Page images
PDF
EPUB

that it has been often and well proclaimed in our very courts of justice, proclaimed, I say, to criminals condemned, at the very time of condemnation, and that too, by those very persons who pronounced the sentence of death against them. Yes, thanks be to God, there are judges, even in this degenerate age, who are not ashamed to unite the balm of Christian counsel with the severity of a penal sentence.

But let us suppose that we have neither violated the laws of man, nor, in any flagrant instances, the laws of God; shall we therefore be acquitted at God's Tribunal? Shall we need none to intreat for us, none to plead our cause in that day? May we safely neglect the sacrifice of Christ, because we have abstained from gross iniquities? Let us not deceive ourselves with any such dangerous imagination: "We all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;" "every mouth therefore must be stopped, and all the world must become guilty before God." None can stand upon the footing of his own righteousness. Having transgressed the law, we are cursed by the law; as it is written, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. We must therefore all, without exception, seek deliverance in him, " who hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." God has declared that "there is salvation in no other; that there is no other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ:" if we will not " enter by that door," we exclude ourselves from even a possibility of obtaining mercy to all eternity.

I know it will be urged in opposition to this, that, we have been free from all gross offences, and have been punctual in the observance of many civil and religious duties. Be it so: but how would such a plea sound in a court of justice? Let a criminal, accused of rebellion against an earthly monarch, plead his allegiance to the King of kings; let him say, "I regarded his sacrifice, I trusted in the atonement, I sought an interest in Christ." Would his plea be valid? Would he not be told immediately, that these things he ought indeed to have done, and not to have left the other undone? Thus then we

answer those who go about to establish their own righteousness instead of submitting to the righteousness of God; "It was well that you abstained from gross sin, and fulfilled many duties; but you ought also to have sought redemption through the blood of Christ; you ought to have fled for refuge to the hope set before you: and because you have neglected him, you have no part or lot in his salvation." What can be plainer than our Lord's own' assertions, "No man cometh to the Father but by me;" and, "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in me?" or what can be more awful than that interrogation of St. Peter, "What shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?" We may venture to put the question to the conscience of every considerate man; If you sin against God in neglecting and despising his dear Son, what atonement will you offer to him? If you make light of the sacrifice offered upon Calvary, where will you find another sacrifice for sin? If you disregard the mediation and intercession of Christ, where will you find another advocate? If you sin thus against God, who shall intreat for you?

Here then the subject wears a very serious and solemn aspect. We all are hastening to "the judgment-seat of Christ, where we must give account of ourselves to God." There, high and low, rich and poor, judges and criminals, must all appear to receive their sentence of condemnation or acquittal; there will be no respect of persons with God: even the criminal who died by the hand of the executioner, provided that his disgraceful circumstances led him to reflection, and made him implore mercy through the blood of Jesus, shall stand a monument of redeeming grace: while his superiors in morality, yea, even the judge who condemned him, if they died in impenitence and unbelief, shall hear the sentence of condemnation pronounced against them, and be doomed to that "second death in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone."

Let us then enquire diligently into the state of our souls: let us "judge ourselves that we be not judged of the Lord." Let us examine what regard we have paid, and are yet daily paying, to the sacrifice of Christ? let us enquire whether he be all our salvation and all our

desire?" And let us remember, that if we would have him to intreat for us in that day, we must now intreat him for ourselves, "desiring earnestly to be found in him, not having our own righteousness, but the righteousness of God which is by him.”

CCCXC. THE NECESSITY OF HAVING THE SPIRIT

OF CHRIST.

Rom. viii. 9. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.

MAN at his first creation was made in the divine image; God communed with him as a friend, and dwelt in him as a temple: but this harmony was not of long continuance: man sinned; and God in righteous judgment departed from him-Not willing however that his apostate creatures should irrecoverably perish, God sent his Son to make atonement for their sins; and his Spirit to renew their natures, that so they might be restored to his favour, and rendered meet for the inheritance they had forfeited-It is of this Spirit that the apostle speaks in the text, and declares that we must have him dwelling in us if we would belong to Christ-We might understand the Spirit as referring to the disposition of Christ; but that the context evidently confines its import to that blessed Spirit, who "raised up Christ from the dead, and will in due time raise up us also" He is called "the Spirit of God," and " the Spirit of Christ," because Christ is God, and the Spirit acts as his deputy-We propose to shew

