more, therefore, may man account it the only object worthy of his pursuit.] 2. That it is an object for which we all, according to our ability, should labour [The advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom is not the work of ministers only, but of the people also. It can scarcely be credited, how much an efficient ministry is aided by the co-operation of private Christians, in all the different works and labours of love. Many will listen to them, who would regard the admonition of pastors as a mere official ceremony, or an impertinent intrusion. Indeed, it is not possible for ministers to do every thing: even a Moses required seventy elders to assist him: and, at this day, it is only by the united exertions of many, that the work of God in general, and that of missions in particular, can be carried forward. Nor let it be imagined that the poor are incapable of affording aid to the common cause for they, if they cannot assist materially either by intellectual efforts or pecuniary contributions, may, by their prayers for the Divine blessing, effect more than the whole world combined could by their own personal exertions.] 3. That the success of it should be to us a source of the sublimest joy [With what raised expectations did the Church of Antioch meet together; and with what joy did they hear that “God had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles!" Methinks the whole assembly lost, for the time, all thought of their own personal welfare, being swallowed up with the delightful contemplation of the welfare of others. Surely, with one heart and one voice they glorified God for the mercy he had vouchsafed to a sinful and idolatrous world. And should not a similar feeling pervade us Gentiles, in relation to the Jews, if there be any awakening amongst them? Truly, if there be, as in Ezekiel's vision, any stir among "the dry bones," whether they be those of Jews or Gentiles, or of persons bearing the Christian name, it should fill our souls with gratitude, and our lips with praise -] Let us now IMPROVE this subject, 1. In a way of inquiry "The [What is the state of God's work amongst you? door of faith," as you well know, "has been long opened to you." Have you entered in? or, are you yet but on the threshold, or perhaps yet standing afar off? Think with yourselves: have you truly come to Christ, and believed in Christ as the only Saviour of your souls? And, supposing you to have entered the vestibule of God's temple, have you advanced into the sanctuary? We read of those "whose faith and love grew exceedingly;" and so should yours grow: nor should you ever cease to press forward, till you are come into the holy of holies, even into the immediate presence of your God -] 2. In a way of information [God's work, I trust, is really going forward in the world. And this at least I can say, that, whether we have laboured and suffered for the Lord, or only followed. with our prayers those who have laboured, we have no cause to complain that we have either laboured in vain, or prayed in vain -] 3. In a way of excitement 66 [All of us have a work to do; a work to which God himself has called us, and to which at the baptismal font we were set apart. Let me ask, then, whether we have engaged heartily in it? and whether, if we were called to give an account of it at this moment, we could say, "Father, I have finished the work which thou hast given me to do?" Know assuredly, that the whole Church will speedily be convened before the Judge of quick and dead: and "then must every one of us give account of himself to God." Say, brethren, whether, if called to that account, we should now give it up with joy," or whether it would be "given up with grief." Let us think, also, what account we shall give of the efforts we have made in behalf of others. Have we "minded, not our own things only, but every one of us the things of others also?" Have we ourselves laboured, or have we, with prayer and fasting, cooperated, to the utmost of our power, with those who have gone forth to labour, in the cause of God? Think not that this was the duty of the primitive Christians only: it is no less ours than it was theirs. The cause of God ought to be dear to us; and the souls of our fellow-sinners should be precious in our eyes. Our charity, indeed, must begin at home: but it must not end there: it should be extended to the whole world: nor should we relax our efforts for the extension of the Redeemer's kingdom, till "all the kingdoms of the world shall have become the kingdom of our God and of his Christ.”] • Here any particulars may be mentioned, only with diffidence and modesty. MDCCLXXXIII. THE QUESTION ABOUT THE OBLIGATION OF THE CEREMONIAL LAW DECIDED, Acts xv. 10, 11. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. We IT is a favourite idea with many, that the Gospels contain all that is needful for us to know, and that it would have been better for the Church if they only had been transmitted to us. But this is indeed to make ourselves wiser than God: for if God had not judged that the other parts of the New Testament would be useful to his Church, he would not have inspired men to write them, nor would he have preserved them for us with such peculiar care. acknowledge that in the Gospels there are intimations of every thing which we need to know: but will any one say, that in the other parts of the New Testament there are not clearer explanations of them, or that the Gospels are not rendered far more intelligible by the light reflected upon them in the Epistles? Will any one say, that the purposes of God towards his Church, in the call of the Gentiles, the rejection of the Jews, and the future union of both Jews and Gentiles under one Head, are not more fully understood, than they would have been if the Acts of the Apostles had not been recorded? or that the correspondence between the law and the Gospel would have been so manifest, if it had not been pointed out to us in the Epistle to the Hebrews? We have now the advantage of knowing what objections were urged against the Gospel, and how those objections were obviated. To go no further than the passage before us: There was a controversy which agitated the whole Christian Church, insomuch that not all the authority of Barnabas or Paul were able to settle it: and a reference was made to the whole college of Apostles at Jerusalem for their decision of the point. That we may have a just view of it, we shall consider, I. The subject in dispute The question was, Whether the Jewish law was obligatory on the Gentiles? [This I say, was the original question; but it involved much more, even the whole plan of the Gospel salvation. Many insisted that circumcision, and the observance of the whole Mosaic law, were necessary to salvation. They contended that these were of Divine institution; that the observance of them constituted the grand line of distinction between the Lord's people, and all the rest of mankind; and that the severest judgments were threatened for a wilful neglect of them and consequently, that they must be obligatory on the Lord's people to the end of time. (It must be remembered, that the advocates of these opinions were not Jews, but Jewish Christians.) On the other hand, it was maintained, that these laws were never imposed with a view to men's justification by them; (for that Abraham was justified before even circumcision itself was ordained:)—that to require the observance of them from the Gentiles was contrary to God's avowed design; (since he had manifested his acceptance of them in their uncircumcised state, precisely in the same way as he had of the Jews who were circumcisedd:)-that it was impossible for any man to be justified by the observance of them; (since one single deviation from them would utterly condemn him:)-and that to blend the observance of them with the merits of Christ as a joint ground of our hope, was to invalidate the whole Gospel, and to make Christ himself of no effect to us1-] A question precisely similar is agitated amongst us at this day [Circumcision and the Jewish law are indeed, by common consent, rejected by us. But many amongst us proceed on the very same principle as those Judaizing Christians did, and make works, either ceremonial or moral, the ground of their hope before God. Some, and some of no mean name, have gone so far as to assert, that the very act of baptism saves us. Verily, if such sentiments were not expressed in terms which cannot be mistaken, we should think it a libel to impute them to any man who calls himself a Christian, and much more to any one who would make his sentiments in theology a standard for the Church of Christ. It seems incredible that such Jewish blindness should exist at this day in the Christian Church. Others, even the great mass of nominal Christians, imagine that the attending of the house of God and the Lord's supper, together with common honesty, is sufficient to procure us acceptance with God; or that, if a little more be wanting, the merits of Christ will turn the scale. Others, who come nearer to the Judaizing Christians of old, maintain, that though our hope is certainly in the Lord Jesus Christ, yet some works of ours are necessary to make his merits effectual for our salvation. This is a principle so generally avowed, that to controvert it would be called by many an unchristian heresy. But (not to notice the two former opinions, which need only to be stated, and they will carry their own condemnation along with them,) this more specious principle is in reality founded on an ignorance of both Law and Gospel. For, 1. The moral law was not, any more than the ceremonial, given with a view to justify men: it was given rather to condemn them, and, as a ministration of death, to shut them up that they might receive life by the Gospels. 2. It is impossible that any man can be saved by his obedience to the law, because the law requires perfect obedience; which never has been, nor ever can be, rendered to it by fallen manh. 3. To blend our obedience to the law with the merits of Christ, is to establish a ground for boasting; which it is the main scope and tendency of the Gospel to destroyi. 4. Such an union of our works with the faith of Christ is declared to be an utter "subversion of men's souls," and a superseding of all that Christ has done or suffered for us'. Here then the question, whether as debated formerly, or as existing at this hour, is fairly stated.] We now come to, II. The apostolic decision of it- 1. The Apostle Peter's judgment respecting it[After the point had been long debated, St. Peter rose to give his opinion. His argument was extremely plain and simple. He reminded the Church, that the Lord Jesus had given to him the keys of the Gospel kingdom, and had commissioned him to open that kingdom both to Jews and Gentiles. To the Jews he had opened it on the day of Pentecost; and to the 8 2 Cor. iii. 7, 9. Gal. iii. 21-24. h Gal. iii. 10. k ver. 24. |
