on whom the wonderful system of all things depends,— it has pleased him, in his wisdom, to descend to the level of the human faculties, and to make this great truth plain, and to bring it home to the meanest of those faculties ;-that he requires from man the practice of moral virtues on earth, and that those who practise them will obey, those who do not will disobey, his laws and will. The inference is obvious, even if it were not proved to us in words by the same divine authority,-that the wicked lose his favor, the virtuous may hope for it. There is no mystery in this; and the wisdom and importance of its plainness and simplicity are so self-evident, that no man of sound understanding, and unperverted mind, can admit the truth of any doctrines which would have the effect of overturning so unambiguous and beneficent a principle; founded and supported, as this is, on the only records which we possess of the word and will of God.

In what degree our good works, or moral virtues, may contribute to our hopes of ultimate acceptance with God,-what degree of merit he may be pleased to assign to them, how far they may aid in obtaining for us justification before Him,-are questions of another kind; most essential for our consideration, but not in any way affecting the facts and arguments already discussed.

In our enquiries upon the vital question of the means of this justification, we shall find it most plainly and solemnly declared, that Faith is the prime essential quality to be sought;—a full and hearty faith or belief in God, and in the divinity, atonement, and doctrines of Jesus Christ, as revealed to us in the New Testament. Some of the constituent matters of this faith are undoubtedly of mysterious character, and beyond our comprehension. But it is the will of a Being of unlimited power and wisdom, that we shall believe them, upon that degree of revelat which he is pleased to give to us. It is enou

us to know that it is his will, and to obey ;-unless we would be worse than the very devils, who "believe and tremble," in their disobedience.

Faith therefore is undoubtedly what is demanded of all men to whom the Gospel has been communicated, as the great primary requisite, on which their hopes of eternal salvation depend. He to whom the Gospel has been communicated,-who has within his knowledge, or his power, this Holy revelation,-and yet is without faith in it,-who disbelieves and repudiates this first principle of salvation,—will unquestionably trust in vain to moral virtues, or good works. He does but perform a part, and the secondary part, of his obedience; and even that he performs on an unsound, or an imperfect principle. For if his principle were obedience to God, he must necessarily believe in God, and his laws; and then he would equally obey in all things. In rejecting therefore a part, and the most essential part, of God's will, he is in fact guilty of the whole." To him then who has the means of faith within his reach, and who yet lives without it, it is most certain that no good works, or virtuous practices, on whatever motives they may depend, can bring hopes of acceptance with God.

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Faith then is the chief test of our obedience, and the crown of our hopes; and good works, or moral virtues, must be its attendants. Whether these good works are, in verbal argument, to be declared to be the evidences of our faith, or whether they are to be represented as necessary to precede our faith, and put us into a condition to reap the benefit of that faith, (and good ground exists from passages of Scripture for the latter argument,) is a mere idle question of words, and futile casuistry. The plain fact remains the same, whichever way we may be disposed to bandy the words, that faith, without works, is a dead and unprofitable faith,—that it is not the true faith,— and that faith, to be pure, and worthy of any hope of acceptance, must be accompanied by good works.

The two united qualifications are required from us by our religion. Our obedience, and consequently our hopes of justification, are made to depend on our exhibition of both. If therefore both these qualifications be required,—if there be merit in the attainment of these united qualifications,-and if the possession of either of them alone, and unaccompanied by the other, be wanting in that merit, or in any portion of it,-it would be mere folly, and contrary to all the plainest principles of sound reason and deduction, to contend that either of them (good works for instance,) is totally without any merit, and constitutes no part of the foundation of our title to, or hope of, reward.

