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ask God to make us like his Son, and when we implore him that he would give us an earnest desire of himself as the chief good, we are sometimes afraid lest his knife should be too sharp in its incisions, and his lancet too deep in our heart's blood. Trust the Lord. What! can ye not trust Him who laid your sins upon the head of his Son?" He that spared not his own Son, but deJivered him up freely for you, will he not with him freely give you all things?"

I would say, Live much in the prospect of soon knowing him as he is. While the state of those who know not God is unspeakably awful, the prospect of those who know God is unspeakably glorious. O happy they who, after receiving some precious knowledge of him in the person of his Son, are looking forward, and living for the blessed period, when they shall know as they are known, and be for ever with the Lord! The Lord grant his blessing and pardon for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

VOL. IV.

THE DEATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND OF THE WICKED

REV. J. LEIFCHILD,

CRAVEN CHAPEL, REGENT STREET, AUGUST 2, 1835.

"Ihe wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death. PROVERBS, xiv. 32. .

THE claims of the writings of Solomon to inspiration, notwithstanding the sad downfall of his character, are innumerable. That he was renowned above all the princes of the earth for wisdom is an historical fact; and one of which those of his writings that have come down to us afford the strongest confirmation. That wisdom, however, other sacred writers assure us, was the result of the divine illumination: and it was while under that illumination, and during his best days, when he conversed with the holy God, that he wrote the book of Proverbs. The inspiration of this book, at least, cannot be questioned; it is rendered indubitable from the sanction given to it, from the quotations made from it by our Lord and his apostles in the New Testament. Solomon has said in one part of this book: "Put not forth thyself in the presence of the king, and stand not in the place of great men: for better it is that it be said unto thee, Come up hither; than that thou shouldest be put lower:" which words our Lord quoted as a divine maxim, when he charged his disciples if bidden to a feast to take the lowest place. Again, Solomon has said in this book, "Feed thine enemy if he hunger, and if he thirst give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire upon his head :" in allusion, perhaps, to the custom of those who softened and melted the most stubborn metals, by heaping upon them coals of fire. Those words the Apostle quotes, in his epistle to the Romans, as a divine commandment, enforcing forgiveness and charity upon the part of the followers of Jesus. Not to multiply any more instances, the Apostle James quotes verbatim the words of Solomon in this book, when he says, "God resisteth the proud; but giveth grace to the humble." The wisdom, therefore, of this book is the wisdom of the Holy God, to whom no time nor circumstances are opposed, and whose decisions are infallible.

The passage I have read, as a general maxim, is evidently one of this kind: The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope m bis death." Let us describe the characters here mentioned; and consider what is said respecting each. And it will be necessary to describe only one of these classes of characters, in order to bring them both before you; since they who are not of the one, inevitably belong to the other. All who are not among the righteous are infallibly among the wicked. Into these two lots or

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portions of mankind all the human race are distributed. At the last day there will be no third party; the righteous and the wicked will comprehend the whole of mankind: so that in describing the one, by implication we represent the other.

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There is, perhaps, no word in the Old Testament of more frequent and .portant use than the term "RIGHTEOUS." "Rejoice in the Lord ye righteous "The Lord loveth the righteous:" "The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree:""The righteous shall hold on his way:" and so on. Now it is of the greatest importance to ascertain the exact meaning of that term; since if we attach too general and loose a sense to it, we may be misapplying promises and representations to ourselves, never meant for us, and keep the world under a delusion. On the other hand, if we attach too rigorous and overstraining a sense to the term, we may be debarring ourselves of the consolation intended for us, and in this respect render the Scripture of none effect. It must be very obvious to you, that the meaning of the term must be ascertained according to the general tenor of the Scriptures, since the Holy Spirit can never be at variance with itself. I mean to say, that in attempting to explain the meaning of the truth of the Old Testament, we ought to avail ourselves of all the helps afforded in the New.

Righteous, in the sense of being strictly just, upright, and holy, we are none of us by nature. In that wide and ample survey which the Almighty is represented in the Scriptures as taking of mankind, for the purpose of ascertaining their character-a survey which regarded not only their outward form of conduct, but their inward principles, motives, and springs of action-it is declared as the result, that he found "none righteous, no not one:""They are altogether gone out of the way; they are become filthy; there is none righteous, no not one." And the world remains unaltered in this respect; none by nature are righteous. No man comes into this world pure and holy: no one enters into the world but with a depraved nature; at least a nature alienated from God, destitute of a bias to holiness, and possessed of a tendency and bias to sin; and therefore invariably going wrong; following the multitude to do evil, corrupt from the earliest dawn. So that when the Scriptures speak of "righteous" persons, they must mean those who have been made so, who have become so after their birth, and by a subsequent process. This is clear. If it states on the one hand that none are righteous by nature, and if it speaks on the other hand of some persons being righteous, that must refer to those who have been made so, who have become so by a process subsequent to their entrance into the world.

Now this process implies two things, at least: the absolution of guilt, and the purification of our nature.

First, the absolution of our guilt. We must begin with this; for till this is the case, it is in vain we think of having our nature purified or made holy. If you could imagine the improbable thing, that the Holy Spirit should he given to us to renew us, and make us holy, without our past guilt having been cancelled, it would be entirely in vain for our salvation. An ancient deot is not cancelled by our ceasing to incur fresh obligations:

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Though I to thee the whole resign,

I only give thee back thine own.
What have I, then, wherein to trust?
I nothing have, I nothing am;
Excluded is my every boast,

My glory swallow'd up in shame."

