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boldest flights, and literature in its most exquisite | right. Enough that God had spoken-there was forms, are empty names. How justly and forci- instant and cordial assent; and in that happy bly does the Psalmist express his satisfaction and state of the moral constitution, the will inclined joy in possessing a knowledge of the divine law? to whatever the judgment approved. But when "O how love I thy law,' he says, ' it is my medi- sin entered, the divine law was no longer hontation all the day. Thou through thy command- oured and obeyed. It was the same law as at ments hast made me wiser than mine enemies: first-as holy, as just, as good; but the heart was for they are ever with me. I have more under- now estranged from God and holiness; the understanding than all my teachers: for thy testimonies standing was darkened, the will perverted, and the are my meditation. I understand more than the affections debased. The statutes of the Lord ancients.' If David felt thus, how much more were no longer felt to be right, and did not should not we, who possess a revelation so much rejoice the heart. The Psalmist describes the more full and explicit? What was to him and experience of a renewed mind. The Spirit subhis contemporaries a comparatively dim light, dues the enmity of the heart to God, awakens a is to us a noon-day blaze. The whole scheme of love of holiness, and disposes to obey the divine grace is now unfolded; prophecy has become law. When this great change has taken place, history, type reality; and the law is as the hand- the statutes of the Lord are again felt to be right; maid to the gospel. We have the knowledge of their wisdom, their purity, and their obligation the divine will from its earliest communications, are, in some measure, understood; and as an when it was a simple promise, down to the latest, expression of the divine will, and an instrument when it was given in long discourses, and familiar for promoting the happiness of men, they impart epistles. Contrast a Christian with a heathen a lively joy. The renovated mind perceives their nation, a bible land with one abandoned to super- consistency with the perfections of Him from stition and idolatry. In the one, whatever the whom they proceed, and regards them as springpractice may be, all is light; in the other, all is ing from those immutable principles upon which darkness. In the former, there are spiritual in- the moral constitution of the universe depends. stitutions; in the latter, the ordinances of religion The laws and opinions of men are fluctuating and are incentives to vice. Even where the divine capricious, taking their complexion from capricious law is not made the standard of duty, it is a dispositions and passing events, and admitting of mighty treasure to possess the knowledge of it. being accommodated to circumstances, as they It is all pure, a contrast to the laws and opinions arise. But the love of God, like himself, is unof men; and by its silent testimony, serves as a changeable. It can no more be modified than check to error and sin, even when it is not hon- his own nature. This, however, is the very prooured and obeyed as a rule. perty in which the renewed mind rejoices. Amidst the ceaseless changes of human opinion, the divine law is ever the same, and the believing mind turns to it with confidence, as to a rock amidst the restless waters. Its rectitude meets with a prompt and fervid response within. Its adaptation to high moral ends fills with admiration; and the knowledge of it, as pointing out what is best to be done, is regarded as a precious treasure.

NINETEENTH DAY.EVENING.

The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes,' Psal. xix. 8.

THE law of God, as proceeding from a Being of The divine law is pure. It breathes the very infinite wisdom and holiness, must be right in spirit of holiness. It condemns and forbids all itself, as it is binding on all his intelligent crea- sin. There is no defect in it, no laxity whereby tures. He can only will what is in accordance the corruption of the heart might find scope and with perfect justice and truth; and as we are sanction. Emanating from a Being of infinite accountable to him, so whatever he is pleased to purity, it is consistent with that attribute of his prescribe, we are bound to do. So man felt, | nature. Amidst the fearful pollution which has when as yet sin had not made him a rebel against flowed from sin, its supplies a perfect standard his Maker. His own conscience responded to the of moral excellence, by which the errors of the law which God gave him to obey. He approved judgment may be corrected, and the corrupt tenit as holy, just, and good; as necessary for the dencies of the heart restrained. When savingly advancement of the divine glory, for the main-applied, it enlightens the mind. It removes the tenance of peace and order, and for his own hap- moral ignorance which sin has occasioned. It piness. Then, the statutes of the Lord were marks out the boundary which separates duty

from sin. While there is an utter confusion as to moral distinctions in the world, many actions being sanctioned and enjoined by it, and more connived at and tolerated, which are impure and degrading, this law alone tells man what he ought to do, and what to shun, if he would avoid the divine displeasure. This law, in short, is a rebuke to the world, frowns upon many of its pleasures, and shows it to be a scene of defilement and error. Hence, how wondrous the transition made by a sinner, when by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, he is enlightened to discern, and purified to relish, the purity of this law! How different the aspect of his life from what it once seemed to be! He detects sins and short-comings numberless, where before all had the appearance of propriety and uprightness. The heart, which he once imagined to be good, now appears to be a scene of pollution and guilt; and his notions of duty, once thought to be correct and lofty, are now considered as conventional, inconsistent, and dishonouring to God. He has passed, as it were, into a new region. He resembles a man let out of the gloom of a prison into the broad sunshine of a cloudless day. All is comparatively distinct, definite, clear. New objects, unknown before, now stand out in brightness and beauty. Objects, once seen in imperfect lights, are now revealed in their true places, colours, and proportions. His eyes are not merely opened, but enlightened. How truly he may say, 'Once I was blind, but now I see.'

