the fundamentals, to be believed with the heart unto rightBut let us illustrate.

eousness.

The doctrine of man's moral accountableness to God, who will judge him with a righteous retribution for his deeds, whether they be good or whether they be evil. This is a moral truth of the Gospel. It aims directly at the conscience. According to the strength and vividness of man's belief of it, it goes at once, fraught with mighty motives and the solemnities of judgment, to the heart, and lays hold of the moral sentiments and moral capacities, and demands holiness, holiness to the Lord. This doctrine is abundantly unfolded, illustrated, and urged in the gospel. It is constantly on the lips of Jesus. In some of its branches it is scarcely ever absent from his mind. It runs through, nay it constitutes in letter and in spirit, the Sermon on the Mount. It gives the meaning and point to many of the striking parables which make up so valuable a part of gospel teaching. The parable of the Talents, of the Vineyard, of the Rich Man and Lazarus, of the Ten Virgins, and several others, set forth this moral truth. And we know of no denomination of Christians amongst us, that do not profess to receive this doctrine, and that do not in their own way exhibit and urge it. In some cases, to be sure, we think it is done imperfectly, yet it is done in the way which they think right and most forcible. And as well might the lips of the infant Jesus have been sealed in the manger of Bethlehem, as well might the Scriptures have been irrecoverably lost in the night of the dark ages, as this doctrine be denied or disparaged. Man is accountable to his Maker for the good and evil of his heart and life. This is the truth of Christ. It is responded to by the human heart. It is spoken from the heavens. It is answered and echoed from all souls in all Christian lands. It is a Christian doctrine, and what merely speculative and disputed doctrine shall we for a moment couple with it in grandeur and importance?

Again, the kindred doctrine of repentance and forgiveness is a moral truth of the gospel, a leading truth. The gospel is one loud and continuous call to repentance, accompanied by a constant assurance of God's forgiving mercy. The forerunner John introduced the new dispensation by the preaching and the baptism of repentance. "Repent, repent," was the salutation of Jesus to the haughty and hardened Pharisee, to the profligate and contemptuous Sadducee,

and to the humble Publican. His ministry was to an erring and lost world, and the ardent desire continually burned in his bosom, that they should repent and turn to God, and be saved and blest. The doctrine of repentance was embodied in the brief form of prayer which he gave to his disciples. It inspired the touching parable of the Prodigal Son, and that of the Figtree that bore no fruit and cumbered the ground. It breathed in his prayer as he wept over the coming calamities of the devoted yet beloved Jerusalem. The preaching of it to all people was his parting charge to his disciples. And when he had gone to the Father, it was still a first and great doctrine with the apostles. They first testified that Jesus was the Christ, and then called on all men to repent. "Repent," said Peter at the conversion of the three thousand, "for the promise is unto you and your children." "Repent and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out,' was the language of the same Apostle when the five thousand believed. "Repent," was the appeal of Paul at Athens, and Ephesus, and throughout Asia, and at Jerusalem, and wherever he went. Repentance is, therefore, to be regarded as a fundamental doctrine, expressly stated, amplified, and urged a hundred times oftener than any one of the disputed speculative doctrines of Christendom is incidentally hinted at, or obscurely involved in some of those discussions into which the Apostles were sometimes drawn with the Jewish bigots and carping sophists of their day. As a doctrine therefore, as a subject of revelation, and divine teaching, it should hold, in our ideas of importance, a high preeminence over such speculative doctrines. Man's capacity and duty of repentance and God's sparing mercy and longsuffering compassion, — that must be a distorted system that does not place these among the foremost of its doctrines.

Love to God is an express and richly illustrated doctrine of the gospel. Sometimes it appears in the form of a general commandment, and sometimes in special precepts of piety and obedience. Sometimes it comes as an invitation, sometimes in a parable, and sometimes in an argument. Now it is a duty, and again it is an honor and a privilege. Here it is spoken of for reproof, and there in winning and comforting words. It is shown how man can love his Maker and Father, how he can admire, adore, and love his perfections, how that love can warm him with filial piety and manifest itself in the

keeping of his commandments, how it implies trust and gratitude, patience and hope, and begets joy and peace, how it makes the chi'd like unto the Father, and prepares him for the bliss of his nearer presence. All this teaching constitutes a doctrine, a glorious doctrine. And a system of doctrines that should leave it out or give it an inferior place as a doctrine, such a system would be the coldest abstraction of the intellect, all barrenness and darkness.

Once more. Love to man is a Christian doctrine. It is taught, and is therefore a doctrine. The life and death of Jesus are a continued inculcation and exhibition of it. How does it run through his precepts, how does it shine in his miracles, and breathe in his prayers, and speak from his cross, and gird him up for suffering and death. And how incessantly and tenderly does the beloved disciple dwell upon it. How urgently does every Apostle commend it. Love, the source and sum of the social affections, the spirit of social kindness and beneficence, the spirit of justice, integrity, mutual forbearance and forgiveness, and of universal philanthropy, the bar against selfishness, the expanding and warming principle of the soul, such love is taught, explained, it is a Christian doctrine. And can we survey the relations of man to his fellow-men, and see how we are bound up in each other for mutual happiness, and how the bond of love secures that happiness, how dreary the earth is, and how dark the prospect even of heaven without it, and at the same time see how pressingly, persuasively, and in all ways the Gospel urges it, and then think that any speculative article should have preference over it as a fundamental doctrine? No, this is a principal doctrine of the gospel.

