To his widowed companion and helpmeet, whose faithful affection he prized as his most precious earthly treasure—to his children and kindred, who so fondly loved him, and so deeply revere his memory—to the churches which he so wisely and so zealously served in the work of the Gospel—to the Missionary Society in the sacred interests of which he lived and died—and to the numberless personal friends to whom he was so dear, and who will ever thank God that they were permitted to enjoy his genial confidence and sympathy—these productions of his brain and heart are dedicated, with the grateful assurance that, through them, he, being dead, will yet continue to speak, and, speaking thus, will still be the helper of many in “the way everlasting.”
J. P. BARNETT.
Oxford, August, 1880.
I.
SALVATION.
“The grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”—Titus ii. 11-14.
Briefly stated, the consequences of the Fall were these—that man became unholy in point of character, and guilty in point of law. The first covenant God made with man was a covenant of law, and the two “trees” shadowed forth, the one the condition, the other the benefit, of such a covenant. “The tree of the knowledge of good and evil” points to obedience as the condition; and “the tree of life” points to life, in its fullest and most spiritual sense, as the benefit. Man disobeyed. He failed to fulfil the condition, and thus he lost the blessing. Henceforth, if there is to be any blessing for him, it must come on some other ground, and from some higher source. Having forfeited all hope from law, his only possible hope must come, if it come at all, from mercy.
We thus perceive that when the great salvation wrought by Christ is announced to us, we have to do at the outset with what on God’s part is
1. An act of pure sovereignty. Condemnation was the righteous award of a just law to a creature who had broken it, and who could not plead any admissible excuse for his sin. The law might, therefore, have been allowed to take its course, thus receiving honour before the whole intelligent universe. Only one Will in the universe was free to interfere; the will of the Lawgiver and Creator Himself. Interference on His part, however, could not be under the pressure of legal obligation, but must be in the exercise of a sovereign right. Hence, the key-note of the gospel is “the Grace of God.”
2. An act of boundless love. It is obvious that salvation cannot have proceeded from any other motive in the Divine Mind. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The Bible has no other solution of the origin of salvation to offer than this.