compelled to do them. He abstains from certain outward acts of sin: why? because he is afraid to commit them. His wishes and inclinations go one way, his fears force him another way. Is that religion? No, far from it! And why is it not religion? Because here is no delight, no freedom, no liberty, no cheerfulness. It is all a system of dry, dull, heavy, compulsory formalities. The very life of all true piety is wanting, that love which makes obedience a happiness.

Brethren, is your religion such as this? Then your hearts are not right. You want love. Without love, do what you will, it is nothing worth. So long as your religion lacks delight, so long it lacks reality. God accepts no forced services.

Then next, let me say a word to the licentious hypocrite. There are such men: men that would turn God's grace, in the Gospel of Jesus, into an occasion for iniquity.

"The law!' they cry, the law! has any thing to do with the law. under the law it is all low legal talk of it. The Christian is free. as he will.'

No believer He is not bondage to Let him live

And so they do live, in all manner of dishonesty, falsehood, pride, impurity, and worldliness of mind, and if you call them to account, and place before them God's command, 'O,' say they, 'we have nothing to do with that: believers are free from the law.'

What do such wicked men mean? The Apostle Paul delighted in the Law. He reckoned it

no pleasure, no privilege, to be in such a sense free from the law as that he might live in sin. No he knew well that if Christ had redeemed him from the curse of the law, it was in order that he might learn how to enjoy the holiness of the law. "He gave Himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people zealous of good works." Therefore he that thinks the Gospel is to give him leave to slight the law, and walk in sin, knows nothing of that Gospel. He may speak of it, and that with great fluency: he may speak of the love of God, and that with much fervency he may speak of the Lord Jesus, and that with rapturous profession of attachment to Him: but if he loves not the law, nor delights in the law, let him know that he is a fearfully criminal and wicked hypocrite. His end is destruction.

Lastly, Christian brethren, ye do love the law. Ye would love it more. Ye would have a more fixed, constant, and increasing conformity to it, wrought within you. Remember the secret, the secret of all true, spiritual, acceptable obedience it is such a sense of your salvation in Christ, as makes you delight in doing all that pleases God: it is so to feel your freedom from the law in the matter of your justification, so to realise your acceptance in Christ, so to see that the law has now no claims on you, so to understand your release from all those claims by what your Lord and Saviour has done for you, as that you now may look upon the law and see

in it only the gracious will of your heavenly Father, that will which, for love's sake, you delight to keep.

Then would you grow in holiness, in devotion, in obedience? Think often, and with seriousness, on the wondrous salvation which God in his mercy has wrought for you: think how He has made you righteous in Christ: think how marvellously He has redeemed and saved you in his Son: then will your hearts be more and more touched with love, softened, and sanctified. O indeed it is the living "by faith in the Son of God who loved you, and himself for you, it is this which makes you to look with more and more delight to the pure and holy commandments of your God, and count it your happiness to walk in his ways. May the Holy Spirit, working within you, sanctify you by the love of God, and make you, as children, in the spirit of adoption to say, with the Psalmist, "O, how I love thy law! "

gave

So then, brethren, it is true, the Christian man is one who stands before God accepted and justified, not in his own obedience to the law, and in that sense he is not under the law yet in another sense he is under the law, inasmuch as it is his authority, standard and guide, for it is the will of God, the God he loves in Jesus Christ, and therefore he delights therein. "This,'

saith he, "is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.". The Lord so write his law in all our hearts!

SERMON XI.

ROMANS XV. 3.

EVEN CHRIST PLEASED NOT HIMSELF.

AND yet saith St. Paul, "by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers, all things were created by Him, and for Him; and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." Such was the power, such the glory, such the supremacy of Jesus our Redeemer. Nevertheless, although possessing this eternal and divine preeminence, Lord over all, what saith our text concerning Him? "Christ pleased not Himself."

The Apostle is exhorting Christians to study not their own indulgence, but each other's good: and especially he calls on the more advanced and established brethren, to bear with the younger and weaker, and to be ready to give up many of their own wishes and feelings, in order that they may not hinder the peace and progress of those who are more feeble in the faith. "We," saith he, "that are strong, ought to bear the

infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbour for his good to edification." That is to say, 'be prepared to sacrifice your own inclination, when by so doing you see that you may benefit another's soul.' And then comes his argument for this: "for even Christ pleased not Himself: " Christ your Lord and Master sets you the example: Christ who had the right unquestionably, if any being had, to make his own feelings the sole guide of his conduct, supreme as He was in equality with God, the Maker, Sustainer and Governor of all God's universe, yet what did He? Even He pleased not Himself. Then what should his followers do? Shall the Lord of glory, whose they are, and whom they serve, surrender his own gratification for them, and they not surrender theirs for Him and his?

This is the argument, and to Christian hearts the strongest and the most affecting which the Apostle could employ. May the blessed Spirit of all grace enable us to feel and to manifest its power.

Let us consider,

I. WHEREIN IT APPEARS THAT CHRIST PLEASED NOT HIMSELF. And,

II. IN WHAT WAY HIS EXAMPLE MAY INFLUENCE US.

I. We inquire, WHEREIN DOES IT APPEAR THAT CHRIST PLEASED NOT HIMSELF.

The Apostle directs us how to understand his meaning by what immediately follows. "Christ,"