LECTURE LIII.
ROMANS, viii, 12 - 15.
"For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall
die but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall
live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but ye have
received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father."
VER. 13. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall
die : but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall
live.
And in like manner as the threatenings under the law and the
gospel may be compared with each other, so may the promises or the rewards. By
the former dispensation, he who fell into an act of disobedience was adjudged
to die; and by the latter, he who by living after the flesh lived in a habit of
disobedience was in like manner to die. It is well that we are liberated from
the rigid and unbending economy of the law; for thus we are set free from the
fears, and the scrupulosities, and in fact the utter and irretrievable despair,
which would have paralysed the whole work of obedience. But it is also well,
that, while the economy of the gospel has achieved our deliverance from these,
it still lifts as loud a testimony on the side of righteousness, and is
actuated by as determined a hostility against all sin - so as to set all its
honest disciples upon a most resolved and persevering opposition to it. Had law
been the arbiter of this contest, they never, in the vile bodies wherewith they
are encompassed, ther never could have obtained the rueed or the honour of
victory - each error being an irrecoverable defeat - each infirmity being a
death-blow to their cause. And therefore it is well that they now lie under the
banners of another empire, who can see, amid all the frailties of the old and
the natural constitution, that there is rising and strengthening apace a force
of moral resistance against the urgencies of corrupt nature, which is gradually
undermining its ascendancy, and at length will overthrow it. The man who has
been endowed with this force from on high, is ever reminded by the frailties
that are within of his daily need of Christ's propitiation; and would give up
the battle in despair, had he not the righteousness of Christ to build upon.
Yet he never forgets that the battle is his unceasing occupation - that the
gospel which has discharged him from the penalties of a law that ho is ever
falling short of, has not discharged hum from this warfare - that his business
is so to strive against all the corruption which is in him, as to make
unceasing approximation to the purity and perfection of this very law ; and
that though now exempted from the threat if ye fail in one jot or tittle
thereof ye shall die - the threat is still against him and against all in full
operation, that if, casting off the authority of the law, ye give yourselves up
to your own hearts desire or live after the flesh ye shall die.
Now the like
analogy and the like distinction may be observed in the promises or rewards of
the gospel, when compared with those of the law. The apostle says of the law,
that it is not of faith, but the man that doeth this shall live; and he saith
in our text of him who hath embraced that gospel which supersedes the law, that
if a man through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body he shall live.
There is a doing to which death is annexed with as great certainty under the
one economy as under the other. And there is also a doing to which life is
annexed with as great certainty under the one economy as under the other.
The do this and live of the former dispensation however, is a condition
which has long been violated; and which, in our present tainted materialism, we
never can attain unto; and which therefore, instead of indicating to us a
practical avenue to heaven, is like a flaming sword that guards and bars in
every way our access thereunto. The mortify the deeds of the body and live of
the latter dispensation, is a condition again which might be rendered; which
every believer in the grace and righteousness of the Lord Jesus will be enabled
to perform; which from this moment we should set ourselves forward to for the
purpose of making it good - and so exhibit in our history as direct a practical
impulse taken from the hopes of the gospel, as any servant from the prospect of
his wages, or any labourer under the covenant of works could take from the
remunerations of the law. And in this warfare against the body, an advantage
may sometimes have been gained by it, such an advantage as the law would have
irretrievably condemned us for, and declared against us all the ruin and
disgrace of a fatal overthrow; but such an advantage as under the gospel though
it has east us down yet will not destroy us - but, after perhaps a severe
discipline of mortification and sorrow, will arm us with fresh resolution for
the contest; and inspire into us a more cordial hatred against the body of sin,
and all its sinful instigations, than ever; and give to the heart a more
burning earnestness, that we may not only recover all the ground which we have
lost, but may rise more aloft than ever above all the gross and terrestrial
ingredients of our corrupt nature - till, having passed through a series of
watchfulness and endurance and busy working, and so having made full proof of
our discipleship, we can say with the apostle when the time of our departure is
at hand, I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have,
kept the faith - Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,
which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me on that day, and not to me
only but also unto all such as love his appearing.
