to comply with its requirements, but in its spirit remains forever the same, the expression of infinite holiness and love. With the fall from holiness man lost his ability to comply with it; but there was no change in its claims upon him. Sin brought discord into the very centre of his moral being, that there should be the consciousness of freedom and obligation to a perfect law on the one hand, and the practical experience of utter inability and slavery to sin on the other. The fall was a fall of will, a subjection of the rational soul, of the distinctively spiritual nature in man, to the bondage of sense and sin; not an annihilation of our rational powers, nor any weakening of them farther than as incident to a lack of development or debasement in the menial service to which they were devoted by the sinful will. The conscience, the moral nature of man, with its approbation of the law as holy, just, and good, remains; and ever and anon, forces its claims upon the attention of the man, thunders its solemn warnings, or sighs under its bondage. "The inward nature of this moral law," says Julius Mueller,*

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as an unconditionally imperative rule, belongs so essentially to the human consciousness, that, where it is altogether wanting in an individual, we are compelled to doubt the completeness of human nature in him. Yet it is never altogether wanting. It is a fact of great significance, a remarkable proof of the original nobility of the human soul, that even in its deepest darkness because of sin, there still shine forth some syllables of the highest knowledge, some traces of ideal truth." Hence the possibility of redemption. Hence the significance of the terms ransom, redemption, purchased by the blood of Christ, regeneration, as the restoration of the man to himself - his spiritual being delivered from its bondage and again made sovereign by the grace of God.

Ability and obligation are no longer commensurate. This is to many minds a logical contradiction, though it would not be difficult to show how it arises from too great respect to the analogies of human law; yet even as a logical contradiction, it is no greater than meets us everywhere, when we attempt the rationale of sin. Sin is contrary to reason, and so of course

"Die Lehre von der Sünde," Erster Band, s. 45.

brings contradictions and confusion into our logical understanding.

The sense of guilt has its ground in the original sense of freedom and obligation, which has forever remained an integral part of human consciousness. Guilt is the testimony of the soul itself to its own degradation and unworthiness, in consequence of its original fall from holiness, and its ever-during sense of sinfulness and alienation from God; called out, awakened, by particular acts, yet never dwelling on the acts, but on the state of heart out of which they spring. "Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight."

The sense of inability, of absolute dependence on the grace of God, is not a matter of consciousness in precisely the same way as our sense of freedom and responsibility; it is a matter of practical experience, a deduction from facts of past consciousness, and just as valid as any present fact of consciousness, because falling wholly within our own personal experience.

We rest the truth of these suggestions on the actual experience of the reader, as he recalls some instance of an unsuccessful struggle with a bosom sin, his sense of freedom and duty at the start, and his subsequent sense of shame and self-degradation.

The claims of the law, the absolute necessity of obedience in order to holiness and happiness, remain, and find their response in the moral nature of men; but all ability to fulfil the law in its spirit is lost. The determining will is already determined, and sets in the wrong direction, dead in trespasses and sins. We call the leaf separated from the vital stock dead, but its inward forces, that before worked in harmony to maintain its form and beauty, are active still, only working in inverse order to disintegrate and destroy. So the soul alienated from God and the source of its spiritual life, dead in sins, is active still. Its freedom, despite its high pretensions, is, however, only freedom to sin, within the limits prescribed by the law of sin which rules in its members. There may be never so much freedom in the lower domains of the soul, in regard to the manifold interests of a merely earthly life, its science, or its literature; freedom and noble achievement too, a rendering to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, but not to God the things of God; a large tether of slavery, but none of the freedom of the sons of

God. In the true spiritual life, the consciousness of freedom is forever rebuffed by the fact of sin. "When I would do good, evil is present with me." And the more earnest the struggle for self-deliverance, the more hopeless the effort, till the law accomplishes its work, and brings the sinner, humbled, despairing of self-help, to accept the Divine method of redemption and righteousness.

The word righteousness, as used in the New Testament, and especially by the Apostle Paul, denotes that inward state of character, in which a man is justified or declared righteous before God. There are two ways of attaining to this righteousness. One is by the strict fulfilment of the law in the spirit as well as in the letter, the entire and perfect obedience of the soul to all the requirements of law; thus securing the favor and blessing of God for obedience, according to the precept, "The man that doeth those things," that is, all the things required by a holy and perfect law, "shall live by them." This language implies not only acceptance with God, as the conduct of one who has done what was required, but also positive favor. "Shall live by them," shall enter into the enjoyment of spiritual blessings, as one who has shown his love and loyal attachment to God, and so honestly and nobly won a place in his regards. Such a man is accounted righteous, holy, good, and entitled to the blessedness of the children of God. Observe the two points, acquittal from all blame, and positive favor and blessing from God.

