shall find watching.... And if he shall come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants." God grant it to us, my brethren, that in a dying moment such blessedness may indeed be

ours.

SERMON XI.

THE BELIEVER PUTTING ON CHRIST AS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS AND STRENGTH.

ROMANS XIII. 12-14.

The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.

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BELIEVERS are figuratively represented in Scripture as "the children of the day." Ye, brethren," saith St. Paul in writing to the Thessalonians, " are not in darkness; ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day." In which passage there is a manifest comparison

between a state of grace, and the state of those who are unconverted and unenlightened. In this view it may properly be said of real Christians, that they "are not of the night, nor of darkness." In the text, however, the Apostle makes a different use of the same terms. Here the comparison appears to be between a state of grace and a state of glory. The former, though properly denominated light, in comparison of a totally graceless condition, is little better than darkness, or at best mere twilight, compared with that transcendently more glorious state to which it leads. Doubtless the light of heaven, that is, the holiness and felicity of the heavenly state, will as much exceed the utmost attainment of the most eminent believer on earth, as the unclouded splendour of noon outshines the glimmering of a star. Thus the beauty of the figure which the Apostle uses, and the force of his argument, become at once apparent. He represents heaven as a state of perfect light, where we shall be perfectly holy and completely happy; and he sets this state before us, not as a thing

to be expected at some remote and indefinite period, but as near at hand; a state into which we shall presently enter, and for which immediate preparation must be made. Seeing the day of glory, the light of heaven is about to burst upon us, let us seek without delay to become meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, by "casting off the works of darkness, and putting on the armour of light;" as in the morning, when the darkness has passed away, and daylight is again restored, in rising from our beds we throw aside our night-clothes and put on our proper daily apparel. Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ.' The Apostle does not, in as many words, exhort to put on sobriety instead of rioting and drunkenness; purity instead of chambering and wantonness; or, love, meekness, and forbearance, instead of strife and envying: but to put on the Lord Jesus Christ; an exhortation which in effect comprehends every other within

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itself. Here there is something expressed, and something implied.

I. WE ARE EXPRESSLY EXHORTED TO PUT ON CHRIST, and that,

1. For sanctification. Such is he made unto real believers. Of him are they in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto them "wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification." Holiness, which is absolutely essential to our happiness, in time and in eternity, like our pardon and justification, comes to us through Christ. He, as the refiner and purifier of his church, purifies his people, and purges them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord offerings in righteous

ness.

The obedience of the mere moralist is scanty, partial, and defective; and therefore is not only unacceptable, but displeasing and offensive to God. That obedience, which for Christ's sake, is well pleasing in his sight, and which every upright character desires and endeavours

* Mal. iii. 3.

See the judgment of our Church on this subject in her 13th Article.