REMARKS

UPON THE

NATURE OF SALVATION BY CHRIST;

SHOWING THAT IT IS

A BIRTH OF DIVINE LIFE IN MAN,

Known long before the appearance of our Lord in that body that was born of the virgin Mary, in which he did the Father's will, and exemplified and displayed the way and work of salvation, as a union of God and man:-a work of God in man, and of man by God, in a blessed harmony and cooperation.

THE work of salvation is neither, on the one hand, in any stage or degree of it, the work of man merely of himself, unassisted by the power and spirit of the Lord; nor, on the other hand, a work of God without the consent and co-operation of man. Many ignorantly entertain high notions of free-will, and of ability in and of themselves to act according to reason and the fitness of things; and so to do, as mere creatures, all that is necessary towards their acceptance with God, and complete well-being during the whole of their existence. Others as ignorantly imagine the merits and righteousness. of Christ imputed to the full justification and salvation of sinners, so as to render them truly justified, acceptable with, and reconciled to God, while they continue in daily transgression and sin, in the exercise of a will in opposition to his will, in the indulgence and enjoyment of a life contrary to the divine life. They seem to have a confused idea that the moral law of God is abrogated; at least to such as have dependance on the outward coming, suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession of Christ for salvation; or that these are under grace, and not under the law, though they live a life of sin and defilement; and that such as maintain sanctification absolutely necessary to a

state of justification, or that they are never separately experienced, the one without the other, deny the purchase of Christ's death, and are going about to establish their own righteousness!

But these opinions are very remote from the true doctrine of salvation, which has ever been, in all ages, Christ in man the hope of glory; a real union of the life of God and the life of man, and therein a blessed harmonious co-operation. The whole work of true religion, regeneration, and sanctification, is the work of God in Christ; "We are his workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus, (and that) unto good works." Eph. ii. 10. Good works, though not the producing cause of justification, yet are that, without which none can be justified. Men may do many works, which, as to the outward act, are good, or which would have been truly so had they been works of the new creation, and wrought of God in Christ, and which yet have no part in the great work of true justification. Those who are thus busied, may be very zealous of "good works," and at the same time very high in profession of Christ, and of a hope of salvation only through him, and yet be wholly on the wrong ground, built on the sand, and remain as gross Pharisees. as those who formerly rejected our blessed Lord in high veneration of Moses! Names do not much alter the nature of things. There is as much scope for self-righteousness and rank Phariseeism under a profession of Christ, yea, under a most confident profession of renouncing all our own righteousness, as ever there was under the law. Our preaching, praying, and all our religious and devotional exercises may be, and too often are, in the mere spirit, will, and activity of man: this is going about to establish our own righteousness, and not a whit the less so because we profess to have no dependance on our own works, but that we expect all from Christ! Talk and profession are not the life and substance of salvation in Christ; but this for ward active worker, that is always ready, is ever, by this kind of zealous activity and performance, as effectually prevented from the right knowledge of, and submission to, the righteousness of Christ, even under the greatest profession of a single dependance on nothing but his righteousness, as any were of

old in the professed rejection of him, and dependance on Moses.

As to the life and substance of it, there never was but one true religion; nothing has ever been such, but the immediate inward work of God in man. And this, on the one hand, can take place and proceed no further than God is livingly the continual mover, worker, and efficient cause of all that is rightly wrought therein; nor on the other hand, any further or faster than man comes under the holy influence of the spirit, grace, or power of God, whereby he worketh in us. If man resists the spirit, turns from the grace of God, rebels against his light in the heart, does despite to the holy discoveries of truth, he tramples under foot the very blood of the everlasting covenant, he rejects the son of God, and in the midst of all his professional claim to the merits of a crucified saviour, is crucifying the life of the Lamb in himself. And thus the Lamb has been slain from the foundation of the world, and is slain in all who thus do violence to the motions of divine life in themselves. "Christ in us," has been in every age and nation the only true and solid ground and hope of glory. Nothing but a true and living birth of God in the soul, of the divine and incorruptible seed, a real and substantial union of the divinity and humanity in one holy offspring, has ever brought salvation; and this, throughout all generations, (in all the true seed, in every heir of God and joint-heir with Christ,) is the only begotten of the Father. None can be a true child of God without this divine birth, this true brother and sister of Christ, this real offspring of God, that cries Abba, Father! and is one with Christ forever. This birth ever does the works of God. In this, and in its bringing forth, are wrought the "good works," without which there is no justification.

