loved him; and hence, like his Lord and Master, he delights to do his will, and his law is in his heart. That doctrine which is best fitted to beget and cherish love to God, is best calculated to promote the interests of holiness. There is no doctrine, therefore, so favourable to good works, as that of justification by grace. Lastly, The doctrine of justification by faith encourages us to obey, by giving us the sure hope of acceptance. Men will not engage in vain labour, knowing it to be vain. If success be doubtful, their spirits will flag, and their exertions will be languid; but hope will give life, and vigour, and perseverance in their efforts. According to the doctrine of justification by works, we obey in great uncertainty; we know not what will be the result; our endeavours may prove abortive, our services may be found defective, and be rejected on trial. But according to the doctrine of justification by faith, we obey in the full confidence of gracious acceptance. Believers already enjoy the favour of God through the Saviour, in whom they trust. They do not work for a prize that may be lost, for their title to it is secure; but from gratitude, because it is secure, and they know that their hopes will be realized in the eternal possession of it. They know that the curse of the law is repealed, and consequently, that the great obstacle to the acceptance of their persons and services is removed. They know that, although their works, being imperfect, would be rejected if performed as the condition of the favour of God and future happiness, they will be pleasing to him as testimonies of filial duty and of love without dissimulation. They know that Jesus Christ intercedes for them in the heavenly sanctuary, and recommends their services to his Father by perfuming them with the incense of his merit. By these considerations their hearts are enlarged, and they go forward with ease and delight in the way of the commandments. "They therefore so run, not as uncertainly; they so fight not as one that beateth the air."* They are under the eye of an approving witness and a gracious rewarder. They are "steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as they know that their labour is not in vain in the Lord."t It may be thought that an objection so manifestly unfounded, as every person perceives who has carefully and dispassionately studied the subject, is not worthy of a serious refutation. But as it has a plausible sound, is often brought forward, and is calculated to make an impression upon the ignorant and superficial, it is proper that we should be furnished with arguments in reply to it, for the vindication of truth and the removal of prejudice. The question concerning the tendency of the two opposite systems, might be submitted to the decision of experience. The most imposing speculations turn out to be the dreams of fancy, when they are contradicted by facts. I do not say that all those who maintain justification by works are careless of them; but it is certain, that where this doctrine is taught and believed there is commonly a deplorable want of morality; there is little or no appearance of personal and family religion; and the law of God, although magnified in words, is generally disregarded in practice. I would not say, that all who hold justification by faith abound in good works, for men may profess the doctrine without cordially believing it and feeling its power; but it cannot be denied, that where the doctrine is sincerely embraced there is much serious concern for the salvation of the soul, great diligence in observing the ordinances of grace, and attention to personal and relative duties. The result is exactly the reverse of what some men had calculated, and on some occasions, they have been unable to conceal their surprise and mortification. It is a good remark, that worldly men trust in good works without doing them, and believers do good works without trusting in them. However strange the fact may appear, those who understand the Scriptures are at no loss to account for it. The one system cannot purify the heart, because it is false; the other being true, is the power of God unto salvation. So speaks the poet, and he expresses the feeling of every Christian. That doctrine which eminently displays the love of God to the unworthy, creates a deep sense of our high obligations to the Saviour, and fixes our attention upon him as our hope and our life as well as our great exemplar, is the most powerful engine which ever was contrived for rousing the energies of the soul. may expect every thing from a willing mind; and there is no reason to fear that they will fail to perform their duty, punctually, cheerfully, and steadily, who can say, "The Love of Christ constraineth us."t You In the days of the apostle James there were men, as we have seen in a former lecture, who imagined that they should be saved by faith without works, from a gross misapprehension of the doctrine of grace; and there have not been wanting successors to them, who have not only imitated their example by trampling upon the precepts of religion, but have adopted the fallacious principle, that the obligations of holiness are superseded by the plan of justifying sinners which the gospel reveals. The strong inclination of the human heart to sin, eagerly lays hold of every pretext to indulge itself, and proceeds to such a degree of impiety as to claim a sanction even from God himself, and to shelter itself under the patronage of religion, thus setting God at variance with himself, and introducing war between the different parts of his word, as if the good news by Jesus Christ were a repeal of the law promulgated from the beginning as the rule of righteousness to mankind. The abusers of divine grace have been called Antinomians, or opponents of the law, which, according to them, has lost its power to bind believers to obedience. The name has been ignorantly or malignantly given to those who abhorred the tenet of which it is expressive; and nothing is