heavenly inheritance. He walked himself by the same road; only it was rougher; and he hath shown us by his example that the cross is a step to glory.

The Scriptures teach that the sentence of death falls upon all mankind, in consequence of the transgression of the first individual; and that eternal life is bestowed on account of the perfect obedience of Jesus Christ. The grand moral purpose for which this doctrine is introduced, is to impress upon our minds a sense of the punishment due to transgression of the exceeding opposition which subsists between sin and happiness, and of the exceeding harmony which subsists between perfect holiness and eternal glory. The death of a single individual could give no adequate manifestation of the pernicious nature of sin. Death appears sometimes rather as a blessing than an evil; and in general no moral lesson is received from it, except the vanity of earthly things. But when a single offence is presented to us, and there is appended to it the extinction of a whole race as its legitimate consequence, we cannot evade the conviction of its inherent malignity. As the value of this lesson, if really received, infinitely overbalances in the accounts of eternity the loss of this brief mode of our existence, there can be no just ground of complaint against the great Disposer of all things.

In the same way, the hope of eternal life through the obedience of Christ, suggests to us the idea of the strong love and approbation which God feels for moral perfection, and the indissoluble connexion in the nature of things between happiness and holiness.

The divine government in this respect is just a vivid expression of the great moral attribute of God, "That he loveth righteousness and hateth iniquity." A simple pardon, bestowed without any accompanying circumstances, must have drawn some degree of gratitude from the criminal, if he knew his danger; and this would have been all: But when he views the perfect and holy obedience of a great benefactor as the ground of his pardon, he is induced to look with love and admiration towards that obedience which gained the Divine favour, as well as towards the friend who paid it. A feeling of humble and affectionate dependence on the Saviour, a dread and hatred of sin, and a desire after holiness, are the natural fruits of the belief of this doctrine.

That plan of the Divine government by which God deals with men through a representative, occupies an important place in revealed religion. have here made on this subject, as well as through the whole course of the treatise, I I have in a great measure confined my remarks to the direct connexion which subsists between the doctrines of the Bible, and the character which the belief of them is fitted to produce in the mind of man: And with this view, I have called the attention of the reader principally to the superiority in real efficiency which palpable facts, as illustrative of moral principles, possess over a statement of the same principles when in an unembodied and abstract form: But I should be doing a real injury to the cause which I wish to advocate, were I to be the means of conducting any one to the conclusion, that Christianity is nothing more than a beautiful piece of moral mechanism, or that its doctrines were mere typical emblems of the moral principles in the Divine mind, well adapted to the understandings and feelings of men. Supposing the history of Codrus to be true, he was under a moral necessity to act as he did, independently of any intention to infuse the spirit of patriotism into his countrymen; and, supposing the Bible to be true, God was under the moral necessity of his own character, to act as he is there represented to have

In the observations which I

done. The acts there ascribed to him are real acts, not parabolical pictures: They were not only fitted and intended to impress the minds of his creatures-they were also the necessary results and the true vindications of his own character. This belief is inseparably connected with a belief of the reality of Christ's sufIferings; and if Christ's sufferings were not real, we may give up the Bible. The sufferings are the foundation of a Christian's hope before God, not only because he sees in them a most marvellous proof of the Divine love, but also because he sees in them the sufferings of the representative of sinners. He sees the denunciations of the law fulfilled, and the bitter cup of indignation allotted to apostacy drained to the very dregs; and he thus perceives that God is just even when justifying the guilty. The identity of the Judge and the victim dispels the misty ideas of blind vindictiveness with which this scheme may sometimes have been perversely enveloped; and he approaches God with the humble yet confident assurance that he will favourably receive all who come to him in the name of Christ. Whilst he continues in this world, he will remember that the link which binds heaven and earth together is unbroken, and that his great representative does not in the midst of glory forget what he felt when he was a man of sorrows below. This relation to the Saviour will spiritualize the affections of the believer, and raise him above the afflictions of mortality; and will produce in him a conformity to the character of Christ, which is another name for the happiness of heaven.

The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is also connected with most important moral consequences. He is represented as dictating originally the revealed word, and as still watching and assisting its progress. He is where the truth is, and he dwells in the hearts where it operates. The general idea of the omnipresence of God is chiefly connected with the belief of his providence and protection, his approving or condemning; but the doctrine of the Spirit is connected in the minds of Christians simply with a belief of his accompanying and giving weight and authority to revealed truth. The truth becomes thus closely associated in their minds with a sense of the presence and the gracious solicitude of God.

With regard to the mode of the operation of the Holy Spirit on the human mind, the Bible says nothing;-it simply testifies the fact. To this divine agent we are directed to apply, for