The Moral Government Of God Is A

The Very Act Of Faith By Which We Receive Christ Is An Act Of The Utter Renunciation Of Self, And All Its Works, As A Ground Of Salvation. It Is Really A Denial Of Self, And A Grounding Of Its Arms In The Last Citadel Into Which It Can Be Driven, And Is, In Its Principle, Inclusive Of Every Subsequent Act Of Self-denial By Which Sin Is Forsaken Or Overcome.

Everywhere The Tendency Has Been To Separate Religion From Morality, To Set Them In Opposition Even. But A Religion Without Morality Is A Superstition And A Curse; And Anything Like An Adequate And Complete Morality Without Religion Is Impossible. The Only Salvation For Man Is In The Union Of The Two As Christianity Unites Them.

The Moral Government Of God Is A Movement In A Line Onwards Towards Some Grand Consummation, In Which The Principles, Indeed, Are Ever The Same, But The Developments Are Always New - In Which, Therefore, No Experience Of The Past Can Indicate With Certainty What New Openings Of Truth, What Hew Manifestations Of Goodness, What New Phases Of The Moral Heaven May Appear.

In Christ We See The Strength Of Achievement, And The Strength Of Endurance. He Moved With A Calm Majesty, Like The Sun. The Bloody Sweat, And The Crown Of Thorns, And The Cross, Were Full In His Eyes; But He Was Obedient Unto Death. In His Perfect Self-sacrifice We See The Perfection Of Strength; In The Love That Prompted It We See The Perfection Of Beauty. This Combination Of Self-sacrifice And Love Must Be Commenced In Every Christian; And When It Shall Be In Its Spirit Complete In Him, Then Will He Also Be Perfect In Strength And Beauty.

Faith Then, In Its Relation To Salvation, Is That Confidence By Which We Accept It As A Free Gift From The Saviour, And Is The Only Possible Way In Which The Gift Of God Could Be Appropriated.