"and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And "I will put my spirit within you, and cause you "to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my 'judgments and do them." Here, then, we have a treasury of grace and comfort" God worketh "in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure;" therefore, we have every encouragement to work also. Being" his workmanship, created anew in "Christ Jesus unto good works," we may, with every hope of success and of acceptance," work "out our own salvation, (though) with fear and "trembling."'*

2 Ezek. xxxvi. 25, 26.

3 Eph. ii. 10.

4 Phil. ii. 12, 13.

* What has been stated respecting the personal holiness of believers, will be sufficient, I should imagine, to convince every serious inquirer, that the doctrines of free grace are not, nor can possibly be, unfavorable to morality, or the strictest regard to any of our duties. But I shall here subjoin the arguments of Dr. Chalmers, as powerfully corroborative of the above statements. "We cannot but advert (he writes,) to the prejudice of the general world against the doctrine of acceptance through faith, as if it were a doctrine most loved, and most resorted to, by those who felt no value for the worth of moral accomplishments, and bestowed no labour on the cultivation of them. We beg the attention of our readers to the contrast which obtains between a very prevailing fancy upon this subject, and the fact, as it stands experimentally before us. The fancy is, that those who disclaim a justification by works, are those who take the least pains in the doing of them.-The fact is, that it was by their very pains to be perfect and complete in the doing of them, that they found this foundation to be impracticable; and now that they are upon another foundation, it is unto them, and not unto others, that we look for works in their greatest abundance, for works in their greatest purity. The fancy is, that by linking their whole security, not with the rewards of obedience, but with the grace of the Gospel, these people have given up all business with

L

6. These are the gifts of God, my Brethren, which we are encouraged to expect in this life ;gifts indeed of inestimable value, but preparatory

the law. The fact is, that ever since they thought of religion at all, they have been by far the busiest of all their fellows about the requisitions of the law. It was their “ schoolmaster, to bring them unto Christ;" (Gal. lii. 24.) and now that they are so brought, the keeping of the law forms their daily and delightful occupation. It may well rank as one of the curiosities of our nature, that they who are most hostile to the doctrine of the efficacy of faith, because they think that works, of themselves, are sufficient for salvation, are, in the real and practical habit of their lives, most negligent in the performance of them; and, on the other hand, that they who are most hostile to the doctrine of the efficacy of works, because they think it is by the power of faith that we are kept unto salvation, are the men who have most to show of those very works on which they seem to stamp so slight an estimation. And to complete this apparent mystery, they who impute nothing but licentiousness to orthodoxy, tolerate licentiousness only in those who are the enemies, and never in those who are the professors of it—look upon the alliance between vice and evangelical sentiment, to be a far more monstrous and unlikely alliance, than that which often obtains between vice and an irreligious contempt for all the peculiarities of our faith-reproach the doctrine of the Gospel for its immoral tendencies, and yet, for every flaw in the morality of its disciples, will they lift the reproachful cry of their lives and their opinions being in a state of disgraceful and hypocritical variance with each other, proving, after all, that the men who build their security most upon faith, are the men to whom even the world looks for most in the way of practical righteousness; are the men whose delinquencies are ever sure to raise the loudest murmurs of wrath or of astonishment from by-standers; are the men over whom satire feels herself to have the greatest advantage, when by any peccadillo of conduct, they furnish her with a topic, either of merriment or severity. And what else can we make of all these inconsistencies, than that there is a deep and prevailing misconception about the real character of the evangelical system? and that, while there has been imputed to it a cold and repulsive aspect towards virtue, there lies veiled under this a powerful and a working principle, from which even the public at large expect a more abundant return than they do from any other quarter of human society, of all the graces and all the accomplishments of virtue?” -Chalmers' Introductory Essay to Scott's Tracts.

only to still greater, far surpassing, and even inconceivable blessings. The crowning gift, and that which is of everlasting continuance, is Glorification.

There are passages of Scripture, which, if taken by themselves, independent of the context, and without reference to the analogy of faith, appear to militate against other equally decisive statements. No part, then, of the Sacred Writings so strongly exhibit this unquestionable truth, as the Epistles of St. Paul, particularly to the Romans and the Galatians, compared with the Epistle of St. James. Considered either disjunctively or together, they seem, at first sight, mutually opposed to each other. On the one hand, we have St. Paul peremptorily declaring, that " a man is "justified by faith, without the deeds of the law," and that "by the works "of the law shall no flesh be justified." Rom. iii. 28. Gal. ii. 16. On the other hand, we have St. James as firmly asserting, that " by works a man "is justified, and not by faith only." Jam. ii. 24. Now that these statements are perfectly consistent with each other, and agreeable to the whole tenor of Scripture, will be soon discovered by an examination of the different design of each Apostle, and of the sense in which they both employ the same terms. For the edification, therefore, of those readers who may be unable to determine this question satisfactorily for themselves, I shall endeavour to compress, in as short a compass as possible, the arguments generally made use of to prove the agreement of the two Apostles on this important subject.——First, then, as to the design of the two Apostles. St. Paul's purpose is, to declare how a guilty, convinced sinner, becomes pardoned and acceptable to God, and is acquitted and justified in his sight. He says "a man is justified by faith, "without the deeds of the law." Now by the law he intends not merely the ceremonial part of the Mosaic law, (for that was peculiar to the Jews,) but that which gives the knowledge of sin, (Rom. iii. 20.) and by which he proves that Gentiles as well as Jews are all under sin, and the whole world become guilty before God. (Rom. iii. 9. 19.) But he could not prove that the Gentiles were sinners in transgressing the ceremonial law of Moses, for they were never under it. It is plain, therefore, that he must intend what is commonly called the moral law, which requires perfect love to God and our neighbour: this is further evident from the various sins, both of Jews and Gentiles, which he specifies as transgressions of it. (Rom. i. 22-32. iii. 12-19.) St. Paul's conclusion then is, that, since all had broken the law, and were all under sin, and consequently unable to keep the law perfectly as it required, none

