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CHRISTIANITY A PRINCIPLE OF SELF-DENIAL.

REV. J. LEIFCHILD.

POULTRY CHAPEL, JUNE 18, 1834*.

“ And when he had called the people unto him, with his disciples also, he said unto them, Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.”—MARK, viii. 34, 35.

THESE words describe the requisition which Christianity makes upon every one who professes to receive it. They reveal the principle on which the Christian character is formed, and by the cultivation of which it is promoted and matured. This principle is the denial of self, in its carnal and earthly state, for Christ's sake and the Gospel's; that is, out of love to his person, regard to his authority, and desire for his honour, by the preservation and advancement of his religion in the world.

It was not the only time that Jesus Christ uttered these words. We find him often repeating them, at least in substance. On one occasion he states them most seriously: he says, "If any man will come after me, and hate not his father and his mother, and his wife, and his sister, and brother, yea and his own life also❞—that is, unless he love these less than me-" he cannot be my disciple." And on another occasion, when the Apostles appealed to their state of destitution in proof of the sincerity of their attachment to him, saying, by Peter, "Lo, we have left all, and followed thee;" Jesus Christ commended the principle, and shewed that this was the true way to happiness and glory: “And he said, there is no man that hath left house, or parents, or wife, or brother, or sister, for the kingdom of God's sake, but shall receive manifold more in the present life, and in the world to come life everlasting."

You see, then, that the principle of Christianity is a principle of the denial of self, in its carnal and earthly state, from superior motives. It is virtually and essentially, a spirit of sacrifice or surrender; a giving up of the carnal for the spiritual, of the earthly for the heavenly, of the temporal for the eternal. He that has none of this principle is no Christian; and the more we have of it the more Christian we are, the higher will be our religious attainments, the greater our moral dignity, and the richer our eternal felicity in heaven.

This is our subject; and it has been chosen for discussion on the present occasion, because of the intimate connexion of the propagation of true religion by Christians with the furtherance of it in themselves; two things that should always go together, and that have a mighty influence the one upon the other. • Anniversary Sermon for the Baptist Missionary Society.

The voice of prophecy assures us, that the enlargement of Christianity in the world, intensively and extensively, will be contemporaneous.

We propose to lay before you, in the first place, SOME OF THE WAYS IN WHICH THE PRINCIPLE THAT HAS BEEN MENTIONED WILL BE EVINCED AND MANIFESTED IN THE FORMATION AND PROGRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER. The absolute necessity for divine grace is supposed and taken for granted all along, both in the formation of the principle, and in every subsequent step of the process.

First, the principle we have mentioned will be manifested in the denial of our own opinions in religion, for the authoritative announcements of Scripture. The Gospel, brethren, enters into no compromise with us about the propriety of its sentiments; it appeals, indeed, to our reason for the evidence of its divine origin; and most frequently and generally it convinces us of this by the impressions of its power upon our hearts, and the close agreement we are led to perceive, in consequence, between its dictates and the wants of our nature and condition, and the dictates of conscience. But this being admitted, the statements of the Gospel are to be received by us on that ground-the ground of their divine authority. It condescends, indeed, to reason and argue out some of its truths before us, as to the grounds of their fitness and evidence: but other of its truths it does not so argue; they are the topmost boughs of the tree of life, whose fruits and results are apparent to us, but not their relations, and the ground of their fitness aud propriety: and these must be received solely on the veracity of their Author. Wherever our previous opinions contradict these, which they will do in a variety of instances, they must be given up for them, and sacrificed by us at the shrine of the divine authority. However long they have been cherished, and however carefully they have been formed-though they should have been derived from a long train of ancestry, or have been taught us by some favourite school, or have been the result of deep and careful investigation, they must be given up for these. To be saved entirely by the righteousness of another, to be indebted for our virtue and holiness entirely to the grace of another, apart from which the most diligent use of the means would be utterly vain, and yet to use the means as diligently as though all depended upon that these are parts of the divine plan for our salvation; they are those to which all our natural sentiments are adverse: but they must be given up for these, because of their divine origin. All other sentiments must be subdued and effaced by them, on account of their supreme authority, as the impressions of insects are obliterated by the trampling of the elephant. The mind must be cleared of all other produce, that these seeds may enter in and take root. We must be moved and swayed by these sentiments of divine authority, if ever we are saved.