From the
expression to mortify the deeds of the body I may here advert to that law of
our moral constitution, by which it is that if we refuse to perform a sinful
deed, we by that very refusal weaken the sinful desire which prompted it; and
that thus by mortifying the deeds you mortify the desires. Every act of sinful
indulgence, arms with a new force of ascendancy the sinful inclination. Every
act of luxury makes you more the slave of the table than before. Every draught
of the alluring beverage, might bring you nearer to the condition of him who is
the victim of a habitual intoxication. Every improper licence granted to the
eye or the imagination, sinks you to more helpless captivity under their power.
Every compliance with lawless appetite, enthrones more firmly than before
another oppressor, another tyrant over you. And therefore if you want to
dethrone the appetite, refuse the indulgence; if you want to starve and
enfeeble the desires of the inner man, mortify the deeds of the outer man.
Begin in a plain way the work of reformation. And let it be the
resolute purpose on which you shall put forth all the man- hood of your soul,
that, however you may be solicited by the affections that are within to that
which is evil, you shall not give the actions that are without to their hateful
service - that however sin may have been desired, sin shall not be done by you
- that with the control which you have over the hand and the tongue and all the
organs of the body, they shall with you not be the instruments of sin but the
instruments of righteousness: And thus it is that the corrupt propensities of
the heart, wearied out with resistance, and languishing under the constant
experience of hopeless and fruitless solicitation, would at length weaken and
expire. The body would be mortified; and the soul, delivered from its presence,
and again translated into it after the last taint and remainder of its evil
nature had been done away, would find itself in a perfect condition for the
joys and the services of life everlasting. But it is well to mark, that, in
order to make this mortifying of the deeds of the body effectual unto life, it
must be done through the Spirit. For the very same thing might in great measure
be done without special grace from on high, in which case it hath no fruit in
immortality. How many are the evil passions, which can at least be restrained
by the pure force of a natural determination. In the pursuits of fortune, or of
ambition, or of war, what a violence a man can put upon himself - what a heroic
self-denial he is capable of carrying into full operation - what a mastery he
can reach over some of the most urgent inclinations of nature; and all this
certainly without one particle of a sanctifying influence, but rather by the
strength and power of one unrenewed principle lording it with a high ascendancy
over all the rest. To make then the mortification of your earthly desires
available for heaven, there must be an agency from the Holy Ghost - else there
is nought of heaven's character in the work, and will be nought of heaven's
reward to it. And if the Holy Ghost indeed be the agent, then He will not
select a few of our carnal tendencies for extermination by His power; but He
will enter into hostility with all of them - He will check the sensuality of
our nature, and He will mortify its pride, and He will check its impetuous
anger, and He will wean it from its now clinging avarice. Let it be your care
then, from the very first moment of your strenuous resistance to these deeds
and affections of evil - let it be your care, that, instead of trusting to the
energy of your own firm and high-minded resolves, you invoke the constant sup..
plies of aid from a higher quarter. Let yours be a life of prayer along with a
life of performance; and then will you strive mightily, but according at the
same time to the grace of God that worketh in you mightily.
Ver.
14. 'For as many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of
God.'
There is frequent cognizance taken in the Bible, of the degrees in
which the Spirit of God may operate on the heart of man. There is one work from
which He ceases, because He will not always strive; and there is another work
which after He hath begun, He will carry on even unto perfection. There is a
tasting of God's Spirit by those who afterwards fall away; and there is an
anointing by God's Spirit that remaineth. It is this which hath given room to
the distinction made by theologians, between the saving and the ordinary
influences of the Holy Ghost, - the former signifying those by which a man is
effectually called unto the faith, and afterwards completed in the
sanctification of the gospel; and the latter signifying those by which he is
made to feel the stirrings of a conviction, and a desire and even a partial
delight in many of the accompaniments of sacredness, which, had he improved,
would have been followed up with larger measures of grace and illumination -
but which as he quenched, do at length vanish into nothing, and leave him short
of the kingdom of God. In these circumstances it were well, if any definite or
satisfactory mark could be assigned, by which to discriminate between the one
set of influences and the other - by which to ascertain whether we have only so
much of this heavenly influence as will suffice for condemning our resistance
to it; or so much as will carry us forward to a meetness for the inheritance
above, as will be effectual for salvation.
