a canse. But good works must also go before man's final justification, otherwise man can perform no good works at all: in that sense, they may be considered as a qualification, preparatory to an event.* Without opposing, therefore, what I conceive to be the sense of those great men, to whose authority you appeal, I decidedly protest against the conclusion you have drawn from them. There is no protestant but believes faith, repentance, and universal obedience, are necessary to the obtaining God's favour, and eternal happiness. This being granted, the rest is but a speculative controversy, a question about words, which would quickly vanish, but that men affect not to understand one aother. There is no protestant but requires to justification, remission of sins; and to remission of sins, they all require repentance; and repentance, I presume, may not be denied the name of a good work, being indeed, if rightly understood, and according to the sense of the word in scripture, an effectual conversion from all sin to all holiness. They have great reason to believe the doctrine of justification by faith only, as a point of great weight and importance, if it be rightly understood; that is, they have reason to esteem it a principal and necessary duty of a Christian, to place his hope of justification and salvation, not in the perfection of his own righteousness, which, if it be imperfect, will not justify, (I should rather say, not in his own righte ousness, which, being imperfect, cannot justify) but only in the mercies of God, through Christ's satisfaction; and yet, notwithstanding this, nay the * Vindiciæ, e. vi. p. 314. See Chillingworth, fol. p. 32, 33.

rather for this, may preserve themselves in the right temper of good Christians, which is a happy mixture and sweet composition of confidence and fear. If this doctrine be otherwise expounded, I will not undertake the justification of it; only I will say, that I never knew any protestant such a solifidian, but that he did believe these Divine truths-That he must make his calling certain by good works; that he must work out his salvation with fear and trembling;—and that while he does not so, he can have no well-grounded hope of salvation. I say, I never met with any one, who did not believe these Divine truths; and that with a more firm and with a more unshaken assent, than he does that himself is predestinate; and that he is justified, by believing himself justified. I never met with any such who, if he saw there was a necessity to do either, would not rather forego his belief of these doctrines than the former: these which he sees disputed, and contradicted, and opposed with a great multitude of very potent arguments; than those which, being the express words of scripture, whosoever should call in question, could not with any modesty pretend to the title of Christian."

The idea, that where the root exists, the proper fruit will be produced, is contradicted by fact and experience. All trees in a living state do not produce fruit. Faith, though not in an actually dead state, may be alive to no saving purpose. In our Saviour's parable of the fig-tree, the lord of the vineyard is described as coming three years seeking fruit, and finding none. Had the tree been actually

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The deetrine of arth vithout works nas, neee, f de cars went foutenacre: mt hooga I does it inner meni anong Christians as t ones dit still ar. matang is way in disguise. A doctrine early related a 1 sat his day propagated, neompatible, 1 Landerstand it, with the grand economy of man's saivation: I mean that doctrine which represents the fans of Toliness as the reces sory produce of Christian faith. Persons who profess to write against the gross corruption of Natiaomicwiem, may unintentionally promote it. by adopting a mode of reenncing the two Aposfles St. Paul and St. James, to which the Apostles themselves would not subscribe. It with the view of doing honour to faith, as the root or foundation of Christian practice, because no Christian praetice can exist independent of it, the fruits of holiness are to be considered as its necessary produce; not only a great part of St. Paul's writings would be without meaning, but the supposed attempt of St. James, to counteract the wrong conclusions that might be drawn from some parts of them, taken unconnectedly, would have been useless, because

in such case, no such conclusion could have been drawn.

According to the plausible idea adopted on this subject, which, as it strikes me, substitutes one erroneous doctrine for another, the duties of Christianity are represented as growing out of the doctrines of it," as the natural and necessary productions of such a living root." The fallacy in this case proceeds from a scripture allusion being taken in a too literal sense. Allusions are made use of to convey some similitude, not an exact representation of the subject in question. "A tree will produce according to its kind, by a merely physical result, if no impediment take place. Faith also will produce its own effects, if no moral hindrance shall prevail. But the obvious difference between merely natural results, and those which are of a moral nature, must be constantly remembered. Extend the comparison to those parts which are unlike in the several subjects, and you confound their natures; and the consequences will be most gross and erroneous.' "* The duties of Christianity must grow out of the doctrines of it, or they would not be Christian duties: but they certainly are not the necessary production of those doctrines; if they were, then every one who had the doctrines of Christianity in his head, must consequently have the duties of Christianity in his practice. Sad experience, however, tells us, that this is too often not the case. St. Paul, in his epistles, proceeds, like a wise master-builder, by laying his foundation

* Considerations on the Christian Covenant, by Archdeacon Pott, p. 100.

in Christ, as the only foundation upon which Christ ian practice can be built. But had he considered that the doctrinal lesson contained chiefly in the first part of his epistles, must necessarily produce its practical effects, the conclusion of his epistle had in a great degree been unnecessary. His having, therefore, subjoined a practical lesson to his doctrinal one, proves that he did not consider the one as necessarily growing out of the other, "just as (we are told) any other consequence grows out of its cause." In fact, he knew, that although Christian doctrine constituted the only foundation for Christian practice, he knew at the same time, that they were not so inseparably connected, that the latter was a necessary consequence of the former; otherwise, after having laid before his disciples the particulars of the Christian doctrine, he would not, it is probable, have thus concluded his important lesson: "I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God." Or, as he has still more strongly concluded in his second epistle to the Corinthians, “ Having, therefore, these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God."+

Cause and effect in the regular course of nature are correlative terms, being connected together by an inseparable bond of union. Nevertheless, as the moral and physical world are not governed by the same necessary laws, a strict correspondence between them is not to be expected. Faith and