Except we are regenerated and born again; that is, except another birth and life take place in us, besides our natural birth into, and life in this world and into things natural; except a work, that, strictly speaking, effects and produces a real regeneration and new birth, as real a conception, generation, and birth of the seed of God in us, and of us too; as the production of our natural life is a real work of conception, generation, and

birth into this world, we cannot possibly enter into the kingdom of God. This is the new creature that is born of God, and sinneth not; and this must have the rule and government in us, and bring forth the works of God, so far as we are justified. This is the justified of God forever; and nothing is justified of him but what is wrought in him. That which is wrought out of him, and out of his divine life, is excluded from his acceptance, and can never be heir of the promise. Every evil thought, word, and action, is and will be subject to eternal exclusion: and equally so is every sigh or groan, every prayer or sermon, every fast or thanksgiving, with every other religious exertion, that is not in the divine life and influence of God! This is all but" Mount Sinai in Arabia, that is in bondage with her children." The bond-woman must be cast out. It is impossible that she should inherit the promise, or that her son, or any of her children, should be heir with Isaac, the son of the free woman, the son of promise, the son of God's immediate operation and power, born above and beyond the ordinary operations of nature, with all the force and workings of her utmost activity and exertion. It is only the son of promise, the offspring and begotten of God, that can ever do the works of God.

This criterion our blessed redeemer appealed to in the days of Jewish unbelief and opposition. He urged his doing the works of God, as a certain evidence of his being the son of God. And this had never been a certain evidence at one time and on one occasion, had it not been always so at all times and on all occasions. Could any else than the son of God, the new creature, the only begotten, the born again of the incorruptible seed and word of God, at any time have done the works of God, Christ's doing them would not have been a certain and infallible evidence of his sonship. This evidence is as sure and certain, to, in, and concerning all the seed, as it was then in, and concerning the holy head, the bishop and bridegroom of every soul, that is so opened and taught of God as to see and know that any thing done by him in and by another, is truly and spiritually the work of God; and is infallible evidence that a greater than Solomon is there, that Christ is there, come in the flesh in that man by his holy spirit; that there is a real birth

and babe of God, an heir of God, a joint heir with Christ, a true and living branch of the everlasting vine; indeed, the presence, activity, and good works of God's only begotten. All other works are either directly the works of darkness and the devil, or at best, but the willings, runnings, and toilings of the son of the bond-woman, that never inherits the kingdom, nor can possibly enter into, or even see it. None other ever saw it than that which is begotten of God; that ever beholds it, dwells in it, and enjoys it as its own, the rightful inheritance of him who only is God's heir forever. For though there is, in a sense, properly a plurality as brought forth in the many coheirs of the inheritance, yet in the ground and substance of it, as in God, it is one heir, one offspring, one only begotten: and hence the assertion, "we, being many, are one bread ;" and hence Christ's prayer to the Father, that they might all be one, as he and the Father were one. They are all one in the everlasting principle of life and salvation, and they ever do the works of God, and are no further his children, nor born again of him, than they do his works. Nothing is more idle than to suppose any thing is born again of God, that does not his works, or that sinneth against him. In all the begotten, the very seed and life of God remaineth, and "they cannot sin, because they are born of God." Many people pass through some small convictions, and perhaps pretty deep exercises, and finding a degree of relief and solid satisfaction, conclude that they are born again, and are now safe and sure. But no man is ever wholly born again of God, who is not brought wholly under his rule and government in all things. Every thing that revolts, rebels, or sins against him, is not born of him. A little leaven, in time, leavens the whole lump, as it is suffered to operate; but until the whole is leavened, until every thought is brought into the obedience of Christ, we are never wholly born of the incorruptible seed, and may be in danger of a total and final apostacy.

Our real justification is ever in proportion to our real sanctification, and can no more outrun it, than real sound health of body can consist with pain, sickness, and putrefaction. Christ is our complete justification. Nothing else ever was or will be any part of it. But Christ, as certainly as he is Christ, ever