe- great apostle found out for himself; when culiarities on others as essential to salva- pressed with difficulties on the right hand tion, and thus derogate from the sufficiency and on the left. WVhen holding question and the power of what Paul had all along with those of his countrymen who were and most zealously contended for as the burdened with their own weak and alone ground of our acceptance with God, wounded consciences, Paul knew how to even the righteousness of Christ made be meek and harmless as a dove. When ours by faith —then what he most freely holding question with those of his counand generously conceded to the infirmities trymen, who, intent on judaising the of others, he would not, even by the whole Christian world, would have laid minutest fraction, yield to their intole- the burden of their ritual upon others, rance. The one he could do, for this and thus infringed on the great doctrine were but an exercise of pity. The other of justification by the faith of Christ and he could not do, for this were a surrender not by the works of the law-then Paul of principle. And thus it is that acts of knew how both to be wise as a serpernt seenling contrariety in the life and minis- and bold as a lion. As the exhibition of try of Paul admit of being fully harmo- a well-balanced mind, there are few nised. When lie circumcised Timothy for example, and purified himself along Galatians, ii, 14. t Acts, xvi, 3. with the four men who had a vow upon tActs, xxi, 26. ~ Galatlans, ii, 3,, 62 9 0 LECTURE XCV.-CHAPTER XIV) 1-16. things mo,'e a Imirable than this: Nor, " liberty for an occasion to the flesh"* after Him who is the great Pattern of all And it is added, " but by love serve oitr righteousness, is there any scriptural another." Now they were violating this character in which the best qualities of love, if to please themselves they were our nature are more gracefrllly and har- either grieving or hurting the consciences moniously blende d; or where the noble of' their brethren. And so there was a conjunction of' truth with mercy, of firm- limit or a discretion to be observed in the ness with gentleness, is more conspicu- exercise of' this liberty —a liberty which ously realised. ought never to be indulged, either for the It is on the side of tenderness that he gratification of their own licentiousness, appears at present; and in behalf of a or in opposition to that love which they distress wherewith he of' all others could owed to others. most readily and delicately sympathise- And the reason given in our text supthe distress of' an afflicted conscience. plies anotherlimitation. They should not Let not thy brother be grieved with thy unnecessarily expose this good to be evil meat. The mere spectacle of' what he spoken of-even though the evil should deems to be a profane violation is fitted be spoken of it falsely, or undeservedly. to give him pain. Or if brought into a We learn from 1 Corinthians, x, 30-that state of afflbiguity on this question of the eating of certain things, such as what meats, between the influelnce of his own had been offered unto idols, was liable to Jewish education, that would lead him to be thus spoken of; and so along with the abstain, and the infln!ence of Christian liberty of the gospel, the gospel itself was example, that would lead him to indulge slandered, and Christianity made to suffer -the very conflict is painful. But worse at the hands of its own ftiends. It than painful, it might come to be destruc- should be felt enough surely, if this liberty tive, should the authority of this example mninister peace to our own consciences; overbear him into a premature compli- and it is a most unthankful return on our ance against the light of his own con- part, if we so parade it befbre the eye of science, not yet sati.stied. In the one way others-as toexcite'prejudice and calumny you grieve, in the other you would de- thereby against the truth that is in Jesus. stroy him-destroy him whom Christ died We might well surely deny ourselves to save. Surely a little self-denial on our somewhat for the good of' the church and part is not too mucn to malintain the safety the advancement of godliness among men. of the object for which Christ gave Him- " Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or self up unto the death. whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of'Let not then your good be evil spoken God. Give none offence, neither to the of.' He is addressing himself to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church strong; and the good he here means, of God. Even as I please all men in all their especial good, was the liberty where- things, not seeking mine own profit, but with Christ had made them free. This the profit of many, that they may be liberty was liable to be perverted and saved." abused in various ways. For example, they had to be warned not to use this Galatians, v, 13. LECTURE XCVI. ROMANS Xiv, 17. As For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost."'Joy in the Holy Ghost.' In the high joys or exercises of a believer, no common and hidden walk of a Christian's experi- feeling, and even no common understand. ence, there is much that looks very inac- ing with Christ's peculiar people, in ought cessible to the eye of tile general world. that distinguishes this class of men from And it is evident, that just in proportion the/ rest of the species; and so they keep to their sense of its mystery and exceed- at a distance from these saintly and select ing remoteness, will be their own hope- few, just as they would from any outlandlessness of ever realising it. They regard ish society with whose tastes and gratifiit as something of too recondite, too lofty cations they had no possible sympathya nature, for them to think of aspiring either taking refuge in the thought, that after. They have no fellowship with the it is all a fanatical imagination-or if it LECTURE XCVI.-CHAPTER XIV, 17. 49. De indeed a reality, that it is a reality not speak of this joy as a thing that is per which lies at so wide a separation from sonally and practically their own. They themselves, as to mock their every effort cannot specify an occasion of their histo. tolay hold of it. ry that has been at all brightened by it It must be quite obvious, that in these They have no distinct imagination of r,ircumstances it is most unwise needless- what it is; and altogether it is even to them ly to aggravate this impression which that matter of strangeness and of secrecy men have of the gospel, as of a hopeless which they do not recollect ever to have and impracticable mystery-for this will shared in. They would like to know only widen their separation fiomr it the about it-for as yet, we doubt not, the more. It is not for the friends of Christi- conceptions of many even of these are anity to give it more of a transcendental vague and unsatisfactory; and therefore, air and character than what natively be- to help the understandings even of the longs to it-for this would be to check zealous and declared orthodox upon this the approaches of the yet uninitiated, who topic, as well as to reconcile to the uttermight thus be (leterred from the enter- most those who look upon our faith as prise of ever scaling those heights which little better than that of mystics and seem so awful, or of penetrating those ob- visionaries, we should like that as much scurities which seem to cloud. the sum- of elucidation as possible could be shed mits, or to gather and to settle among the upon a theme that is either now-a-days deep recesses of experimental religion. very little thought of, or regarded in the Whatever can be made plain and palpa- light of a wild and fanciful illusion. ble to the world at large, should be made It may perhaps tend to a certain degree to stand out in full exhibition before to dissipate the mystery, if you advert to them; and nothing that is unnecessary a distinction which I shall now propose or uncalled for should be said, which can to you. Joy in the Holy Ghost may be augment their conception, either of' the either ajoy in HIis directly felt presence gospel as a thing that lies beyond the within you; or it may be a joy in the range of all ordinary apprehension, or of work which HIe has done within you its disciples as of those who are kept to- Now the first of these conceptions is far gether by some secret tact that is incom- more mysterious than the second of them municable to all other men-the spell of We shall not now enquire, whether His a magic or a masonry, that can only be presence, as a visitor or indweller, is ever known or guessed at by themselves. felt directly-whether he is ever recogWe are sensible, however, that with nised to be in our hearts by any immedievery effort at the explanation of Chris- ate feeling or immediate perceptiontian truth, there will remain on the minds whether, in short, the first conception is of all who are not Christians an impres- ever realised in the experience of any sion of its mystery. The distinction will Christian below. Instead of knowing still be kept up between the children of Him to be present in the way of contact light and the children of this world; and or of His immediately felt and perceived the former will appear to the latter as if residence within us, His presence in the they spoke in an unknown language. soul of the believer may only be inferred, There will be little community of thought not from His contact with the hu man spior of feeling betwixt them; and however rit, but from His work upon the human desirable to make the most of any right spirit. And so this joy in the Holy Ghost approximation that is at all possible, yet might mainly resolve itself into joy bewe are not to expect but that, in the whole cause of the truths which He has revealed cast and habitude of their understandings, to the eye of the understanding, and joy the two societies of the church and the because of the virtues which He has im world will ever be widely apart from each pressed upon the character. other. Let us take these two in order-dwell. These are the first reflections which ing very briefly on the first; and reservour text has given rise to-for we are not ing our chief attention for the second of aware of any that is more removed be- these particulars. yond the limits of all common and earth- 1. First then, there is a joy felt in the ly experience. We even fear that among belief and contemplation of the truths those who profess a stricter and more se- impressed on our conviction by God's rious Christianity, this joy in the Holy Holy Spirit. Thus far the joy is not some Ghost is seldomn realised; and that how- mistaken afflatus which you can give no ever much it may be in harmony with account of. You can distinctly lell what their doctrinal speculations, they have. it is. There is a palpable thing which little or no experimental feeling of it. the Spirit has enabled you to lay hold This is a topic on which, if they have any of. lie has taken of the things of doectrine at all, it is at least a doctrine that Christ and showed them unto you. More has outstript their experience. They can- particularly, He has shed a clearness or 492 LECTURE XCVI.-CHAPTER XIV, 17. the efficacy of the atoning blood; and Ghost is the Spirit of' God; and wvhether though He has let you know that you are that Spirit take up its residence within a very great sinner, IIe has also let you our hearts or not-whether or not it abides know that Jesus Christ is a very great substantively there-whether it be in us Saviour. That truth to which you were as an essence, or only as a quality-still aforetime blind, Ile, by opening your eye, it is thought by many enough to warrant has made you to see; and it is such a the gospel affirmation, that Christians truth as you cannot but rejoice in. He have the Spirit of God if they have has caused you both to see a truth, and to barely the characteristics of that Spirit hear a tenderness, in that gospel voice fixed and delineated upon their own moral which issues from the mercy seat; and nature. And so in the estimation of many as surely as when the hostility of the best to have the Spirit of God, is just to have and powerfullest of your earthly acquain- a character kindred to that of God, just tances is turned into friendship, you can- as in common language we may say of not but be glad-so surely will you feel one man that he has in him the soul of a gladness, so soon as made to behold, Newton, if he have the like taste and talthat the God who challenges iniquity and ent for philosophy-or that he has the cannot bear it in His presence, has be- spirit of some great statesman, if animatcome God in Christ, reconciling the world ed by the same patriotism-or of some to Himself, and not imputing unto them great warrior, if actuated by the same their trespasses. The man who is tost thirst for the hazards and excitements of and distracted because of the dangers the contest —And so to have the Spirit of and the fears which encompass him, when God, is regarded as tantamount, not to freed from these and so translated into having that very Spirit within the receppeace, vividly feels a joy along with it. tacles of your bosom, but to your having Now this peacee is of the Spirit's working, a spirit there which is like unto His-and just because the truth from which the thus to have the Holy Spirit only designs peace did emanate is of the Spirit's teach- you to be a holy creature, or that you ing. He teaches it through the word, by have within you the spirit of holiness. opening our eyes to the reality of Scrip- Now certain it is, in the first instance, ture. And so the joy which is felt be- that this view of the mrn(tter tends to allecause of the first ingredient of Heaven's viate the mystery, and reduces the dockingdom that is specified in our text, even trine of God's Spiuit being in man to a because of the peace into which the sinner something, which those of merely- secular has been translated-this joy may be re- or literary habits of conception can easily garded as entering into the third ingre- understand. If by having the Spirit of dient of that kingdom, even joy in the Ho- God within us, there is nothing more ly Ghost. meant, than that our spirit is kindred to II. But secondly. There is a joy in the that of God-there is in this affirmation Holy Ghost because of the virtues which nought of that miraculous sort of aspect He has impressed upon the character. which provokes the incredulity of nature. there too there is something tangible, that It is simply assigning to our mind the furnishes, as it were, a material for our character which it happens to possess; joy. The Holy Ghost works virtue in the ants it must nloreover be admitted, that character of him upon whom he operates; whether a silnilarity between our spirits and joy in this virtue is joy in the Holy and that of Godl be the whole doctrine or Ghost. Here is another abatement then, not-this similarity is allowed by all to on the supposed mystery of this affection; be the undoubt(ed effect of that inhabitaand though we cannot go along with those tion by the HIoly Ghost of man as His who term themselves rational Christians, dwelling-place, and man as His temple and would expunge all mystery from the which many, and we think soundly and doctrines of the gospel-yet we hold it scripturally, do contend for. The great most undesirable that any of its truths object in fact of the Spirit's desceent upon should be enveloped in greater mystery earth, and of His assuming as the place than properly belongs to them; and, on the of His occupancy this one man and that other hand, most desirable, that all should other, is to impress upon them the very _' made as plain to the understanding, as image and character of' God. lie bloweth the actual state of revelation, and the pos- where He listeth, but the design of it is to sibilities of human knowledge and com- inspire every one whom HIe so listeth prehension will allow. WVe are aware of with the very virtues of the Godheadone expedient which we cannot go along and so there is one view according to with, and by which it has been attempted which this joy in the Holy Ghost is really to make the whole of that theology which not at all unintelligible nor ought it to relates to the visitation and indwelling of stir up that incredulity which a feeling the Holy Ghost more palatable to the in- of the marvellous and the incomprehensitellect of he natural man. The Holy ble so often brings along with it. It is LECTURE XCVI. —CHAPTER XIV, 17. 493 simply that direct joy which we have in and in the very moment when they were the possession and the exercise of virtue. rejoicing in His work, they may not have Joy in the Holy Ghost is the joy that been at all sensible that they were rejoic. naturally- and constitutionally as it were, ing in Himself. Nevertheless it is even attaches to the spirit of holiness. If it be so. There is a joy in the Holy Ghost not pleasure in the immediate fellowship which is not more inexplicable than the of God's Spirit-it is at least pleasure in joy that every Christian feels in the play its fruits, all of which are sweet unto the and exercise of his good affections-in taste, and have in them what may be the good-will that moves him kindly tocalled a moral fragrance that ministers wards one —in the gratitude that draws deligiht to the higher senses and faculties him in loving regards and services to of our nature. There is an instant grati- another-in the virtuous triumphs of temfication to the heart in its own aspirations perance or purity, when the eye has of love and purity and heaven-born sa- closed itself against some ensnaring credness; and if these indeed come from temptation, or when a victorious resistance the Spirit, then it is a gratification in has been made to it-in the fervour of what le hath done and wrought upon us, those more saintly and celestial exercises, and this is joy in the Holy Ghost. We when the soul enters into communion may not be able to recognise His direct with its God; and just as the eye delights presence in our bosoms; but if' we rejoice itself with all that is graceful or engaging in the virtues which He hath implanted in the scenery of nature so is the spiritual there, then it may truly be said that in eye regaled when it expatiates over the Him we rejoice. And thus there may be graces of that moral imagery which many who have realised this affection, stands revealed on the character of the and yet perhaps have hitherto conceived Godhead. It is thus that there may be a that they were strangers to it; and just joy in the Holy Ghost even when He is because they were looking for something not thought of in His personality, or in else. They have perhaps been thinking the power of His influence upon the huall along, that ioy in the Holy Ghost was man spirit. It is a very possible thing to a felt and conscious delight, from fellow- be under an influence, and at the very ship with a visitor within of whose per- time when the influence itself is not at all sonal agency and indwelling they had the object of contemplation. The mind some mysterious access to know —other- may in truth be busied with other objects. wise than by the fruits of his operation, It may be thinking only of God or of' man otherwise than by the graces and virtues or of duty; or of those precious truths on which he imprest upon the character. which hang the salvation of the sinner, Now should it so happen, that He is only and his obligation to a life of sacredness known by His fruits-should the presence -and the only delight whereof it may be of God's Spirit in the soul, instead of conscious, is the delight that it has in enbeing a matter of direct consciousness, be tertaining these, and in feeling virtuously only a matter of inference from the graces of these. Yet still, it may be true that it and the virtues that be engraven upon the is both the Holy Ghost who hath introsoul, then when rejoicing in them we may duced him to a luminous view' of the in fact be rejoicing in the Holy Ghost. objects, and who hath awakened in him There are some, we are persuaded, who all the good and corresponding emotions; have experienced this affection without and so, while to all sense he is occupied knowing it. They have breathed a holy with virtue alone, and the joy that is felt and a heavenly delight in prayer. They by him is therefore a joy in virtue-yet have felt a lofty and ethereal transport in nevertheless it is the Spirit that has orithe contemplations of sacredness. They ginated and sustains the whole; and his have experienced how good a thing it is joy in virtue is joy in the Holy Ghost. to draw near unto God, and in the beati- According to Ihis view of it then, joy in