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fouls hath, therefore, furnished us with a noble prescription. It is at hand. You have it in my text: and, if you are humble and patient of instruction, you cannot but derive confiderable advantages from it. "Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright; for "the End of that man is Peace."

The words are elegantly expreffive of the way and means, by which alone we can obtain an undisturbed peace and ferenity of mind through life, and an unfhaken firmness and confolation in death. This being the great and important leffon which they inculcate, I fhall naturally be led from them to fet before you the LIFE and DEATH of the RIGHTEOUS MAN; only making this previous obfervation, that by the words

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perfect" and "upright" here made ufe of, we are to understand, that degree of holiness and perfection, which

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it is poffible for every one of us to attain on this fide the grave.

I am speaking to a Christian audience; and, as a Chriftian minifter, I am bound to give you the Life and Character of the Righteous Man, agreeable to that glorious fyftem of Divine Truth, which God hath been graciously pleased to reveal to mankind, by his own Well-beloved Son.

According to this Word of Truth, the Righteous Man is he, whose actions are conformable to the WILL OF GOD, have an immediate tendency to promote the GLORY OF GOD, and flow from no other motive than the LOVE OF GOD. But, if these things are so, if it requires all this to be righteous, who is he that shall be faved? Does not this far furpass the natural strength of man? Ask the experienced Christian,

Christian, and you will find him at no lofs for an answer.

Born in fin, and laden with actual tranfgreffion, poor guilty man cannot advance one fingle ftep in the paths of righteousness, till he lays hold by Faith on the hand of a REDEEMER. Secure of this, with humble confidence he approaches the Throne of Grace, and afks of his Heavenly Father, that fanctifying SPIRIT, which he hath promised to bestow liberally upon all those, that believe on his SoN. Here then is a rich fountain opened to the house of David: here is the pure and inexhauftible Source, from whence alone true Holiness can flow. "He that is "born of GOD overcometh the world." "The love of GOD is fhed abroad in

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our hearts by the SPIRIT, which he "hath given us." Till we are born of this Spirit, all our righteousness is but unrighteoufnefs: till we have this

principle

principle of Love in our fouls, all our doings are nothing worth. That Image of GOD, which man loft by his first disobedience, can only be renewed by the fame creating energy, that

"breathed into his noftrils the breath "of life." "It is the SPIRIT alone, "who beareth witness to our spirit, "that we are the children of GOD."

Actuated by this Divine Principle, "the good man, out of the good treasure "of his heart, bringeth forth good

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things." His actions must be conformable to the Will of GoD, they must have a tendency to promote the Glory of GoD, they must flow from a Love and Veneration for God, because they are immediately inspired by the Spirit of GOD, even by that Spirit which "worketh in us to will and to

do, according to his good pleasure."

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"Except your righteousness fhall ex"ceed the righteousness of the Scribes "and Pharifees," fays our BLESSED LORD. "ye cannot enter into the King"dom of Heaven." Thefe Scribes and Pharifees were extremely rigid and exact in their obfervance of the ceremonial law, and fo very minute as to pay tithes of mint, and annife, and "cummin." Whence is it, then, that our SAVIOUR fo repeatedly condemns them? Why, because their fole motive to this practice, was finful and worldly: they "did it, that they might "be seen of men;" that they might be distinguished by greetings in all public places, and honoured with the venerable appellation of “ Rabbi, "Rabbi!"

I would fain hope, that, among Chrif tian focieties, there are few, who are actuated by this Pharifaical principle. But I fear, that there are too many, VOL. II. P who

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