hopes have been realized in a manner beyond the most sanguine expectations; and we would fervently trust that our new relations with that mighty empire will, by God's blessing, not only largely promote honourable and useful commerce, instead of the poison-trade in opium ; but be the means of extending to its much-injured people the blessings of the Gospel of peace and salvation. The disasters in the West of the Indus, which her Majesty lamented in proroguing Parliament, have been repaired, and India, it may be augured, by the merciful providence of God, is entering upon a new era of tranquillity and prosperity, highly favourable for the happiness of the natives, and the propagation of the Gospel throughout the East. The alarming permanent deficiency in the public revenue which her Majesty adverted to, is in a course of supply by the not very pleasant remedy of the property tax; but which was imposed, and has been submitted to, with far less of agitation or discontent than could have been expected. Only 133 petitions, not containing altogether ten thousand names, were presented against it. Her Majesty further recom

mended Parliament

66 to consider the state of the laws which affect the import of corn, and other articles the produce of foreign countries;" and the measures adopted in consequence have worked well, and seem to be very generally approved of, notwithstanding the hopes or fears of contending interests. Her Majesty deeply regretted "the continued distress in the manufacturing districts;" but commended "the exemplary patience and fortitude with which the people had borne their sufferings." We would hope the distress

has somewhat abated, and will be greatly diminished by a large accession of national prosperity. The extensive riots in the manufacturing districts, did not materially derogate from the Queen's just eulogy upon the "patience and fortitude" with which large classes of her subjects have borne up under weighty sufferings; for the disturbances were at worst only partial; they were excited by wicked men for selfish and factious purposes; the majority of the well-disposed virtuous poor stood aloof from them, and of those who engaged in them many were carried along by the force of the torrent, being hastily persuaded that the result would be beneficial. But the successful quelling of these outbreaks, and the peace which has since been maintained, are among the great national blessings of the expiring year. Further, her Majesty's anticipation of a bountiful harvest was abundantly fulfilled; and the benefit has been incalculably great. To these national mercies during the past year, we might add Lord Ashburton's treaty with the United States of America; and many other circumstances; especially those connected with the extension of the kingdom of Christ both in our own country and abroad. But we need not recapitulate what we have already written on these important topics. Her Majesty's Cabinet deserves much gratitude for its successful endeavours to adjust the affairs of the nation; and we trust they will find themselves sufficiently strong in Parliament, and supported by the people, to enable them to carry out various other important measures for the public weal-especially those connected with the stability and extension of the national church.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

T.; J. B.; J. L. K.; C. C.; A CONSTANT READER; A. B.; P.; W. V.; are under consideration.

Erratum.-In one of the extracts from Dean Milner (p. 746 of our Number for Dec. 1842), a line was inadvertently left out in the printing, the omission of The Dean's words are "You are not to infer from which reverses the sense. anything which I now say, that I think the Liturgy of no use in the controversy before us."

The Bible Society Extracts, this month, are particularly interesting; and appended to them is a list of the Society's English Bibles and Testaments, in a great variety of types and sizes. The extraordinary cheapness of Bibles, taking into consideration the care taken to render them accurate, and the excellent quality of the paper, printing, and binding, is among the greatest wonders and blessings of modern times. Weighty indeed is the debt of gratitude due to the officers of the Bible Society in this important matter, as well as in its general proceedings, foreign and domestic.

ON JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH, AND DECLENSION FROM THAT GREAT DOCTRINE OF SCRIPTURE.

For the Christian Observer.

WHEN your correspondent T. K., in your Number for October last, observed that he "should like to see a paper, in the Christian Observer, stating clearly the doctrine of justification by faith, and then shewing, by a series of statements, the different steps by which, through a gradual corruption, it becomes justification by the works of the law," he suggested a task of no inconsiderable difficulty. This difficulty arises, not only from the amplitude of the subject, and from the Scriptural and theological attainments (to say nothing of historical lights) necessary to its complete development; but also from the familiarity of your readers with certain able disquisitions already given to the public. So that "justification by faith" has at least a "hundred gates" by which it has made its appearance in the religious world. On this account, it may be objected that we have had enough of this in Visitation Sermons and Charges; we have read Hooker; we continually meet with controversial treatises on justification; and we are truly satiated with what we have seen and heard on this interminable subject. Nevertheless this "articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesiae" may not improperly receive a further consideration; not indeed for the purpose of informing us what it really is, but in order to awaken us, in this day of doctrinal declension, to a deeper sense of its importance. For this end I shall attempt, in dependence on no human power, to meet the wishes of your correspondent.

