"That discharge of duty": A Hackney Phalanx sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity

From A Course of Sermons, for the Lord's Day throughout the Year, Volume II (1817) by Joseph Holden Pott - associated with the Hackney Phalanx - an extract from a sermon for the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity. Preaching on Psalm 17:16, Pott expounds a key aspect of Old High teaching: that the Christian is truly called to live and grow in the moral life, without this being confused with the perfect righteousness of Christ imputed by justification. The moral life is the "duty" bestowed upon us through the covenant of grace, which we enter into through Baptism.

The extract also exemplifies another significant aspect of Old High piety: that the moral life in Christ is not one of "gloomy superstition" or excessive asceticism, not requiring us to deny our ordinary obligations and responsibilities. In other words, growth in the moral life occurs within, not apart from, our ordinary vocations and responsibilities.

Certain it is then, that without overweening thoughts, or high conceits, without restraints, which will maim and cripple human efforts in any just pursuit, or reasonable expectation; without departing from our ordinary occupations in the world, or renouncing the relative engagements, and best interests, of our present state; without extravagant and restless zeal, or timorous and gloomy superstition; there may be just tokens of resemblance, by which the faithful heart may recover, in some due degree, the first image of integrity, with which it was endowed. Certain it is, that this must be endeavoured and effected here, in some real measures of improvement and proficiency, in order to its future and more perfect restitution.

Observe well, that in urging the necessity of such improvements in the state of man, as shall mend and exalt the heart, and form the manners, and govern and direct the life, I speak not of that only perfect righteousness, which alone is accepted before God , as the ground of our acquittal in his sight, when the scales of judgment shall be poised, and which establishes the right to the future privileges of his heritage, and his eternal recompense. To that perfect plea, the rescued servant can contribute nothing. I speak not of that only full and effectual mediation, which is established in the sufferings and merits of that righteous head, from whom we receive the blessings and advantages, the hopes and privileges, of the covenant of grace. I speak but of that discharge of duty, and those measures of improvement, which the same Lord requires of those, who shall be owned by him , and admitted to partake in that glory, which is his by right of conquest and attainment, and which is so significantly and so truly called, his joy and his inheritance. 

I speak but of those stipulated terms, to which we stand pledged, by our first vows and undertaking; and for the due discharge of which, we receive the grants of grace, and the succours of the Holy Spirit, in this day of our appointed trial. I speak but of that service, which, when wrought, will be many ways defective in the best proficient, and which is not wrought, as the great work of our redemption was, for the purpose of procuring favour and acceptance before God, by its own worth. In that sense, let it ever be remembered, that Christ's only perfect work admits no fellowship, and that in his sufferings he had no partner. So truly was it said, that "of the people, there was none to help". I speak but of that which we are required to imitate with our best pains and unremitted care; of that similitude which we must cultivate and cherish, as the best improvement of our reasonable nature, and the end of all religious knowledge and instruction, so far as they respect the rule of life.