MEDITATE, O my soul, upon the wonders which Divine love hath wrought for thee and for thy salvation. Review the many, many mercies of thy past life; and consider that thou art called upon to walk this day with THY GOD. What a privilege is this! He is thy God, and thou art his adopted son. O what a high honour has he conferred upon thee! He has taken thee into the most noble family, yea, into the divine household of faith, he has permitted thee to walk with him as thy Father. He has appointed the way, promised to be with thee in it, and every moment, and at every step, to be doing thee good. There can be no happiness superior to this on earth. Prize it: for it is inestimable. Enjoy it: for it is heaven begun. Walking with God by faith, is present enjoyment of him, and will infallibly bring thee to the end of thy journey, to full and everlasting enjoyment.
Hold fast then the confidence of thy rejoicing. What; thou hast been taught by the Holy Spirit, depend upon him for confirming and establishing, he has enabled thee to see the glory of the finished salvation of Jesus, and to believe the divine record concerning it. Their hast renounced everything for the pardon of thy sins, but the blood-shedding of the Lamb; and everything for acceptance, but the Lord our righteousness. Thy faith herein has been tried, and the trial ended well. Thy temptations were manifold and violent, but they have done thee good. They have shown thee the necessity of depending upon the perfect work of the God-man-of rejoicing wholly in Christ Jesus, and of having no confidence in the flesh. They have also been the means of convincing thee, that thou standest by faith. Be not high-minded, then, but fear. And let thy fear of thyself lead thee to trust more in God. Rely on his faithful arm to maintain and to carry on his own work in thy soul. Remember he has promised it. Thy sufficiency is of God, and he has engaged to give thee grace sufficient for thee. He has undertaken as a father to supply all thy wants, to deliver thee from all miseries, and to withhold from thee no manner of thing that is good. Thy salvation is safe. It rests upon a sure foundation, as sure as the covenant of the day and the covenant of the night. These succeed each other by the will of their Creator, and have not been out of course not one single moment. The ordinances of day and night are regular and certain. So certain is thy salvation by the same unerring will.
While the belief of this rules in thy conscience, and in thy heart, thou wilt be able to resist temptations. None of them will overcome thee, unless they separate between thee and thy God. Nay, they will work for thy good, if guilty fears do not wrest the shield of faith out of thine hand. O beg of God to keep thee and thy faith in the hour of trial, that thou mayest experience his faithfulness to his word. If thou put honour upon it, according to thy faith, so shall it be done unto thee. Give it credit, and thy steps will be ordered aright. Thou wilt walk in, love this day, as God hath loved thee. He will be thy portion, and the way in which he is to be enjoyed will be thy delight.
Set out then in this faith, with peace in thy conscience, and love m thy heart–trusting to thy God and Father. Look up to him for strength to maintain and to increase these graces; and hope to receive it from his faithfulness. Now he has put a new song in thy mouth, even praise unto thy God, go on thy way believing and rejoining. Jesus is thine with all his fulness; and he has promised thee a constant supply of the Spirit, that thou mayest have grace for grace to enable thee to walk humbly with thy God.
Mind, then, thy walk is to be ordered according to his revealed will, and in his appointed way of obedience to it; for all rational creatures are bound to obey God. As soon as he makes known his will to them, it becomes their indispensable duty. His will is one, like himself, unchangeably the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever: for, when revealed by the sovereign Creator, it becomes to mankind a law, which altereth not. It binds angels and men every moment, in every point and circumstance. And its obligation will never cease. For all his commandments are sure; they stand fast for ever and ever. What he has commanded is as fixed as the sun before him. It shall be established for eve, as the moon, and as a faithful witness in heaven.
It pleased the sovereign Creator to enforce thru holy, just, and good law, by proper sanctions. Out of his mere grace he has promised life to obedience, which man engaged to perform; and he threatened death to disobedience, to which penalty man submitted. Thereby this law became a covenant of works. The promise was to him who should continue obedient in all things; for Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, that the man who fulfilleth those things shall live by them. But if he does not fulfil them perfectly, without one failing, ho then comes under the penalty which God had threatened to disobedience–"Cursed is he who continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law, to do them." This curse draws after it all the pains and penalties of the broken law in earth and in hell. Under this law of works, Adam was placed, and under it all his descendants are born. He and they are bound to keep the law in their own persons, if they would receive the promise, or liable to suffer the penalty, if they transgress. Adam broke the law of works, and we all in him; for in him all have sinned. We were all in his loins, when he fell, and forfeited in his attainder. By the offence of that one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation. The righteous judge passed the sentence, and decreed that by the law of works no flesh living should be saved: for he has proved in his word both Jews and Gentiles to be under the law and under sin, which is the transgression of it. Whereby every mouth is stopped, and all the world is become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight.
