are to be saved. They ascribe to Christ the honour of obtain- ing salvation for us on these favourable conditions ; but they make our performance of the conditions themselves to be the true and proper ground of our acceptance with God.]
But the Gospel, as described in the text, is widely different from this —
[Such a law as these persons substitute for the Gospel, could not properly be called " grace ;" nor could it be said to " bring salvation ;" for it does not hestoio life as a gift, but requires it to be earned ; and brings only an opportunity of earning it on easier terms. But that Gospel, which in the Apostle's days " appeared to all men," was " a dispensation of grace ^:" it revealed a Saviour; it directed our eyes to Christ, as having wrought out salvation for us ; and it offered that salvation to us freely, " without money and without price."
This is the true character of the Gospel. It is grace, mere grace, and altogether grace from first to last. It brings a free, a full, a finished salvation. It requires nothing to be done to purchase its blessings, or to merit them in any measure. In it God gives all, and we receive all.]
Yet there will be no room to charge the Gospel as licentious, if we consider, II. The lessons it inculcates —
We have before said, that it requires nothing as the price of life. But as ati evidence of our having obtained life, and in a variety of other views, it re- quires,
1. A renunciation of all sin — [By " ungodliness " we understand every thing that is contrary to the first table of the law ; as profaneness, unbelief, neglect of divine ordinances, &c. And, by " worldly lusts " we understand "all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life'';" or, in other words, the pleasures, riches, and honours of the world. All of these are to be "denied" and renounced. As, on the one hand, we are not to dishonour God ; so neither, on the other hand, are we to idolize the creature. Nor is it against open transgressions merely that we are to guard, but against the secret " lusts " or desires. Tne very inclinations and propen- sities to sin must be mortified. This is indispensably neces- sary, to prove that we have embraced the Gospel aright : for, *' they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affec- tions and lusts"."]
a Eph. iii. 2. " 1 John ii. 15, 16. " Qal. v. 24.