gether " a law of liberty " to all who truly embrace it. Do not then imagine, that, when we would induce you to renounce all the lords that have had dominion over you, we would bring you into bondage, or deprive you of any thing that will conduce to your real happiness. We make our appeal to yourselves, and ask, Whether what you have hitherto consi- dered as liberty, has not been in reality the sorest bondage ? We ask. Whether sin has not kept you from the love and ser- vice of God, and bound you as with adamantine chains to the objects of time and sense? We ask, Whether in proportion as you were brought to the employment and felicity of the heavenly hosts, you would not attain to perfect freedom ? To all then we say. Believe in Christ, and givS yourselves up to him, and ye shall then ** be delivered from the bondage of corruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of God^."]
2. Its proper tendency —
[Strange as the inconsistency is, the very persons who will exclaim against the Gospel as making the way to heaven so strait that nobody can walk in it, will cry out against it also as a licentious doctrine, and will represent the preachers of it as saying, that men may live as they please, provided only they believe. But the Gospel is ''a doctrine accordmg to godhness ;" and the very " grace of God which bringeth sal- vation, teaches men to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live righteously, soberly, and godly in this present world." The Gospel, it is true, is " a law of liberty ;" but not of liberty to live in sin : it is a liberty J'rom sin ; and a liberty in the M'ays of God. Instead of superseding morality, it raises the tone of morals to the highest possible pitch, re- quiring us to " walk in all things as Christ walked," and to " purify ourselves even as he is pure." And, whilst it sets up this high standard for our attainment, it sets up the same for our trial in the last day ; and requires us so to speak and so to do, as they that shall be tried and judged by it. Know therefore, that notwithstanding the Gospel is as free for all as the light we see and the air we breathe, its proper tendency is to assimilate us to God, whose name and nature is love^]
3. The wisdom of all who profess to have em- braced it —
[Doubtless it is your privilege to be rejoicing in God your Saviour, and in the freeness and fulness of his salva- tion But you must also keep in view the future judg- ment, and be acting continually with a reference to it. There is no dispensation given to you to continue in sin : " Shall you continue in sin, that grace may abound ? God forbid."
The
y Rom. viii. 21. M John iv. 8, 1(5.