Thus, we learn from the text, that the self same people, who walk in the light of God's countenance, and are active in the observations of moral duty, have, when they have done all, something infinitely better to rejoice in and to rely upon, than the sanctity of their walk, and the various duties which they perform. In thy name, not in their own rectitude, shall they rejoice all the day; and in thy righteousness, not in their own doings, shall they be exalted. During the day of sublunary life, they shall sing with the apostle, God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (a): and when, having breathed their last on earth, they fly to the coast of immortality; they are then inchoatively, and shall (after the final audit) be completely, and everlastingly, exalted to the kingdom of God, in and through the alone imputed righteousness of their Saviour, their surety, and their head. By the name of Christ, in which the elect are here said to rejoice, I understand Christ himself: occasions may require. The work of salvation being thus completed by Christ, and not to be mended by the creature; the believer having now nothing to do for himself [as a cause or condition of salvation]; all he doth, he doth for Christ.- -I would only ask you this plain question: Are our works of sanctification, Christ himself; or are they not? If they be Christ himself, then there are thousands of Christs in the world. If they be not Christ, then there is no coming to the Father by them because, the coming to the Father for peace, pardon, reconciliation, and salvation, is by Christ alone; and by him as the sole way. -Salvation itself, therefore, is not the end proposed, in any good work we do. The ends of our good works are, the manifestation of our obedience and subjection; the setting forth the praise of God's grace, and thereby glorifying him in the world; the doing good to others, with a view to their profit; and the meeting the Lord Jesus Christ in the performance of duty, where he will be found, according to his promise. These are some of the special ends, for which obedience is ordained: salvation being settled firm before." Crisp's Sermons, vol. i. p. 69-77. Dr. Gill's Edit. (a) Gal. vi. Who the blessed person, signified by that name. is the brightness, the arauyarua, the emanation, or forth-beaming ray of the Father's glory (a): and is by virtue of that eternal and incomprehensible derivation (b), God of God; Light of Light; very God of very God; begotten, not made; co-equal partaker of one substance [i. e. of the same numerical nature and essence] with the Father; and by whom all things were made. In his name, i. e. in the divinity of his person, and in his offices as mediator; in his finished atonement, in the perfect righteousness of his obedience, and in his never-failing intercession for the elect; it is the privilege of the humble, the contrite, the feeble, the tempted, and of the fallen (if returning) believer, to rejoice: because it was for such men, and for their salvation, that this adorable Being came down from heaven, and poured out his soul unto death. Do not imagine, that David was an Antinomian, because he makes no mention of good works, as objects of joy and dependence. True it is, that he does not say, "Saints shall rejoice in their faithfulness, in their affected mortifications, or even in those works that spring from genuine grace." No: not in these, but in his name shall the Gentiles trust (c), and of his only righteousness shall they make their boast. Inherent graces and personal duties are the ornaments, but neither the foundation nor the pillars of God's mystic temple. As Christ's righteousness is the only merit that can exalt us to the presence and to the kingdom of God; so that doctrine alone, is to be considered as evangelical, which depresses the righteousness of man, and exalts the righteousness of Christ: leading us to trust, not on what we do, but singly on (a) Heb. i. 4. Symb. Nicæn. (6) Θεος ΕΚ Θε8, φως ΕΚ φωτος, κ. τ. λ. (c) Matth. xii. 21. what he has done and suffered for us. The business of the law is, to knock us down from the pedestal of self confidence, and to grind us small; as Moses ground to powder, and dispersed the materials of the Israelitish idol. The business of grace is, to lift us from the dust, to settle us upon Christ the rock of ages, to put a new song of free salvation into our mouths, and to order our goings in the path of God's commandments. This it is (even the power of the Holy Ghost, who first breaks us in pieces by the hammer of the law, and then puts us together anew by the grace of the gospel) that enables us to rejoice in the name of Christ all the day. Not that a believer's rejoicing is uninterrupted, from the time. of his conversion, until the moment of his arrival in heaven for the elect have their weeping, as well as their triumphant seasons; and