proved sufficiently, " that there is not a just man on earth that liveth and sinneth not :" and that, " if any say they have no sin, they deceive themselves, and the truth is not in them." Nor does the Apostle mean that sin, even of a grosser kind, shall never, in any instance, be found in a child of God ; for, as " in many things we all offend," so, under the influence of strong temptation, we may act very unsuitably to our holy calling : Noah, Lot, David, Solomon, afford melancholy proofs of such weakness and depravity. But this is asserted in the text, and attested by the universal voice of Scripture, that no child of God shall ever give himself up to the wilful and habitual indulgence of any one sin tvhatever. No : every child of God will watch against sin in the heart, as well as in the act; and
will pray and fight against it to the latest hour of his life
And the reason why he never can sin in the same wilful and habitual way that he did before, is, that he has the seed of God, or a living principle of grace, within him, that constantly impels him to hate and flee from all iniquity3; and, " because he is Christ's, he cannot but daily crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts " ]
The limiting of this promise to believers leads us to shew,
II. Its connexion with our new-covenant state —
Believers are " no longer under the law but under grace " —
[Once they were, like others, under a covenant, which cursed them for disobedience, but afforded them no hope of pardon for past offences, nor any means of resisting sin in future : but now they have embraced that better covenant, the covenant of grace, wherein God offers them a full remission of all their former sins, and assures them that he himself will give them grace sufficient in every time of need. On this promise they rely, knowing by bitter experience that they have not in themselves a sufficiency even to think a good thought, and that God alone can give them either to will or to do any good thing.]
It is on this very account that God guarantees to them, if we may so speak, the attainment of universal holiness —
[By embracing God's covenant, they become his children, members of his family, and heirs of his glory. Now God's honour is concerned that his own children shall not be left in bondage to the devil Besides, after having made them
a 1 John iii. 9.