more emphatically true that neither ignorance nor error is religion. But what is most important is, that ignorance and error separate us from God precisely in proportion as they exist; while God himself has told us, that to know him, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent, is eternal life.1 1 1 John, xvii. 3. CHAPTER III. RELATION OF THE COVENANT OF REDEMPTION, TO THE INNER LIFE OF MAN, AND TO HIS FUNDAMENTAL RELIGIOUS CONVICTIONS. I-1. The Will of God is the Rule of Duty to Man considered as a Creature.-2. The Rule of Duty to Fallen Creatures for whom God provides a Saviour, is the Will of that Saviour.-3. Precise relation of the Revealed Way of Salvation, to the nature of Religion, and of Man. II.-1.- Salvation for Sinners, through sovereign Grace.-2. Comparative Statement of their Condition-and the Remedy.— 3. Comparative Statement of the Moral Impotence, and the Moral Susceptibility of Fallen Man.-4. This Condition of Fallen Man, the Covenant of Redemption, and the actual Process of Salvation mutually illustrated.-5. The Sovereignty of God and the Dependence of the Creature, universal in all things, are emphatic in Grace unto Salvation.-6. Divine Grace rendered effectual, only through our personal Redemption.-7. That personal Redemption made available to us, not by our act, but by the work of God's Spirit. III.-1. The most remote reasons of our personal Salvation.-2. The most remote reasons of the failure of personal Salvation to be universal.-3. On one side an illustration of God's infinite Perfections beyond the Covenant; on the other of his infinite Perfections within the Covenant; on both the display of his infinite Nature.-4. Restatement of Redeeming Love, in its method, and in its results. I.-1. If there were no God, there could be no religion; and, in that case, the existence of a moral conscience in man would be the most inscrutable of all the wonders of his being. It would be the precise response of our nature to our Creator; when, in reality, there was no such thing as a Creator. To say that we have an understanding-and then deny that there is any such thing as truth-is less absurd than to say we have a conscienceand then deny the existence of the very object of that conscience. As to our having a religious nature, it is just as certain as that we have any nature at all. But the sense of our dependence on God, and the sense of our responsibility to God, are the deepest manifestations of that religious nature; precisely as the fact of that dependence and the fact of that accountability, are the deepest foundations of religion itself. And so in the nature of the case, to which our own nature responds, we are to direct all our actions, not according to our own pleasure, but according to the will of God. And this obligation, which is in some sort the very essence of all religion, is equally binding upon every creature of God, that is capable of knowing him. 2. Every thing which separates between God and man—sin in all its forms-is abnormal, that is, unnatural to man as he was created by God. Sin places man in a new relation to God; but still leaving him the creature of God, it neither releases him from the dominion of God, nor from his dependence on God. The obligation to regulate all his actions by the will of God, still continues in full force, while his ability and his desire to do so are both lost, and his sense of obligation to do so deprives him of all peace in his sins. The way of access to God for sinless creatures is open and clear, and they have light and strength to walk therein. But to sinful creatures, nature affords no access to God, and reason discloses none, except merely that they may come and be condemned. That any form of religion should be effectual in restoring a sinful creature to the favour of God, it must, therefore, be supernaturally revealed, it must contemplate him as a sinner, it must deliver him from condemnation for his sins, and it must restore to him both the desire and the ability to conform his actions to the will of God. In effect, this has been done through a Saviour. A new relation has been established between God and fallen men, considered not merely as creatures, nor merely as sinful creatures, but as sinful creatures still capable of restoration and of salvation. It is a relation of grace on one side and faith on the other, superadded to the relation of dominion on one side and dependence on the other, which existed before. The fundamental principle of this religion for sinners must necessarily be, dependence on the Saviour revealed to him by God. And the essential principle which has been shown to lie at the basis of all religion assumes a corresponding form, namely, that all sinful creatures for whom God has provided a Saviour, are bound to regulate all their actions, not according to their own pleasure, but according to the will of that Saviour. 