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of the influence by which they are induced to yield this obedience; that is, doubtless, the special energy of the Holy Spirit-a circumstance which completes the proof that salvation is of grace. But still, though it is the Holy Spirit that enables them to exercise faith, it is they who believe. They comply with the revealed rule concerning justification, though their disposition to do this is the result of holy and gracious influence. And it is this act of compliance that introduces them into the number of those upon whom the Judge will bestow, in conformity with his promise, the rewards of his kingdom. Let the reader reflect upon the necessity which exists for his acting according to a revealed mode of proceeding; how essential it is that there should be the manifestation of equity in the awards of the great day,—of equity, (in acting according to the revealed rule of government,) as well as of sovereignty! Now, there could be no display of equity, unless something had been previously enjoined upon the subjects of the government, on their compliance with which, the moral Governor had previously declared that the blessings which result from the death of his Son, should flow to them. Let him think what would be the consequences to the moral government of Jehovah, if some sinners, at the great day of account, having complied with no rule for obtaining the blessings of the government, were taken to heaven; while others, without having broken any rule, were consigned to hell! How could it appear, in that case, that the Judge of the whole earth did right? It is otherwise now. The death of Christ has permitted the honourable exercise of mercy. God has accordingly declared, in infinite grace to men, that he will save all that believe; and at the great day he will act according to his declarations. It surely must have required some trouble to involve this plain matter in darkness and mystery.

The preceding remarks will enable us to judge of the propriety of the following statement by Dr. Russell: "Faith ought not to be considered as the condition of the new covenant. It is necessary that a man eat bread, before it can nourish him; not, however, as a condition, but because, from the very nature of the thing, bread cannot otherwise be of

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service. So it is with the faith of the gospel. The whole efficacy of faith, in the matter of justification, arises from its object, in which is contained the real ground of our justification." (Letters, vol. ii., p. 84.) I cannot think otherwise of this passage, than that it is a defective one. It seems to me to contain the germ of the error which stands out in all its length and breadth in Mr. Erskine's late publication,—the error of forgetting that man needs a change of state, as well as of character; and that, though the perfect wisdom of God has been displayed in rendering the appointed instrument of justification (i. e., faith) the means also of sanctification, yet that faith is more directly and specifically connected with the former than with the latter. It does sanctify, doubtless, but that is, so to speak, an incidental and additional work; its grand business is to justify. The parallel which Dr. Russell institutes, proceeds on an overlooking, for the moment, of this important sentiment. A hungry man needs nothing but refreshment, and nourishment; but a condemned man requires more. If we suppose the case of a number of individuals both hungry and condemned, to whom a promise of pardon was made if they would consent to eat a species of provision which, notwithstanding their desire of food, was loathsome to them, though admirably adapted to recover their stomachs to a healthy tone, and finally to restore them to health, we shall have a fairer parallel than the one which Dr. Russell employs. But, in that case, the statements of this writer would not apply. Eating would stand in relation to two things-pardon and health,-and would be necessary to secure each; but it would be necessary on different grounds. To secure the latter, it would be necessary in the nature of things, but not the former. With the pardon it would stand connected as the arbitrary condition on which alone it could be enjoyed. Now man before conversion is both guilty and depraved. Faith is the means or instrument of deliverance in both points of view; but it stands in different relations to the guilt, and the depravity, or rescues from them in a different manner; from the latter, by the natural influence of the truth, received under Divine influence, upon the heart; from the

