evident, from the view which has been given of the fulfilment of their office as sustaining this character, that to fulfil it is to be righteous.

11. Believers occupy such a position, one so prominent and conspicuous, that, if they should not exert an influence favourable to the truth and beneficial to their fellow-men, they would unavoidably exert an opposite influence. If their example should not serve to recommend true religion, it would excite prejudice against it, and confirm the prejudice already existing. On this ground Christ compares them to a city set on a hill, which cannot be hid."—(ver. 14.) In such a situation they must be righteous, that they may not be instruments of evil.

66

There is a lower, but kindred office, which believers sustain. While they are "the light of the world," they are also "the salt of the earth.”—(ver. 13.) Under the former character, it is their office to promote saving knowledge; and under the latter, to counteract the tendency towards deeper and deeper corruption, which arises partly from the law of our nature, under the operation of which principles are strengthened by activity and exercise, and partly from the power of example, which greatly promotes the prevalence of the traits of character, and the practices it exhibits. To this tendency believers must oppose the influence and the efforts of righteousness. It is righteousness that gives to them their "savour" their antiseptic and preserving power. And while, if they should lose the "savour" of righteousness, they should be unfit for fulfilling their office as "the salt of the earth," their own condition would be hopeless. There would be no influence then to preserve themselves, any more than others, from utter putrefaction. "If the salt have lost its savour, wherewith shall it be salted?" The result would necessarily be, their rejection from the place and the privileges of the righteous.

12. Such are the grounds on which righteousness is neces

sary:-1st, That we may attain to blessedness; for, if we be not righteous, we are incapable of blessedness, and God will not award it to us; and, 2d, That we may serve the great ends of our being, glorifying God, and, in subserviency to his glory, prosecuting the inferior ends he prescribes to us, and particularly the chief of these, the salvation of our fellowsinners, diffusing, as "the light of the world," the knowledge that makes wise unto salvation, and, as "the salt of the earth," counteracting the tendency of human character to corruption.

13. There is a further ground on which righteousness is necessary. It is not presented, however, in the sermon, and we shall therefore only advert to it in passing. Our passage sets forth the necessity of righteousness to the attainment of blessedness, and to the fulfilment of the great ends of our being. It is thus the necessity of it as an antecedent that is set forth. It must precede, that the fulfilment of the great ends of our being, and blessedness may follow. But it is necessary also as a consequent. It must follow from the influences and the dealings that precede. Christ regenerates and sanctifies his people, and hence it necessarily follows that they shall be righteous. He purifies them unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. (Tit. ii. 14.) They are born of God, and "whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."-(1 John iii. 9.)

14. Righteousness being thus necessary,―necessary on the various grounds that have been indicated,-must have been enjoined in the divine law. That it should be necessary and not enjoined, would involve a contradiction. We find, accordingly, that it has been enjoined; and, conversely, from this fact we may argue the necessity of it. As, on the one hand, being necessary, it must have been enjoined; so, on the other, having been enjoined, it must be necessary.

15. But here, at the outset, we encounter, at the hands

of some, a denial of the position on which our argument is founded, the position, namely, that the law is still in force. They maintain that, as regards believers, the law has been set aside that it has been virtually repealed, and possesses therefore no authority. This doctrine our Lord expressly and emphatically repudiates in our passage, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets; I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil; for verily I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law till all be fulfilled.”—(ver. 17, 18.) We might, therefore, at once dismiss it, refusing to honour it with a moment's consideration; for, in the face of such a deliverance with respect to it, it can have no claim to any other treatment than instant and peremptory rejection. As, however, it is a doctrine to the practical adoption of which our corrupt hearts are very prone, and those are sometimes to be met with who have adopted it into their creed, and cling to it with great tenacity, it may be well to show, briefly, that it is utterly unreasonable, as well as directly opposed to the teaching of Scripture.

16. If as regards believers the law has been repealed, God does not require that they be conformed to the law in character and conduct, that is, that they be righteous; and, if he does not require that they be righteous, he does not forbid that they be unrighteous, but it is a matter of indifference to him what character they bear. Though their hearts throb with the vilest affections, and their lives be overrun with the grossest enormities, it will not be offensive to him, and it will be in no degree well-pleasing to him. though they rise to the highest excellence in all holy conversation and godliness. He that can believe this, let him believe it. God can no more deny himself, or place his holiness and justice in abeyance by such indifference to the character of his people and of their actions, than he can cease to be what he is. He can no more do otherwise than

hate and forbid sin, than he can be otherwise than holy and just.

17. Is God regardless of the welfare of his people; and, while they cannot be happy unless they be righteous, does he notwithstanding leave them, without so much as opposing the check of a prohibition, to plunge themselves, if that should be their infatuated choice, into unrighteousness and ruin? But, indeed, if this doctrine were true, unrighteousness would not entail ruin. If it is not forbidden, it will not be punished; and it is only as punishment that there can be misery. And if unrighteousness does not entail ruin, righteousness is not necessary to blessedness. If we are not miserable, we shall be blessed; there is no intermediate experience. And, therefore, if the unrighteous will not be miserable, they shall be blessed, though unrighteous. Here, however, we meet with a strange inconsistency. According to this doctrine, the state of the law is such that righteousness is not necessary to blessedness; and yet the constitution of our nature is such that righteousness is necessary to it. How is this disagreement to be accounted for? Has God, as our lawgiver, abolished what, as our creator, he still upholds ? Has he erased from the law the requirement of righteousness, while he has not erased it from the constitution of our nature, and enforces it in our experience? We have already seen that without righteousness we cannot attain to the blessedness of heaven, but it is evident further that without it we cannot escape present wretchedness. Do not the unrighteous experience the accusations of conscience, and not unfrequently the agony of remorse? Are they not smitten with shame when they find their vileness exposed to the gaze and visited with the reprobation of their fellow-men? How often do their vicious courses issue in disease, and poverty, and degradation? And do not numerous cases occur among them, that cannot escape notice or be mistaken, of total dilapidation

and debasement of character-cases in which humanity is so scathed and blasted, that the spectacle presented is at once the most melancholy and the most appalling to be witnessed in this world? Unrighteousness is thus punished by the operation of the constitution of our nature; and this operation of it is not suspended in the case or in favour of believers any more than of others. Are we, then, to be told that, while it is punished, it is not forbidden? Punishment is a sanction with which law is enforced; apart from law it has no significancy and can have no place. Are we, notwithstanding, to be told that, while punishment is still inflicted, the law has been abrogated?

18. The constitution of our nature exhibits also in its operation the counterpart of this condemnation and punishment of unrighteousness; it demands righteousness, and rewards it. Are we not conscious of a testimony within us in favour of righteousness? Does not the voice of reason and conscience distinctly proclaim in our bosom that the path of righteousness is the path we ought to pursue? And, when we pursue it, is there not a sentence of approval pronounced upon us by the same inward authority, and do we not experience a calm and satisfaction which clearly indicate that we have proceeded so far according to the requirement of our nature-the kind of feeling awakened by things congenial and appropriate? And in the case of believers this inward law becomes more distinct and full, and this experience of an immediate recompense is greatly extended. While God thus writes his law upon their hearts, and teaches them to reverence its authority and delight in the service which it enjoins, is it to be imagined that in their case it is stripped of its authority and become a dead letter? Can the character which he impresses upon them, and the longing after righteousness which he awakens in their souls, be thus in contradiction to the economy under which he has placed them? At the very time at which he