4. The fourth branch is holiness. "He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love," Ephes. i. 4. "Be ye 5. The fifth branch is goodness. transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable, and perfect will of God." Now the learned say that this is the moral law; and, if it be, charity is what it aims at, and is the fulfilling and perfecting end of it. "Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned." Our learned poet Milton, speaking of the undertaking of Christ, has these words of him, The law of God exact he shall fulfil, Both by obedience and by love, though love At another place, speaking of the abundant grace of the Messiah upon the saints, he brings in love. By name to come call'd Charity, the soul Of all the rest. "For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. Love worketh no ill to his neighbour; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law," Rom. xiii. 8. 10. And one of the scribes came, and asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, the first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment And the second is like, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these," Mark xii. 28-3 1. "On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets," Matt. xxii. 40. According to these accounts, there is no doing any thing with the law, no obedience to it, no standing before it, without love in the heart. Now, when our evangelical Ministers of the letter tell us that we are under the law as our rule of life, do they mean nothing by it? Is it mere talking? Or do they insist upon doing the commandments? Do they mean nothing more than to prate at that rate whilst others are only to hear them? If so, neither those who talk about the law, nor "the hearers of the law, are just before God; but the doers of the law shall be justified;" Rom. ii. 13. Not talkers and hearers, but lovers, fulfil the law. And, if this be true, that love and nothing else fulfils the law, I ask every Evangelist in this nation, and that in the name of God, to answer this question-Who act the wisest part, those who enforce love from the covenant of grace, or those who exact it from the killing letter which ministers death and worketh wrath? Where does love spring from, and in what channel does it flow? It took its rise in God from all eternity; and, for want of a better expression, I call it self-moving love in God to man. I know of no cause prior to that. It is displayed in the gift of Christ as a sacrifice for us, and in giving Christ as a covenant to us. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life," John iii. 16. This love of God was set upon us, and secured to us, in Christ, from eternity; so that neither life nor death can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. It is tendered to us in an unconditional promise; "I will love them freely." It is the bond of the covenant of grace; "All that I love I rebuke and chasten." And when we pass under this rod we are embraced in love, which is called bringing us into the bond of the covenant. And this love of God comes to us from the Father, through the Mediator, by the Spirit; and is, with every other grace, shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost, who operates as a spirit of love, of power, and of a sound mind. I ask all our Evangelists once more, Which act the most consistent part, those who enforce love from the sovereign clemency of heaven, from the dying love of Christ, from the bond of the covenant, from the promise of God, from the benignity of the Spirit, from an unctuous experience and the happy enjoyment of it; or those who, being in chains themselves, exact it from the ministration of death and condemnation, engraven on tables of stone? Let our Evangelists answer this. When God had finished the work of creation, he rested on the sabbath day. He smelled a savour of rest in Noah's sacrifice; he went to cause Israel to rest when he led them out of Egypt; he rested in the first tabernacle; and entered into his rest, he and the ark of his strength, in the temple. But the best and most lasting rest was yet to come. He never rested long in any place until he had displayed his endless love, and all the bowels of his goodness, mercy, pity, and compassion, in the gift of his dear Son. "The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rest in his love," Zeph. iii. 17. And where God rests satisfied and well pleased, there we shall rest contented, but no where else; for no conscious sinner, no wounded soul, can ever find rest but in the death of Christ, and in the love of God. And where is this rest to be found? At Sinai? No. "The Lord hath chosen Zion; he hath desired it for his habitation. This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell; for I have desired it." And those who would come to God the Judge of all, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, must come to mount Zion by faith for, "We that believe do enter into rest." Sending troubled minds and restless "They souls to the law is acting the part of the Jewish Pharisees of old, who always sent them to Horeb; but God turned their faces toward Zion. shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten. My people hath been lost sheep, their shepherds have caused them to go astray; they have turned them away on the mountains; they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place," Jer. 1. 5, 6. Hence it appears that love is the rest of God; and when faith lays hold of God's love to us, and works by it, love is the rest of the soul; for it is the bond of the covenant of grace, and the fulfilment of the covenant of works, and leaves no room for servile fear, nor torment; for there is no fear in love. "He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness.' And this bed is love, Song i. 16; and uprightness is the same; Song i. 4. I have appealed to the consciences of all our Evangelists, to know which act the wisest and most consistent part, those who exact love from blackness and darkness and tempest, the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, Heb. xii. 18; or those who enforce it from mount Zion. From which of these mountains does love flow? It flows from mount Zion; " For there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore." But does the law give nothing that is either hope 66 |