In the law of works there was no provision made for a surety; but it did not absolutely exclude one: therefore it left room for the covenant of grace, in which a provision was made in the person of Jesus Christ for securing the divine honour of this holy law. He undertook to stand up in man's place and stead, to magnify the precepts of the law in his life, and to glorify the penalties of the law in his death, that not one jot or tittle of it might fail till all was fulfilled. And as he was God over all, blessed for ever, his life and death put everlasting honour upon the divine law. His obedience was of inestimable value, and his sufferings were infinitely sufficient to take away sin. Christ is now the cud of the law for righteousness. He answered the end of the law for his people by obeying and suffering for them: and every one of them can now plead by faith a perfect fulfilling of all the precepts, a perfect suffering of all the penalties in the person of their divine surety. God the Father is faithful and just to his word and engagements with his Son: ha has made known his will in the immutable record of his grace, "that whosoever believeth in Jesus should not perish, but should have everlasting life." How can he perish? Jesus died for him. He shall live with God in everlasting life; because Jesus lived for him. And this is the declared will of the Father concerning all that believe in his only-begotten Son.
Remember then, O my soul, that thou art not under the law, but under grace. Thou art saved from the law, under the form of a covenant of works. Thou art not bound to keep its precepts, in order to have life for thy obedience, nor yet to suffer its penalties for thy disobedience. Thy surety undertook to act and suffer for thee. He was to answer the law in its commands and demands, to every jot and tittle. And he did. Whatever it required, whatever it threatened, was perfectly fulfilled in the person of thy God and Saviour: and he has absolutely discharged thee from it, as a law of works. Thou art to have nothing to do with it in that view; nay, ho has forbidden thee to keep it in hopes that thou mayest live thereby. The irreversible decree entered in the records of heaven has enacted–BY THE WORKS OF THE LAW SHALL NO FLESH BE JUSTIFIED. Thou art now to look upon the law in the matter of justifying and giving life, as a woman looks upon her dead husband. She is freed from the marriage contract with him, and may now give her heart and hand to another; so art thou freed from the bond of the legal covenant. Thou art become dead to the law by the body of Christ, who has espoused and betrothed thee to himself, that serving him in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter, thou mayest bring forth fruit unto God. This is thy high privilege. Thy first husband is dead; happy for thee, thou art lawfully married to another–thy husband is thy Maker; Jehovah of hosts is his name. The Word made flesh has paid all thy debts, suffered thy punishment, wrought out a perfect righteousness, and won a crown of perfect glory for thee.
O what a divine honour has he put upon thee! Thou art now one with Immanuel in a bond of everlasting love. He has given himself to thee, with all he has and all he is; and it is thy happiness now, not to be thine own, but the Lord's–not to follow thine own will, but his. The law of thy Lord is liberty. As taught by his spirit and performed by faith, it is perfect freedom. Whilst thou walkest with him in obedience to it, and leanest on thy beloved every step, thou wilt find deliverance from all spiritual tyranny and bondage, and wilt enjoy the light of his countenance, and the love of his heart. When the Son has thus made thee free, thou art free indeed–free, now thy heart is set at liberty to run with Jesus in the way of his commandments.
