that you may so put on the Lord Jesus Christ, as to stand justified before God, in the robe of Christ's righteousness, and adorned before men, with his image for sanctification.

1. As having been admitted, by baptism, into the covenant of grace, you are, in the first place, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ by faith, and to be clothed with him as your righteousness. To borrow an allusion from the history of the patriarchs, you are to come to your heavenly Father, in your elder brother's perfumed garments, and so to obtain the blessing of which he was in a manner stripped for your sakes. For he underwent the curse, and 66 was made a curse for us,"9 that we might put him on, as "the Lord our righteousness,' and be "made the righteousness of God in him."2

"the

2. But not only are you to put him on as Lord your righteousness," that so you may stand justified in God's sight: you are also to put him on in the conformity of holiness; in that sanctification of your hearts and lives, which is the inseparable companion, and the only sure sign, of the justification of your persons. And this is what is chiefly intended in the passage before you. For if you attend to the construction of the verses, you will observe that the expression of putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, bears the same relation to putting on the armour of light, as the sins enume8 Archbishop Leighton. 1 Jer. xxiii. 6.

9 Gal. iii. 13.

2 2 Cor. v. 21.

rated in the thirteenth verse, bear to the expression of the works of darkness, which is found in the twelfth. And it is clear, therefore, that we are to regard the phrase of putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, as used here chiefly in opposition to all the works of darkness, and as denoting, more clearly and more emphatically than the phrase of putting on the armour of light, the necessity of exhibiting all those graces and dispositions, with which the Spirit of Christ adorns the believer's soul.

Yes, brethren, the believer knows that he is to put on the Lord Jesus Christ, not only as a covering, to hide his sins from the sight of God's justice, but as his bright and beautiful attire. The believer knows, moreover, that they never put on Christ unto justification, who labour not for the graces of sanctification: he knows that they have not any share in the benefits of Christ's death, who do not tread in the blessed steps of his most holy life. And, knowing this, the believer makes it his daily prayer that, exposed as he is to all the suggestions of an evil heart within him, and to all the temptations of a wicked world around him, he may be continually endeavouring to increase in all spiritual graces, by continually putting on the Lord Jesus Christ!

SECTION XLIV.

CHAP. XIV, VER. 1—12.

MEN MAY NOT JUDGE OR DESPISE ONE THE OTHER FOR

THINGS INDIFFERENT.

We have seen, as we have proceeded with this epistle, that the circumstance which most disordered the church at Rome, and which principally exercised the apostle's care in this epistle, was the pertinacity of the Jewish converts in pressing the necessity of legal observances, and in not brooking that the Gentiles, though converts to Christianity, should be admitted into their communion, without being circumcised. But, as I observed in a former section, it is, at the same time, sufficiently manifest, that the Gentile converts were not without fault on their side, in treating the believing Jews with disesteem and contempt; and, accordingly, in the first twelve verses of this chapter, to which I am now inviting your attention, St. Paul addresses a word of affectionate exhortation both to the Jewish and the Gentile converts; reminding them that men may not contemn nor condemn one the other for things indifferent."2 And, in the remainder of the fourteenth, as well as at the beginning of the ? Title of the chapter.

66

1 Section xxxiv.

T

fifteenth chapter, he addresses himself more particularly to the Gentile converts, or to such of the Jews as had been set free from the prejudices of their nation, warning them against the abuse of their Christian liberty.

It may be said, therefore, that in this part of the epistle, St. Paul passes from the consideration of things necessary, being things expressly commanded or forbidden of God, to things of an indifferent nature, being things which are not required or prohibited in the divine law, and which do not form any part of ecclesiastical polity. It was about matters of this description that there seems to have been much strife and contention at Rome, between those stronger professors of Christianity, whether among the Jewish or Gentile converts, who were persuaded of their Christian liberty, as purchased by Christ, and published by his gospel, and the more infirm and feeble Jews, who were as yet very ignorant of the nature and extent of this liberty. Our apostle calls upon the former, therefore, to have a charitable and tender concern for their weaker brethren; and he reminds the latter that they are not to judge or condemn the others for using their Christian liberty.

Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations. For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs. Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not; and let not him which eateth not,

judge him that eateth: for God hath received him. Who art thou that judgest another man's servant ? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand. It is evident, from the language which the apostle uses here, and again at the fifth verse, that some of the Jewish converts, at Rome, were of opinion that the ceremonial law as to meats and days was yet to be observed; seeing that the council at Jerusalem had allowed some of these ceremonial observances, in order to guard, as we may suppose, against any needless occasion of offence to the Jews, as long as the sacrifices continued to be offered at the temple. But the believing Gentiles, and the more advanced Jewish converts, being fully persuaded of their freedom from this yoke, and of the liberty given them by Christ, refused to hold communion with those who held such an opinion. There arose, in consequence, a dissension between them, which greatly hindered the progress of the gospel; the weak censuring the strong as profane, for using such a liberty, and the strong despising the weak, as over-scrupulous in not using it. Our apostle, therefore, pursuing that middle course which best ensures the exercise of mutual charity, admonishes the weaker brethren so to follow their own opinion as not to condemn those who were otherwise

3 Ver. 1-4. See note 74.

+ Acerbis altercationibus veritas sæpe, charitas certo amittitur.