says, "the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith; even the righteousness of God, by faith of Jesus Christ, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, for the remission of sins; to declare his righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of him who believes in Jesus Christ."-Rom., iii. If any one thinks it an unwieldy and unnecessary expedient to demand such an atonement, to level the penalty on such a substitute, he betrays an awful want of due regard for the holiness and glory of the Divine Being. St. Paul thought differently when he said, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of Jesus Christ." This and all the doctrines of the gospel have such an impress of holiness, that they are a perfect test of character with regard to God.

3. In respect to humility, the gospel tries and ascertains the state of the heart. Humility towards his Maker is indispensably required of a creature, and still more of a sinner towards his Judge. The gospel brings men to the test, whether they will humble themselves or not before God. The great doctrine of justification by faith peculiarly does this. The proud and selfrighteous, full of their own supposed merits or comparative innocence, disdain to sue for mercy, as "the chief of sinners." But the humble welcome the tidings of pardon without price, as the sweetest music they could hear; in the cross of Christ they see the glory of the gospel; they triumph in the riches of free grace; and in the glorious truth that " Jesus Christ is of God made unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption." The Jews of old stumbled at this stone of offence; they went about to establish their own righteousness; they would not submit to the righteousness of God: and there have been many such ever since. If any of you, my brethren, are ready to rise against this doctrine, it is a proof that the "thoughts of your hearts are revealed."

4. A fourth respect in which the gospel is a test of your character is, whether you are true or not to your own interest; whether you have wisdom to choose the right relief for your misery, the proper supply for your wants. For God, who knows our wants, has provided their supply in the gospel; God, who sees our misery, has pointed out our happiness there: "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters! wherefore do you spend your labour for that which satisfies not? Hearken diligently to Me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness." In the gospel, God invites us to partake of his fulness; of his beauty, by sanctification of his felicity, by pardon and justification. On the one side all the fulness of God is offered to us, to fill the most enlarged desires of our souls; on the other hand, we are condemned, if we reject his offers, to chase shadows, to grasp phantoms, to sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind. The gospel includes all the perfection and all the

felicity of our nature; receive it, and you show true wisdom refuse it, and you prove yourself in love with death!

5. Lastly, Christianity is a test of our obedience or disobedi ence to the will of God. If God is a Master, where is his fear? If God is a Father, where is his honour? He commands all men to honour his Son, even as they honour the Father who sent Him. Those who refuse obedience to Jesus Christ rebel against God. God accepts no obedience but what is offered through the medium of his Son, and according to the terms of the gospel; none, but that of those who live in habits of prayer, meditation, hearing his word, and a holy walk with God. Christians alone pass the time of their sojourning in the fear of God and obedi ence to his will.

A few words of improvement may appropriately conclude this important subject.

(1.) Wherever the gospel is propounded, it is a test of charac ter to each individual who hears it; and whoever does not receive it, will hereafter stand confessed to God, as having "loved darkness rather than light, because his deeds were evil.” "My word," says Jesus Christ, "shall judge every man at the last day."

(2.) The rejection of Christianity is entirely voluntary; it arises from the spirit of pride, the preference of falsehood, the love of sin. But where shall we look for criminality, if not in an evil mind? "This is the condemnation," and it lies in the rejection of the gospel; unbelief is decisive against the character in which it dwells.

(3.) The trial of character here is only preparatory to the last trial hereafter. Then, as the apostle assures us, the Lord Jesus Christ shall be revealed from heaven in fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God;" this includes the heathen; "and on them that obey not the gospel of Christ;" this includes all insincere professors of Christianity. The remembrance of a neglected Christ will rankle in the minds of the condemned forever and ever. To reject the gospel is to turn the very mercy of God into wrath; to make the very prospect of heaven, now opened to you, the precursor of your ruin; to pervert the only remedy into a greater aggravation of your guilt! Wherever the Saviour is not set for the rise, He is set for the fall, of men. How shall any who reject Him escape, when no other name is given under heaven by which men may be saved, but the name of Jesus of Nazareth?

LXXV.

DIFFICULTIES IN THE PURSUIT OF SALVATION.*

1 PETER, iv., 17, 18: For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it begin at us first, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?

[Preached at Broadmead, Bristol, Lord's Day evening, July 6, 1828.]

MANY of the Jews, who were dispersed over the eastern part of the Roman Empire, embraced the gospel, while the rest of their nation were its bitterest persecutors. To these Jewish converts the apostle of the circumcision writes this general epis tle. In the connexion he alludes to some awful event, which he calls a fiery trial," concerning which commentators are not quite agreed. Many suppose it to have been the destruction of Jerusalem, which, as it affected the Jews, was a calamity unexampled in all history. Against this supposition, however, there is this powerful objection: that the fall of Jerusalem, instead of a calamity, would be a sort of relief and salvation to the Christians; it would be the fall of their greatest enemies. The apostle probably refers, not either to this or any other single event, but to a series of persecutions that would arise against the Christian Church. He prepares his brethren to expect persecution; and on this expectation he founds a very solemn suggestion. God was about to visit his own people with severe trials; what, then, would be the doom of his and their enemies?

