Το

all men fhould honour the Son, even as they bonour the Father. To live unto him who died for us, and to do all for the glory of God, that God may in all things be glorified through Jesus Chrift, are commands of the fame import. They are commands from whose scope and jurifdiction no action of man is exempt. Whatever participates of the nature of morality, be it inward difpofition or outward conduct, be it thought, or word, or deed, is completely fubject to their controul. render an action morally acceptable through our Redeemer to God, is it fufficient that the action accord with the literal tenor of the precept? To affirm this propofition would be to affirm, that the service of formality ranks on a level with the offering of the heart. It would be to affirm, that the conftrained fubmiffion of fear is equally pleafing in the eyes of our Creator with the zealous gratitude of love. It would be to affirm, that, if you are honest through policy, it is the fame as though you were upright through principle. It would be to affirm, that when you are temperate through confiderations of health, it is the fame as when you keep your appetites under fubjection to the dictates of confcience. It would be to affirm, that motives are nothing; that whether an action,

verbally

appre

verbally consistent with a fcriptural injunction, be the refult of selfishnefs or of self-denial; of fpiritual mindedness or of pride; whether it be done for the honour of God and our Lord Jefus Chrift, or in conformity to the suggestions of the world, the flesh, and the devil; there is no moral difference in the conduct of the agent, nor any difference as to the manner in which the deed will be ciated at the great day of account and retribution. To expofe fuch a doctrine, it is not necessary to refer to the Scriptures. In a case so plain, why even of ourselves judge we not what is right? No action whatever, though fulfilling the widest extent of the letter of a divine commandment, partakes of Christian morality, is included within the limits of fcriptural goodness, is in any degree authorised to hope through the merits of Christ for acceptance with God, except so far as the obedience to the divine commandment has ultimately proceeded from a defire to please our God and Saviour. No other obedience is obedience to the Father and the Son. And on what grounds fhall man contend that obedience, not rendered to Them, fhall be accepted and rewarded by Them?

In every respect, then, and from first to laft, our Lord Jefus Chrift is the cornerftone

3

ftone of morality. Other foundation can no man lay. If this momentous truth be eftablished, be it our care to have it fixed in our hearts: be it our care to build our morality on that foundation, which has been laid by the hand of God; and to build upon it that morality, which our Lord himself has taught. The morality of our Lord is not of the world, therefore the world hateth it; diflikes its purity, complains of its ftrictness, puts aside some of its precepts, and labours to curtail, and pare down, and circumfcribe the reft. Let us look not to the world, not to the maxims of the wifeft of the human race, but to a higher and purer fource, for the knowledge of our duties; even to Chrift, the infallible revealer of the will of his Father, the author and finisher of the law of Christian morality. Come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord, who came to be the light of the world. The moral precepts of Scripture are of the number of those commandments, for the tranfgreffion of which he died to atone. They are of the number of those concerning which we have his recorded declaration: Whofoever shall break one of the leaft of these commandments, and shall teach men fo, he shall be called leaft in the kingdom of heaven. But whofoever shall do and

teach them, the fame fhail be called great in the kingdom of heaven (k). They are of the number of those commandments, with a reference to which his apoftle pronounces, that neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, nor they who are guilty of hatred, or of variance, or of emulations, or of wrath, or of ftrife, or of fedition, or of envying, or of murder, or of revelling, fhall inherit the kingdom of God (1). Let no man deceive you with vain words, intimating that you may perfift in any of these fins and be faved. Vain and deceitful words! Wretched the man who is beguiled by them! For because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of difobedience (m). Whofoever obftinately perfeveres in the violation of any moral duty, remains under the curfe of the broken law. He shall not fee life: the wrath of God abideth on him (n). If it is with fincerity that we profess to be the followers of Chrift, let us take his example for our pattern. Let us walk in the path which he has traced for us, if we would reach the kingdom to which he directed his course. If

() Matt. v. 19. (m) Eph. v. 6.

(1) I Cor. v. 9, 10. Gol. ii. 6.

Gal. 19-21. (1) Gal. ii. 10.

John, iii. 36.

we

1

we hope to be made like him (0) in that world of glory; let us feek to attain to some faint refemblance of his moral perfections, while we are in the body. But in ftriving for the acquifition of Christian morality, let us purfue it in the Chriftian way. Let us remember that it is God who worketh in us both to will and to do: that we are not fufficient of ourfelves to think, much less to do, any thing as of ourselves, but our fufficiency is of God: that it is the grace of Chrift which is, and must be, fufficient for us, the grace of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, which our Lord bestows. Do we ftand in need of warnings to admonish us from time to time, that it is only through the grace of Chrift that genuine morality can be attained? Let us turn our eyes to those men, who are attempting to attain it by their own ftrength. Behold them for a season apparently fuccessful. Witness their felf-complacency. Hear their vauntings, and the vauntings of their admirers! But withdraw not your attention from them. See them at once overcome by the passion or the appetite, which they believed themselves to have mastered. See them astonished at their own defeat, and paffively declining any future contest. Or behold them roused by

(0) I John, iii. 2.

wounded