their pilgrimage is wisely chequered and diversified, both with joys and sorrows that the world knows not of. The meaning therefore of the text is, that a sinner is no sooner born again, than Christ, and Christ alone, becomes the object of that sinner's dependence: who can thenceforth say, with Dr. Watts, "While Jews on their own works rely, I love th' incarnate mystery, The converted sinner having thus, through the good hand of God upon him, fixed all his hopes on Jesus Christ the righteous, travels the residue of his way, leaning on the merits of the (a) beloved mediator: and, is finally exalted to the actual participation of the celestial inheritance above, in and by virtue of that divine righteousness, which God the Son wrought out, which God the Father imputes, (a) Cant. viii. 5. which God the Spirit applies, and felt emptying faith receives. The learned and evangelical Mr. (a) Thomas Cole, a renowned and useful minister of Christ in the last century, had an observation or two, in his last illness, full to the sense of the clause with which the text concludes; In thy righteousness shall they be exalted. "It would be miserable dying, if we had not something, every way adequate to the demands of the law, to ground our hopes of eternal life upon. We have an abundant entrance into the kingdom of God, by the way of Christ's righteousness. The devil, and the law, may meet us; yet cannot hinder us from entering into heaven by that righteousness. We shall be sure to meet with the devil, with conscience, with wicked men, and with the law of God, in our way to heaven: and we can deal with none. of them, but by that righteousness which hath satisfied all. Let us bring that along with us, and they will all flee before it.-If a sinner comes in his own righteousness, shut him out, sayeth God; so sayeth conscience; so sayeth the law. But, when one comes, clothed with the righteousness of Christ, let him in, sayeth God; so sayeth conscience; so sayeth the law and let the devil say a word to the contrary, if he dare. (a) Author of a well known treatise on Regeneration, Faith, and Repentance. This excellent man died (if so triumphant a passage to glory may be called death), September 16, 1697; as I learn from a valuable manuscript, formerly put into my hands by a gentleman of London: out of which manuscript (containing Mr. Cole's own account of his spiritual experiences; together with a memoir, afterwards added, of his dying sayings) I extracted the passages given above. And I wish I was at liberty to publish more; or rather, that the very respectable and judicious person, who favoured me with a sight of those choice papers, would himself, give them to the public, and condescend to be the editor of them. I should ask his pardon, for the freedom I take, in venturing to print even the few lines here quoted, without having first solicited his permission; did I not believe, that he infinitely prefers the glory of God and of the gospel, to any punctilioes derivable from the scruples and delicacies of ceremonious complaisance. "I should not dare to look death in the face, were it not for the comfortable assurance which faith gives me, of eternal life in Christ Jesus; and for the comfortable and abundant flowings in of that life. It is not what I bring to Christ, but what I receive from him. The beginnings of which I see springing up into life eternal. "Some persons think to lick themselves whole, by their own moral righteousness; but it is the ready way to die in horror of conscience. "If you want the manifestation of the pardon of any sins, carry them to free grace; which, having blotted them out, knows how to give you a sense of it. The gospel of our salvation is a gospel of free grace and they that would have it otherwise, may gather up what they can, and go boasting to heaven's gates; but they will be turned back again.' And how was this great man of God supported by Christ's righteousness, when in the immediate view of death? Learn what that righteousness can then do for us, by the following memorable speech, which he addressed to one of his visitants: "You are come to hear my last dying groans: but know, when you hear them, that they are the sweetest breath I ever drew since I knew Christ Jesus." O thou blessed Son of God, exalt us in thy righteousness, and shake us out of our own! Ye, that hear me this day, which, O which, are you for? For being found and exalted in Christ's obedience? or for inheriting perdition and damnation in your own? God enable you, and cause you to choose the good part! To cut off, as far as man can do it, all the pleas of proud, self-righteous unbelief, let me conclude with two or three pertinent remarks. 1. Why is the gospel news of salvation called the joyful sound? Not indefinitely, a joyful; but peculiarly, and exclusively of all other schemes whatever, the joyful sound? |