be passed without notice. For who would say that the spirit, as distinguished from the body, is but the effect and manifestation of life?-that it is not essential, as the body is, to constitute life itself?-that it is to the body only that we are to ascribe the principle or phenomena of life? Is it not highly probable, to say the least, that, in comparing faith without works to the body without the spirit, and so comparing them with regard to our justification, this Apostle intended to signify that, as the body and the spirit are equally essential to, and necessarily united in, the living man, so faith and works are equally essential to, and necessarily united in, the attainment of justification?-thus corroborating that large import of the term faith, as just stated, when used to designate the condition and means of our justification?

That in numerous instances the term faith is used, and must in all consistency be understood, in the comprehensive sense for which we are contending, can scarcely be matter of dispute, however the fact may be judged to have been explained by the reasons assigned for it in the preceding discourse. Equally evident is it that such a usage of the term is entirely consistent with the most ready and

obvious construction of the language of St. James. But what is yet more cogent to our view of his meaning is, that the position that "a man is justified by works, and not by faith only," is, in effect, involved in that article of belief which, as we have endeavoured to show, is essentially matter of faith as an act of the understanding, or considered independently of its appropriate influence on the dispositions and conduct. For if we believe the obligation and necessity of good works or holiness under the Christian economy, do we not, in other words, believe the necessity and instrumentality of good works to justification? For is not justification the great and distinguishing privilege which appertains to us as the subjects of that gracious economy, and which it was the end and virtue of our Lord's atonement to set before us, or capacitate us to obtain? If we conclude, as every intelligent believer of the Gospel must conclude, that the great purpose of God in the commandment which He has given us, "to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ," and the promise that "believing we shall have life through His name," is the renovation of our depraved nature, or our recovery to the love and practice of holiness preparatory to a superior state of existence

hereafter, we cannot but infer that the use, the efficacy-the very life of faith in the Son of God depends on its effecting the amendment and sanctification of the believer; and that if it fail to move him to repentance, and to actuate him to well-doing-if it be alone, it becomes a thing of no use or value, and is fitly likened to the body when forsaken by the spirit—that is, when it is no longer subservient to the uses, the vital uses, for which it was created. But is not this conclusion fully tantamount, and a virtual subscription, to the proposition that not faith only, but good works also, or holiness on the part of the believer, is indispensable to our obtaining justification, the inestimable fruit of our Saviour's mediation, and thus realizing the promise that "we shall have life through his name?"

There must now appear an obvious and indisputable consistency, and a necessary connexion, between the demand of faith in the Son of God as the condition of our justification, and the all-important uses the preeminent efficacy-the incalculable value of the Christian religion, considered as an effectual means of restraining the corrupt bias of our nature, and promoting the fulfilment of all religious and moral duties. The declaration

that "we are justified by faith," so far from appearing to supersede those commandments and prohibitions, which relate to the control of the passions and appetites, and which fill so large a space in the word of God, most unequivocally supports and confirms them. So far from having the semblance of unsettling the grounds, or weakening the force of those awful denunciations and encouraging promises, those representations of a state of reward and punishment in futurity—in a word, those numerous and powerful arguments which the Spirit of God has used to deter us from the commission of sin, to arm us against the power of temptation, and to secure our perseverance in well-doing-the declaration that "we are justified by faith," directly corroborates those arguments, repeating their import, and adding to their weight. And this consideration, we submit, is no trivial commendation of the sense in which we have explained the demand of faith, as the condition of our justification; and should at least obtain for it a most candid and unprejudiced examination : from those, we mean, who are prepossessed with different explanations of these parts of Scripture. For it must surely be a source of painful dissatisfaction to believers in the sacred

volume, if imbued with any portion of the spirit which breathes through its pages, that when those passages in it which attribute our justification to faith are alleged and insisted upon, whether from the pulpit or the press, the unchangeable authority of its practical precepts should often appear to be, not unreasonably, impugned and brought into question; and that the absolute necessity of an upright and holy life, instead of commanding attention as a doctrine than which there is not one more prominently and repeatedly inculcated in the word of God, should seem to stand in actual and even urgent need of support and confirmation. We do not, indeed, conclude that the interests of practical religion are materially affected by the obscurity thus occasionally cast upon the moral attributes of the Gospel, and the lustre of its holiness. The professors of Christianity are, for the most part, convinced-so obviously is it the tenor of the Bible to instruct them-that in order to establish a well-founded reliance on the mediation of Jesus Christ, they must sincerely repent of their sins, and make it their main purpose to obey the precepts, and imitate the example of their crucified Master. Moreover, the public teachers of religion and