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former, solely in consequence of Divine appointment, or inasmuch as it is a compliance with the revealed rule according to which the blessings which result from the death of Christ are bestowed upon men. "Believe," says God, in his rectoral character, founding, however, the rule of his government in sovereign goodness," and thou shalt be saved." Faith, then, secures to us the blessing of justification, because it is compliance with the rule. Why, then, should it be denied that faith is the condition of the new covenant, or of justification? It may not, indeed, be expedient to adopt that phraseology, because it is liable to be misunderstood: but, if by condition of salvation, nothing more be meant than a sine qua non of salvation-that act of submission on the part of the sinner, without which salvation cannot be obtained-then faith is, beyond all question, the condition of salvation; or rather the condition of justification: for, if by salvation we understand admission into heaven, then, in the sense just attached to the word condition, persevering obedience, in addition to faith, is the condition. "He that endureth unto the end shall be saved." Dr. Russell, indeed, uses the words, "condition of the new covenant," when he denies that faith is a condition; but it is obvious, from the views he entertains of the nature of the new covenant, that he meant the same as the condition of justification. There are, indeed, some who represent the new covenant as a legal contract between the Father and the Son, the conditions of which were fulfilled by Christ; so that we have only to reap the fruits of it. Now there can be no doubt that the Son undertook to lay an honourable basis, in his obedience and death, for the extension of holy benevolence to man, and that the Father engaged that he should see his seed, and bring many sons unto glory. This, however, is not what the Scriptures mean by the new covenant; nor is there any thing of the formal and technical theology of the schools in those parts of Divine revelation in which its nature and blessings are fully unfolded. The new covenant is that edition of the gospel which it is our exalted privilege to enjoy ;-that full and complete revelation of Jehovah's mercy, which announces that "God hath set forth

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his Son to be a propitiatory sacrifice," and which promises that "all who believe in him, shall be justified from all things from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses."

The preceding statements represent faith as being connected with both justification and sanctification; and as forming the instrument by which both are secured to the believer. They also partially unfold the wisdom which shines in the appointment of this medium: this is, however, a point which requires further illustration.

We have seen that the connexion of faith with justification, partakes more of an arbitrary character, than its connexion with sanctification; but even here the connexion is not entirely arbitrary. Dr. Wardlaw, in one of the most useful of his very valuable publications, says, "The connexion of eternal life with believing, arises not from any mere appointment or will that it should be so, but in a great degree, at least, from the nature of the thing. The gospel is a testimony from God. In that form it comes to us; and its demands our credence. It reveals to us certain blessings, to be enjoyed on a certain ground. How, then, is it conceivable that blessings thus revealed should be thus received and enjoyed otherwise than by the reception or belief of the testimony which reveals them? He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.' How, then, in the nature of the thing, can the life which this testimony makes known, as the gift of God through his Son, be received in any other way than by the reception of the testimony which makes it known?' Now this language, applied as it is to all the blessings of salvation, is not strictly accurate. There is no necessity, in the nature of the thing, for men to believe in order to their having the blessing of justification. A criminal condemned to death, might have the pardon, (i. e., be pardoned,) the intelligence of which was sent to him by the sovereign, without believing the intelligence, though he could not have the comfort of it. And hence the Doctor, when he proceeds afterwards more fully to unfold this general statement, very properly restricts the necessity, in the nature of the thing, to the sense of pardon; he does not apply it to the state of par

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don. Were it not for the rectoral character of God, there would be no necessity, as we have seen, (vide p. 310,) for a deed or a thought on the part of man in order to his introduction into the state of pardon; and that character obviously does not require this specific mode of introduction. Still the connexion between faith and justification is not arbitrary; for,

First, Since men are justified for the sake, or on the ground, of what has been done by the Saviour, there seems an evident propriety in making the reception of the testimony, which contains an account of that work, the medium of interest in its blessings. And,

Secondly, It is powerfully calculated to evince the gra. tuitous character of justification. "It is of faith," says the apostle, "that it might be by grace;" an expression which obviously implies that the appointment of any other medium of interest, would at least have apparently destroyed its gratuitous character. Is it possible to doubt this? How could an act of obedience to any precept explicitly commanded by that law from the curse of which the Saviour came to redeem us, have been constituted the means of justification, without seeming to encroach upon the freeness of justification, which the appointment of faith does not? For though, I am well aware, it may be contended, since faith itself is an act of obedience, that we are justified, i. e., instrumentally, by a work after all, there is so broad a line of distinction, in the apprehensions and feelings of men in general, between doing something that we may be treated as righteous, and believing that the work on account of which alone we can be so treated has been done by another, that the objection possesses no real force.

It is, however, in the tendency of faith to secure the sanctification of men, that the wisdom of God especially appears in this matter. The human family were condemned. An expedient was devised by which it became morally possible for the moral Governor to show mercy according to a certain rule, the establishment of which was required by his rectoral character. The human family were also depraved, as well as condemned. They were the subjects of a disease which re