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neceffarily be holy. From a holy God, nothing except that which is holy can proceed. Well do the Scriptures proclaim; The Statutes of the Lord are right. Thy law, O Lord, is the truth; and thy judgements are righteous. The law of God is holy: and his commandments are holy and juft and good (g). You cannot examine with attention the law of God, without perceiving its holiness. The worship which he requires of you, is holy worship. It is the worship of an humble, devout, and pious heart. God is a Spirit: and you are to worship him in spirit and in truth. The conduct which he requires you to observe one towards another is, in every respect, according to holiness. You are to be in all your dealings true, and faithful, and juft. You are to be filled with good-will towardsall men; to be kind, liberal, tender-hearted, forgiving, long-suffering, peaceable, meek, gentle. In the government of yourselves, you are to be temperate, contented, chafte, and pure. Not only your actions, but your words alfo, and your moft fecret thoughts, are to be holy. In all things, you are to abftain even from the appearance of evil. Hence in the New Teftament Chriftians are faid to be

(g) Pfalm xix. 8. cxix. 142. 160. Rom. vii. 12.

called

called with an holy calling: and are exhorted to be holy and unblamable: to have their fruit unto bolinefs; to perfect holiness in the fear of God (b). Hence too it is folemnly declared, that without boliness no man fhall fee the Lord (i).

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II. The next point for your consideration is this: Whether you have faithfully kept in every particular this holy law of God? Without hesitation, you confefs that you have not. You confess that you have broken it times without number. You confess that in thought, or in word, or in deed, you are breaking it every day. You confess that you have experienced the acquifition of that fect holiness, which it requires, to be by your own ftrength unattainable; that although you fee and know the path of duty, you are continually deviating into a contrary courfe; that the good which you perceive that you ought to do, the good which you wish to do, you do not; that the evil which you difapprove, the evil which you are defirous of avoiding, you commit. You confefs that fin befets you at all times, on every fide in a thousand shapes, and is perpetually gaining fome advantage over you. You confess that under the influence of a corrupt nature, and the force of temptation, (b) 2 Tim. i. 9. Col. i. 22. Rom. vi, 22. 2 Cor. vii. 1. (i) Heb. xii. 14.

you

you cannot hope to obey the law of God in any tolerable degree for the future, if you are left to yourself. Are you unwilling to advance to the full length of this avowal? An avowal far lefs ample would fuffice to establish the conclufion to which we are approaching. But every one of us, my brethren, who has attained any fubftantial knowledge of himself, and has learned to profit by the leffons of his own experience, will join in the preceding confeffion with deep humility and self-abasement. It is a confeffion which the fcriptures declare to belong to every individual of the human race. They defcribe the nature which we have all inherited from our forefather Adam as fo thoroughly corrupted by his rebellion against God, and his fubmiffion to the enticements and the dominion of the devil; that of ourselves we not only are unable to fulfil the law of God, but are alienated from him, at enmity with him, averse to holiness, prone to fin. Moft truly therefore do they pronounce, that all have finned and come short of the glory of God: that every mouth is stopped, and all the world is become guilty before God: and that by the deeds of the law there shall no flefb be juftified in his fight (k).

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(4) Rom. iii. 19, 20, 23.

Confider

Confider now the general nature of a law. A law points out certain duties to be performed; promifes protection, perhaps reward, to thofe who fulfil its demands; and denounces wrath and punishment against all who shall in any point be guilty of difobedi-. ence. It is thus that the law of God deals with mankind. It enjoins on men the performance of all thofe duties, which are neceffary to conftitute perfect holiness; duties, many of which are disclosed to every man by the light of conscience, and all of them are clearly ftated in the law itfelf. It promifes life to every person, who fhall fully perform the whole of that holiness towards God, and towards man, which it exacts from all mankind. The man, it faith, that doeth them, shall live by. them (1). But what if a man falls fhort in fome particular? He lofes the benefit of the promise; and muft fubmit to the confequences of his tranfgreffion. Curfed, faith the fcripture, Curfed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them (m). The law of God requires perfect obedience. To perfect obedience it promises the reward of life. Against those who tranfgrefs in any point it denounces the punishment of eternal death. Sin is the tranf

(1) Gal. iii. 12.

VOL. I.

(m) Gal. iii, 10.

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greffion

greffion of the law: and the wages of fin is death(n).

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Observe then the fituation in which you, and I, and all men ftand by nature with refpect to the law of God. He has placed before us a law of perfect holinefs; and has commanded us to obey it. We have not only fallen fhort of perfect obedience; but have become in numberlefs refpects miferable finners, laden with iniquity, tranfgreffing daily in thought, in word, and in deed. We have become thus finful, not neceffarily, but wilfully not neceffarily; for St. Paul declares that even the Gentiles, who had not the written word of God in their hands, were altogether inexcufable for their tranfgreffions, because they liftened not to the law of God written in their confciences (o). We have become thus finful wilfully having poffeffed not only the light of confcience, but the book of God; having knowingly difobeyed his law; having yielded with open eyes to the inftigation of our depraved nature, and the artifices of our fpiritual foe. We have failed, lamentably failed, as to that perfect obedience, to which alone the law promifed the reward of life. We have continually committed, and are continually repeating, offences against the law; for (z). 1 John, iii. 4 Rom. vi. 23. (0) Rom. i. 19-21. 32.

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