The divine law continues to be a light to the believer. In his intercourse with the world, he may at times fall from its rectitude and purity, and find himself lowering its high standard to meet the tastes and habits of those around him. But the law continues unchanged. Like the sun in the heavens, it shines on and on, piercing through the mists and shadows by which it may be, for a time, obscured, and pouring its light on every object and scene. By meditating upon the law, the believer imbibes its spirit; corrects the errors into which he has fallen; learns to judge of the world, its opinions, and practices, according to its requirements; and becomes more firm and decided in his opposition to every encroachment on what he considers to be duty. His ideas of what is duty, and what is not, become more vivid and minute; and thus, he is a child of the light, and of the day, and therefore he walks in light. Let us seek then to understand the law of the Lord. Let us be concerned that it may be to us a source of joy, and that enlightened by the saving knowledge of it, it may be 'a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path.'

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TWENTIETH DAY.-MORNING.

Now we know, that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that mouth may every be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God,' Rom. iii.

19.

THE law was the covenant made in the beginning between God and man; and it continues to be the covenant under which each member of our race enters this fallen world. It is true that man is not now qualified to fulfil this covenant, as he was at first; but this is because he has sinned; sin having incapacitated him for the obedience which the covenant required. The covenant itself, however, still continues in all its original entireness and purity; and is as strictly binding on each descendant of Adam, as it was on that federal head and representative of our race. As all men are under the law, and no man can obey it, all men are guilty before God; and this great fact lies at the foundation of that economy which announces a new and better covenant, designed to supersede the law, and to raise sinners to the hope of life through a Saviour. In this epistle, therefore, the apostle sets himself diligently to establish the doctrine of the depravity of all mer, inasmuch as all are under the law, and being unable to obey it, are, without exception, liable to its righteous condemnation.

These

The doctrine thus asserted by the apostle, applied, as we have said, to all men, Jews as well as Gentiles; but it was felt by the former to be peculiarly offensive. They were ready to admit the truth of the strongest statements regarding the moral character and condition of the Gentiles. whom they regarded with contemptuous pity and dislike. But they considered themselves as occupying a very different place, and insisted that, though the Gentiles were under condemnation, they were not. This opinion was founded on a false estimate of their privileges. were undoubtedly high. They had been chosen from among the nations of the earth to be the depositories of divine truth. They had been favoured with a peculiar economy, in whose typical institutions the leading doctrines of a new and restorative dispensation were shadowed forth, while they had a revelation of the moral law, pointing out the path of duty, and reminding them of their obligations to pursue it. They had also many temporal blessings connected with the purpose which they were chosen to fulfil. But they were under the law, as all men naturally are; as such, they were liable to condemnation, and from that evil there was no deliverance to them any

more than to the Gentiles, except through the new dispensation, whose leading doctrines the apostle was now anxious to explain. The great advantage of their case was, that those doctrines were already revealed in part to them, through the prophecies and types with which they had been favoured.

The apostle had quoted some passages from the Old Testament scriptures, which expressed in remarkably forcible terms the depravity of human nature; and as a Jew might be ready to say, this applies to a Gentile, but not to me,' he declares the quotations to be applicable to all who are under the law, or, in other words, to all men. No one can say, 'this is not true of me.' What the law says, it says of all. It therefore stops the mouth of every man. It leaves no one an inch of ground on which he may build a favourable judgment of himself. It meets the sinner as an accuser. It exhibits its charge in clear and forcible terms; and appealing to the conscience, it compels him to silence. Whatever difference may exist among men, as to the forms in which the depravity of the heart appears, or as to the privileges with which they are favoured, no one can answer the accusations of the divine law, or show that he is exempted from its claims. If a man really knows the law in its purity, he will be silenced by it; and indeed, we may add, that in proportion as his knowledge of it becomes more spiritual and correct, will his self-condemnation be more strict and severe. He will then feel more deeply his short-comings and sins. He will see more distinctly the dark spots which stain his heart and life. The law will be like the direct unshaded sunbeam, showing dust and defilement where before we saw none.

insulting to be brought into comparison. Thus was it with the proud Jews, who refused to be placed under the same law with the Gentiles. But the law is the law of our race; of rich and poor, of learned and unlearned, of civilized and savage. It makes the same righteous demand on all, on precisely the same conditions, and denounces against all the same condemnations. There is no respect of persons. One class of men may say to another, we are not chargeable with these vices which so deeply stain your lives.' But no man can lift up his head before the accusing condemning law, and say, 'I am not guilty. No. For what the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.'