more common than to call men Antinomians, because they affirm that we are justified by faith without works, although they openly maintain, and prove by their conduct, that they are sincere in maintaining, that believers are bound to yield obedience to the precepts, and are far more zealous of the law in practice than their adversaries. But it is to be lamented, that there have been, and at this moment are, professed Christians who dare openly to teach, that believers are exempted from the law in every sense. On this point, we are as much opposed to them as Arminians are, and have cause to complain of injustice, when we are confounded under the same denomination. We have satisfactorily shown, that our doctrine leads to no such consequence; and publicly declare, that while we expect to be saved only by grace, this grace teaches "us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to 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."S * Young's Night Thoughts, N. iv. † 2 Cor. v. 14. LECTURE LXXIII. ON ADOPTION Adoption, a part of Justification-Meaning of the term, "Sons of God"-The Practice and Nature of Adoption among Men-Definition and Explanation of the Spiritual Privilege of Adoption-The Benefits flowing from it. HAVING illustrated at considerable length, the doctrine of justification, I proceed to consider another privilege of believers in Christ, namely, Adoption. There are two reasons why I shall direct your attention to it: first, because it is expressly mentioned in the Scriptures as one of the blessings of redemption; and secondly, because a place is commonly assigned to it in systems of Theology. At the same time, it appears to me to be virtually the same with justification, and to differ from it merely in the new view which it gives of the relation of believers to God, and in the peculiar form in which it exhibits the blessings to which they are entitled. As it implies a change of state, it must be the same; for this change can take place but once; and whether we say that a sinner passes from a state of guilt and condemnation into a state of favour with God, or that he is translated from the family of Satan into the family of heaven, we express the same fact, and only diversify the terms. He who is justified is adopted, and he who is adopted is justified. But as the Scriptures make use of the term adoption, to denote the change of relation which takes place when we are effectually called, and believers are often exhibited in the character of the children of God, the subject is well worthy of our attention, and has a claim to a separate illustration. There are different grounds on which men receive the designation of the Sons of God. First, they are so called on account of their relation to him as their Maker. "Have we not all one Father? and hath not one God created us?"* It is for this reason that, in the third chapter of Luke, where the genealogy of our Saviour is recorded, the Evangelist having traced it up to the progenitor of the human race, by stating in the usual form that such a man was the son of such another man, concludes by saying of Adam, "which was the son of God." And for the same reason, angels are called his sons. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?" Again, the designation of sons of God is given to men in consequence of the external relation in which they stand to him as his people, and the favour with which he regards them. This is obviously the import of the message which God commanded Moses to deliver to Pharaoh. "Thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my first-born." It is intimated in these words, that he had chosen the Israelites to be his peculiar people; that he regarded them with peculiar affection, and purposed to bestow upon them distinguished marks of his favour; and that this was the reason why he commanded the king of Egypt to give them liberty to depart, and why he would himself interpose by miracles to effect their deliverance. In the New Testament they are described as the children of the kingdom; and on the same ground the character of the sons of God may now be given to the members of the visible church, who are externally in covenant with him, and have been symbolically admitted into his family by baptism. There remains another mode in which men are constituted the sons of God, namely, by adoption. The term is apLuke iii. 38. ↑ Job xxxviii. 4. 7. § Exod. iv. 22. Mal. ii. 10. plied indeed to the son-ship of the Israelites, "to whom," as Paul says, "pertained the adoption,"* because God took them into a relation to himself, in which they did not naturally stand; but it is used in its proper sense and full import, in reference only to believers in Christ. "When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." And the same apostle says in another place, "He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the Beloved." "To adopt a person," as Kennet says in his Roman Antiquities, "was to take him in the room of a son, and to give him a right to all the privileges which accompanied that title. Now the wisdom of the Roman constitution made this matter a public concern. When a man had a mind to adopt another into his family, he was obliged to draw up his reasons, and to offer them to the college of the Pontifices for their approbation. If this was obtained, on the motion of the Pontifices, the consul, or some other prime magistrate, brought in a bill at the Comitia Curiata, to make the adoption valid. The private ceremony consisted in buying the person to be adopted, of his parents, for such a sum of money formally given and taken; and Suetonius tells us, that Augustus purchased his grandsons Caius and Lucius of their father Agrippa." It may be added to this account, that the parties appeared before the prætor, when the intended father said, "Art thou willing to become my son?" and the son answered, "I am willing." The relation was thus formed according to law, and the adopted son entered into the family of his new father, assumed his name, became