eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, DO ALL TO THE "GLORIFY GOD, in your body "That ye may GLORY OF GOD." and in your spirit, which are God's." approve things that are excellent, that ye may be sincere and without offence, till the day of Christ; being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ UNTO THE GLORY AND PRAISE OF GOD." This pure and exalted life of aiming at the divine glory is not then a mere refinement. It is not mysticism. It is not transcendentalism. It is not supererogation. It is not extra piety-ultra spirituality-ascetic devotion. It is not an uncalled for sanctity-an unrequired mode of excellence. It is no narrow peculiarity of sect or creed, no conventional extravagance or fanciful badge. It is obedience. It is religion, practical, simple, vital, and true, enjoined by clear and solemn command. If we refuse this command, we do in spirit and effect, and in God's sight, refuse all command. If by offending in one point, we are guilty of all;" how much more if we break that, which is the meaning, and end of all! It is that treason which destroys all acts of professed and seeming subjection and obedience. If we will not consent to seek God's glory, we are plain rebels. God will accept nothing at our hands. We are "enemies in our minds." If we do not seek God's glory, it is not the formal oath of allegiance; it is not the specious forms of obedience; it is not the warm profession of attachment: it is not active and ostentatious outward services, nor even costly sacrifices, which will save us from the lot of “those enemies who would not have the Lord to reign over P them." This great requirement is worthy of supereminent regard. It cannot be safely neglected. IV. REDEMPTION supplies a powerful class of motives adapted to our condition as sinful beings. Although we have dwelt on those motives which spring from our derived being and dependant relation, from the fact that in his works God seeks his own glory, and from the great command that we should seek it too, as motives which ought to actuate us; yet it was not with the idea that they would actuate us, except as they were accompanied, introduced, and, so to speak, recommended by other motives suited to our peculiar condition as fallen beings. Man as a sinner has resisted those motives which arise out of his original relation to God. He cares not that God seeks his own glory. He has an end of his own to seek, and this he is determined to follow, although it leads him in a path the very opposite to that which his Maker treads. It matters not that God commands him to seek his glory. He feels the impulse of other dictates, and acknowledges another mastery. Sin has dominion over him. He serves the "law of sin and death."* It weighs not with him that his existence is derived, his life given, his powers bestowed, his enjoyments granted. He declares that he is his own. He acts therefore as if he were his own. He lives to himself. In all things he obeys himself, he seeks himself, he becomes a God to himself. The rightful and eternal claims of Jehovah are to him all intrusion, interference and usurpation. *Rom. viii. 2. The more these original and unalterable claims are pressed upon such minds, the more resistance and resentment they awaken. If we throw them as a dam across the stream of human desires and pursuits, instead of the orderly and scarcely noticed flow, the waters swell, and rage and foam, "casting up mire and dirt," until they burst forward in resistless and angry torrents. "Sin, taking occasion by the commandment, works in men all manner of concupiscence. God's precepts alone, fail to restore sinners to obedience; they rouse the dormant corruption of the heart. So long as the transgressor is allowed to pursue undisturbed, his own ends, the rancour of rebellion sleeps; but let the authoritative and threatening command reach him, which calls upon him to seek God as his end in all his actions, and his slumbering disobedience rises into bitter hatred and rebellious defiance. This is not mere figure and imagination. It has its reality in every human heart. blessed be God! "what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." t The wisdom and But mercy of God have provided a new order of motives. Inducements are furnished, calculated to meet the peculiarities of our condition to act upon sinful minds to arrest, to soften, to win, to change the rebel heart. These motives are fitted and intended first to call us back to the glory of God as the great and proper end, then to fix this end in our minds deeper and deeper, until it become the all-attractive, the predominant, the engrossing, the sole end. These incentives are so contrived as to break us off from false, and low, and selfish ends, to lead us to the true end, and then gradually so to influence and exercise our minds in reference to it, as to ripen them at last into perfect devotedness-into everlasting consecration. This was the design of redemption. "Christ died the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God."* "He redeems us to God by his blood."+ "He gave himself that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people." He, by "loving us and washing us from our sins in his own blood, makes us kings and priests unto God." § Such is the intention and such the effect of the gracious mediation of the Saviour. It does this by clearing the way for man's return-rendering his restoration to God allowable, practicable, and proper-making it accordant with the divine honour that the sinner should be graciously recovered. It moreover provides and supplies the efficacious and blessed influence, needful to bring man to this spiritual, holy, and godly state of mind. But that method of accomplishing this great object, with which we have now to do, is the abundant supply of suitable and adequate motives. Now it is extremely pleasant and satisfactory, as well as much to our point, to observe that the Scriptures speak of the motives of the cross, as having tendency and power, not only to restore men to excellence in general, but specifically to a spirit and 1 Pet. iii. 8. † Rev. v. 9. + Titus ii. 14. § Rev. i, 5, 6. habit of glorifying God, "I beseech you therefore, by the mercies of God," (as manifested in Christ, and as unfolded in the preceding chapters,) "PRE SENT YOURSELVES AS LIVING SACRIFICES, HOLY AND ACCEPTABLE UNTO GOD, which is your reasonable service; and be not conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable and perfect will of God."* "For whether we be beside ourselves it is To God, or whether we be sober, it is for your cause. For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they who live should not henceforth live to themselves, but to him that died for them, and rose again." + ، Know ye not that ye are not your own ? but are bought with a price? Therefore GLORIFY GOD in your body and spirit which are God's." I "For I through the law, am dead to the law, that I might LIVE UNTO GOD. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."§ me; How full of wisdom is the great scheme of reconciliation! Whilst God presents overwhelming proofs of compassion and grace, he blends inseparably with this manifestation, overpowering displays of sovereignty and righteousness; so that the heart is at once softened and awed into subjection-won and commanded into obedience. What but this wondrous Rom. xii. 1, 2. + 2 Cor. v. 13-15, Gal, ii. 19, 20. |