Gambar halaman
PDF
ePub

Hence we may learn,

(1.) How much those wrong God who entertain hard thoughts of him. None are so gracious, so generous as he. It is but seldom that men remit a debt that is due to them from another: they insist at least upon a part, and the higher the composition rises, the more inclined they are to forgive the rest. But God's thoughts are not as our thoughts, neither his ways as our ways: for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts.

(2.) What gratitude and love is due to him from those whose sins are pardoned ! We do not prevent him with duty, but he prevents us with mercy. Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption, says Hezekiah: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back-Therefore we will sing my songs to the stringed instruments all the days of our life, in the house of the Lord. The aboundings of love and thankfulness should bear some proportion to the aboundings of divine grace. With this agrees the history from which our text is taken, where we see the pardoned sinner overcome with the mercy of the Saviour, and expressing her love and gratitude in every form. Jesus turned to the woman, and said unto Simon, Seest thou this woman? I entered into thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet: but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. Thou gavest me no kiss: but this woman since the time I came in hath not ceased to kiss my feet. Mine head with oil thou didst not anoint: but this woman hath anointed my feet with ointment. Wherefore I say unto thee, Her sins which are many are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. And he said unto her, Thy sins are forgiven.

The right use of the Law.

SERMON XVI.

1 TIM. i. 8

The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.

THE apostle speaks like one possessed of the full

assurance of understanding, in the mystery of God and of Christ. We know, says he, that the law is good we know it by divine inspiration, by rational deduction, and also by experience.-This may be applied to the ceremonial law, by which the jews were distinguished from all other nations as God's peculiar people. They were hereby directed how to worship God, and how they were to be saved. It was a shadow of good things to come, and afforded a typical representation of the blessings of the gospel. Its language was, Without shedding of blood there is no remission; and by its sacrifices and purifications it taught the way of pardon, of holiness and eternal life. Sinners might learn from it their guilt and defilement, and their need of pardoning and cleansing grace. To the jews it was a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ: and though it is now abolished, yet it is very instructive to the serious and studious christian. Here he sees the gospel as it were in miniature; and by believing Moses, his faith is more and more strengthened as to the person and work of Christ.

But it is the moral law which the apostle principally intends: and this is truly good in itself, whether we use it lawfully or not. It is a copy of the divine will, a transcript of the divine perfections. The holiness of God appears in the duty it enjoins, and his justice in the sentence it pronounces. If we do not approve of this law, it is because we are ignorant of its nature, and are at enmity against God. The purity which it requires is the honour and perfection of our nature, and those who best understand it will feel most delight in it. Their language will be like that of David: I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right, and I hate every false way. And with Paul they will say, The law is holy, and the commandment holy, just and good: and I delight in the law of God after the inward man. Psal. cxix. 28. Rom. vii. 12, 22.

It is implied however in our text, that the divine law, though good in itself, is liable to abuse by being improperly applied; as the same medicine may either be efficacious or pernicious, by being skilfully or unskilfully administered. We shall therefore

I. Notice some instances in which the divine law is used unlawfully.

1. In thinking that Christ's obedience to it renders our obedience unnecessary. If his having fulfilled it released us from all obligation, and gave us liberty to live without law, this were to make him the minster of sin, and for us to sin that grace may abound, which God forbid! Against this destructive and pernicious error the apostle James militates, in the greatar part of his epistle, as do also the other inspired writers. They all teach that God's law is a universal and perpetual rule of obedience: so indeed Christ found it, and so he left it. For though he came to deliver those who were under the law, yet

it was only from the curse, and not from an obligation to its commands: and instead of relaxing, he strengthens and encreases that obligation, by the love which he has manifested in being made a curse for us, and the assistance he has promised in the way of obedience. Hence when that question is asked, Do we then make void the law through faith? The apos→ tle answers with a kind of indignation, God forbid ! Let a thought so dishonourable to the Lawgiver, and so injurious to the Saviour, be rejected with abhorrence! Instead of pulling down the law, we establish it, or as the word signifies, we make it to stand; we fix it upon a firmer basis, and recommend it by our doctrine and example. Rom. iii.

2. When instead of judging ourselves by the law, we take occasion from it to judge uncharitably of others, we use it unlawfully. Thus did the pharisees: This people who know not the law are cursed, said they. Neglecting the beam which was in their own eyes, they attempted to pluck the mote out of the eyes of others, and thus proved themselves no better than hypocrites. To usurp the throne of God by judging the states of men, is what the scriptures every where condemn, and is represented as speaking evil of the law, traducing and applying it to purposes for which it was never intended. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another? Such a one stretches things beyond their proper line, by invading the province of the law, which is to accuse, convince and condemn. He causes others to speak evil of it, and does it virtually himself, by doing what it forbids, and neglecting what it commands: and to gratify an invidious temper he probably extends it beyond its just meaning, making

that to be sin or duty which the law itself has not made so. James iv. 11.

3. In depending upon the works of the law for justification before God, we make an improper use of the law; and that which is good in itself ceases to be good to us. Whatever be the purposes for which the law was designed, it certainly is not de signed for this; for that which is the ministration of condemnation and death cannot contribute to our justification. The righteousness which we derive from the law, if such it may be called, must needs be an imperfect one in the present state; and an imperfect righteousness can never be accepted by an infinitely just and holy God, as the ground of our justification; for He who seeth things as they are must for ever consider us as unrighteous and unholy, and must therefore treat us accordingly. Of all the bad uses which men make of the law, this is certainly one of the worst: to look for acceptance with God on the footing of our own obedience is to pour contempt on that infinite wisdom and boundless grace which has provided the righteousness of another, by which we might be justified and saved: it is both to dishonour the Lawgiver and despise the Saviour, to offend God and ruin ourselves. It is not more certain that sin persisted in will bring destruction upon our souls, than that our own righteousness, however specious in appearance, cannot save us. The bed is shorter than that a man can stretch himself upon it, and the covering narrower than that he can wrap himself in it. Isai. xxviii. 20.

II. Consider what are the proper uses of the divine law-The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.

1. It serves as a glass or mirror, in which we may behold the majesty and purity of God, and the guilty and wretched state of man. High thoughts of the

« SebelumnyaLanjutkan »