Great as was the progress which the apostle Paul had made in all virtue, he declares of himself that he still presses forward, “forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forth unto the things which are before.” He prays for his beloved disciples, “that they may be filled with all the fulness of God;” that they may be filled “with the fruits of righteousness:” “that they might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work.” Nor is it a less pregnant and comprehensive petition, which, from our blessed Saviour’s inserting it in that form of prayer which he has given as a model for our imitation, we may infer ought to be the habitual sentiment of our hearts; “Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven.”
These few extracts from the word of God will serve abundantly to vindicate the strictness of the Christian morality: but this point will however be still more fully established, when we proceed to investigate the nature, essence, and governing principles of the Christian character.
It is the grand essential practical characteristic of true Christians, that relying on the promises to repenting sinners of acceptance through the Redeemer, they have renounced and abjured all other masters, and have cordially and unreservedly devoted themselves to God. This is indeed the very figure which baptism daily represents to us: like the father of Hannibal, we there bring our infant to the altar, we consecrate him to the service of his proper owner, and vow in his name eternal hostilities against all the enemies of his salvation. After the same manner Christians are become the sworn enemies of sin; they will henceforth hold no parley with it, they will allow it in no shape, they will admit it to no composition; the war which they have denounced against it, is cordial, universal, irreconcilable.
But this not all—It is now their determined purpose to yield themselves without reserve to the reasonable service of their rightful Sovereign. “They are not their own:”—their bodily and mental faculties, their natural and acquired endowments, their substance, their authority, their time, their influence; all these, they consider as belonging to them, not for their own gratification, but as so many instruments to be consecrated to the honour and employed in the service of God. This must be the master principle to which every other must be subordinate. Whatever may have been hitherto their ruling passion; whatever hitherto their leading pursuit; whether sensual, or intellectual, of science, of taste, of fancy, or of feeling, it must now possess but a secondary place; or rather (to speak more correctly) it must exist only at the pleasure, and be put altogether under the controul and direction, of its true and legitimate superior.
Thus it is the prerogative of Christianity “to bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.” They who really feel its power, are resolved (in the language of Scripture) “to live no longer to themselves, but to him that died for them;” they know indeed their own infirmities; they know, that the way on which they have entered is strait and difficult, but they know too the encouraging assurance, “They who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength;” and relying on this animating declaration, they deliberately purpose that, so far as they may be able, the grand governing maxim of their future lives shall be, “to do all to the glory of God.”
Behold here the seminal principle, which contains within it, as in an embryo state, the rudiments of all true virtue; which, striking deep its roots, though feeble perhaps and lowly in its beginnings, silently progressive; and almost insensibly maturing, yet will shortly, even in the bleak and churlish temperature of this world, lift up its head and spread abroad its branches, bearing abundant fruits; precious fruits of refreshment and consolation, of which the boasted products of philosophy are but sickly imitations, void of fragrance and of flavour. But,
Igneus est ollis vigor & cœlestis origo.
At length it shall be transplanted into its native region, and enjoy a more genial climate, and a kindlier soil; and, bursting forth into full luxuriance, with unfading beauty and unexhausted odours, shall flourish for ever in the paradise of God.
But while the servants of Christ continue in this life, glorious as is the issue of their labours, they receive but too many humiliating memorials of their remaining imperfections, and they daily find reason to confess, that they cannot do the things that they would. Their determination, however, is still unshaken, and it is the fixed desire of their hearts to improve in all holiness—and this, let it be observed, on many accounts. Various passions concur to push them forward; they are urged on by the dread of failure, in this arduous but necessary work; they trust not, where their all is at stake, to lively emotions, or to internal impressions however warm; the example of Christ is their pattern, the word of God is their rule; there they read, that “without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” It is the description of real Christians, that “they are gradually changed into the image of their Divine Master;” and they dare not allow themselves to believe their title sure, except so far as they can discern in themselves the growing traces of this blessed resemblance.
It is not merely however the fear of misery, and the desire of happiness, by which they are actuated in their endeavours to excel in all holiness; they love it for its own sake: nor is it solely by the sense of self-interest (this, though often unreasonably condemned, is but it must be confessed a principle of an inferior order) that they are influenced in their determination to obey the will, and to cultivate the favour of God. This determination has its foundations indeed in a deep and humiliating sense of his exalted Majesty and infinite power, and of their own extreme inferiority and littleness, attended with a settled conviction of its being their duty as his creatures, to submit in all things to the will of their great Creator. But these awful impressions are relieved and ennobled by an admiring sense of the infinite perfections and infinite amiableness of the Divine Character; animated by a confiding though humble hope of his fatherly kindness and protection; and quickened by the grateful recollection of immense and continually increasing obligations. This is the Christian love of God! A love compounded of admiration, of preference, of hope, of trust, of joy; chastised by reverential awe, and wakeful with continual gratitude.