the grace of God. "I am the Lord which sanctify you," is the oftrepeated declaration of Moses. Jude addresses believers as "sanctified by God the Father." So St. James (i. 18.), "Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures." St. Paul (Eph. v. 26.) informs us also, that Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word. The same apostle in writing to the Thessalonians (2, ii. 13.), ascribes this holy influence to the spirit: "God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." We close the Scripture testimony on this momentous subject with the emphatic language of St. Peter, that out of the mouth of various witnesses, all of them inspired apostles, the doctrine of grace may be established. "Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ, grace unto you, and peace be multiplied." If, then, we consider the words of the text as explaining the efficient cause of holiness, "the truth," and "the word of truth,” can be none other than that incomprehensible and divine Word, which was in the beginning with God, and was God. He expressly asserts that "He is the way, the truth, and the life." It is equally true that Christ is made of God, unto his people wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption. This does not, however, appear to be the doctrine of the passage before us.

By the Word of Truth, our Lord obviously refers to the Scriptures of Truth, the written word, indited by prophets, apostles, and evangelists, as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Their divine inspiration effectually secures them from all mixture of false doctrine, and all conceits and vain opinions of men. Their contents are pre-eminently great and glorious, displaying the highest excellency of God, and the everlasting happiness provided for his creature, man. Of all truths which were ever submitted to the human understanding, they reveal the highest, most invaluable, and only eternal truth. It re mains, therefore, to consider how they operate as the instrument of sanctification.

It were sufficient for a mind open to conviction, that the same sovereign Lord, who has ordained and who overrules second causes for the production of what we call natural events, has instituted this connexion. "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." But, in condescension to our weakness and infirmity, the connexion in the cases before us is clear and intelligible to the weakest

capacity. They appeal to our reason; they refer us to the varied wonders of Creation, as illustrating the power, wisdom, and goodness of the Supreme; they challenge our obedience by the distinguished benefits conferred on man, the head and lord of this lower world. The moon keeps her appointed seasons, and the sun knoweth his going down;-summer and winter, seed-time and harvest, retain their steady course; the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib. All things are obedient to His voice, and fulfil His holy pleasure. And do not these considerations furnish an appeal to rational and intelligent man? Shall he alone disturb the order of creation, and requite his Benefactor with ingratitude? Shall the law of subjection and obedience written in his heart be sacrilegiously effaced, and the freedom of holy love and delight in the service of God be exchanged for the degrading vassalage of sin, and the tyrannic sway of Satan, the enemy both of God and man! But reason, alas! has lost her fair and unbiassed dominion in the breast of man: he is deaf to the call of gratitude, or blind to the nature and extent of spiritual obedience. Supine and careless to his eternal interests and duty, he slumbers in fatal security on the verge of an eternal world, and reason calls in vain because unholy passion reigns dominant.

Scripture next summons him to obedience by revealing the spirituality and extent of the divine requirements." Thy commandment," says David," is exceeding broad." Till man examines the precepts in detail, he can possess no adequate idea of Christian sanctification; till his eyes are opened to see the wonders of God's law, obedience is considered practicable at least, is not of easy attainment. He is alive without the law, full of vain hope and presumptuous confidence that he does all that can reasonably be expected. But when the commandment comes, sin revives, and groundless expectations perish. Motives, purposes, and affections, are weighed in the balance of the sanctuary. The law of God is perfect; no thought of an intelligent mind, no act of a moral agent, can elude its authority. An inordinate desire is as much forbidden as the most criminal action. This appears to the worldly minded a hard saying; but Christian sanctification is founded on a discovery of this truth: it is the standard which regulates its judgment; it feels, indeed, condemned for innumerable short comings. and misdoings, but still, as a transcript of the divine mind and will, it delights in it after the inner man, and pronounces it to be holy, and just, and good.

Again, sanctification is further promoted by the Scriptures of Truth, as

They reveal to man the terrors of the Lord.

He will by no means clear the guilty. Witness the flaming cherubim which guards the gate of Eden, the pristine habitation of the holy pair. See the windows of heaven open, and the fountains of the mighty deep pour out their watery deluge to entomb a rebellious world. Mark the smoking ruins of four populous cities, the victims of a fiery tempest, which ten righteous inhabitants would have been sufficient to avert. Say, my hearers, do not these awful visitations, inflicted by God who willeth not the death of a sinner, proclaim aloud the dread malignity of sin, and set to the seal of heaven, that, "without holiness no man shall see the Lord."

