age.

deny. But he is not slothful in business: he does not hide his talent in a napkin. Avarice again is a passion of sober and domestic habits: its votary may felicitate himself on his freedom from the licentiousness of a dissipated And does not many an one derive a secret self-complacency from having quitted the haunts of gayety, the public places and amusements of fashionable life;-while censoriousness, while spiritual pride, while anger, while indolence, too fatally betray the important truth, that every situation has its own appropriate temptations and dangers, and that it is by our conquest over these, over "the sin that most easily, besets us," that our religious proficiency may best be measured.

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10thly. A still more deep and subtle fraud, often, it is to be feared, maintains a lasting influence. We are seduced into vice. We are filled with remorse. We renew our applications for pardoning mercy. The balm of Scripture promises is poured into our wounds, We gradually obtain comfort. All this is as it should be, if the result be a growing power to resist the force of temptation and quell the risings of appetite; if opposite habits by degrees are formed, and if, in the language of Scripture, the fruits of the spirit appear instead of the lusts of the flesh. But are there not many who carry on an habitual practice of sinning and repenting, who confound their constant subjection to some besetting sin, which is victorious as often as it renews its attacks, with those occasional falls which may, perhaps, occur in the walk of even the real Christian, filling his heart with sorrow and his eyes with tears, while they urge him to more diligent watchfulness and more steady self-denial? I would not grieve the heart or damp the spirits of any real, though weak, follower of that meek and lowly master whose very character it is not to break even the bruised reed; but let every Christian watch himself with special care on the point we have now before us. It is, in truth, the very turning point on which rests all the validity of his claim to the elevated character of a real believer. An entire victory over the power of sin is not Christ. Observ. No. 11.

granted to the Christian in this probationary state. So long as he remains in the body, he is beset by enemies without and within. His vigilance must continue, for his warfare is not at an end. But amid all his fears and sorrows, the real Christian feels his graces strengthening, and his lusts becoming weaker. While a hatred of sin and a love of holiness attest the renewed nature he has received, that love of God, which the divine spirit has shed abroad in his heart, renders it more and more his meat and drink to do the will of his heavenly father; and while he gratefully, but humbly, experiences a growing conformity to the image of his Divine Saviour, that peace of God which passeth all understanding, and that hope which is full of immortality, are a blessed earnest of the fulness of joy which awaits him, when, his victory being completely and for ever established over sin and Satan, the armour of the militant shall be exchanged for the crown of the triumphant Christian, and he shall be admitted to the enjoyment of those pleasures which are at God's right hand for ever more.

11thly. A long catalogue of frauds might be specified, which we render others the instruments of practising on ourselves. We are apt to compare ourselves with our neighbours, and to indulge satisfaction and encouragement from the comparison, not taking into the account, perhaps, that they have never had the advantages we have enjoyed, while they have been exposed to far greater temptations; and that what is with them only accidental and occasional, is in us a growing or an established habit of vice. Again, we see the vice into which they have been betrayed; but we see not their habitual contest against some constitutional in. firmity, their sincere contrition, their gradual improvement, their final victory.

How clearly does our blessed Saviour's command not to judge our neighbour, forbid these comparisons; and how plainly are we warned, that we shall be apt to overlook the beam in our own eye, while the mote in that of our brother is seen with such acuteness of discernment and such fulness of 4 U

dimensions. We render others again the innocent instruments of deceiving ourselves, when we accept their flattering testimony against our own knowledge, and suffer ourselves to derive complacency from that approbation and applause of our principles and conduct, which we know to be founded on false facts and mistaken suppositions, or which we are conscious would be changcd into disapprobation and censure, if our judges were aware of the true affections of our hearts and the real springs of our actions. How gross is this delusion! yet who is there that has not recognised it in himself. How open must we be to the frauds of selfdeception, when we thus become the willing dupes of a known imposture, and suffer our feelings to be gratified by commendations, which, at the very moment we are receiving them, we see and feel to be unjustly bestowed?

