which he illustrates and confirms his position, that "a man is justified by works, and not by faith only."-" Was not our father Abraham justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar ?" "Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect ?"* It is manifest from these words that the faith of Abraham, in the Apostle's apprehension of it, regarded the commandment which God had imposed upon him to offer his son for a burnt-offering, as well as the promise which he had previously made to him (or rather, it is probable, the goodwill, the gracious purpose of God towards him, which that promise had so unequivocally declared); otherwise, we should be at a loss to conceive through what connexion of ideas in the mind of Abraham his faith could have "wrought with his works:" besides that there would naturally have been as strong a temptation upon Abraham, as there certainly is upon every one of ourselves when tasked to a religious exercise of self-denial, to shun the conviction of the divine commandment, as to distrust the fulfilment of the divine promise. As the faith of Abraham, then, included his belief of the reality and authority of a divine * Ch. ii. 21, 22.

command to offer his son in sacrifice, it is obvious that his obedience to the command, or —which is, morally, the same thing—his intention to obey it, was necessary, not properly to prove the existence of his faith, but to realize the promise which his faith held out to himnecessary, in order that his faith might be "imputed to him for righteousness." True it is, that the faith of Abraham was indispensable to produce his works, and was made manifest by them. He could not have laid his son upon the altar with a resolution to slay him-he could not have prepared himself to endure the heaviest of losses, and to execute the hardest of deeds, but in the clear persuasion that God had commanded him to do so; and would eventually, by whatever means, accomplish the promise which he had made to him. Nevertheless, he might have had faith without works; for the argument of St. James infers the possibility of a separation between these; and we are not at liberty to conclude that the inspired Apostle has committed a misnomer, by applying the term faith to a belief of the Gospel which fails to control the conduct, and is ineffectual to justification. Abraham, we repeat, might have had faith without works. He might have been convinced of the reality of the injunction laid

upon him, and the certain fulfilment of the divine promise towards him in the event of his obedience; and yet, under the impulse of a natural affection uncontrolled by an habitual regard to the first duty of all rational creatures, he might have hesitated to fulfil, and have actually disobeyed the divine commandment. In that case, however, it must be universally agreed that his faith, instead of effecting his justification, or being imputed to him for righteousness, could only have exposed his disobedience to the will of God, and sealed his forfeiture of the promise made to him. It follows, then, that the works of Abraham were essential, not merely, or strictly speaking, to testify his faith, but, as we have already stated, to secure the fulfilment of the promise which his faith set before him-necessary to make his faith "perfect" as the instrument of his justification. Consequently, we are compelled to infer that the faith demanded as the condition of our justification, is divisible into faith and the works which should properly flow from it : that is, that the term faith is used as comprehensive of both.

Many, as we have said, are satisfied with explaining the language of St. James as importing only that works are the fruit and

evidence of such a faith as is effectual to our justification. But had this been the whole of the Apostle's meaning, would he have distinctly specified "works" as instrumental to justification, and have roundly declared "that a man is justified by works, and not by faith. only?" That a man is justified by works, and not by faith only, and that a man's works are a proof that his faith is of such a nature as to justify him, are two very different propositions; and to presume that St. James has confounded them, is to give an exposition of his language greatly more free and paraphrastic than we are willing to adopt. Indeed, we can find no satisfactory solution of his assertion that " a man is justified by works, and not by faith only "-thus distinctly ascribing to works a subserviency to our justification, or of his assertion that "by works faith is made perfect"-thus representing works, not merely as the effect and the sign, but an integral part or the complement of faith-we can find, we say, no satisfactory explanation of these assertions, except in the fact that when faith is propounded as the condition of our justification, it is assumed to comprehend the practice of holiness, or the performance of good works. Moreover, the opinion that works have no

part, or are wholly quiescent, in the matter of our justification, and do but make manifest the justifying efficacy of faith, is nowise answerable to the very strong figure by which this Apostle illustrates the intimate connexion of faith with works, and, as it would seem, their combined operation and efficiency to obtain our justification. We are fully aware that the utmost caution is demanded in citing the figurative language of the Scriptures in confirmation of any particular doctrine; a rigid, literal construction of the metaphors used by the sacred writers being especially observable in the support of extravagant opinions in theology. It is but just, however, to our argument to allege, that St. James affirms of "faith without works," that it is as unavailing to our justification as the body without the spirit is useless to the purposes of life :-" As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."* Now, we submit that the position so formally laid down by many, and so zealously and conscientiously insisted upon-namely, that works are nothing more than the effect and manifestation of a justifying faith, fails to do justice to this illustration of St. James, in a manner too remarkable to * Ch. ii. 26.