obedience. I ask, Where has he done so ? and What is the measure of imperfection which he allows ? Can you answer this ? Can any human being answer it ? But, for argument sake, you shall fix your own standard ; you shall fix it where you please ; and you shall be judged by nothing but your own law. Suppose that you have now fixed it ; Have you from the beginning observed in all things your oivn law ? Have you come up truly and habitually to your own standard ? if not, you must be condemned out of your own mouth. Reduce the law to any thing you please, to sincerity, if you choose it ; and I then ask, Are you sincerely abstaining from every thing which you believe to be evil, and doing every thing which you believe to be pleasing unto God, from clay to day, from month to month, from year to year ? Are you willing to found all your hopes of salvation on this ? and are you content that all the promises of mercy shall for ever fail you, if in any one instance you ever have been, or ever shall be, defective in your performance of these conditions? Will you look to this method of salvation to "make the promise sure?" Alas! there is no man that ever could, or ever can, stand on such a ground as this.]
But justification being by faith alone, the promise is sure to all —
[To all who truly believe in Christ the promise is infallibly sure, whatever be their nation, their character, their attain- ments, their circumstances. The Jew and the Gentile are here perfectly on a level"1: nothing is conceded on account of circumcision ; nothing is withheld on account of uncircumci- sion : the righteousness of Christ shall be equally on the one or the other the very instant they believe in Christ". Nor will it make any difference whether they have been more or less sinful in times past. The blood of Christ is as sufficient to cleanse one, as another : the very man that nailed our Saviour to the cross, or that pierced his side with the spear, may be as effectually delivered from his guilt, as any other sinner in the universe, provided he really and truly look to the Lord Jesus Christ to save him : for " all that believe, are justified from all things0." Moreover, babes in Christ have the promise as sure to them, as the young men or fathers have. Salvation is not suspended on the strength of our faith, but its reality ; not on the time that it has been exercised, but on the simplicity and sincerity with which it is exercised. Hence St. John says, " I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sakep." It is not said
m Rom. iii. 29. n Rom. iii. 22.
0 Acts xiii. 39. P 1 John ii. 12.