The other way of attaining to righteousness is by faith in Christ. The first method has failed because of sin. All have sinned, all men come into the world with this inclination in them, and find themselves far gone in sin and under condemnation, with all hope of self-restoration to the favor of God. gone, upon the first waking up of their moral and religious consciousness. We are by nature, we are by the natural birth, children of wrath, and must be born again of a spiritual birth ere we can become the children of God. The law, no longer serving as the actual rule of life, now only awakens the sense of sin, and reveals the infinite distance that separates us in a state of nature from the holiness necessary to realize our true character as spiritual beings and heirs to eternal life.

Instead now of a righteousness of our own, which should come from a perfect fulfilment of the law in its spirit, the gospel offers another method, the righteousness by faith on the Son of God. "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." This righteousness, this justification from all the works of the law and acceptance with God, which is by faith, must be as complete in itself, and so put man in the same relations, on the same legal standing before God, as if he had actually fulfilled the law. His faith is accounted to him for righteousness. The believer then is accounted and is declared righteous in the sight of God. It is not simply pardon, therefore, that he has gained. Faith has not only secured the remission of sins that are past, so that he is free from the penalty of the law, but he is changed in the inmost ground of his being from the sinner that he was into a righteous man. From a sinner, exposed to the just displeasure of God, he has become free from that displeasure, and in love with Him and his holy requirements. So far as relates to his state of heart and inclination towards God, he stands on the same footing as if he had attained righteousness the other way. He expects the favor of God. The ground of this expectation has been changed from reliance on his own merits to the merits of Christ which he has appropriated by faith. Let us not be mistaken here. This is the legal standing of the new man, regenerate and believing. It does not mean that the man is holy as commonly understood, for that would imply entire sanctification from the start. The regenerate soul dwells in the old sinful body; it is a graft upon an old sinful stock, not a graft in the top but at the root, and all the vital forces of the stock, all the elements it shall gather from the earth and the surrounding air, are to be changed by the inworking principle of a new life. The new leaven of righteousness is at the centre, and in time, if it be not hindered, will work through all the conduct of the man. The kingdom of Mansoul has renounced its allegiance to the prince of this world in favor of Christ, but it will be long before all the subordinate powers and forces shall be brought into complete and willing submission, and the fair and blessed fruits of his laws be exhibited throughout all its provinces. The sins of believers are but the disturbances of some of these subordinate

forces and provinces, still rebellious after the ruling power at the capital is at peace, though grieving over the rebellious spirit of its subjects. In a word, sanctification, or the complete realization of the rule of faith, is a question of time, and follows upon faith under the directing agency of the Holy Ghost, applying the word of God as its instrument. We must then, in our examination, look simply at the act of faith and its result upon the believing soul; and that result is righteousness — the end of the law secured, the sinner accepted as one righteous, to the love and favor of God.

Now, in order to this result, it is obvious from the foregoing remarks that three things are necessary, which, though contemporaneous, may yet be distinguished: first, the remission of past sin; second, a radical change of heart from a state of sin. and enmity to holiness and love; third, positive righteousness. We will consider them in their order.

The remission of past sin. The sinner, awakened to a just sense of his real character and condition before God, finds himself burdened with guilt, and exposed to the righteous displeasure of God. His sense of justice finds expression first in the desire and effort to make amends. He would make atonement by personal suffering or sacrifice, even to offering, as among heathen tribes, the fruit of the body for the sin of the soul. Repentance alone by no means satisfies the awakened sinner; that mode of escape from the difficulty is an after-thought of philosophy. The healthy conscience knows of no such method, but imperatively demands that the eternal principles of justice and truth be vindicated and honored. But in consequence of the overbearing sinful tendencies of his soul, the sinner finds that when he would do good evil is present with him; that the best-directed efforts towards self-deliverance only reveal the depths of the evil, and the justice and holiness of the law he has violated. The burden only becomes the heavier, the more sensibly present, as his thoughts are turned towards it, and efforts are made to shake it off. And if he strive to forget it, and to lose himself in worldliness and the distractions of business or of sinful amusements, the burden is still there, and in his thoughtful hours is found to have gained steadily in its