4. If ever pardon be granted to sinful creatures, it must be on conditions which perfectly harmonize with the claims of justice, and afford an equal manifestation of the rectitude and holiness of the Divine character. In such a mode is pardon offered and bestowed to guilty man.

First Condition.-An ample atonement is made by the propitiatory sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ. In this atonement we see the broken law honoured, its Divine authority upheld, its righteous claims asserted and enforced; we see justice revered and inflexibly maintained; we see the holiness of the Divine character beaming forth with ineffable radiance, and in harmony with the richest exhibitions of love. Mercy attains its object, yet no principle is compromised. Every legal barrier to our salvation is thrown down, yet the majesty of truth, the guards of moral order, and the motives to obedience are unimpaired. Justice and benignity equally secure their object, and Jehovah is glorified in the redemption of a fallen world. In the cross of Christ the righteousness of God is declared-he is just, and yet the justifier of the ungodly.*

Second Condition. - Repentance is required. Thus the rectitude of the law and the justice of the penalty are acknowledged; man justifies his Maker; charges home upon himself his transgressions; renounces his evil ways, and implores forgiveness. Here, again, the holiness of God is manifested and confessed.+

Third Condition.-Faith is required. This act completes the soul's submission to God. It involves an entire surrender of the understanding, the reason, the judgment, the will, the affections, and the person to God. So long as faith is withheld, rebellion is cherished in some form, and for God to pardon a soul in this state would be to connive at sin. But faith renders the submission of an intelligent being complete. It involves the principle of unreserved obedience, and a thankful acqui

Rom. iii. 24-26.

† Luke xiii. 9; Acts iii. 19; John iii. 16; Rom. v. 1, 2.

escence in God's revealed method of forgiveness and salvation. Here, again, the holiness of God is acknowledged.

Fourth Condition.-As a condition of our continuance in the Divine favour and final salvation, it is imperatively required that our faith should be productive of practical obedience and 'personal holiness. Without this, our faith is vain and all our blessings are forfeited. Thus, although the penalties of the law are removed from the faithful believer, its precepts are unrepealed, and its high claims to obedience are enforced.*

Now, why are these the conditions of our pardon? Why did not God pardon by the exercise of his mere prerogative? Why this atonement, repentance, faith, and return to obedience? Why this respect to justice, law, and moral obligation? Why this inflexible determination to connive at no sin, to dispense with no duty, but to maintain and perpetuate all the principles of the Divine government unimpaired? The answer is, Because those principles are founded in the Divine nature, and that nature is absolutely, unchangeably, and eternally holy. The scheme of salvation aims as much at the personal holiness of mankind, as it does at their deliverance from personal misery. It seeks the restoration of the creature to purity, to rectitude, and the moral image of God, and thus proclaims as much the essential holiness as it does the goodness and mercy of God.

In whatever aspect, then, we contemplate the objective manifestations of the Deity-whether in the order and harmony of Nature, in our mental and moral constitution, in the dispensations of providence, or in the characteristics of his moral government-we see the inscription standing out in bold and prominent relief-" Holy, holy, holy is Jehovah of hosts;" and from every part of the Divine proceedings we hear the voice of the Eternal addressing us in solemn and impressive majesty, "Be ye holy, for I am holy." The highest dignity which our intellectual and moral nature can attain is to be like

James ii. 14-26; Titus iii. 8.

God-to rise complete in his image, which is righteousness and true holiness. "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."

CHAPTER XIII.

A DISPOSITION FOR COMMUNION IS AN ATTRIBUTE OF DEITY.

SECTION I.—EVIDENCE FROM REASON.

