the Spirit;" to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of their Lord and Saviour, and to present their bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is their reasonable service. In entire dependence on the supply of the Spirit of Christ, without whom they can do nothing, they purify themselves even as Christ is pure, and "work out their own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God which worketh in them both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

The High Priest, under the Mosaic dispensation, entered within the second veil once every year, not without the blood; and at the peril of his life he durst not enter at any other time, or in any other way. Christians realize the truth, of which that was a figure. Having boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which he hath consecrated for them through the veil, that is to say, his flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, they are invited to draw near, in the full assurance of faith, having their hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. In this way they experience the faithfulness of God as the hearer of prayer, and hold communion with him from off his mercy-seat.

When the Christian reads the Scriptures, he is struck with their dignity, which is never for a moment compromised; with their authority, which is never lowered; with that fulness on every subject, which all the books that have been written from them have not exhausted; and with that unity of design, which, amidst such variety of circumstances, is always so conspicuous. Their morality, he observes, is complete. Not one false principle can be charged upon it. Nothing can be added to it, nothing taken away. The excellence and usefulness of the precepts of Scripture

he feels every day, as far as he is enabled to reduce them to practice. With gratitude he acknowledges the perfect suitableness to his case of the salvation of God, removing his guilt, providing the righteousness he wants, affording the assistance and protection he requires, warding off the punishment in a future state which he otherwise dreads, and promising that endless and complete happiness which alone can satisfy the desires of his mind.

The Scriptures give him so consistent a view of the character of God, and so just a representation of this world; they so entirely correspond with his inward convictions and experience; they contain so exact a description of his own heart and of all its workings; they teach a doctrine so well suited to whatever state he may be in, whether of prosperity or of adversity, of youth or of old age, of health or of sickness; so adapted even to the hour of death, when nothing he ever possessed or hoped for in the world could be of the smallest use to him, that he knows" of the doctrine that it is of God." Although, therefore, he may be entirely ignorant of the evidence derived from history and other sources for the truth of the Scriptures,—although he may not be able to dispute for them, or to unravel the many objections which the men of this world, " sporting with their own deceivings," devise against them; yet as soon could they persuade him that the sun does not shine in the firmament, or that the world itself does not exist, (truths which, in their wisdom, some of them have gravely doubted,) as that the Bible does not contain "the true sayings of God." And not for ten thousand worlds could they induce him to part with the smallest portion of that hope which he has, as an anchor of his soul, both sure and steadfast,

of an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven, after this world and its works shall be burnt up. He looks, therefore, not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

CHAPTER XV.

THE STATE OF THE HEATHEN WORLD DESTITUTE OF THE GOSPEL.

WHILE it is on all hands admitted that the knowledge of the Gospel is highly beneficial to those who are favoured with it, there are many who hold that it is not indispensable in order to salvation. This opinion is opposed to the whole strain of the Scriptures, whether they refer to the way of salvation, or to the condition of all who are strangers to the subject. From every part of the word of God it is obvious that salvation comes to none of the human race in any other way than through the knowledge, more or less clear, of the Messiah, before or after the coming of Jesus Christ. "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." Multitudes, however, are unwilling to admit that salvation should be so limited in its extent as to be confined to those who have enjoyed the advantage of a revelation with respect to the Messiah. They have, therefore, endeavoured to show that the benefits of Christ's death may be available to those whom they term the virtuous in all nations, even although they have heard nothing of the revelation of mercy. Some Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans appear to have this object chiefly in view, and labour to prove that the faith that saves a sinner may be found in the Heathen

as well as in the Christian. Faith, they attempt to show, is not the belief of the truth about the Messiah, or the belief of any precise truth, but a general reliance on God as far as he is known, and a desire to become acquainted with and to obey his will. Even were this a just account of saving faith, it would not avail one of all the Heathen world. There is not, of all the sons of Adam, any one who naturally desires to know and to do the will of God. But this account of faith is utterly unscriptural and false. That it is faith in God, as manifested in the Messiah, to which salvation is attached, is so clear from every part of Scripture, that he who runs may read.

Some who reject with abhorrence the doctrine which represents saving faith not as the belief of the Gospel, but as the principle of faith altogether abstracted from its object, and as applicable to Heathens as well as to Christians, are unwilling to abandon the idea of the salvation of Pagans. While they allow that this is not taught in the Scriptures, they also allege that there is nothing to the contrary taught by them. The extending or not extending of the salvation of Jesus to nations that have not heard of him, is, as they think, a matter on which the Scriptures are silent-a deep mysterious point which the human mind cannot determine. But whatever may be the truth on this subject, there is no mystery in it. It is a matter of divine testimony as simple as any thing that can be testified. The mysterious doctrines of Scripture continue to be mysterious notwithstanding that they are most clearly revealed, and must be most confidently believed. But in this point there is no mystery. If the Scriptures declare that some Heathens may be saved without any knowledge of a Saviour, the truth must be received on