XLIV. THE TRUTH AS IT IS IN JESUS. BY THE LATE REV. ROBERT HALL, A.M.* EPHESIANS, iv. 20, 21—“ BUT YE HAve not so learned Christ; if so BE THAT YE HAVE HEARD HIM, AND HAVE BEEN TAUGHT BY HIM, IN the commission given by Christ to his apostles, we behold him sending them forth as heralds of mercy to ruined man. Their object plainly was, to rescue the perishing from their danger, by preaching to them the words of salvation, and setting forth the awful consequences of sin. He gave them a pledge of his presence, in order to animate them amidst the difficulties of their enterprise. They went forth under the most solemn sanctions: Whoso receiveth you receiveth me. When they entered into a house they were to salute it. If a city refused to hear them, they were to depart, and shake its dust from off their feet. Though they were sent forth as sheep among wolves, that they might not be cast down in the prospect of so much peril, he gave them his final promise—Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the world. The words of the text are grounded upon the same principles. Referring to the corruptions of the heathen world, the apostle says to the Ephesians, ye have not so learned CHRIST. They had not heard Christ personally, but they had believed his word. They were among those to whom our Lord had reference in his memorable rebuke to Thomas -Blessed are they which have not seen, and yet have believed. The apostles were invested with such authority that they whom they pronounced blessed were blessed indeed. By virtue of this, the Ephesians had believed as though they had heard Christ for themselves, and had been enlightened by him as the true light. Our text presents us with a representation of truth; but the truth as it is in Jesus; whether taught by the Spirit of prophecy, by his apostles, or his ministers, it is ever the truth as it is in Jesus. * Transcribed by the Rev. F. Trestrail, of the Isle of Wight. I. The word of God, in every part, has an obvious and constant tendency to Christ. The Scripture contains a revelation of the divine nature and attributes, will and perfections. They would have little or no attraction without Christ. It is by Him that we know God, and come to God. The Scriptures unfold the divine purposes of grace; but Christ is the pledge of their fulfilment. They reveal the goodness of God, and inform us that HE is love: but in order to be beneficial to us, it is necessary that we should know how it is manifested, and have an example to enable us to comprehend its nature. They contain rules for the conduct, and a clear exposition of the law; but what avail would these be without Christ. Just as much as reading to a criminal the statutes at large which condemned him. We see the rules of life exemplified in Christ. He magnified the law, and made it honourable. He submitted to it, suffered its penalty, and bore its curse! We can rejoice, therefore, in this bright example of conduct, combining in itself the most perfect submission to justice, and the most perfect display of purity. The Scriptures reveal the great doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. We are enabled to believe this doctrine, which confirms the truth of the Christian religion, and is the foundation of our hopes of a better life, because Christ hath risen from the dead, and overturned the dominion of the grave. Death hath, therefore, no more dominion over us: Jesus hath spoiled his power, and extracted his sting; and delivered us, who, through death, had been all our lifetime subject to bondage. They speak of the judgment both of quick and dead. The righteous and the wicked; all who have existed in every age, or shall exist in coming times, are to stand before the great tribunal, to give an account of the deeds done in the body: but Christ is to be judge of all. He is the final adjudicator of all to their everlasting states. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; and the account we have of this transaction is a part of the truth as it is in Jesus. They make known the existence of a future state, as a state of felicity for the righteous, and of misery for the wicked; but what would heaven be without Christ? Its happiness consists in being like him: We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. When a good man thinks of heaven, he always associates the Saviour with it. He desires to depart and to be with Christ; for in heaven he is to behold his glory. In whatever light the Scriptures are viewed, whatever may be the precepts, doctrines, or promises, they contain, the language of the text becomes more and more evident that it is the truth as it is in Jesus. II. It appeals to certain effects produced on the heart by its operation. The apostle, when speaking of the corruption of the heathen, says to one of the churches, and such were some of you, but ye are washed, ye are sanctified. Ye have been taught by a different preceptor; and have learned another, and a better lesson. The truth as it is in Jesus produces effects which nothing else can; and if this may be asserted of Christians, when the profession of religion exposed its adherents to persecution, how much more of us in the present day, when we can follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. 