In this view, O my soul, thou canst look with delight at the most holy law. Attend to it closely, and study it carefully. In order to obey, as a Christian, these following considerations should be well understood and digested; because under the influence of them every step of thy walk is to be ordered. O pray then for the spirit of wisdom to teach thee practically,
First,–That thy walk with God in the way of obedience is not to fulfil the law, as a covenant of works. Thou art not required to do this. Thou canst not do it. Immanuel, thy. divine surety, took it upon himself. Because it was impossible for thee, a fallen creature, to keep the law, so as to be justified by it, he therefore came in person to fulfil it. He honoured its precepts by his infinite obedience. He magnified its penalties by his inestimable sacrifice. And this is thy justifying righteousness. Through faith in the life and death of the God-man thou art not only freed from guilt and condemnation, from curse and hell, but art also entitled life and glory. The law is now for thy side, and is become thy friend. It acquits thee. It justifies thee. It will give thee the reward promised to obedience. The law in the hand of thy Saviour has nothing but blessings to bestow upon thee. Thou art to receive it at his mouth and to obey Mm: but not from any legal hopes of heaven, or from any slavish fears of hell: for then thou wouldst come under the covenant of works again. Whereas thou art not under the law, but under grace; mind thy privilege, and pray for grace to live up to it. Thou art not under the law, bound to keep it perfectly in thine own person, or in case of failing, condemned by it, and under its fearful curse; but thou art under grace, a state of grace through faith in the obedience and sufferings of thy blessed surety, and under the power of grace, sweetly inclining thee to love, and mightily enabling thee to keep the law of the Lord thy God. Live thus by grace, and sin shall not have dominion over thee. Under the reign of grace, the tyrant sin is always dethroned. Obey under grace, as freely and fully saved by faith in Jesus, and this will make thy walk easy and evangelical: thou wilt go on with a free spirit, and will delight thyself in the ways of God, walking with him,
Secondly,–By faith, and not by sight. This is the great spring of all gospel obedience. Faith has a universal efficacy; for thus it is written–"Without faith it is impossible to please God." He is not pleased with the thing done, but with the principle on which it is done. He looks at the heart. Hearing the word, or saying prayers, or giving alms, or doing anything commanded, are not pleasing in themselves, but they must be performed upon a right motive, and to a right end. And both these come from faith. The apostle mentions the motive, which had influenced every step of his Christian course: "We walk by faith, and not by sight." We judge of our state by what God says of it, and we order our walk accordingly. We give credit to his witness of our being pardoned and justified freely by grace through faith, and we depend for the truth of this, not on what we see, but on what we believe. We trust not on our good frames, or warm feelings, or sensible comforts, or to any of the genuine fruits and effects of faith; but we trust what God says simply, as his record; and therefore we walk in a constant dependence on the truth of God in his word, and upon the faithfulness of God to his word. Some promised grace we stand in need of every step, and we rely upon his word, which cannot be broken, and upon his faithfulness, which cannot fail. Thus we go on, and we find the promise made good, according to our faith.
Such was the apostle's walk. And in thine directed by the same motive? Search, O my soul, and examine upon what principle thou goest to duty. Is it in the obedience of faith? Dost thou take no step without the warrant of the word of God? Dost thou give full credit to what God says in it of thy state as a justified person? And does this appear from thy dependence upon his faithfulness to make good everything promised to them who are in that state? Blessed art thou of the Lord, if thou art walking by this faith. O praise his holy name, who has thus highly favoured thee, and ascribe to him all the glory. So will thy end he right, as well as thy motive. True faith takes no honour to itself: it is an emptying, humbling grace. Its spring-head is in covenant love, and it is given from distinguishing favour and sovereign mercy. It has no foundation when given but the word of God; nothing to rest on but the divine truth; no support but the divine power, and no growth but from the divine influence. What, then, does it leave a man to glory in? Whoever has it, has it all from God, and while ho is in his right mind, living by it, he will be disposed to give God all the glory of it; even for common mercies, as well as spiritual, he will live by the faith of the Son of God. Whether he eats or drinks, or whatever he does, he docs all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. And thus he will go on sweetly and happily, obeying, not from slavish fears or legal hopes, but,
Thirdly,–From holy love, which is the fruit and consequence of walking by faith. Faith worketh love, and then worketh by love. The faith of the gospel, as a grace of the Spirit, worketh chiefly by love to God, and to man, for God's sake; for the gospel discovers the way of salvation, contrived by the eternal Three, fulfilled in the life and death of Immanuel, and applied to the sinner's heart by the eternal Spirit. Whoever is enabled to believe the gospel, will see himself an object of the covenant love of the blessed Trinity, and will therefore love Father, Son, and Spirit; for we love him, says the apostle, because he first loved us. And faith in his love to us will make us that we shall neither be barren nor unfruitful. Love is very active. Obeying from love is very sweet How active! How sweet is obedience, when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost who is given unto us! He is an almighty agent, he overcomes the power of legal unbelieving workings, and puts a new spring to duty into the heart, he manifests the love of God in Christ, his free, distinguishing love, the exceeding riches of it, and the numerous blessings flowing from it through time and eternity. In the sense or these mercies he excites gratitude, and puts it upon acting. This grace has a wonderful influence. "What return shall I make unto the Lord?" is the devout breathing of the grateful heart. While the love of Christ constraineth it, all the affections follow him, and the soul delights itself in his ways. Then none of his commandments will be grievous· Nay, his yoke itself becomes easy, and his burden light. O triumphant love! How active, how sweet did he find it, who cried out–"I can do ALL things. I can suffer ALL things, I am more than conqueror, through him that loveth me."