By communion we mean the affectionate and reciprocal intercourse of one mind with another. That a disposition for such intercourse essentially exists in the mind of the Deity, may be argued from the fact, that it is an excellence which he has implanted in the nature of all intelligent beings. That there does dwell in the mind of man a disposition for communion, all will admit. What, indeed, is society, but the living evidence and development of this disposition? What is speech, but the vehicle through which this disposition puts itself forth in audible words? What is writing, but a more diffusive vehicle by which man pours his thoughts, desires, emotions, and affections into the souls of his fellow-men, with a copiousness, and to an extent, which give a kind of ubiquity to his presence? It is, in fact, the expression of the vehement desire of the mind for fellowship with mind-the disposition for communion breaking through the bounds of limited location, and seeking to gratify itself by intercourse with kindred spirits in every hemisphere and in every age. Were this disposition to become extinct, the whole framework of society would immediately become dissolved: and every man, fleeing from and repelled by his fellow-man, would seek seclusion, and live for no one, care for no one, but himself. It is the existence of this disposition which erects the social structure, which forms every family, and builds up every community. The evidence of man's disposition for communion is too palpable and diversified to require amplification. It connects itself with every instinct,

unites itself with every ennobling affection, gives a complexion to every habit, and is an element in every cup of felicity.

Seeing, then, that this disposition is essentially inherent in the human mind, the same disposition, being an excellence, must dwell in the mind of the Creator. There is no excellence dwells in man, but it is the reflection of a corresponding excellence in God himself. To suppose the contrary would be to suppose that the Creator has endowed the creature with perfections which he himself does not possess. The Creator may be supposed to withhold from the nature of the creature various perfections which he himself possesses, but it cannot be supposed he could give to the creature any measure of an excellence of which himself is destitute. Indeed, the absolute perfection of his nature excludes the possibility of the absence of any excellence. It comprehends every perfection in kind, as well as in unlimited degree. The existence, therefore, of any excellence in the created spirit is an à posteriori evidence that it dwells in infinite perfection in the Father of spirits.

The only objection which can be urged against this conclusion is, that the disposition for communion is not a perfection, but the mark of an imperfect and inferior nature. This objection, we think, may be very easily answered; and that answer shall be given when we come to show that the disposition in question is an excellency, a perfection, and evidence of a superior nature.

SECTION II.-THE HOLY SCRIPTURES SUSTAIN THE VERDICT OF REASON AS TO GOD'S DISPOSITION FOR COMMUNION.

1. The existence of this disposition was manifested in the sacred conference recorded in Genesis i. 26: "And God said, Let us make man."

In this instance Jehovah is represented in actual intercourse and communion. The passage cannot be intended to set forth merely an act of meditation or soliloquy, for meditation or soliloquy is the act of a mind holding intercourse with itself,

whereas the passage speaks of more than one. "And God said, Let us make man in OUR image, after OUR likeness." It is remarkable that the pronoun, used three times in this short passage, is plural in each case, plainly showing that communion or intercourse of one mind with another is both intended and expressed. A person may in soliloquy say, "I will do so and so;" but he cannot say, "We will effect this or that," unless he is conversing with another. There was here a union of thought and purpose which preceded a union of act, and the union of the thought and purpose which preceded, was as real as the united act which followed in the creation of man.

Some have endeavoured to account for the phraseology by supposing that the plural pronoun is used in conformity with the custom of monarchs and potentates in issuing their decrees and proclamations. This, however, is a mere supposition, gratuitously made-a supposition not only unsupported by proof, but contradicted by the clearest evidence. For, in the first place, no such custom existed at that period from which the phraseology could be borrowed. The language in question was used before kingdoms were formed-indeed, before man existed. In the second place, had the pompous custom of using the plural for the singular existed, it is inconceivable that the holy, true, and faithful Jehovah would have adopted it. It is, indeed, in accordance with the vanity and arrogance of earthly potentates to assume the style of God, but incompatible with all correct views of God to suppose him borrowing his titles from the arrogant assumptions of man. Thirdly, the language in question is not a mandate or a proclamation, but it is the language of converse and communion. This conclusion is so obvious that it has been admitted even by those who oppose the doctrine which it involves, and hence another evasive interpretation has been adopted.

It has been said that the language is certainly expressive of intercourse, but it is the intercourse of God with the holy angels. This notion is, however, easily refuted; for, in the First place, the sacred records never intimate that God makes the angels his counsellors, but they plainly teach the contrary.