tudes of intercourse with Him as their the Holy Ghost is joy in holiness; and it Friend and reconciled Father, they have appears by our text to be one ingredient often tasted upon earth of those very be- of the kingdom of heaven. By partaking atitudes which shall be perfected in hea- of the Spirit of God, we are made to ven. They have had the dawn upon partake in the virtues of the Godhead; their spirits even here of that ecstacy and the joy in question is a joy in these which lies in an affection for the God- virtues. It is just such delight as the nead; and in the outflowings of a kindred Eternal Himself has in the view and in love towards their brethren of the species, the conscious possession of His own exthey have also felt that there is a native cellence-that primeval delight which and most exhilarating joy. Now during cometh out of the inseparable union that the whole of this experience they may obtained from everlasting between goodnot have adverted to the Spirit as at the ness and happiness-realised by the Mind Lime dwelling and operating within them; of the Divinity, and reproduced in the 494 LECTURE XCVI. —CHAPTER XIV 17. minds in which He has stamped the like- characteristic enjoyments of paradise from ness of His own character. There may all those secondary or subordinate enbe no way of recognising the power of an joyments wherewith we fancy it to be agent within your heart, but by the effects peopled; and again to assure you that of his agency. There may be no way of the ecstacy of these ethereal abodes lies ascertaining that the hand of a worker not in heaven's music, or heaven's splen. has been there, but by his handiwork; dour, or any adaptation between the maand all the pleasure which many a Chris- terialism of heaven and the glorified tian feels in the Holy Ghost may be senses of those who are admitted to its nothing more than the pleasure that is transports and its triumphs. The joy in felt in those moralities of the heart, into the Holy Ghost which will be enhanced which he has been renewed, and which and perfected there, and of which we are the traces of the Spirit's operation. have a foretaste here, is the joy which If you want to ascertain whether ever God Himself has in holiness. He delights you had the joy of our text, it is surely in His own Spirit, in its graces, in its atindispensable that you fix and determine tributes, in all the beauteous and venerawhat sort of thing it is. You may other- ble characteristics which belong to it; wise be led upon a wrong track of' en- arnd by imparting to us of this Spirit, He quiry; and droop into despondency be- gives us the very materials of that delight cause you have not met with an evidence which constitutes His own essential and that is no where to be found. In regard unchangeable happiness. to the Spirit of God, you neither hear HIis In other words, the joy of heaven is voice, nor do you see His shape; and you mainly and substantially speaking, a cannot tell whence it cometh nor whither moral, a spiritual joy; and if the greatest it goeth. But you may know Him by His happiness lie in the enjoyment of what fruits; and if these fruits do indeed regale we most love, then the best definition that your moral appetite for goodness and can be given of the happiness of immortalrighteousness and truth-if' obedience be ity, is that it consists in the enjoyment of the fruit; and you feel that in this obedi- righteousness by those whose nature it is ence, as in the keeping of the command- supremely to love righteousness. To ments, there is a great reward-if glad- them the most delicious harmony by ness have sprung up in your heart along far is that moral harmony which they with the graces of the new creature-if feel to be within their own heart, where you have ever tasted that to be in a holy righteousness hath taken up its secure is to be in a happy frame; and that to and everlasting possession; and to them breathe in a religious atmosphere is of the most glorious of all splendour is that itself to breathe in an atmosphere of purest splendid righteousness wherewith, among delight-This perhaps is all the evidence the angels and saints and hosts both of the that you have a warrant to look for; and redeemed and the unfillen, they are every instead of expecting a joy in the Holy where encompassed. But chiefly will they Ghost analogous to that which one has in have joy in the city of the living God, bepersonal intercourse with a friend-in- cause God Himself is there; and the light stead of beholding any direct manifesta- of' His manifested countenance will be the tion of HIis presence within you, you may light thereof. It is because of the worth never on this side of time be admitted to and the goodness and the moral grace and see more than the marks of' His perform- grandeur that radiate direct upon their ance upon you-And we repeat, that if view from the aspect of the Divinity-it is you have ever felt a joy in the meekness because of the high and the holy perfecand the godliness and the love and the tions of virtue which sit enthroned in the temperance and the purity which it is His place where His honour dwelleth-it is beoffice to impress upon the soul, this may cause of the sympathy which through the be joy in the Holy Ghost-this may be Spirit given to us is felt in our own bosom the very joy that you are in quest of. with the virtues of the Godheadl, and the And by urging this upon you, I have love wherewith He rejoices over those another obtject in view than to guide you creatures on whom He hath imprest the aright in the pursuit of evidence. I should lineaments of His own holy nature, reflectlike to take an opportunity now of ex- ed back again by them on that primary pounding to you the real essence of excellence from which all their holiness is heaven's blessedness. This joy in the derived-It is because of these moral eleHoly Ghost is an ingredient of the king- ments that the joy of paradise is full. All dom of heaven; and you cannot be too there have a godlike virtue, and therefore pointedly or repeatedly told-that what it is that their happiness is godlike. constitutes your happiness there, is that And it would at once purify your wvhich-has constituted the happiness of thoughts of heaven, and deliver the work the Godhead from all eternity. I want of your preparation for it from all taint you to separate in thought the main ana of legalism, could you but clearly,inder LECTURE XCVI.-CHAPTER XIV, 17. 495 stand that the great object of the economy adoption and of glorious liberty-It is under which you sit is to make you like thus that the joy of my text arises in the both in character and in enjoyment to disciple's bosom; and while even here it God. Just think what it is that forms forms an ingredient of heaven's kingdom, Hlis motive to righteousness. Just make it is also the best presage of that eternal out a distinct reply to the one question- heaven which is awaiting him. whilether is God righteous because of a law Such views, ift' more cherished and of righteousness that is over Him, or be- more proceeded on, would do away every cause of the love to righteousness that is imagination of an antinomianisrl in the in Him 1 He it is obvious, is under no gospel ofJesus Christ. Theendof that goslaw and is responsible to no jurisdiction. pel is not to set aside human virtue, but alAny act of virtue in Him is not an act of together to purify and to raise it. It is to deference to any authority-nor is it in set aside an old( economy, by which virtue submission to the control or the cogni- was prescribed; but under which it besaulce of any superior. When He does came an ignoble thing, and gathered upon what is right, it is not because He is so its whole aspect a taint of' merceary sorbidden, but because to his taste there is a didness. And it is to substitute a new beauty and a beatitude in rightness. The economy in its place, under which virtue, virtue that is observed as a thing of cornm- so fa'r from being expunged, is animated mandment, is of a character wholly dis- by the very spirit and brightened into similar and distinct from the virtue that is those very hues of loveliness wherewith indulged in as a thing of native and spon- it is irradiated in the sanctuary of the taneous delight. Now God is not the sub- Eternal. It is to exalt the selfish and lowject of a comrlan(lment. All that He does born morality of earth into the sacredness is not of constraint from without, but of of' heaven; and not to extort the oli-;rings choice from within: and wvhen righteous- of reluctance and fear, but to inspire at ness, firom a matter of constraint becomes the very time that it bids the services of a matter of' choice, it instantly changes its an affectionate and willing obedi(tence. I whole nature, and rises to a higher moral do not ask, if you erever rejoic(d in the rank than before. It is impossible that Spirit of God felt as if personniily alive God can be at all moved by the authority and present in your bosom. This is a test of a law, or that the fear of its reckoning of' your disciple-ship, to which I fet'ar that or its vengence can have any weight upon few if any of this, and very few of any Him. And so we, in proportion as we corngregation whatever, could respond. are like unto God, are dead unto the law But I ask, if you ever rejoiced in tile law -that is, dead to a sense of its threaten- of God, felt to be that pure and righteous ings-dead to all feeling of compulsion- and elevated thing whlich the Psalmist delivered from every impression of a su- professed to be his delight and meditation perior standing over us, and overbearing all the day. This is a test that I do insist our own pleasure by His resistless prerog- upon; and if not a joy in the direct feelative arid power. But the same God ing of' the Spirit's presence, it is at least whom it is impossible to move by law's a joy in the fruit of the Spirit's power. authority, moves of' His own proper and It is all the length to which I feel waroriginal inclination in the very path of ranted to carry my explanation; and a the law's righteousness. And so again, length to which, if there be any here we in proportion as we are like unto God, present who has practically come, we are alive to the virtues of that same law, can at least promise to himn the blessedto the terror of whose severities we are ness of the man who delighteth greatly in altogether dead. We are no longer under the commandments. a schoolmaster. Our obedience is changed In our first helad, we spake of the joy from a thing of force into a thing of free- that is felt on our believing the truths of ness. It is moulded to a higher state and the gospel, and more especially the truth character than before. We are not driv- of God's reconciliation to us in Christ en to it by the rod of authority. We are Jesus. We are glad because of peace drawn to it by the regards of a now will- betwixt us and God; and peace is one ing heart to all moral and all spiritual ex- ingredient of heaven's kingdom mentioned cellence. It is upon a well of living water in our text. In our second head of disbeing struck out in the heart of renovated course, we spoke of the joy that is felt man-it is upon the entrance there by the on our acquiring the virtues of the gospel. Holy Ghost-given unto all who receive There is an immediate delight in rightthe Saviour-it is upon His operation by eousness or virtue, that accrues by a law which we are made to delight in the very of moral nature to the possessor of it; moralities, and so to taste the very joys and righteousness is another ingredient of the Godhead-it is upon that transform- of heaven's kingdom mentioned in our ation by which the spirit of bondage is text. Joy in the Holy Ghost, which is the cast out, and succeeded by the spirit of third ingredient, may be regarded by 496 LECTURE XCVI.-CIIAPTER XIV, 17. some as joy in the two former; and the inferred presence of the Holy Ghost, called joy in the Holy Ghost, simply be- To arrive at this, my brethren, you have cause peace and righteousness are the to entertain the truths of the gospel, even work of the t-Ioly Ghost. But addition- until you come clearly to see and firmly ally to the joy which the mind has in to have faith in them. You have to cultithese effects of the Spirit's operation, vate the virtues of the gospel, even until there must, after experience of these ef- they become the main delight and exerfects, be a distinct joy, when the mind cise of your lives. You have to pray thaw takes cognisance of them in connection the eye might be made clearly to apprewith their cause-when the Christian can hend the one; and the heart to be more trace the virtues which he has been ena- and more smitten with a love for the bled to exercise, to the source from other, and a sense of their supreme obliwhence they emanate-when he finds, gation. You are to persevere in asking that in proportion to the fervency and even till you receive, and in seeking even faith of his prayers for the Spirit of all till you find, and in knocking even till it grace, he is actually made rich in the be opened to you; and, however remote graces and accomplishments of the new and recondite the acquirement may apcreature. There is a joy in the very in- pear to you now-yet, if you will just set vestiture of these moralities; but a fur- out in good earnest from the humble elether and a distinct joy in the consideration ments of Christian scholarship and go on of who it is that has put them on. When unto perfection, you will, fiom a joy in the Christian reflects on himself as a the truth and a joy in the virtues of the temple of the Holy Ghost-when he thinks gospel, arrive at a distinct joy in the felof being so signalised-when enabled lowship of Him who hath manifested thus to judge, that God walks in him and these truths, and moulded you to these dwells in him; and upon this evidence virtues. You will pass on to the higher that He has put a law into his heart stages of the Christian experience, and making him to love it, and written it in be at length emboldened to say that the his mind making him to understand it- Spirit of God witnesseth with our spirits, There is elevation in the very thought; that we are indeed His children; and and though it may not be joy in the di- hereby know we that we are in Him, even rectly felt presence, yet it may be joy in by the Spirit which He hath given to us LECTURE XCVII. ROMANS xiV, 17-23. " For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Iloly Ghost. For ho that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men. Let us therefore follow after the things which mnake for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another. For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed are pure; but it is evil for that manl who eateth with offence. It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak. Ilast thou faith 1 have It to thyself before God. Ilappy is he that condernneth not himself' in that thing which he alloweth. And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of' faith is sin." WE recur to the 17th verse in this lec- of God which passeth all understanding, ture, simply because of the immediate keeping our hearts and minds in Christ reference made to it in the verse which Jesus; but also the pacific virtues of the follows-' He that in these things serveth blameless and unoffending citizen, who Christ'-serveth Him in righteousness and does all that in him lies to maintain conpeace and joy in the Holy Ghost-These cord and good-will in his neighbourhood. things are both acceptable to God and Even the joy, though primarily it be theat approved of men. The circumstance of joy in the Lord which is the strength and their being approved of men, as well as aliment of the spiritual life —yet as being acceptable to God, plainly enough inti- the opposite of moroseness, or of sullen mates that the social is blended with the and infectious gloom, is fitted to have a sacred in the services here specified. The gladdening influence over the daily comrighteousness of our text includes more panionships of that believer who serves than the righteousness which is made his God, not in the spirit of fear, but in ours by the faith that is well-pleasing to the spirit of love and peace and a sound God, but also the righteousness that is mind. In all these ways may the virtues good and profitable to men. The peace of the 17th verse realise the two-folc, comprehends in it more than that peace property ascribed to them in the 18thk LECTURE XCVII.-CHAPTER XIv, 17-23. 497 They may at once be acceptable to God never would any real (Christians, at least and approved of men.* fail out by the way.'1hey are tne vain Ver. 19.'Let us therefore follow after janglings about words of no profit, which the things which make for peace, and minister to wrath rather than to godly (dthings wherewith one may edify another.' ifying; and often the very reason why tar6 In this pacific spirit, the spirit of concili- things which men follow after make not {or ation and charity, let us follow after the peace, is because they make not for edifithings which make for peace-not after cation. Surely there is good and worthy the vain questions which minister strife cause here, why a disproportionate stress rather than godly edifying, but after the should not be laid upon trifles. A most great and undoubted objects on which all important, nay a vital interest may hinge the real disciples of' Jesus are sure to co- upon it. Our Saviour's prayer* would inalesce, and to strive for with one mind timate that the progress of Christianity and one soul. The things on which they in the world, its further and larger accep. agree are not only fhar more numerous, tance among men, depends most materibut of greatly surpassing importance over ally on the ostensible unity of those who the things which differ-provoking each are already Christians. They are the other to love and to good works-exhort. divisions of the religious world which ing one another daily, while it is called have proved so fatal to the growth of reto-day-assembling together in meetings ligion in society. Zeal is a good thing, of fellowship and prayer, for their mutual but only when expended on a good and confirmation both in the faith and holi- adequate subject. It is not to be told ness of the gospel-uniting in their what mischief has been done by needless schemes of Christian philanthropy, the controversies-both within the church, combined prosecution of which in our among Christians themselves; and withday has led to many a delightful re-union out, in restraining the operation of that of. spirit among professing Christians; good leaven which might otherwise have and given rise to so many periodic festi- leavened all the families of the earth. vals of a common cause and common Christ's prayer on earth for His disciples charity, in which all might rejoice —These was, "that they all may be one, as thou be the things that make for peace; and Father art in me and I in thee, that they within the limits of essential principle, also may be one in us; that the world will cause all sectarian diversities to be may believe that thou hast sent me." forgotten. Ver. 20.' For meat destroy not the work'And things wherewith one may edify of God. All things indeed are pure; but another.' Seek that ye may excel to the it is evil for that man who eateth with ofedifying of the church.t Let us live, not fence.' Do not for the sake of meat depeaceably only, but profitably with each stroy the work of God-a reiteration of other. He had before told his converts- what he had said before in ver. 15-' Deas far as possible, and as much as lay in stroy not him with thy meat for whom them, to live peaceably with all men. He Christ died.' For if any man defile the was obliged to lay these qualifications on temple of God, him will God destroy. It the advice he gave them-for purity is a is true that that which entereth into a higher object than peace; and as it is our man defileth not a man; and as far as the fi;st duty to profit men, rather than please effects of the mere material entry of any them, it might often be impracticable to sort of food into the stomach are conlabour for the convenience of saints, with- cerned' all things are pure.' God hath now out stirring up the enmity of unconverted abolished the distinction between clean nature. But whatever danger there may and unclean meats; and what He hath be of exciting the displeasure of the un- cleansed, that call not thou common or regenerate in our attempts to convert, impure. The evil thing lies not in the there is far less danger of incurring the eating, but in the eating with offence. It wrath or hostility of disciples in our at- is the offence, and that alone, which con.tempts to edify —only provided however, stitutes the evil. There is no evil tha. that we keep by the things which make results from eating, if no spiritual injury for edification. We cannot answer for is sustained by it. But there does accrue that unanimity which is so desirable, if a very great spiritual injury, if not to Christians will be so pragmatical and in- yourself, at least to your brother-if you judicious, as to be urging their own small so eat as to make him fall. and senseless peculiarities on the accep- Ver. 21.'It is good neither to eat flesh, tance of others. Would they only keep nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby by what is great and essential, seldom or thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.' In opposition to what he' For a larger exposition of this verse, see the second denounces as evil in the preceding verse sermon in our volume of'Commercial Discourses' - being the sixth volume of the Series.' 