And is not this, O my soul, thy happy case? O prize thy privilege, and adorn it in thy life. Walk in love with thy reconciled God, and out of love to him perform all duties, and bear all crosses, Remember, thou art not required to obey, in order to be saved for thine obedience, but thou art already saved; and therefore, out of graft-rude to thy dearest Saviour, thou art bound to love him and to obey him. Thou canst not love his person, and yet hate his will.
"If ye love me," says he, "keep my commandments;" give this proof of it, keep in my way, doing my commandments. But whatever ye do, let it come from the heart. Obey me, but see it be with a willing mind, and with a free spirit. When all springs from love, then my service will be perfect freedom. I would have you to do my will, but. without fear; not for life, but from life; not that ye may live, but because ye live. Do it, as sons, and not as slaves: the slave abideth not in the house for ever, but the son abideth for ever. In this free spirit of adoption serve me, as sons of God, heirs of God, and joint heirs with me. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith I have made you free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
To obey from life and salvation received and enjoyed, is sweet, liberty; to obey as the condition of life and salvation, is bitter slavery; it is an intolerable yoke, because it is not possible any fallen man should so keep the law as to live thereby. But the believer freed from this condition by Christ's keeping the law for him, is in liberty; he is saved from the penalty annexed to the transgression; he is entitled to the life promised to obedience; and thereby he is delivered from legal hopes and from guilty fears. In this faith he walks on delightfully in the ways of obedience, for he is reconciled to the law through the grace that is in Christ Jesus; he loves it. O what love, says he, have I unto thy law! Because now I find it according to the promise written upon my heart. And this is a–
Fourthly,–Motive to gospel obedience. The new covenant runs thus: "I will put, says God, my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people: and they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them." The heart is by nature as hard as adamant. It is enmity itself against the holy law. But the Lord here engages to take away the stony heart, and to give a heart of flesh, upon which he will write the ten commandments, not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart. The Spirit of the living God will teach all his children to know their Father; he will manifest to them their adoption; he will reveal to them their Father's love in Jesus, and he will make their hearts happy in the enjoyment of it. Then the holy fruits of this love will appear towards man. It will work sweetly m benevolence, and effectually in beneficence. The love of God will open the contracted heart, enlarge the selfish, warm the cold, and bring liberality out of the covetous.
When the Holy Spirit teaches brotherly love, he overcomes all opposition to it. He says to his disciples: "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." And he makes them kind one to another: they show it by every good word and work. Thus, by mare-resting to them the Father reconciled in Jesus, and by enabling them to love man for his sake, he writes upon their hearts the two great commandments, on which hang all the law and the prophets. The love of God, says the apostle to the Romans, is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost; and to the Thessalonians, Ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another. Thus he engages the affections of the soul to the holy law, and inclines the inner man to love obedience. It ceaseth to be a yoke and a burden. How easy is it to do what one loves? If you dearly love any person, what a pleasure is it to serve him? What will not love put you upon doing or suffering to oblige him? Let love rule in the heart to God and to man, his law will then become delightful, and obedience to it will be pleasantness. The soul will run, yea, inspired by love, it will mount up with wings as eagles, in the way of God's commandments.
Happy are the people that are in such a case! And is it not, O my soul, in sonic measure thine? Hast thou not been taught to love God and his ways? Since thou hast been acquainted with him as thy loving Father in Jesus, has not thy faith been working by love to him; and to his will, and to his whole household and family? Remember, this is promised. All the children of God are to be taught to know and to love their heavenly Father. This is the very tenor of the covenant of grace, which the almighty Spirit has undertaken to fulfil. And he cannot fail in his office. It is his crown and glory to make good his covenant engagements. O trust him then, and put honour upon his faithfulness. He has promised to guide thee with his counsel, and to strengthen thee with his might, in the way of obedience to thy reconciled God.
