actions of men. If it makes mention of external actions, it is only as the necessary manifestations of the inward voluntary state. When the voluntary state or action of the heart is right, the law has no further demand. It commands nothing but love, it forbids nothing but its opposite. It knows nothing of any other holiness than love, under it, behind it, or causative of it. It has no complacency in any thing but love, be it found in whatever being it may, man or angel. Nor is there any depravity, corruption, bias, evil nature, or any thing else of whatever name, with which it is offended or displeased, in man or devil, except the voluntary exclusion of love, or the indulgence of its opposite. Disobedience on the one hand, and obedience on the other, are the only moral entities known to the Scriptures, or of which the law of God takes the least cognizance. It demands nothing but cordial obedience-it forbids nothing but cordial disobedience. We say not that there may not be inward occasions of sin as well as outward temptations; nor do we say there may not be inward influences impelling to holiness as well as external persuasives; but we do say that the law of God takes no cognizance of either the one or the other. It concerns itself with nought but the inward voluntary state or action of the moral agent. We are aware that we might have said all this in a single sentence; but we chose to say over and over again in different words, what we deem a very important and obvious Scripture doctrine, because it is denied or misunderstood by many good men.

The doctrine we have thus laid down, agrees with that which President Edwards urges in his Treatise on the Will, Part III. Sec. IV. If there be any sort of act or exertion of the soul, prior to all free acts of the will or acts of choice in the case, directing and determining what the acts of the will shall be, that act or exertion of the soul cannot properly be subject to command or precept in any respect whatsoever, either directly or indirectly, immediately or remotely. Such acts cannot be subject to commands directly, because they are no acts of the will; being by the supposition prior to all acts of the will, determining and giving rise to all its acts: they not being acts of the will, there can be in them no consent to, or compliance with, any command. Neither can they be subject to command indirectly or remotely; for they are not so much as the effect or consequences of the will, being prior to its acts. So that if there be any obedience in that original act of the soul, determining all volitions, it is an

act of obedience wherein the will has no concern at all; it preceding every act of will. And therefore, if the soul either obeys or disobeys in this act, it is wholly involuntary; there is no willing obedience or rebellion, no compliance or opposition of will in the affair: and what sort of obedience or rebellion is this?'

Well would it have been for theology, if all that the great and good Edwards wrote had been in harmony with the manifest good sense of this passage.

2. Having thus considered the various phraseology in which the law of God is delivered, we proceed more directly to the question, whether full obedience to its requisitions, is a condition of acceptance with God. Those who believe that the best works of justified persons are defiled in the sight of God,' cannot believe that full obedience to the divine law is a present condition of the divine favor. They may believe that the law has various salutary uses to the saints, but, on their scheme of doctrine, one of those uses cannot be to tell them what they must do to inherit eternal life.

But inasmuch as some of these passages manifestly speak of the holiness they enjoin as a condition of justification before God, it may be imagined by some that they treat not of the justification of those who have ever sinned, but of legal justification for those only who practise from the beginning of life an unbroken obedience, in order that sinners may see their need of mercy and grace, and flee for refuge to Christ.

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(1.) But nothing can be plainer than it is, that such passages as Micah 6: 8, speak of a condition on which sinners may approach God acceptably. A serious inquirer is introcuced as asking, Wherewith shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before him with burnt-offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with tens of thousands of rivers of oil! Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?' Can any thing be more manifest than it is, that these are the questions of a sinner?

Let us hear again the answer of the inspired prophet; '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?' He presents to him the whole compass of duty, and encourages him with no hint that he may come before the Lord and bow himself before

the High God with a partial performance of it. What a strange change would be introduced into such passages if qualifying words were to be inserted. What doth the Lord require of thee but partially to do justice, to love mercy with sinful defect, and in an imperfect degree to walk humbly with thy God? Are we to construe Is. 1: 16-17, thus: 'If you would have your worship accepted, wash you in part, make you in some good degree clean; put away in the greater part the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease partly to do evil-learn in some good degree to do well?' Does Is. 55: 7, mean, 'Let the wicked in great measure forsake his way, and the unrigheous man partially his thoughts, and let him return with the greater part of his heart to the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him?' Since these passages and innumerable others like them contain no intimation that less than entire obedience will do for acceptance, those who teach that God will accept less from us, are bound to substantiate their doctrine by irrefragable proofs, or to abandon it.

