is due to Him alone. And it is most injurious to man, ])e- cause whilst it disappoints his hopes, it actually robs him of all the blessings which the Gospel itself provides. What did St. Paul say to those who relied on circumcision as securing or confirming to them the benefits of the Gospel ? Did he say, "If ye be circumcised, your circumcision shall profit you nothing ?" No : but, " If ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing^." And so must we say in reference to superstition of every kind : it not only fails to procure the benefits it aspires to, but actually deprives us of the benefits we might otherwise obtain : and it would be well if those, who superstitiously regard divine ordinances, whether baptism, or the Lord's Supper, or any other ordinance, as possessing any inherent virtue in themselves, and as imparting virtue by any power of their own, woiJd contemplate their guilt and danger whilst under the influence of such delusions : for to those who against better light adhere to them, as necessarily conveying justification and sanctification and salvation, " Christ himself will become of no effect :" they are fallen from grace ; and, as far as respects them, " Christ is dead in vain^."
Well I know that to some these sentiments will appear harsh : but fidelity to God and man requires, that, if even an angel from heaven should countenance such an error, he should be opposed'. And if in opposing such errors any one think that we manifest too much zeal, what would such an one have said to Hezekiah ? ' What ! know you not that that serpent was appointed as an ordinance by God himself? Know you not how many thousands were healed by it ? And do you dare to break it in pieces, and to degrade it with such an appellation as " Nehushtan," as though it were no better than a mere piece of brass ? I am shocked at your impiety.' But what would Hezekiah have said? ' It is not as an ordinance of God that I degrade it, but as idolatrously substituted in God's place, as a ground of hope, and as a source of good.' So say I of baptism and of the Lord's supper : ' In their proper and appointed use they cannot be too highly valued : but, if abused to purposes for which they were not given, and looked to as containing in themselves, and conveying of themselves, salvation to man, they are desecrated, and may justly be called Nehushtan.'' So Paul said in relation to circumcision, which corresponds with the Christian ordinance of baptism. When some abused it as a ground of hope, he would not acknowledge them as the people of God. He indignantly denominates them " the concision," declaring that they only were the circumcision who sought their salvation in God alone. And if any be offended with this doctrine, we refer
g Gal. v. 2. 1^ Gal. 5. 4. with Gal. ii. 21. i Gal. i. 8, 9.
o76.J HEZEKIAH DESTROYS THE BRASEN SERPENT. 543
them to Hezekiah ; we refer them to St. Paul. It is too weighty a matter to be triiied with, seeing that it is of vital importance to every soul of man.]
Let us LEARN, then, from hence,
1. How to use God's ordinances —
[We should be thankful for them : we should honour them : we should look to God in them, and expect from God through them the communications of his grace and peace. They are to be reverenced, but not idolized ; to be used as means, but not rested in as an end. No one is to imagine himself the better, merely because he has attended on any ordinances : for he may eat his own condemnation at the supper of the Lord, and have the word which is ministered unto him " a savour only of death." We must look, not to ordinances, but to God in them : and just so much as we obtain from God in them are we benefited by them. This present ordinance for instance ; What are you the better for it, if you have not held communion with God himself in your devotions ? And what benefit will you receive from the word now delivered, if it come not to you in demonstration of the Spirit and of power ? Bear this in mind, both before you come up to the house of God, and when you depart from it ; and then you will find the ordinances to be blessings indeed. But, if you " sacrifice to your own net, and burn incense to your own drag'^," your coming hither will be in vain, and our labour also will be in vain.]