represented to us in the Scriptures of the New Testament, which thus accord in the most exact and precise manner with the prophet's description of Him given 700 years before, that he bore our griefs and carried our sorrows, and the Lord laid on Him the iniquities of us all.' Thus it is that divine justice has been appeased and satisfied; and that man is pardoned, and the gates of mercy are thrown open to all who are willing to become partakers of that mercy, through repentance and faith in his name and his meritorious sufferings, all the prophets concurring with Isaiah in giving witness to Him, that through his name whosoever believeth in Him, shall receive remission of sins.' Thus then," he continued, "being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ;' (I need not tell you that I here quote the words of Scripture ;) and again By grace are we saved through faith,' but mark, not of ourselves,' and not for our own works and deservings; for by his own works man cannot make himself righteous, neither in part, nor in the whole: for this our justification is solely and exclusively the gift and the office of God, and is a thing which we receive and

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take of Him by his free mercy, and by the only merits of his dearly beloved Son, our Redeemer, Saviour, and Justifier. Now this doctrine of justification by faith without works is one which has too often been sadly mistaken and misapplied; and it is therefore of the highest consequence that we should come to a right understanding of it. In the first place, it does not mean that this our own act of believing in Christ, or this our faith in Him, is the thing which justifies, or causes us to deserve justification; (for that would be to assume to ourselves a certain degree of merit, which by the whole tenor of the Gospel we are forbidden to do ;) but the meaning is, that although we hear the word of God, and sincerely believe in every part of it, and although we abound in every Christian virtue and in all Christian works, we must renounce the merit of all these virtues and works, and of all that we can possibly do hereafter, as things far too weak and imperfect, and as altogether insufficient to deserve remission of our sins and justification; for these, therefore, we must trust only in God's mercy, and in that sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Christ Jesus, the Son of God, once offered for

us upon the cross, in order to obtain that grace and pardon for us. *

"Christ, therefore," he proceeded, " is the only meritorious cause of man's justification; and that by the mercy of God, through a true and lively faith on our part. The next thing, then, to consider is, the return which our Christian Scriptures teach us that it is our

* See the 2d and 3d Homilies.

"Paul does not say simply that a man is justified without works, but without the works of the law;' nor yet by faith alone, but by faith which worketh by love.' Faith has its own works, which may be different from the works of the law. We are justified therefore by faith, but by a living, not a dead faith, and that faith alone which acts is accounted living. Hence we are justified by faith without the works of the law, but not without the works of faith; inasmuch as a living and true faith cannot consist without works, though these latter may differ from the works of the written law. Such were those of Abraham and Rahab: to these may be added the instance of Phineas, whose action was counted unto him for righteousness, (Ps. cvi. 31.)- the very same words used in the case of Abraham. Nor will it be denied that Phineas was justified in the sight of God, rather than of men, and that his work (Numb. xxv. 11, 12.) was a work of faith, and not of the law. Phineas, therefore, was justified not by faith alone, but also by the works of faith..' Milton's Christian Doctrine, art. Justification.

duty to make to God for this his great and undeserved mercy towards us, and the nature of that faith through which we are justified. The first of these may be despatched in a few words; for it is most plain that we are by this faith bound to love the Lord our God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all our strength; and that this love of God is most effectually proved and shown by keeping his commandments. Nor to those who study the Scriptures merely from a desire of finding the truth and acting up to it, can there be any greater difficulty as to the nature of the faith required of us. It clearly cannot be sufficient that we should merely believe in all the truths of Scripture, for this is a belief which even the devils entertain with trembling; but our faith must be of a kind which does not lie dead in the heart, but is lively and fruitful in bringing forth good works, especially those of brotherly love and charity, and disposing the mind to a steady and regular performance of such works, on the principle of obedience to God who has commanded them, and in the assurance of that everlasting reward, which for

the sake and through the merits of his blessed Son he has promised to such obedience.

"I will not weary you, Captain Mordaunt, with quotations in proof of this doctrine of our church. The attention which you appear to have paid to the Holy Scriptures does not permit me, for a moment, to suppose that you can ever have assented to the notions of those who would separate a right and true faith from good works. The only wonder is that any man can ever have done it, at least after reading any part of the life and doctrines of our Blessed Lord, to say nothing of the precepts and exhortations of his apostles in their several epistles. In fact, as you well know, there is not one of these precepts and exhortations, either of our Lord or his apostles throughout the whole of the New Testament, which is not directed to the promotion of piety and virtue in general, or to some particular acts and parts of them not a promise which has not a like object, nor a threatening which is not denounced against some kind and manner of ungodliness and unrighteousness. And even were this not so plainly marked in every page and almost every line of the Gospel, it might be sufficient