12thly. Long would be the catalogue, if I were to endeavour to enumerate all those various frauds which may be assigned to the second of the two great classes into which the deceits of the human heart may, perhaps, not improperly be distributed. I mean those deceits which our hearts impose on us in making us promises which are not kept, and contracting engagements which are never performed. I feel myself trespassing on the patience of your readers, and shall merely point out their general character and properties.

They render us the slaves of procrastination. They lead us to overrate our moral powers. They flatter us with a persuasion, that we can at any time break our chains. What though from indolence, from indecision, from procrastination, from irresolution, we have hitherto forborne to exert our. selves, yet it shall not be so always; we will soon shake off our sloth; we will resolutely commence and vigorously prosecute the contest. The divine strength is promised to our prayer, and we may justly assure to ourselves the victory. Meanwhile year after year steals away. Evil habits are strengthened. Our moral sensibility is impair cd. The awful warnings of religion are heard with less and less emotion.

"The spirit of God will not always strive with man:" at last perhaps He withdraws his quickening influence. Even at the eleventh hour the divine power may still move the obdurate sinner, but too often he chides his impotent delay more and more faintly: he "resolves and re-resolves, yet dies the same." Of these, and all other modes of human deceitfulness, self-love is the fertile parent, and pride the nurse which fosters and cherishes them. But I must reserve for a future communication a few of those practical reflections which the preceding statement may properly suggest; meanwhile let me close my present letter, by remarking, how justly does the wise man's counsel lead us to watch against our own deceitfulness with jealousy. How truly does he warn us, "He that trusteth his own heart is a fool." I am,

Sir,

Your faithful servant,

SCRUTATOR.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer.
SIR,

THE Queries subscribed C. C. in the Ninth Number of the Christian Observer (page 577) relate to a subject of the greatest importance; and I hope will receive a full and satisfactory answer from some of your correspondents; in the mean while the following thoughts are at your service, if you deem them worthy of insertion.

Q. 1. "Are not justification, absolution from guilt, forgiveness of sins, and being accounted righteous, synonymous terms for the same blessing?

These are

It appears to me unscriptural to consider justification as synonymous with absolution from guilt, &c. two distinct benefits, precisely answerable to the pardon granted a criminal, and an estate bestowed on him at the same time: but as they always, in the gracious dispensations of God to his people accompany each other, this distinction is not exactly marked in the language of scripture, except when the argument requires it.

When St. Paul refers to the words of David, "Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity," aş proving his doctrine, that "God impu

teth righteousness without works;" his whole argument leads us to this interpretation, that David's words, rightly understood, denote more than they express, and not that the Apostle only gave David's meaning in other language, and in language suited to obscure the sense, if nothing further than pardon was intended. "The blessedness of the man, to whom God imputeth not iniquity," is secured by this, that to him he likewise "imputeth righteousness without works" This David intimated, and this the Apostle establishes.

Pardon of sin exempts a man from all punishment for past transgressions, (for the sufferings of believers are the chastisements of a father for their good, and not punishments in the strict sense of the word;) but it gives him no title to the reward of righteousness. If,when the believing penitent receives absolution from guilt, the depravity of his nature were also destroyed and the divine image entirely restored, and if the world were no more ensnaring than it was before the entrance of sin, he might be nearly in as favourable a situation, in respect of justification, as our first parents were immediately after they were created. He would be innocent but not righteous; deserving neither punishment nor reward; and therefore to be continued in a state of probation for an appointed season, at the close of which he would either be justified or condemned, according as he had, or had not, kept his Maker's law perfectly in all its extensive requirements. Thus the confounding of the distinct blessings of pardon and justification with each other, necessarily introduces the doctrine of justification by works, yea, by the merit of works: and, as no man, in the present lapsed state of human nature, can be willing to have his eternal happiness or misery suspended, on the condition of his future perfect obedience to the divine law; this first made way for the scholastic distinction between the merit of condignity and the merit of congruity, which the Papists have so much insisted on, but which all the reformed churches have strenuously protested against.

Nor is this all; for we may trace the

unscriptural sentiment of a new and mitigated law by our sincere obedience to which we are to be justified through the merits of Christ, to the same source; a sentiment which at once makes void both the law and the gospel, by exceedingly lowering the scriptural standard of obedience, and altering the scriptural way of acceptance. On these accounts, we must continue strenuously to insist on the distinction between pardon and the "gift of righteousness by faith," even "the righteousness of God, which is upon and unto all that believe," if we would maintain uncorrupted the doctrine of scripture, and of our established church.

