saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they shall all know me from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." In the mission and Gospel of Christ, this prophecy was to the letter fulfilled. His teachings were the substitution of a spiritual law, appealing to men's consciences and moral sense, for the outward and ceremonial law. And as Moses, when he had read from the book of the covenant in the audience of the people, and they said, all that the Lord hath said we will do and be obedient, took blood and sprinkled it on the people, and said: "Behold, the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words;" so Christ when he had finished delivering the precepts of the New Covenant, took wine and said to his disciples: "This is the new covenant," not testament, as we have it in our translation, " in my blood, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." That is, as the blood which Moses sprinkled on the people, ratified the old covenant, so will my blood which I shall shed on the cross, ratify the new. A part of this covenant we have already seen, was the forgiveness of sin: "I

will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." The blood of Christ then, was not the procuring cause of the pardon of sin, it only ratified the new covenant, a part of which was a promise of God to pardon sin. Faith then in the blood of Christ was faith in the mercy of God, of which that blood was a seal and an assurance. The provision for the pardon of sin under the new dispensation differed from that under the old, inasmuch as it seemed to be bestowed under the old in consequence, not of repentance alone, but the performance of certain rites, and was given therefore in a manner as a matter of debt. Under the old dispensation, the sinner offered the sacrifice by God's ordinance, and it signified his penitence and God's mercy. Under the new, man did nothing, but God himself set forth the symbol, so that it was altogether of grace. "Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth," not man, "to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare the terms of the Divine acceptance in the forgiveness of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; to declare at this time his terms of forgiveness, that he is merciful and ready to pardon him that believeth in Jesus." Thus Christ is not a propitiatory offering made by man to God, but a symbol of mercy set forth by God to What man is required to do then, is to believe

man.

that he is a symbol of mercy, to the penitent of course. The connexion of the death of Christ with the forgiveness of sin then, according to this Epistle, becomes the simplest and most intelligible thing in the world. Faith in the blood of Christ becomes faith in the mercy of God, of which his blood is the symbol and assurance. All ideas of a literal sacrifice are contradicted by the fact of God's having set forth Christ as a propitiation, otherwise it would amount to the strange proposition that God made a human sacrifice to appease himself.

It is observed in this Epistle, that Paul lays much stress on the fact, that the grace of God is free. The purpose of this is, to reduce the Jews and Gentiles to the same level. The danger was, that the Jews would assume a superiority over the Gentiles in the church, and consider themselves better than they on account of their former compliance with the ceremonial law, and imagine that the privileges of Christianity belonged to them of right. "Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? may, but by the law of faith. Therefore, we conclude, that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." Jew and Gentile are alike admitted into the new covenant on account of faith, or belief in Jesus.

I now proceed to an analysis of the Epistle. He begins by expressing his desire to see them, and

exercise his ministry among them to their mutual edification; that he had many times formed this design, but hitherto had been hindered. He considered himself a debtor to Greek and barbarian, the wise and the foolish, to preach the Gospel. For, says he, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek." The mention of these two elements of the church, the Jew and the Greek, hurries him into the main purpose of his Epistle, to show the application of the Gospel to both. "For the terms of Divine acceptance are revealed in it through faith to all who believe, as it is written, The justified by faith, shall live.' For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven, against all ungodliness and iniquity of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness."

All mankind have sinned, and stand in need of the Gospel, both as a scheme of pardon and reformation; and the essence of their guilt is, that they hold the truth in unrighteousness, that is, they do not act up to the light they have. To sin, three postulates are necessary, a knowledge of God as the foundation of obligation, a knowledge of right and wrong, and freedom to choose between them. These he shows to have been possessed both by Gentile and Jew. This knowledge was possessed by the heathen in the necessary convictions of natural religion, which made the favor of God equally attainable to all. "Be

cause, that which may be known of God, is manifest to them, for God hath shown it to them. For the invisible things of him are clearly seen, being understood by the things which are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." This knowledge they voluntarily and corruptly relinquished, and substituted idolatry in its stead; which corrupting the fountain of true religion, became the source of endless corruption of morals and manners. Not only have they a sufficient knowledge of God to be the ground of religious obligation, but a moral discrimination between right and wrong is demonstrated to exist in every man, from the fact of his judging others. All mankind judge the conduct of others, and say that this is wrong, and that is right. No man can deny that he possesses this knowledge who condemns another, and therefore leaves himself without excuse. God's dealings with such a sinner are demonstrated to be just: "Therefore, thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest, for wherein thou judgest another thou condemnest thyself, for thou that judgest doest the same things. And we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things."

This is equally true of those who possess a revelation, and those who do not. "For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a