God, all rise or fall, as our views of the divine law, and the divine redemption which has fulfilled, and honoured it, are deep and accurate, or superficial and defective. We can never acquire an entire devotedness of heart to God, as redeemed creatures, until we apprehend the full extent and worth of the redemption which we have received. If our views of the great purposes and blessings, for which, and the great dangers from which, we "have been apprehended of Christ Jesus," are low and limited, our own efforts in pressing forward to "apprehend" these mercies, and to obey him who hath conferred them, will be equally limited. To walk as Christ walked, will appear a bondage in our view. To tread in the steps of holy apostles will seem unnecessary. To glory only in the cross, and to rejoice if we are counted worthy to suffer shame for Christ's sake, will seem a state of mind only necessary and adapted, for persons in peculiar stations of trial and duty. But no inferior state of mind is adequate to our real obligations, or will be acceptable to him. If we would be Christ's indeed, we must live, not unto ourselves, but unto him who died for us, and rose again; purifying ourselves, even as he is pure, and striving to be perfect, as our Father who is in heaven is perfect. This is the result of the constraining love of Christ, and of our union by faith to him. And it is only as we are taught out of the law of God, that we are truly taught our need of Christ,— -or are led to seek our complete salvation in him.

II. The practical influence of a knowledge of the law, is displayed in the fact, that all our scriptural hopes, are dependant upon it. The importance of a distinct and well defined Christian hope, cannot be estimated too highly. "Ye are saved by hope." The prayers of the Apostles for those to whom they wrote or ministered, in relation to this subject, are repeated and various; that the eyes of their understandings might be enlightened, to discern the free and unspeakable gifts of God in his Gospel, to comprehend the nature and

worth of the hopes and privileges which were thus bestowed upon them, and to be able to give to others, a reason for the hope which they possessed, and which they were to offer to the acceptance of all. It is by this blessed hope, which personally appropriates to ourselves, the gracious promises of God in the Gospel, and enables us to realize as our own, things which are unseen and eternal, that we are sustained in trial and duty, and made to press forward to the prize of our high calling of God in Christ Jesus. But clear views of religious truth are indispensable to the enjoyment of a rational and consoling hope of eternal life. And while Satan is deluding the multitudes of the unconverted, with false and unfounded hopes, and by the influence of these, is persuading them to reject the invitations of the Gospel, and to remain contented in a state of sin, the falsehood of his devices is only to be ascertained by a thorough examination of the ground, upon which these hopes profess to rest.

All false hopes connected with the interests of the soul, arise from an ignorance of the divine law. When a sinful man is found actually claiming everlasting life from the justice of God, on the ground that he has done his duty, has been guilty of no harm to his fellow men, has injured no one, and defrauded no one, what but total ignorance of the law of God, can have veiled his mind with an expectation so unfounded and deceitful? While he sees not that his very best acts stand in need of pardoning mercy, as much as his vilest sins; that the least transgression of his life entails upon him a necessary and everlasting condemnation; that his heartless prayers, and his omissions and failures in required duty, will condemn him as certainly as any of the acts which appear to him more sinful; upon what does his false confidence of security rest, but upon a total misapprehension of the nature of the divine claims and requisitions of God's perfect law?

When another man proclaims his hope to rest upon the unbounded mercy of God, mercy which is over all his works,