1 Corinthians, xivi 12. 1 Jchn, xvii. 63 498 LECTURE XCV1'. —CHAPTER XIV, 17-23. he tells us what is goed in the present one I eat, because if he do, believing it to be -a good which he nobly exemplified unlawful, then it would prove that with himself, when he said that he would not him to sin were a matter of indifferencyeat flesh while the worll( standeth, lest it I'Hast thou faith?' is a question which should make his brother offend. He does not refer to the faith that is unto salwould not grieve him by stirring up weak vation-buit to clearness in the matter on and anxious scrupulosities in his mind. hand-Art thou clear and confident as to And, what is worse than merely grieving, the lawfulness of eating what by the law he would not seduce him into an act of of Moses was forbidden 1 They who are positive transgression, by causing him to not clear, but stand in doubt, have not outrun the light of his own conscience- faith in this matter, though they may have which he would do, if, through the power the faith which is unto salvation. He who of imitation, he tempted him to eat that has the faith, who is fully persuaded in which he saw himself eat, before that he his own mind that to eat is allowable-let was fully convinced of its lawfulness. him have it to himself before God. There The good or the evil all hinged, not on is no call upon him to parade it before the thing in itself, but on the effect it was others-so as either to hurt their religious calculated to have, or actually had, on sensibilities, or to harass them with doubtthe practice of others-which practice ful disputations. was in them sinful, if it traversed their Ver. 23.'And he that doubteth is own principles. It is thus that our eating damned if he eat, because he eateth not might prove the putting of a stumbling- of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is block, or an occasion to fall in a brother's sin.' For,'he that doubteth,' the translaway. tion would be as correct in itself and more Ver. 22.'Wlast thou faith. have it to accordant with the apostle's reasoning, thyself before God. Happy is he that if we read'he that discerneth and putteth condemneth not himself in that thing a difference between meats.' It is sogiven which he alloweth.' It is obvious that in the margin of some of our Bibles. The Paul had a greater respect for him whose judaising Christian did something more conscience was free of these difficulties, than doubt the lawfulless of eating what und of the consequent distress that en- was forbidden by the Mosaic law. He sued from them. The man who felt him- had the positive conviction of its unlawself at liberty., had on these questions at fulness. For him then to eat would be to least the spirit of power and of a sound sin, not in the face of a doubt, but, worse mind,* which in one of his addresses to than this, in the face of an absolute and Timothy he opposes to the spirit of fear. affirmative conviction. It is proper, howBut to complete the description of that ever, to observe, that even to do that of which he commends, we must add the which one doubts, or is not sure, whether spirit of love aiso; and this would lead it be lawful or no, has in it a certain, us to look not only at our own things, but though it may be a less degree of moral at the things of others. It is very well for hardihood. It is to incur the hazard, if himself that his conscience does not not the certainty, of falling into a transtrouble him-so that whether he eateth gression; and to brave such a risk, aror eateth not, his own peace with God gues a weak feeling of religious oblimight remain unbroken. It is a happy gation. thing for him that he condemneth not At the same time, it is further proper to himself in that which he alloweth. This remark-that whereas the word damnais so far good; and were self one's only tion, in the common acceptation, means concern, there might in this matter be the the future and everlasting punishment of indulgence of an unbounded liberty. the wicked-the proper an(l original meanBut there are other interests at stake; ing of it is condemnation —marking thereand he is bound by the obligation of God's fore the blameworthiness of the act to second great law to look at these. More which it is applied-but not implying especially is he bound not to give offence, necessarily the final and irreversible ruin in a thing not of obligation but of indiffer- of him who has committed it. The same ency, so as to pain his brother's feelings, observation holds true of 1 Cor. xi, 29or gall him in a matter on which he is "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, sore or weak; and still more not to place eateth and drinketh damnation (judgment) a stumblingblock before him over which unto himself." This mitigation of the he might fall by running against the light sense will not make any real Christian of his owr convictions-for though the less careful of offending. strong man may eat, because, believing it'Whatsoever is not of faith is sin' to be lawful, with him to eat is a matter This here is not the univeral proposition of mndifferency-the weak man may not which some would make of it. It does - not mean that every action of an unbo.'2 Timoy, i, 7. liever is sinful, because he wants that LECTURE XCVI1.-CHAPTER XIV~ 17 —23: 99 justifying faith, without which there can so lamentable was known, the example be no acceptance either for his person or ought not to have been given. It is thus, his services. This may be true, but it is we apprehend, that an English Christian not the truth contained in this passage. would acquit himself during his tempo. As we said before, the faith here spoken rary residence in one of the retired parof is a faith limited to a particular point. ishes of Scotland. He would conform to The man has not the belief that to eat our standard of Sabbath observation; and, certain kinds of food is lawful; and if he in the exercise of a right delicacy and eat of them notwithstanding, to him it is discretion, would refrain here firom lib. unlawful. erties which might be comparatively We are not to imagine of this chapter, harmless in or around his own dwellingthat the subject of it has now gone by. place. He would not, for instance, if There are principles here of universal and made aware, scandalise the domestics of abiding application-lessons of standing any of our families, by superadding the authority, the obligation and importance instrumental music of the drawing-room of which remain to this day; and though to the worship of Sabbath even-though, the casuistry of Jewish meats may seldom possibly with him a usual accompanior never be in practical demand amongst ment, it might minister to the devotion of us-yet is there a certain other casuistry, his own feelings, and so add to the perwhich gives rise, as before, to the distinc- fection of the service. Would that this tion between weak and strong; and which principle had been more respected ere still continues to exercise, and sometimes the fearful experiment now in progress to perplex the consciences of enquirers. of' railway desecration had been so reckIn separating, as our great apostle did lessly gone into; and which, if persevered with inimitable skill, the clear from the in, threatens to speed beyond all calculadoubtful-there is one obvious considera- tion the religious degeneracy of our be. tion which ought never to be forgotten. loved land. Each man is still his brother's keeper. As a further exemplification of the We are all responsible to a certain extent principles unfolded in this chapter, we for the Christianity of other men; and might instance those numerous questions, though there be many indulgences, which, of shade and degree, which have been viewed singly and in themselves, the light raised about conformity to the world; or, and liberty of the gospel would allow- more explicitly, about the share which, yet are we bound to abstain from them, might be lawfully taken in this world's if our example otherwise would inflict a companies or this world's amusements. moral injury upon any of our fellows. Amid the difficulties, perhaps the imposLet me notice, as a case in point, the liter- sibility, of advancing any strict and alities of Sabbath observation. There are literal solution that shall be applicable to certain imaginable freedoms on that day all cases, there is one thing unquestion-an evening walk-an act of convivial able-and that is the concern which all intercourse with a pious relative or friend ought to feel for the moral safety of others -a journey, a visit, or written message beside themselves. Grant of the strong in reply to some call of greater or less Christian that he may pass unscathed urgency, but the necessity of which, or through the festive parties of the ungodly, the mercy of which, admits of beirig in- and perhaps even leave the savour of terpreted variously. Many will be found what is good in the midst of them; or to contend for the innocence of these; grant that without injury to his own spirit, and perhaps some undoubted Christians he may lend his occasional presence to there are, who might occasionally give in certain of the haunts of public or fashto them, without violence to,weir own ionable entertainment-it must not be consciences, or even any damage done to forgotten that many are the weak Christheir own spirituality. But there might tians, who, if led to the premature imitabe others looking on of a different habit tion of his example, would inevitably and education, who could not share in perish among the surrounding contaminathese liberties, without a shock on their tions of an atmosphere which they could religious feelings; or it may be such a not breathe in and yet live. There can stress on the inner man, as might seriously be no mistaking here the application of derange and put out of joint the whole Paul's heroic and truly high-minded exstructure or system of their religious ample. He would not eat flesh while the character. They may have been precipi- world standeth, should it make his brother tated into an imitation which yet sat to offend; and neither ought we to enter heavy on their consciences-condemning the ball-room or theatre while the world themselves in that to which the example standeth, if it make even the very weakof anotier may have emboldened them; est of our brethren to offend. It were and in which circumstances, therefore, making an unlawful use of our Christian more especially if the danger of an issue I liberty to do even that which is lawful-. )OO LECTURE XCVII.-CHAPTEr XIV, 17-23. should it precipitate others to do the same ful disputations: And we hold it a things, if either with a deleterious effect mighty reinforcement of this lesson by upon their characters, or if beyond the the apostle, that our Saviour should have concurrence and bidding of their own rebuked His disciples, because they for. consciences. bade the man who worked miracles ye: And if in things doubtful or indifferent, followed not after themselves-saying it be the duty of any Christian to deny Forbid him not, for he that is not against himself for the sake of others, how much us is for us. It may be difficult to assign more imperative is the obligation under in theory the limit between these two terwhich he lies to refrain from the example ritories-yet, with a stronger and more of all that is clearly and undoubtedly general charity in the religious world, we wrong. It is not to be told what enormous feel persuaded that it were not so difficult lnischief has been done by the infirmities, to conform to it in practice. The treatise and still more by the sins of those who which should undertake to define and set have attained a name and eminent repu- forth the line of demarcation, might very tation in the Christian world-and this in possibly give new impetus to the whirlthe way of tempting others to relax the pool of debate-being itself the brooding strictness of their lives, because con- or fermenting cause of new controversies. eluding that they too are surely within This is a very likely result, whenever the the limits of safety, though with the same subject is introduced or started anew on amount of carelessness and sinfulness the field of argument. Yet we despair which they see to be in those whom all not that on the field of action, or in the have agreed to acknowledge and admire. real and actual administration of the The pernicious consequences of even an church's affairs-many of the stoutest and occasional.slip, and still more of a sinful fiercest differences both of the present and habit, in professors of high standing, are former ages will at length fall into desuetruly deplorable; and such as to lay them tude-so that all Christians might be at under a deep responsibility for the souls length brought to be of one mind; or, if of others as well as their own souls. not, that it shall at least be patent to the Their faill might involve the fall of many. eyes of the world, that they are all of one Because of their misconduct the spirit- spirit. We are aware of liberalism, that uality of many might wax cold. Their it is a term recently devised to express a mere follies or faults of temper might spurious liberality, or this virtue carried serve to lower the standard of practical to a hurtful and unprincipled excess. Christianity in their neighbourhood. Even And we are also aware that latitudinaritheir wrongness and waywardness.in little anism is generally employed in a stigthings may cast a soil on the profession matical or bad meaning —else we might of the gospel; and when, instead of a have said that there is a wholesome latismall, a great moral injury is done-how tudinarianism. For example, we cannot dreadful the penalty. For woe to the imagine how one should read in moral world because of offences. It were bet- fairness the Epistle to the Romans, or still ter for a man that a millstone were hanged more perhaps the Epistle to the Galatians about his neck, and he were cast into the -and yet, if he defer to these scriptures sea-than that he should offend one of at all, should reject the doctrine of justiChrist's little ones. fication by faith alone-So that to recogThere is another, and we think a most nise as Christians those who deny this legitimate inference, to be drawn from article, we should hold to be liberalism. this passage. It is that Christians should Again, there are other differences, on either cease to differ-or, if this be impos- neither side of which has the Bible left sible, that then they should agree to differ. any such express or authoritative deliverWe of course exclude such differences, ance, as would lead us to pronounce of as, relating to what is vital and essential, one or other of the parties, not only that imply that either one or other of the par- they are in the wrong, but fatally in the ties is not Christian-disowning, as they wrong. We should rank among these do, some weightier matters, whether of differences many questions of meats and doctrine or of the law. There is a terri- days and priestly vestments, and many tory within which controversy is not only points both of church order and church permitted but enjoined; and so we are government-So that to recognise as bidden to contend earnestly for the faith Christians those of the Episcopalian or once delivered to the saints. And there Independent or Methodist or Baptist peris another territory within which contro- suasions, we should hold not to be liber. versy has had the interdict, and that of alism, but right and genuine liberality. sacred and scriptural authority, laid upon Paul exemplified both these methods of it; and so we are told to avoid foolish and dealing with controversies and disposing hurtful questions, and to indulge not in of them-Bold and resolute and uncom. vain janglings, and to refrain from doubt- promising in all that was essential — LECTURE XCVII.-CHAPTER XIV, 17-23. 50, Yieldlng and generous in all that was not heaving towards this better state of things so; and, however strong and free from all — when the war of opinions shall cease; scrupulosity himself, yet deferring with and both truth and charity shall walk the utmost tenderness to the honest and hand in hand. Heaven grant, that this conscientious scruples of other men. He perspective of brighter and happier days thus acquitted himself of two most im- may be speedily realised. portant services-the one as an intrepid And let us not be afraid lest, when consoldie(r, the manly defender and guardian troversies shall cease, men will therefore of the church's purity; the other as a sink down into the ease and indifferency discreet and wary counsellor, who knew of liberalism. The tension of the mind both how to judge charitably, and to arbi- will be fully kept up-only in another trate wisely, fbr the church's unity and direction, and in a better way. If Chrispeace. tians will not then strive so much for the And unless we follow this high exam- mastery in argument, they will be differpie, we do not see, how the blissful con- ently and far more profitably employed summation of that unanimity in the Chris- -in provoking to love and to good works. tian world, of which our Saviour speaks They might not be so intent on the work asthe stepping-stone to a universal Chris- of judging each other, because far more tianity through the world at large,* is ever intent on the exercise of judging themto be arrived at. Surely for the fulfil- selves. Christianity will not be so much ment of this sacred object, it were well agitated as a question of opinion between that in the confessions of different man and man; but far more sedulously churches, articles of faith, viewed as arti- prosecuted as a question between God cles of distinction or separation, should and their own consciences. There will not be unnecessarily multiplied; and we still be ample room for zeal and strenuwould further submit, whether it is not a ousness-for an ardour that will burn most unwarrantable hazarding of this with as pure and bright a flame, if not so high and precious interest, to speak of the fiercely as before. Ere the church miliexclusively divine right of any form what- tant shall become the church triumphant, ever of ecclesiastical government. It is we might still have to fight the battles of thus that certain strenuous advocates, both principle and of the faith with them who of Presbytery on the one hand, and of are without; but let us hope that our inEpiscopacy on the other, have been heard ternal wars will cease, by the differences to affirm, that they will never consent among ourselves being healed. And let to the loosening or letting down of a sin- us not imagine that because there will gle pin in the tabernacle. This tenacity then be the repose of mutual charity and of theirs we should all the more readily peace, there must therefore be the indounderstand-if the specific information lence of quietude. The struggle to be of each and every pin were really to be uppermost on the field of championship, had in Scripture. But in the absence of will then give way before a kindlier and this, we do think that there might be a more generous emulation-the struggle to great deal more of mutual toleration. It be foremost in the zeal for the glory of has been well said, that, while it is our God, and for all the services of Christian duty to be wise up to that which is writ- philantrophy; and this too without the ten, we should not attempt to be wise above heart-burnings of rivalship or envy. For or beyond it; and so too, while it is our they will be all the readier in honour to duty to be inflexible up to that which is prefer each other —when they shall have written, it is surely not our part to be in- become more alive to their own shortflexible beyond it. We feel confident, that comings than to the perversities or defects with the use and right application of this of their fellow-men. Even now, and notprinciple, there is immense room for the withstanding the manifold yet chiefly abridgment of the church's controversies. incidental controversies of our day, men Let us hope that the movement is upon in theology are looking greatly more to the whole in this direction; and that, even the points of agreement, and less to the amid the fits and fermentations of this points of difference-the promise and busy period, the Christian world is now preparation, let us hope, for a long mil. lennium of peace and prosperity to the John, xvii, 21, 23. Christian world. 