this reasoning is altogether fallacious : since everv one who by faith abides in Christ, acknowledges it his bounden duty to " walk as he walked."
He acknowledges it, I say, as his bounden duty —
[He does not conceive of Christ as liberating him from the obligations of morality : for though he is free from the law as a covenant, he is not free from it, nor would wish to be freed from it, as a rule of life. He considers himself as " not without law, but under the law to Christ." Were he per- mitted to violate the commands of God, he would account it a curse rather than a privilege. Such a liberty would appear to him only like a permission to drink poison, which, however sweet to the taste, would prove " the gall of asps within him." So far from imaerinins" himself freed from the restraints of the law, he considers all that Christ has done for him as laying him under ten-fold obligations to holiness both of heart and life. His motives to obedience are changed indeed : but his obliga- tions to it are not a whit diminished, yea, rather, are greatly heightened ; because he well knows, that the very end for which his Saviour died was, to redeem us from all iniquity, and to purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works."]
He makes it his constant and determined aim —
[The true believer is not a mere follower of Christ, but an imitator alsoh: and it is his delight to set the Saviour before him as his great Exemplar. When he sees how entirely the soul of Jesus was wrapped up in his work, and that it was " his meat and drink to do his Father's will," he pants, and sighs, and with shame and sorrow of heart exclaims, O that there were "in me the mind that was in Christ Jesus!" When he beholds the ardour of Christ's love to man, his unwearied labours, his patient sufferings, his exertions in every possible way, he girds up his loins, and follows the foot- steps of his Lord ; and though he knows that he can never attain to his perfection, yet he proposes to himself no object short of that, and strives to be " holy as he was holy," and " perfect as he was perfect :" nor does the glory of heaven itself appear more desirable in his eyes, than does a conformity to the Saviour's image in righteousness and true holiness. In a peculiar manner, he notices the tempers of his Divine Master; his meekness, his patience, his forbearance, his love to enemies, his compassion even to his very murderers: he sees what a fallen creature he himself is, and he cries mightily to God for grace and strength, that he may be enabled to mortify every
h "1 Cor. xi. 1. the Greek. VOL. XX. c c