time, had equalled-had surpassed their own obligations; and had left a surplus fund of merit in the treasury of the church, to be applied, at her discretion, in exchange for money or service, to supply the deficiencies of the less holy and deserving of mankind. It was not, we apprehend, by teaching men to parade their own works of supererogation to the eye of Omniscience,-not by blinding them to the perception of their own demerit, that a covetous and ambitious priesthood prevailed to deceive the world, but rather by coining devices for pacifying the reproaches of the conscience-for soothing that sense of guilt which, in all ages, has sought alleviation, in various ways; by sacrifice and other offerings to divine justice; by the voluntary endurance of sufferings; by pleading the virtues of other men; and even by preserving their relics. They succeeded mainly by a perversion of the doctrine of a mediation on behalf of the guilty-by an abuse and degradation of the principle of substitution.

. But, allowing the actual prevalence of a notion, that mankind could individually exceed or fulfil their religious obligation, and merit eternal life by their own good works, such a notion must have originated in a most scanty

and erroneous apprehension of that obedience which was due from them to Almighty Godin a presumption that the practice of religion was wholly or principally comprised in the outward and visible act, performed with whatever aim and spirit; as, for example, in endowing monasteries or institutions for the promotion of religion, erecting churches, supporting a priesthood, or discharging other external duties of religion, from whatever motives; and, moreover, in acts morally indifferent, or essentially vicious; in treasuring relics, in worshipping saints, in undertaking a pilgrimage, or in detecting and punishing a heretic. Inasmuch as such may be supposed to have been the prevailing notions of practical religion, we need not wonder that the doctrine of human merit should have obtained some acceptance in the world.

But, however we may characterise and account for the errors of dark, unenlightened ages, nothing can be more evident than that a presumption of our own desert, or an inadequate impression of our own sinfulness, is the effect of an ignorance, misapprehension, or forgetfulness of our proper duties towards God and our fellow-creatures: as it was a defective and perverted sense of religious

obligation, which blinded the Jews to the discernment of their own depravity, in common with that of the human race, and laid them open to the imagination of their peculiar holiness as the people of God. The obvious and effectual means, then, of suppressing the presumption of personal merit, and promoting feelings of indesert and selfabasement before God, is, to enforce the divine law as expounded by Christ and his Apostles, as the abiding standard of our duty, the unalterable rule of life; and, especially, to insist upon the necessity of those earnest and persevering endeavours to obey it, which induce, with whatever imperfections, a progressive holiness of character, or the habitual performance of good works. It is, in truth, an important office of the law to impress us with a conviction of our sins-" By the law is the knowledge of sin ;"* but, surely, it is in the actual endeavour "to perfect holiness in the fear of God," or to compass the "exceeding breadth of his commandment," that we become effectually convinced of our guilt and moral corruption-that we justly comprehend, and personally feel, the awful and humiliating truth, that "all have sinned, and come short *Rom. vii. 25.

of the glory of God." Any individual, it is true, may be stricken with compunction or terror at the remembrance of some flagrant sins, or the review of a life consumed in the neglect of religion; but he only who is actually engaged in the strife with temptation, and contends in earnest with the strength of his passions, can attain an adequate and habitual sense of his defects and infirmities as an accountable being. So far, indeed, from there being a discrepancy, there is, on the contrary, an intimate connexion, between a belief of the permanent authority of the divine law as a rule of life, and a grateful ascription of our justification to the unmerited favour of God: since it is manifestly in the will and effort to obey the divine commandments in their full extent, that we retain the sense of our personal insufficiency and unworthiness, and prize, as the most joyful tidings which have ever reached our ears, the announcement of eternal life in virtue of other merits than our own the all-prevailing merits of our Redeemer.

We revert then, in conclusion, to the fact insisted on at the outset of this discoursenamely, that the manner in which we deal with the Gospel must depend upon our con

viction of the end for which it has been made known to us. Be it therefore our constant endeavour, and our earnest prayer, to be fully possessed, and habitually actuated, by a persuasion that the end of the Christian economy is to correct the depravity of our nature: to recover us from the dominion of the appetites and passions to the love of God, and that holiness of character which is the essential preparation for the happiness of a future state. We cannot but know that this was the end for which that gracious economy was established. We cannot but know that for this end a satisfaction was offered for the sins of the whole world, and the door of acceptance with a righteous God thrown open-for how could we offer him obedience with a sentence of condemnation on our heads?-that for this end the Holy Spirit "hath been given us," to aid our endeavours to obey the divine will, and to render them effectual: that for this end the Gospel was announced by prophets as the introduction of a kingdom, the erection of God's government in the mind and conscience: that for this end the forerunner of the Messiah

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prepared his way before him" by calling mankind to repentance: that for this end the Son of God himself came laden with blessings