TWENTIETH DAY.-EVENING.

For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.' Gal. v. 17. THESE words express forcibly the state of conflict which exists in the minds of believers. Naturally no mere man can obey the divine law. Sin has caused an utter aversion to its spirit, as well as entailed a liability to its course. God is dethroned, and sin reigns. When the sinner becomes a subject of grace, this state of things is, in some measure, reversed. God once more reigns, as he did in unfallen Adam; and sin is the object of hatred. The sinner is pardoned and accepted through faith in Christ; so that he Such then are the impartiality and strictness is freed from condemnation, and has filial access of the divine law. It stops every mouth. It to the divine presence; and as a change of chardeclares all to be guilty. The various pretexts acter suited to this change of state, he now under which men endeavour to get rid of its con- desires to yield the obedience which the law clusions, originate in an erroneous view of their requires, and to shun all those acts which the condition and relation to God. They overlook law condemns. In short, he is a new creature, the great fact that the law as a covenant is as well as a justified sinner. But there is this binding on every man, till he is brought under difference, that while his justification is complete, grace; while they are accompanied by a profound as complete as if he were already an inmate of ignorance of the law itself, and a fearful insensi- heaven's palace, his renovation is partial. Sanctibility to its tremendous sanctions. How humb-fication is a work, while justification is an act. ling is the view of our natural state which the divine law supplies! and how widely different from that which multitudes entertain! Men shift the dark picture from themselves. They may admit some slight defects; but they put away the deeper and more disfiguring shades, regarding them as only applicable to men of revolting depravity, with whom they would consider it

The latter is perfect the moment it takes place; the former is progressive, and continues to extend, till it is completed in the believer's meetness for heaven.

Hence in the believing mind there are two principles; one is spiritual and pure; the other is carnal and corrupt. The former is expressed in this passage by the term flesh; the latter by the

term Spirit. The term flesh means the corrupt the heart is divided. Grace so far determines nature; the term Spirit, the Holy Spirit, or the the controversy for God, but it does not at once spiritual principle which is his fruit, of God. The destroy sin. It leaves it in the heart; deeply latter has the ascendency, but the former strives fixed, watchful, malignant, inveterate; and thus against him, and in this strife, it at times prevails, the principle of new obedience is surrounded with involving the believer in shame and sorrow. In unfavourable and hostile circumstances, against some Christians, the ascendency of the spiritual which it must earnestly contend, otherwise it principle is more decided than in others; and will perish. O! how often it seems ready to die! hence their religious experience is more equable Borne down and harassed by ceaseless opposition, and calm. But in all there is a conflict; the two it seems as if it would never more rise up again, principles are irreconcilably hostile; and as long and strive for its rightful place. But the Spirit as they exist in the same nature, there will, and who implants it, watches over it; in the midst must be strife. In the unrenewed mind there of seeming weakness, he secretly imparts strength; is comparatively little conflict, because sin meets and after many struggles and changes, it comes with no opposition except from the natural con- forth with a vigour and fulness, which prove that science, which being confused and indistinct in its the trials of the past have been useful, while they perceptions, is, for the most part, far from being render the promise of the future most cheering. troublesome. As conscience is deadened and The Spirit suffers not his own work to be frusseared, the despotic power of sin becomes more trated. He cherishes the life which he bestows;— absolute; till at last the sinner is, in reality, its protects the principle which he implants. In the unresisting slave, and then he sinks into the meantime, the duty of believers is to cleave to torpor and awful silence of consummate spiritual the truth and to the law; to declare for God, and death. In the believer, again, the implantation against sin; to follow out the leadings of the Spirit, of a spiritual principle prompts to active and and to be watchful in avoiding whatever would vigorous resistance to sin; and though, as that frustrate them. The help of the Spirit is necesprinciple is strengthened and matured, it will sary every moment, otherwise sin will hurry us become more effectual and easy in its operation, into deeds which we feel to be sinful, but to which yet there is always more or less of conflict, and we are driven by a force, which we cannot withthis conflict forms an important part of the dis- stand. Let us be thankful, that in this course of cipline which prepares for glory. The believer conflict the help of the Spirit is freely promised, would wish to obey the divine law; he is per- and is always near. 'If ye then, being evil, know suaded that law is holy, just, and good; nay, he how to give good gifts unto your children, how readily admits that obedience to it is inseparably much more shall your heavenly Father give the connected with his own highest interests, and Holy Spirit to them that ask him?' that it were worth rendering, even for the blessedness which it tends to produce. But he is drawn back by the corrupt tendencies of his heart. He is like a man pulled in opposite directions. He would prefer going entirely in the one direction, but the corruption which dwells within will not let him; and thus his movements are irregular, contradictory, and exhibit an aspect of indecision, which grieves and humbles him. The power of evil within is increased by the arts of enemies, and the influence of temptations from without.