From these general moral doctrines we might go on and state those which are more particular, embracing the instructions of the New Testament concerning all spiritual and all outward excellence. But these are sufficient to illustrate our position, that moral doctrines are the primary ones of Christianity. But to what purpose have we labored to show the great importance of these moral subjects, seeing_that_all Christians admit it? It is true that all do admit it. But they do not admit it to the full and proper extent. Ask almost any man who is much interested in religious subjects, and is devoted to the interests of any sect, believing, of course, that that sect is nearer to the whole truth than any other, ask him what he considers the great, leading doctrines

of the gospel, will he refer us first to the moral instructions of Jesus, and out of these specify some of the great doctrines? Not at all. He will refer us at once, and with all zeal, to the speculative doctrines of his sect. These will be uppermost in his mind. If we ask him what he thinks of the moral doctrines with which the Bible is chiefly occupied, he will readily admit their great importance, and say they ought certainly to be attended to, and next to faith, that is, faith in his peculiar speculative opinions, moral subjects are the highest. Still we shall find the second rank assigned to them. They do not rise first to the mind, when men talk about Christian doctrines or a Christian system. Christians pass over the smooth and level plain of Christian morals, where the spirit of Jesus dwells, where are the treasures and delights of his kingdom,- the neutral ground, the ground of peace,and flee to the mountains, to contend for the faith amid rocks. and woods and fastnesses, in the region of clouds and storms.

The importance of faith cannot be ranked too high. The first preliminary article, that which opens the door of Christ's kingdom to the soul and prepares the way for a more comprehensive faith, is, we have said, the truth that Jesus is the Christ. We are willing to add the doctrine which the Apostles sometimes placed in connexion with this, that of the resurrection of the dead. And next comes a moral faith, unapproached in importance by any other faith. We want none so much as a deep, firm, vivid, and enlightened faith in the moral truths of the gospel. It is a faith in our moral relations to our God, and in our moral discipleship with Christ. It is a belief that we have a great moral work to do, and by the grace of God can do it. It is the belief that a pure heart and a good conscience are the richest possessions that the universe affords. It is a faith in repentance, the conviction that we are sinners, and that we can and must repent of sin and turn and live, and that God is a forgiving Father, ready to raise up the fallen, to take back the erring to piety, virtue, and peace,-to himself. It is faith, a vital and predominant faith, in our improvableness in piety and holiness, that we must, that we can, make progress in the new and divine life, continually forgetting the things that are behind and looking to the things that are before, and pressing on from height to height and from glory to glory. It is the sublime faith that goodness of heart and life, sought after, attained,

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and constantly increased, is appointed by God to constitute our glory, our perfect and eternal bliss, and that by our love and fear of God and our hope of his favor, we must live and labor for it, and, if need be, suffer and die for it.

Such is Christian faith in its true and highest sense. These, we think, are the articles of the true system of Christian doctrine, its foundation, its frame, and adorning. This is the faith that is the armour of God. This is the faith that rests not upon the mere convictions of reason, but goes at once into the inmost soul, and demands fidelity to itself, to its nature, powers, light, and privileges, devotedness to God and duty, to Christ, to its own high, unchanging, and infinite happiness.

Jesus Christ declared, "I am the truth." We interpret his words by his life. His active, spotless, and wonderful life bodied forth, as it were, the doctrine which he taught. His whole character and history are one eloquent exhihition of moral truth, and an incitement to a living and practical faith in such truth. It was a literal expression, "I am the truth." He was, throughout, the perfect manifestation of moral truth. And this is the truth for us to study, to employ our faculties upon most strenuously, to be most anxious to understand and to propagate. This is the truth to be held as identical with the gospel, as the Christian system. And this is the faith for us to cherish and strengthen, for animation, for warning, for comfort, for moral power, for growth in grace and piety. It is a faith to go with us and operate in all the periods and in every walk of life, to humble us in sin, to nerve us up for fidelity, to keep duty and accountableness in mind, to make life a glad and earnest effort after moral goodness and improvement. This is the faith to be kept, that we may pursue and finish the Christian course, and attain to the crown of rejoicing that is laid up in heaven for them that believe.

We have thus endeavoured to show the true comparative rank of the moral doctrines of the gospel. And if our conclusions are just, we infer that here and here only ought uniformity to be demanded as the test of orthodoxy, the conditions of universal fellowship. On this point uniformity is attainable, and really exists among all serious believers in the New Testament. And no other uniformity is attainable or ought to be demanded.