Having thus directed my attention, throughout the whole subject, to the self-sufficient, I will con- clude with an address to,
1. The desponding sinner —
[You are ready to say, God will not have mercy upon me, because I have no righteousness whereby to recommend myself to him. But you need none for this end. It was not the righteous, but sinners, whom he came to save. You are to go to Christ guilty, that you may be forgiven ; vile, that you may be made holy ; and weak, that his strength may be perfected in your weakness. " Understand " this ; and your conscious unworthiness, so far from appearing any longer a bar to your acceptance with him, will be a motive for coming to him, and an encouragement to trust in him : for "where sin has abounded, there, you have reason to hope, shall his grace much more abound."]
2. The joyful saint —
[Let not the freedom of God's grace ever prove a snare to you. Though God will never save you for your righteousness, he will never save you in an unrighteous state. Though he requires no righteousness of yours as the ground of your accept- ance with him, he requires the utmost attainments in right- eousness as your meetness for heaven ; yes, and as the means whereby he may be glorified. Take heed, therefore, that you "understand" this: for "without holiness no man shall see the Lord." At the same time, you must cultivate a spirit directly opposite to that of the self-applauding Pharisee — a spirit of humiliation and self-abasement before God. This was the state of mind which he required of those ivhom he conducted into Canaan ; and this is the spirit which he expects to find in us. Hear his own words to them, and to us in them : " Ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I rifted up mine hand to give it to your fathers. And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings wherein ye have been defiled ; and ye shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for all the evils that ye have committed. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you for my name's sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt dealings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord Godh." Here, I say, you see the spirit that becomes you. To your latest hour, and in your highest attainments, be ye abased, and let God be glorified as " all in all!"]
h Ezek. xx. 42—44. and xxxvi. 22, 32.