you press on so swiftly to the bar of God, and never ask the question, Wherewith shall I appear? "If the righteous scarcely are saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" II. The answer of peace to the awakened soul.-"He hath showed thee, O man, what is good." Nothing that man can bring with him will justify him before God. The natural heart is always striving to bring something to be a robe of righteousness before God. There is nothing a man would not do, nothing he would not suffer, if he might only cover himself before God. Tears, prayers, duties, reformations, devotions-the heart will do anything to be righteous before God. But all this righteousness is filthy rags. For, 1. The heart remains an awful depth of corruption. Everything in which that heart has any share is polluted and vile. These very tears and prayers would need to be washed. 2. Supposing this righteousness perfect, it cannot cover the past. It answers only for the time in which it was done. Old sins, and the sins of youth, still remain uncovered. "Oh! dear brethren, if Jesus is to justify you, he must do as he did to Joshua (Zech. iii., 4), "Take away the filthy garments from him ;" and, "I will clothe thee with change of raiment." The hand of Jesus alone can take off your filthy garments. The hand of Jesus alone can clothe you with change of raiment. Christ is the good way." He hath showed thee," &c. "Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." Christ is the good way to the Father. 1. Because he is so suitable. He just answers the case of the sinner; for every sin of the sinner he has a wound, for every nakedness he has a covering, for every emptiness he has a supply. There is no fear but he will receive the sinner, for he came into the world on purpose to save sinners. There is no fear but the Father will be well pleased with us in him, for the Father sent him, laid our iniquity upon him, raised him from the dead, and points you to him. "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good." 2. He is so free."As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." As far as the curse by Adam extends, so far does the offer of pardon by Jesus extend. Here is good news to the vilest of men. You may be covered just as completely and as freely as those that have never sinned as you have done. "He hath showed thee, O man, what is good." 3. He is so God-glorifying.-All other ways of salvation are man-glorifying, but this way is God-glorifying; therefore, it is good. That way is good and best which gives the glory to the Lamb. The way of righteousness by Jesus is good, on this account, that Jesus gets all the praise. To him be glory. It is of faith that it might be by grace. If a man could justify him self, or if he could believe of himself and draw the righteousness of Christ over his soul, that man would glory. But when a man lies dead at the foot of Jesus, and Jesus spreads his white robe over him, out of free sovereign mercy, then Jesus gets all the praise. Have you chosen the good way of being justified? This is the way which God has been showing from the foundation of the world. He showed it in Abel's lamb, and in all the sacrifices, and by all the prophets. He shows it by his spirit to the heart. Has this good way been revealed to you? If it has, you will count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of it. Oh, sweet, divine way of justifying a sinner! Oh, that all the world but knew it! Oh, that we saw more of it! Oh, that you could make use of it! "Walk therein and ye shall find rest unto your souls." III. God's requirement of the justified.-When Jesus healed the impotent man at the pool of Bethesda, he said to him, "Behold thou art made whole, sin no more, lest a worse thing happen unto thee." And again, when he covered the sin of the adulteress, John viii., he said, "Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more." So here, when he shows the good way of righteousness, he adds, " And what doth the Lord require of thee?" 66 1. God requires his redeemed ones to be holy.-If you are his brethren, he will have you righteous, holy men. 1st, He requires that you do justly, to be just in your dealings between man and man. This is one of his own glorious features. He is a just God. "Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?" "He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him." Are you come to him by Jesus? he requires you to reflect his image. Are you his child? you must be like him. O brethren, be exact in your dealings. Be like your God. Take care of dishonesty; take care of trickery in business. Take care of crying up your goods when selling them, and crying them down when buying them. "It is naught, it is naught, sayeth the buyer, but when he is gone his way he boasteth." It shall not be so among you. God requires you to do justly. 2d, He requires you to love mercy. This is the brightest feature in the character of Christ. If you are in Christ, drink deep of his spirit; God requires you to be merciful. The world is selfish, unmerciful. An unconverted mother has no mercy on the soul of her own child. She can see it dropping into hell without mercy. O the hellish cruelty of unconverted men. It shall not be so with you. Be merciful, as your father in heaven is merciful. 3d, He requires you to walk humbly with thy God. Christ says, "Learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart." If God has covered all your black sins, rebellions, backslidings, outbreakings, then never open your mouth except in humble praise. God requires this at your hand. Walk with God, and walk humbly. 2. Remember this is God's end in justifying you.-He loved the Church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it. This was his great end, to raise up a peculiar people to serve him, and bear his likeness, in this world and in eternity. For this he left heaven; for this he groaned, bled, died, to make you holy. If you are not made holy, Christ died in vain for you. 3. Whatever he requires, he gives grace to perform.-Christ is not only good as our way to the Father, but he is our fountain of living waters. Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. There is enough in Christ to supply the need of all his people. An old minister says, a child can carry little water from the sea in its two hands, and so it is little we get out of Christ. There are unsearchable riches in him. Be strong in the grace that is in him. Live out of yourself, and live upon him. Go and tell him, that since he requires all this of thee, he must give thee grace according to your need. My God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. He hath showed you one that is good, even the fair Immanuel; now lean upon him, get life from him that shall never die, get living water from him that shall never dry up. Let his hand hold you up amid the billows of this tempestuous_sea; let his shoulder carry you over the thorns of this wilderness. Look as much to him for sanctification as for justification. So will your walk be close with God, SERMON XV. "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 captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man 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."--Rom. vii., 22-25. A BELIEVER is to be known, not only by his peace and joy, but by his warfare and distress. His peace is peculiar: it flows from Christ; it is heavenly, it is holy peace. His warfare is as peculiar; it is deep-seated, agonizing, and ceases not till death. If the Lord will, many of us have the prospect of sitting down next Sabbath at the Lord's Table. The great question to be answered before sitting down there is, Have I fled to Christ or no? 'Tis a point I long to know, To help you to settle this question, I have chosen the subject of the Christian's warfare, that you may know thereby whether you are a soldier of Christ-whether you are really fighting the good fight of faith. I. A believer delights in the law of God.-Verse 22, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man.” 1. Before a man comes to Christ, he hates the law of God, his whole soul rises up against it; viii. 7," The carnal mind is enmity," &c. (1.) Unconverted men hate the law of God on account of its purity: "Thy word is very pure, therefore thy servant loveth it." For the same reason worldly men hate it. The law is the breathing of God's pure and boly mind. It is infinitely opposed to all impurity and sin. Every line of the law is against sin. But natural men love sin, and therefore they hate the law, because it opposes them in all they love. As bats hate the light, and fly against it, so unconverted men hate the pure light of God's law, and fly against it. (2.) They hate it for its breadth. "Thy commandment is exceeding broad." It extends to all their outward actions, seen and unseen; it extends to every idle word that men shall speak; it extends to the looks of their eye; it dives into the deepest caves of their heart; it condemns the most secret springs of sin and lust that nestle there. Unconverted men quarrel with the law of God because of its strictness. If it extended only to my outward actions, then I could bear with it; but it condemns my most secret thoughts and desires, which I cannot prevent. Therefore ungodly men rise against the law. (3.) They hate it for its unchangeableness. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but one jot or one tittle of the law shall in nowise pass away. If the law would change, or let down its requirements, or die, then ungodly men would be well pleased. But it is unchangeable as God: it is written on the heart of God, with whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning. It cannot change unless God change; it cannot die unless God die. Even in an eternal hell its demands and its curses will be the same. It is an unchangeable law, for He is an unchangeable God. Therefore ungodly men have unchangeable hatred to that holy law. 2. When a man comes to Christ, this is all changed. He can say, "I delight in the law of God after the inward man." He can say with David, "O how I love thy law: it is my meditation all the day." He can say with Jesus, in the 40th Psalm, "I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart." There are two reasons for this: 1st, The law is no longer an enemy.-If any of you who are trembling under a sense of your infinite sins, and the curses of the law which you have broken, flee to Christ, you will find rest. You will find that he has fully answered the demands of the law as a surety for sinners-that he has fully borne all its curses. You will be able to say, "Christ hath redeemed me from the curse of the law, being made a curse for me, as it is written, 'Cursed,'" &c. You have no more to fear, then, from that awfully holy law: you are not under the law, but under grace. You have no more to fear from the law than you will have after the Judgment Day. Imagine a saved soul after the Judgment Day. When that awful scene is past; when the dead, small and great, have stood before that great white throne; when the sentence of eternal woe has fallen upon all the unconverted, and they have sunk into the lake whose fires can never be quenched; would not that redeemed soul say, I have nothing to fear from that holy law; I have seen its vials poured out, but not a drop has fallen on me? So may you say now, O believer in Jesus. When you look upon the soul of Christ, scarred with God's thunderbolts; when you look upon his body, pierced for sin, you can say, He was made a curse for me; why should I fear that holy law? 66 66 2d, The Spirit of God writes the law on the heart. This is the promise (Jer. xxxi., 33), " After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and will be their God, and they shall be my people." Coming to Christ takes away your fear of the law, but it is the Holy Spirit coming into your heart that makes you love the law. The Holy Spirit is no more frightened away from that heart; he comes and softens it; he takes out the stony heart and puts in a heart of flesh; and there he writes the holy, holy, holy law of God. Then the law of God is sweet to that soul; he has an inward delight in it. law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good." Now he unfeignedly desires every thought, word and action, to be according to that law. "O that my ways were directed to keep thy statutes: great peace have they that love thy law, and nothing shall offend them." The 119th Psalm becomes the breathing of that new heart. Now also he would fain see all the world submitting to that pure and holy law. "Rivers of waters run down mine eyes because they keep not thy law." O that all the world but knew that holiness and happiness are one! O that all the world were one holy family, joyfully coming under the pure rules of the Gospel! Try yourselves by this. Can you say, "I delight," &c.? Do you remember when you hated the law of God? Do you love it now? Do you long for the time when you shall live fully under it-holy as God is holy, pure as Christ is pure? O come, sinners, and give up your hearts to Christ, that he may write on it his holy law! You have long enough had the devil's law graven on your hearts; come you to Jesus, and he will both |