502 LECTURE XCVIII. —CHAPTER XV, 1-13. LECTURE XCVIII. ROMANS XV, 1-13. We then tnat are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not himself; bat, as it is written. The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell on me. For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning; that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might have hope. Now tks God of patience and consolation grant you to be like minded one toward another, according to Christ Jesus; that ce may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us, to the glory of God. Now I say, that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers: and that the Gentile might glorify God for his mercy; as it is written, For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles, an0 sing unto thy name. And again he saith, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with his people. And again, Praise the Lord, alh ye Gentiles; and laud him, all ye people. And again Esaias saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust. Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost." IN the two first verses we are told what Ver. 3'For even Christ pleased not is the duty of the strong towards the weak himself; but, as it is written, The re-which duty is an obvious practical in- preaches of them that reproached thee ference from the principles laid down in fell on me.' And here this matter of not the foregoing chapter. It was that they eating flesh, in itself a perfect trifle, is should please their neighbour and not made to rank with a virtue of the very themselves. And yet Paul himself was in highest order-the imitation of Christ. one sense any thing but a man-pleaser. The quotation here given is from Psalm In his epistle to the Galatians, he appears lxix, 9-the first part of which verse is apin wholly another character; and so tells plied by the apostle John to our Saviour; us there —" Do I seek to please men? for and the latter in this place by the aposif I yet pleased men, I should not be the tle Paul. There was no pleasure in servant of Christ."* And in a former those reproaches of men, which were part of this Epistle to the Romans, he borne by our blessed Lord in the work of says to the commendation of those who seeking after and saving them-when He had not gained the approval of' the Jews endured the contradiction of sinners, and by submitting to circumcision, that their despised the shame of it. But a stMl praise was not of men but of God. This more emphatic application of these words difference between Paul at one time and to Jesus Christ is to be found in that vicaPaul at another lay altogether in this. rious sacrifice which He underwent for He never sought the praise or pleasure the sins of' the world-even those sins of men as an end; but he often sought it wherewith so much reproach and disas a means to an end. He sought it when honour had been cast upon God. The he could serve Christ by it. It would not burden of all this was made to fall upon have served Christ, but the contrary, had the head of our blessed Saviour, who inhe given in to the judaising Christians in deed took it upon Himself; and, by magthe Church of Galatia; and, in compli- nifying the law, took off indignity from ance with their demand, laid the rite of the Lawgiver. Truly He pleased not circumcision on their Gentile brethren- Himself, when under the heavy load of the and this too on the ground that it was ne- hour and the power of darkness, His soul cessary for their salvation. He, had it became exceeding sorrowful, and He bebeen placed on the same footing, would came obedient unto death, even the death also have resisted their abstinence from of the cross. Surely if Christ thus bore meats-but not, when, without the conces- the sins of the wicked, we might well bear sion of any such vital principle, this ab- the infirmities of the weak. stinence subserved the peace or extension Ver. 4.'For whatsoever things were of the Christian church. When these written aforetime were written for our high objects were to be gained —then this learning; that we through patience and thing of indifferency became a thing of comfort of the Scriptures, might have duteous obligation; and then not only hope.' He had just quoted from the were the strong taught to bear the infir- Scriptures; and, to enforce the lesson he mities of the weak-but every one was had just drawn from them, he comes forth taught, not to please his neighbour, but with a general testimony to the worth to please his neighbour for his good to and the estimation in which these wri. editication. Thus did Paul seek to please tings ought to be held. It is true, that men in all things-because not seeking they are only the Scriptures of the Old his own profit, but the profit of many, Testament which are here alluded to-or that they might be saved.t such as were written aforetime-or, imGalatians, i, 10. t 1 (.orinthians, x, 33. mediately, for the instruction of those LECTURE XCVIII.-CHAPTER XV, 1-13. 503 who lived many centuries back; yet dis- the apostle was to convince them that the tinctly and universally, for the instruc- question now so keenly agitated need no' tion of the men of all ages. This is only affect the everlasting condition of either one out of many places in the New Tes- party: that both might alike stand unto tament, where the' Scriptures,' though God and be alike accepted of Him; and but consisting then of the Hebrew sacred that, after having passed through the orwritings, have a power and a sufficiency deal of the last judgment, both might be ascribed to them which now-a-days we admitted to life everlasting with Him who are apt to overlook. It is the illustrious is Lord of the dead and the living. He testimony of Paul himself that they are therefore bids them cherish both for themable to make us wise unto salvation selves and others the hope of their conithrough the faith which is in Christ mon salvation-looking on each other as Jesus.* There is a glory and a virtue in heirs and expectants now, and to be parthese elder Scriptures, which should not takers hereafter of the same glorious itbe lost sight of. It were well that we heritance-when they shall ever be at made ourselves familiar with the high rest, and all their partial and temporary aspirations given to them by the Psalmist differences here will be lost and forgotten of old;t and still better with the attesta- in the reign of' an endless and universal tions in their favour by Him who is the charity. Here they speak, and underAuthor and Finisher of our faith-as re- stand, and think, as children; but there, peated, by His apostles after Him, and where they shall have attained to manfrom which we assuredly gather that they hood, and all shall have become strong, were written, not for the men of bygone they will put away the childish thingsperiods only but also for our admonition the trifles of their present vain and fruiton whom the latter ends of the world have less controversy. come. Ver. 5.'Now the God of patience and' That we through patience and comfort consolation grant you to be like minded of the Scriptures might have hope'- one towards another, according to Christ through the comfort which they directly Jesus.'' The God of patience and consogive, and through the patience which lation' —the expression varied here from both Scripture examples and Scripture comfort to consolation, though not in the exhortations are fitted to inspire. The original-where the reference therefore connection of hope with comfort is quite to the very terms of the last verse is all obvious-seeing that hope is the best and the more distinct in the ascription given likeliest of all topics for ministering con- to God, as the God of patience and comsolation to those who may at present have fort-or as the giver of these graces, rrmuch to bear; and also of hope with pa- which He is, when He strengthens us tience-seeing that patience worketh ex-, with all might according to his glorious perience, and experience hope. The per- power unto all patience and long-suffertinency of this whole consideration to the ing with joyfulness."* We are here reargument which the apostle is now hold- minded of what is said of God the Father ing, will appear more distinctly if we re- in 2 Cor. i, 3, 4 —" The Father of mercies collect, that when he asked the dissentient and the God of all comfort; who comparties of the church that he was address- forteth us all in our tribulations, that we ing to give up their controversies, they may be able to comfort them which are were carrying their differences so far as in any trouble by the comfort wherewith to refuse one another the hopes and priv- we ourselves are comforted of God." The ileges of their common salvation. There sympathy of a common hope, begetting were judaising teachers, we know, who the sense of a common interest, would in taught that except men were circumcised every good and Christian mind, beget alafter the manner of Moses, they could not so the fellowship of a common or mutual be saved.+ And it would seem as if from charity, and so make them "like-minded the apostle's reasoning, that at least the one to another;" and it is added, "acweak brethren, were apt to look on their cording to Christ Jesus," or after the exopponents as so many reprobates who ample of Christ Jesus-even the example had forfeited their claims to a blissful im- which he had already quoted in the third mortality; and also that the strong breth- verse. The patience and comfort, it might ren made too little account of the spiritual have been said, though from God, are well-being, and so the ultimate safety of nevertheless through the Scriptures-the their adversaries, in this contention- one being the Source of all our graces, wounding their consciences, and perhaps the other their channel of conveyance'. caring not although destroyed by their And the like-mindedness of this verse bas meats, those disciples should perish for certainly in it as one ingredient at lea-.,, whom Christ (tied. The great object of that of which in Philippians, ii, 2, t, s 2 Tim. iii, 15. 1 Psa. xix,, cix, &c. I Acts, xv, 1. v Colossians, i, 11. 504 LECTURE XCVIII. —-CHAPTER XV, 1-13. likeinindedness is said to consist —even them receive one another, eve 1 by bear. in having the same love, of one accord, ing one another. Surely if Christ made of one mind-under the influence of our sins no obstacle in the way of our which spirit nothing would be done reception, and that too at the time when through strife or vain-glory; but in low- we were enemies, we should mnake their liness of inind each would esteem other infirmities no obstacle to the reception of better than themselves. those who are our brethren-weak breth. Ver. 6. But it is evident from this verse, ren, they may be; but it will make us all that the like-mindedness here does not lie the liker to our Saviour, who was meek exclusively in this fellowship of a mutual and lowly in heart, if we bear ourselves charity one for another. It points also to with a peculiar gentleness towards them, the common direction of their minds to- seeing that we are required not to strive, wards one and the same object-that ob- but to be gentle towards all men.* He ject being the glory of God. They may had compassion on them who were out differ in certain observances; but what of the way; and far more grievously out he wants of them is that they shall of it, than those erring or over-scrupulous agree in this. Let him that regardeth the disciples, in whose behalf and for whose day regard it unto the Lord; and he that indulgence Paul is now pleading- Surely regardeth not the day, to the Lord let him if Christ adopted us into God's family, we not regard it. In like manner, let him should adopt one another into our fellowwho eateth, and him who eateth not, ship. And'to the glory of God' too. agree in giving God thanks, and in giving He effected peace on earth in the way God glory.'I'his they should do with one that brought glory to God in the highest. mind; and, lie adds, with one mouth. He reconciled us sinners unto God-yet With our mind we must think the same so as to exalt His authority, and make all things, ere with our mouth we can speak the glories of His character stand out in the same things. Were we then more brighter manifestation than ever, to the slow to speak of the things on which we eyes both of angels and of men. He re. differ, and more ready to speak of' the ceived and recognised us as the children things on which we agree, it would might- of His own Father, and so as His own ily conduce to the peace and unity of the brethren; but on such a footing as never. visible church. The members of the theless redounded to the vindication and church at Rome differed in regard both honour of the divine perfections: And it to meats and days; and Paul as good as was indeed a signal triumph over difficulenjoined silence about these, when he ties insuperable to all but He —when out bade them receive each other, but not to of such materials as the guilty aliens of doubtful disputations. But, on the other the human race, both Jews and Gentiles, hand, he bids them join with one mouth, He gained such large accessions to the ts well as one mind, in giving glory to spiritual household of the faithful. Let God. "Nevertheless whereto we have not us impair this household, or narrow already attained, let us walk by the same its limits-whether in reality, or in our rule, let us mind the same thing."* own imaginations-whether by offences,'Even the Father of our Lord Jesus on the one hand, as when we wound the Christ.' This is the peculiar aspect in consciences of the weak, and perhaps which, as Christians, we regard God. destroy those for whom Christ died; or Did we but view Him as the God of Nat- by our intolerant and exclusive sectarianural Theology-apart from Christ, and ism on the other, as when we say that out of Christ-there might be a fearful- without certain ceremonial observances ness toward God, but no fellowship. It is men cannot be saved. Let us not thus our looking to Him, and so trusting in defeat the sacred policy of Him, who Iim, as the Father of our Lord Jesus opened the door of admission for the world Christ —it is this, which, specifically and at large. Let Gentiles give up their concharacteristically marks our entrance on tempt, and Jews give up their bigotry; the religion of the gospel. Then begins and as Christ received both, let both reour followship with the Father and with ceive one another. Let us do nothing to the Son-the best of all preparatives, ac- break off this fellowship; or to mutilate cording to the apostle John, for our hav- that church, by which is shewn to the ing fellowship one with another.f And universe the manifold wisdom of God.t so it follows in It is therefore well added -that we should Ver. 7.'Wherefore receive ye one ano* receive each other'to the glory of God' ther, as Christ also received us, to the -for it were indeed a minishing of His glory of God.' He winds up his argu- glory, thus to abridge the extent and en. ment on this topic, by re-echoing what tireness of that great temple, the materihe had said at the outset of it. He bids als whereof are gathered out of all nations Philippians, iii, 16. t 1 John, i, 3, 7.'2 Timothy, ii, 24 t Epbesians, iii. 10. LECTURE XCVIII.-CHAPTER XV, 1-13. 505 and of which Christ Himself is the chief the admission of the Gentiles within the corner-stone. pale of gospel mercy, as to the fulfilment Ver. 8-12.' Now I say that Jesus Christ of the promises made on behalf' of the was a minister of the circumcision for the Jews in the ears of those patriarchs from truth of God, to confirm the promises whom they had descended. made unto the fathers: and that the Gen- Ver. 13.'Now the God of hope fill you tiles might glorify God for His mercy; as with all joy and peace in believing, that it is written, For this cause I will confess ye may abound in hope, through the to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto power of the Holy Ghost.' Having thus Lhy name. And again he saith, Rejoice, merged the distinction between these two ye Gentiles, with his people. And again, classes, he makes them both the objects Praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles; and laud of a common invocation-and this in one him, all ye people. And again, Esaias of the most pregnant and precious verses saith, There shall be a root of Jesse, and of the Bible. The God whom he thus he that shall rise to reign over the Gen- calls upon is designed by him'the God tiles; in him shall the Gentiles trust.' As of hope'-just because He is the Author he draws towards the close of his epistle, of this grace, making us to'abound in he seems as if' to redouble his strenuous- hope' —even as a little before He is called ness for the fulfilment of its main object the God of patience and comfort, because — which was the establishment of a com- He works in us these graces also-strength. mon understanding between'Jews and ening us 1" with all might, according to his Gentiles-a full settlement of all the un- glorious power, unto all patience and happy differences betwixt them. To ef- long-suffering with joyfulness." fectuate this his favourite design, on which There are certain weighty lessons enit is obvious that his whole heart was set, veloped in the brief but emphatic sentence he puts forth all his powers of persuasion; now before us, and some of which we and he evidently feels that his chief at- shall slightly touch upon. tempt must be to soften the prejudices of Our first remark is founded on the comrn. the Jewish understanding —or that his parison of the 4th and 13th versesmost necessary, as well as hardest task, whence we are made to perceive the was to propitiate and reconcile the minds identity of that efflect which is ascribed of his own countrymen, all whose par- to the Scriptures on the one hand, and to tialities had been violently thwarted by the Holy Ghost upon the other. In the the free admission of Gentiles into the first of these the apostle directs the attenchurch, and more especially when accom- tion of his disciples to the things'which panied with the indulgence of being ex- were written aforetime,' that through the empted from the obligations of the cere- Scriptures they migl;t have hope. In the:: nial law. We can fancy as if it were second, he prays for the same disciples, in the spirit of his own characteristic pol- that they'may abound in hope through icy, and to appease the wounded vanity the power of the Holy Ghost.' The reof the Jews, that in the 8th verse he sets spective functions of the Word and Spirit forth Jesus Christ Himself as being in His are thus brought into view; and more own person the direct minister of the cir- especially this important truth-that, cumcision-whereas afterwards he puts though perfectly distinct from each other, himself forward as being the humble their joint operation on the soul of man minister under Christ for the conversion issues, not in two different results, but in of the Gentiles. Certain it is that our one and the same result. The reason is, Saviour, while on earth, very much re- that the one is the agent, and the other stricted His ministrations to the lost sheep the instrument, of one and the same serof the house of Israel. But the great in- vice. And so the word of God is called strumentality employed by our apostle, the sword of the Spirit.* It is that which and which he most wielded for gaining He works by. When He enlightens, it is over the Jews, was a plentiful quotation by opening the understanding to under, of their own Scriptures. This was pre- stand the Scriptures; and when He im. cisely what our Saviour Himself did, presses, it is by giving the influence and when, to do away another of their nation- power of moral suasion to the lessons of al antipathies, even the revolt which they Scripture. It might help perhaps to alleall felt in the notion of a crucified Messi- viate the mysteriousness of certain pasah-He argued from Moses and the Pro- sages in the Bible-if the comparing of phets, that Christ ought to have suffered spiritual things with spiritual, we underthese things, expounding "in all the stand to be the comparing of scriptural Scriptures the things concerning himself." things with scriptural, and the things of And thus too Paul has recourse to a the Spirit were regarded as the things of scriptural demonstration; and brings both Scripture spiritually discerned. We should psalms and prophecies to witness that the truth of God was as much committed to'Eph. vi, 17. 