Now the verse before us
supplies us with the test that is wanted. There are many who are solicited by
the Spirit of God, yet who are not led by Him - many to whom the Spirit offers
the guidance of His light and of His direction, but who refuse that guidance -
many, we believe all, to whom the Holy Ghost hath made through conscience that
ear of the inner man the intimations of His will, yet most of whom have not
followed these intimations. They have been in so far then the subjects of the
Spirits operation, as to have been perhaps in converse, and even occasionally
in desirous and delighted converse with Him; but they have not given themselves
up to His authoritative voice. They have been so far enlightened by Him, yet
not led by Him. The man who through all the strugglings of remorse, at last
gives way to the power of a temptation, has had light enough to forewarn him of
sin, and light enough after it hath been committed to reprpve himself and that
most bitterly because of sin - and yet not power enough for the warfare of a
successful resistance, so as not merely to feel what is right but to follow it.
He therefore in this instance hath not mortified the deeds of his body; and if
such be his habit he liveth after the flesh and he shall die. It is not they
who mourn over the sin, that is practically and permanently indulged in; but it
is they who mortify the sin that are led by the Spirit: And it is by this, as
the consecutive tie which binds the last verse to the present one, that the
reason is explained why they who mortify the deeds of the body shall live. They
who do so are led by the Spirit; and they who are led by the Spirit are the
sons of God, - the heirs therefore of what their Father hath to bestow which is
life everlasting.
The Scriptures often affirm a harmony between two
positions, which the first and natural apprehensions of men would lead them to
regard as opposed the one to the other. We are the children of God says the
Apostle by the faith that is in Christ Jesus. He is my brother and my sister
says Christ Himself, who doeth the will of my Father who is in heaven. It is
through the redemption of the gospel, wherein we obtain a part and interest by
believing, that, as Paul says in his Epistle to to the Galatians, we receive
the adoption of sons. It is when through the Spirit we mortify the deeds of the
body, that we are led by the Spirit; and, as he says in his Epistle to the
Romans, are the Sons of God. You will not be disturbed by the utterance of
these propositions as if they were contradictory. You know in the first
instance, that it is by faith, as by the hand of the mind, that you accept of
the offered reconciliation. You know, in the second instance, that it is by the
hearing of faith, and not by the works of the law, that the Spirit cometh. You
know in the third instance, that the Spirit which so cometh is a Spirit of
might and good-will for all holy obedience - so that through Him you are
enabled to mortify the deeds of the body. And this last is not the cause why
you are led by the Spirit of God, but the proof that you actually are led by
Him - a proof which, if wanting, might still argue you to be in possession of
His ordinary, but not in possession of His sanctifying, and therefore most
assuredly not of His saving infiuences; - but a proof which having, is to you
the best evidence that you are led by the Spirit, and have therefore received
from God the seal of being one of His children.
When you adopt one as a
son, it is because you design for him an inheritance; and one can conceive
something to be given as the token or the acknowledgment of his acquired right
thereunto. In the act of hiring a servant, there is often a pledge given by the
master; and this assures to the hireling his title to enter at the specified
time upon his employment. Now by one being adopted as a son of God, there is
the destination for him of a very splendid inheritance - even one of eternal
glory in the heavens. But this is only entered upon at the term of death; and
meanwhile, previous to that, there is a pledge or a token bestowed upon him,
and this is the Spirit of God which is styled by the way of eminence the
promise of the Father, and which, agreeably to the explanation which we have
now given, is also termed the earnest of our inheritance. This is that grace in
time, which is both the pledge and the preparation of glory in eternity; and
the best evidence of which is, that, enabled to mortify all those evil desires
which would thwart the pur. poses of a holy obedience, you are thereby enabled
to keep the commandments.
