This doctrine of holiness utterly supplants and finally overthrows the notion of any man or people being Christians unless they have found that which takes away all sin and saves them from all unholiness. Those, therefore, who pretend to be Christians while they commit sin, or acknowledge they do, are to be judged out of their own mouth; and those also who profess, and yet teach that Christians are all subject to commit sin, are to be esteemed mockers of the work of Christ. "He who despised Moses' law, died without mercy, under two or three witnesses; of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite to the Spirit of grace. (Heb. x. 28, 29.

GOD IS TRUTH. Nothing can with more propriety be attributed to God than truth. His Spirit is truth; his word is truth; Jesus the Son of God, the Word who was made flesh, is truth, and dwelt amongst us full of grace and truth. Without truth there could be no holiness, no righteousness, no justice, nor any thing else truly valuable or excellent. To lack truth is inconsistent with the respectable and good character of a man, and how much more must such an insinuation reflect dishonour on the character of the righteous Judge of all the earth, the God who cannot lie. Yet many seem to hope, as the great source of their comfort, that God will not fulfill his word in all things against sin, laying judgment to the line and righteousness to the plummet. They hope that the soul that sinneth shall not surely die, believing the devil, the father of lies more than God who cannot lie, and that they shall have peace though they add drunkenness to thirst, or at least are sinful and not holy. But these know not that relation to the God of truth which accompanies salvation.

After this cursory view of the character and attributes of God, which comprehends those most commonly spoken of, I thought to have desisted from this part and to have proceeded to the main body of the work, as it relates more immediately to those things which are influential on the practice. But while I look into the writings of the apostles, I see another character or attribute ascribed to God, which seems to pervade and comprehend the whole, and is of so much consequence to living Christianity, that I cannot feel my mind relieved without noticing it. The following words communicate the subject matter of this attribute.

GOD IS LIGHT, and in him is no darkness at all." (1 Jno. i. 5.) When we speak of light as pertaining to the character of God, or of God as being light, it is not to be understood that this light is limited to God as peculiarly belonging to him, and making manifest to him his own character, purposes and works, together with the character and works of his creatures; but also that every one who cometh to the knowledge of God is a partaker of that perfect light which is the true God, according to the degree of his acquaintance with God; so that no man can with any propriety be called a Christian, or be said to know God as he is revealed in Christ, unless he also walk in that light which is God, as Christ also walked. For any one therefore to walk in darkness, or not to enjoy that perfect light and knowledge of the truth, by which he is delivered from all uncertainty or doubt about

the true way of God and eternal life, and about his own character and standing before God, is incompatible with being a Christian, or true follower of Christ. "This, then, is the message which we have heard of him, and declare to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin." (1 Jno. i. 5, 6, 7,) The inference is clearly to the point, that because God is light, therefore his people walk in the light as he is in the light, for he walketh in them, as it is written again, "I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God and they shall be my people." (2. Cor. vi. 16.) Equally clear is the doctrine of Christ from his own mouth, showing that because he is light the people who follow him are freed from wandering in uncertainty or walking in darkness; "I am the light of the world; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." (Jno. viii. 12.) This is true Gospel language. Much darkness was consistent with being an honest Jew, under the law, which was at best, but a shadow; but we speak not of Jews but of Christians; and we never read in the holy Scriptures of an uncertain or a doubting Christian; they know in whom they have believed, and they know that they are of God by the Spirit which he hath given them, and the Spirit is truth.

The pernicious sentiment, so very prevalent among professors, that men may be Christians and yet remain in great doubt and uncertainty whether they are Christians or not, is such a destructive heresy, and such a powerful engine to retain people asleep in sin, that it ought to be pierced with the sword of the Spirit wherever it is accessible; and for this cause, notwithstanding that the subject is more extensively treated in another place, I have been particular to notice it here, as being counteracted by this doctrine, that God is light, and that they who are of God dwell in the light, that the reader may have the impression of the truth of God fixed in his heart, as it were from the beginning, and know that they who are Christians indeed walk in the light of God, being partakers of his divine nature.