Let us beware, my brethren, of misapplying reason; let us never think of testing the propriety of truths stated to us on the naked authority of the word of God. If we believe him only where we can see the truth and propriety of what he states, we do him no honour; we do not honour him in that case more than we do the testimony of one of our fellow creatures, which testimony we should be ready to receive on the same grounds. But we owe to God the submission of the whole man, of our understanding to his understanding, in the affair of

doctrine, as well as of our will to his will, in the affair of precept; and it must be so, or we cannot be saved. "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child cannot enter therein." There must be a denial of our own opinions in religion for the authoritative announcements of Scripture.

Secondly: this principle will be manifested in the denial of social and worldly advantages, for the sake of conformity to Christ and obedience to his precepts. We are all naturally worldly: the things of this world strike upon our senses, and insinuate themselves into the heart: they link our desires with them, and fill the soul with solicitude about them. In the absence of all better good, as the object of knowledge and pursuit, from the active and restless energy of our nature, the mind employs itself incessantly about these. Hence we become rooted in the world: it is here we build up our happiness, and here we look for our portion: the spirit that is formed in us is the spirit of the world.' But the Gospel combats this spirit; it seeks to fill us with solicitude of a different kind-for the welfare of the soul; about an interest in spiritual objects, in spiritual good, and in a spiritual and future world. "Ye are not of the world," says Jesus Christ to his disciples, " because I am not of the world; I have given you another spirit; walk according to its dictates; be followers of me in the regeneration."

But in pursuing this course, we must lay our account with opposition; sometimes from the counsels of our own flesh and blood; sometimes from the remonstrances of carnal friends and relatives; and sometimes from the enmity of the carnal mind of others, mortified by our condemnation of their opinions and practices, and our contravention of their will. It is very true this opposition may not proceed to the same extent as in the early days of Christianity, when it was a new religion, and had the whole heathen world against it, even in profession. But now, where it is generally professed, the contrast arising from the reception of its spirit is not so marked and glaring, does not appear in so small and despicable a minority, and does not call forth the ebullition of the world's rage; the principle of the denial of social and secular advantages for Christ's sake and the Gospel's, therefore, may not be put to so severe a test in us as in the first Christians. But to a test it will be put; and it may, in some cases, be put to a severe one. We may be opposed in the whole of this course by friends the most dear to us, whose authority over us is next to that of God, or who have the greatest influence over our temporal interests. What we call our duty to Christ-such as keeping holy his day, attending upon the faithful preaching of his Gospel, according to the dictates of our own conscience and experience -uniting ourselves to his sincere, but despised, followers-making his approbation, through obedience to his precepts, the grand concern of our lives-all this we may be told, is ignorance, fanaticism, enthusiasm: we may be charged with selfwilledness, and rebellion against all the tender sentiments of nature, or against lawful and constituted authority; and the proud world may lift its haughty head, and shake it at us in defiance, and may tell us, that if we will persist in this course we shall suffer for it. Very well; here is the trial: and woe to us if we are not able to bear it. If the Spirit in us be not mightier than that which is in the world, we cannot be Christ's disciples. Should we renounce our convictions for this cause, we make a miserable exchange; we barter heaven for earth, and salvation for destruction. And if we only hesitate, if we begin to com

promise matters, and to seek to please these worldly persons, as far as we can, without openly disobeying Christ, we forfeit his approbation; our religion will pine away, and we shall walk in fetters all our days. No man can serve two masters of opposite characters; "for either he will love the one and hate the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other: ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Although, therefore, the yearning bowels of a tender mother, and the grey hairs of an indulgent father, should be pleaded as motives to induce us to break the least command of the holy Jesus; and although the authority of natural, civil, and ecclesiastical governors, should be employed to tempt us to do what Christ forbids; and although that authority should seek to allure us by the proffers of highest honours and rewards, or attempt to frighten us by fearful menace; if for the gratification of self or them, we should be moved by these considerations, and do what God's word and our own conscience assure us is displeasing to Christ, and contrary to his command—then must it be evident, that we love ourselves, or them, more than we do Him, that we are not worthy of him, and cannot be his sincere disciples.