Aye, though you should be made now as holy and as innocent as Adam was before his fall, yet past guilt would hang like a clog upon you, and roll over your head like a burden too heavy for you to bear. Then how is it to de dissolved? how is it to be cancelled? How am I to get rid of the guilt of my innumerable sins during a course of years? How shall man be just with God? Heaven knows but of one way: there is but one way, and that is revealed in nis book: it is by an interest in the death and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, through faith in his name. It is not enough that Christ hath died: it is not enough that he obeyed the law, and wrought out a perfect righteousness, as the ground of the justification of sinners: that is not enough for our salvation; because you are told, that thousands of persons upon thousands will be everlastingly lost, notwithstanding Christ has died, and wrought out a perfect righteousness. And why? Because they do not come to him: they are not united to him; they are not interested by faith in his sacrifice and righteousness. The efficacy of his work is to be drawn from him and applied to ourselves, only by the touch of faith; and that faith is the gift of God, the work of his Spirit in the heart. He who has not this, who lives and dies without this, is as certain of being lost, as though Christ had never come into the world, nor spilled a drop of his most precious blood. So that the salvation that is in Christ is nothing to you, nothing at all to you, who are neglecting him, and continuing strangers to the power of faith in his mediation. Therefore it is a question of the utmost importance to be addressed to the conscience of every man and woman hearing the Gospel-and I do now address it to the conscience of every one now here: "Dost thou believe on the Son of God? Art thou ignorant of his righteousness?"

But, secondly, there must not only be the abolition of guilt, but the purification of our nature: and that, indeed, is the invariable effect that follows this absolution. Whenever the Holy Spirit works faith in the mind of a human being, to attach him to Christ, he always sets a mark upon that being, as one of the persons destined to receive his sanctifying operations. Those operations are not like the operations of human means, that sometimes fail of their end by the interposition of an unforeseen difficulty or insuperable obstacle. The Spirit of God never fails to accomplish the end he has in view, in the renovation of that man's nature and character whom he has brought to Christ. He can meet with nothing in any one's nature, character, or case, insurmountable to him. He can no more be foiled in securing the end of this creation than in securing the end of the first creation: for we are told that believers in Christ are "created unto good works." We are as much disposed, and fitted, and inclined by inward principles, to the practice of good works and holiness, as the things in creation to the end for which they were created; as the sun, for instance, to shine, or the waters to flow, or the planets to roll. They are "created anew in Christ Jesus;' by nice and imperceptible touches the image of God is formed within them. consisting in righteousness and true

holiness. Righteousness becomes the predominant quality of their character: they love righteousness, and they hate iniquity.

In the customary language of mankind, things are always denominated by their prevailing character. You speak of a wise man: you do not speak of a man who has no ignorance on any subject; but you speak of a man whose knowledge is greater than his ignorance. You speak of a healthy man: you do not speak of a man who is never afflicted with disease and infirmity; but you speak of a man whose predominant quality is one of a healthy character. And so when the Scriptures speak of a holy, a righteous person, they speak of one in whom righteousness prevails: it is the predominant quality.

Then this righteousness of the people of God is universal. They are filled with the whole law of God: they delight in the law after the inner man. For the same reason that they value one part, and wish to keep it, they value the whole; because the same authority that enjoined the one duty, enjoined all the rest. It is very possible for a real Christian to be surpassed by an unconverted man by a few specious and shewy virtues; such as keeping his word, as being a man of remarkable punctuality, and of great generosity. And the reason is obvicus: these few shewy virtues are all that the unconverted man attends to: he neglects all the rest, and he piques himself upon these: they are his title to glory; they are his reputation; they are the foundation of all his hopes: and hence he takes particular care to shine in these. But the principle of a good man's obedience is larger in its scope, and wider in its range: he cannot afford to expend his energy upon two or three particular virtues, but he goes round the whole of the divine precepts, and says, "O how I love thy law! Then shall I not be ashamed when I have respect unto all thy commands."

And this righteousness in the people of God is not only of a persevering, but of an increasing nature. It grows ;-it has its alternations and its increase, like every thing that possesses life.

I think you may see, then, who are the righteous as described in the Scriptures; I think you may understand from these few brief remarks what the Scriptures mean by the term "righteous." It means all persons who have been absolved by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ more or less clearly revealed to them; and all who have been renewed by the Holy Ghost. All persons who have been saved from the beginning of the world, all persons who may be saved down to the end of time, are saved in just the same way, by faith in the merits of Christ as revealed to them, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The song of the first-born of Adam that was saved and of the last-born of Adam that will be saved, will be in substance the same-a song of praise to God for his mercy and grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. The redeemed out of all ages and countries to God, will sing one and the same song before the eternal throne.

All these are the righteous; all besides are the wicked. I grant you that among these there may be some who, compared with the rest of the wicked, are very excellent persons. They have many excellent dispositions; many amiable features of character; and we cannot for a moment suppose that they will be involved in the same degree of punishment with the rest of their class. But neither, on the other hand, do we place them among the righteous, or claim for them an inheritance in the kingdom of God.

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