But there is a certain style of keeping the
commandments, which we fear is not indicative of this grace. It may be done in
a scrupulous, fearful, and painstaking way, by one who is under the workings of
a natural conscience, and perhaps a terror of everlasting damnation. In this
too it is possible, that there may be a certain measure of success - the
avoidance of much gross and presumptauns sin, that might else have been
indulged in - the penance of many sore and strenuous mortifications, so as that
the body shall by starved, and in a good degree subjected, by the mere force as
it were of a dogged and stiff determination; and so a kind of resolute
sullenness in the whole aspect of the mans obedience, which certainly is of a
different east, and has upon it a wholly different complexion, from the
gentleness and the grace and the good-will which characterise the services of
an affectionate Christian. The truth is, that there might be a self-denial and
a self-infliction which come through constraint - a drudgery which is rendered
at the stern bidding of authority - a reluctant compliance to appease the dread
or the troublesome remonstrances of the inner man - Which fall altogether
short, - nay are altogether opposite to tie temper of those, who mortify the
deeds of the body but do it through the Spirit. What is done i~ done in t1~eir
own spirit, which is the spirit of bondage; and not in that Spirit which cometh
from above, and whereby we are made both to love the service and Him who
enjoins it - to look upon God not as a taskmaster but as a friend, and so to
execute His bidding with the alacrity of those whose meat and whose drink it is
to do His will - to keep the commandments, not in the spirit of bondage which
is unto fear, but in the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father.
Ver. 15. 'For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again
to fqar, but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby ye cry, Abba
Father'.
Had it been under a slavish terror that the work of mortification
was gone into, this would have been. no evidence of our filial relationship to
God. It would have been the obedience of those that were lorded over, and not
of those who were led as by the cords of love, as by the bands of a man.
Henceforth ye are not servants or slaves, says Christ to His disciples, but ye
are sons; and, conformably to this, the spirit of sons is given unto them. And
he appeals to the kind of spirit as being an argument for their being the sons
of God - a spirit altogether diverse from that by which many are visited, under
their first conviction of sin and of the soul and of eternity; who are pierced,
as by an arrow sticking fast, with an agonising sense of their own guilt and of
Gods uncompromising authority; who are burdened under a feeling that the
displeasure of Heaven is upon them; and whose consciense all awake to the
horrors of wrath and condemnation, never ceases to haunt them with the thought,
that, unless they can make good their escape from their present condition, they
are undone.
Now to make this good, they will set up a thousand
reformations; they will abandon all their wonted fellowships of iniquity; they
will strenuously, and in the face of every temptation, adhere to all the
honesties and sobrieties of human conduct; they will betake themselves to a
life of punctuality and prayer; and moreover graft upon their former habit the
rigours of devoteeship, the austerities and the forms of Sabbath observation.
Thus it is that. they will seek for rest, but they will find none. The law will
rise in its demands as they rise in their endeavours, and still keep ahead,
with a kind of overmatching superiority to all their fruitless and fatiguing
efforts of obedience. They will labour as in the very fire and not be
satisfied; and all their vain attempts to reach the heights of perfection, and
so to quell the remonstrances of a challenging and not yet appease the
commandment, will be like the laborious ascent of him, who, after having so
wasted his strength that he can do no more, finds that a precipice still
remains to be overcome - a mountain brow that scorns his enterprise, and
threatens to overwhelm him.
This has been the sad history of many a weary
month, with some on whom the terrors of the Lord have fallen heavy - God having
looked at them, as He did upon the Egyptians from a cloud and troubled their
spirits - giving them no rest, till they fall back again perhaps into the
lethargy of despair, and take up with this world anew as their portion because
they have failed in their attempts to secure a portion in the next world - or,
if He had a purpose of mercy, in this sore visitation of darkness and tempest
and wrath, at length leading them to the alone Rock of confidence; and
endearing the Physician still more to their breasts, that they have been made
to feel the disease in all its severity and all its wretchedness.
