believe, as to do.

This then is that

self."

which makes it all Grace from beginning to end, that God not only saves upon believing, but gives believing itCom, on 1 Peter, c. i. v. 10. He farther observes; "To give a right assent to the Gospel of Christ is impossible, without divine and saving faith infused in the soul." And it may here be observed by the way, that, when a worldly man, knowing nothing truly of this faith, sets himself to correct the sin or unbelief, which he perceives in the conduct of others, he is in the case of the person, whom our Lord censures with having the beam in his own eye, while inveighing against the mote in the eye of another. The mote is indeed a mote, and gives injury to the sight; but that beam, that great mass, which is within himself, of corrupted faithless nature, unpardoned and unmortified, he doth not feel nor understand./

He

He can only see the external défegeHe knows not how to ap

of others.

preciate the plague of his own heart, nor the deep fountain of sin within. He, therefore, acts the part of the hypocrite, in loving to detect failings or offences in others; but is cold and superficial in his investigations of the far greater and more serious mischiefs, brooding within himself. The outside of the cup and the platter engrosses his whole attention. This indeed should be clean and carefully kept clean; but the inside, which contains. the food, and which is the chief purpose of the vessel, should be most of all purified and observed. But this a Pharisee, or a man of the world, cannot well comprehend. He is ever looking at outward things, because he himself is outward; a something in name; a nothing in reality.

28, 29.

Rom. ii.

be 80. We may bring people under

It were to be

e means of grace, or they may walk to places appointed for public worship; they may attend family prayer, and they may use the words of sound prayer for themselves: And all this is right and proper. wished, that more of this were to be seen in congregations, in families, and in private life; and the neglect of these duties, for duties they are, is one of the circumstances in the present day, which cannot be too much censured or deplored. But the question, the important question, of grace and spiritual life, does not turn upon the exercise of corporal powers, which any one may perform; but upon those spiritual acts of spiritual life, which, if we follow the oracles of truth, none can perform but by the omnipotent energy of the Holy Spirit, who first renovates the soul in Christ, and then produces those inward and in conse

quence

quence those precious effects of regeneration, which are the indispensable proofs of its being. It is not a question of nature, but of grace above nature. Its turning point is; whether there be such a thing as inward and spiritual life, and whether that life be raised in the soul by the exertion of its own natural powers and faculties, or strictly and entirely infused by the free bestowment of the Holy Spirit. Is it GoD, or is it MAN, who begins the work? Does the soul first incline to Christ by any created means whatever, and so the Spirit of God only answers the desires of the soul; or does the Holy Spirit induce, in the first instance, every right view and inclination, and then the soul in consequence cleaves with full purpose to the Lord ?

In the one case, salvation would depend upon the will and power of man, and so would be of works: in the other,

the

the blessing flows from mere mercy and grace, granted solely according to the pleasure of God. If the former were true, man would have a right justly whereof to glory; but, if the latter must stand, as indeed it must for ever, then he that glorieth must glory in the Lord, in whose presence no flesh, or whatever belongs to it, shall dare to glory.

§ 31. It is from sad inexperience of this matter, when preachers or writers aim to lead men, in the first instance, to duties and works, to their own powers and fleshly energies, instead of stating, with all possible force and clearness from the Law of God, their fallen, vile, ruined, and helpless, condition. Till people know and feel the want of a Saviour, they can never understand his worth. The sick only need a physician. And, therefore, the first business is, in submission to the Divine Blessing, to show to traitor

man,