I have been the more careful to make some practical remarks on the character and attributes of God, that readers may be impressed with some influential sense of what a man must be, when he becomes a son of God in Christ; that he must be like God in all the graces of the Spirit; for as Jesus Christ, who was the first true tabernacle of God among men, which the LORD pitched, and who is the head of the body, the Church, had the fullness of the Deity dwelling in him bodily; so each and all of the members who, in union with the head, constitute the true body or church, which is Christ, are partakers of the same Spirit and same divine nature, that God may be all and in all. "And of his fullness have all we received, and grace according to grace." And the glory," said Jesus to the Father, "which thou gavest me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one."-"Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his." (Jno. i. 16. and xvii. 22. Rom. viii. 9.)

I have not in this small tract been careful to follow the order of systematics, in their distributions and arrangements of the attributes of

God; neither have I proposedly taken into view all which they enumerate, as his infinity, eternity, unchangeableness, omniscience, and the like. Neither have I attended to the usual distribution of communicable and incommunicable, or the famous distinction of the justice of God into distributive, remunerative and vindictive, with many other distinctions which one or another has named, who knew not what he said or whereof he affirmed. But my leading object in stating what I have done in this place is to open the way for what is yet to be said.

Nevertheless, let it be remembered, with respect to the attributes of God, that no one of them, neither all of them together, comprehend God so as to enable us to know definitively what God is. He is incomprehensible. We cannot know God except as he reveals himself in his character, his attributes and his works. We cannot have any just conceptions of God as lacking any one attribute belonging to the perfection of his character, and yet when we view all these to the extent of our sphere, there is yet that behind of his Essence and Being, of which we are ignorant. All these attributes, or perfections, are qualities none of which can exist abstractedly or alone. Thus if we speak of his holiness-holiness is a quality which implies a being, as it were, previously extant, to be holy, or a being capable of containing holiness. If we speak of love, love is a quality or attribute of some being presupposed by the very naming of this attribute. If we speak of goodness, goodness is also an attribute or perfection of some being or existence presupposed or at least included in the thought; and so of the rest. Yet so intimately and essentially do these perfections belong to the very essence of his nature and being, that we may say in truth and with safety, that God is truth, God is light, God is love, God is holiness; for there is nothing in God but what is truth, there is nothing in God but what is light, there is nothing in God but what is love, there is nothing in God but what is holiness; and so of the rest. On the whole, no one can have any just conception of God otherwise than as his character is revealed in his word and works; neither can any have a just and correct knowledge of God, even by revelation, any farther than as they grow into an acquaintance with him by travelling into the same nature in the work of redemption and holiness, by the Gospel.

Nevertheless, according to the privilege given to us in the revelations which he makes of himself, to teach us our duty and our relation to him, we may talk freely of his character and his works, in the things which pertain to our salvation and redemption. For God hath revealed himself in Christ, that in our sphere we may know him with certainty in all his character, and speak of him with safety. So that while on the one hand, we are unable fully to comprehend all or any one of the perfections of Deity, God being incomparably superior to man; on the other hand, there is nothing in God which, in our sphere, and to the extent thereof, we may not know with certainty and safety, as fast as we overcome evil. For although no man hath seen God abstractedly, at any time, yet the only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father hath revealed him-hath revealed God, whole God, in himself who is the brightness of his glory and the character of his person or subsistence. And nothing short of the correct and perfect knowledge of God in his whole character can ever complete

the happiness of man, who was created in the image of God. And for this cause he hath sent his Son into the world, in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily, to be our example and to reveal God to us, that we might find salvation in being conformed to the image of his Son, and so to God himself, and in no other way. Thus God's people live as knowing the unknowable, and seeing him who is invisible.

