so blindly, that he has hitherto not been influenced by any fixed principle; that his present station and mode of life does not emanate from faith, but from human and carnal motives, or the imitation of others -this very circumstance, I say, ought to serve to convince him in what a wretched state of soul he must doubtless be: for he is unable to prove that the mode of life he is pursuing has been selected in faith, and is in conformity to the will of God. He has at least no certainty of it in his heart. What therefore ought to be done? Such an individual ought to feel convinced, that he has hitherto groped like a blind man for the wall, and has never taken one sure step in his whole life.

"But here he must not run to the other extreme and say, "since I am not aware of being called to the study of divinity, I will give it up, and study jurisprudence or medicine; or else I will learn a trade, or return to the world and do nothing at all! No-such a mode of acting would be improper; but in whatever station the individual may be, when the Lord preaches the doctrine of repentance to him, and reveals to him the depravity of his own heart-in that station, calling, or profession he ought to remain, until the Lord points out some other 'to him. For even as it is sinful to commence anything without faith-so it is likewise sinful to abandon anything without full conviction. Indeed if the student of divinity, thus circumstanced, were to turn to some other profession, he is equally unable to do it in faith, but does so in uncertainty, and knows not whether the one state orthe other is agreeable to God. Hence he ought rather to continue and persevere in the former state in which he was apprehended of God.

He must however acknowledge his previous wretched and miserable condition of soul, come to reflection, and fervently entreat the Lord to be gracious to him, to enlighten his poor, dark, and senseless heart, and make him a partaker of his Holy Spirit, who may henceforth lead him into all truth. This is the chief point to be observed."

In the last lecture-the twenty-fifth-he makes a particular reference to 1 Cor. i. 34.-' But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption.' "It is not without reason," says he, "that in the Old and New Testament, we are first of all referred to the prophetic office of Christ. . . . In this respect we must also make a thorough and salutary application to ourselves of this truth, that the Lord Jesus must be acknowledged and accepted as the one great prophet, whilst cordially apprehending all that he has said, or has caused to be left on record for us. When this is properly taken to heart, it brings with it, first, a high esteem for the prophetic and apostolic writings, or the whole of Holy Scripture, so that the individual does not read it in a superficial manner, but brings a heart with him to the word of truth, which is ready to believe it, without gainsaying, as the standard of faith, and to be obedient to it as the rule and criterion of life. Yea, the heart must not only be ready, but desirous also of apprehending and practising the divine truths which are made known by this great prophet, mediately or immediately in the Holy Scriptures. And if it were requisite, we must be ready and willing to lay down our lives and shed our blood for them.

"When this has been duly laid as the foundation,

there is then a good commencement for the inward life, and we shall see, that Christ, according to his prophetic office, is the wisdom of God. We must not, therefore, suppose, that we can attain in theological matters-for of these we are now speaking, and not of human sciences-by any other means to that wisdom which has reference to faith and life; since the soul has to do with the triune God, and his service in Christ Jesus. With respect to this, the man must certainly renounce other conceptions, and not imagine for instance, that philosophy can render him wise enough; but he must give Jesus Christ the glory of being his wisdom. When he does not fill the heart and soul with the knowledge of the truth in faith and life-everything else is folly. . . .

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Therefore, if a student of divinity wishes to become a real divine, and properly uuderstand the practice of inward religion, he must learn experimentally that sublime truth, which our Saviour testifies in Matt. xi. 25,-' I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.' A divinity student must duly make himself acquainted with this, and thus go with his heart to Jesus Christ, even as wisdom says in Prov. xxiii. 26, My son, give me thine heart.' He must seek to learn his divinity of Christ, and thus only will he become a true divine.

"The next thing on which inward religion depends, is the high-priestly office of our Saviour, who as the only-begotten Son of God, became man, in order that in the union of the two natures in one person, as one Christ, he might accomplish the great and mighty work of the redemption of the human

race, and through death, overcome death. If it be laid as the foundation, that Jesus Christ, with reference to his prophetical office, is made of God unto us, wisdom-this other must be so likewise, that he is made unto us righteousness. . . .Now this being founded on the word of God, the individual in the progress of the divine life, must also cleave to it as an immutable basis....Everything is briefly comprehended in it; both what has already been said, and what we may still observe is, as it were, concentrated in this, that Christ is made of God unto us righteousness.'. . . .It is in this, if I may so speak, that evangelical self-denial consists, in which the individual denies himself entirely in the presence of God, and does not profess, with his own righteousness, to have any claim to salvation or eternal life on account of what he has done; but esteems himself unworthy even of the garment he wears, the morsel he eats, or the drop of water he enjoys. He therefore presents Jesus Christ alone to the Father, as the basis of all salvation and all that is good; and confesses that whatever good he receives, is simply and solely for his sake. It must be the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ alone, by which we come to God; and every work of our own, whatever name it may have, must be then excluded, or else it acts as leaven, pervading the whole mass, preventing us from retaining peace in our souls, or making any further progress, even though we had read all the profound works that have ever been written upon the inward life.

"But it is necessary to make a very profound application of this in the heart; in which the new birth, and the transition from death unto life, takes

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place at the same time. When the individual presents himself before God as a child of death and eternal perdition, who is unworthy of all favour, and on the contrary, deserving of all the curse and wrath of God, as well as all temporal and eternal punishment; but at the same time directs his eye simply to Jesus Christ crucified, and desires to be washed from his sins in his blood, who became a curse for him on the fatal tree, to deliver him from the curse of the law, and make him a partaker of the blessing -he then puts on Jesus Christ as his righteousness, and the transition is made at the same time, in him, from death unto life; which certainly is no mere imaginary matter, but must necessarily be a reality.

"Now it is in this, that the marrow and centre of the whole of practical religion lies. But if this is not actually experienced by the individual, he has not passed from death unto life; he has not experienced any real regeneration and justification, but deceives himself with an imaginary justification, and only forms a general idea of Christ, who still in reality continues unknown to him. The last deception is then worse than the first, and publicans and harlots will enter into the kingdom of God, sooner than such individuals; who imagine that they know Christ, and yet have neither seen him nor known him, nor ever experienced his power in the new birth....

"And in the next place we have further to observe, that the same Jesus, who is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, is also become our sanctification. For after he became our High Priest, and by the shedding of his blood, accomplished redemption and purification from sin, he entered into the most