We shall consider, first, the manner in which God has treated his people in every age, and more especially in the early times of Christianity; and, secondly, the inference drawn by the apostle, "What shall be the end of those that obey not the gospel? where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?"

I. In the first place, we observe that the conduct of God to his Church is such, that "judgment" may be said to "begin at the house of God," and "the righteous" to be "scarcely saved." The latter expression does not imply that their salvation is in any respect incomplete; it gives no countenance whatever to the doctrine of an intermediate state of purgatory, which the Roman Catholics have pretended to found upon it: every part of Scripture conveys the idea of a consummate felicity reserved for the saints after death, attended with no other imperfection than the delay of the body being reunited to the spirit in a glorified state at the general resurrection. Purgatory is the mere invention of

VOL. IV.-P P P

From the notes of the Rev. T. Grinfield.

man: every thing in Scripture confines our attention to this life as the only state of trial, and leads to the belief that "as the tree falls, it lies." The prospect of a purgatory must have a bad effect on the mind, inducing a timid, wavering religion. When Peter says that "the righteous is scarcely saved," he means that his salvation is wrought with difficulty and trial; this appears from the following considerations:

1. The Church is here often subject to persecution. This was especially the case with the primitive Christians: they were not only spoiled of their goods, they were often martyred; they endured what was literally "a fiery trial." Discredit and reproach were the lightest part of their sufferings. Through the mercy of God to his Church, persecution of this kind is now for the most part unknown. But something similar must ever be experienced. He that is after the flesh will persecute him that is after the Spirit; the seed of the wicked one will hate the seed of God. Recollect the trials of many distinguished saints: of Job; of Jacab; of David, who, as the type of Christ, found it hard to make his way to the promised kingdom. And still God's people are in general an afflicted people; whoever may enjoy an unruffled flow of prosperity, it is not their portion under the sun.

2. The Christian life is a painful course of exertion and warfare. A series of efforts is required: "Add to your faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, charity;" and then, and then only, "an abundant entrance shall be ministered unto you into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." Christians must labour before they rest; they must patiently continue in well doing; take up their cross daily; crucify the flesh; pluck out a right eye that offends. The apostle kept under his body, lest, having preached to others, he himself should be a castaway. He reminded his brethren, "Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin;" signifying that they were to be always "striving against sin," until it were subdued. "Whether we be afflicted," he says, "it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual" (that is, as it should be rendered, which is wrought out, effected), "by the endurance of the same sufferings."-2 Corinthians, i., 6.

3. Many serious apprehensions and fears are felt by the people of God respecting their final salvation. Those who never knew 1 doubt as to the end of their course, are far from being in a safe state for eternity. It is not so with Christians. With such it is an anxious inquiry, "Am I in the way to God? what law am I serving? what proof do I possess that I belong to those whom the Scripture distinguishes as the righteous ?" When they have been led astray by any occasion of sin, it is not without much sorrow and searching of heart that they return to their former way, and it is often long before they regain a calm and settled

state.

Men that live at large know nothing of all this; but pious

men have done much business in these deep waters; and thus they are saved with fear and doubt. And, once more,

4. "The righteous is scarcely saved," as, to be saved, he must endure to the end. "We are then made partakers of Christ, if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end." When one asked our Lord, "Are there few that be saved?" his answer was, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many will seek to enter in, and shall not be able." "Be thou faithful unto death," He gave it as one of his charges to the churches, "and I will give thee the crown of life." The Christian sometimes asks after those who did run well, and finds them no more among the saints; they endured for a while, and then fell away. True religion is of an enduring nature; it sustains the assay of temptation, the fiery trial; and is found to issue in glory at the appearance of Jesus Christ.

II. We proceed to the solemn inquiry, which the apostle infers from such conduct of the Lord towards his servants, "What shall be the end of those who obey not his gospel? where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear, if judgment begin at the house of God, if the righteous be scarcely saved?" "The house of God," you are aware, is his Church; and "the righteous" is one that is justified, sanctified, and made an heir of heaven, a favourite of God, numbered among his jewels.

1. Now if these require such a process of afflictive correction and purification, what shall be the doom of those who experience none; those who live without God; who have no share of his paternal care and discipline-none such as does them good? The end of all his corrections to his people is to make them partakers of his holiness: what, then, shall be the fate of those who considered their afflictions as springing from the dust, and not as sent by God? If his corrective dealings were so severe, what will be his severity when justice alone, without mercy, shall preside?

2. The saints are prepared for glory by a course of privations and endurances; by learning to deny themselves: what, then, may be expected by those who never aimed at following the will of God as their rule? those that live at large after the desires of the flesh and the mind, and say, in effect, of Christ, "We will not have this man to rule over us?" Much as many of the saints endured, it will not appear that they were too patient, too laborions for such a prize; what, then, shall be thought of those who made no exertions, submitted to no sacrifices?

3. If the righteous had so many fears and anxieties regarding their state, what, then, shall be the portion of those who had no such fears, those who never had a thought or a feeling of the kind, those who lived in a reckless disregard of all that is most serious? But the saints knew that such "an exceeding weight of glory" would overpay all their anxieties concerning its attain

ment.