to obey the plain requirements of the moral law, or of being contented-as it behooved them to be, with the good old ways "the fathers trod," they were scrupulously anxious that the tithing of "mint, of anise, and of cummin," should be rigidly and universally enforced, under pretense to further the interests of religion, and the glory of God's house, while, at the same time, their apparent ardor and concern for so great and noble an end, could not fail to inflate their vanity and fan the unholy flame of a false religious zeal. They sedulously practiced fasting, irrespective -it may be presumed, of the laws of health, or the influence it might exert on the tone and functions of the mind, and, in so doing, assumed "a sad countenance," thus disfiguring their faces that "they might appear unto men to fast," and receive the praise due to such exemplary mortification and self-denial. Fasting, indeed, ranked so high in this spurious, sectarian ritual, that the Pharisee, mentioned in St. Luke, xviii. 12-knowing himself to be a strict observer of all its requirements, seems to have been glad of having an opportunity to boast, not only that he "gave tithes of all he possessed," but that he also "fasted twice in the week." The motive for such extraordinary religious extravagance, was not-as the result proved, to facilitate the progress in useful knowledge, or be instrumental in the amelioration of mankind, but simply to promote the disreputable cause of a senseless and degrading ritualism, as the best means, according to their ceremonial creed, to please and to serve God.

Besides still continuing to proceed in the track of this mainly puerile and excessive type of formalism, it may be remarked that the Pharisees habitually cultivated a mor

tified and saintly appearance-a ghostly simulacrum of righteousness, at the same time that they inwardly reeked with corruption. They were moreover notoriously guilty of extortion, yet they feigned to believe it to be a point of conscience with them, to "make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter;" and, while "they built the tombs of the prophets, and garnished the sepulchres of the righteous," they killed the former, and were a disgrace to the latter. They claimed an excessive and ridiculous sanctity for the Sabbath, which-with some semblance of truth, may be supposed to have had a strictly orthodox and authentic basis in the book of Numbers, xv. 32-36, and which made them denounce "the healing of the sick," on that day by Jesus, as an unpardonable crime. According to the rigid, Pharisaic ritual, it was apparently almost as unlawful to prevent as to cure disease on the Sabbath; for it peremptorily forbade to take a walk on that day of greater extent than two thousand short paces-the distance between Jerusalem and Mount Olive, Acts, i. 12. Under a pretense -an art for which they were eminently distinguished, or

* Those Jewish hypocrites very much resemble the Hindus, who support asylums for the reception of hawks, serpents, and rats, while they look with horror upon a Paria-a member of a caste, considered among the Hindus as unclean, because they eat "what has enjoyed life." They purify themselves with the dung and urine of a cow, and consider themselves polluted by the touch of a heretic! They go so far in their ritual prudery as to wear a net over their mouths, lest by accident a fly or gnat should get down their throats, and they should thus unwittingly swallow a soul in metempsychosial purgatory, and yet, with all these exquisite and tender-hearted feelings of humanity, they will suffer a ritually unclean fellow-being-as the despised Paria, to perish with hunger without a single sensation of remorse rather than relieve him.- Volney's Ruins.

a strange and unaccountable infatuation, they sought to hide or extenuate the guilt of unlawful or wicked swearing, by devising certain formulas of asseveration, deemed by them less holy and offensive, or more eligible for the use of a nice, orthodox, ritual taste, Matthew, v. 33–37. Finally, to give a striking example how high they could soar, or how deep they might plunge, in the mad extravagance of their zeal for ritualism, and in their presumption to evade the claims of the moral law, by their superstitious devises, they "strained at a gnat, and swallowed a camel;" that is, they were scrupulously punctilious and zealous in their attention to trifling ritualistic ordinances, but criminally remiss in the observance of the duties concerning "judgment, mercy, and faith :" the weightier matters of the law, Matthew, xxiii. 23.*

To such and similar puerile and insipid forms of devotion, or spurious rites of religion; nay, to such, in most cases, excessive, useless, or debasing kinds of ritualism, the Savior alludes, Matthew, xv. 9, when he says: "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Deeds of such ritual laws, constituting a worship of a mere lifeless routinism; works, in short, springing from such morbid, meretricious faith, can

* They strained at a gnat, should be rendered, they strained out a gnat, namely in the wine, before they drank it, lest they should violate the ritual law, and thus commit a sin and defile themselves. In the concluding reference to the Gospel in the last paragraph, Christ is represented as saying to the Pharisees, that they ought especially to have observed the requirements of the moral law, yet at the same time not left undone the tithing of the herbs there designated. The passage ought to read thus: While you tithe certain herbs to comply with your ritual, you ought not neglect God's holy commandments.

not, dare not save us: they are chiefly but a vain show, a vain and fruitless formalism, at once degrading and deluding the soul, and, therefore, not only without regard to them, but in spite of them, "we are made partakers of the righteousness of God," solely "through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus."

CHAPTER IV.

An Inquiry into the Part which Faith and Grace perform in our Salvation, according to the Teaching of the New Testament, and what Signification is to be attached to the Sacrificial Phrases, used in the Gospel, when they are applied to Jesus Christ.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

In its evangelical acceptation, faith may be defined to mean that implicit trust, which binds the soul to Christ, the teacher and guide of salvation. The object of faith, as far as it directly concerns our interest in the Christian religion, is of course, Jesus; for unless we believe, that is, trust or confide in him, we cannot-it is evident, be benefited by his teaching, as, in that case, we should not heed it. When in his Epistle to the Ephesians, ii. 8-9, St. Paul writes, "By grace are ye saved, through faith," and adds that this grace is the gift of God, and not the fruit of our own works, he asserts but a plain fact, admitted by every reflecting mind; for the grace, taught in the Gospel, and which, according to the Apostle, is the Divinely appointed method of making mankind useful and happy, is clearly a gift of God, inasmuch as there is no blessing whatever

of which he is not the beneficent and adorable author, and, hence, in this grace of God, thus defined and illustrated, we must cordially confide and thankfully receive it, if—in the emphatic language of the Gospel, we wish to be saved! With this salient passage of Scripture, that in the Epistle to the Romans, iii. 28, entirely coincides, and therefore requires no special exposition.

Thus far everything on this subject, seems perfectly intelligible and satisfactory, but the aspect of the case must be immediately changed if we give credence to the orthodox teachers in the case at issue, who-it is well known, are often, alas, too often, "wise above what is written," tell us that “faith is produced in us through the miraculous influence of the Holy Ghost." An assertion which is not supported by a single text in the New Testament, and which must, therefore, be pronounced to be glaringly false.* The faith of the patriarch Abraham, noticed in Genesis, xv. 6, and which God "counted to him for righteousness," was the sole result of his own personal reflection and judgment: not a word is said in reference to it, to imply that it was a miraculous gift. If the Holy Ghost must generate saving faith in every person before he can become a Christian, there must be as many miracles performed to save mankind as there are human beings, and, besides, if our faith and salvation thus depend upon the supernatural interposition of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Ghost is made

* I have proved in my Work on the "Trinity and Incarnation"-the second book of this volume, that the Holy Spirit is not a hypostasis or person, but simply an attribute of God, and that its proper designation is the Spirit of God or the Divine Spirit: it is that Divine power which pervades and animates every good thought and sentiment in man.