That the doctrine of "justification by faith only" essentially involves others of very great moment, will be easily conceded. Who, indeed, can apprehend its true meaning, without first acquainting himself with those attributes of our Creator, which demand our adoration and love, and which should excite a constant endeavour to glorify His holy name? Here I allude to that wisdom which nothing can deceive, that omnipotence which nothing can withstand, and that goodness which no created intellect is able fully to comprehend. When these characteristics of Deity are solemnly reviewed in the secrecy and silence of the soul, we perceive, by the force of contrast, that man, considered in his natural CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 62.

K

estate, retains no discernible trace of the Divine image; no true wisdom, no real purity, no abiding happiness. And to what conclusion do we come? Surely that a creature, so destitute of religious excellence, can never be justified (or acounted just) before God, on the ground of his own "works and deservings." God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil.” (Habakkuk i. 13.) "The heavens are not clean in His sight: how much more abominable and filthy is man." (Job xv. 15, 16.) When set, as it were, in the beam of Godhead, our corruptions are awfully apparent. This conclusion may be strengthened by a reference to the Divine will, as made known in the page of inspiration. Were I to confine myself to that memorable passage, which is so frequently quoted by the world, and in excuse of its scanty measure of religious service, namely, "What, O man, doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" (Micah vi. 8), I should be at no loss to shew the impracticability of our obtaining salvation on the plea of works. For who among us is so just as to be unstained by a single thought incompatible with strict integrity? Who indeed can be said to render unto God His due? Or who is so merciful as never to have been tainted even with a breath of cruelty; more particularly as it regards his unconcern for the millions that know not Christ? Who, again, walks so humbly with his God, as on no occasion to harbour one proud thought of his own intellectual and moral qualities? But, taking a more general view of the revealed will of God, even of that surrender of the heart which He absolutely demands of man (Proverbs xxiii. 26), coupled with the awful denunciation, "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them," (Gal. iii. 10,) it seems necessarily to follow, that neither Adam, nor any of his posterity, can be justified by his own works: for no child of man can testify, standing on the rock of truth, "I have, from the days of childhood, surrendered my soul to God, to believe in Him, to fear Him, to love Him with all my heart; and never has a single thought proved unfaithful to the Lord."

Indeed the apostacy of Adam of itself proves the impossibility of the justification that I am now combating. For, however contrary the doctrine to all the dogmas of philosophy, and to all "the rudiments of the world;" whatever scorn is poured on it by the one, whatever indignation by the other; it stands legibly written in the sacred volume, that "by one man's disobedience many were made sinners," and that "by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation." (Rom. v. 18, 19.) Are we, then, thus "born in sin, the children of wrath ?" In Adam do "all die," even infants, "who have not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression ?" (Rom. v. 14.) That fact candidly admitted, that doctrine unequivocally received, man will no more presume to assert his merit, or even his innocence, before God, than he will pretend to angelic wisdom, or to Divine perfection. As inheritors of the guilt, the depravity, the condemnation of our "first parent," we must then let alone for ever the hope of establishing our claim to "glory and immortality" on account of our exact obedience to the laws of God.

Or regard the best and holiest inhabitant of this world. Follow him* day by day, in his benevolent career abroad; mark his expanded zeal for the salvation of a lost universe through the blood of Christ; observe him

* See Mr. Wilberforce's "Practical View," to which I am partly indebted

for the substance of my observations on the point.

when most abundantly adorned with the graces of domestic life; catch the very breath of his closet communion with God; trace him on the Lord's-day, in all the spirituality of his meditations, in all the fervour of his devotions, in all his aspirations after things unseen and eternal; when most powerfully constrained by "the love of Christ," and most closely treading in his steps; and then put to him the solemn question, "Art thou even now cleansed after the purification of the sanctuary? When weighed in the balance of Heaven, art thou not found wanting? Canst thou stand before Infinite Perfection, and say, 'I am without sin?" What would be his sure reply? But it has been already furnished by Job, by Isaiah, by Daniel, by Paul. (Job ix. 2—15; İsa. vi. 5; Dan. ix. 18; Romans vii. 19.) These memorable saints of God have so distinctly owned their total corruption in his sight, that no Scriptural inquirer can deny the humiliating inference, "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified." Bishop Beveridge remarks, (and it is a happy illustration of the subject,) "Our works condemn us, how then can they justify us?"

