the Gentile, of the highest claims that God or man held upon the spirit. No matter how dark or damning were the exercises of the soul; if it only kept its sin in its own habitation, and did not develop it in action, the penalty of the law was not laid to its charge. The character of the spirit itself might be criminal, and all its exercises of thought and feeling sensual and selfish, yet if it added hypocrisy to its guilt, and maintained an outward conformity to the law-a conformity itself produced by selfishness, man judged himself, and others adjudged him, guiltless. Man could not, therefore, understand his own guilt, as a spiritual being, nor feel its condemned and lost condition, until the requirements of the holy law were applied to the exercises of his soul.

Now, Jesus applied the Divine law directly to the soul, and laid its obligation upon the move ments of the will and the desires. He taught that all wrong thoughts and feelings were acts of trans gression against God, and as such would be visited with the penalty of the Divine law. Thus he made the law spiritual, and its penalty spiritual, and appealing to the authority of the supreme God, he laid its claims upon the naked soul-he entered the secret recesses of the spirit's tabernacle -he flashed the light of the Divine law upon the awful secrets known only to the soul itself; and with the voice of a God, he spoke to the "I" of the mind-Thou shalt not will, nor desire, nor feel wickedly!

When he had thus shown that all the wrong exercises of the soul were sin against God, and that the soul was in a guilty condition, under the condemnation of the Divine law, he then directs the attention to the spiritual consequences of this guilt. These he declared to be exclusion from the

kingdom and presence of God, and penalty which involved either endless spiritual suffering, or destruction of the soul itself. The punishment which he declared to be impending over the unbelieving and impenitent spirit, he portrayed by using all those figures which would lead men to apprehend the most fearful and unmitigated spiritual misery.

Before the impenitent and unpardoned sinner there was the destruction of the soul and body in hell-consignment to a state of darkness, where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenchedcursed and banished from God into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angelsagonising in flame, and refused a drop of water to mitigate the agony. Now, these figures, to the minds both of Jews and Gentiles, must have conveyed a most appalling impression of the misery that was impending over the soul, unless it was relieved from sin, and the consequent curse of the law-Jesus knew that the Jews, especially, would understand these figures as implying fearful future punishment: he therefore designed to do, what was undoubtedly accomplished, in the mind of every one that believed his instruction, which was, to produce a conviction of sin in the soul, by applying to it the requirements of the spiritual law of God, and by showing that the penalty consequent upon sin was fearful and everlasting destruction. We say, then, what every one who has followed these thoughts must perceive to be true, that the instruction of Jesus would necessarily produce, in the mind of every one that believed, a conviction that he was a guilty and condemned creature, and that an awful doom awaited his soul, unless he received pardon and spiritual deliverance.

Thus, then, by the instruction of Jesus Christ,

showing the spirituality and holiness of the Divine law, and applying it, with its infinite sanctions, to the exercises of the soul, that condition of mind was produced which alone could prepare man to ove a spiritual deliverer: and there is no other way in which the soul could have been prepared in accordance with truth and the constitution of its own nature, to appreciate the spiritual mercies of God, and love him as a spiritual Saviour.

The law and the truth being exhibited by Christ in the manner adapted to produce the condition of soul pre-requisite to the exercise of affection for spiritual deliverance-now, as God was the author of the law, and as he is the only proper object both of supreme love and obedience; and, as man could not be happy in obeying the law without loving its author; it follows, that the thing now necessary, in order that man's affections might be fixed upon the proper object of love and obedience, was, that the supreme God should, by self-denying kindness, manifest spiritual mercy to those who felt their spiritual wants, and thus draw to himself the love and worship of mankind. If any other being should supply the need, that being would receive the love; it was therefore necessary that God himself should do it, in order that the affection of believers might centre upon the proper object.

But, notice, that in order to the accomplishment of this end, without violating the moral constitution of the universe, it would be essentially necessary that the holiness of God's law should be maintained. This would be necessary, because the law is, in itself, the will of the Godhead, and God himself must be unholy before his will can be so. And whatever God may overlook in those who know not their duty, yet, when he reveals his per

fect law, that law cannot, from the nature of its Author, allow the commission of a single sin. But, besides, if its holiness were not maintained, man is so constituted that he could never become holy. Every change to a better course in man's life must be preceded by a conviction of error-man cannot repent and turn from sin till he is convicted of sin in himself. Now, if the holiness of the law, as a standard of duty, was maintained, man might thus be enlightened and convicted of sin, until he had seen and felt the last sin in his soul; and if the law allowed one sin, there would be no way of convicting man of that sin, or of converting him from it; he would, therefore, remain, in some degree, a sinner for ever. But, finally and conclusively, if the holiness of the law was not maintained, that sense of guilt and danger could not be produced which is necessary in order that man may love a spiritual Saviour. Jesus produced that condition by applying to the soul the authority, the claims, and the sanctions of the holy law. It is impossible, therefore, in the nature of things, for a sinful being to appreciate God's mercy, unless he first feel his justice as manifested in the holy law. Love in the soul is produced by the joint influence of the justice and mercy of God. The integrity of the eternal law, therefore, must be for ever maintained.*

*The preceding views are confirmed, both by the character of the moral law, and by its design and exposition, as given by the apostles of Christ. The moral law, or the rule and obligation of moral rectitude in the sight of God, which is revealed in the Scriptures, and interpreted by Christ, as obligatory upon the thoughts and feelings of the soul, is not only in its nature, of perpetual and universal obligation, and adapted to produce conviction of sin in every soul that is sensible of transgressing its requirements; but the Scriptures expressly declare, that it was designed to produce conviction of sin in the soul, in order to prepare it to receive the gospel.

How, then, could God manifest that mercy to sinners, by which love to himself and to his law would be produced, while his infinite holiness and justice would be maintained?

The moral law is set forth in the Scriptures as holy, just, and good, in its character: and whatever may be its effects upon the soul itself, that its character is such no intelligent being in the universe can doubt, because it requires of every one perfect holiness, justice, and goodness: it requires that the soul should be perfectly free from sin in the sight of God; and, as we have seen, God ought not to allow one sin; if he did, the law would not be holy, nor adapted to make men holy. But the more holy the law, the more conviction it would produce in the mind of sinners. If the law extended only to external conduct, men would not feel guilty for their wrong thoughts, desires, or designs; and if it extended only to certain classes of spiritual exercises, men would not feel guilty for those which it did not condemn; but, if it required that the soul itself-the spiritual agent-the "I" of the mindshould be holy, and all its thoughts and feelings in accordance with the law of love and righteousness, then the soul would be convicted of guilt for a single wrong exercise, because while it felt that the law was holy, just, and good, it could not but feel condemned in breaking it. When Christ came, therefore, every soul that was taught its spirituality, would be convicted of sin. One of two things men had to do, either shut out its light from their soul, and refuse to believe its spiritual and perfect requirements, or judge and condemn themselves by those requirements. And while the law thus showed sin to exist in the soul, and condemned the soul as guilty, and liable to its penalty, it imparted no strength to the sinner to enable him to fulfil its requirements: it merely sets forth the true standard, which is holy in itself, and which God must maintain; and, by its light, it shows sinners their guilt, condemns them, and leaves them under its curse.

Now, the Scriptures declare that this is the end which, by its nature, it is adapted to accomplish, and that it was revealed to men with the design to accomplish this end, and thus lead men to see and feel the necessity of justification and pardon by Jesus Christ. The Scripture saith, "It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail." "The law worketh wrath: for where there is no law, there is no transgression." "Moreover, the law entered that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord." Mark the following"Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God; therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin."