from outward immorality with conversion of heart. Whereas he who is taught of God clearly discerns his own inward defilement, and learns, with Job, to" abhor himself and repent in dust " and ashes." When a discovery is made to him of the immaculate purity of God, with Isaiah he exclaims, "Woe is me, for I am un"done, because I am a man of unclean lips, " and I dwell in the midst of a people of un"clean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, "the Lord of hosts." A knowledge of God's inflexible Justice is also essential to a participation of eternal life. The existence of this perfection appears in the destruction of the old world, and of the cities of the plain. It is also evident from the damnation of the Angels, who kept not their first estate, and from all the threatenings of the Scriptures. But it shines with the brightest lustre round the the bleeding temples of the Lamb of God. How awfully strict must He be in maintaining the sanctions of His perfect law, who, "Rather than His Justice should be stain'd, Now unless we have some proper conceptions of this Divine attribute, we shall discover no necessity for the death of Christ: we shall fancy that God might, by an act of His sovereign authority, have forgiven sin; and all our apprehensions of His love, and gratitude for it, will be cold and lifeless. It is a due conviction of the glory of this Divine perfection, which excites in the believing heart that ardour of thankfulness which it feels, and which causes the * Dr. Young's Night-Thoughts. redeemed sinner to cry out, while gazing on his incarnate God stretched on the Cross, "Behold what manner of love He hath vouch"safed to such a wretch as me!" It would also be easy to shew the necessity of an acquaintance with the other perfections of the Godhead. But, lest the present essay should be extended to an unusual length, one particular more shall suffice. A knowledge of the Love of God is essential to salvation. For a man may know Him to be just and holy, and by his apprehensions of these tremendous attributes be driven to despair, unless at the same time a manifestation of the loving-kindness of the Lord be made to the mind. Without this there can be no genuine repentance, faith, love, hope, or joy. But as this subject has been already presented to our contemplation, it will be needless here to expatiate on it any further. It is, however, necessary to remark, that this knowledge of God is not mere theory or speculation, but it is such a kind of information as communicates life to the soul, awakening it to sensibility, and exciting it to pant after God. It transforms the soul into the Divine image, by enabling it to appreciate every object by the standard of inspired truth, and by producing emotions of love to God, because He hath loved us. It is a knowledge that is always accompanied by humility of heart; for the sinner who is instructed aright in the character of God, must lie prostrate in the dust at His footstool, in silent admiration of that grace and glory which irradiate the countenance of the Divine Majesty. If your knowledge of God be such as is here connected with eternal life, then the effect of beholding the glory of God has been similar to that which is experienced by one who gazes on the natural sun, whose eyes are thereby so powerfully affected, that he is rendered incapable of looking as before on terrestrial objects; and if you have seen the glory of God, as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ, you look around you on the things of time and sense with an indifference to which you were before a stranger. This knowledge of God is eternal life. The life it produces in the soul is similar in kind, though not in degree, to that which saints made perfect enjoy; for this knowledge has always a sanctifying efficacy. The justification of him who believes is indeed complete, but his sanctification is partial; it is begun through grace, and will be gradually carried on to further degrees of maturity, in proportion as his acquaintance with God increases, till it be perfected at his dismission from the body, and at the resurrection of the just. To know God in Christ is also eternal life, both as it is the sure and only way to it, and as it.is the earnest and beginning of it; for the peace of conscience, the love to God, the sensations of delight in Him, the desire after conformity to His image and obedience to His will, which it uniformly produces, are real foretastes of glory, and infallible evidences of a right, founded on redemption, to the possession of the purchased inheritance. And the complete enjoyments of heaven will partly consist in the clear discoveries of the glorious perfections of the Godhead which will then be vouchsafed to us, when we shall see eye to eye, and face to face. O blessed knowledge, which thus enriches the human soul! How happy the man who is possessed of it! How pitiable the case of those who have substituted any thing in the place of it! For, if it be life "eternal to know the only true God, and Jesus "Christ whom He hath sent," it is, on the contrary, eternal death to remain in ignorance thereof. And if you have never sought it, as the one thing needful to happiness, be assured that hitherto you possess it not. How delightful is our social worship, when we personally experience, that God's service "is perfect freedom!" The freedom which is talked of so much in these licentious times, would prove in all cases, as it has in one, * liberty of depriving each other of property, peace, and life. "But there is yet a liberty unsung "Which monarchs cannot grant, nor al the pow'rs 66 Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind, "Which whoso tastes can be enslav'd no more. ""Tis liberty of heart, deriv'd from heav'n, "Bought with HIS blood, who gave it to mankind, By charter, and that charter sanction'd sure "By th' unimpeachable and awful oath "And promise of a God. "There is a paradise that fears "No forfeiture, and of its fruits He sends ་་ Large prelibation oft to saints below. "Of these the first in order, and the pledge "Is liberty-a flight into His arms, "Ere yet mortality's fine threads give way; VOL. I. Referring to the French revolution. L a The service of sin, Satan, and the world, is perfect thraldom. Continual fears of loss or disappointment haunt the wretched slaves of these hard task-masters. Though various are the employments in which the servants of "sin"* are engaged, yet wretched is the drudgery of all. One man is instigated to destroy his constitution, and ruin his soul, by the beastly practice of drunkenness. Another brings his own body to the gallows, and his soul to hell, by acts of fraud, rapine, or violence, committed either on the person or property of his neighbour. A third is impelled to defy the Lord of heaven and earth, by blaspheming His name, or violating His sabbath. These are the lowest menials of the unhappy family. There are others, who bave higher rank, but are equally in a state of bondage with the former: Such are the covetous, the ambitious, and the man of fashion, who live without God in the world; such also is the formalist and self-justiciary. For the lord of this family is as much obeyed, and his service as faithfully attended to, by the decent moralist, if his heart be detained from God, as by the drunkard and debauchee. † Cruel is the treatment which the slaves of sin receive. Their Rom, vi. 20. How pathetically is this described in our Lord's beautiful parable of the prodigal son! In which we are told that the unhappy spendthrift, "when he began to be in waut, "went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, who "sent him into his fields to feed swine." How degrading an employ, and yet how descriptive an image of that, in which all the dupes of sensuality are engaged, who serve divers lusts and pleasures!" And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat." Wretched state! to be seeking happiness for the soul from the trough of sensual gratification! 66 Rom. vi. 16. His servants ye are, to whom ye obey." |