[The Christian cannot; wilfully live in any known sin : he wiU search out his corruptions, in order to subdue them ; and
his duties, in order to fulfil them He will propose to
himself the Lord Jesus Christ as his pattern : and though he can never hope to attain absolute perfection in this Ufe, he will not rest satisfied with any thing short of that. He would gladly be " holy as God is holy, and perfect, even as his Father in heaven is perfect." He considers how the Lord Jesus acted in reference to his God : how in reference to man ; and what tempers he manifested in the whole of his deport- ment ; then he labours to follow his example, and
to " walk in all things as he walked."]
To
'' ver. 1, Johni, 12, 13, Malt. vi. 6, 8, 9, 31, 32, 33. * Rom. viii. 15 — 17. ^ ver, 2.
To these endeavours he will be stimulated by his hope in Christ :
[He cannot endure to think himself a child of i&od, and yet act like a child of the devil : he cannot please himself with a prospect of enjoying and resembling God in a future life, without seeking communion with him and a resemblance to him in the present world. He will feel himself impelled to holiness by a sense of duty \; by a sense of gratitude^ * yea, moreover, by a love of holiness itself ^
We must not however imagine that it is by any power of his own that he thus "purifies himself;" the duty and the exertion are his '' : but the power, both to will and to do, pro- ceeds from God alone'.]
We shall improve this subject,
1 . For conviction — [All profess to have a hope in Christ : but before we con- clude that to be well-founded, we must examine what fruits it produces : Are Ave seeking after universal holiness ? Are we contented with no measure of holiness short of perfection it- self? Are we setting the Lord Jesus before us, and taking him for our pattern in all our tempers, and in our conduct to- wards God and man? This is the critei'ion by which St. John himself teaches us to judge of our hope'': and St. James confirms it — by declaring, that, if in any one point (the not bridling of our tongue, for instance) we allowedly deviate from this path, our religion is vain^ O consider this, lest your hope be only as the spider's web, that will be swept away with the besom of destruction !]
1. For encouragement —
[Though we must not think our hope well founded, un- less it produce in us the fruits of righteousness, yet we must not imagine that our righteousness is to be the ground of our hope, or even our jiarrant to hope in Christ. The only ground of our hope must be found in Christ, and in the promises which God has made to those who believe in him. We must go to Christ as sinners ; and then he will enable us to live as saints. This distinction is clearly marked in the text: our hope in Christ is to precede, not to follow, the purification of our hearts : and our holiness is to be the fruit, not the root, of our hope. The same distinction is made by St. Paul also, who, having spoken of our sonship with God, says, " Having there- fore
* He knows he cannot be saved in any other way. Ps. xxiv. 3,4. Malt. V. 8. Heb. xii. 14. Rev, xxi. 27.
' 1 Thess. ii. 12. 2 Cor. v. 14, 15. « Ps. cxix, 128.
" Jam. iv. 8. « Phil. ii. 13.
^ ver.O— 10. > Jam. i. 26.