the ground of this objection is partly true, and partly false, and the whole of it capable of a satisfactory answer.

It was a matter of the utmost consequence that Christ should establish a pure and perfect morality, as the mark his followers were to aim at, and to prevent the cavils of his adversaries, who he knew were ready to take exceptions at his person and preaching: and that because at some times, and upon some occasions, he actually furnished them with a handle for it, by declaring that way of salvation which was to be fully opened after his death, and could not before. To have been altogether silent upon it, would have given too much countenance to the foregoing objection; and to have made salvation by faith in him, as a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the world, the constant subject of his discourses, would have been in some measure authorizing his death, and acquitting his murderers. Neither could the point, however great and interesting, be insisted on, nor spoken of but in a covert way, nor so much as understood before the event. The full declaration of it as a fact, it is evident, could not be made before it became such, but must of necessity be reserved for his apostles; on whose testimony it stands, and who were appointed by him, with his own full authority, and power from the Holy Ghost, to do what he could not, that is, to open the doctrine of his kingdom, to explain the nature,

and proclaim the benefits of his death. He was therefore in very delicate circumstances. The sacrifice of his death was to be the ground of his religion, and faith in it the means of our acceptance with God and renovation to holiness. The last of these he might speak of without reserve; and it was expedient that he should, to clear himself from all imputation of diminishing one jot from the sacredness of the law. He therefore explains and proposes it in its utmost purity; both to enforce it as a rule, and prepare mankind for a new economy, by awakening the conscience to a sense of guilt in coming short of it. The two former he could not speak much of, for the reasons before mentioned; and yet he has said enough to destroy the force of the objection, of which we have undoubted proof from many passages of St. John's Gospel, particularly the third chapter. And it may also fairly be collected from other instances, that he did not conceal the great peculiarity of his religion, viz. "salvation by grace, through faith." "Think not," says he, "that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets." Now what ground could there be for such a suspicion, if he did not really destroy the law, the ceremonial law wholly, and the moral in one sense, viz. by speaking of it as insufficient for justification, and sometimes in the course of his conversation and preaching declaring what was sufficient? Or if the words were designed to obviate a calumny, which he

knew would be taken up against the doctrine of faith when it should afterwards be more fully preached, either way they will turn out to our purpose; if he did not openly avow and inculcate the doctrine himself, it is plain he intended that others should.

Again, when the Scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery, to know his sentiments of the crime, and what punishment was due to it, it is expressly said that they did it with a view to find matter of accusation against him. And to prevent all evasion, or possibility of escape from the snare they had laid for him, they put him in mind of what Moses had already determined in the case. What! could it be supposed that he who had declared for such a degree of purity in the matter, as to pronounce the looking upon a woman to lust after her to be adultery, would deny the guilt, or lessen the punishment of the outward act? No; but they knew he had a way of his own of clearing both from guilt and punishment; that when he said,

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Repent and believe the Gospel," he meant something more by the last word than some do now; and concluded that he must either deny what he asserted upon other occasions, or stand convicted as an abettor of loose morals, and a subverter of the law. The sequel is known. With admirable address he extricated himself from the difficulty, to the confusion of his adversaries, without betraying either law or Gospel.

He would neither retract what it may fairly be supposed from this instance he used to say of the one, nor destroy the obligation of the other; he established both by pardoning the sinner, and condemning the sin.

But whether Christ spoke but little, or not at all, of the doctrine of faith, and whether the reasons assigned for his not insisting more upon it himself are sufficient or not, still the conclusion fails; it cannot be inferred from his example, that he did not intend the greatest stress should be laid upon it in the future preaching of his ministers. And I think he himself hath set us right in the point. For how runs the commission to his apostles, when he had laid the foundation of faith in his death by dying, and could no longer be under any reserve in the matter, but must be supposed to give them the clearest instructions in the nature of their office, and point out precisely the message they had to deliver? "Go ye," says he, "into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." What Gospel? He adds, by way of explanation, "he that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not, shall be damned;" Mark, xvi, 15, 16. How remarkable is this! I mean, the shortness of the commission. Surely for this very reason it demands our utmost attention, and is ample conviction to us, what account is to be made of faith; since Christ summed up the whole Gospel in it, and gave it in charge to

his disciples to lay this foundation, and propose salvation to all by believing. This, I say, is placing the article in a very strong light. But still it is too generally evaded, either by substituting different notions of faith in the room of what is here alleged as the true, or by a loose supposition that, as faith is in order to holiness, so it is the business of the preachers of the Gospel, at all times, to lay themselves out chiefly in securing the latter. Let no endeavours be wanting to secure it. We hope we have our eye steadily fixed upon it, and upon the commission, as more largely expressed, Matt. xxviii. 19, 20; but then let God teach us the way of doing it. Let it be considered again, and always well remembered, that mercy, or a lively sense of the love of God, in our discharge from condemnation, is the best, if not the sole means of attaining it; and that going to work without them, or keeping them for the most part out of sight, is taking men upon the foot of nature, appealing to an ability which they have not, and leading them into a dangerous mistake concerning their whole state and condition in the sight of God. That it is a state of sin and condemnation, the Bible was written to inform us; and that we can only be brought into a new condition of friendship with God, lively hope, and faithful working, by a sure trust and confidence in his mercy, discharging us from guilt, and accepting our persons in Christ. There is no trifling with this one sacred method of re