Time fails us to speak of the solemnities of the eternal judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be made manifest, and the hidden transactions of darkness shall be published before the sun. We only ask, if, as the Scripture declares, the day of the Lord will assuredly come as a thief in the night, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burned up. We ask, if these things must come to pass, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness? But, brethren, cogent as these motives are, just and equitable as the appeals of reason and a holy law appear, the infinite compassion of the Saviour has unfolded in his word of Truth arguments for a holy life, which will not satisfy a cavilling understanding, but overcome a resisting will. From the authority of the precept, we now pass in conclusion,

III. TO THE GRACE OF THE PROMISE.

:

We beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. We read that when the Lord visited Elijah, a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice. Thus the spirituality of the law destroys the peaceful confidence of a sinner; the fear of approaching judgment fills the soul with terror, and brings it, with the Philippian gaoler, to cry, "what must I do to be saved ?" But it is the still small voice of Jesus which must mollify the heart and subdue the will; it is the Gospel which truly enlightens, converts, and rejoices the heart: "Mercy is the only element in which sin will die." Faith, receiving and applying the atonement, feeding on the sacrifice of the

death of Christ, purifies the heart. The promises brought to the heart as the portion of the soul produce principles like themselves. They become precious to the soul, and make it partaker of the divine nature. Increasing light and refreshing views of God as a reconciled Father and Friend, kindle warmer devotion, purer love, stronger inclinations for his service. The love of Christ diffuses its sanctifying influence, and, like holy leaven, imparts humility to every feeling, and zeal to every action. It is an incorruptible seed; though small and feeble in its rise, it will gradually expand in the blossom of a holy and consistent profession, and bring forth in increasing abundance the fruits of righteousness and true holiness, which are by Jesus Christ to the praise and glory of God. Afflictions and reproaches for the name of Christ will purge it, that it may bring forth more fruit; and finally, it shall be transplanted from amidst the tares of hypocritical profession and the noxious weeds of worldly cares and pleasures, to flourish in the courts above, in all the beauties of perfect holiness, for ever and

ever.

VAGUENESS, AND

CONSEQUENT INEFFICACY, OF

POPULAR NOTIONS ON RELIGION.

THAT to a selection of efficient means, a knowledge of the end is sufficient; and that to a diligent application of those means, when discovered, a desire of attaining that end is also essent 19 are selfevident principles. To assert these is to prove them.

His disciples had been for three years intimately conversant with our Blessed Lord. In this short, but eventful, period of his life, they had witnessed days of active and laborious beneficence closed by nights of devout and fervent prayer. They had seen miracles of omnipotent power and unbounded mercy, in strange connexion with persecutions submitted to, and sufferings endured. They contemplated his mortified life; his holy abstraction from the vanities of the world; his meek, yet firm, superiority to all its innocent, but peculiar, enjoyments. They saw that "all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them," had for Him no charms: and that His meat in this wilderness—far from His Father's house, His native home-was to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work. Yet a carnal prejudice had so pre-occupied their hearts; and thence rising in the foul mists of low VOL. II. First Series. MArch 1842.

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ambition and worldly affections, had so clouded their understandings, that persecutions gratuitously submitted to; sufferings and privations voluntarily endured; deadness to this world of time and sense; and aspirations after eternity, all vanished from their view. They saw but His omnipotent power: and this they fondly hoped would have been exerted, to seat their Master on the throne of a temporal kingdom and to procure for those who, as Peter fails not to remind Him, had forsaken all, and followed Him-dignities, and wealth, and power.

Strange infatuation of the carnal mind! It was on the very eve of his crucifixion, that the worldly wishes and hopes of his followers had reached the acme of expectation! He had already addressed to the body of the people the parable of "a certain nobleman who went into a far country, to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return :" "because," as St. Luke informs us, "He was nigh to Jerusalem; and because they thought that the kingdom of God should immediately appear." But neither this parable, plain as it was; nor His still plainer prediction to the Apostles, in private, of his sufferings and death, could quench the flame of their worldly desires; and thus disabuse their deluded understandings. And they had now arrived within a few hours of the close of our Lord's earthly career, while like too many, who are just stepping from this world into eternity, they were indulging the vain hope that the critical moment had arrived for the commencement of its expected enjoyment. They had just risen, like too many, from the memorials of his body broken and his blood shed, to indulge in dreams of worldly ambition and worldly enjoyment: of crowns and sceptres; robes of majesty, and thrones of empire, dreams, from which the morning's dawn was to awaken them, by shifting the scene from a visionary palace to a real Calvary; and by converting those bright visions of an intoxicating, dreaming imagination, into a real crown of thorns; a sceptre of derision; a robe of mockery; and a cross!

To prepare them for this unexpected reverse, and with these anticipated sufferings full upon his soul, our Lord, in the plenitude of disinterested love, addressed them in the consolatory farewell discourse recorded by St. John. Its opening exhortation, while it asserts the Deity, proves the unselfish love, of their gracious Master, who could thus forget his own infinitely deeper stake in his approaching personal sufferings, in his earnest desire to support and comfort his disciples under the trials and disappointments which these sufferings would occasion to them. Thus, in blending Divine power and Divine love,