64 50(b LECTURE XCV1II. —CHAPTER XV, 1 —13. then be at no loss to harmonise the saying pel works joy in the hea: of one man, it that we are born again of the Spirit,* works peace in another. And so we read with the saying that we are born again of death-beds of ecstacy, and also of by the word of God.t And as both co- death-beds of calm and settled assurance operate in the work of our regeneration, — the latter evincing, it is possible, as Eo both co-operate in the production of strong a degree of faith, though unaccomeach special grace that belongs to the panied by the raptures of a lively and new creature in Jesus Christ our Lord. overpowering manifestation. The joy and peace here spoken of are And what is,worthy of our special noboth to be understood subjectively-or in tice is, that both the joy and the peace the sense of mental affectiogns, wherewith I may be felt in the direct exercise of' beit is the prayer of the apostle that his lieving. They may flow, and flow immedisciples should be filled. It is not the diately, from the faith of the gospel — joy which there is in heaven over a sinner without aught to intervene between them. that repenteth, but the joy felt by the sin- Those would throw a sad obscuration on ner himself when he comes to have the the freeness of the gospel, and greatly faith of the gospel. Neither is it the peace embarrass the outset of an enquirer who which there is in the heart of the Godhead is groping for an entrance on the way of towards us, when, on our acceptance of salvation-who insist that ere joy or peace His Son as our Saviour, His purposes of can be felt, there must be some subjective wrath and vengeance against us are ground of experience on which to sustain turned away. Butt it is the peace which it. There can be no doubt that the subenters our own hearts, when, visited by jective in Christianity does minister both the sense of forgiveness, or by the con- joy and peace to the believer-as when viction that God hath ceased from His Paul rejoiced in the testimony of his conanger, we cease from all our disquietudes science; and John could tell that when because of it. And more than this. Not his heart condemned hitn not, then had he only are we relieved from the terrors of a confidence towards God. But when one coming vengeance, but also from those principle is admitted, must it always be sensations of disquietude which might at this expence-the exclusion or extincelse have agonised us, amid the vexations tion of another equally legitimate, and or vicissitudes of the life that soon passeth equally indispensable to the Christian away. Because of the glorious prospect state and the Christian character? There beyond it, we are calm-even when beset are a peace and a joy in the subjectivewith tribulation; or are not troubled as or on our finding what good things have other men. This peace of our text is of been worked in us by the Spirit of God. a more negative character than the joy But distinct from this, and I should say of our text; yet it too admits of degrees- anterior to this, there are also a peace the strength of it being rightly estimated and a joy in the objective-or on our beby the magnitude of those trials, under lieving what good things have been spowhich we maintain the serenity of our ken to us by the word of God, and to be spirits notwithstanding. In the world, our felt immediately on our giving credence Saviour tells us, we shall have tribulation; to them-A peace and a joy which emabut in Him we shall have peace: And, as nate directly from the sayings of Scripa proof that it admits of being increased ture; and such sayings too as are adand strengthened, it is said in one place dressed, not to disciples only, but to yet to be a peace so great that it passeth all unconverted sinners also. Would not the understanding; and it is spoken of by man whom we had injured, and of whom Isaiah as the privilege of God's reconciled we had good reason to be afraid-did he children, that they will delight greatly in stand before us with an angry or menacing the abundance of their peace-a peace countenance-would not he be the object of such depth and stability, that it is con- of our dread and disquietude, and this ceived of by the same prophet, as flowing simply on our view of the objective 1 through the heart like a mighty river- And on the other hand, did his countethe surface of which might be ruffled by nance bespeak a readiness for peace and the passing wind that blows over it, while pardon, would not terror give way to conall is stillness, all is tranquil and beyond fidence —and that simply too on our view the reach of disturbance within and of the objective? And does the Lawgiver below. make no such exhibition of Himself in the There is as great a complexional vari- gospel of Jesus Christ, as when He looks ety in the experience of Christians, as compassion on the children of men, or there is in the natural temperaments of sets forth His own Son as the propitiation men. It is because of this constitutional for the sins of the world? But there are difference, that while the faith of the gos- sounds as well as sights of encourage. ment, words which are the direct bearers' John, iii, 3, 5. * lPeter, i, 23. of comfort to the soul, a proclamation of. LECTURE XCVIII.-CHAPTER XV, 1-13. 507 amnesty as well as a flag of amnesty; Christianity, the objects that faith must and which, as coming from without, are have to rest upon; and the fruit of this objective things external to ourselves, on all truly earnest enquirers, or in other and, apart from ourselves, fitted to light words, on all good and honest hearts, will up an immediate gladness in our bosoms, be peace and joy. And this whether they did we but open our eyes or our ears to be looking inwardly on their hearts or no. them-as surely as when the wise men Nay you must give them time to look from the east saw the star over Bethle- outwardly on the tidings from heaven ere Aem, they rejoiced with exceeding great they can rejoice; and in virtue of their joy; or as surely as the shepherds who hearts being good and honest (a goodness first heard the proclamation of good-will and honesty which abide, and stand them from the sky, and saw the babe in the in stead, even when they are not looking manger, glorified and praised God for all inwardly)-in virtue of this singleness the things that they had heard and seen, of eye, and singleness of purpose, will as it was told them. We cannot well their whole bodies be full of light;* and imagine how any tidings should be desig- they will see clearly outward these obnated tidings of great joy-unless they jects of' vision, because within them there had the property of making joyful, simply is a clear medium of vision. And there and immediately on our believing them — is a counterpart to this in them who want and this without any thought bestowed singleness of eye, or whose hearts are upon ourselves, or subjective regards cast full of duplicity, and so of darkness;t downwardly or inwardly on our own and to whom therefore the objects of spirit, or on the state of' our own hearts faith, bereft of all luminousness, might be and characters. It is thus that there are preached or presented but in vain. Still a peace and joy in believing what we it is our duty to preach at a venture-that read of God, and of God in Christ, in our to the good and honest it might be the bibles-as when He swears by Himself' savour of life unto life, although it should that He has no pleasure in the death of a be the savour of death unto death to all sinner, but rather that all should come other hearers. In the simple exercise of unto Him and live; or beseeches us to believing they will have hope-the hope enter into reconciliation; or assures us as yet of faith only, and not till afterthat whosoever cometh unto His Son shall wards the hope of experience. But the in no wise be cast out; and that if we so stronger the faith is, and the hope founded come, our sins, though as crimson, should upon it-the brighter will the experience become as wool, though as scarlet, should be, and the hope also which is founded be made whiter than snow. The ministers upon it. These two will work like conof the gospel are the heralds of a univer- spiring influences, which keep pace tosal proclamation —a proclamation of gether, and work into each other's hands. mercy, in the believing of which there For the more vigorous the faith, the more are instant peace and joy. vigorous also will be the obedience. The But neither would we exclude the sub- faith and the good conscience will thus jective as being a ground of peace and grow with each other's growth, and joy also. Nay we will admit that there strengthen with each other's strengthmust be a certain harmony between the whereas if we cast away our good conobjective and the subjective at the very science, of our faith we shall make shipoutset of our Christianity. The same wreck. heavenly Teacher and Saviour who says, And it is the Holy Ghost who causeth Come unto me all and I will receive you, us to abound in both-in the hope that says also, He who cometh unto me must cometh directly from the objective, by forsake all. There are here both an in- taking of the things of Christ and showing vitation and a declaration. I cannot them unto us; and in the hope that comimagine, notwithstanding the perfect ful- eth reflexly from the subjective, by workness and freeness of the one, how any man ing in us those personal graces, whence could come, confidently or rejoice in the men take knowledge of us, and we may faith-if in the face of the other, he was also take knowledge of ourselves, that we not honestly desirous of forsaking all sin are indeed the disciples of Jesus. HIe is and making an entire surrender of him- alike the author of the hope that springs self to the will of Christ. If at all con- from the inherent and of the hope that scious of this reservation or of this dupli- springs from the imputed righteousnesscity, it will make him incapable of clearly of the one when experience worketh hope or cohfidently believing-or, in other by the love of God being shed abroad in words, an evil conscience will darken our hearts through the Holy Ghost given faith. But this does not preclude the im- to us;J of the other, when through the portance, nay even the necessity, of set- Spirit we wait for the hope of righteous. ting forth in full presentation before the ness by faith. eye of the mind the objective truths of ~ Mtt.i. vi, 2, 23. t Matt. vi, 23. 2 Rom. i, 5 083 LECTURE XCIX. —CHAPTER XV, 14-23 LECTURE XCIX. ROMANS xv, 14-23. Is And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are full of goodness, filled with all knowiedgws able also to admonish one another. Nevertheless, brethren, I have written the more boldly unto you in souse sort, as putting you in mind, because of the grace that is given to me of God, that I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be accep.'able, being sainctified by the Holy Ghost. I have therefore whereof I may' glory through Jesus Christ in those tniings which pertain to God. For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient by word and deed, through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum. I have fully preached the gospel of Christ. Yea, so have I strived to preach the gospel, not where Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man's foundation: but as it is'written, To whom he was not spoken of, they shall see; and they that have not ieard shall understand. For which cause also I have been much hindered from coming to you. But now having no more place in these parts, and having a great desire these many years to come unto you; whensoever I take my journey into Spain, I will come to you: for I trust to see you in my journey, and to be brought on my way thitherward by you, if first I be somewhat filled with your company. But now I go unto Jerusalem to minister unto the saints. For it hath pleased them of Macedonia and Achaia to make a certain contribution for the poor saints which are at Jerusalem. It hath pleased them verily; and their debtors they are. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, their duty is also to minister unto them in carnal things.'When therefore I have performed this, and have sealed to them this fruit. I will come by you into Spain. Anid I am sure that, when I come unto you, I shall come in the fulness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. Now I beseech, you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit. that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me; that I may be delivered fromt them that do not believe in Judea; and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints; that I may come unto you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be refreshed. Now the God of peace be with you all. Amen." VER. 14. Paul, in drawing towards the minister should substantially present the close of his epistle, seems, with the char- same things, it ought not to be grievous, acteristic delicacy which breaks forlh in because it is safe.* He speaks but as the many other passages, to feel that he must helper of his congregation, and not as apologise for the freedom of his exhorta- having dominion over them.t He is but tions. The likest thing to it in any of the an instrument in the hands of the Holy other apostles, is when Peter tells the dis- Spirit, whose office it is, not merely to ciples to whom he writes, that he addresses teach what is new but to recall what is them, not to inform as if they were igno- old-to bring all things to remembrance.t rant persons; but to stir up their pure It is true that they might already have minds in the way of remembrance-and received the gospel, and that in the gosthis though they already knew the things pel they stand-Yet they shall have beof which he was reminding them, and lieved in vain, unless they keep in memthough they were established in the pres- ory that which has been preached unto ent truth.* And so Paul, as if to soften them.4. In keeping with this, Paul says in theeffect of his dictations-and this though the 14th verse that he writes, not to inhis manner was the farthest possible from form but to put in mind. that of a dictator-tells his converts of Ver. 15, 16.' Nevertheless, brethren, 1 his persuasion that they were filled with have written the more boldly unto you in knowledge and goodness; and that though so(me sort, as putting you in minld, because he took it upon him to admonish them, he of the grace that is given to me of God. was sure nevertheless that they were able That I should be the minister of Jesus to admonish one another. The truth is, Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the that neither the greatest knowledge, nor gospel of God, that the offering up of the the greatest goodness, supersedes the ne- Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanccessity of our being often told the same tified by the Holy Ghost.' Still further things over again. Men might thoroughly to conciliate their toleration for his adknow their duty, and yet stand constantly vices, he tells them of the large warrant in need to be reminded of their duty. The that he had received from God Ilimself; great use of moral suasion is not that and by which he was fully authorised to thereby people should be made to know, act the part of their instructor. Instead but should be led to consider. And thus of being dissatisfied, they might well have our Sabbaths and other seasons of peri- felt most grateful for the distinction con odical instruction, are of the greatest pos- ferred on them by the message of an amsible service, although there should be no bassador invested with such powers and dealing in novelties at all-though but to credentials from heaven. At the same recall the sacred truths which are apt to time, the special designation of himself, be forgotten. and renew the good impres- which he here intimates, of Apostle to the. skons which might else be dissipated Gentiles, while it excused the liberties among the urgencies of the world. Whe- which he: took with them, might help to ther then an apostle should write, or a Peter, i, 12-14; Philippians, iii, 1 t 2 Corinthians, i, 24. 2 Peter, i, 12-14; iii, 1 John, xiv, 26. ~ 1 Corinthians, xv, 2. LECTURE XCIX.-CHAPTER XV, 14-33. 509 mitigate the discontent of his other and labourer; and far the most powerful in. more impracticable disciples the Jews- strument in the hand of God for its sue,inasmuch as it explained and justified his cess and advancement in the world. This peculiar zeal for their privilege of ex- could not be disguised-so that after leademption from the servitudes of the Mosaic ing his readers to understand that there ritual, in behalf of those who had been were others who shared along with him given to him as his own peculiar charge. in the great achievement of' making the That he had the Jews in his eye, and was Gentiles obedient through mighty signs still laying himself out to propitiate their and wonders, and leaving them to imafavour, seems probable from the sacrifi- gine how great this share might be-he cial style in which he describes the ser- could not avoid the direct statement of vice that had been put into his hands. his own apostolical work, in that from He represents himself' as the minister of Jerusalem and round about unto 111yricum Christ*-in which office he does the work he had fully preached the gospel of Christ. of a priest with the gospel,f —his offeringl'Through mighty signs and wonders, being the Gentile converts, who, anointed by the power of the Spirit of God.' It is by the Holy Ghost, were made acceptable not likely that Paul would have made thereby, even as the meat-offering of the mention at all of these miracles, had they Jews, which had oil and frankincense not been wrought at Rome as well as in poured upon it, arose with a sweet savour other places along his apostolical tour, unto the Lord. where churches had been planted by him. Ver. 17.'I have therefore whereof I At all events, he in epistles to other may glory through Jesus Christ in those churches, does appeal to the miracles things which pertain to God.' Paul's ob- which had been wrought in the midst of ject in glorying was not to magnify him- them. For example, in the free and fear. self; but to constrain a willing and whole- less remonstrance which he held with the some submission to the lessons which he Galatians, he puts the question with all gave forth, in his capacity as steward of boldness —" O foolish Galatians''-" he Heaven's high mysteries. His glorying that ministereth to you the Spirit and was all through Jesus Christ; and the worketh miracles among you, doeth he it things of which he was the dispenser did by the works of the law, or by the hearnot pertain to him but to God. His func- ing of faith i"* And in the enumeration tions were wholly ministerial; and no- which he makes of the powers conferred thing can exceed the perfect humility as on various of the churdh office-bearers, he well as wisdom wherewith he discharged tells the Corinthians that to one is given them. All that he arrogated to himself by the Spirit of God the working of mirawas the office of a servant, though it was cles; and, more specifically still, to anoa service so honourable and so signalised, ther the gifts of healing, and to another as would above measure and unduly have divers kinds of tongues, and to another exalted many other men. the interpretation of tongues.