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Reconciliation.

Two cannot walk together except they be agreed. Now God and man are not agreed, as man is found in his unconverted state. ther are completely in a state of disagreement. There are three classes of persons with whom God can never be agreed. The immoral. God be at one with an immoral person, one who continues in his immorality, who is breaking his commandments daily! The thing is absolutely impossible. Unbelievers of every class and every grade form another company with whom God is not in a state of agreement. What! be in a state of amity and unity with those who give him the lie? God is peculiarly jealous of his truth: he is a just and a jealous God, in whatever point of view we contemplate him. But he has "magnified his name above all his word:" and those who call in question his truth offend him as much as those who neglect his moral precepts. The worldly-minded constitute another class with whom God cannot be at one. These are found almost in all places. You may be saints of the first order, for any thing I can say to the contrary: but I know it is not usual to have such a congregation as this any where without some sad sinners amongst them. Say, if you can with truth, that you have found a man who believes every word of God-who is the most strictly moral and correct in his deportment, and whose claims to admission or continuance in a Christian Church are indisputable : yet if God sees that man's heart cleaving to the world, loving the world, going out after the world, he cannot be at one with him, and that man cannot walk with God. And may a money-lover walk with God? Then may an idolater walk with God, for those who love money are idolaters in the eyes of God. A lover of applause and popularity, a hunter after human fame, walk with God! Impossible: "How can ye believe who seek honour one from another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God?" The pleasure-lover walk with God! Nay, those who live in pleasure are dead while they live. Before any of these persons can walk with God they must repent of their wickedness, their immorality, their unbelief, their worldliness; they must seek and obtain mercy through the blood of the Lamb: and then when brought into a state of reconciliation, when there is a oneness between them and their heavenly Father, then may they commence their walk with God.

Affection is another thing implied in walking with God. All God's people love him; the youngest in his family, the feeblest in his family, can say as Peter did though it may be with some degree of trembling under particular circumstances" Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest that I love thee. It is the grief of my heart that I love thee so little. Yet I do love thee: if I do not, what do I love? Is there any thing in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath, on which my heart is placed if I love not thee?" And we know that God loves his people; we cannot tell how much, but we know that he loves them so much as to call them by the most endearing names and appellations. He says concerning them, "He that touches them touches the apple of my eye;" and that "it were better for a man that a mill-stone were hung about his neck, and that he were cast into the sea, than that he injure one of God's little ones." He rejoices over them with joy, and joys over them with singing.

Walking with God implies intercourse. I mean nothing visionary, nothing fanatical, nothing inconsistent with the exercise of the soundest reason, most severely disciplined. Yet the intercourse between God and his people, is as

real as any intercourse is which takes place between spirits in heaven, or any in verchange of thought and of kindness which takes place between men on earth. Is it reality, or is it imagination, that God Almighty communicates his love to the hearts of his people? Those who are indeed his people can answer most satisfactorily: they know as certainly as any thing that has ever happened to them that God daily breathes the breath of heavenly love into their hearts; and they feel and know that they breathe back again this love to Him in praise, in prayer, and in holy obedience.

This passage of Scripture has dwelt much upon my mind during the last few weeks; and in thinking, especially upon the latter part of it, my thoughts have sometimes taken a direction this way:-"Walk humbly with thy God." Well, is humility essential to my walking with God? Cannot I walk proudly with God? Cannot I walk with God, and indulge at least a degree of pride? Cannot I look proudly, think proudly-think highly of myself, desire that others may think highly of me-wish to make myself of some consequence in the world and in the church? Is it impossible to do this and walk with God? The answer comes back forcibly again and again, "It is impossible." "He beholdeth the proud afar off." "He hateth the proud look." "He filleth the hungry with good things; the rich he sendeth empty away." Well, if I walk with God at all, I must walk humbly with God. Yes. One reason why so many people complain, and, when they do not complain, refuse to lament on account of the absence of their God, and the absence of religious peace, and love, and joy-is, this abominable pride, which is not resisted and cast away, and trampled under foot, as it ought to be. Amongst the things which God hates with a very special hatred is pride.