What is within thee, or without thee, to oppose thy walking in love with him, he will incline thee to resist, and he will enable thee to overcome. O what mayest thou not expect from such a divine friend, who is to abide with thee on purpose to keep thy heart right with God! What can he not do! What will he not do for thee! Such as is the love of the Father, and of the Son, such is the love of the Holy Ghost, the same free, perfect, everlasting love. Read his promises of it. Meditate on them. Pray to him for increasing faith to mix with them; that he, dwelling in the temple of thy heart, thou mayest have fellowship there with the Father and with the Son. Whatever in thee is pardoned through the Son's atonement, pray the Holy Spirit to subdue, that it may not interrupt communion with thy God. And whatever grace is to be received out of the fulness of Jesus, in order to keep up and to promote that communion, entreat the Holy Spirit to give it thee with growing strength. But pray in faith, nothing wavering. So shall the love of God rule in thy heart. And then thou shalt be like the sun, when it goeth forth in its might, shining clearer and dearer to the perfect day. O may thy course be like his, as free, as regular, and as communicative of good, that thy daily petition may be answered, and that the will of thy Father may be done in earth as it is done in heaven.
When all these things concur, what can be wanting to make the way of obedience easy and pleasant? It is not now a hard burden, impossible to be borne. The Spirit of life which is in Christ Jesus hath made it easy. He has reconciled the believer to the law: for he shows it to him in his surety, magnified and made honourable–magnified infinitely in his life–made everlastingly honourable in his death: so that the Father can get the fullest glory to every divine perfection, even to his justice, by saving sinners through faith in the righteousness of his Son; he can be just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly. The believer, persuaded of this, is reconciled to God. Being no longer under the law, as a covenant of works, but under grace, he loves the law, and walks with God, in sweet obedience to it. He sets out, and goes on every step in faith–trusting to the acceptance of his person, and of his services in the beloved. He does not work now, in order to be saved, but he works because he is saved. And he ascribes all he does to the praise of the glory of free grace. He works from gratitude; and the faith of God's elect always does. It never fails to show itself by love. The Holy Spirit wins the heart by revealing to it the love of God, and thereby draws out the affections after him. When the commandment comes, "My son, give me thy heart," the son is ready: "Lord, take it, and seal it thine for ever." And whatever inbred enmity may remain against giving it to the Lord, the Holy Spirit has undertaken to subdue it. It is his office to take away the stony heart, and to create a heart of flesh, soft and willing to receive the impression of his grace. With the same finger, which once wrote the holy law upon tables of stone, it is now written upon the fleshly tables of the heart. And then the love of God and the love of man are clearly taught, and effectually enforced. What a change does this make in obedience! Hard things are now done with ease. Rough ways are made smooth. Painful things become delightful. The labour of love is sweet labour; because the heart is in it. The feet run: the bands work: all the faculties are ready to exert themselves, when love commands.
O my God, let it be thus with me. Thou hast given me an earnest desire to walk with thee in thy ways, guide me in them by thine almighty Spirit. Let him abide with me, holy Father, as the Spirit of adoption, that I may always serve thee, as thy reconciled child, not under the law, but under grace. I would gladly walk with thee every step by faith, and that faith working by love to thee and to thy whole will. O God, give me grace sufficient for my holy walk. Let thy faithful promise be daily fulfilled: write thy law still plainer in mine inward parts, and let it be more fairly copied out in my life. I want to love thee more, as thou knowest. O my God, keep my heart sensible of the exceeding riches of thy love to me, and let the growing sense of this increase mine to thee. In the strength of thy good Spirit, enable me to overcome inward and outward opposition to my walking with thee in love. Let him strengthen me mightily in the inner man for every labour of love. From him cometh power to embrace and to cleave with full purpose of heart unto the ways of God–to love what he yes–and to hate what he hates. O thou blessed Spirit of the Father and of the Son, make me willing, keep me able, to enjoy the Father's love in his Son; and let it be a growing love, abounding yet more and more in knowledge, and in all sensible feeling, that I may run and not be weary, may be going on to the end, and not be faint. Even so, let it be done unto thy servant according to thy word, wherein thou hast caused me to put my trust. Let me have fellowship with the Father in his love, through the salvation of his Son, by thine influence upon my heart, now, henceforth, and for ever. Amen.