precepts. Holiness is the end in view of the whole revelation, modified by the particular dispensation of the Son and Spirit of God. All meritorious confidence is, indeed, renounced; but "the dutiful necessity"* of good works is greatly increased by every truth relating to our salvation.

For it is further to be noted, that the peculiar doctrines of revelation go to form exactly THAT SORT OF CHARACTER, AND NO OTHER, WHICH THE MORALS REQUIRE; and that the precepts delineate and require that sort of character, and no other, which the doctrines go to form-that peculiar Christian spirit, I mean, which we have already shown to be the end in view in the performance of each particular duty. The Christian spirit is humble and lowly; founded on renunciation of self-righteousness and self-confidence; warmed with active benevolence and sympathy for the spiritual and temporal wants of man; accompanied with meekness, patience and forgiveness of injuries. And it is obvious that the peculiar doctrines of the gospel go to form this sort of character, and no other. For the facts on which they rest inspire a general abhorrence of sin, and an admiration of the love of God; and the proper consequence of receiving the doctrines is to perform correspondent duties: the result, therefore, of a cordial acquiescence in all the doctrines will be the formation of the peculiar sort of character which the Christian precepts delineate and require. That is the doctrine of the guilt of man, producing humiliation and penitence; and the doctrine of forgiveness and of sanctifying grace, producing holy love and obedience the more these are wrought into the mind and habits, the more powerful will be the impress, the peculiar impress of the Christian character.

This we find to be the case in point of fact. The overwhelming LOVE OF CHRIST Constrains, bears away, puts a holy necessity, as it were, upon the penitent, "to live, not unto himself, but unto him that loved him and gave himself for him, and rose again." "He is not his own."t He is dedicated, made over, resigned by a voluntary surrender, to the service of his divine Lord. Thus, gratitude, admiration, love of God and man, detachment from the world, spirituality of mind, patience under injuries; that is, the very character which the morals delineate and demand, is the natural result of the peculiar doctrines. These great discoveries, brought

* Hooker.

t2 Cor. v. 14, 15; 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20.

near and made effectual by the Holy Spirit, are an ever-living spring of vigorous and self-denying obedience. They per petually supply principles of hatred of sin, of self-abasement, of thankfulness and joy; which, like a fountain, feed the streams of actual effort and practical obedience.

Once more, the promises and privileges of the gospel are attached to CERTAIN DISPOSITIONS AND STATES OF MIND, which are essential parts of the morals of revelation. The promises are chiefly made to certain characters-to those who are meek, to those who pray, to those who seek God, to those who quit the society of the wicked, to those who love their brethren, to those who watch, to those who persevere in welldoing, &c.; that is, the promises are the most direct motives, not only to obedience, but to that particular sort of obedience which distinguishes the true Christian. What can be a more striking instance of this, than our Lord's attaching the most difficult of all duties-the forgiving of personal injuries-to the most exalted of all blessings, God's forgiveness of sins? so that, in every age and every part of the world, wherever Christianity spreads, the duty most opposed to our natural corruption, and yet most characteristic of the peace and purity of the gospel, is indissolubly united with the most prominent doctrine of revelation-the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ.

It is another link in this chain of argument, that Christianity holds out to men FURTHER ADVANCES IN HOLINESS, as the recompense and reward of diligence, and not a further insight into mysteries and loftier heights of knowledge. Most false religions propose to reward their votaries by drawing aside the veil which conceals from the vulgar eye their hidden mysteries. The Hindoo superstitions, those of China, the false religion of Mahomet, act thus. They fall in with the principle of curiosity and the ambition of knowledge in man. Christianity prefers moral to intellectual excellency, and proposes to her followers, as the recompense of their present attainments, further advances in holiness, in the love of God, in the obedience of Christ, in meetness for heaven. Thus, all her promises bear upon morals, and tend to strengthen the obligations of them.

The doctrine of the HEAVENLY STATE, and of the preparation for the employments of it, give the last seal to the truth of what we are now considering-the connection of the morals of Christianity with its peculiar discoveries. For what

is the doctrine of the heavenly state, but that holiness is its very element, that all sin, all impurity, all error, all defect, will be excluded; and that it is to be prepared for by that obedience, that holy faith and love, that meekness and spirituality, which, like the bud, are to be expanded in all their beauty and fragrance in that more genial soil? Holiness is, therefore, the first stage, the commencement, the dawn of that character, of which heaven is the completion, the end, the effulgence. Unlike the wretched paradise of Mahometanism, which casts its impurities into the very heart of its precepts, by the voluptuous and degrading pleasures which it promises in its paradise, Christianity impresses this mastertruth upon man, that what we are in this world, we shall be in another; that a future state will develop, not change, the character acquired on earth; that life is the seed-time, of which the harvest will be reaped throughout eternity.

