II. Another use of truth is to present motives to the exercise of the right affections. The Bible amply assures us, that holiness is a lovely attribute of character. It is what renders God lovely, and angels, and the whole family of the redeemed. Hence holiness is indispensable to good character; and here is a motive to aim at a high standard of holiness.

The Bible assures us, that only where there is holiness there is happiness. This begets the peace and joy that reign in heaven; while its opposite has occasioned the ruin of this world, and the miseries of hell. These facts are so amply illustrated in the word of God, as to show the loveliness of virtue, and the hatefulness of vice, thus presenting us new motives to become holy. The Bible presents motives to holiness, by drawing out holiness and depravity to their final result in heaven and in hell. In the one world, holiness has produced its full effect in the everlasting peace and blessedness of its population; in the other, too, its full effect in the unspeakable misery of its hopeless inmates. Thus Bible truth presents men with motives to become holy, and being urged home by the Spirit of God upon the understanding and conscience, is the medium of sanctification.

III. As holiness must beget the love of holiness, it must also produce love to that truth which is the medium of its own production. The Christian, then, wishing to progress in that holiness which is begun in him, will be the friend of Bible truth, will aim to grow in the knowledge of it. As this is seen to be the medium of his cleansing, and as he now aspires to be clean, he must desire to know more of truth. All Bible truth will please him, for it all has one and the same effect, his cleansing. He will thus be a diligent student of the

Bible, and will never feel that he knows enough of it, while there remains in his heart or life one moral pollution to be cleansed away.

IV. It will follow then, of course, that the Christian who is a child in Bible knowledge, will be a child in holiness. To the same extent that he remains ignorant of divine truth, he will remain unsanctified; and men will learn, without inquiring of him, how much attention he gives the sacred volume. Apparent exceptions to this position are easily explained. We have seen men of small intellect and small acquisitions in science, generally, who yet appeared to be rapidly growing in holiness. In such cases, it will always be found, on a close acquaintance, that, though the man may have no general knowledge, he is daily conversant with the testimonies of the Lord. If one will learn sanctifying truth, he may become sanctified, though he may remain ignorant of other truth. We frequently meet with the contrast of this case; men possessing a large amount of general knowledge, but knowing little about their Bible; in which case there will not be seen much advancement in the stature of piety. If we are acquainted merely with men and money, though we may be acute worldlings, this knowledge will not tend to purify the heart. The knowledge that will render us holy is to be gathered from the word of the Lord. "Sanctify them through thy truth."

V. It would seem to be a truth unquestionable that the man who is under the process of sanctification, will have an increasing thirst for a knowledge of Ulivine truth, till he dies. As the heart becomes purified, the love of truth, the means of its purifying, must increase.

And let the thirst for truth increase, and it needs no argument to prove that men will grow in the knowledge of it. We shall find, then, no believer who thinks he knows enough of the Bible, no man, however old, or infirm, or poor, or occupied, or neglected, if he has begun to be sanctified, who will not wish, by learning more truth, to nourish the spiritual life that is begun. More and more, as the cleansing operation goes on, and he feels the pleasure of being holy, will his mind be open to conviction, and the truth become adapted to his taste as the honey and the honeycomb. The love of truth, in the aged believer, becomes his strongest appetite. Old men are not accustomed, you know, to abandon, in their latter years, the objects of their appetite. How often do they rather become the slaves of some strong governing principle, which is seen at last to be mightier in death than ever! And in the man of God, who is struggling with his corruptions, and desperately bent on the mastery, the appetite for truth must be the ruling passion while his eye can see or his ear hear, or his mind perceive, or his heart and conscience be impressed. He will carry his Bible with him to his death-bed, and put it by his pillow, and glance his dying eye upon its pages, and ask the by-standers to teach him, and will be digesting some heavenly truth when life goes out; and the nourishment afforded his soul, by that last reflection, will add the finishing stroke to his sanctification. How can it be otherwise? Whomsoever it may condemn, though it tear from myself the last hope I have, still it must be true, that as grace advances in the heart, the love of truth will be enkindled. As there can be no natural health, and the body cannot be strong and vigorous after the appetite is gone; so is there no spiritual health, and the inner man is sickly and nerveless, where there is no relish

for truth. The case cannot be, where there is growth in grace accompanied with a disrelish for the study of divine truth.

VI. It would seem, then, that it cannot be a light thing to reject, or disrelish any doctrine of the Bible. Every doctrine must have its use in rendering men holy, else it had not been taught in that Bible sent to sanctify the world. God knew exactly what the case required, what system of truth the Spirit could use to the best advantage, in rendering the world holy, and this he has published. Hence, no part of it may be rejected as unwholsome, or innutritious. Suppose a table spread, day by day, by one who perfectly knew our constitutions, knew any disease that might be lurking about the body, or any danger of the season or the climate that needed to be guarded against, and we should presume to say, that one article upon the table was injurious to health, and never taste it; how exactly would the case resemble that of the man who imagines he has found, in the book of sanctifying truth, one doctrine of pernicious tendency. How arrogant, in the preacher of the gospel, to lay his hand on any doctrine which he may not preach, or any duty he may not enforce, or promise or threatening which he may not deal out to the friends or the foes of God! And how mistaken his people, who would have him suppress any paragraph, or hold back any doctrine or maxim of the word of the Lord! Who can judge as well as he who gave the word? Who, among the army that publish it, or the multitude who hear it, can tell better than he, what kind of truth is suited to the exigency of a betrayed and ruined world?

VII. It would seem, then, a matter of course, that

8

sanctification will be going on among the various classes of Christians, more or less prosperously, in proportion to the amount of truth embraced in their system. We may even determine, by this criterion, what denomination is built the most substantially on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. There may be in a human system some truth, but not the whole truth. There may be so much error as shall greatly counteract the effect of truth. The system thus made out may be somewhat calculated to sanctify; and yet not the best calculated. It may nourish a sickly and palsied religion, while it can never produce the strong, and vigorous, and useful man of God. It may contain truth enough to bring men to heaven, and yet never produce, to shine in the firmament of God, many stars of the first magnitude. choosing our religion this one question should be kept prominently in view: which is that that makes the most enlightened, the most benevolent, the most holy and heavenly temper? for there we shall assuredly find the most truth and the least error.

In

VIII. Might not believers be sooner ripe for heaven? or, rather, might they not all be qualified in the time that God allows them, after their second birth, for a higher seat in heaven than they do ordinarily reach? Yes. They could learn more truth, could learn it faster, and digest it better, and grow more vigorously, and pass earlier the boundaries of Christian childhood, and thus arrive earlier at the fulness of the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus.

REMARKS.

1. May not that truth which is learned before regen