promises Christ with all spiritual blessings. In reference then to these three properties of the gospel, there are three acts of saving faith-it sees the fulness of Christ-it receives Christit appropriates Christ, and with him enjoys confidence in reconciliation, justification, sanctification, adoption, and every other covenant advantage derivable only through him. Historical faith acknowledges a Christ without in the letter, saving faith brings him within the heart as "the hope of glory." From this we derive the happy conviction of "the divine acceptance" so much ridiculed by our northern critic, who designates it "a crude, unauthorized fancy." That however is the fancy most deserving of such epithets, which builds its hopes upon human efforts, couples man's merit with the atonement, and forbids to insist too much upon attendance on the "means of grace" and ordinances of the gospel, as though it were possible to overcharge the channels of the water of life, whose redundant stream might produce a hurtful flood!

But I now come to our reviewer's notions on

Vid. Review, p. 438, where objection is made to the inculcation of "excessive" observance of the sabbath and attendance on public worship!

the connection of faith and works, as stated by evangelical preachers. He gravely tells us that their doctrines "must have the effect, if they have any effect at all, of relieving men from the duties of morality;" and he chastises them most unsparingly for never omitting "to reprobate as an error of the most fatal kind, the idea that our works can even in part and together with the atonement of Christ, contribute to the procuring of salvation." So then our works make part of our claim to eternal glory, and our imperfect deeds, conjoined with the perfect atonement of the Redeemer, purchase heaven! Is not this as great an absurdity as to say that a man helped to buy a kingdom, by giving towards the purchase-money a defaced, valueless coin? He asks also in a tone of triumph, "if good works do not contribute to our salvation, what motive is there, founded on a regard to salvation, for the performance of them?" "To this," he says, "it is answered, salvation is obtained through faith alone, but a saving faith must necessarily produce good works; good works must therefore be practised as proofs of faith"-but he still adheres to his opinion that "a belief that our works can in no degree or way contribute to our salvation," instead of producing works, will "if it produce

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any thing at all, produce the very reverse." Though the daily contradiction given to this assertion, in the exemplary lives of the followers of the doctrines to which he is opposed, might have some weight in the way of a practical reply, yet I conceive the best answer to all such inferences from the evangelical view of the connection of faith and works, will be simply to state what it is, the more especially as it will be found to be often strikingly illustrated in the pages of this little volume.

Now, as all the wrong deductions from the doctrine of salvation through faith alone, arise from an imperfect appreciation of the effect produced by a saving belief upon the regenerate mind, it should be clearly understood that the evangelical preacher is careful to explain, that with this faith there is inseparably interwoven a love of all its objects. These objects are Christ and every thing revealed in him, wherein are evidently comprised the beauty and spirituality of the divine law. Hence there is awakened in true believers an affection for the law of God, on account of its intrinsic purity and suitableness to their renewed minds, and not only because of an imagined relation it bears to themselves or their interests. They are led to embrace the gospel, not merely to serve their

own purposes, but by a vivid relish of its excellency excited by the love of God in their hearts, which makes them to be holy in their practice universally. But he who adopts the profession of religion with only selfish ends, adopts no more of it than he conceives necessary to serve his turn, and therefore will unquestionably be defective in obedience, whatever moral rules he may conceive to be laid down for his observance. But if, as evangelical preachers teach us, true faith arises from operations and influences that are communicated from God himself, and are eminently spiritual, involving even a participation of the divine nature, together with the life of Christ by his Spirit in the heart, vivifying the faculties of the soul, and calling them out into exercises congenial with the new principle, we may reasonably expect to see suitable manifestations of the power of such an agency. If God dwells in the heart, and is by Christ vitally united with it, his presence will be made known by visible effects; and these will be according to his own holy mind and will. Hence arises true ́obedience to his laws, and that upon principles sure and efficacious, instead of being regulated by the fluctuating vicissitudes of human opinions, and the moral aspects of particular times.

doThe grace of God in the heart of man is substantially the same in every age, and in every clime. Its excellent nature is invariable, and the principal thing which animates, attracts, and guides it, is holiness, while all that is contrary thereto excites disrelish and aversion. Here then is the security for works. The prayer is answered, "Lord, incline our hearts to keep thy law." True christians think not only of a Saviour's atonement, but delight to follow his example, and set continually before themselves the transcendent beauty of his holy pattern. Their faith is accompanied with a change of nature. It is in truth, an act of the new nature whose tendency is holy; and is not nature a more powerful principle of action than any other?-than any motive which is the foundation of a moral course of conduct? The reformation of life which results merely from conviction of the judgment, from hope of reward, or from fear of punishment, will cease to operate whenever the force which restrains our still unmortified dispositions is spent; but if obedience becomes our choice, from the infusion of love to Him to whom love is supremely due, and who dwells in the heart by faith, works are as certain a consequence as fruit upon the