Page:Cross of Christ, the Christian's glory (2).pdf/14

14 Croſs. When others, in an agony of terror, call upon rocks to fall on them, and mountains to overwhelm them; this ſhall be your ſedate appeal; rather, this ſhall be your heroic challenge; ''Who ſhall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that juſtifieth, who is he that condemneth? It is Chriſt that died.''— Then ſhall you enter the harbour of eternal reſt; not like a ſhipwrecked mariner, cleaving to ſome broken plank, and hardly eſcaping the raging waves; but like ſome ſtately veſſel with all her ſails expanded, and riding before a proſperous gale.

3. Let me caution the ſelf-righteous: thoſe who more frequently think of their own piety than of Chriſt’s obedience; are more apt to cry out, with the Phariſee, I am no extortioner, no adulterer; than to confeſs with the Publican, God be merciful to me a ſinner.—What ſhall I ſay to theſe perſons? Let me not be thought cenſorious, when my only aim is to be faithful. Beware, I beſeech you, leſt you build for eternity, not on a rock, but on the ſand. However you may appear in your own ſight, before the adorable Majeſty of the everlaſting God, before the conſummate perfection of his holy law, you are leſs than nothing, you are worſe than nothing: you are indeed, you are deficiency and ſin. Renounce, therefore, renounce all dependance on ſelf. Truſt no longer in a refuge of lies; left all your admired attainments, at the day of final retribution, be like ſtraw, and hay, and ſtubble, in Nebuchadnezzar’s burning fiery furnace.— Imitate the bleſſed penman of my text. Are you blameleſs in your external carriage? ſo was he. Are you exmplary in many points? ſo was he. Yet all this righteouneſs he accounted dung, for the excellency of the knowledge of Chriſt Jeſus his Lord.—Be this your