of the person in whose behalf it is made, independently of acceptance on his part, and if I may so express it, whether he will or not. But in the constitution of the gospel, there is nothing of this kind. There is no blessing made the possession of the sinner independently of his own will. There must be the concurrence of his will, in order to any one of the benefits of the gospel being his. No man can be pardoned or sanctified against his will. The latter is, in the very nature of the thing, impossible; and the former is impossible from the instituted provisions of the gospel, by which it is rendered necessary that the sinner fall in with the terms on which the pardon is offered, accepting it as the gift of grace through a Mediator. But on this topic I must not at present enter; even the remarks which have just been made are rather a digression.*

* If Mr Erskine's comparison be inappropriate, no less so is another used by Dr Malan, in a little tract entitled "The Assurance of Faith from God to his Elect, or The New Bartimeus, "-a tract which has been translated by some one who had no very correct acquaintance either with French or English, and which, on this account, leaves us occasionally in doubt whether we have the true sense of the author. But in what I now quote there can be no mistake; and it will sufficiently explain itself without taking in the connexion.-" Pastor.— Well, hear: suppose that you and I are in want of food, and that we have nothing to eat; we wander through the streets and highways, and nowhere find the smallest nourishment. We may imagine that there is enough of bread in this or that house for us; but this persuasion will not procure us that of which we stand in need. In this extremity, some one comes to and says,There is abundance of bread, and of all kinds of

us,

SECTION II.

Setting aside, then, as unscriptural, the views of those who would rest their personal knowledge of their state either on direct intimations to their minds,

tor.

food, in the house of the Mayor.' Immediately you run, saying, I go to take my share.' I stop you with these wordsYour share! are they yours?' Yes,' you reply, for I believe they belong to me." Do you think your reply would be sufficient and just?-John. I do not see that the knowledge of the existence of bread gives me any right to possess it.-PasYou have then been stopped by this remark, and you remain in your dilemma. But then the servant of the Mayor approaches, and says, 'My master proclaims that whosoever is hungry, and will come, shall receive two loaves :' immediately I run towards the house crying, 'I am going to get some food.' Some one says to me, 'Is the food yours?' I reply, 'Yes, it is mine; for the proclamation is certain, "Whosoever is hungry shall have two loaves." I am hungry, and I know the Mayor does not lie; then two of these loaves are mine, for he has said it to me.'-John. O what a light you throw upon the subject by this explanation! Ah! I understand it now. This is God, who said that Jesus is the Saviour of sinners who believe in him; which does not mean sinners who work wickedly,— that is as clear as noonday. God has said, that his Son is the Saviour of those who believe in him; and I ought also to believe, upon that declaration, that he is my Saviour." Pages 39-41. Now, who does not perceive that when John says, "I ought also to believe, on that declaration, that he is my Saviour," his belief of this is not direct but inferential? It is just this: Jesus Christ is the Saviour of those that believe in him; I believe in him; therefore he is my Saviour. There might never be in John's mind a formal syllogism of this kind. But unquestionably this is the mental process. There can be no other process by which the conclusion can be reached; there being no direct declaration, in the word of God, of John's being a believer in Christ, nor, consequently, of Christ being his Saviour, in the sense in which he is the Saviour of those that believe; that is, in

or on direct testimony respecting themselves in the

word, or on what is termed the appropriating nature of faith;-let us now try if we can discover how the case actually stands -what are ;"the things that are written," by which God intends his people to "know that they have eternal life."-In order, then, to our having a full and distinct view of this interesting part

the actual bestowment of the blessings of his salvation:-inasmuch as Christ's being his Saviour is admitted to depend upon his believing. Still, then, there must be the believing acceptance of the testimony, ere Christ and salvation can properly be ours; and therefore, that he is ours can be no part of the testimony.— In the illustrative case supposed, the proclamation is, "Whosoever is hungry, and will come, shall receive two loaves."-Now, is it not evident, according to the very terms of the proclamation, that no one can have the loaves but upon coming for them? A man might please himself with the fancy of two loaves being his, because they were his in offer-his in the Mayor's proclamation;-but till he came for them, they were not his; the proclamation and offer limiting the bestowment to those who should so come. It would have fared but poorly with either John or his pastor, even though they might call the loaves theirs, if the said loaves had remained in the Mayor's house. Would this kind of possession have satisfied their craving appetites? Suppose either of them had entertained a dislike to the Mayor, and had been disposed by that dislike to say-" I cannot bring myself to go-I will sooner starve !" what good would the two loaves have done him? The truth is, they were not his till he had them; and he could not have them but by going for them: so must sinners believe in Christ, and come to Christ for the blessings of salvation, before they can be theirs. If their aversion to the "bread of life," and to Him who has it to bestow, and who freely offers it, be such as to prevent their coming to him for it-it can do them no good ;-they must "perish for hunger."

of our subject;-amongst various ways in which it might be treated, I prefer, for the sake of unity of method, a recurrence to the threefold division of eternal life formerly introduced, and considering, with regard to each, the scriptural ground on which our knowledge of possession must rest; pointing out, at the same time, the relation of these grounds, in the evidence, to each other, and the impossiblity of their disunion, or separate existence.

1. First, then, with regard to life, as it respects state, or legal sentence; that is, as it respects justification the cancelling of the sentence of death, and our passing into the state of acceptance and life.

We have already seen what is the simple and exclusive ground of justification; and also, what is the equally simple medium of interest in that ground. What, then, are the "things that are written," by which we are, in this respect, to "know that we have eternal life?"

In answer to this inquiry, I must again insist on the simplicity of the gospel testimony; its simplicity, as it appears in the New Testament, divested of all the mysticism in which it has too often been needlessly and perniciously enveloped. The "faithful saying " is, that "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." "This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." Jesus "finished the work, given him to do." Of this finished

work, of righteousness and propitiation, God has testified his acceptance by raising him from the dead ;having practically declared by that event what he had verbally uttered from heaven at his baptism and transfiguration" This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." In the name of this Mediator, there is mercy with God for the chief of sinners; a free, and full, and everlasting remission of all trespasses, as well as every concomitant and subsequent blessing of life and immortality, being held forth for acceptance to all, without exception and without difference, who, crediting the testimony, and renouncing self-dependence, come to God for mercy on the Redeemer's account. The invitation is unrestricted, unqualified. It is not to one description of sinners more than another,—not to sinners, for example, who have, in some way, previously prepared themselves for coming to Christ, or to God in Christ's name, and who fancy they have thus acquired a title, or warrant, or encouragement to come, which others have not, or which they themselves had not before:-it is to all;-to all, without difference and without exception ;-to all, as they are, -just as the message finds them. It is to men universally, as sustaining the generic character of sinners, that the message is addressed; and it is to their state as sinners that it is adapted. There needs no warrant for any to believe it but its truth, and no qualification for receiving the mercy revealed it it, but the sinful