+ And again, Ver. 18, 19.'For I will not dare to in another epistle to the same people, he speak of any of those things which Christ says, "Truly the signs of an apostle hath not wrought by me, to make the were wrought among you in all patience, Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, in signs, and wonders, and mighty deeds."t through mighty signs and wonders, by In this respect he tells them that they the power of the Spirit of God; so that were not inferior to other churches; nor from Jerusalem, and round about unto is it probable that he would have written Illyricum, I have fully preached the gos- of these miracles to his converts at Rome, pel of Christ.' There is a peculiarity in had they been in this state of inferiority the mode of expression here, which may to others. perhaps be ascribed to the sensitive re- There cannot then be imagined a more pugnance of our apostle to aught like the satisfactory historical evidence for these assumption of superiority over other men. high and undoubted credentials of a diThere can be no doubt that he was pre- vine mission, than we are able to adduce eminently, though not exclusively the for the miracles which abounded in the apostle of' the Gentiles-Yet he will not primitive churches, and for those in parsay that he will dare to speak of the ticular which were worked by Paul's own things which Christ had done by him, but hands. He indeed, in common with the that he will not dare to speak of the other apostles, possessed the endowment things which Christ had not done by him in a degree that might be called transcen-thus modestly recognising the contri- dental-insomuch as, beside having the bution of other men's labours in a cause, gift of miracles, they had the power, by where he himself had been the chief the laying on of their hands, of conferring this gift upon others.- Now whatevet AtrovLpyoS. t'IpovpyiOv. - Galatians, iii, 1, 5. t 1 Cor:nthians, xii. 9, It. $ Hpoaoopa. t 2 Corinthians, xii, 12.. Acts, riii, 18, &c. 510 LECTURE XCIX.-CHAPTER XV, 14-33. exhibition might have been made of such from the first age of the apostles-we are things at Rome —certain it is that for compelled to acknowledge asurenessand miracles both at Corinth and in Galatia, a stamp of authenticity in the miracles of we have testimony in such a form as the gospel, not only unsurpassed but unmakes it quite irresistible. Here we equalled by any other events, the know. have, in the custody of these two church- ledge of which has been transmitted from es from the earliest times, the epistles ancient to modern times. which they had received from Paul-the Ver. 20, 21.'Yea, so have I strived to original documents having been long in preach the gospel, not where Christ was their own possession while copies of named, lest I should build upon another them were speedily multiplied and dif- man's foundation: but, as it is written fused over the whole Christian world. To whom he was not spoken of, they In these records do we find Paul in vindi- shall see; and they that have not heard cation of his own apostleship, and in the shall understand.' Not that Paul would zourse of a severe reckoning with the have withheld the benefit of his instrucpeople whom he addresses, make a con- tions from those who were already Chrisfident appeal to the miracles which had tians, if they Came in his way. But what been wrought before their eyes. Had he strove for and sought after, was tc there been imposture here, the members enter on altogether new ground-deeming of these two churches would not have it more his vocation to extend and spread lent their aid to uphold it. They would abroad Christianity, by the planting of not have professed the faith which they new churches-than to build up or per. did in pretensions which they knew to be fect the churches which had been already false, and that for the support of a claim founded. There seems to have been an to divine authority now brought to bear emulation in these days among the first in remonstrance and rebuke against teachers of the gospel, which betokens themselves. We might multiply at plea- that even they were not altogether free sure our suspicions of Paul, and conjure from the leaven which Paul had detected up all sorts of imaginations against him; in his own converts, when he charged but no possible explanation can be found them with being yet carnal.* There was for the acquiescence of his converts in something amongst them like a vainthe treachery of the apostle, or rather of glorious rivalship in the work of prose. their becoming parties to his fabrication, lyting-insomuch that the credit of their if fabrication indeed it was. One can respective shares in the formation of a.fancy an interest, which he might have Christian church was a matter of compe. in a scheme of deception; but what tition and jealousy. Our apostle wanted earthly interest can we assign for the to keep altogether clear of this, and to be part which they took in the deception, wholly aloof from the temptation of itknowing it to be so? Or on what other as indeed he himself intimates in 2 Cor. hypothesis than the irresistible truth of x, 15, 16, where he tells us that he would these miracles, can we explain their ad- not boast of other men's labours, or in herence to the gospel, and that in the face another man's line of things made ready of losses and persecutions, nay even of to his hand. Certain it is, that while he cruel martyrdoms-but over and above refrained from building on another man's all this, the taunts and cutting reproaches foundation, he experienced no little disto the bargain, of the very man who turbance from other men building on the could tell them of the miracles which foundation which he himself had laid-and themselves had seen, as the vouchers of these not only the false teachers, but even his embassy from God; and threatened, men who were true at bottom-yet would, if necessary, to come amongst them with like Peter at Antioch, have laid srnme of a rod, and make demonstration in the their wood and hay and stubble theremidst of them of his authority and power? upon. Had there been deceit and jugglery in The prophet from whom Paul here the matter, why did they not let out the quotes, had the Gentiles chiefly in his secret, and rid themselves at once and for eye; and to be their apostle was his peever of this burdensome visitation? The culiar destination.t This, however, was truth is, that the overpowering evidence not a mere arbitrary appointment; for from without, and their own consciences we read that he was chosen to this office, within, would not let them. There is no because of his peculiar qualifications other historical evidence which in clear- He was a wise master-builder who could ness and certainty comes near to this. lay well the foundation.: He had the talAnd whether we look to the integrity of ent beyond other men to begin at the be. these original witnesses, men faithful and ginning-or to lay down what he himselt tried; or to the abundant and continuous and closely sustained testimony which 1 Cormnthians, iii, 4. t Acts, xxii. 21 flowed downward in well filled vehicles AoxLtreKraTv; 1 Cor. iii, 10. LECTURE XCIX.-CHAPTER XV, 14 —33. 51' calls the principies of the doctrine of and this for the achievement of a victcry Christ.* No one could excel him in the over them-And so could be all tLings to admirable skill wherewith he made his all men, that he might gain some. Nc first outset, when reasoning with those to wonder then that his delight and his pre. whom the doctrine 3f Christ was as yet a ference was to put himself to the task he perfect novelty; and such being his forte, was best fitted for —whether to make a if we may thus express ourselves on such first encounter with Jewish prejudices, or ~ subject, we cannot wonder that it was as a pioneer in the wilderness of heathenalso his favourite walk to speak unto ism. To express it otherwise, if there those who had not yet seen or heard the was one stage in the process of the spirittruth, and address himself to those who ual manufacture which he liked better to had no previous notice or understanding deal with than another, it seems to have of it. We meet with manifold traces of' been the first stage of it; when he had to this distinct and distinguishing power in deal with the raw material, or with minds our great apostle-the power of taking up in the greatest possible state of rudeness a right vantage-ground whence to date and alienation from the gospel of' Jesus his argument, or on which to rear his de- Christ-whether by grossest ignorance as monstration in behalf of the gospel. We with barbarians; or by contempt and can discern the faculty of which we now bigotry, as with Jews upon the one hand, speak, in his speech before Agrippa and and yet unconverted Greeks upon the his address to the people of Athens. But other. it was a faculty which availed him in his Ver. 22-24.'For which cause also I converse with Jews as well as Gentiles- have been much hindered from coming tc the former in fact often standing at as you. But now having no more place ir. great, and in some respects a greater dis- these parts, and having a great desire tance than the latter fron the first rudi- these many years to come unto you; ments, or as he himself terms it, the first whensoever I take my journey into Spain, principles of the oracles of God. It is I will come to you: for I trust to see you obvious that thus to commence aright in my journey, and to be brought on my with any one, respect must be had to his way thitherward by you, it first I be special state or habitudes of mind-so as somewhat filled with your company.' It to fit in the initial consideration with the is obvious, that in the multitude of such initial prejudices or tendencies of those engagements, he could not be so frequent whom he was addressing. We have re- in his attentions or visits to the churches peated exhibitions of this in the history that had been already formed. And it is of Paul-of the judgment wherewith he accordingly on this ground that he apolotook a right point of departure; or set up gises for his lengthened absence from the a right starting-post, when his object was Christians at Rome.'For which cause to find an access and an acceptance into also I have been much hindered from the minds of men for the truth of Chris- coming to you.' Hie had had a great detianity-As with idolaters, when he rea- sire for many years to make out a visit; soned with them out of their own super- and states this in the next verse, in order stition; or with scholars, when he rea- that they might accept of the will for the soned with them out of their own litera- deed. He pleads the hindrance of his inture;t or with Pharisees, when he reasoned cessant occupation in those regions where with them from the tenets of their own Christ had not been before named; and it sect;t or with Israelites in general, when is interesting to note what it was that re. he reasoned with them out of their own leased him from this hindrance. It was scriptures. But the amplest memorials because that now he had'no more place of this rare and remarkable gift, in the in these parts.' Paul might come to know, modt gifted of' all the apostles, are his by a direct intimation from the Spirit, epistles to the Romans and Galatians, and that God had no more work to do in these most of all his epistle to the Hebrews- parts-even as we read in the book of in all of which he lays himself out more Acts of his being bidden go to some places expressly, it is truel for the Jewish under- and restrained or hindered from others.* standing; but in that way of skilful open- It is not to be supposed that Paul filled ing, as well as skilful adaptation and up the various regions which he had vis. approach, which showed that he stood the ited with the preaching of the gospelhighest of all his colleaguesas an accom- though he might have left a church in plished tactician in the warfiare of minds each of the larger towns, as a centre of — or who best knew how he should ad- emanation whence others might propa. dress himself to this work of laying gate the religion of Jesus Christ through seige, as it were, to men's understandings, Ithe countries around them. And even where he preached with little or no sue.' ApX; IIeb. vi, 1. t Acts, xvii. X i. I, Axiii, 6. * Acts, xvi, 6, 7; xviii, 9. 10; xix, 21 512 LECTURE SCIX.-CHAPTER XV, 14-33. cess, he might be said to have no more them in carnal things.' Paul however place in that part —no more, for example, had an intermediate duty to perform, ere at Athens, although he left it a mass of' he could fulfil his purpose of a journey nearly unalleviated darkness-just as our to Rome. He had to go to Jerusalem with Lord's immediate apostles might well be the produce of the charities of the faithsaid to have no more place in those towns ful, gathered in Macedonia and Achaia that rejected their testimony, and against for the necessities of the poor and persewhich they were called to shake off the cuted Christians in Jerusalem. This very dust of their feet, and then to take their collection is referred to in several other departure-fleeing firom the cities which places;* and the comparison of scripture either refused or persecuted them, and with scripture is also a pleasing and conturning to others. The way in fact of firmatory exercise. This is not the first apostles or ministers, the outward instru- time that such an exertion of liberality ments in the teaching of Christianity, is had been made for the destitute brethren the same with the way of the Spirit, who in Judea, as we read in Acts, xi, 30; xii, is the real agent in this teaching, by giv- 25. The truth is, that the Jewish were ing to their word all its efficacy. He may sooner the objects of persecution than the visit every man; but withdraws Hlimself Gentile Christians-the effects of' which from those who resist Htim-just as the seem to have been first felt by the lower missionaries of the gospel might visit ev- classes-deprived in all likelihood of their ery place, and have fulfilled their work custom and employment, in consequence even in those places where the gospel has of the ill-will conceived against them by been put to scorn, and so become the those on whom they wont to depend for savour of death unto death to the people the means of their subsistence. It was who live in them. Yet we must not slack- for their relief that the wealthier converts en in our endeavours for the evangelisa- who were beyond the reach of any imtion of the whole earth, although the only mediate suffering from this cause, made effect should be that the gospel will be the generous surrender of all their propreached unto all nations for a witness, perty.t This resource appears to have and the success of the enterprise will be been at length exhausted, when the aplimited by the gathering in of the elect peal in their favour was at length carried from the four corners of heaven. abroad over the Christian world at large. It is a matter of unsettled controversy The charity at home, however, nobly did whether Paul ever was in Spain, or was its part, ere the charity at a distance was able to fulfil his purpose of a free and called for or drawn upon. voluntary journey to Rome-his only re-' And their debtors they are.' He here corded journey there being when taken accredits the Jewish Christians generally up as a prisoner in chains. At the be- and nationally, as being the dispensers gi~_v:aig of the epistle he tells them of his of the gospel to the Gentiles-though prayer; and here expresses his hope of properly they were but the teachers and again seeing them in circumstances of apostles who came forth of Jerusalem prosperity, when, after a full and satisfac- that were entitled to the honour of this tory enjoyment of their society, he might consideration, and to a grateful return be helped forward by them on his way to because of it. It is in this more proper the country.beyond. Let me here notice and restricted sense that he pleads for the in passing, how accordant the movements right both of himself and Barnabas to a both of Paul beyond Judea, and of our livelihood from the church at Corinth.t Saviour and the apostles within its limits, But it is not unnatural, when any signal as described in the Gospels and Acts-are benefit has been conferred by the memwith the abiding geography of towns and bers of a certain community, to feel as if countries still before our eyes. It is in an acknowledgment were due on that acitself a pleasing exercise to trace this count to the whole collective body of harmony of Scripture with the known whom they form a part; and Paul avails bearings and distances of places still; himself of this disposition when pleading and even serves the purpose of confirma- for the poor saints of Jerusalem, because tion as a monumental evidence to the of the blessings which had emanated from truth of Christianity. Jerusalem on all the churches, though the Ver. 25-27.'But now I go unto Jerusa- great majority of these poor saints had lem to minister unto the saints. For it personally no hand in them. It were well hath pleased them of' Macedonia and if we of the present day felt similarly to Achaia to make a certain contribution for this. It is true that they are not the Jews the poor saints which are at Jerusalem. who are now in the world to whom we It hath -pleased them verily; and their owe our spiritual privileges as Christians; Jebtors they are. For if the Gentiles have but still let us indulge the thought of a been made partakers of their spiritual hings, their duty is also to minister unto ~ 2 Cor. viii, 4; ix, 13. t Acts, iv, 34-37.; I Cor. i. LECTURE XCIX.-CHAPTER XV, 14-33. 513 gratitude being due to them, because of them, are left to wander all ther days the mighty benefits that we have received beyond the pale of gospel ordinancesfrom their ancestors, from men of their and so to live in guilt and die in utter nation in other days, from the prophets darkness. Verily in such a contemplation and apostles of old, who bequeathed to it might well be said even of' this profes. us the oracles of God; and who in dis- sing age-Are ye not yet altogether carnal? pensing the word of' life among the na- Ver. 28.' When therefore I have pertions, were chief instruments for the ful- formed this, and have sealed to them this filment at length of the promise made to fruit, I will come by you into Spain.' To their great ancestor-that in him all the sealhere is to makesure orto consummate. families of the earth should be blessed. When I am conclusively done wvith this It is a reproach to Christians that this business, when I have brought the fru,. consideration has not operated more pow- of Christian liberality which has been put erfully in favour of the Jewish people- into my hands to Jerusalem, and delivered so as to have made them the objects of a it to the apostles there ful distribution far higher benevolence' both in things among the poor saints-then will I come spiritual and temporal, than' they have by you into Spain. ever yet experienced at our hands. Ver. 29.'And I am sure 1nat, when I'For if the Gentiles have been made come unto you, I shall come in the fulness partakers of their spiritual things, their of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.' duty is also to minister unto them in car- There are manuscripts in which the word nal things.' The comparison in respect' for gospel' is omitted, and where neverof magnitude and worth between spiritual theless a complete sense is retained — I and carnal things, is still more distinctly am sure that when I do come, I shall come made in 1 Cor. ix, 11-where the apostle in the fulness of the blessing of Christ.' speaks of the right which he and Barna- Of this one thing, or main thing, he was bas had earned to a maintenance from sure; but there are certain other things their hands. In this matter too there is of detail and circumstance in this whole great room for the condemnation of pro- anticipation, of which he is not so sure. fessing Christians-because of their gross In chap. i, 10, 11, he speaks of' his prospractical insensibility to the rule of equity perous journey to Rome as but a praver here laid down; and which is strikingly and thing of longing desirousness; in i, evinced throughout Protestant countries 15, of his preaching there as but a purin particular, by the extreme feebleness pose; in xv, 23, of his future visit to theim and defect of the voluntary principle for as an earnest wish; in xv, 24, of his jour. the support of ministers of religion. It is ney to Spain as being yet a contingency. in virtue of this, that the instructors eveti and his seeing the church at Rome in his of large and opulent congregations, have way as no more than a confident expecta often so pitiful and parsimonious an al- tion; lastly, of his coming to them on hiu lowance doled out to them; and if so road to Spain as a determination: And, wretched a proportion of their own car- to crown all, as a certainty and absolute nal be given in return for spiritual things certainty-thlat when he did come, or if he to themselves, we are not to wonder at should come, he would come in the fulness the still more paltry and inadequate con- of the blessing of the gospel, or blessing tributions which are made by them for of Him who was the Author and Finisher the spiritual things of others. The ex- of the gospel. It marks most strikingly pence of all missionary schemes and en- the shortsightedness of men, even of men terprises put together, a mere scantling inspired on certain occasions and for cerof the wealth of all Christendom, argues tain purposes, as contrasted with the it to be still a day of exceeding small counsel of that God which alone shall things-a lesson still more forcibly held stand-it most emphatically tells of His out to us by the thousands and tens of ways as not being our ways-that the thousands at our own doors who are per- hopes, nay the prayers of an apostle, rein-.shing for lack of knowledge. There is forced by the prayers which he requested( a carnal as well as a spiritual benevo- from his people for a prosperous journey lence. That the carnal benevolence to Rome, were all frustrated-So that,, inmakes some respectable head against the stead of a joyful procession to his friends carnal selfishness of our nature, is evinced in the world's metropolis, he came to them by the fact, that so very few are ever as a criminal in fetters, a captive in the known to die of actual starvation. That hands of unbelievers. It is thus that the spiritual benevolence falls miserably the things of which he was only hopebehind the other, is evinced by the fact ful or desirous were disposed of; but of those millions and millions more in the thing of' which he felt assured had its our empire, who, purely from want of the fixed accomplishment.. He did come to churches which ought to be built, and of Rome fully charged with spiritual bles. ministers who ought to be maintained for sings, aild which he fully and freely (hq 65 5 14 LECTURE XCIX.