Now
this spirit of bondage, which is unto fear, can only be exchanged for the
spirit of adoption, by. our believing the gospel. Every legal attempt to
extricate ourselves from the misery of the former spirit, will only aggravate
it the more; and we know of no other expedient, by which the transition can be
made, than simply by our putting faith in the testimony of the Son of God. We
have laboured in vain to seek a righteousness of our own, wherewithal we might
stand acceptably before God, because this is the wrong way of it. It is true
that He will not look upon us without a righteous ness, on the consideration of
which it is, that He deems it consistent with the honour of His government and
the integrity of His character to take us into favour. But never, and on this
point the gospel will enter into no compact whatever with the presumption of
weak and guilty man, never will the act of friendship be firm and steady
between him and his offended Lawgiver, in consideration of any righteousness of
ours.
And the distinct proposition is, that we shall look unto Christ
as the alone ground of our acceptance before Him, unto His propitiation as that
on which our hopes of pardon do rest, and unto His obedience in our stead and
for our sakes as that on which we look for the rewards of eternity. Could I
state the thing more explicitly I would. It is in the form of bare and
unqualified statement that the Bible lays it down; and all who give credence
thereunto will find, that in no one instance will they ever be disappointed. It
is this in fact which forms the grand characteristic peculiarity of our
dispensation; it is the burden of those good tidings which constitute the
gospel, and which operated instantaneously as tidings of great joy - because
they were no sooner announced in some cases than they were credited - no sooner
revealed than they were relied upon. This is the one and the direct
stepping-stone by which you may enter even now into rest. The merit which you
laboured to possess is already acquired; and what you seek to deserve is held
out unto you in the shape of a free donation. There is a perfect righteousness
already brought in, and you need not therefore go about to establish one.
It will indeed be going about, if you try to establish a righteousness
of your own. Many a fruitless round will you have to ply - many a vain and
weary circuit to accomplish; and after all be no nearer-to your object than at
the point from which you departed - many a laborious drudgery, which will be
nought but a laborious deviation from that plain and unerring path, by which,
with a majestic simplicity that is stamped upon all His processes, the wisdom
of God would conduct you unto Himself. For this purpose, hath He set forth
Christ unto you; and He bids you enter through Him into full repose and
reconciliation - accrediting the testimony that regardeth His blood, and thus
will you be washed from guilt - accrediting the testimony that regardeth His
services in your room, and thus will you be sustained by God as the rightful
heirs of a purchased and glorious immortality.
Submit yourselves
therefore unto this righteousness of God. Be assured that it is the grand
specific for your case as a sinner; and that you will never, but upon this, get
solid or legitimate rest to the sole of your foot. Your acceptance of Christ as
He is offered to you in the gospel, is the turning point of your salvation. He
is freely offered; and never will you cease to be haunted by the disquietudes
of a heart that is not at ease - never will the jealousies of the legal temper
be done away - never will you attempt an act of fellowship with God, without
the flaw of some guilty and misgiving suspicion adhering to it - never will you
know what it is te draw near in the freedom of perfect confidence, with every
topic of disturbance and distrust hushed into oblivion betwixt you - Till
taking up with Him on His own terms, you alike cast the pride and the pain of
self-righteousness away, and become the children of God through the faith that
is in Christ Jesus.