In support of this inference, I might press the weighty consideration, that, could we attain to moral perfection for a single day, even then, by rendering no more than is absolutely due to God, we should still be destitute of merit, and consequently could not be justified by our own "works of righteousness." We must still owe our acceptance with Him to his own unbounded compassion and unfettered mercy. Or (as Hooker significantly expresses himself upon the point) we should not have "God in our debt books." Nor should it be forgotten here, that He himself is the source of whatever purity we may possess, of whatever religion we may practise; "the author and finisher of our faith,” (Heb. xii. 2.) "By His grace I am what I am." (1 Cor. xv. 10.)

Here an observation of South, (in his Sermon on Job xxii. 2,) may very seasonably be referred to, in confirmation of my general argument. It is this: "God offers Himself to our consideration as a Being infinitely perfect, infinitely happy, and self-sufficient; depending upon no supply or revenue from abroad, but (as I may so express it) retreating wholly into Himself, and there living for ever upon the inexhaustible stock of His own essential fulness. And as a fountain owes not its streams to any poor adventitious infusions from without, but to the internal, unfailing plenties of its own springs; so this mighty, all-comprehending Being, which we call God, needs no other happiness but to contemplate upon that which He actually is, and ever was, and ever shall be possessed of. From all which it follows that the Divine nature and beatitude can no more admit of any addition to it, than we can add degrees to infinity, new measures to immensity, and further improvements to a boundless, absolute, unimproveable perfection.... Nevertheless, to carry the case a little further, supposing for the present that the Divine nature and felicity were capable of some further addition and increase, let us, in the second place, cast our eye upon the other party concerned, and consider whether man be a being fit and able to make this addition ;-man, I say, that poor, slight, inconsiderable nothing; or, at best, a pitiful something, beholden to every one of the elements, as well as compounded of them, and living as an eleemosynary upon a perpetual contribution from all and every part of the creation.".." And is this now the person who is to oblige his Maker? to indent and drive bargains with the Almighty?" "Who hath first given to Him and it shall be recompensed to him again?" (Rom. xi. 35.)

As to the Tractarian hypothesis that we are justified at the Baptismal font, it cannot be admitted on any "warranty of Scripture," and certainly not on the authority of the Church of England. The former nowhere contains it, and both virtually reject it. What else is signified by the declaration, that "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin," (1 John i. 7); that "the Baptism," which "doth now also save us," is "not the putting away the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God?" (1 Pet. iii. 21.) Moreover, when brought to be baptized, we are then regarded by our Church as already justified before God. For by the mouth of godfathers and godmothers the infant professes that faith which makes us accepted in the Beloved. If, on the contrary, he were necessarily cleansed from sin as soon as his forehead is sprinkled with Baptismal water, why should not the adult also (be his character what it may-for that is not spoken of in the Tractarian account of Baptism) receive the same absolution, and so secure his own salvation? The Church applies to each precisely similar expressions. Is the fountain, which can cleanse the infant, insufficient to purify the adult? After all, if Baptism could save us, in the absolute sense of the Tractarian, what need should we have to pray to our adorable Redeemer, “Wash me throughly from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin."

Of the well nigh childish supposition that we are justified partly by faith and partly by works, and that because true faith and works are inseparably connected, I need not say much in the way of exposure or refutation. For (as the Apostle Paul argues so admirably upon the point, (Romans xi. 6), "if by grace, then is it no more of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work." The very idea of that partnership in merit which is here repudiated by St. Paul, is so wholly inconsistent with the principle of man's salvation, or with that "love of pity" which our great Redeemer manifested, when "He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor (Isaiah lix. 16), so that "His arm brought salvation;"-it is so contradictory to His own words, that "the Son of man is come to save that which is lost" (Matt. xviii. 11); and it so belies the very song of Heaven, Worthy the Lamb that was slain," &c., that the existence of that idea proves our natural want of all spiritual illumination. I tremble for the man who can persuade himself, “I am partly indebted to Christ for the eternal salvation of my soul."

Having thus cleared my way, by shewing, as I trust, the complete impossibility of our justification on the ground of WORKS, I would next endeavour to establish the opposite most blessed doctrine, that "being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Rom. v. 1.)

"What is meant by justification?" is a question that may well arise in the mind of a reasonable man. By "justification," then, we mean, that "there is, therefore, now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." (Rom. viii. 1.) They stand at the bar of God as innocent and upright persons. Their Redeemer answers for them. That which is impossible to man, was not impossible to Jesus. Having undertaken the wondrous work in His own unfathomable mercy, He fulfilled the gracious intentions of his Heavenly Father. So that "herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." (1 John iv. 10.) In Him, then,