TWENTY-FIRST DAY.-MORNING.

that

'The Lord looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one,' Psal

xiv. 2,
3.

Ir is a very awful and humbling truth, that the The conflict thus occasioned is at times very eye of the holy and righteous God is unceasingly violent; and it most conclusively shows that fixed on the conduct of men. He occupies, as it the whole heart is not given to God, and to the were, a place of commanding elevation from which claims of his law. If God reigned with the he looks down upon the nations and families of supremacy which belongs to him, no rival would the earth; and in all the immense multitude, for a moment influence or mislead; and if his there is not one whose heart is hid from his sight, law were loved and honoured as the expressed or whose most secret deeds he does not observe. will of a Being of infinite purity, truth, and His throne in heaven is as a watch-tower of obgoodness, its minutest requirements would com-servation; and while sinners are rejoicing in their mand an instant and cheerful obedience. But security, and hurrying on in their wicked courses

without regret or fear, he is of all they think, say, and do. his infinite abhorrence of sin, and his inflexible justice, this doctrine may well alarm us. Who, among us, is able to bear the scrutiny of his eye. If we, whose consciences are so full of darkness, yet feel constrained to condemn ourselves, what must we appear to him, before whom the very heavens are not clean? He has not a mere general knowledge of our spiritual state, but he sees us as we are, nothing hid, or partially observed; but the whole naked truth disclosed, -all our sins, and all their aggravations.

the unseen witness | to make him acquainted with the state of the When we consider heart, or the tenor of the life. His eyes run to and fro through the whole earth. Hell is naked before him, and destruction has no covering. But, as an earthly prince leaves the metropolis of his kingdom, and goes forth into its distant provinces, that he may ascertain by actual observation the condition and wants of his subjects; so the infinite Jehovah is represented as withdrawing his regards from the other portions of his immense empire, and looking down with a stedfast and scrutinizing gaze on the conduct of men. And how dreadful the result of the scrutiny! In all the crowd of human beings, he sees not one acquainted with his real character, or disposed to seek his favour as life. Not one! for hear his description of men-They are all gone aside; they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.'

The Psalmist represents the Creator as deeply interested in the conduct and condition of men. No delusion is more common than that which the wise man has so concisely and forcibly expressed in the words, 'Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.' It is the mere device of the sinful heart. God is silent, as discipline, for the most part, requires he should be; for were he uniformly or even often to interfere judicially, discipline would be at an end. But he is not indifferent to what men, or any of his intelligent creatures do. Wherever he sees sin, he abhors it, and he sees it, wherever it is. Sinners would wish God to be indifferent to their sins, and therefore they believe him to be so. But he cannot be indifferent; his holiness and his justice equally forbid it. His abhorrence of sin is the same, at all times, and in all places. Sin is the abominable thing which he hates.' Hence we find various occasions mentioned in scripture, on which God is represented as specially observing the wickedness of men. Thus before the flood, when there was a time of fearful depravity and unbelief, it is said that God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. In like manner, before the destruction of Sodom, we find him saying, 'Because the cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great, and because their sin is very grievous, I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto me; and if not, I will know.'

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The Psalmist represents God, as looking down from heaven to see what the moral state and conduct of men are. This is a mode of speech borrowed from the ordinary language of men, with a view to convey a more distinct and vivid impression of Tod's watchful observation of human actions. He does not need either the report of a witness, or the confession of the sinner himself,

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These are appalling words. When man was created, his own conscience pointed out the path of duty; and what conscience sanctioned, the heart approved. Then the life was as a bright mirror reflecting the dispositions of the mind; man held on in a holy and consistent course, swerving not to the right hand or to the left; duty was the joy and strength of his nature. Now that man is fallen, the path of duty is still the same; but no one walks in it. All are wandering in devious tracks, neither willing nor able to return. The divine law points out the path, but men habitually transgress the law. They are polluted and vile. Sin has not only led them away from God and holiness, but has marred all their beauty, covering them with loathsomeness in the sight of pure creatures. Their favourite thoughts are mean and debasing. They glory in that which is their shame. God has given them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts. Like the leper under the ancient economy, who was to rend his clothes, make bare his head, and put a covering upon his upper lip, they may well cry out, unclean, unclean.' They deceive themselves, no doubt, into the belief that their characters are not so defective, nor their lives so sinful, as the scriptures affirm; but not one of them acts as the law requires. Not one of all the millions of our race is animated by that supreme love to God, which is the principle of all pure obedience. Not one fulfils the requirements of the divine law, even in what may be termed the humblest and most ordinary branches of duty. There is a radical defect,—an universal taint; and in short, to make use of the concise but most emphatic language of scripture, which alone describes justly the moral state of man, 'The whole

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