sanctified or set apart to the service of God. It is a state of consecration to him. This is present obedience to the moral law. It is the whole of present duty and is implied in Repentance, Faith, Regeneration, as we have abundantly seen.

Sanctification is sometimes used to express a permanent state of obedience to God, or of consecration. In this sense it is not a condition of present justification or of pardon and acceptance. But it is a condition of continued and permanent acceptance with God. It certainly can not be true that God accepts and justifies the sinner in his sins. I may safely challenge the world for either reason or scripture to support the doctrine of justification in sin, in any degree of present rebellion against God. The Bible every where represents justified persons as sanctified and always expressly or impliedly conditionates justification upon sanctification. 1 Cor. 6: 11. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.' This is but a specimen of the manner in which justified persons are spoken of in the Bible. Also, Rom. 8: 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.' They only are justified who walk after the Spirit. Should it be objected, as it may be, that the scriptures often speak of saints or truly regenerate persons as needing sanctification and of sanctification as something that comes after regeneration and as that which the saints are to aim at attaining, I answer, that when sanctification is thus spoken of, it is doubtless used in the higher sense already noticed; to wit, to denote a state of being settled, established in faith, rooted and grounded in love, being so confirmed in the faith and obedience of the gospel as to hold on in the way steadfastly, unmovably, always abounding in the work of the Lord. This is doubtless a condition of permanent justification, as has been said, but not a condition of present justification. By sanctification's being a condition of justification, the following things are intended.

(1.) That present, full, and entire consecration of heart and life to God and his service is an unalterable condition of present pardon of past sin, and of present acceptance with God.

(2.) That the penitent soul remains justified no longer than this full hearted consecration continues.

But since this is a fundamental question in theology, I have obtained leave of Prof. Morgan to insert in this place his ar ticle on the holiness acceptable to God. This will be more satisfactory perhaps than any thing I could say inasmuch as I should be obliged to quote the same scriptures, and about in the same order.

"Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the High God? This has in all ages been the solemn and anxious inquiry of earnest souls. It is the question of one who has sinned-the question, however, of hope and not of despair-the question of one who conceives that perhaps the High and Holy One may be acceptably_approached. But the inquiry presupposes, that whatever God may have done, may be doing, or ready to do for his salvation, the inquirer has a personal responsibility which he must meet, that there are conditions which he must fulfill. What shall I do to inherit eternal life? The question recognizes the moral agency of the inquirer, and the necessity of its appropriate exercise..

It is admitted by all, except utter antinomians, that some degree of holiness or conformity to the divine law, is indispensable to acceptance with God. No one, we think, would refuse to unite with the venerable Westminster Confession in the statement that 'repentance, by which a sinner so grieves for and hates his sins as to turn from them all to God, purposing and endeavoring to walk with him in all the ways of his commandments, is of such necessity to all sinners, that none may expect pardon without it.' Still the majority of the church would doubtless, with the Larger Westminster Catechism, maintain that the 'best works' of God's accepted saints, are imperfect and defiled in the sight of God.' The celebrated Dr. Beecher in his recent letter on Perfection, exhibits the theory which he has embraced on the subject. We will quote a few of his questions and answers.

4 Question 1. What takes place in regeneration?

Answer. The reconciliation of an enemy to God; submission to his will; love to God more than to all creatures and all things. In its commencement, this love is feeble compared with all the heart, mind, soul and strength,' according to the moral law; and to qualify for heaven, must be progressively augmented through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth.

Q.2. How can the help of Christ be obtained, to secure our growth in grace? A. By renouncing all reliance upon our own strength and merits, and relying entirely on the sufficiency and willingness of Christ to help us, sought by filial supplication, and the diligent use of the appointed means of grace; striving, as the Puritan writers say, as if all depended on ourselves, and looking to Christ as if all depended on him.

Q. 3. What will be the effect of such a prayerful reliance upon Christ, in the diligent use of the means of grace?

A. Not perfection; for faith can be no more perfect than the love which animates it; and not including love with all the heart, and mind, and soul, and strength, is always an implication of defect needing an advocate and pardon. The child who cannot go a step alone, may as well exult in the claim of perfect manhood, as those who can do nothing without Christ, in the claim of perfection. But the result will be that they will grow in grace till they die, going from strength to strength, till they all appear in Zion before God.'

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The doctrine of these extracts clearly is, not simply that the love of a new-born saint is feeble compared with that of an advanced Christian, but that it is less than the moral law requires, and therefore sinfully defective. These extracts also teach that the most prayerful reliance on Christ, and the most diligent use of the means of grace' ever practised in this life, never produce an obedience which does not itself, on account of sinful defect, need pardon. In these views Dr. B. coincides with the representation of the Westminster Confession, that they who in their obedience attain to the greatest height which is possible in this life, * fall short in much which in duty they are bound to do.'