And this being the intimate relation of the Christian precepts with its great doctrines, why should I detain you by entering into the manner in which these precepts are involved IN ALL THE OTHER PARTS OF REVELATION? Tell me what chapter in the Pentateuch is not filled with exhortations, examples, warnings. Point out to me the historical book which is not fraught with moral instruction. Show me in the devotional writings a single psalm which does not imply the most ardent pursuit of obedience. And with regard to the holy prophets, what is the scope of all their remonstrances, so bold, so fervent? what the end of all their persuasions and invitations? what the design of their denunciations of idolatry and rebellion of heart in man? what the purport of their prophetic outline of future events, whether relating to the times near at hand, or looking forward to the coming of Messiah, and the long series of the divine providence towards the church-what, what is all the object in view, but to reduce a disobedient nation to penitence and subjection to the command of God? I will not dwell on the evangelical history, and the epistles of the holy apostles, because every child knows that holiness is the end and scope of them. What is there omitted, for example, by St. Paul, to enforce upon his converts, in all his writings, the obedience, the peculiar and characteristic obedience, of Christianity? How often does he descend from the very heights of his holy doctrines, to urge some duty, to impress upon man some part of the Chris.

tian temper and conduct!* It is the glory of Christianity that her loftiest prophecies, her deepest mysteries, her most fervent devotions, not only inspire holiness, but aim at it, are essentially linked with it, and lose all their end if it be not produced. In short, as the precepts without the doctrines of revelation, prescribe an unattainable rule, so the doctrines without the precepts fail in their great purpose, evaporate in mere emotions and sensibilities, and can neither sanctify nor

save.

IV. But what, it may be asked, are THE SANCTIONS BY WHICH THE CHRISTIAN MORALS are ultimately enforced?

This is the important question. Whatever be the extent and purity of the rule, whatever the means by which it works, whatever its inseparable connection with the doctrines of revelation, all is inefficient, unless the authority which it brings to bear upon the conscience, and the rewards and punishments attached to it, are weighty, solemn, efficacious.

A hand dissevered from the body, might as well be represented as sufficient for the purpose of labor, as unconnected and unauthoritative principles for the purposes of morality.

Heathen morals, in addition to innumerable other deficiencies, labored under one which was fatal to the whole system; they had no sanction, no authority, no knowledge clear and definite of a future state or an eternal judgment. The faint light of reason, the voice of conscience, the fragments of tradition, were utterly insufficient to bind men. It was the state, the civil law, usage, convenience, which formed the quicksand on which their edifice was reared. Infidelity builds on no firmer foundation, when she pretends to raise her morals on the love of glory, honor, interest, utility, and the progress of civilization, with some feeble admissions of the belief of a future life.

Christianity stands forth in the midst of mankind, the only religion which asserts the will of God to be the clear and unbending rule of duty, and refers men to an eternal judgment as its ultimate sanction. Her morality conduces, indeed, to the welfare of man, it is agreeable to the reason of things, it responds to the voice of conscience; but none of these is its foundation-to argue morals out on these principles has been proved, by the experience of all ages, to be impossible.

THE WILL OF GOD is the brief, undeviating authority of moral obedience. And what majesty doth this throw around the precepts of the Bible! "Thus saith the Lord," is the introduction, the reason, the obligation of every command. God appears as the Legislator, the moral Governor, the Lord of his accountable creatures. He speaks-" and all the earth keeps silence before him!"*

And why should I contrast the partial guesses of paganism or infidelity on a future state of rewards and punishment, with the full and decisive declarations of that gospel by which "life and immortality are brought to light?" Nature is ignorant. Nature knows nothing distinctly of the rules of the last judgment. Nature can give no account of heaven and hell. Revelation alone pronounces, with its awful voice, the immortality of the soul. Revelation unveils the eternal world. Revelation makes all its doctrines and all its precepts bear upon the last dread assize, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed-when "the books shall be opened, when the sea shall give up the dead that are in it, and every man shall be judged out of the things written in the books, according to his works." These are the proper sanctions of morals. The purity of the code answers to the obligation of the enactments; the means or machinery it employs corresponds with the importance of the consequences. The doctrines by which it is sustained are the suitable aids and encouragements for duties of such momentous import. An infinite God, an infinite rewarder, an infinite avenger-a judge of omniscient and omnipotent authority, a sentence of unmixed justice, a reward of unparalleled grace, a final and impartial settlement of the disordered state of the world by the Creator and Preserver of all-these are considerations which give a sublimity to the Christian morals, and attach an importance and weight to them which render them the only influential rule of human practice. To talk of morality without religion, is to talk of a legislation without a legislator. To talk of a religion without a distinct and solemn sanction derived from the proper evidences of a divine revelation, is to talk the language of general, unmeaning declamation, which can neither animate nor control the heart. But to point out the Christian morals expounded in their purity and extent, furnished with ample means of becoming practicable, interwoven with the most

* Hab. ii 20. VOL. II.

12 Tim. i. 10.
7

Rev. xx. 11-13.