"Walk humbly with thy God." The marginal reading is very peculiar: "What do I require of thee but to do justly, to love mercy, and to humble thyself to walk with thy God?" If it had been told us that God humbled himself to walk with us, we should at once see the reasonableness and the propriety of it. O, what condescension! What a stoop for our Almighty Creator and Preserver to humble himself to walk with a worm of the earth! But he says," Humble thyself to walk with God." Yes, such is the pride of the human spirit, that it has to be humbled before God and man before he can walk with God. And this is not merely the case with persons who fill exalted stations, and whose pride has been fed by peculiar circumstances; but it is the case with every beggar and every pauper in the land; there is not a human being in the world who is not by nature proud and self-willed. Before any of us can walk with God, we must be humbled under his mighty hand; and the more deeply and thoroughly we humble ourselves, the more closely we shall walk with God.

I speak not of that humility which is woven into the character by artifice and cunning; which consists in using abusive epithets towards ourselves when in company with religious people, in order that we may have the praise of humility. All this is pride of the most detestable kind, and proceeds from the worst principle. There is hypocrisy mixed with the pride: as soon as ever you join with a man who is thus abusing himself, and say, "Yes, I believe all you say; I believe you are that very bad man you describe yourself to be" -why he is offended directly, and will ask, "Why, what do you know of me?" No; I speak of that humility which is wrought in the inmost soul by the finger

of God, and which makes the person who possesses and cherishes it feel what the heavenly Fletcher used to express every night when he was lying down:"I nothing have, I nothing am;

My treasure is the bleeding Lamb,

Both now and evermore."

There are two doctrinal heresies against which our text is opposed. The first is, the heresy of those who are seeking to be justified by works. There are still many heretics of this description in the places where I have lived; perhaps there are some in London too; there may be some in this chapel, “O, I know nothing of your mystical justification by faith," says one: "I try to do justly and love mercy: I do my duty to God and man, and I expect I shall be justified and quickened at last on this ground." Do you? And have you thought upon it? And are you willing to risk your eternal all in this way? Can you challenge the Almighty Judge on this ground, and "Treat me say, according to my demerits, and according to my works?" Have you never been guilty of any injustice? Not in the slightest degree? Have you committed no act of domestic injustice, of social injustice? Are you quite free from all injustice in the shop and in the market? Have you always done justice to the motives, to the sentiments, to the opinions, to the characters of others? Have you never spoken evil of an absent person? Unless this is the case you cannot be justified by works. If there is one flaw, one defect, it is enough to shut you out of heaven. Have you always loved mercy? Have you never been "in a passion," as it is called-never dealt out undue severity towards a fellow-creature-never shut up your bowels of compassion against an enemy -never indulged an unkind word or thought? Have you always walked with God? Alas! you know nothing about it: you have not begun this walk yet: you are not reconciled to God; you do not love him. If we knew your habits, and your history, we could tell you perhaps several things which you love far better than you love your God. There are many people who not only love gold and silver, their sons and daughters, more than they love their God; but there are many who love the vilest practices and the vilest associates more than they love their God. By the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified."

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“Ah," says the Antinomian, "that is the Gospel; that is the precious truth of the Gospel. I expect to be justified by faith alone, and saved by faith alone: and this sermon of your's (if it may be called a sermon) is far too legal for me: but you are now getting right." Alas! I trust you hope you will get right too. Remember your faith is not worth a straw unless it lead you to "do justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with your God." Yours is not the faith of God's people—not the faith of the operation of his Spirit; it is a mere fancy which you and others call faith; it is not faith; or if we must call it by that name at all, it is what St. James calls " a dead faith :" and what good will a dead faith do either now or hereafter?

Let us, then, seek this reconciliation-seek to be justified by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and pray that the holy laws of our God may be written upoa our hearts, and deeply engraved there, and that we may henceforth "do justig, Jove mercy, and walk humbly with our God."

THE CONCURRENCE OF THE DISPENSATIONS OF PROVIDENCE IN THE

ETERNAL WELFARE OF THE BELIEVER.

REV. J. A. JAMES,

SURREY CHAPEL, MAY 11, 1834.

"And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."-ROMANS, viii. 28.

