if manifested in acts of obedience to his will, are accepted by God as giving a title to the reconciliation purchased by Jesus Christ. So that if we only receive the word in good and honest hearts, and bring forth its necessary fruits in pure and holy living, we fulfil all that faith requires ;and the end will be everlasting life. If faith be genuine and sincere, it must produce that effort and motion towards God which has before been described; the proffered terms of pardon will be received with thankfulness; the individual will apply to himself, in humble confidence, the benefit of the general atonement; and cleansed from his sins by virtue of his Saviour's blood, cleaving to God with the entire affection of his soul, he will daily proceed in all virtue and godliness of living. Not that it is hereby pretended that he is able fully and perfectly to keep the law of God. He cannot do so; and if it were proposed to him as the measure of his acceptance with God, or as the ground of his justification, he must sink into despair. We have no merit in ourselves to justify us before God; but we are justificd freely by the redemption which is in Christ Jesus. The obedience that he requires is that of sincere endeavour and earnest desire; for we are not under the law but under grace.

As a rule of duty, however, the law remains, and must for ever remain; and its obligations are deeply engraved in the heart of every believers

I delight to do thy will, O my God, is his constant language. But conscious of frailty, imperfection, and transgression, his only sure ground of rejoicing is this, that he has an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, who is the propitiation for his sins.

While then he knows and feels that in him, that is, in his flesh, dwelleth no good thing, he is encouraged to ask and to expect daily forgiveness for his daily trespasses, from him who knoweth whereof we are made, and who remembereth that we are but dust. Such a constant piety of disposition, sincerity of endeavour, and humble confession of sins, added to earnest prayer, and unceasing watchfulness, will not pass unobserved in the eye of him who regards with favour those who think upon his commandments to do them; and whose best sacrifice is an humble, contrite, and obedient heart. The Christian thus living to God by faith, it is its office in return to assure, confirm, and sustain, his drooping spirit, by pointing all his hopes to him who is the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world.

The reasonableness of such a faith, to cause its possessor to be accounted righteous before God, and to justify him in his sight, which comes now to be considered, will require little illustration. We have seen that justifying faith is not an involuntary assent of the mind to historical evidence, nor a still more involuntary assent to the

conclusions of argument from facts proved and admitted. We have also seen that it is not a speculative unproductive acknowledgment of Jesus Christ and his religion. On the contrary, we have seen that it is a voluntary act of the mind, and that it includes submission to God, confidence in him, thankfulness for the mercies of redemption, confession of sin, and penitence on account of it, trust for pardon and cleansing only to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and sincere obedience to his laws; and that the result of all is a perfect devotion of the heart and of the mind, an engrossing of all the affections of the soul, a transforming of the heart and life, conquest of self-will, victory over the world, and an increasing fitness for the inheritance of the saints in light.

My brethren, we see, in these particulars, the approximation of the character of man to the perfection of God, the beginnings of a work which could be wrought only by his good Spirit; and which must, therefore, be acceptable in his sight. And if these be the marks of faith, we need not wonder that a principle so elevated, which prompts and produces such a growing conformity to the fountain of all excellence, is so highly valued by God, and declared to be so effectual to salvation. What a dignity, and yet what a fitness, is there in this scheme of restoration for fallen man! What love on the part of God; what tenderness and kindness to the criminal

who deserved only the wages of his sin; what indulgence to his weakness and infirmities; yet what constraining motives to his virtuous endeavours! Happy are they who, justified by this living operative faith of the Gospel, enjoy the peace of God, who are sensible of its transforming power on their lives, and are daily growing in grace, and in the knowledge of their Lord and Saviour; and who can, therefore, anticipate with confidence those scenes of life and immortality which are presented to their view in the heavens above. My brethren, what thoughts of gratitude and devotion should fill our bosoms on considering the inestimable sacrifice of Jesus Christ, on which alone our faith and hopes can rest, and by virtue of which we are reconciled to God and admitted to these benefits!

Had it been consistent with the attributes of Deity, that a race of sinners should be pardoned by a mere act of grace and good will, grace and good will unbought by any costly suffering, unpurchased by any surrender of happiness on the part of created or immortal being, how should the annunciation of such goodness have been welcomed by restored and ransomed men in songs of thankfulness and triumph! Had the blessings of this pardon been suspended on lives of human suffering and mortal anguish; had, years of torture, and depths of ignominy, been the price at which man could procure the favour

of an offended God; had a cup of bitterness, drugged with the anger of the Creator's wrath, been placed in our hand to drink as the terms on which alone we could be restored and reconciled; had a life of contempt and shame, and a death preceded by agonies of exceeding sorrow, and consummated under the hidings of the face of God, and in the midst of the scorn and revilings of men, been fixed as the ransom from everlasting death, and the purchase of everlasting life; with what submissive hearts should we have heard the message, and with what devoted obedience should we have paid the penalty of endurance and of suffering?

My brethren, the attributes of Deity did not permit that sin should be pardoned unatoned. The justice of God could not be preserved inviolate without a satisfaction to its outraged purity. It was no fancied necessity that required an equivalent for sin. The fearful character of God had, from eternity, been spotless and unsullied. His truth, like all his perfections, had never been conscious of variableness or shadow of change. Let mere mercy now triumph, and his truth must have fallen. Let mere mercy prevail, and justice would have been dishonoured. The awful balance of attributes which belong to Deity would be unpoised, and God would no longer be. Justice and truth are inexorable, for their very nature is immutable. No unbought pardon, no unpur