This was the principle which made the martyrs. Cases occurred where the fathers and mothers of the victims of persecution, condemned to the stake, went and persuaded them to forego their allegiance to Christ, and united their authority with that of the civil power, to compel compliance with its wish: but the victims had learned the spirit of the text. "Whosoever shall save his life, shall lose it but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it," was their motto: they were as deaf, therefore, to the pleadings of parental tenderness, as they were to the stern mandate of civil authority, and surrendered their souls to Christ with a pure conscience. And so, with regard to principle, every Christian is a martyr; and if he have the true principle of Christianity, he will find it rising in him in proportion to the demand upon it; and if called to it, would make him a martyr indeed. He has the spirit of the martyr without his fires. Thus the principle we have noticed is manifest in the denial of social and secular advantages for the sake of allegiance to Christ, and obedience to his precepts.

Thirdly this principle will be manifested in the denial of our own love of ease, and quiet, and affluence, for the service of Christ and the Gospel. Over and above the obedience which every Christian renders to the precepts of Christ, as necessary to salvation, he owes him a grateful portion of service, for being delivered and saved by him: and if by his talents, or by his circumstances, or by impressions upon his spirit, by the voice of Providence, or the judgment of the Church, he be called to devote himself entirely to the service of Christ and the Gospel, he is bound to obey it. And where this is not the case, every Christian, by the common principles of his religion-love to Christ, desire for his glory, and sympathy for his fellow-creatures, whom he now perceives to be perishing without the Gospel-is bound, according to his measure and his means, to assist in its propagation; and either he must lay aside his principles, or, to be consistent, he must engage in this work. But, then, what a denial does this involve! That love of ease, that disposition to slothfulness, after having attained our own personal salvation, which are so natural to us, must be laid aside for active endeavours to teach the ignorant, to diffuse the knowledge of Christian principles, and to detect and expose to others the numerous wiles of

the great adversary, by which he seeks to lead silly souls captive. And that criminal fondness for peace with men of all principles, which moves many a dastardly Christian, in order that others may permit him to go on his way without molestation, to permit them to go on theirs; and which peace he cannot maintain with a wicked world, but at the expense of fidelity to his Lord and Master; that must be renounced; and at the hazard of forfeiting their friendship, and provoking the ebullitions of their rage, we must bear a faithful testimony to the truth among them, if we are good soldiers of Jesus Christ.

Again, that tenacious grasp of property which is so natural to us, and which moves so many to go on perpetually accumulating, beyond all need, for themselves and their families, that tenacious grasp must be relaxed, and there must be a disposition within us, with reference to the superfluous parts of our property, to loose them and let them go, whenever it shall be shewn that the Lord hath need of them. And thus, by contributing to the furtherance of those principles of truth and righteousness, in their outward form, by which the empire of moral evil in this world is opposed by the power of truth, we may be fighting against that moral evil, virtually, in distant parts of the earth, without stirring from our own abode. And woe to us, if in these various ways, we do not deny ourselves for the service of Christ and the Gospel. Jesus Christ, my dear brethren, has committed us, and all his other disciples and imitators, to a warfare with moral evil in all parts of the world, by means of the Gospel; nor can we withhold it with impunity. Oh, my brethren, we shall all of us soon appear before the Captain of the spiritual army; and if we cannot present ourselves in the attitude of warriors, we shall be denied to mingle in the joys and congratulations of victors.

Fourthly, and lastly: this principle will be manifested in the denial of our own honour, for the honour and glory of our Sovereign and Saviour. The end of all our actions in religion must be the promotion, not of our own honour, but of the honour of Christ and his grace. How eminently was this the case with the Apostles. Although they devoted their whole lives to the service of Christ and the Gospel, and the benefit of their fellow-creatures, they did it from the most disinterested motives. They sought not their own glory: when honour was proffered to them, they refused it; they found it much more difficult to reconcile themselves to admiration than to scorn. They could not bear to be admired for virtues not their own, or for success wrought by a power foreign to themselves. They turned it, therefore, away; "Not I, but the grace of God that was with me," was their constant language. To uncommon exertions and sacrifices, they were moved by no influence common to humanity; neither by the love of wealth, nor the love of fame, but by the nobler principle of love to Christ; that constrained them; "because," said they, "we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should henceforth live not unto themselves, but unto him that died for them, and rose again." The end of all their actions, and all their sufferings, was, that every crown which was earned and won, might be placed on His head who wore for them the crown of thorns; that Christ might be magnified in their mortal bodies, whether in life or death; if to live, by their labours; if to die, by their sufferings and their blood, as the seals to his truth

But did not the Apostles count on posthumous fame? Did they not know

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