3. God the Father, the supreme ruler of the universe, requires of every creature that complete obedience which lies, as I have shown alike from the nature of God, and the nature of man, and the relations between them, at the base of all religion; and by consequence, he demands against sinful man, satisfaction to his immaculate justice, to his broken covenant, and to his violated law. God the Son undertakes to render that satisfaction, and is ordained to the execution of that work. God the Holy Ghost applies to the redeemed, the satisfaction demanded by the Father, and rendered by the Son. The ineffable love of each divine Person in the Godhead to the others, prompts them all to manifest and to illustrate in this manner, the infinite glory of each in this sublime procedure. And thus in a line of thought suggested by the very nature of religion itself, which is the very highest necessity of man, we arrive at the most naked form of exact accordance between the fundamental conception of the Covenant of Redemption as revealed to us by God, and the fundamental nature of our own inner life as attested by our own consciousness. Now let it be considered that the form of spiritual life unto which fallen man is transformed, by all these acts of God and all these changes in us, is precisely that of which in our sins natural reason has no conception, and natural conscience no ability; and then the divine reality of it all seems to reach absolute certainty. II.—1. It is not the righteous-it is sinners whom the Saviour calls to repentance; it is the sick, not they that be whole, who need a physician.' As long as we do not realize our sinfulness, neither can we realize our need of divine grace; and as soon as we deny the misery which sin brings upon us, we renounce the necessity of divine mercy. It is, no doubt, common for men to fall temporarily into such a condition as this; and ofttimes the conscience becomes so far seared and blinded, that this condition becomes permanent. The ordinary condition of impenitent men is, perhaps, one of ignorance, indifference, and inattention to divine things, and to their own spiritual estate; and the more so in all Christian lands, where the light of God is sufficiently diffused, to make obvious the folly of such remedies for our fallen state, as man left to himself has been able to suggest. To arouse, to awaken, to engage, to enlighten the human. soul, is the first practical necessity in saving it; and then to quicken, sustain, and sanctify it, is to fit it for the acceptable service, and satisfying enjoyment of God. It is by the love of God the Father, the saving grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the application of both to our souls with divine light and power 1 Matt., ix. 9-13. : by the Holy Ghost, that all this is accomplished. And in the process, the word and ordinances of God, together with his divine providence, and together with the whole forces abiding in the nature he has given us, are made tributary to the great work of our restoration. Countless millions of human beings have encountered all the conditions embraced in all these statements; countless millions denying and rejecting the remedy made known by God; countless millions accepting it; all of them on both sides, exhibiting some phase or other of the relation of the great truths and principles on which the Covenant of Redemption rests, to the fundamental religious ideas, convictions, and nature of man. Every human being who has been in reach of the word of God, has had the opportunity of knowing what it is God proposes, and the means he has provided for his great end. Every human being who has had the opportunity of seeing the children of God, has had the means of appreciating the effects of God's purposes and acts in restoring fallen man to his lost image. And every human being who has either accepted or rejected the Gos-pel, has had in his own mental experience the most intimate testimony of the relation between that Gospel and the soul, rejecting or accepting it. The question, therefore, so far from being obscure, is one which nothing but voluntary ignorance, or sinful indifference, could prevent all the countless millions of whom I have spoken, from appreciating justly and determining with certainty. If it be alleged that other millions, perhaps as numerous, never heard of Christ or the covenant of which he was the Mediator; I readily admit as to them, that the position in which the Scriptures place them is such, as to require a modification of the foregoing statements, to the whole extent of remitting them back to the position in which fallen man stood when he was driven from Eden-or to whatever intermediate position they may have attained through God's mercy. They must live,: or they must die, according to their actual condition. But the more dreadful this condition may be supposed to be, the clearer · is the evidence drawn from human nature itself, that there is no salvation for man except through the Covenant of Redemption; and that it has always been administered, as it has always been revealed, in a way of sovereign grace. 2. Our actual condition, therefore, is capable of the most distinct appreciation; and so the elements of it are capable of the |