by their nature, penetrate furthest into the soul, and wake up most efficiently the sentiment and the need of independence. Wherever it sees itself threatened, or attacked, it concentrates its whole force on the breach, neglects internal and essentially religious truths, of which it is the depository, and attaches itself to external dogmas; that is to say, to those which concern its own right to teach or prescribe. Little by little, submission to authority becomes in its eyes the whole of religion; the necessity of authority all its philosophy; the demonstration of authority all its theology; and thus man, constantly diverted from the principal by the merely accessory, passes his life in building a house he will never inhabit. In all situations, authority will never see without displeasure religion carrying on its own affairs, pleading its own cause, and displaying its internal evidence; will never approve of its manifesting that highly rational character which shines through the supernatural, and even by means of the supernatural nature of the facts it announces. Faithful to its starting-point, it would willingly, if it could, render all things harder to believe than they naturally are; would make a merit of adhering to what repels; hard pressed as it is by two opposite necessities, that of encouraging the religious life, which is of necessity an internal life, and yet of compressing its efforts within certain limits; for it is clear that faith transmuted to sight dethrones authority in the soul of the believer; not, indeed, always formally,

but in principle and reality. He who believes thus, whatever he may say, whatever he may himself believe, has, by this very fact, ceased to depend upon authority.

3. Sanctification.

(1.) Sanctification; Faith and Justification.

Although it has been found necessary to distinguish by different names the moments of spiritual life, yet they are still but moments of one and the same work; the work of God in conversion, and then in sanctification, being continuous and indivisible.

Individual salvation is the spontaneous reunion, and the free and joyous subordination of the moral being to its principle; of the created Ego, to the Ego Creator.

Your salvation is not accomplished outside of you or without you; you cannot be saved unless you are changed; and you cannot be changed, that is to say, renewed, without being, by that very fact, saved. Your salvation is not your own work, but, founded in God, it achieves itself in you; and it is in considering these two great phases, these two great acts of mercy, that the gospel calls Jesus Christ the author and finisher of your salvation.

If it be certain that without holiness none shall see the Lord, that is to say, shall be saved, it is therefore certain that sanctification is the final end, the consummation of the work of God, who first justifies

us by his Son, that he may afterwards sanctify us by his Spirit.

We shall be saved by grace, or we shall not be saved. But it is equally certain that without holiness none shall see the Lord; and it must needs be that the sanctification of the heart should have for its effect the sanctification of the conduct; the second reproduces the first, as a statue reproduces the curves of the mould in which it was cast; and it is in this sense that the gospel, as well as the law, can say that every one, in the day of judgment, shall receive "according to the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be evil." The effects reveal the principle, and it comes to the same thing to be judged by the effects of the principle as by the principle itself.

One of the most fatal as well as the most melancholy of illusions, would be to replace the continuity of progress by the perpetuity of regret, and to believe that it is enough, in case of our not advancing, to say daily to God, with a sorrow which, mark you, daily weakens, "My God, I confess it; I am the same to-day as yesterday, and I shall be the same to-morrow as to-day." Is it not to such a regret as this that the Christianity of many in our day may be reduced?

There are some of our sins which give no one a right to call the sincerity of our faith in question ; but decidedly the unmerciful man has not believed, the unloving is not a Christian; he has no claim

to bear the insignia of Christianity. He has usurped this title; he is an intruder; he is further from the light and the kingdom of God than those who have never heard of Jesus Christ, or even than those who, having heard, have not believed in him.

If from pardon in itself we pass to its realization, we shall see plainly that here too we need a victim. Pardon consummated, salvation, heaven, are the hearts of men restored to God,-are God with us now, are God within us.

Man has brought about the fall; God alone has brought about the reconciliation. God out of the heart was sin and its penalty; God in the heart is pardon and its fruits. Those who should fear to diminish God's glory by saying that he cannot save without regenerating us, would be wrong; there is nothing in this that infringes upon the sovereignty of God. He knows no other impossibility than that of doing wrong. We love to repeat with a certain Christian, The Son of God has merited for us regeneration.

That which characterizes a Christian soul, is not exactly enthusiasm and ardour; still less is it talent and eloquence; it is humble faith,-faith that knows how to wait; it is humility; it is, above all, love.

The impossibility of truly believing it without the aid of the Holy Spirit is one portion of this very truth, and one of the objects of Christian faith. What is it in faith which saves in sanctifying, and sanctifies in saving? It is the acceptation of

truth for truth's own sake. It is believing on the testimony of conscience. Faith in the gospel only saves because it renews; it consists in receiving into the heart doctrines qualified to change it.

To sum up is not to choose; it is to gather up a whole doctrine on one point. The living and rapid synthesis of faith contains the whole gospel, but here it is the soul that sums up.

Christian life is like a tree; its roots plunge into the ground, and its branches bathe continually in that subtle ocean that we call the atmosphere. The fertile soil in which our roots strike down is faith in pardon; the soft and fertilizing atmosphere in which our branches wave is faith in the perpetual assistance of that Spirit of holiness of which St. Paul says: "He who searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit when he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God."

Repentance is a grace,-for all, indeed, is grace. By ourselves, and without God, we can no more repent than we can believe, obey, persevere. This being thoroughly recognised, and recognised with thanksgiving, let us now go on to say that repentance, which is a grace, is no less a condition of salvation; that in the gospel, salvation is only offered to repentance, and that faith only saves in so far as it implies or produces repentance. Nothing more constant or more important in evangelical doctrine.

Whether it be before or after obtaining assurance,