while he rejects from his heart, the clear and ample provision of mercy which is offered to sinners in the Gospel, what but an entire ignorance of the divine law is the foundation of this delusive expectation? When a judge is seated on the bench, could the clearest evidence of guilt against the criminal, be affected by his assertion of a previous dependance upon the mercy which he hoped to find in the day of trial? The hour of trial is the time of law, not the time of mercy. In the present life, there is abundant mercy freely offered to the vilest sinner; nay, pressed by his offended, but gracious Creator, upon his attention and acceptance. But it is, as it must be, mercy in God's own way, and according to the plan of his own wisdom. When the time of final adjudication and recompense has come, the reign of mercy has come to an end, and the season for its exercise has passed by forever. The principles of just and equal law must then govern every determination. The Judge of all the earth must do right. The man who is there, with sin previously unpardoned, must endure the death which is the wages of sin. He therefore who now pursues the path of voluntary transgression, and still trusts in the mercy of his Judge, for a future and final pardon, is destroyed by his ignorance of the law, or by his voluntary contempt for its demands. The claims of this holy law must be satisfied and honoured. It does not, it cannot allow the name of mercy. Without the shedding of blood, it offers no remission. Until its penalty has been paid, and all its demands have been met and answered, it is utterly vain to think of charming its denunciations of wrath to rest. The mercy of God is displayed in his gracious method of making satisfaction to the law for the sinner's soul. But it can never act in setting aside the demands of the law upon man, while they are still unsatisfied, and all hope which is founded upon such an expectation, is delusive and false.

When others speak of a vague and indefinite hope which

is resting partly upon their own works, and partly upon the merits of the Saviour to make up for the deficiencies of these, the same ignorance of the law is at the foundation of their false confidence. They avow their trust in Christ. But they can give no reason for this trust. They have no clear idea of what he has done, that should lead them to this confidence. They give no evidence that they have been really brought by the Holy Spirit, to renounce themselves, that they may win Christ, and be found in him. They have probably no distinct emotion or conception connected with that faith in Christ which they avow. For even while they proclaim this hope, they do not, and will not, accept the salvation which is offered in the Gospel, upon the terms which are there display. ed. They will not renounce all works of their own, as at least, a partial ground of hope. They will not empty and humble themselves to enter the kingdom of heaven, at the same gate with publicans and harlots. This is too humiliating. Their proud hearts must have something wherein to boast themselves. If they cannot make their own lives, the sole ground of their justification, they will rely upon them in part, or they will make them the reason, for their confidence and hope in Christ. They will not suffer themselves to be stripped of all self-preference, and self-respect. They know not how to glory only in the cross of Christ. They have never experienced or understood the condemning power of the law, nor felt the burden of guilt which it lays upon the sinner's soul. And they are in the possession only of a hope, whose whole foundation is ignorance of the curse which has been laid upon transgression, and of the endurance of that curse by the Son of God, as the ransom for those who believe in him.

All these false hopes spring from the same source. They are entertained and cherished in the mind, because it has never been chastened by the Lord, and taught by him, the

wondrous things of his law. Man cannot live without hope. And Satan, perfectly aware of this fact, blinds his mind to the true hope which God presents, and urges upon him in its stead, these refuges of lies. He keeps him in ignorance of what the Lord God hath spoken, and thus deludes him to an embracing of these unfounded and impossible expectations, as his confidence in the day of the Lord's appearing.

A Christian hope is founded immediately upon Christian faith. It is a personal application, of the objects which faith discerns, and an appropriation of the treasures, which faith discloses in the divine revelations. The faith which justifies the soul, brings us simply to the Lord Jesus Christ, as the great end and fulfilment of the law, for all who believe. It teaches us, our own condemnation under the law, and leads us, emptied of all confidence in our own works, to rest ourselves wholly, upon his past and finished work of substitution in our behalf. If we attempt to blend in any measure or degree, anything of our own, with the work of Christ's redemption, we make utterly void, all that he has done and suffered in our stead. Christ has thus become of no effect to us; and so far as we are concerned, he has died in vain. The law presents two distinct claims as made upon every sinner, which must be met and answered, before he can have a hope of acceptance with God. It denounces death as the punishment of sins past; and it requires a spotless obedience as the title to future reward. It thus guards the way to the tree of life with a flaming sword which turns every way in opposition to the sinner's approach. The answers to these claims can never be found in the sinner himself. But faith discerns them both, and in their utmost possible value, in the sinner's Saviour. God hath set forth his Son, to be a propitiation for sins past, and to declare his righteousness, in the justifying of the ungodly. In this abundant provision for the pardon of sins past,—and for the everlasting justification of the pardoned

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