I fear, that there are many here present, who could
never allege of themselves at any time, that they had the spirit of adoption -
with whom the sense of God as their reconciled Father, is as entirely a
stranger to their heart as is any mystic in6piration - who have a kind of
decent, and in some sort an earnest religiousness, but have never been visited
by any feeling half so sanguine or extatie as this; and who perhaps may be
interested to know, by the footsteps of what distinct or intelligible process,
they could come to that filial affection unto God, wherewith as yet they have
had no familiarity whatever. I would therefore say, in the first place, that I
know of no more direct cxpedient for arriving at this end, than that of giving
earnest heed unto the word of the testimony. Hearken diligently unto
me, saith God, and your souls shall live. Your ears are so
accustomed to what may be called the mere verbiage of orthodoxy, that, when
sounded anew or another time in your hearing, it stirs up no fresh exercise of
the thinking principle. You are so well acquainted with the terms, that you
arouse not yourselves to the contemplation of the truths. What you hear now,
you have heard again and again; and this deafens, as it were, the whole
activity of your understanding - so that whilst you recognise the words of the
evangelical system as so many old and oft- repeated common-places, you remain
blind to all the important and. affecting realities of which these words are
nevertheless subtantially the vehicles.
In these circumstances, I can
give you no likelier advice, than that you should put your minds forth and
forward from the words to the things. Be not satisfied with the mere expression
and cadence of orthodoxy. Engage, and that closely, steadily, perseveringly,
with the matter of the gospel testimony. Think that there has been a movement
in heaven towards a sinful world. Think that the express design of this
movement, was to recall as many of our alienated race as would, to the joys and
communions of that paradise, from which they had been exiled. Think that for
its accomplishment every barrier in the way of this return is lifted away; and,
more especially, that satisfaction was so rendered to a violated law, as that
they who have trampled upon it might be crowned with honour, and yet the law
itself be magnified and made honourable. Think that the whole burden of your
guilt, and of its full expiation, has been laid upon another; and. that au are
invited, and you amongst the number, to come by this open way of access, arid
forthwith enter into peace with God. If, in lifting up your eyes to this
contemplation, you still find that all above you is haze and that all within
you is heaviness - continue to look - continue to give heed even until the day
dawn and the day-star arise in your heart; and when this wondrous transaction
between heaven and earth at length unfolds itself to your mental eye, in its
characters of bounty and truth and tenderness - when the spectacle of God
willing, and of God waiting to be gracious, is at length recognised by you -
when all that moved His wrath and kept Him at a distance, is seen to be put
aside by the work of the great Mediator, and that nothing is left but the
exhibition of a mercy now rejoicing in the midst of the other attributes, and
pouring a fresh lustre on them all, as it passes onwards to a guilty world
through the channels of a consecrated priesthood and an infinite sacrifice - It
is when thus enabled to see God disarmed of all His terrors, and instead of the
inflexible judge, to behold Him as now reconciled through Christ Jesus - it is
when this assurance is made directly to bear upon our spirits from the word of
revelation, that the confidence of our adoption enters into our hearts, and we
can join the apostle and his converts in crying Abba, Father. It does not
follow, however, because you lift your eyes, that the manifestation is then in
readiness, for your first and earliest regards towards it. There may be a cloud
which intercepts it from your view; and even after many a wishful look towards
that quarter whence you expect the light and the comfort of divine truth to
come down upon your soul, may you have to complain that I cannot believe, I
cannot discern - neither is Jesus Christ evidently set forth crucified before
me.
One advice of an eminent theologian in these circumstances, and it
is a good one, is that though you should have missed the object of which you
are in quest a hundred times, still make the other and the other effort; and
who knows but that next time you will be met with the very revelation which
your soul longeth after? To this advice I would shortly add another. While busy
in seeking after the development to your belief of Christ's work - be equally
busy in your practice at the doing of Christ's will. Labour, though in the
dark. Mortify sin, though in such a spirit of unsettledness as to be almost
equivalent to the spirit of bondage. Be diligent in duty, and thus might you
pioneer your way to clearness and to comfort in doctrine. Forget not the saying
that Christ manifests Himself to those who keep His words; and that they whose
eye or whose aim is single shall have their whole body full of light; and that
to him that hath, more shall be given; and that he who wills to do the will of
God, and proves the sincerity of his will by the vigour of his performances,
that he shall be made to know of Christ's doctrine whether it is of God.
Go to Lecture 54
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