was so severe and inexorable that it was useless for him to sue for pardon? Will it be that the Cross brought no glad tidings of great joy to such a sinner as he? Will it be that no man who has lived as he has lived, that has so "sold himself to commit deeds of wickedness," that has abused such light and such privileges, that has passed through so many affecting scenes, and for whom so much was done to prevent his falling into perdition, and all in vain, never obtained mercy? No, it will be none of all these. Great multitudes, even viler than he, will then be accepted in the Beloved, while he is cast out. He will see then that nothing could have destroyed him if he had returned to God through the Cross of Christ. Greater sinners than he will rise up in the judgment and protest that he might have been saved as well as they, and upon the same condescending and gracious terms. And what cutting and bitter reflections will then pass through his mind! "Oh, why, why did I not flee to the blood of the Cross! Why did I not listen, while it was called to-day! Why did I so often and so long turn a deaf ear to the counsels of heavenly mercy! I was a great sinner-but so were those who washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; and now they are before the throne of God, and worship him. day and night in his temple, and I am a wretched outcast!" Bitter, most bitter, will be such reproaches. How true it is that the sinner will be hereafter his own tormentor! He needs no vengeful storm of almighty wrath to crush him, for he is crushed under the burden of his own reproaches. Nor can he escape, any more than he can run away from himself. There will be no mercy for him to think of then, save the mercy he has abused. Truly, that dismal world will be a world of tears. Sighing and sorrow will go up from it, and groans will mingle with its inflicted wrath and anguish. Think, then, of the Cross and his rich mercy, his free, immeasurable, everlasting mercy, whose "blood maketh the foulest clean." If you are the greatest sinner in the world, then have you the greatest need of Christ, and what is more, the greatest encouragement to come to him. There is room for the greatest sinner, because there is room for the least. The least has sinned enough to perish without an interest in the Cross, and the greatest has not sinned so much but the Cross may be honored in his salvation. "My crimes are great, but don't surpass CHAPTER XII. THE HOLINESS OF THE CROSS. THE doctrine of the Cross, as it has been exhibited in the preceding chapter, is "so far removed from the common conceptions of men, that it is not wonderful they should scrutinize its moral aspect and influence." There are not wanting those who accuse these doctrines of having a licentious tendency; who affirm that they encourage men to sin; and that if they be true, there is no small weight in the ancient and Antinomian objection: "Let us continue in sin, that grace may abound." For consider what the great doctrines of the Cross are. According to the statements of the sacred volume, the pardon of all true believers is procured exclusively by the atoning blood of the Son of God; their justification consists in being accounted righteous, and treated as perfectly obedient subjects of God's government only for the righteousness of Jesus Christ, imputed to them by God, and received by faith. Nothing which they have done, or can perform, can answer the requisitions of the divine law. No obedience, no good works, no righteousness of their own, either in whole or in part, constitute the basis of their acceptance in the sight of God. In receiving Christ, all dependence upon any services of their own is renounced. Their duties have no more to do with the meritorious ground of their acceptance than their sins, because neither of them have anything to do with it. They are justified on the same grounds on which the pardoned thief was justified, who had no good works to plead, and whose only ground of hope was the atoning and justifying Saviour, who hung bleeding by his side. Besides this, they have the assurance of perseverance in the divine life-promises that they shall never so fall away as finally to perish, and that their names are written in heaven, and will never be obliterated from the Lamb's book of life. Now we affirm that the cordial reception and inwrought persuasion of these truths, so far from relaxing the bonds of moral obligation and tending to licentiousness, purifies the heart and renovates the character. The man who derives from them the smallest encouragement to sin, has never understood and felt them as he ought; has failed to view them in some of their most interesting and holiest relations; and while he may hope Christ Jesus is of God made "to him wisdom, righteousness and redemption," is fatally deceived in that hope, unless he is made of God to him " sanctification" also. We will expand these thoughts by the following distinct observations: The dispensation of grace by the Cross of Christ, so far from making void, or abating, confirms and establishes the obligations of the moral law. The obligation of men to practical righteousness is an immutable obligation. It is founded in the nature of the Deity, and in the nature and relations which men sustain to him and to one another. It cannot be relaxed, but is everywhere binding, under every possible condition of man's existence, and through interminable ages. It is binding on those who never fell, and where its penalty has not been incurred; and not less binding on those who fell, and where its penalty is eternally endured. It is binding on impenitent and unbelieving men who are still under its wrath and curse ; and equally binding on all true believers, in whose favor its penalty is graciously remitted through him who bore it in their place. It is written upon the conscience in lines that can never be effaced; it is published in the Scriptures, there to stand as the unalterable expression of the divine authority; and so long as God and creatures remain what they are, can never be abrogated or modified. Whatever authority it had before men believe the Gospel, it has afterwards. It does not cease to be the rule of life and duty, because it is no longer the rule of justification. It does not cease to require obedience, either because it has been violated, or because the obedience it requires can no longer be the ground of acceptance with God. The vicarious obedience of the Cross, though graciously imputed to the believer for his justification, was never designed to be substituted in the place of his own personal holiness for any other purpose than his justification merely. If, as has sometimes been most unscripturally represented, the obedience of the Saviour relieves the believer from all personal obedience; or if, as has been incautiously represented, the design of the Cross is to relax the law in its requirements, and accommodate it to the weaknesses and frailty of men; if the extent of their disposition to obey be the measure of their obligations, and they are bound to do only what they are inclined to do; then should we indeed "make void the law through faith." But if the Gospel teaches, that neither justification through another's righteousness, nor the inability of the creature, affects for a moment the extent and force of his obligations to personal obedience, and that the holy Lawgiver will as soon cease to exist, as cease to require a holy, spiritual and perfect obedience; then does it "establish the law." And does not the Cross most dis |