"GOD is a SPIRIT," or more properly and emphatically, "GOD is SPIRIT. This is perfectly consistent with the Greek text, and conveys a much more noble sentiment of God, and fixes on the mind a more noble impression, than to say, he is a Spirit, as though he were a circumscribed or limited being. There are many spirits, all limited and dependent beings; but there is one God, independent, and in all his character and perfections unlimited. But God is SPIRIT; and is therefore the proper fountain from whom all created spirits proceed. Moreover God is Spirit; it is therefore no marvel that he is not satisfied with fleshly or material worship; "God is Spirit; and they that worship him, must worship him in spirit and in truth." (Jno. iv. 24.) And no marvel that God will increase the work of the Spirit in his people until they are finally redeemed in the Spirit and the flesh made void. And what if we should say that God is Spirit, comes nearer to pointing out what God is, in his real Being or Essence, than any other name, character or attribute, ascribed to him by the Spirit of revelation, not even excepting the name by which he was made known to Moses, I AM THAT I AM, or I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE, expressing his unchangeableness and independence? We can have some understanding, according to our sphere, of the existence of a Being who is Spirit in the abstract, as a primary Being or foundation existence, independent of any distinct being, attribute or quality, and yet as it were the proper basis for all good qualities, and without all and every one of which we cannot conceive of that Spirit, that Existence, whom we call God. Spirit is a real existence; a proper agent; a subject of power, of righteousness, holiness, love, and the like. A Being who is Spirit is also the proper subject of volition and free agency. speak of love it is not an independent idea; it presupposes some subject or agent to inherit and exercise that love. If we speak of justice; it presupposes a Being who is just, distinct from the idea of justice, as its possessor's seat, or the place of its habitation. If we speak of light; though by some supposed to be a real body, it seems nearest the truth to say, that it presupposes some being capable of illumination and reflection, and that where there is no body to contain light there can be no light. If we speak of power or wisdom, it is a dependent idea, presupposing a Being powerful or wise; and so of the

rest.

But if we

But when we say that God is Spirit, we express the idea of an existence, not material yet real, capable of volition and agency; I say we conceive and express the idea of the Being of God, according to our sphere, for beyond that he is incomprehensible to us, we know nothing; and the circle of our knowledge is small in the infinite I AM. Yet when we say God is Spirit, we can conceive that that Spirit is capable of volition and agency; and is also capable of possessing in himself as his essential qualities, attributes or perfections, power, wisdom, righteousness and justice, holiness, truth, goodness, love, mercy,

light, independence, self-existence, and the like. Accordingly, when we speak or read of the Spirit of God, it is God the Spirit; if of the Spirit of truth, we have respect to God the Spirit, who is Truth; that Spirit who could not exist or ever have existed without truth; if of the Spirit of holiness, it is God the Spirit, who is holy, essentially holy in his very nature; if of the love of God, or Spirit of love, it is no other than God the Spirit who is love, "For God is love, and whosoever dwelleth in love dwelleth in God and God in him;" if of the Spirit of unity in the bond of peace, it is none else but that Spirit who is God, and is one, in himself and all who know him, being in them and to them, the uniting bond in abiding peace towards God and one another. Thus when a man receives the Spirit of Christ, he receives God who is Spirit; and when the Spirit of Christ abideth in any man, he hath abiding in him that God who is Spirit; and he hath both the Father and the Son. "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." “If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (Jno. xiv. 20, 23.)

CHAPTER IV.

OF THE NATURE OF GOD'S DECREES; OR, WHAT A DECREE IS.

The

Ir hath been already admitted that God works according to plan; and that in that plan of things, wisdom is profitable to direct. LORD possessed me," saith Wisdom, "in the beginning of his way, before his works of old." (Pro. viii. 22.) And that God's plans are most free, according to his own understanding and wisdom, and without his being influenced by the desires or wishes of any other being, or any exterior cause whatever, will likely not be denied by any who have the knowledge of "Him who worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will." Neither can it well be denied that God's plans are consistent with each perfection of his nature. As there is no jar in the perfections or attributes of Deity, it is impossible that God should lay any plan, or fix any decree, by which mercy would be sacrificed to justice or justice to mercy, righteousness justice or truth, be sacrificed to power, wisdom, independence, self-sufficiency, his own glory, or any thing whatever. For although the glory of God is the ultimate end of all his works, as well as the greatest happiness and highest perfection of his creatures, whatever is planned or executed for the praise of his glory, is all done in perfect union with righteousness, truth, equity and every other perfection in God. So that, speaking after the manner of men, we may say he consults all these in the plans which he lays out, or the decrees which he makes; and that all is done according to the understanding and reason with which man is indued by the Creator, insomuch that each one will see and be satisfied of the propriety of each plan or decree, in the event of his accept