“There is a rest which remaineth to the people of "God."-For this, believers "do with patience "wait," for this they long, for this they run, and

can be justified but by an act of free grace. Accordingly he shows that "the righteousness of God, which is unto all, and upon all them that believe," is their being "justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ; whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of the sins that are past." (Rom. iii. 22—26.) St. Paul here states justification "through the redemption that is in Christ," in direct opposition to its being by the works of the law; and so makes Christ's obedience, and not our own, the ground of our justification. He likewise shows how we receive the blessing of justification-by faith, or through faith in his blood. Justifying faith has a special respect to the atonement of Christ, and so is termed faith in his blood; it being a belief that the blood of the Son of God, which was shed for the remission of sins, is alone sufficient for our pardon and acceptance into a state of favour with God. Now the design of St. James differs entirely from that of St. Paul. He does not inquire, he does not even attempt to show, how a guilty convinced sinner, whose mouth is stopped from alleging any excuse for himself, can be justified in the sight of God, that is, receive the pardon of his sins, and the gift of righteousness unto life. He had another object in view. It seems that some had already begun to wrest the important doctrine of justification without the deeds of the law, to their own destruction; presuming upon the soundness of their faith, and the safety of their state, while they were destitute of Christian tempers, and neglected the works of love and mercy required in the law. It was the design of St. James, therefore, to combat this pernicious error. And that he considered this error as arising from an abuse of Paul's doctrine, appears evident; for, in refuting it, he repeats the same phrases, testimonies, and examples which St. Paul had used. Compare Jam. ii. 21. 23. 25. with Rom. iv. 3. Heb. xi. 17, 31.

Secondly,-They differ with regard to the use of the word faith. That there are two kinds of faith, with which men are said to receive the Gospel, and profess it, is evident—a mere speculative belief, and a hearty reliance in God's promises and acceptance of his terms; as also that which

5 Heb. iv. 9.

6 Rom. viii. 25.

7 Tit. ii. 13. 2 Pet. iii. 12.

8 1 Cor. ix. 24.

66

strive, and diligently labour; "lest a promise being left us of entering into that rest, any of (them) should seem to come short of it."

66

"We

belongs to the one, cannot belong to the other. Now that by faith in the matter of our justification, St. Paul intends true faith, none will be disposed to deny:-the faith of God's elect, precious faith-the faith that purifies the heart, and works by love-the faith by which Christ dwelleth in us, and we abide in him, whereby we live to God-a living faith, is, surely, what alone he can intend. But that which St. James intends, is what he calls it, a dead faith-a carcase without breath-the faith of devils -a faith consisting in mere words. Well, therefore, may he deny justification in any sense to such a faith as this; though it may be truly ascribed to that faith of which St. Paul speaks. St. James, then, in combating this Antinomian error, does not deny that the persons who had imbibed it, had a kind of faith: he admits it, (iv. 19.) but shows that their faith could not be genuine, because it did not produce the proper effects and fruits of a true and living faith.

Thirdly. The Apostles use not the word Justification in the same sense, nor to the same purpose. We have already seen what St. Paul means by justification, namely, the acquittal of a guilty sinner from the condemnatory sense of the law, by a free pardon of his sins, and an acceptance of him into a state of favor. The evidence, the knowledge, the sense, the fruit, the manifestation of it in our own consciences, or unto others, he does not treat of here, but speaks of them separately, as they occur on other occasions. The justification he treats of is but one, and is at once accomplished, changing the relative state of the person justified, and is capable of being evidenced in various ways to the glory of God, and the consolation of them that truly believe. It is evident, therefore, that justification, taken in this sense, must exclude all works of ours, as they can have no influence upon it; and that it can only be received by faith in God as the justifier of the ungodly, through the work finished by Jesus Christ. Let us now inquire what St. James means by justification, or being justified by works. Many understand him only to mean, that by our good works we make it manifest to ourselves, that we are in a justified state. It is true that good works, springing from faith and love, are an evidence to a man of his being justified; but St. James could not mean to say (ver.21) that Abraham had no evidence that he was in a state of favor with God, till

9 Luke xiii. 24. 1 John vi. 27. Heb. iv. 11.

2 Heb. iv. 1.