When the believer is not only absolved from guilt, but "made the righteousness of God in Christ" "the LORD our righteousness," there is no condemnation for him; but he is by grace entitled to the reward of righteousness; and his subsequent good works, the fruits of the spirit of Christ, are not intended to constitute, even in part, his title to the heavenly inheritance: but they evidence that his faith is living and his love sincere; they adorn the gospel, glorify God, and prove useful to mankind. The believer is then no longer "under the law," (as to justification,) "but under grace." The standard of duty, however, remains the same; but that which is good in his services is graciously accepted, while the defects and evils attending them, as well as his other failures, are mercifully pardoned for Christ's sake. "Albeit that good works which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins and endure the severity of God's judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith; insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known, as a tree discerned by its fruits." Art. xii.

2. "Does not this justification attach solcly to true conversion?”

Is it not manifest, that the venerable martyrs and confessors who framed our articles, compiled our liturgy, and indeed founded our church, considered justification, not "as attaching solely to true conversion," (a very ambiguous

3. "Does not true conversion include in its essence, faith, repentance, supreme regard to God, and therein a disposition of heart to every good word and work?"

Is it not equally clear, that the scriptures connect justification with faith, not only more frequently than they even seem to do with any other Christian grace, but in quite another manner? Conversion, in the days of the Apostles, was so striking a change, that if your Querist's expression would have conveyed clearly their ideas, they would, on some occasions at least, have adopted it: : yet we never read of being justified by true conversion. "But," say some, "revolving ages, have changed almost every thing, and, among the rest, men's way of expressing themselves." Let it however be remembered, that Christianity introduced so many new ideas into the world, at least among the Gentiles, that the Apostles were under the necessity of using many words in almost an entirely new sense, and even of naturalizing terms or modes of expression from the Hebrew, in order to convey their meaning; now if they did this by divine inspiration, who shall presume, without inspiration, to modernize their language, according to the reasonings or taste of men, now called Christians?

4. "Why continually recur to the ambiguous phrase of being justified by faith only, which may be well meant and ill understood, since no true convert is possessed of faith only, and none but a true convert is justified?"

St. Paul does not, it is allowed, use the word only or alone, when treating on the subject of justification: but he always ascribes it to faith, and never to repentance, love, &c.; and he carefully. excludes every thing which at that time

he supposed any one would be tempted to join with it. It is not indeed worth while to contend about a word, without which the Apostle maintained his doctrine yet, circumstanced as our reformers were, (and perhaps the present defenders of their doctrine may add, circumstanced as we are) the use of it formed the most compendious and explicit way of distinguishing between their doctrine and that of their opponents: and, I cannot but think they acted wisely, in adding the word only, not to prove their doctrine, but to shew their precise meaning.

But neither the Apostle, nor our reformers, intended to say, that faith subsists alone, in any justified person; for such a solitary faith is dead, and cannot justify. As, however, in a living man, there are many members, senses, and faculties, and each has its proper function, which none of the rest can perform; so, in the true Christian, there are many co-existent graces, but each has its proper office, to which all others are entirely unsuited. Love is greater than either faith or hope, being the image of God, the essence of holiness, and eternal in its duration; yet it cannot justify a sinner. Now the reason of this is very plain and simple. "Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace." The free mercy of God, contrary to our deservings, is the source of our justification.

We are justified

freely by his grace." The righteousness and atonement of Emmanuel are the meritorious cause of our justification. "We are made the righteousness of God in him.” "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." This gift of God is reported and proposed in the Gospel; now, faith alone can receive the report, credit the testimony, apply for the gift, place confidence in the faithfulness of God the giver, and renouncing all selfdependence, entrust the soul and its eternal interests, into the hands of Christ. And as this is the case, we are justified by faith, and not by any other Christian grace, or all others compendiously considered.

I would just observe, that if St. Paul had admitted of the way of settling this