Spirit, and life and animation is given to all-the understanding is made a new creature. Now, though the whole leaning or dependence here is upon the supply of the Spirit, still it is obvious that we do not cast away the machinery of the human mind, but rather honour it far more than the world.

Now, however difficult it may be to explain all this to the world, it is most beautiful to see how truly it is acted on by the simplest child of God.

If you could overhear some simple cottage believer at his morning devotions-how simply he brings himself in lost and condemned, and therefore cleaves to Jesus, the divine Saviour!-how simply he brings himself in dark, ignorant, unable to know his way-unable to guide his feet, his hands, his tongue, throughout the coming day; and, therefore, pleading for the promised Spirit to dwell in him-to walk in him-to be as the dew upon his soul; and all this with the earnestness of a man who will not go away without the blessing-you would see what a holy contempt a child of God can put upon his own understanding, as a refuge to lean upon. But, again, if you could watch him in his daily walk-in the field and in the market place-among the wicked world, and see how completely he follows the guidance of a shrewd and intelligent mind, you would see with what a holy confidence a child of God can make use of the faculties which God hath given him-you would see the happy union of the deepest piety and the hardest painstaking you would know the meaning of these words: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding."

Dundee Presbytery, 1836.

SERMON XXI.

NOT A JEW WHICH IS ONE OUTWARDLY.

"He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."-Rom. ii. 28, 29.

FORMALITY is, perhaps, the most besetting sin of the human mind. It is found in every bosom and in every clime; it reigns triumphant in every natural mind; and it constantly tries to re-usurp the throne in the heart of every child of God. If we were to seek for proof that fallen man is "without understanding "-that he hath altogether fallen from his primitive clearness and dignity of intelligencethat he hath utterly lost the image of God, in knowledge, after which he was created-we would point to this one strange, irrational conceit by which more than one-half the world is befooled to their eternal undoing-that God may be pleased with mere bodily prostrations and services-that it is possible to worship God with the lips, when the heart is far from him. It is against this error-the besetting error of humanity, and pre-eminently the besetting error of the Jewish mind, that Paul directs the words before us; and it is very noticeable, that he does not condescend to argue the He speaks with all the decisiveness and with all the authority of one who was not a whit behind the very chiefest of the apostles, and he lays it down as a kind of first principle to which every man of ordinary intelligence, provided only he will soberly consider the matter, must yield his immediate assent-that "he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."

matter.

In the following discourse I shall show very briefly, 1st, That external observances are of no avail to justify the sinner; and, 2d, That external observances can never stand in the stead of sanctification to the believer.

I. External observances are of no avail to justify the sinner.

In a former discourse I attempted to show several of the refuges of lies to which the awakened soul will run, before he can be persuaded to betake himself to the righteousness of God; and in every one of them we saw that he that compassed himself about with sparks of his own kindling, received only this of God's hand, to lie down in sorrow. First of all, the soul generally contents himself with slight views of the divine law, and says: "All these have I kept from my youth up;" but when the spirituality of the law is revealed, then he tries to escape by undermining the whole fabric of the law; but, when that will not do, he flies to his past virtues to balance accounts with his sins; and then, when that will not do, he begins a work of self-reformation, in order to buy off the follies of youth by the sobrieties of age. Alas! how vain are all such contrivances, invented by a blinded heart-urged on by the malignant enemy of souls.

But there is another refuge of lies which I have not yet described, and to which the awakened mind often betakes itself with avidity, to find peace from the whips of conscience and the scorpions of God's law; and that is, a form of godliness. He will become a religious man, and surely that will save him. His whole course of life is now changed. Before, it may be, he neglected the outward ordinances of religion. He used not to kneel by his bedside-he never used to gather his children and servants around him to pray he never used to read the Word in secret, or in the family-he seldom went to the house of God in company with the multitude that kept holy day—he did not eat of that bread which, to the believer, is meat indeed, nor drink of that cup which is drink indeed.

