.... forasmuch as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ, and are not done as God hath willed and commanded them to be done," the church declares, that "they have the nature of sin." And the lips of eternal truth have pronounced that "that which is highly esteemed among men, is abomination in the sight of God." 2 Perhaps, you reply that in addition to external virtues, you have an internal goodness, good thoughts, good feelings, a GOOD HEART! and upon these, in conjunction with your outward doings, do you ground your hope of acceptance with God, and of eternal life. But have you never discovered that "the law is spiritual," and reaches the innermost chambers of the heart: that there the broad eye of Jehovah watches all the movements of the hidden man; and that there he sees the deviations from "the law of righteousness," which constitute and prove your very nature sinful? Have you never seen the folly and the danger of trusting to your own hearts? For "he that trusteth in his own heart is a fool." And the reason is, that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" We institute no pharisaical difference between ourselves and others, when we lay down these unwelcomed positions, and 1 Article XIII. 2 Luke xvi. 15. 4 Jer. xvii. 9. press them on your attention. We feel and we lament the self-complacency and self-adulation which spring up within our own bosom, while we are addressing you on these momentous subjects, and when we conceive and express some well formed and pointed sentence. We feel and deplore the unwelcomed and humiliating intrusion of motives which defile, our most sacred doings; and we are constrained to acknowledge that our best services in the cause of our divine Master are so soiled with an admixture of the remaining corruption of our nature, as to require the constant application by faith, of "the blood of sprinkling;" and that we have constant need of "another righteousness" than our own to make us acceptable in the sight of God. The subject addresses itself, 2. To the class of persons who, convinced of their guilt, are prepared to embrace salvation on any terms. In the holy law of God held up to you and brought to your inward man by the Holy Spirit, you daily see, as in a faithful mirror, the deformity of your best doings and feelings, in the estimation of that God who judgeth righteously. You despair of ever in this life coming up to the unbending loftiness of that law which is " holy, just, and good;" and yet you have no desire to lower its standard. Your falling short of its stand ard, whether applied to the outward or inward man, you justly view as SIN. For sin is the least defect of good: it means a missing of the mark.* You also see and approve of the inflexible justice which condemns for one offence; and you see and approve of its righteous condemnation of yourselves, though you see not, or see very indistinctly, how you may escape the damnation of hell. You perceive not as yet how God, whose laws you have transgressed, can "be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." In the very In the very "righteousness" which the Lord Christ "hath brought in," behold the justice of God fully vindicated, his law magnified and honoured, on the behalf of "every one that believeth." In God's acceptance of that righteousness for your justification if you believe, behold the mercy of God freely displayed. In the providing of that righteousness behold the amazing love and pity of the Son of God. For the application by faith of that righteousness to your own needy cases, contemplate and supplicate the operation of God's Holy Spirit, who begins and carries on that faith in the heart of every believer. Gratefully and humbly embrace the offered righteousness, and you will be justified, accepted, and saved. And while * From &, not; and μаρTтew, to touch or hit a mark or point. 5 Rom. iii. 26. Dan. ix. 24. you contemplate and admire God's method of justifying the ungodly, behold in the provision made at so vast an expense, not only the love, mercy, wisdom, compassion, and justice of the Deity; but the cursed nature, the deep malignity of sin, the sternness of justice, and the infinite God's abhorrence of the least iniquity. Behold also the depth of woe and helplessness, of guilt and ruin, into which sin has plunged the human race, since no less a sacrifice could redeem man, since no less a righteousness could satisfy for man, than those made by the Son of God to rescue and save man from that depth; and say, is it a light thing to be under the curse or dominion of sin; and does not "sin become exceeding sinful?” 7 Rom. iv. 5. SERMON XI. CHRIST'S VOLUNTARY DEATH FOR OUR REDEMPTION FROM SIN. GAL. i. 4. “Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father." THE grace of God has, in all ages of his church, been freely and richly displayed in the conversion and salvation of sinners. Multitudes who once hated, opposed, and persecuted "the truth as it is in Jesus," have been brought to embrace and love that truth; and to venture their immortal souls on that sure foundation which is exhibited in the gospel of Christ Jesus our Lord. Among these multitudes, saved by grace, we find one pre-eminently standing. We find a St. Paul, who had been a blasphemer and persecutor of Christ, and had been exceedingly mad |