1. When we receive the truth as it is in Jesus, we abandon all ground of merit in relation to our own actions, and place our sole dependence upon the power and grace of the Redeemer. Thus pride, that darling vice of our corrupted nature, is cut up by the roots, and humility becomes a distinguishing feature of the new man. 2. It will extinguish all notions of mere legal obedience to the law, and lead to the perfect obedience of faith. We shall retire from all hope of salvation through the works of the law, and rejoice in the finished work of Jesus. We shall aspire after the friendship of God, and the possession of holiness, without which no man can see the Lord. In the glorious plan of salvation, and its glory is displayed in its effects on the heart and life, God has thrown into eternal shade all human glory. Such is the sanctity of the blood of Christ that it can cleanse the foulest guilt; such are the transcendent merits of the blessed Saviour that they constitute an ocean of pure element, to drown all our pollution. 3. It produces an entire alteration in our habits and feelings. Every person undergoes an obvious change after his conversion. However amiable, upright, and decorous he may be, he is more distinguished than ever for the highest virtue when he becomes a child of God. And if he have been profligate in life and character, darkness and light are not more contrary than his former manner of life and his present. If ancient habits of sin have not been destroyed; if the evil passions of our nature have not been subdued; if all tendencies to evil in thought and feeling have not been checked, we have not learned Christ, nor been taught the truth as it is in Jesus. Remember the words of the apostle -For the grace of God, which hath appeared unto all men, teacheth us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and piously, in this present evil world. 4. It is at once a source of anxiety and of consolation. It excites the greatest concern respecting the interests of the soul, and fills the mind with the consolatory and animating hope of endless blessedness in a future state. Like God the author of it, the truth can kill, and make alive. It excites the all-important inquiry, what must I do to be saved? But the wound it inflicts is cured by the same hand. Jesus Christ is the balm in Gilead, and the physician there. We cannot estimate this anxiety so as to express it in words, it is so absorbing. We cannot fully depict the power and excellence of the consolations which this hope imparts; it looks for eternal realities, and expects to rise to the fountain of all blessedness. 5. It produces the profoundest humility, and confers the highest dignity. It gives such a view of sin, and of the expedient devised by infinite wisdom and love to render the exercise of forgiveness compatible with justice, that the soul is prostrated before God. This is the natural result of such views. It is no degrading position for a penitent sinner to occupy. The deepest prostration before the throne of mercy is the proper attitude for a returning prodigal, and a reconciled, pardoned rebel; and the living God looks with infinite complacency and satisfaction on such a penitent believer; for if Christ be the Son of God, he could have no other object in view, in his sufferings and death, than to redeem man from the curse of the law, and reconcile us to God through the blood of the cross. Hence the Christian derives his dignity-he feels himself to be a son of God-he looks beyond the veil of mortality. The humblest Christian is dignified, even in suffering, by the hope of future bliss: For these light afflictions are but for a moment, and work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. No doctrine unites all the elements of grandeur and humility like the truth as it is in Jesus. It produces the highest degree of happiness and joy. They are not only of the highest degree, but permanent in their duration. It passes all understanding; for the hope of it is more glorious than the splendours of the universe. It should induce us to unite with the people of God; for this truth binds the hearts of Christians together-They are one in Christ. It brings them together at innumerable points of contact. They are thus made one body; they are one in condition and circumstances. When driven together by a common storm, they fly to the same refuge. Were it not for this uniting tendency in the truth, Christianity would never have subdued the world. Its adherents, however numerous, could only have been single lights; and they would soon have been extinguished by the gusts and storms of this tempestuous world. XLV. THE GOSPEL DESPISER. BY THE REV. D. BETHUNE, NEW YORK. HEB. X. 28, 29-" HE THAT DESPISED MOSES' LAW DIED WITHOUT MERCY UNDER TWO OR THREE WITNESSES: OF HOW MUCH SORER PUNISHMENT, SUPPOSE YE, SHALL HE BE THOUGHT WORTHY WHO HATH TRODDEN UNDER FOOT THE SON OF GOD, AND HATH COUNTED THE BLOOD OF THE COVENANT, WHEREWITH HE WAS SANCTIFIED, AN UNHOLY THING, AND HATH DONE DESPITE UNTO THE SPIRIT OF GRACE?" THERE is nothing in which the depravity of men is more apparent than the lamentable ingenuity with which they pervert the blessings of God into occasions of sin. His long-suffering mercy, instead of subduing their hearts to penitence for having offended against a sovereign who proves himself so gracious, only encourages them in further transgression: "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the hearts of the children of men are more fully set in them to do evil.” The gospel itself, though the most eloquent exhibition of God's good will, is thus abused; and many seem to think and act as if it were a relaxation of God's rigid holiness, and allowed a certain indulgence in sin with impunity. It is against this error,-guilty because wilful, and |