subject to his authority, and was entitled to the whole of the inheritance, or to a share of it if there were any other sons. I have referred to this practice as existing among the Romans, and sanctioned by the laws of the state; but it was not peculiar to them. It appears to have prevailed among the Greeks, the Egyptians, and, I believe, some other nations. We have an example of adoption among the Egyptians in the case of the daughter of Pharaoh the king, concerning whom it is related that, having accidentally found the infant Moses exposed on the banks of the Nile, she gave him to his mother to be nursed; and that when the child grew, his mother brought him to her, "and he became her son." He was thus admitted a member of the royal family, and it is mentioned as a proof of the power of his faith, that he renounced this high honour, and chose to take part with his own nation in their afflictions, because they were the people of God: "By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter; sacrificed the glory and the advantages which he already possessed, and had the prospect of enjoying, in consequence of his adoption. It is the opinion of some, that the term adoption in the New Testament, is not borrowed from the Greeks and Romans, but is founded on the style of the Old Testament, in which, as we have seen, the Israelites are called the sons of God. But it is more probable that, as the New Testament was intended for the use of the Gentiles as well as the Jews, it was the design of the writers, when they employed a word familiar to the latter, to refer to the thing denoted by it as it was practised among them, and thus to convey to them an intelligible idea of the spiritual relation between God and the objects of his favour. Adoption, according to the scriptural sense of the term, is an act of God, by which he pronounces sinful men to be his sons, admits them into his family, * Rom. ix. 4. + Gal. iv. 4, 5. + Eph. i. 4-6. § Exod. ii. 10. Il Heb. xi. 24. VOL. II.-29 and gives them a right to the privileges of his children. With a view to illus trate this general definition, I request your attention to the following particulars. First, As an adopted son originally belonged to a different family from that into which he was admitted, we must inquire from what family the children of God are taken. We might say, then, that they are of the family of Adam, understanding by this expression, not merely that they are his natural offspring, his sons and daughters by lineal descent, but that they were born in his image, and after his likeness, and derive from him the guilt, the pollution, and the curse, which he hath bequeathed to them as a fatal inheritance. We might accommodate to our present purpose the words of God to his ancient people, "Look unto the rock whence ye were hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye were digged."* Look unto Adam your father, and unto Eve that conceived you in sin, and brought you forth in iniquity.' The Scriptures give another view of the subject; and pronounce all men in their fallen state to be the children not only of Adam, but of him by whose artifice they were reduced to their present condition; "Ye are of your father the devil," said our Lord to the Jews. "Ye boast of your connexion with Abraham, and found upon it the hope of acceptance with God; but your conduct proves you to be the genuine offspring of the enemy of all righteousness;' for he adds, "the works of your father ye do." Lest, however, we should suppose that this character is applicable to them alone on account of their peculiar depravity manifested in the rejection of the Messiah, the Scripture is careful to comprehend all unregenerated men under the same denomination: "He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning." "In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil; whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother." To the justness of this description in reference to notorious transgressors, few will be disposed to object. In their blasphemy, their profaneness, their malice, their envy, their violence and cruelty, we distinctly perceive the horrid features of the spirit of darkness. But pride, self-confidence, a dislike of the divine character and laws, repugnance to the will of our Maker, and a constant inclination to sin, which are found in every man who has not been born again, are indications not less certain, that we are guided by the counsels and actuated by the temper of the first rebel against the righteous government of God. "He is the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience."§ All the children of disobedience, therefore, are his sons. Although they may disown their relation, they daily recognise it by their unholy thoughts and actions, and unless divine mercy interpose, will receive the inheritance of wrath, which is their allotted portion. Secondly, as an adopted son became a member of a new family, so he upon whom this spiritual privilege is conferred, is enrolled among the children of God. Like the prodigal, who had gone into a far country, and, having there wasted his substance in riotous living, was reduced to extreme distress, he returns, or rather by Divine Grace is brought back, to the house of his heavenly Father; and his father, to adopt the language of the parable, falling on his neck and embracing him in the arms of his love, does not place him in the condition of a servant, but restores him to the name and the right of a son. And, how glorious is this family to which we are re-united! First in dignity and honour is Jesus Christ himself, who, in his Divine Person, is the eternal Son of God, and, in his mediatorial character, stands in a particular relation to believers. The Scripture calls him "the first born among many brethren," intimating, that he belongs to the heavenly family, in which he claims precedence, and holds the most distinguished place He is the Elder Brother; for * Is. li. 1. + John viii. 44. † 1John iii. 8, 10. § Eph. ii 2. |