of the heart then-this insensibility to God— this blindness to His direct actings-this spirit of independence, under the influence of which we live surrounded by God, and sustained by Him, and yet entirely unconnected with Him in spirit and desire, this being the evil to be remedied by Christianity, does it not seem most reasonable to expect that there should be in the remedy an especial putting forth of the direct agency of God, and that He should reveal Himself through it in such a way that the soul may know and feel that it is God of a truth that worketh, and none other than He?

The branch separated from the vine cannot graft itself on again; if it could, the order of nature would be subverted. And man separated from God cannot, according to the order of a higher nature, again unite himself to God. Indeed, this appears to me so full of the highest reason and evidence, that I should consider the great purpose of Christianity absolutely defeated, were it possible for man to become a Christian by his own unassisted efforts, or without a conviction of the necessity of Divine assistance. Nay, it would be

an absurdity—it would be teaching the spirit of dependence by an argument for independence-it would be leading man to repose his all on God by showing him that he could do without God.

The true state of the creature is a state of absolute dependence on the Creator, and when he has left his true state, he can only be brought back to it by Him from whom he has wandered, and by a way of absolute dependence. All the messages of God to man have related to this way of return, and have been filled with the most urgent calls to come back by it, and the most solemn warnings against refusing the voice of Him who speaketh from heaven. All these messages have been messages of love. And man needs such a message, for his conscience testifies against him, and tells him of his sin, and of God's just displeasure at sin, and thus forbids the spirit of confidence, while at the same time it commands the spirit of dependence.

Therefore the gospel is indeed a welcome message; for it tells of the love of God to sinners,-of His having provided an atonement for sin, and of His open arms ready to embrace

all who come to Him through this atonement. The knowledge of the grace of God through Jesus Christ converts the dependence of necessity into a dependence of love, and thus grafts man into the true vine.

CHAPTER II.

Forgiveness the means not the end contemplated in the Gospel.

dependence

state of the

"THOU shalt love the Lord thy God with all Confiding thy heart and mind, and soul and strength, and the true thy neighbour as thyself." On these two com- creature. mandments hang all the law and the prophets; and the whole object of the gospel is the fulfilling of them in our hearts. They describe the perfection of man's spiritual state. They describe his confiding devoted dependence on the great Root of the spiritual family, and his fraternal sympathy with all the branches. When the love of the Creator is the dominant principle in the creature's heart, it keeps all the other principles and faculties and relations of the soul in their proper place. It is the true key-stone of the arch, which gives strength by maintaining order. It is the principle which

connects the creature with the spiritual system, enabling it to receive of the fulness of the Creator.

The fall of this key-stone from its place in man's heart was, and is, the fall of man from his place in the family of God. Self and the creature took the place of God, and each man became an independent individual,-loving and desiring and approving things according as they affected himself, without regard to the will of God or the sympathies of the universal family. This is the fall and the sin and the misery of man,—that the first and paramount relation has not the first and paramount place in his heart, and that self—the principle of individuality has usurped that place, and has thus cut off the blessed communication between God and man, which had been, and could only be, maintained through the channel of a supreme affection.

And as this is the fall of man, so his restoration can be nothing else than the restoration of the love of God as the paramount principle in the heart, resulting in the due subordination of self and the creature under it. Any remedy which falls below this restoration falls below