the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world; but it is obvious that such a faith, if sincere, implied in it all that is essential to repentance. I need not tell you, that the import of the word μrávia, which is generally employed in the New Testament to denote repentance, is a change of mind, a change of purpose and belief; but it is impossible that any man coming over from the Jews or Gentiles, and applying to be admitted into the Christian Church, could sincerely profess to believe the Gospel, or to have faith in Christ, without a total change of sentiment and purpose, with respect to the religion, which he had forsaken, or was about to forsake. Such a man could not but know, that to believe and obey the Gospel was for ever to renounce idolatry with all its impurities, and to rest his hope of salvation upon the interposition of Christ alone, and not on the practice of mere moral virtue, as the virtuous part of the heathen was led to believe; on circumcision and the ritual observance of the Mosaic law, as the Jews generally imagined; or on his supposed election to eternal life, as a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, which was a favourite article in the creed of the Pharisees.

Sometimes, indeed, we find the Apostles making, in appearance, repentance the sole condition of admittance into the Christian Church, and of course into the state of salvation; but on such occasions the repentance which they exact, without mentioning faith, implies in it a belief of the Gospel, with a resolution to " obey from the heart that form of doc

philosophical Christians of the present age, contend as strenuously, that faith is of very little importance to him whose moral conduct is correct. Both these

parties appear to have claimed justification as due to their works-though works of different kinds; whereas we are everywhere taught in Scripture, that we could merit nothing as wages from our Maker, even were we able to do all that is commanded us ;* that it is only through Christ that the most innocent person can be justified or saved in the full Gospel sense of the word; and that it was by "the grace or favour of God that Jesus was made a little lower than the angels, that he might taste death for every man.

It is therefore by grace, and grace alone, that we can either be saved or justified, if there be any difference in the meaning of these two words; and accordingly St Paul uniformly says to the Jews, that" in Christ Jesus neither circumcision, (which always includes the ritual law) nor uncircumcision, availeth any thing, but a new creature ;" and to both Jews and Gentiles, that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ ;-therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law." The condition, therefore, on which, and on which alone, Jewish and Gentile converts, and there could then be no other, were admitted into the church, and considered as justified, was faith in Jesus as + Rom. iii. 20.

* St Luke, xvii. 10.

the Son of God, and the Saviour of the world; but it is obvious that such a faith, if sincere, implied in it all that is essential to repentance. I need not tell you, that the import of the word uerάvoia, which is generally employed in the New Testament to denote repentance, is a change of mind, a change of purpose and belief; but it is impossible that any man coming over from the Jews or Gentiles, and applying to be admitted into the Christian Church, could sincerely profess to believe the Gospel, or to have faith in Christ, without a total change of sentiment and purpose, with respect to the religion, which he had forsaken, or was about to forsake. Such a man could not but know, that to believe and obey the Gospel was for ever to renounce idolatry with all its impurities, and to rest his hope of salvation upon the interposition of Christ alone, and not on the practice of mere moral virtue, as the virtuous part of the heathen was led to believe; on circumcision and the ritual observance of the Mosaic law, as the Jews generally imagined; or on his supposed election to eternal life, as a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, which was a favourite article in the creed of the Pharisees.

Sometimes, indeed, we find the Apostles making, in appearance, repentance the sole condition of admittance into the Christian Church, and of course into the state of salvation; but on such occasions the repentance which they exact, without mentioning faith, implies in it a belief of the Gospel, with a resolution to "obey from the heart that form of doc

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trine which is delivered in it." Thus, the Jews, who were converted by the preaching of St Peter, were pricked," we are told,* "at the heart-filled with the deepest grief-when convinced that, by wicked hands, they had crucified and slain a man approved among them by God;" and when they asked St Peter and the rest of the Apostles what they should do, they were directed to " repent and be baptized every one of them in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins." They are indeed said by St Peter to have "done it in ignorance"-i. e. in ignorance of Jesus being the Messiah promised to their forefathers; but they could not be ignorant that they had consented to the death of a man, against whom the chief priests and Pharisees had failed, even by suborning false witnesses, to bring proof of any kind of guilt, and whom the governor himself, profligate and abandoned as he was known to be, had repeatedly pronounced to be absolutely guiltless. Yet even of those sinful wretches, who had called out" His blood be on us and on our children," no other repentance seems to have been required as a condition of baptism, than such a change of religious principles as was implied in sincerely professing the Christian faith. "Repent, (meravonoare,) says the Apostle, and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ, every one of you, for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. Acts, ii, 37-41.

And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, save yourselves from this untoward, (oxoλiãs,) perverse or corrupt generation." Forsake the traditions of the Pharisees, and their worldly interpretations of the prophecies of the Messiah, and embrace the truth as it is in Jesus. That all this is here implied in the word repent, and in the Apostle's exhortation to save themselves from that perverse generation, is unquestionable; for they had already convinced him of their sorrow for their sin; and if he had not meant that their repentance should include their embracing the Gospel, he would have desired them to be baptized without making any profession of their faith at all, which cannot be supposed by any Christian.

They were Jews who were thus admitted into the church and justified ; but we have the most conclusive evidence that the Gentiles, or heathen, were justified on the very same condition; for it is evident that it was to them that St Peter referred, when he said, "The promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Accordingly St Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, after mentioning the superior privileges which the Jews had long possessed, and had then forfeited by their rejection of the Messiah, says, "But now the righteousnessbenignity *(dixaι6úvn) of God without the † law is

* See Schleusner on the word; Hammond on the whole passage; and Dr John Taylor's Key to the Apostolical Epistles, Chap. xvi.

In the original there is no article.