sight of God, is a totally different one. Men may deceive themselves, but they cannot deceive the omniscient God. Every man, in the sight of God, is either condemned or justified; but there are different degrees of attainment in holiness; and "whatever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." Although Calvinists believe, from the testimony of scripture, from the wisdom of God, from the offices of Christ, and other considerations, that the living principle of faith, and the union from which it proceeds, never utterly forsakes a person thus favoured, however partially foiled in an hour of temptation, yet none, they contend, degenerated from that state of mind which indicated his justification, has a right to conclude in favour of his acceptance, further than he is conscious of repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ: and he who infers that he was once justified before God, though now he lives in the indulgence of known sin, has every reason to consider himself a miserable self deceiver.

§ 24. In short, a deviation from the rule of righteousness is sin, and sin displeases God; the indulgence of it provokes the holy one of Israel into anger, and such disobedience will bring on either the correction of a Father or the severity of a Judge. If they have a principle of a living faith, but are not so watchful against temptation

as they ought to be, "their transgression shall be visited with a rod, and their iniquities with stripes," but the divine "faithfulness of mercy. shall be with them." Sin is not connived at, but corrected; yet, for the sake of his interceding surety, the offender is not cut down as a cumberer of the ground, nor separated from his covenant head: " My mercy will I keep for him for evermore, and my covenant shall stand fast with him-my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail." The backslider, if left to himself, or dealt with according to strict demerit, would fall to perdition; (and indeed the smallest sin deserves this exposure, and the cancelling of justification:) but he who quickened him when dead in sin, who gave him the spirit of repentance and faith, and who intercedes for him, in opposition to the claims of unmixed justice, renews him again unto the exercise of repentance and faith. "I have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not." The gracious interceding Surety looks upon him with an eye of reproof and compassion; and he "goes out and weeps bitterly:" the divine Head of spiritual influence to his mystical church and members, pours upon him a fresh supply of the spirit of grace and supplications, and this makes the penitent look unto him whom he has pierced, and to mourn with bitterness of spirit: and now he

cries, "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving kindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.-Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.-Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit."

§ 25. The reader is requested to judge without prejudice, whether the statement now given be not more consonant to scripture, more worthy of the divine perfections, the character of the Saviour, and the interests of practical religion, than the notion contended for by his Lordship; viz. that a dead faith and baptism will introduce a man into a justified state, but only a lively faith will ensure its continuance, or recover it when lost--that the neglect of any practicable duty forfeits a state of justification, which may be always recovered by repentance and faith, &c. It seems, from his account, that the first justification, which is obtained by a dead faith, is expected to produce sinless perfection, under pain of forfeiture; and that the same faith and promise of obedience will not obtain a restoration into the same state of acceptance. Have we not a right to demand, why conditions so extremely different should be required for an

interest in the same benefit? If a dead faith will justify at one time, why not at another; or, if a lively faith be required for continuance, why not the same required for commencement? If a man with only a dead stock be declared in a good condition, why should not the possession of the same stock be pronounced sufficient a second, a twentieth, or a thousandth time, or why should 'the neglect of any practicable duty' immediately declare him a bankrupt? If, on the contrary, however, we are placed in a good and acceptable condition by partaking of the Spirit of Christ, the continuance of this participation secures the continuance of that acceptable condition. Supposing the condition of continuance to be the exercise of faith, that exercise must be incessant and never-failing, and to fall asleep would be to lose our acceptance with God! Whereas, if the condition be a living union to Christ, who is ever present and ever active, then "whether we wake or sleep, live or die, we are accepted of him." To him who judgeth infallibly, this is an adequate ground and evidence of the justification of our persons, though to ourselves the evidence must be a conscious sincerity of repenting and believing.

26. There is one thing more to be observed, before we close this discussion; viz. that there is an important difference between

the justification of our persons, and the justification of our actions. Every sinful act, and every neglect of duty, is condemnable; but it does not follow that every person on account of the failure, is struck off from the list of acceptance, without involving endless absurditiessuch as confounding a federal and personal righteousness destroying the fundamental difference between a covenant and a rule of action -placing a fallen sinner in the same predicament of continuance, in favour with sinless Adam-making the divine Head of influence, as such, a mere cypher in the recovery of our justification, supposed to be lost-and imagining justification and condemnation to proceed alternately in rapid succession; a succession as rapid and frequent, for ought we know, as those of individual human volitions:-now justified by a dead faith, next condemned for neglect of any 'practicable duty,' then restored by sincere faith, anon condemned for another failure, and so on, it may be, ten thousand times over, till the moment of death, and finally if 'any' neglect attach to us at that moment, we lie under condemnation for ever! And these, I apprehend, are the genuine consequences of his Lordship's theory of Justification.-It must be owned, however, that many of the Christian fathers have been too favourable in their mode of expression to that sentiment; expressions which