-CHAPTER XV, 14-33. livered to the people there. "And Paul desired to relieve his carefulness by mak. dwelt two whole years in his own hired ing his requests known unto God,*-both house, and received all that came in unto from his own mouth, and through the him-preaching the kingdom of God, and mouths of his interceding brethren. It teaching those things which concern the is worthy of being noted, that the next lord Jesu. Christ with all confidence, no object, his coming unto them with joy man forbidding him." he asks to be prayed for with a submis. Ver. 30 —33.' Now I beseech youbreth- sive reference to the will of God. It may ren for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and be regarded as the sample of a condi. for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive tional as distinguished from an absolute together with me in your prayers to God prayer. We know of certain things for me; that I may be delivered from which expressly and at all times are them that do not believe in Judea; and agreeable to the will of God, and for that my service which I have for Jerusa- these we might pray without any qualifilem may be accepted of the saints; that cation-as for our knowledge of the truth, I may come unto you with joy by the and our growth in the divine life, and our will of God, and may with you be re- final salvation; and generally for all freshed. Now the God of peace be with spiritual blessings. For temporal blessyou all. Amen.' He seems to make ings we might pray also; but, with the appeal here to that love in their hearts exception of daily bread, and things abwhich the Spirit worketh-the love more solutely needful for the life and the body, especially which Christians who have respecting which we have the declared passed from death unto life bear in their will and promise of God-for all other hearts for each other; and under the blessings of an earthly description, we promptings of which it behoved them to should pray with a salvo, laying our pray for the safety of him who was their wants and wishes before God, while subspiritual father. His request for such a jecting them withal to God's good pleaprayer implies a sense of danger in the sure. The things of this class when mind of the apostle-an apprehension prayed for, may or may not be conceded f:Aly warranted by his knowledge of the to us; but at all events, as the fruit of deadly hatred borne him by the Jews; this believing intercourse with Heaven, and against which he in this very journey the peace of God which passeth all untook the precaution mentioned in Acts, derstanding shall keep our hearts and xx, 3. It is perhaps not so easy to ex- minds through Christ Jesust-even that plain why he should stand in any doubt peace which is the subject of the apostle's of his service being accepted by the saints closing benediction, and of which no at Jerusalem. But many of them too tribulations or adversities can deprive were jealous, and did not like his par- us.t And therefore with an unfaltering tiality for the Gentiles-nay, it was pos- amen could he pray —'The God of peace sible, might have disdained the receiving be with you all.' of any charity at their hands. On this matter therefore as on every other, he ~ Phil. iv, 6. t Phil, iv, 6, 7. John, xvi 33. LECTURE C. ROMANS xvi. I commend unto you Phebe our sister, which is a servant of the church which is at Cenchrea: that ye receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you: for she hath been a succourer of many, and of myself also. Greet Priscilla and Aquila my helpers in Christ Jesus: who have for my life laid down their own necks:'unto whom not only I give thanks, but also.ll the churches of the Gentiles. Likewise greet the church that is in their house. Salute my well-beloved Epenetus, who is the first. fruits of Achaia unto Christ. Greet Mary, who bestowed much labour on us. Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellow-prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were In Christ before me. Greet amplias my beloved in the Lord. Salute Urbane our helper in Christ, and Stachys my beloved. Salute Apelles approved in Christ. Salute them which are of Aristobulus' household. Salute Herodioni my kinsman. Greet them that be of the household of Narcissus. which are in the Lord. Salute Tryphena and Trvyphosa, who labour in the Iord. Salute the beloved Persis, which laboured much in the Lord. Salute Rufus chosen in the Lord, and his mother and mine. Salute Asyncritus, Phlegon, Hermas, Patrobas, HIermes, and the brethren which are witm them. Salute Philologus, and Julia, Nereus, and his sister, and Olympas, and all the saints which are with them. Salute one another with an holy kiss. The churches of Christ salute you. Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches de. ceive the hearts of the simple. For your obedience is come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore cn your behalf: but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil. And the God ol peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. Timotheus my work-fellow, and Lucius: and Jason, and Sosipater my kinsmen, salute you. I Terti.s, who wrote LECTURE C.-CHAPTER XVI. 515 this ep'stle, salvt rnm is th, iol.d. Gaius mine host, and of the whole church, saluteth you. Erastus the chain. berisin of the c'Iy aiatetk y x,, and Quartus a brother. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, &men. Now to him t1,at 4s,t pv wer to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ. *ccording to the revelation A., the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, but now is made mani. aest, and by tLe Scriptures of tne prphets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made knows ta, all nations for the obedience cf faith; to God only wise, be glory through Jesus Christ for ever. Ame.-a."'l'HT whole chapter, filled with the sal- whom not only I give thanks, but also all uatio;s of respect and cordiality-not the churches of the Gentiles.' Aquila and only fro-ri Paul direct to his correspon- Priscilla must at this time have been at dents. but from the friends and compan- Rome. They had formerly been at Corions who were with Paul to those whom inth, where Paul was their guest, and then he was addressing-evinces how much at Ephesus, whither they accompanied Christianity is fitted to promote the inter- Paul, and where he left them*-to which change of such feelings between man and place they afterwards returned, if we man. We are here presented with the may conclude from the salutation sent to forms and homages of our own modern po- them from Rome by Paul, in his letter to liteness, animated by the spirit and since- Timothy,t when he was bishop of the rity of the gospel-forms which, though but Ephesians. Both at Corinth and Ephesus in themselves the dry bones of Ezekiel's they had been the helpers of Paul in vision, are yet befitting vehicles for the Christ Jesus-his helpers, we presume, best and highest of our mutual affections, chiefly in things temporal-at least not after that the breath of life has been in- in spiritual things, as they had been to fused into them. Altogether we hold this Appollos, when they expounded to him chapter to be a singularly valuable doc- the way of God more perfectly. Our ument-as proving how capable the great apostle did not require this at their usages of a Christian church are of being hands-yet may they have been of most amalgamated with the graces, and the important use to him even as the minisamenities, and the complimentary expres- ters of holy things, in refreshing and consions of the every day intercourse that firming the souls of his disciples. And takes place in general society. here it should be remarked, that Priscilla, Ver. 1, 2.'I commend unto you Phebe the wife of Aquila, is joined to him in our sister, which is a servant of the church this work seeing they are both representwhich is at Cenchrea: that ye receive ed in the book of Acts as contributing to her in the Lord, as becometh saints, and the further instruction of Apollos, even that ye assist her in whatsoever busi- after that he had signalised himself by ness she hath need of you: for she hath his might in the scriptures, and his elobeen a succourer of many, and of myself' quence in speaking the things of the Lord. also.' And here too we are presented Much more then might she be qualified to with another most useful indication-the officiate as a teacher of her own sex, and employment of female agency, under the more particularly of children. We caneye and with the sanction of an apostle, in not think then that the service of females the business of a church. It is well to have in the Christian church was restricted to inspired authority for a practice too little the mere office ofdeaconesses, who minisknown and too little proceeded on in mo- tered to the sick and the destitute. They dern limes. Phebe belonged to the order also laboured in a higher vocation; and of deaconesses-in which capacity she should be enlisted still in the business of had been the helper of many, including a parish, as most invaluable auxiliaries Paul himself. In what respect she served in dispensing both religious comfort and them is not particularly specified. Like religious instruction, within such spheres the women in the Gospels* who waited as might with all fitness and propriety be upon our Saviour, she may have minis- assigned to them. In particular, they tered to them of her substance though will be found the most efficient of all there can be little doubt, that as the hold- civilisers among the ramilies of a now er of an official station in the church, she outlandish, because heretofore neglected ministered to them of her services also. population-and this whether as the visiThey to whom she was commended by tors of sewing and reading, or as themPaul were to receive her as becometh selves the teachers of Sabbath-schoolssaints or with all that respect and deli- Or in the former capacity as the patron. cacy which were due to a Christian fe- esses of week-day and common, and in the male; and also to render her all that latter the direct agents of Christian eduassistance which her business, not here cation. specified, might require at their hands. It appears that Aquila and Priscilla Ver. 3, 4.'Greet Priscilla and Aquila had exposed their own lives to je( pardy my helpers in Christ Jesus: who have for for the safety of Paul's. The special my life laid down their own necks: unto occasion on which this took place is not * Lke, viii, 2, 3. * Acts, xviii, 18, 19. t 2 Tim iv, ht. |516 LECTURE C.-CHAPTER XV1. certainly known. There is abundant additional evidence'for the agency of evidence of their having both had a will females in these days —as of Mary, whc to have braved this hazard at any time bestowed much labour-as well as Tryfor the sake of their beloved apostle. phena and'l'ryphosa, who laboured; and And we can be at no loss to imagine a Persis, who laboured much in the Lord way in which this might have been brought This may have been the labour of mere to the proof, when we read of the insur- deaconship-as that of Stephanas was at rection at Corinth against Paul,' where the time when he was the bearer of a supAquila and Priscilla both were; and ply for the apostle's wants, and of whose whence they accompanied him to Ephe- family it i-s said that they addicted themsus, where they probably were also, at selves to tlhe ministry* of the saints. It the time when such a fearful outbreak may however have been more than thiswas made upon him in that city by a a ministration in spiritual as well as temriotous and enraged multitude. What- poral good things. The passage before ever the occasion was on which they thus us scarcely allows of any specific detersignaiised themselves, it must have been mination on this point. To labour in the some signal deliverance or service to Paul Lord gives no decision. To assist the of which they were the instruments, that disciples of Christ in things necessary for called forth so memorable an expression the present life is part of that labour in of gratitude, not alone frorm Paul individ- the Lord which shall not be in vain. "In ually, but probably and with open mani- as much as ye have done it unto one of festation from all the churches. these my brethren, ye have done it unto Ver. 5-15.'Likewise greet the church me." We may here add, that in the 6th that is in their house.' It would appear verse there occurs a variation of reading from this, that in these days, Christian — some manuscripts bearing that Mary congregations met and had their religious bestowed much labour'among you,' inservices done to them in dwelling-houses. stead of; on us.' That is, she may have It was the practice for Aquila and Pris- been helpful to the members of the church, cilla to have a church in their house else- whether spiritually or temporally; or in where too-as here in Rome, and also in the latter of these two senses, may have Asia, whence Paul wrote his first epistle been helpful to Paul himself. to the Corinthians, and sends the church Ver. 7. We have no taste for ascertainthere a salutation from the church held ing that which the Bible has left uncerin the house of these devoted followers of tain, and on which ecclesiastical antiour Lord.t We have traces of the same quity throws no light whatever. Why supractice in other places of the New Tes- persaturate the world with conjectures on tament. "Salute Nymphas and the matters which have no ground of evidence church which is in his house."I "Paul to stand upon?-as whether Andronicus unto Philemon and to the church in thy and Junia were man and wife; whether house."] Junia was not Julia, or if she was a woThen follows a list of salutations, in the man at all; whether they were claimed course of which some brief notices are by Paul as of kin to himself, because given as if casually and incidentally, yet Israelites, or because of still nearer affiniwhich are by no means devoid of interest. ty; whether they were of note among the As when he salutes Epenetus, he sig- apostles, because, being converted before nalises him by an epithet-well-beloved- Paul, they might have been of the seventy which marks him out as an object of the disciples; and lastly, what the occasion apostle's special and superlative affection. of their imprisonment along with the It is like the love which one has for a first- apostle. Enough for us the generalities born-he having been the first of Paul's of Scripture, which are at the same time spiritual children in Achaia. It is true of themselves sufficiently interesting. that the house of Stephanas is elsewhere Ver. 8.'Beloved in the Lord.' This termed the first-fruits of Achaia.ll It is expression denotes a purely spiritual repossible that Epenetus may have been of lationship, as distinguished from the natuthe household of Stephanas, or at all events ral relationship adverted to in the premay have been converted at the same ceding verse. The two verses together time, or time of the first conversion which suggest the two distinct grounds on which took place in Achaia under Paul's minis- one might be the object of affection. Both try. Some critics find an explanation in might be united in the same person; and the circumstance that there are Greek this reminds us of what Paul says respectmanuscripts which present us with " Asia," ing Onesimus, that he should be received instead of Achaia. by Philemon as a brother beloved, " both XWTe also gather from this enumeration in the flesh and in the Lord." It is plea. sing to observe the former of these two Acts, xviii, 12-18. t 1 Cort. xvi, 19. I Col. iv, 15. i Philemon, i, 2. i 1 Corinthian;, xvi, 15. * AtaKovta. LECTURE C.-CHAPTER XVI. 517 affections thus legitimised by the apostle dence for the truth of the evangelic story -or the sanction given by him to the see Dr. Paley's'Hora Paulinae.' natural as well as spiritual love-to the Ver. 16.'Salute one another with ant love of friendship and relationship, as well holy kiss.'-The customary method of as that love of Christians which is em- salutation in these days-exchanged, how. phatically termed the love of the brethren, ever, only between those of the same sex. and is singled out by St. John as an evi- It is remarkable that, by the testimony dence of our having passed from death of' Suetonius, an edict was published by unto life. one of the Roman emperors for the aboVer. 9.'Our helper in Christ.' This lition of this practice among his subjects expression, even in our English Bible, -perhaps in order to check abuses, for powerfully suggests that the help given the prevention of which our apostle enby Urbane to Paul was in his apostolic joins that it shall be a holy salutation. work. But the original fixes this more It is a custom adverted to in other places surely. He was the fellow-worker* of the of the New Testament.* apostle.'The churches of Christ salute you'Ver. 10.' Approved in Christ' —or found. Those churches probably to whom he iHe was one of those whom Paul here dis- had made known his purpose of' writing tinguishes by the special proof which he to the church at Rome-whose faith was bad given of his discipleship. spoken of throughout the whole world.t Ver. 11.' Which are in the Lord.' This We might well imagine the satisfaction adjunct to the household of Narcissus, and which wvould be spread abroad among the not of Aristobulus, would imply that only disciples everywhere, when they heard a part of Narcissus' family had teen con- of the progress which Christianity was verted-whereas all of the other household making in the metropolis of the empire; had been turned to the fhith. We may and with what cordiality they would send here observe, that Paul confines these their gratulations to the believers there. salutations only to brethren in Christ- Ver. 17.'Now I beseech you, brethren, though none more courteous than he to mark them which cause divisions and them who were without. His were not offences contrary to the doctrine which common lctters, but written for the use ye have learned; and avoid thenm.' Paul of the churches. recurs to the topic of his unceasing earVer. 