in Christ must certainly be included. Compare Acts xvi. 31. In like manner, when God is said to have granted unto the Gentiles repentance unto life, Acts xi. 18. this must imply that he had opened unto them the door of faith, Acts xiv. 27.

3dly, Repentance and faith are frequently mentioned as distinct, Heb. vi. 1. Thus the substance of John's preaching was, "Repent and believe the gospel," Mark i. 15.; and thus Paul "testified both to the Jews, and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ," Acts xx. 21. After the infusion of spiritual life, the pulse beats strongest in these two arteries. Pemble's Works, page 20.

4thly, Faith and repentance, though distinct, are nevertheless inseparable: inseparable surely in their principle, if not in their exercise. For it is from the new heart, infused in regeneration, that they proceed. The new life, so graciously given of God, cannot but dispose its subjects unto both. We must not once indulge the thought, that believing in Christ, they can be, or continue impenitent. The laws of God put into their mind, and written in their heart, in the day of regeneration, effectually forbid every such imagination. That inscription. includes repentance as well as faith. An impenitent believer, or an unbelieving penitent, are as gross contradictions as a square circle. True it is, the awakened and believing sinner may be much more eager after deliverance from the guilt of sin, than from its power; as a sense of danger made the man-slayer run to the city of refuge. But it is true likewise, that though he has not such a pun

gent sense of the intrinsic evil of sin as afterwards, yet he has no desire to continue in it. For, as one saith, Positive impenitence cannot consist with faith in such as are to be justified. Brown on Justifi- . cation, p. 365. I will not take upon me to decide whether as one sense or member can be exercised when another is not, so it may be with the graces of the Spirit. This, however, may be affirmed, with our Confession, that faith is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, chap. xi. 2. It is with the heart that the man believeth unto righteousness, Rom. x. 10. not with the stony heart surely, but with the new heart, the heart of flesh, Ezek. xxxvi. 26.; not with the impenitent heart, Rom. ii. 5. but with the broken and the contrite, Psal. li. 17. The now heart must include all the graces, if not in their actual exercise, yet in their principle, seed, or root. We read indeed, that God justifieth the ungodly, Rom. iv. 5.; but this cannot, in fair construction, imply that the man when justified, is ungodly, still holding fast his sins, and refusing to return. For his being justified by God, is as a thousand arguments that he has returned to God. The preceding context, Rom. iii. 26. bears, that God is the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus. Now to believe in him, as it is the act of the quickened soul, for action always presupposes life, so it is not the act of one altogether ungodly. By it the heart is said to be purified, Acts xv. 9. and if so, it itself must be pure in some degree. For an impure act can never purify. It is expressly called most holy, Jude 20.; and therefore he who exer

cises it, cannot be called ungodly, in the usual sense of the word. He is radically holy, having holy faith. The true sense therefore of these words, that God justifieth the ungodly, I conceive to be the same, as when our Lord said, the blind see, and the deaf hear, Luke vii. 22. It cannot be that these persons were actually blind, when they saw; or deaf, when they heard: but that being once so, they now both saw and heard. In like manner, God is said to justify the ungodly, i. e. him who had hitherto been so. The former instances were prodigies of power, this is a miracle of mercy. But as it would be absurd to think that in these the parties were actually blind and deaf, when they saw and heard; it would be equally so, that in this, the person is ungodly in the common sense of the word, when he believeth in Jesus, and is justified. By the ungodly here is not meant only a man wallowing in the grossest sins, but whosoever has broken the law in any instance. "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all," James. ii. 10.

In law-reckoning, that man is ungodly who has broken any of its commands. So far from justifying him, it lays him under its dreadful curse, Gal. iii. 10.-13. It knows nothing of repentance, or of pardoning the penitent. That the ungodly should be justified by his own works of righteousness is therefore a contradiction in the eye of the Jaw: as much so as to say, that one and the same person has both broken it, and kept it. For if ungodly, where are his works of righteousness? And if justified by his works of righteousness, how is

he ungodly? We learn from Rom v. 6, 8, 10. that in law-reckoning, ungodly sinners, and enemies to God, are terms of the same import. Therefore that the ungodly should be justified through imputed righteousness, is the same with enemies being reconciled unto God by the death of his Son. And what a miracle of mercy this! It is however true that the ungodly man, who is justified, is one who believeth in Jesus, Rom. iii. 26. and therefore, he is no more absolutely under the power of the carnal mind, which is enmity against God, Rom. viii. 7. He is not sensual, having not the Spirit, Jude 19. From whence doth his believing proceed, but from the Spirit of faith? Is it not one of the fruits of the Spirit? Gal. v. 22. We must therefore still affirm, that the ungodly who is said to be justified, is he who was once ungodly; as the blind, said to see, are such as once were blind.

5thly, Faith and repentance in their exercise run into one another, or are so intermingled, that in believing, the sinner repents, and in repenting he believes. John baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people, that they should believe on him who should come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus, Acts xix. 4. Matth. iii. 1. The great things which Paul testified both to Jews and Greeks, were repentance towards God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, Acts xx. These, however, are so closely connected, that the one may be viewed as part of the other, viz. faith in Jesus as a part of repentance towards God. Repentance is a turning, or a coming unto God, Jer. iii. 22. This spiritual motion towards

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Him, presupposes a certain way, in, by, or through which, the soul cometh unto him. Now this way is the Lord Jesus Christ, John xiv. 6. Sinners come unto God by him, Heb. vii. 25. x. 20. When therefore they first set foot on this way, so to speak, in order to return to God, then they begin to repent. Sure as Christ is the way to the Father, when they believe in the one, they are on their return to the other. In this point of view, faith in Jesus Christ is not only connect. ed with repentance, as the means with the end, but is also a part of it. Since, therefore, God is the end in which it terminates, and Christ the way to that end, the question concerning the priority of faith or repentance, is, according to the very judicious FRASER, much as if one should ask, Which is first in order of time, or of nature, my setting out for Edinburgh, or my taking the way to it? Scripture Doctrine of Sanctification, p. 486.

6thly, Initial repentance is, in order of nature, before justification; progressive in the order of time after it. This is obvious from the well-known doctrine, that effectual calling or regeneration is prior to justification; sanctification posterior to it. Paul, in enumerating the links of the golden chain of salvation, places vocation before justification, Rom. viii. 30. "Whom he called, them he also -justified."

The sinner called by grace, Gal. i. 15. quickened by the Spirit, 2 Cor. iii. 6. or 'born of him, John iii. 5. believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, John i. 12, 13. The first act of faith cannot be the act of the dead soul, but of the quickened. The Holy Spirit indeed, enables and