REGENERATION, 357 ciple of corruption, and in our duties a discernible mix. ture of self, it would be impossible we should walk so humbly as is required of those who hold communion with God in a covenant of grace and pardoning mercy. It is a good life which is attended both with a faith of righteousness and a sense of corruption. 'Whilst I know Christ's righteousness, I may be less anxious to know' my own holiness. To be holy is necessary ; to know it, sometimes a temptation. 2. Even duties of God's appointment, when turned into self-righteousness, are God's greatest abhorrence Isa. 66 : 2, 3. What bath a good original may be vitiated by a bad end. 3. Often holiness in the heart is more known by ikc opposition there made to it than by its own prevalent Working; the Spirit's operation is known by the flesh's opposition. We find a man's strength by the burden he carries, and not the pace that he goes. "Oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" is a better evidence of grace and holiness than " God, I thank thee I am not as other men." A heart pressed, grieved, burdened, not by the guilt of sin only, which troubles an awakened conscience, but by the close adhering power of indwelling sin, tempting, seducing, soliciting, hindering, captivating, disquieting, may from thence have as clear an evidence of holiness as from a- delightful fruit-bearing. What is it that is troubled and grieved in thee i. what is it that seems to be almost killed and destroyed, that cries out, complains, longs for deliverance h Is it not the new creature 1 is it not the principle of spiritual life whereof thou art partaker h I speak not of trouble and disquiet for sin
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