*

scheme of salvation usually overthrow their own batteries, spike up their own cannon, and save its friends the trouble of defending themselves. For, on the one hand, the advocates for justification by faith are charged with being righ"teous overmuch," " and unnecessarily precise, which is accounted for on the score of pride; and, on the other, the principles they hold are represented as naturally leading to a careless and irreligious life If two persons, intending to overthrow a wall, were, on opposite sides, and with equal strength, to exert themselves, they would defeat their own design. Thus it fares with the enemies of revealed truth, who do nothing by the opposition they make to it but prove their own prejudices, and the enmity of the carnal mind against God.

The grace of God is His free and undeserved kindness in the redemption of man. The very

* Eccles. vii. 16. That this abused text cannot be a prohibition of earnestness in seeking after conformity to the law of God, is very clear; for the Scripture frequently sets forth the impossibility of attaining to the perfection which the law requires. (See Ps. liii. 1, and Rom. iii. 9, 10.) And our Lord assureth us that, after we have done all (if possible) that is commanded us, it becomes us to consider ourselves as unprofitable servants. (Luke xvii. 10.) With this the fourteenth article of our church directly coincides. The sense of the passage will be easily settled, if it be considered that verbs in Hithpael often denote to pretend to be, or to do, that which the verb signifies. The misapplied words of the wise man in Eccles. vii. 16, may be therefore thus rendered and paraphrased: "Do not pretend to great righteousness, neither do thou pretend to superior wisdom: "why shouldest thou destroy thyself?" Do not make pretensions to that which is unattainable, even righteousness by the law, nor justify thyself. Take heed also that thou do not exalt thine own wisdom, for "the wisdom of men "is foolishness with God," lest thereby thou shouldest deceive thyself, and so destroy both body and soul in hell.

66

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word implies its independence on any worthiness in the objects of it; for a thing ceases to be a favour so far as it is deserved. The payment of the wages of a hireling is not an act of grace but of debt. We had sinned, and thereby had incurred the curse of the righteous law. God might justly have left us to perish, for He was under no obligation to provide a vicarious sacrifice. He has shewn the severity of his justice, by leaving the fallen angels without a remedy, "reserved in chains of darkness "to the judgment of the great day." But, glory be to His holy name, respecting sinners of mankind He has said, "Deliver them from going down into the pit, I have found a ranThis grace then is the sole and allsufficient cause of our salvation. By it we are pardoned; † by it we are justified; ‡ by it we are called to the knowledge of the truth; § by this grace we are sanctified; thereby we are preserved; ¶ and when the top-stone is put on the edifice, the cry will be, "Grace, "Grace unto it."** The holy practice which a contrite sinner is desirous of maintaining can only spring from evangelic motives. Reason and moral suasion are weak barriers against our natural love of sin, and our aversion to real Godliness. A man might as well think of stopping the course of the Ganges by means of an insignificant cockle-shell, as of resisting the more furious current of his own vile affections by any arguments drawn from the fitness of things. No principles, but those

exhibited in

Rom. iii. 24.
1 Pet. i. 5.

the Gospel, can change the heart. * The Gospel acts powerfully on the understanding, and produces a rational conviction that it is our interest, as well as our duty, to "live soberly, righteously, and Godly in this present world." It produces demonstration in the conscience that sin is the cause of present torment, and leads to eternal ruin; that holiness brings present happiness, and is an essential preparative for eternal life, though not its meritorious cause. It acts with an invincible energy on the will, supplying effectual motives to produce obedience. For the love of Christ, when experienced in the soul, has a constraining power, as much superior to all the motives of philosophy, as the light of the meridian-sun is to the feeble ray of the glow-worm, whose glimmer is just sufficient to attract the notice of the traveller, but leaves him to pursue his journey in the dark. The influence of Gospel-truth turns duty into pleasure, and proves, to the sinner's full conviction, that "God's service is perfect freedom."

Godliness, as the word implies, has God for its object. It includes obedience to all the precepts of the first table. Our church has explained her meaning in the use of this word by the answer which she gives to the question proposed in her catechism respecting our duty towards God. † Faith in God is an essential part of Godliness. "To believe in Him" is not merely to acknowledge His existence, for this a man may do, and yet continue destitute

*Where are the advocates for justification by works to be found, who live soberly, righteously, and Godly in this present world?

† "My duty towards God is to believe in Him, to fear "Him, and to love Him, &c."

of Godliness. "The devils believe and tremble.' But it is a belief of His goodness, as well as of His Being, accompanied with such a trust in Him as leads to an expectation of happiness from Him. God, absolutely considered as an holy and just Being, cannot be to a sinner an object of confidence. To Adam, before the fall, He was; but now, without a Mediator, it is impossible for us to approach Him. The fear of God is another ingredient in true Godliness. The generality of mankind fear the reproach of the world more than the displeasure of God; and the loss of sensual gratification more than the loss of His favour. But true Godliness supposes such a fear of God as outweighs all other considerations. It includes also a supreme love to God. What we love, in that we delight. In the company of a friend we experience pleasure; and, if that friend be absent from us, a correspondence with him is ardently desired, and carefully maintained. The lovers of God labour to maintain " fellowship with the Father " and the Son, through the Spirit;" and consider the intercourse which they enjoy with heaven, by prayer and praise, as their inestimable privilege, dearer than life and all its other enjoy

ments.

Righteousness is the duty we owe to our neighbour, and has respect to all the precepts of the second table. It is excellently summed up by the compilers of our liturgy in a few words, when they inform us, in answer to a question put to a catechumen on the subject, that "our duty towards our neighbour is to love him as "ourselves, and to do unto all men as we would they should do unto us. How comprehensive a rule! We act so far in a way becoming

the Christian character, as we put it in practice. In every situation and relation of life, this Divine epitome of ethics, if closely attended to, will direct us how to "walk and to please "God." It will unravel a thousand intricacies, and afford a satisfactory answer to almost every case of conscience that may occur.

Sobriety respects ourselves.-It is soundness of mind in opposition to distraction or madness. * Man, in his natural state, is distracted or mad. He is so represented in our Lord's beautiful parable of the prodigal son, in which the unhappy spendthrift, when brought to a resolution of returning to his Father, is said to "come "to himself," or to be restored to the use of his reason. Madness is the loss or perversion of reason. Every unconverted man acts irrationally. He prefers the baubles of time to eternal realities. Like one in a delirium, he is in the utmost danger, yet perceives it not. If we saw a man loaded with ignominious chains, and unwilling to part with them, we should pity his condition, and conclude him to be divested of reason. The love of sin is the heavy and ignominious chain with which we are tied and bound, yet are we by nature pleased with it, and unwilling to have it removed from us.-Sobriety is also modesty or humility of mind, in opposition to pride, which is as contrary to the state of

* The Greek word oppover is used in a threefold sense. 1. To be of a sound mind, in opposition to distraction or madness. Mark v. 15. Luke viii. 35. 2 Cor. v. 13.

2. To be of a modest, humble mind, in opposition to pride. Rom. xii. 3.

3. To be of a sober, recollected mind, as opposed to intemperance or sensuality. Tit. ii. 6. 1 Pet. iv. 7.

Each sense may have a place here.

PARKHURST.