CHAPTER FOURTH.

ON MORAL AND SPIRITUAL TRAINING.

CHRISTIANITY is the religion of a sinner. He seeks pardon when he is convinced of the evil of sin, the plague of his own heart, and the peril to which he is exposed. It is communicated to him on the principle of doing good for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ, at the very moment in which it is sought. "Ask, and ye shall receive."-"Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."-" Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." When the sinner's ear is opened to these gracious and most astonishing assurances, he is not actuated merely by the dread of punishment. His position is very different from the abject slave, who is crouching before Omnipotence, with emotions little better in character, than the trembling of devils before Him whose

frown is destruction. He is, indeed, in the depths of distress, when he cries, "Pardon mine iniquity for it is very great;" but it is in the fear of God and his goodness that he is hum bled; and the abasement of his soul is always accompanied with an earnest desire to be renewed in holiness, and kept from sin.

Christianity is the religion of a saint. It is the charter of his privileges. It is a system restoration to every forfeited blessing. It is more. Its Author and Finisher came" that we might have life, and that we might have it more abundantly." It embraces not only pardon but acceptance. Whosoever is made willing, in the day of God's power, to rely for these blessings on the mediatorial appointment of “ The Be loved," passes from a state of guilt and peril, into a state of pardon and security. In the event this happy change, he stands not only as an acquitted man before the Majesty of Heaven, but as an object of complacency in the eye of his re conciled Father. He not only walks in the light of the Divine countenance, but is invested with new and most important titles for time and eter nity.

Christianity is the most glorious display of the Divine perfections. It exhibits, as we have seen, the perfect holiness, and the free love of God, in

the most attractive light. It is, as we have endeavoured to evince, in accordance with all analogy, with the strictest rectitude, and the soundest reasoning. Of this, we trust, evidence has been afforded in the preceding illustrations, sufficient to commend it as a system of forgiveness and restoration, to the understanding of every dispassionate inquirer.

But even these blessings, of unspeakable importance, and of eternal duration as they are, must still be considered as being in a great degree preliminary. The Author of Christianity has something more to communicate to all who repose their confidence in him. His grand and ultimate aim is to transform into his own image, those who have become, by regeneration, partakers of the Divine nature. His gracious purpose is to qualify them, by moral and spiritual training, for the enjoyment of the service upon which they enter in time, and in which they are destined to live throughout eternity.

The grand instrumentality through which this benign purpose is to be accomplished, is that very principle of faith or dependence, through which the blessings of pardon and acceptance have already been secured. This dependence is a state of mind produced by the agency of the Holy Spirit, in disposing the recipient of Divine

favours, to rest on Christ, not for pardon and ac ceptance only, but for that grace which may turn him from sin, for that wisdom which may enable him so to act as to please his Heavenly Father, and for that strength which may enable him to resist the various temptations to which he is exposed. This faith in Jesus Christ is ac cordingly defined in our Shorter Catechism, "a saving grace, whereby we receive, and rest upon him alone for salvation, as he is offered to us in the Gospel." It is, in short, to so great an extent synonymous with trust, reliance, dependence, that these terms may be considered as inter changeable.

It is not our purpose, in this dissertation, to trace, in all its extent, the operation of faith, in preserving and unfolding the excellence of the Christian character. Our object is to satisfy those who draw their conclusions from certain data connected with the moral government of the world, and the moral constitution of man, of the reasonableness of Christianity in attaching s much importance as it does to the principle dependence in the moral and spiritual training of immortal beings. It is to convince them that, in requiring faith from all who would attain reli gious excellence, there is no departure from the principle which is recognised, approved of, and

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acted upon by all, in moral training for the duties and enjoyments of social life. We have only to remind them, that this very principle of faith or dependence, forms the basis of every plan that is pursued, in rearing intellectual and accountable beings.

Our Heavenly Father requires no more from his children than is required by an earthly father from his sons and daughters. Tender and helpto! less in the earlier years of their infancy, they entwine themselves around their parents, as the moss and ivy cling to the tree of the forest. Weak in themselves beyond all other creatures, they begin life in the conscious feeling of dependence on the tenderness of those who receive them into existence. This delightful feeling is highly beneficial in securing the supply of their wants. Increasing in corporeal strength, they soon begin to act from principles connected with the exercise of reason, more than from the mere sensation of the moment; but still, their own resources are ineffectual to promote their happiness, and they feel their dependence in childhood nearly as much as in infancy.

Most willingly do children trust themselves to the direction of their natural guardians; and they do so with a feeling of confidence, that раrents will not abuse the power with which they