13.'Chosen in the Lord.' Elect nestness and desire-the peace or una-it is not said beloved, as with many of nimity of the church. He had just finthe others. The two expressions har- ished a long series of salutations, and monise. They who are loved now were enjoined them to exchange these tokens loved before the foundation of the world. of mutual affection with one anotherThey who were loved then, are loved wvhen, as if the more strikingly to mark even unto the end. his adverse feeling towards the authors'His mother and mine.' The mother of and promoters of' dissension in their sociRufus by birth, of Paul by affection-a ciety, he points them out as men, with claim of relationship by which he deli- whom, instead of the signs or interchanzately and beautifully propounds the love ges of regard, they were to hold no felthat he bore to her. Rufus is understood lowship. He who before had told them to have been the son of Simon, who was whom they were to receive, now tells compelled to bear the cross of our Saviour.t them whom they are to reject or'avoid.' We may close these remarks, by observ- The doctrine which they had just learned ing that these names are not without their from him was that of forbearance, one use-in clearing up certain points, or at for another, in the matter of certain Jewleast furnishing ground for certain plausi- ish observances-the doctrine of that ble conjectures, both in the evangelic and charity which endureth all things, save in ecclesiastical history. As an example that spirit which is hostile to its own, and of the latter, there is no reason for doubt- wherewith it must ever be at antipodes. ing the testimony of the ancients-that For them who caused divisions, such as the Hermas to whom Paul here sends his the judaising teachers who would have respects, is identical with the apostolic forced their own burdensome ritual on father of that name, whose works have all the converts; or for them who caused come down to us. For specimens of the otffences, such as those Gentile believers, help which these names afford. in estab- who, in the wantonness of their liberty, lishing certain connections and references cared not to insult and to wound the con-so as to harmonise some of the distant sciences of their weaker brethren-for places and passages of the New'resta- neither of these could our apostle feel the ment, and thus elicit a confirmatory evi- slightest complacency or toleration. They * tivepyoI. * Cor. xvi, 20; 2 Cor. xiii, 12; 1 Thessaionians, v, fl Mark, xv, 21. 1 Peter, v, 14. t Romans, i, 8. to. -k -LECTURE C.-CHAPTER XVI. were marked men In ilis'stimation —no- "sporting themselves with their own de torious in the sinister sense of the term: ceivings, while feasting " with the de. And it strongly evinces the value that he ceived-and "speaking great swelling had for unbroken concord in every Chris- words of vanity."* And so also Jude, in tian society-when, in point both of exhorting the disciples to whom he wrote, reckoning and treatment, he puts these that "they should earnestly contend foI disturbers of the peace on the same level the faith which was once delivered to the with those profligates whom he would saints," describes to us the men against cast out from the attentions of all the whom that contest had to be maintained brethren.* -"men crept in unawares," and "who Ver 18.'For they that are such serve run greedily after the error of Balaam not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own for reward " —who having insinuated belly; and by good words and fair themselves into the society of the faith. speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.' ful, feasted among them without fear — He obviously refers here to the judaising who with their mouths spake great swellteachers-because to them who deceived ing words, and flattered men for their own:he hearts of the simple, that is, of the advantage.t scrupulous or weak, who refrained from Ver. 19.'For your obedience is come meats, and attached a religious importance abroad unto all men. I am glad thereto the eating ofherbs.t There were false fore on your behalf: but yet I would teachers in these days, to whose inroads have you wise unto that which is good, the earlier churches stood peculiarly ex- and simple concerning evil.' What he posed. They practised on those of a had before said of their faith, he now.ender conscience, making a trade as it says of their obedience, that it was spo were of their superstitious fears; and ken of everywhere. He is anxious theremnade unhallowed use of the ill-gotten fore that they should not tarnish their fair Rscendency which they obtained over fame-for certain it is that from the ready,hem. Their object, as the apostle here and general intercourse which subsisted ldils us, was not to serve the Lord Jesus between Rome and all parts of the emChrist, but to make out a lazy and luxu- pire, the story of their degeneracies would rious livelihood for themselves-and that as speedily go abroad as did that of the at the expense of those, whom by good virtues and graces by which they adorned works and fair speeches they had de- their profession of the gospel. He rejoices t2eived. No wonder that the noble, manly, in the praise which they had earned from disinterested Paul, and withal so jealous all the churches; but proportional would as he was for the maintenance of the be his grief should they ever forfeit the pure truth of the gospel, should, on so reputation which they had acquired. He many occasions, have protested with such does not express, however, the same doubt vigour and vehemence against them. It or diffidence of them which he did of the is of such that he seems to speak in Phi- Galatians-yet for their greater security lippians, iii, 18, 19, where he denounces he cautions them to be' wise unto that the enemies of the cross of Christ, " whose which is good, and simple concerning God is their belly;" and in Gal. vi, 12- evil.' where he tells of those who "desire to This last injunction is analagous to that make a fair show." They were the trou- given by our Saviour to those disciples blers of whom he desired that they should whom he sent forth as " lambs in the even be cut off t-the perverters of the midst of wolves." "1 Be wise as serpents gospel of Christ, who preached another and harmless as doves." But though anagospel, and whom he pronounces to be logous, it does not seem to be identical. accursed.$ These deceivers were spe- The apostles of our Lord needed the wiscially of the circumcision, who subverted dom of the serpent for their protection whole houses, and taught things which from the wiles of their skilful and practhey ought not, for filthy lucre's sake.ll tised adversaries, who knew, for they had We can quite imagine them to be of that made a study of it, how best to circum. sort who entered into houses and led cap- vent and distress their victims. And they tive silly women.~T Our knowledge of were harmless as doves, because they such characters and such doings furnishes neither felt the disposition, nor had ever a clue to the explanation of other passa- cultivated the art of malice. It is thus ges. They were of such imposters that that men might be wise in one thing and Peter speaks, and who seem to have taken simple in another; and the application a most shameful advantage over their of these qualities to the case before us dupes or victims —' beguiling unstable seems to have lain —First in ability to souls " —given to " covetous practices "- discriminate what was really and essentially good from that which but claimea *See 1 Cor. v, 11. t Rom. xiv. 2.: Gal. v, 12. S Gal i, 7, 8. I Titus, i, 10, 11. ~ 2 Tim. iii, 6. * 2 Peter, ii, 13, 14, 18, 19. t Jude, 4, 11,12, 16, LECTURE C.-CHAPTER XVI. 519 or pretended to be so, in virtue of which something more, we find the apostle they cleaved to the one and rejected the adding the salutations of the 16th chapother-Secondly in abstaining from all ter, from the first to the sixteenth verse. fellowship, and so having no knowledge As he had recurred to the letter for the of their ways, with those deep and mis- purpose of sending these salutations, he chievous designers who could so sophis- is revisited while in the act of penning ticate and so counterfeit evil as to make or rather of dictating them, with that deit pass for that which was good-imposing sirousness which he felt so strongly for on their deluded followers, by a show of the peace of the church at Rome: And will-worship and zeal for the law, to the this occasions a prolongation of the letter utter subversion of the gospel of Christ. from the 16th to the 20th verse, which he By the first they were men in understand- concludes with a second farewell saluta. ing-' proving all things, and holding fast tion-' The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that which is good.' By the second they be with you. Amen.' After this, and with were children in malice-strangers to its the benefit of a further allowance of time will, and therefore unskilled in its methods ere the messenger was despatched, there or its ways. seems to be a second postscript of more Ver. 20.' And the God of peace shall salutations which occupy three verses, bruise Satan under your feet shortly.' A from the 20th to the 24th-where a third good many manuscripts, and even a war- valedictory, the last of all, concludes the rantable translation of the received read- epistle. ang, would authorise our turning this Ver. 21-23. Here follow the salutations, clause from a prophecy into a prayer- not from Paul himself to the individuals'May the God of peace bruise Satan whom he names-these he had finished under your feet shortly.' The reference already; nor yet from the churches as by the apostle to the great adversary of large, which also had been given; buhuman souls was very naturally suggested fiom certain Christian friends who were by the view he was then taking of those with him, and were desirous of sending false teachers whom h6 elsewhere desig- through him their respects to the whole nates as the ministers of Satan trans- church at Rome. formed into angels of light. And the In the 21st verse, there occur two reterms in which the prayer or prophecy is markable scriptural names-Timothy, couched, is precisely such as would be who by the consent of all is he to whom suggested by the prediction in Genesis, he addressed the two epistles; and Lucius, iii, 15, "It shall bruise thy head, and thou who though regarded by some as Lucius shalt bruise his heel." He is the great of Cyrene, is, by far the greater number author of all confusion and controversy of critics, and with more probability, in our churches: And the achievement reckoned to be Luke the Evangelist, auproper to the God of peace, or to HisSon, thor of the Gospel and Acts, and the who came to destroy the works of the fellow-traveller of Paul. We leave the devil, would be to trample them under question undecided, whether the kinsmen foot, and so evolve harmony and order here mentioned were nearer relatives, or out of all the disturbances by which he only Israelites, whom the apostle elseretards, though unable to prevent, the where calls his kinsmen according to the final establishment of the triumph of flesh. Christ over all His enemies. The invo- In the 22d verse Paul suspends his diccation for His grace to be with them tation, and lets his own amanuensis intercomes in most appropriately-seeing that pose a salutation for himself to the church this is indeed the great instrument of at Rome. In his first epistle to the CorSatan's overthrow-the Spirit who is at inthians he also suspends his dictation; the giving of Christ, being the alone vic- and, taking up the pen himself, writestor over the spirit which worketh in the "The salutation of me Paul with mine children of disobedience-the spirit of own hand." him who is the god of this world. "Greater'Gaius mine host, and of the whole is he that is in you than he that is in the church,' mentioned in the23d verse, is with world." good reason conceived to be the Gaius of It is not unworthy of notice that this Corinth whom Paul had baptized;* from Epistle to the Romans seems to have had which city this epistle was written. Paul three distinct conclusions. The first is at was at that time an inmate of his house; the end of the 15th chapter, where the and he takes occasion to make honouralast verse is quite in the form of a vale- ble mention of his hospitality to Chrisdictory invocation; but, just as if before tians at large-a frequent and most useful the letter had been sent off, there had oc- virtue, being much called for by the exi, curred lime enough for the subjoining of gencies of the times. Erastus the cham. * 1 Thessalonians, v, 21. * 1 Corinthians, i, 14. 520 LECTURE C.-CHAPTER XVC, berlain, or city treasurer or Corinth, is an establish a man in the faith is to make exarnple, that though not many of wealth him stand fast therein-so that he shall or high station, yet that some such had not fall, or 1"fall away."* It is well thus become obedient to the faith. As we have to connect our perseverance with the just stated that this epistle was written power of God. He who hath begun the from Corinth, we might give a specimen good work, can alone confirm and perfect of the way in which this is reasoned out it. It is by a perpetual reference there. -or of the kind of data on which such a fore, in prayer to Him, and for the conclusion is supported.-Paul commends strengtheninginfluences of His Spirit, that Phebe, who seems to have been sent with grace is alimented in the heart. Let him the epistle, to the church at Rome. She who thinketh he standeth, thus take heed was a deaconess of the church at Cen- lest he fall. Let him work out his salvachren, the port of Corinth, and a few miles tion with fear and trembling, because di.stant from it. Then Gaius is the host sensible of his own weakness, and so of I'aul;* and Gaius was baptized by having no confidence in himself. Yet let Paul at Corinth.t Then Erastusis charn- him mix with his trembling mirth-beberlain of the city, which he does not cause rejoicing in the Lord Jesus, and name. It must have been a well-known looking upward to that God who alone city therefore, and in all likelihood this worketh in him to will and to do of His capital of Achaia. Lastly, Erastus, we own good pleasure. are told in 2 Tim. iv. 20, abode at Corinth'According to my gospel and the -though probably often absent from it, preaching of Jesus Christ.' May He stabas to all appearance he was a fellow- lish you in the truths and principles of helper of Paul, and at times accompanied that system which is agreeable to, so him in his travels.t agreeable as to be identical with my gosVer. 24-27.'The grace of our Lord Je- pel or with the gospel which T preach, sus Christ be with you all. Amen. Now and which Christ also preached-Paul to him that is of power to stablish you thus affirming his doctrine and Jesus according to my gospel, and the preach- Christ's doctrine to be at one. ing of Jesus Christ, according to the rev-'According to the revelation of the elation of the mystery, which was kept mystery which was kept secret since the secret since the world began, but now is world began,' or kept secret in ancient made manifest, and by the scriptures of times.t He had before said-according the prophets, according to the command- to' m gospel;' and when he now saysment of the everlasting God, made known according to' the revelation of the mysto all nations bor the obedience of faith: tery,' he but substitutes one method of to God only wise, be glory through Jesus expression for another-The subject-matChrist for ever. Amen.' The final bene- ter in both being the same, only amplified diction of Paul comes at last, and closes or expressed otherwise. This gospel was the epistle. It begins with a repetition of I kept secret,' or held back in silence from the same which he had already given in the earth j-there having been little or nothe 20th verse-imploring upon them all thing said of it to the earlier generations the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. What of our species.-It has been made a mat. remains is in the general an ascription of ter of' discussion what the mystery here glory to the Father of our Lord-but it is spoken of precisely is. Some would have of such a complicated and parenthetic it specifically to be the calling of the structure, as to require some attention for Gentiles, and for countenance to this their unravellino the several topics which are explanation of it, would refer to Epheinvolved in it. sians, iii, 9, and Colossians, i, 26. We'To him that is of power to stablish have no doubt ourselves, that generally it you.' This clause is suspended in Paul's is the subject matter of the gospel. own frequent and characteristic way, by'But now is made manifest.' That the interposal of other matter suggested which was profoundly hidden before is at the time; and which if removed would now made manifest —first in a dimmer and connect immediately the words now given lesser degree by the prophets to the Jews; with those of the 27th verse.'To him and afterwards in the fuller light of gosthat is of power to stablish you......to pel times made known to all nations. We God only wise,' &c. The contiguity only, are not to wonder that the revelation made not the connection, of these two clauses, to the prophets shouiltl be spoken of as is broken up, by what comes between only made now. At the time when this them.' To him that is of power;' or as revelation was first given its meaning was Jude says in his closing benediction- little known even to the prophets through "To him that is able to keep you from whom it passed. Though ministered by falling, and to present you faultless." To - H o Hebrews, vis 6. t XpootS airo4ctcf. "Rom. xvi, 23 t 1 Cor. i, 14.: Acts, xix, 22. Xaolevo. LECTtRE C.-IHAPTER XY 62 thexm it was not unto themselves but unto only wise God, be glory for (ever, throcugh us* It had been given in words to the Jesus Christ our Lord.' world centuries before the appearance of We may be assured that there is noour Saviour-yet was only made known thing misplaced or inappropriate in the for the first time to the disciples of Em- epithets employed by the apostle; and maus, when he opened their understand- more especially those which he applies tc ings to understand the Scriptures-begin- the Divinity. In particular, when he apning with Moses and the Prophets. What plies different epithets to Him at different our Saviour did in person to these disci- times, there must, we apprehend, be a ples upon earth, He afterwards did to be- discriminative reason for his so doing. In lievers in general by the Holy Spirit sent the 26th verse he denominates Him the down from heaven, and whose office it is everlasting God; and in the 27th, the God to make the sure word of prophecy obvi- only wise. The epithet everlasting seems ous to their view, by causing the day to to have been suggested to the mind of the dawn and the day-star to arise in their apostle, when he had in view the differ hearts. The gospel might well have been ent and distant ages at which God had said by the apostle to be manifest by the His different dealings with men fiom the Scriptures of the prophets only now-for beginning of the world-as keeping them only now were these Scriptures made in ignorance at its earlier periods, and at manifest. length in due time naking known the ~According to the commandment of the scheme of His salvation. He, the King everlasting God made known unto all na- Eternal, who knows the end fiom the betions for the obedience of faith.' To per- ginning, knows what is best and fittest to fect the revelation of the gospel, the work be done at each of the successive stages of apostles had to be superadded to that in the process of that great administra. of prophets. The gospel had been wit- tion whose goings forth have been of old, nessed to by the Law and the Prophets- and whose issues are from everlasting to when it lay in enigma till cleared up by everlasting. And He is denominated the the more explicit statements of those who only wise, that we, the short-lived creawere commissioned to go and preach it tures of a day, might learn to receive unto every creature. with unquestioning silence all the intimaThese three verses (23, 24, and 25) tions which He has been pleased to have might be rendered thus.-' Now to Him given us. In particular, it should reconwho is able to establish you in the disci- cile the Jews to the termination of that pleship of my gospel, which is nothing economy under which they had hitherto else than the gospel of Jesus Christ Him- lived, and under which they had vainly self-or in the discipleship of that revela- arrogated to themselves an exclusive and tion whereby there has been divulged the ever-during superiority over the rest of truth that was before hidden, and kept the species-whereas it appeared that the back from men in the earlier ages of the middle wall of partition was now to be world; but is now made manifest, both broken down; and that their fancied by the prophetic writings which we in monopoly of the divine favour was but a these days have been made more fully to temporary evolution in the history of the understand-and also by the proclama- divine government. And so he concludes tion of the same agreeably to the com- his epistle, by calling on both parties in mandment of the everlasting God, amongst the church to which he writes it, to unite all nations, for the purpose of obtaining with him in the one ascription of glory their submission to the faith-To Him, the to the Father through the Son; And tk.,, -_- ------ verily a glory which shall never eud.. I Peter, i, 12 GOe