th His own things and their things too, both their justification and
their sanctification too. And there are many good but ill-instructed men
among ourselves who have just this taint of that old heresy cleaving to
them still--this taint, namely, that they are tempted to carry over the
suretyship and substitutionary work of Christ into such regions, and to
carry it to such lengths in those regions, as, practically, to make
Christ to minister to their soft and sinful living, and to their excuse
and indulgence of themselves. I will put it squarely and plainly to some
of my very best friends here to-night. Is it not the case, now, that you
do not like this direction into which this text, and the truth of this
text, are now travelling? Is it not so that you shift back in your seat
from the approaching cross? Is it not the very and actual fact that you
have secret ways of sin, secret habits of self-indulgence in your body
and in your soul, in your mind and in your heart, secret sins that you
mantle over with the robe of Christ's righteousness? His spotless and
imputed righteousness? In your present temper you would have disliked
deeply the Sermon on the Mount had you heard it; and I see you shaking
your head over your Sabbath-day dinner at this text when it was first
spoken. Lay this down for a law, all my brethren,--a New Testament and a
never-to-be-abrogated law,--that the best and the safest religion for you
is that way of religion that is hardest on your pride, on your
self-importance, on your self-esteem, as well as on your purse and on
your belly. You are not likely to err by practising too much of the
cross. You may very well have too much of the cross of Christ preached
to you, and too little of your own. Why! did not Christ die for me? you
indignantly say. Yes; so He did. But only that you might die too. He
was crucified, and so must you be crucified every day before one single
drop of His sin-atoning blood shall ever be wasted on You. Be not
deceived: the cross is not mocked; for only as a man nails himself, body
and soul, to the cross every day shall he ever be saved from sin and
death and hell by means of it. And, exactly as a man denies himself--no
more and no less--his appetites, his passions, his thoughts and words and
deeds, every day and every hour of every day, just so much shall He who
searches our hearts and sees us in secret, acknowledge us, both every day
now, and at the last day of all.