God, in his wisdom and beneficence, has given to man, as is before explained, the strongest motive for the performance of those virtues, and maintenance of those acts, which are essential to the good government and orderly course of human affairs. If man himself were, from separated portions of the divine word, to extract the new and inconsistent doctrine, that these very virtues and acts,-the good works of the world,-have no merit, and will give no hope of reward,—he would take from the world the most potent incentive, coming home to every heart, and living unquenchable in every breast,-which divine wisdom has granted, or human reason could have conceived, for guiding man aright, and even for opening his soul to the admission of that very faith, which is to be the chief and most distinguishing evidence of his obedience. Such a purblind argument, in loosening his connection with the secondary ground of his hopes, would infallibly undermine the primary one also. The two are inseparable, and neither could flourish without the other.

To imagine that the mind of man, as now constituted, is capable of that degree of abstract spiritualization, which will lead him to do good deeds, under the assurance that they have no merit, and will bring no reward, and that when they have been done, he

is still as unprofitable a servant, and as hopeless, and lost in despair, as the most outrageous and abandoned sinner,—that even his best deeds,-his charity, which as he reads in his Bible,* "shall cover the multitude of sins," the acts for which Christ himself has pronounced him blessed,—are utterly, wholly, worthless, even although they be urged upon his practice, as. indispensable to his acceptance with God,-must be the most false conceit. Such a doctrine can spring only from a perverted, or unsound, imagination, insensible to, or neglecting, the main and obvious bearing of the whole system of the Christian revelation, contained in the Holy Scriptures; and unfairly and foolishly detaching and misapplying fragments; which, like separated portions of all combined machinery, can not be rightly understood or used, excepting as connected parts of the whole. If such a doctrine could be promulgated, and could prevail, it would inevitably take from the world, the most. powerful incentive to all good,-a tangible and perceptible motive, which lives and breathes imperishably within us;-to substitute some mysterious and ideal motive, beyond the senses of our gross nature, and therefore inoperative, or even mischievous,-or perhaps to leave us without practical motive of any kind.†

* 1 Peter, iv. 8.

+ By the doctrine of the all-sufficiency of faith without works, and of the utter worthlessness and condemnation of all works, however good, we are exposed to two perils of condemnation, whilst we have but one hope of acceptance.

We may lose Heaven by sin, or bad works, and also by want of faith, even although we have good works;—we can be accepted by faith alone; and without it, the best works are left hopeless of any reward, notwithstanding the many plain declarations of Christ, the prophets, and the apostles to the contrary; and the positive commands to do good works.

This doctrine also would assure us, that the wages of sin is not death, if there be faith with our sin; although there is no such qualification in the awful declaration of the Holy Scriptures.

True it is, that such an abstruse and ideal doctrine could be little understood; and that to the great body of mankind,-those whose minds are but little, or in no degree, enlightened by ordinary human learning, it would be all darkness and confusion. This fact may show in stronger color the folly of attempting to propagate it. But the error would not be disarmed of its mischief. For all, even the most ignorant, would be unsettled by it. Although the more mysterious and ideal part of the doctrine might not reach their obtuse intellects; yet the first principle of it,—that human virtue, and man's good deeds, are worthless in the eye of God, and can bring no advantage to man himself,-is abundantly plain and intelligible. Such a principle is too simple, and too agreeable to the bad propensities of human nature, to be either unheeded, misunderstood, or unwelcome. Disciples enow would greedily embrace such a lustful doctrine, and would boast scriptural authority for bad deeds, when they are taught that good ones are worthless.

It is impossible to believe, that any man teaching such an ideal and inconsistent doctrine, as has been thus discussed, can himself have any definite notion, or any clear and intelligible conception of the meaning of his own denunciations. The farther it is examined and considered, the more does it resolve itself into a mystification of words and symbols, carrying as little sense and conviction to the reasoning faculties, as encouragement or comfort to the soul. It would render our religion a cold, and cheerless, and unpersuasive fancy, adapted neither to the best, nor to the worst, parts of our nature;- -a mystery not fitted for man, and for which man is equally unfitted; whilst from our Savior's gracious words, that "the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath," we might well have hoped that his holy religion is equally made for us.

But it rests not on these arguments of merely