the prize, you must not only strive, but " strive lawfully," according to the rules that have been prescribed".]
2. That how regardless soever we have been about salvation hitherto, we shall attain to it the very in- stant we believe in Christ —
[The Gentiles at large give us a very just, but awful, picture of man's depravity : yet, when they were altogether dead, God " passed by them, and bade them live °." Thus, if his voice in the Gospel reach our ears, and enter into our hearts, we also shall live before him. There was no interval between the obedience of Zaccheus to the Saviour's call, and " the coming of salvation to his house." The converts on the day of Pentecost were justified, the very instant they believed; and in like manner shall " all who believe be justified from all things." The most perfect representation of this truth may be found in the ordinance of the brazen serpent which shadowed it forth. There was but one way of cure for all that were dying of their wounds ; and that was, a sight of the brazen serpent. On the other hand, there was no interval between their use of that remedy, and their experience of the cure. Thus, then, the Lord Jesus Christ says to us, " Look unto me and be saved, all the ends of the earth :" and, if we will in a full reliance on his word direct our eyes unto him, " we shall never be ashamed" of our hope ]
3. That how calumniated soever this way of sal- vation is, the very calumnies that are raised against it, attest its truth —
[We must not be understood to say, that the mere cir- cumstance of any plan of salvation giving offence proves that plan to be true and scriptural : for even the Gospel itself may be so crudely and injudiciously stated, as to give just offence; but this we say, that any plan of salvation vrfiich gives no of- fence to self-righteous men, is certainly not of God. Objections without number were made against St. Paul's statements. When he said that salvation was altogether of grace, his ene- mies replied, that in that case God must be partial and unjust. When he said it was by faith, then they replied, that he dis- pensed with good works. The same objections even to this hour are universally brought against the same statements : and we may be infallibly sure, that, if no objections of the same kind be urged against us, we do not state the Gospel as Paul did : we are accommodating ourselves to the pride and pre- judice of an ignorant world, instead of preaching the Gospel as freely and as fully as we ought. Let none then be discouraged
n 2 Tim. ii. 5. ° Ezek. xvi. 6. with Eph. ii. 4, 5.