**

We propose in the present article to seek a scriptural answer to the inquiry, Is any degree of holiness acceptable to God, which, for the time being, falls short of full obedience to the divine law? We put the question into the most general form, intending it to apply to both the accepted holiness of the new-born soul and the holiness of the most mature Christian.

1. In order to an intelligent answer to this inquiry, we must first determine what the requirements of the law are, and in what phraseology they are couched.

(1.) In Deut. 6: 5, we find the first table of the law expressed in the fullest form that occurs in the Old Testament: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.' It is remarkable that this emphatic mode of expression occurs, in the form of a command, no where else in the Old Testament; but it is once strikingly referred to in the historic account of the character of Josiah, 2 Kings 23: 25. The passage is quoted, Matt. 22: 37, Mark 12: 3, and Luke 10: 27, with some difference of words, but manifestly with no modification of meaning. The emphasis obviously lies in the words which we have marked by italic.

(2.) We have, Deut. 10: 12, 13, somewhat different language: And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God re

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quire of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good? The whole spirit of this passage would be expressed in the words: What doth the Lord thy God require of thee but to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul? The rest is added to make the passage more impressive, and perhaps also to indicate the important truth that inward obedience manifests itself in the external conduct. It is the doctrine of Paul, Rom. 13: 8-10, that he that loveth hath fulfilled the law;' and this is the doctrine also, so far as we know, of the whole Christian church. The above-quoted passage omits the expression, with all thy might,' and yet the introductory words show that the whole content of the law is given. The phraseology, with all thy heart and with all thy soul,' is employed, we believe, where emphasis is intended, more frequently than any other formula, to designate the demand of the law. (3.) We find, 1 Sam. 12: 20-24, the words, Turn not aside from following the Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart.-Only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with your heart.' Here the phrases, with all your might,' and 'with all your soul,' are both omitted, and yet who can reasonably doubt that the prophet meant, in the use of the phrase, with all the heart,' to enjoin full obedience to the law?

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It is, perhaps, worth noticing, that in passages which exhibit the emphatic phraseology before us, wherever any of the phrases are omitted, it is always those that come last. It is always, with all the heart and soul,' or, with all the heart,'-never, with all the might,'-'with all the soul,' or 'with all the soul and might,'-which may perhaps lead us to conclude that the omitted words were in the writer's or speaker's mind, and in the minds of his Israelitish readers or hearers, just as with us, the whole of a familiar verse or even hymn is frequently referred to, when we mention only the first line.

(4.) In Micah 6: 8, all duty is denoted without the use of any emphatic phraseology: 'He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God! The first part of the concluding interrogation, plainly shows that the whole compass of the divine commands is exhibited.

(5.) The above-cited passages present the divine law chiefly in its relations to God. The precept, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,' occurs in the Old Testament only Lev. 19: 18. In the New Testament it is quoted as containing the sum of all the law with respect to our fellow men. But though in the ten commandments and in the other precepts of the law, the language of equality and impartiality is omitted, it is always to be understood-an affirmation, which in relation to the second table of the ten commandments, we presume no one will deny. For an equally cogent reason, in the first table, and in all other commands which relate to the Most High, the expressions are to be understood which denote the engagement of all our powers of heart, soul, and might. David adopted this rule of interpretation in his charge to Solomon, 1 Kings 2: 2-4. Referring to the promise and its conditions, recorded Ps. 132: 12, and elsewhere in similar language, the dying prophet says, 'I go the way of all the earth: be thou strong, therefore, and show thyself a man, and keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in his ways **that the Lord may continue his word which he spake concerning me, saying, If thy children take heed to their way, to walk before me in truth with all their heart and with all their soul, there shall not fail thee a man on the throne of Israel.' The original condition of the promise did not contain the emphatic expression, 'with all the heart and with all the soul,' but the inspired interpreter supplies it as being understood. Indeed, it is an obviously just rule of construction, that when several passages refer to the same thing, some of them in more, and others in less specific language, the more specific passages should govern the interpretation of the less specific.

Perhaps some of the preceding observations might have been spared, inasmuch as it is generally admitted that the formulas,with all the heart, with all the soul, and with all the might,' with all the heart and with all the soul,' and 'with all the heart,' universally have the meaning contended for. They are considered as equivalent, though more or less emphatic modes of expressing the full requirement of the law. To make the less emphatic expressions mean less than the others, is to ascribe to them an utter indefiniteness, not to say that it would make them involve a license to commit some degree of sin.

The language of the law plainly shows that it concerns itself with nothing else than the voluntary inward state or