(2.) Such passages as 1 Sam. 12: 20-24, obviously treat of the condition of a sinner's justification. The people of Israel had committed the great wickedness of rejecting the Lord from being their king, and asking for a human king to reign over them; and God, at Samuel's instance, had sent upon them miraculous tokens of his displeasure. The affrighted people entreat the prophet to pray for them. Samuel replies, 'Fear not: ye have done all this wickedness; yet 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 all your heart. But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king.' Here the condition of even their temporal salvation was that they should serve the Lord with all their heart. Persistance in wickedness-in their refusal to serve the Lord with all their heart--would ensure their destruction.

In Deut. 11: 13, obedience with all the heart and with all the soul' is spoken of as the condition of even the common temporal blessings promised to the Israelites in their land. And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the Lord your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, that I will give you rain of your land in its due season, the first rain and the latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn and thy wine and

thy oil; and I will send grass in thy fields for thy cattle, that thou mayest eat and be full.' The Israelites were already sinners, and to proclaim to them the terms of a strict, legal justification would have been the same thing as to denounce their destruction. The terms of the passage are terms of mercy and suited to their wants as members of the guilty human family. The holiness here demanded, too, was to be practised in this life; for it would have been most absurd to condition the bestowment of temporal blessings, the blessings of this state of existence, on a holiness subsequent to their enjoyment, and not to be attained till the promisees had passed or were just passing into the invisible world. In the nature of the case, the condition must be performed ere the blessing can be bestowed in fulfillment of the promise.

The same observations might in substance be made respecting the condition of the promise made to David, mentioned by him, 1 Kings, 2: 4. Here the blessing, though ultimately relating to the eternal throne of the spotless Messiah, was also in part to be given to mortals who had sinned. The condition was that 'they should take heed to their way to walk before the Lord in truth, with all their heart and with all their soul.'

(3.) Full obedience is the condition on which God promises to remove from sinners, judgments under which they are suffering. Deut. 4: 29-But if from thence, [the land of captivity,] thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.' Deut. 30: 1-3, 9, 10,- And it shall come to pass when all these things are come upon thee, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before thee, and thou shalt call them to mind among all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath driven thee, and shalt return unto the Lord thy God and shalt obey his voice, according to all that I command thee this day, thou and thy children, with all thy heart and with all thy soul, that then the Lord thy God will turn thy captivity and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the na tions whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee.' 'The Lord will again rejoice over thee for good, as he rejoiced over thy fathers, if thou shalt hearken to the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, and if thou turn unto the Lord thy Goa w.h all thy heart and with all thy soul.' Joel 2: 13-14. Therefore also now, saith the Lord, turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with

weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil. Who knoweth if he will return and repent, and leave a blessing behind him; even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Lord your God?' Jer. 29: 13.And ye shall seek me and find me when ye shall search for me with all your heart.' The first and last of these quotations especially evince that the mentioned condition was an indispensable onc. No seeking would regain the Lord's favor, but seeking with all the heart and all the soul. It is observable in these passages also, that some, at least, of the blessings promised, pertain to this state of existence. We infer therefore that the full obedience required, was, if it would gain these blessings, to be exhibited in the present life. If the first act or exercise of full obedience was delayed till the last moment of life, it could not place or secure the agent on an earthly throne, or make grass grow for his cattle, or feed him with the fat of the kidneys of wheat,' or deliver him from an earthly captivity. But if whole-hearted repentance, full obedience, was thus an indispensable condition of promised temporal blessings, how much more must it be a condition of eternal salvation, of citizenship in the New Jerusalem, of the palms and white robes of the celestial state, of a seat with Christ on his heavenly throne!

(4.) The inspired Solomon ventured to ask mercy for Israel supposed to be driven into captivity for sin on no less condition than a return to full obedience. 1 Kings, 8: 46-49, 2 Chron. 6: 36-39,- If they sin against thee, (for there is no man that sinneth not,) and thou be angry with them, and deliver them to the enemy, so that they carry them away captives unto the land of the enemy, far or near; yet if they shall bethink themselves, * * * * * * and so return unto thee with all their heart and with all their soul, * * * * then hear thou their prayer and their supplication in heaven, thy dwelling-place, and maintain their cause.' If God would have accepted from his exiled people less than a return to him with all the heart and with all the soul, the tender interest of Solomon, in behalf of Israel, would have impelled him to found his intercession on the supposed performance of that more favorable condition. The wise Solomon would have been a very unskilful advocate, if he had failed to seize and urge the easiest possible terms. Not thus did Abraham man