PERHAPS there is no single passage of Holy Scripture which has yielded so much strong consolation to the afflicted people of God as this, pregnant as it is with the profoundest theological truth, and the richest spiritual comfort. The object of the inspired writer is to comfort the saints under every persecution; and he does this by directing them to that glory which awaits them in another world, when their sufferings on earth will be ended, and to which those sufferings were not worthy for a moment to be compared. He then, in order to illustrate the magnitude of this object of the Christian's hope, represents the whole rational world, including the very heathen themselves, as lifting up their heads, and looking around with glistening eyes and longing hearts, for the discovery of some better state of existence than that in which they were placed here. And this establishes the fact, that the hope of a better world is an antidote for all the sorrows of this. He then goes on to open another source of consolation, in the effectual aid of the Holy Spirit to stimulate, and sustain, and purify the righteous. The consolatory strain is continued in most extraordinary language, and still more extraordinary ideas, to the close of the chapter.

In calling your attention to the text, I shall, in the first place, consider the high and dignified character which the Apostle presents to view: and, secondly, the immense privilege which is inseparably connected with this character.

In the first place, THE HIGH AND DIGNIFIED CHARACTER WHICH THE APOSTLE

PRESENTS TO VIEW.

And he describes this, first, by the acting of this character towards God, and then, secondly, by the actings of the Divine Mind towards this individual.

In the first place, the Apostle represents these characters by the state and acting of their minds towards God. The persons here exhibited to view are described as loving God. To love God and be a Christian are convertible propositions. No man loves God who is not a Christian; every man who is a Christian does love God. He loves God not merely as the God of nature, in the displays of his power and wisdom in the works of creation, but as the God of grace-God in Christ, "reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing unto men their sins;" the God of holiness; the God of justice, of truth, and of mercy. And this love operates in the way of awful veneration, exalted

esteem animated delight, profound submission, and practical obedience. This is the love of God.

But whence arises this principle in the heart that was originally destitute of it, and was in fact filled with the contrary principle of enmity to God? From the actings of God's mind towards that individual, wao is thus represented as loving God. The love of God is here traced up to God's calling: "To them that love God, to them who are the called." The word " called," in the New Testament, has a two-fold signification. In some places it means the general invitation which is given to all men to repent and believe in Christ, and seek the blessings of eternal salvation: in other places, in the text for instance, it signifies that general invitation rendered effectual to the conversion of the soul, by the influence of the Holy Ghost. In this sense it is synonymous with "conversion," and "regeneration," and is called, in the language of divines, "effectual calling;" by which an entire moral change of character is effected. From being carnal the individual becomes spiritual, and commits his soul for eternal salvation into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ, as the great atonement for sin; loves God, and lives to his glory. There never can exist this love of God in the human heart, without this effectual calling of the Holy Spirit. We may as well expect roses to spring up amidst the ice of the Pole, or the sands of the desert, as imagine that the sinner, uncalled of God, can love him. We must begin here: the moral disposition of the mind must be changed, or there can be no right disposition towards God. And in every

instance where this effectual calling takes place, there the love of God will be the result.

But whence this effectual calling? It comes, as we have already said, from God. But is it the result of a momentary impulse of caprice? No; but of a purpose: they are "called according to the purpose of God." "Purpose means forethought or intention. To imagine God does any thing without that forethought or intention, would be to ascribe to him such a want of wisdom as would be a blemish to the character, and reproach to the conduct, of any individual on earth. This is a purpose in reference to each individual. It has been attempted to reconcile and avoid the doctrine of the divine decrees of the personal election of individuals to salvation, by speaking of the operation of these decrees as only for the selection of a nation or a tribe to the external privileges of the Gospel. The text and the context are a sufficient confutation of this idea. The Apostle must necessarily be speaking of individuals, because he is speaking of an individual act, and the enjoyment of individual privileges. To "love God" is not the act of a nation or of a tribe; and to "be justified,' which is also spoken of in the context, cannot apply to nations. Nations may receive the external general invitation, but they cannot as such" love God," be "justified," or "glorified." The whole reasoning of the Apostle has reference to the creature." If, therefore, the act of loving God be the act of the creature, and this only be the result of calling from God, that calling must be from him. And if calling be the result of the divine purpose, that divine purpose must be individual. And if thus called by the divine purpose, then also must that purpose have existed from eternity; since there is nothing new in the plans of the divine mind, or as to its intentions. Consequently, my friends, from this reasoning we infer the Scriptural truth of that doctrine which we hold, of the individual election of those who are brought to salvation, first to holiness here, then to eternal life hereafter.

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