to seek that great blessing now, and so to believe as to experience it this day. With it we should be more happy, and more useful; and as we are changeable creatures, with this blessing we shall be more safe than we could be without it. But can a person possessing perfect love, perfectly keep God's holy law, as angels do in heaven? No; if he could, he would no longer need the atonement, any more than holy angels do. Yet through the atonement, he may acceptably keep the law.

"He loves God with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself; he acts in all things under the influence of that love; and this is the end of the commandment, and the fulfilling of the law. And though this soul is free from what the Bible calls sin, yet he has infirmities and unavoidable failings growing out of the original fall, on account of which he ought to say,

'Every moment, Lord, I need

The merits of thy death;'

forgive me my trespasses, &c. Unavoidable mistakes and failings are covered by the atonement; and through it his obedience is accepted."

I have been the more diffuse in my references, for the purpose of presenting all the phases of the subject as it is maintained by our standard writers. A clear statement of the doctrine of Christian perfection, I have long felt, is absolutely necessary at the outset; for without this we meet objections at every step which embarrass us, and involve in obscurity and doubt its plainest points. I have therefore selected those passages from the writings of Mr. Wesley, Mr. Fletcher, and succeeding writers, which partake specifically of the nature of definitions, and especially such as give definitions which were rendered necessary by objections founded upon false issues. After occupying so

much time in drawing out the true Wesleyan theory, little more should be said in the present lecture. I shall close by a consecutive statement of the propositions which are couched under the language of my authorities.

1. As to the nature of Christian perfection, it is clear, first, that our authors neither hold that it implies perfection in knowledge, nor a perfect fulfilment of the requirements of the Adamic law, that is, legal perfection. But, secondly, that it implies simply loving God with all the heart.

2. That entire sanctification and Christian perfection are identical.

3. That a state of sanctification, simply, as that state is referred to in the sacred writers, seldom implies all that we mean by Christian perfection; but when we design, by the term sanctification, to express the state of perfection contended for, we should qualify it by the word entire, or the like.

4. That the term perfection, signifying the completeness of a thing in the attributes of its kind, considering its circumstances and the purposes of its being, admits of various degrees. Consequently perfection varies in its character according to the character of its subject; and may vary in its degrees, in subjects of the same class, according to the circumstances of the subject, and its particular destination.

5. That by being saved from all sin in the present life, we mean being saved, first, from all outward sinall violations of the requirements of the law of love which relate to our outward conduct: and, secondly, from all inward sin-all violations of the law of love which relate to the intellect, the sensibilities, and the will.

LECTURE IV.

THEORIES-VARIOUSLY MODIFIED.

“We speak wisdom among them that are perfect,” 1 Cor. ii, 6.

HAVING, in the preceding lecture, presented the Wesleyan theory of perfection, I shall now proceed to give the views of leading theologians upon the subject in different periods of the church's history, with such remarks and explanations as may be called for. And in the course of this investigation it will appear that the doctrine of evangelical perfection did not originate with Mr. Wesley. I do not say that the Wesleyan theory, in all its parts, is found in the productions of preceding writers. But I may say that the great elements of the system have been developed, even from the early ages, in the same proportion in which vital Christianity has obtained. And hence these elements can be culled from the writings of the best divines of all ages since that of the apostles.

In the selections I have made, I have not been careful always to find the word perfection-the thing is what I am after. And I find what I mean by Christian perfection often showing itself in the works of divines who condemn the name. I shall, first, present the views of several who do not seem to differ in their leading principles from those of our standards; only not having treated the subject controversially, or not having adjusted it to other theological questions which have at different periods agitated the church, they have not set forth their views so much in detail I begin with the apostolic fathers.

"He that hath the love that is in Christ, let him keep the commandments of Christ. Who can declare. the bond of the love of God? Who is sufficient worthily to express the magnificence of its beauty? The height to which love exalts us cannot be spoken. Love unites us to God. Love covereth a multitude of sins. Love is long-suffering; yea, beareth all things. There is nothing mean in love, there is nothing haughty. Love has no schism, is not seditious. Love does all things in unity. By love were all the elect of God made perfect. Without love, nothing is acceptable to God. Ye see, beloved, how great and wonderful a thing love is, and that no words can declare its perfection. Who, then, is sufficient to be found therein? who but they to whom God vouchsafes to teach it? Let us, therefore, beseech him that we may be worthy thereof, that we may live in love, unblameable, without respect of perAll the generations from Adam unto this day are passed away: but those who were made perfect in love are in the region of the just, and shall appear in glory at the visitation of the kingdom of Christ."St. Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians.

sons.

Nothing is better than peace, whereby all war is destroyed, both of things in heaven and things on earth. Nothing of this is hid from you, if ye have perfect faith in Jesus Christ, and love, which are the beginning and the end of life: faith is the beginning, love the end; and both being joined in one, are of God. All other things pertaining to perfect holiness follow. For no man that hath faith sinneth; and none that hath love hateth any man."-St. Ignatius's Epistle to the Ephe

sians.

Irenæus, a celebrated father of the second century, says: "The apostle, explaining himself in his First Epistle to the Thessalonians, chap. v, exhibited the

perfect and spiritual salvation of man, saying, 'But God of peace sanctify you perfectly; that your s 1, body, and spirit may be preserved without fault to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.' How then, indeed, did he have the cause in these three, (that is, to pray for the entire and perfect preservation of soul, body, and spirit, to the coming of the Lord,) unless he knew the common salvation of these was the renovation of the whole three? Wherefore he calls those perfect who present the three faultless to the Lord. Therefore those are perfect who have the spirit and perseverance of God, and have preserved their souls and bodies without fault."*

And Clemens Alexandrinus, of the latter part of the second century and the beginning of the third, says :"I find that the term 'perfect' is understood in various senses, as the individual acts rightly in each kind of virtue."+

But of all the fathers, Macarius, the Egyptian, writes most specifically and consistently upon the subject. He, in his Homilies, treats the subject of set purpose.‡ He says:- "One that is rich in grace, at all times, by night and by day, continues in a perfect state, free and pure, ever captivated with love, and elevated to God."-"In like manner Christians, though outwardly they are tempted; yet inwardly are they filled with the divine nature, and so nothing injured. These degrees, if any man attain to, he is come to the perfect love of Christ, and to the fulness of the Godhead."

He was

* Lib. v. † Stormatum, book iv. MACARIUS was a member of the council of Nice in 325. a celebrated hermit, and said to be a disciple of St. Anthony; was born of poor parents in 301. He passed sixty years in a monastery on mount Sceta, and died about the year 391. His Homilies were printed at Paris in 1526, folio, and at Leipsic, 1698.—Gorton's Biog. Dict.