Pg. 301

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 501] THE SPOILED CHILD. 13

¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0 licious. ‘Neither circumcision, nor uncircumcision,’ that is to say, no exterior virtues, or accomplishments, or mere profession, ‘availeth any thing’ ‘before God at his bar, for our personal justification and acceptance—no, nothing but our Redeemer’s righteousness:’ and for morals, ‘nothing but a new creature.’

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 1 And this, my dear friends, opens up the true secret why the philosopher and moralist, who trust in human virtue alone, with all its defects, have never succeeded in this matter. There is nothing in philosophy, there is nothing in the most eloquent declamation on virtue, nothing in the most persuasive words of man’s wisdom, that can ever convey the life, or spirit, or principle of vital religion into the human heart, after having conquered all the opposition from the devil, the world, and the flesh. Hence these never did, and they never can convert a man; they never have made, they never can make a true Christian. They may appear to be limpid streams; but they are the streams of Damascus; not the divinely appointed and health-giving waters of the River of the God of Israel. The life of the Spirit of God is not in them. ‘If any man be in Christ Jesus, he is a new creature.’ ‘I through the law, am dead to the law, that I might LIVE unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’ Hence, it is only when we are risen with Christ, that we seek those things which are above,’ and do ‘mortify our members,’ and bring forth the fruits of holiness in ‘good works which God hath ordained that we should walk in them.’

¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0 “It is easy to see, then, that where ‘the life of Christ’ is wanting, no fruits of holiness can be produced: this ‘life of Christ’ wanting, the very basis of pure morality is wanting.

¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 1 “But the Spirit of God is the only author of this life. For this is the testimony of God, ‘We are his workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus,’ ‘by the washing of regenera­tion, and the renewing of the Holy. Ghost.’ Eph. 2 : 10: Titus, 3 : 5.

¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0 “And in the production of the ‘new creation,’ the Holy