I. That we may have the Spirit

By "having the Spirit" we do not mean, that we arg to have those common operations of the Spirit, which the most ungodly men both experience and resist;" (for then the Apostle's assertion would be frivolous in the extreme) nor do we mean those miraculous powers, which were

a Gen. vi. 3. Isaiah Ixiii. 10.

given in the apostolic age; (for many, who were Christ's; never received those powers; and many exercised those powers who never belonged to Christ) but we mean those special influences of the Spirit, whereby men are enlightened, and transformed into the divine image-In this sense we affirm that we may have the Spirit of Christ

[In the first ages of Christianity, not a few individuals only, but whole churches received the influences of which we speak St. Paul prayed that the whole church at Ephesus might have "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of. Christ," and that they might be "renewed by the Spirit in their inward man:"e and, speaking of the Christian church at large, he especially ascribes their attainments to the operations of the Holy Ghost," Not by works of righteousness which we have done," says he, "but according to his mercy God hath saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost"-Now if the whole Christian church received the Spirit of Christ formerly, why should not we at this day? Is our strength so much greater than theirs, or the work of sanctification so much easier, that we do not need the same divine assistance or, when the apostle said, "The promise of the Spirit is to you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call," did he mean to limit the gift of the Spirit to the apostolic age?-But why do the scriptures speak so much respecting our having the Spirit? They teach us to pray for it;f they promise it to us;g they require us to make use of it and depend upon it in all holy exercises," to live in the Spirit, walk in the Spirit, pray in the Spirit:" would all this be spoken if we were not to expect the holy Spirit? Why, in the liturgy of our church, do we so often pray for "the inspiration of the holy Spirit that we may think those things that be good, and for his merciful guidance that we may perform the same?"-Did those holy men who compiled our liturgy think that we had no just reason to expect the influences of God's Spirit? Is it enthusiasm for us to expect what all the first Christians had, what the scriptures require us to have, and what we ourselves continually pray for?-If we use these prayers with sincerity, the world will call us euthusiasts; but we had better be accounted enthusiasts by man, than hypocrites by God

b Matt vii. 22, 23.

e Acts ii. 38, 39.

John vii. 37-39.

C Eph. i. 17. and iii. 16. d Tit. iii. 5, 6.

f Luke xi. 13.

h Gal. v. 25. Jude 20.

i See the Collect for the fifth Sunday after Easter; and for Whitsunday; and the first in the Communion service.

[blocks in formation]

We should need to apologize for arguing so plain a point, if the daring infidelity of the age did not render it, alas! too necessary-]

and say

We must carry our assertion still further, and

II. That we must have the Spirit

The aid of God's Spirit is necessary in order to our being Christ's: without it

We cannot know Christ

[By nature, we are altogether blind to spiritual things We are assured on most unquestionable authority that "the natural man accounts the things of the Spirit to be foolishness, and that he not only does not receive, but cannot know them, because they are, spiritually discerned"—And, with respect to the knowledge of Christ in particular, our Lord tells us that, as no man knoweth the Father but the Son, so no man knoweth the Son but the Father, and he to whom God shall be pleased to reveal him-The Spirit of God must “take of the things that are Christ's and shew them unto us;" he must "open our understandings to understand them;" and unless he "guide us into all truth" we shall wander in the mazes of ignorance and error to the latest period of our lives, and "perish at last through lack of knowledge"-]

We cannot resemble Christ

[We have altogether lost the image of God; nor can we ever recover it by any power of our own-That image consists in righteousness and true holiness, not the smallest part of which we can obtain without the Spirit-If we would not go on fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, we must walk in the Spirit:TM if we would mortify the deeds of the body, it must be through the Spirit: if we would have our trials sanctified, it must be through a supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ: if we would "wait for the hope of righteousness by faith, it must be through the Spirit" There is not any single grace which can be produced by any other means; they are all fruits of the Spirit: and as long as any man continues destitute of the Spirit, he must of necessity continue earthly and sensual-He, and he alone, can give us either to will or to do any good thing-Now is holiness necessary in order that we may resemble Christ; and is every part of holiness, both root and

1 Cor. ii. 14. Rom. viii. 13. 4 Gal. v. 22, 23.

1 Matt. xi. 27.
. Phil. i. 19.
r Jude 19.

m Gal. v. 16.
P Gal. v. 5.

• Phil. ii. 19,

« PreviousContinue »