But now his whole usages are reversed-his whole course is changed. He kneels to pray even when alone—he reads the Word with periodical regularity-he even raises an altar for morning and evening sacrifice in his family-his sobered countenance is never awanting in his wonted position in the house of prayer. He looks back, now, to his baptism with a soothing complacency, and sits down to eat the children's bread at the table of the Lord. His friends and neighbours all observe the change. Some make a jest of it, and some make it a subject of rejoicing; but one thing is obvious that he is an altered man; and yet it is far from

obvious that he is a new man, or a justified man. All this routine of bodily exercise, if it be entered on before the man has put on the divine righteousness, is just another way of going about to establish his own righteousness, that he may not be constrained to submit to put on the righteousness of God. Nay, so utterly perverted is the understanding of the unconverted, that many men are found to persevere in such a course of bodily worship of God, while, at the same time, they persevere as diligently in some course of open or secret iniquity. Such men seem to regard external observance not only as an atonement for sins that are past, but as a price paid to purchase a license to sin in time to come. Such appears to have been the refuge of lies which the poor woman of Samaria would fain have sat down in, when the blessed Traveller, sitting by the well, awakened all the anxieties of her heart, by the searching words: "Go call thy husband, and come hither." Her anxious mind sought hither and thither for a refuge, and found it. Where? In her religious observances: "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship?" She thrusts away the pointed conviction of sin by a question as to her outward observances she changes her anxiety about the soul into anxiety about the place where men ought to worshipwhether it should be Mount Zion or Mount Gerizim. Oh! if he would only settle that question-if he would only tell her on which of these mountains God ought to be worshipped -she was ready to worship all her lifetime in that favoured place. If Zion be the place, she would leave her native mountain and go and worship there, that that might save her. Oh! how fain she would have found here a refuge for her anxious soul. With what divine kindness, then, did the Saviour sweep away this refuge of lies, by the Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, and now is, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet in Jerusalem, worship the Father. God is a Spirit, and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in

ト

answer:

truth."

same

66

Now it is with the very same object, and with the very kindness, that Paul here sweeps away the same refuge of lies from every anxious soul, in these decisive words: "He is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: but he is a Jew, inwardly; and circumcision is that of the

which is one

heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God."

Is there any of you whom God hath awakened out of the deadly slumber of the natural mind?—has he drawn aside the curtains, and made the light of truth to fall upon your heart, revealing the true condition of your soul?has he made you start to your feet alarmed, that you might go and weep as you go to seek the Lord your God?—has he made you exchange the careless smile of gaiety for the tears of anxiety-the loud laugh of folly, for the cry of bitter distress about your soul? are you asking the way to Zion with your face directed thitherward?-then take heed, I beseech you, of sitting down contented in this refuge of lies. Remember, he is not a Jew which is one outwardly— remember no outward observances-no prayers, or churchgoing, or Bible-reading-can ever justify you in the sight of God.

I am quite aware that when anxiety for the soul enters in, then anxiety to attend ordinances will also enter in. Like as the stricken deer goes apart from the herd to bleed and weep alone, so the sin-stricken soul goes aside from his merry companions, to weep, and read, and pray, alone. He will desire the preached Word, and press after it more and more; but remember, he finds no peace in this chang that is wrought in himself. When a man goes thirsty to the well, his thirst is not allayed merely by going there. On the contrary, it is increased every step he goes. It is by what he draws out of the well that his thirst is satisfied. And just so it is not by the mere bodily exercise of waiting on ordinances that you will ever come to peace; but by tasting of Jesus in the ordinances-whose flesh is meat indeed, and his blood drink indeed.

If ever, then, you are tempted to think that you are surely safe for eternity, because you have been brought to change your treatment of the outward ordinances of religion, remember, I beseech you, the parable of the marriage feast, where many were called-many were invited to come in, but few, few were found having on the wedding garment. Many are brought within the pale of ordinances, and read and hear, it may be, with considerable interest and anxiety about the all things that are ready-the things of the kingdom of God; but of these many, few are persuaded to abhor their own filthy rags, and to put on the wedding garment of the Redeemer's righteousness. And these few alone