united bands of humanity, friendship and religion, form the most powerful obligation to all the useful and amiable offices of fraternal love. And the power of forgiving an injury will be a certain pledge to ourfelves and others of all that shall be attentive, tender and beneficent in the ordinary conduct of our life, and our commerce with fociety.

4. Finally, this fubject is closely connected with piety as well as with morals. The tempers and habits of men give a tincture to the spirit of their Religion. The paffions of revenge and hatred have contributed to clothe the Divine nature in thofe gloomy terrors, in which the fuperftitions of all ages have more or less invefted it. The Deity has appeared in the most difmal forms, where his votaries have been the most unrelenting. Placid manners, on the other hand, and a benevolent difpofition, naturally reprefent him in the charms of benignity and love. Our hearts then accord with the promise of our Saviour, and recommend it to our faith.-If ye forgive men their trespasses, your beavenly Father will alfo forgive you. Put on therefore, my brethren, the meekness of the bleffed Jesus, who on the cross prayed for his murderers. Prove yourselves to be the children of your Father who is in heaven, by that spirit of love which is his image. You will hereby illuftrate the beauty of Religion in the view of men,-you will augment and extend the happiness of fociety,-you will cultivate in your own bofoms the rich confolations of piety, and the hopes of eternal life,-and you will at once animate your devotions, and increase the happiness which a good man finds in them, by ftrengthening your faith in the Divine

mercy.

Do

Do thou, O Most Holy and Gracious God! create and cherish in our hearts, more and more, thefe heavenly difpofitions, for the fake of Christ our Lord! To whom with thee, and the eternal Spirit, be rendered glory everlafting. Amen.

SER

SERMON XI.

THE SPIRITUAL DEATH AND LIFE OF THE BELIEVER.

BY

WILLIAM LINN, D. D.

One of the Minifters of the Reformed Dutch Church, New-York.

GAL. ii. 20.

I am crucified with Chrift; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Chrift liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

O understand thefe words it is neceffary to attend

Το

to their connection. The Apostle, n the former part of the epiftle, vindicates himself against the mifreprefentations of falfe teachers in the Galatian church, who alleged that he was no apostle, and that he taught doctrines contrary to Peter and the other apoftles. In the 16th verse of this chapter he begins to establish and defend the doctrine of juftification by faith, which these

teachers attempted to fubvert. They urged the strict obfervance of the ceremonial law, and particularly of circumcifion, as neceffary to falvation. The Apostle, on the other hand, excludes all works, whether of the ceremonial or moral law, from having any influence upon it, and directs to feek righteoufnefs only through faith in Christ. He likewise anfwers that old and common objection made by adversaries, that if perfons be not justified by their obedience to the law, then a door is opened to licentioufnefs, and Chrift becomes the minifter of fin. This he rejects by preffing holiness, or a ftrict conformity to the moral law; and left they might fay, that this was building again what he had deftroyed, he fhows, that faith and obedience are always united; that the fame faith which looks to Chrift for the pardon of fin, derives from him alfo ftrength to fubdue it. I through the law, fays he in the 19th verfe, am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. By being dead to the law, we are not to understand the being freed from it as a rule of life; but the not putting confidence in obedience to it for juftification. That obedience which the law demands has been fulfilled by Christ the Surety of the believer, and accepted in his behalf. He is alfo dead to the law, as being delivered from the curfe of it. But though the law has neither power to fave nor to condemn him, yet he is under obligation to live unto God. His being indebted to Chrift is fo far from excufing him, that it increases the obligation, and is the most powerful inducement to holiness of life. This the Apoftle farther explains and enforces in the text.

I am crucified with Chrift. "Through this crucified one, I die to the law, fin, and the world;--and my death refembles his. Nevertheless, as he rofe and lives forever

more,

more, so I live spiritually; having grace here, the earnest of future glory.-Strictly speaking, however, it is not I that live. I am neither the caufe nor the promoter of this life; but Chrift liveth in me; by his Spirit directing the inclinations of my heart. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God. The great inftrument of my life is, a firm belief that Jesus, who was crucified, is the Son of God. Here I lay hold upon the hope fet before me; and this hope is as an anchor of the foul, both fure and ftedfaft." The Apoftle speaks in the first person, I, and thus declares his own experience with respect to the doctrine he defends. This was his condition, and is truly the condition of all believers; though they may not be able, fo clearly, to adopt his language, or to use the appropriating words, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

In difcourfing on this fubject, 1 fhall direct your attention to the leading thoughts; and therefore, I fhall endeavour to show, Firft, What is implied in being crucified with Chrift.-Secondly, What we are to understand by Christ living in the believer; and point out the great influence of faith in the divine life. Or, in fewer words, fhow-How the believer dies, and how he lives.

I. Expreffions fimilar to this, of being crucified with Christ, are more than once used in the writings of the Apostle. No one will be so weak as to imagine that Paul was a sharer with Chrift in the merit of his fufferings. Such a thought would be horrid and blafphemous. Thus, * though he defires to know the fellowship of his fufferings, yet he means only to enjoy the benefit of them, and be conformed to them in his own. Seeing his Lord fuffered, he did not repine, but rejoiced in fuffering for his fake. Accordingly

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