and mark them which walk so, as ye have us for an ensample. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ-whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things)-for our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ."

In attempting an improvement of the passage I have selected for our meditation this day, we shall consider the example proposed for our imitation.—The Apostle Paul, in the sacred writings, stands before us in a two-fold capacity, as the Apostle of the Gentiles, and as the private Christian. It might be profitable, as well as interesting, to enlarge on his character as a minister of the Gospel-to behold him as the messenger of the glad tidings of salvation burning with an holy ardour, to consolidate and extend the Redeemer's kingdom-and we cannot but confess, that it is with some degree of reluctance we forbear dwelling on so delightful a subject. As, however, in the passage under consideration, the Apostle is evidently speaking of himself in his private capacity, in that capacity we shall consider him as exhorting us, through the medium of the

Church at Philippi, to follow his illustrious example. The subject properly embraces the whole of the Apostle's character and conduct, but as the limits of a discourse will not admit of our even glancing at the varied circumstances of his life, and as he has in the chapter before us, spoken of himself and his general views, in very decided terms, we shall confine the subject to the noticing of those feelings and pursuits which are here depicted and proposed for our imitation. We have, then, in the chapter before us:

(1). An utter rejection of any righteousness of his own, as a plea of justification in the sight of God. It is a lamentable fact, that although man be a transgressor of the Divine Law, and, on the authority of revelation, is declared to be by nature in a state of wrath-to possess an heart deceitful above all things, and a carnal mind, which is enmity against God-and thus situated, is exhorted to lay hold of the hope set before him in the Gospel; that notwithstanding the decisive statements of his misery on the one hand, and the affecting discoveries of mercy on the other, he is disposed in the matter of his acceptance with an offended Godhead, to cleave to a covenant of works. He ventures to appeal to a law which is denominated in terms not less awful than these, that it is "the

ministration of condemnation," and confiding in performances, as defective in their execution, as they have been entirely wrong in their motives-he dares to challenge the Judge of all, on the merits of an admitted imperfect obedience. Such before his conversion was the Apostle Paul. He informs us in his Epistle to the Galatians, "that he profited in the Jews religion above many of his equals in his own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of the traditions of his fathers"—Gal. i. 14. And in the chapter from whence my text is taken, he affirms, "that if any man thought he had whereof to trust in the flesh, he surely had more." His were no common or small pretensionshe had been circumcised the eighth day-he was lineally descended of the stock of Israelof the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law, he was a Pharisee; concerning zeal, he even persecuted the Church, and as it respected his private life and conversation, he could appeal to all who had known him, that his character would bear the severest scrutiny. If ever there existed an human being, who might have had cause to pride himself upon his distinctions and attainments, it was certainly the Apostle Paul-he could trace back his genealogy to Israel and Abraham-he was descended of a tribe that

had never apostatized from the temple worship-he had to boast that both his parents were Hebrews-that he himself had been peculiarly strict, both in the Mosaic ceremonies and the traditions of the elders-his persecution of the Church had but too plainly proved his zeal for the Jewish religion-and, in fine, he could allege, that his whole external conduet was so conformable to the letter of the law, that in respect of that kind of righteousness, it was utterly impossible to lay any thing to his charge-and yet with a character which, doubtless, had excited the admiration and respect of the Jewish Sanhedrim-and was accompanied with feelings of no small complacency towards himself-he tells us in a few short words in the seventh chapter of his Epistle to the Romans-" that the commandment which was ordained to life, he found to be unto death."

Hence, there was a

complete revolution in his mind-he had been alive without the law once, but when the commandment came in all its righteous authority and extent, sin revived and he died—and guilty and helpless and polluted, he renounces all claims to any righteousness of his ownand tells the Philippians, that what things were gain to him, those he counted loss for Christ. "Yea," says he, "doubtless, and I

count all things, as well my former pretensions as my present attainments,-but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith."

Here then we would pause, and make the inquiry-are we thus minded with the Apostle Paul? There is an account to be tendered in at the bar of Heaven-and if we are at all alive to the awful solemnities of a future judgment, we shall be anxious to ascertain from the assured declarations of Scripture, upon what ground we may stand justified before an holy and a jealous God? If the Scriptures have a meaning, it is absolutely certain, "that by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified". and the man who will venture his eternal interests upon the plea of a comparatively harmless and innocent life, is alike unacquainted with the nature of sin, the purity of the law, and the holiness of God. "If," says the admirable and judicious Hooker, "God should make us an offer thus large—search all the generations of men since the fall of our