like man, and it is therefore most worthy of the Deity and most demonstrative of His wisdom and goodness. By fear God would deter us from sin and save us from its consequences. By fear He would secure our obedience and in this way promote our highest good, since our happiness depends upon our holiness.

This principle of fear, we would further observe, is employed in the furtherance of every institution among men that is most useful, most sacred, most honorable and noble. In the order of government of the family, in the school, in the city, the community, and the country, in every relation, office, and association among men,-in all the interests, and conditions of his man life-the principle of fear is necessarily, uniformly and most effectively in operation. It influences alike the good and the bad-the good in avoiding wrong, and the bad in fearing the consequences of an evil cause.

Religion, therefore, instead of being open to objection because it works upon our fears, could not be divine-could not be from God and could not be adapted to man-if it was not fitted to excite the emotions with which God has endowed him just so far and so powerfully, as the truths it makes known ought to enkindle fear or hope or joy.

The objection therefore to which we are replying and which is one very common and prevalent-is based upon the gratuitous and most unfounded supposition that the religion of the Bible and especially the gospel of Christ, ORIGINATES those facts which gave occasion to our fears. This, however, is not true. The Bible does not create, it only reveals. It tells us what is, it does not make what is, to exist. The Bible informs us with infallible accuracy what God is, and what man is;—what God requires and what man ought to be and to do, and not to do. The Bible addresses itself to man as moral, accountable and religious. It discloses God as a Being infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His holiness, justice, righteousness, and truth. It holds forth God's law as holy, just and true. It announces the consequences of obedience to, and infraction of, that law. "Say ye to the righteous," is its language, "it shall be well with him. Woe unto the wicked, it shall be ill with him." It tells man, what his own conscience tells him, that sin against God's law must be punished and that one sin as certainly as a thousand involves the sinner in the guilt of disobedience, disloyalty, and rebellion.

The Bible further tells every man that HE IS A SINNER. It does not make-it finds him such. Man is consciously, universally, and always a sinner. This is as true and as evident and as assuredly experienced where the Bible is unknown as where it is. The Bible "commends itself to every man's conscience in

the sight of God," when it declares that "there is none righteous, no not one, and that the whole world has become guilty before God."

Is God then an object only of fear-a mere avenger? God forbid. God is in Himself infinitely lovely and infinitely worthy of reverence and regard. In His nature, His attributes, His works and His ways, God is infinitely wise and holy and just and good. To know God is to reverence, admire and adore Him, to confide in Him, to depend upon Him, to love Him and to enjoy Him. The very conception of God brings with it obligation to submit to His authority, to obey Him and to live to His glory. Such are the feelings and the conduct of angelic and of redeemed spirits, and such ought to be, and such was in his original condition the feelings and the conduct of man, the feelings of our race.

God has no anger towards the holy, just and good. He is to such the very fountain of bliss. But God is, however, a lawgiver and law-enforcer. He is an avenger of wickedness and a consuming fire to all iniquity. He cannot pass by the guilty or look upon the sinner with impunity. Whenever therefore there is sin God is fire. Wherever there is guilt God is an avenger. Wherever there is a sinner God will and must be feared. This fear of God arises from man's consciousness of sin and man's knowledge of God as the Judge of the whole earth.

Fear of God was not, therefore, originated by the Bible, but by the sinful heart of man. It exists and has existed where the Bible is unknown. It existed among the ancients as well as the moderns. No efforts of man's ingenuity can remove or prevent this fear of God, and of God's future, everlasting and infinite wrath. Even atheism cannot screen from God's awful vision and from this awful terror. No one ever more audaciously contemned and denied the Deity than Caligula and yet none showed more dread when danger made him feel the possibility of falling into His hands. Diagoras may scorn and Dionysius scoff, but the worm of conscience gnaws within the vitals of them both. Volney and Voltaire may deny and blaspheme, but both Volney and Voltaire shall testify by their remorse and fear, that verily there is a God who judgeth in the earth.

The gospel recognizes and is adapted to this condition of man. It is good tidings addressed to the miserable. It is a pardon offered to the doomed-the convicted and condemned sinner. It is holiness provided for the unholy and depraved. Christianity assumes and takes for granted that man is a sinner, a guilty sinner, a sinner without excuse, a sinner without hope and without help, diseased and dying, denounced and despair19-VOL. VI.

ing. Christianity comes to the sick, not to the whole, to sinners and not to the righteous. And if, therefore, any man can make it manifest in the sight of God that he is spiritually whole and spiritually righteous, the gospel has nothing to do with him and he has nothing to do with the gospel. Where there is no sickness there can be no cure, and where there is no sin there can be no condemnation.

Christianity, however, affirms that "there is none righteous, no not one," and that all are spiritually diseased, sick even unto death, covered over from the crown of the head to the sole of the feet with wounds and bruises and spiritual sores. The insensibility of men to the true nature and extent of their spiritual condition Christianity regards as a proof and consequence of sin which blinds the eyes of the understanding and stupefies the sense of right and wrong and leads men to call evil good and good evil, and to love darkness rather than light.

As the guide, therefore, who conducts men through the cavern which is intersected with fissures and deep chasms, holds forth his torch and shouts aloud with his voice, that every dangerous step may be seen and avoided, so is it with the gospel. The gospel is a guide sent by "the Father of mercies" "from whom cometh down every good and perfect gift," to conduct bewildered and lost men through the dark valley of their sin and wretchedness, and across the dark and dreary gulf of divine vengeance which lies between earth and heaven. Like a good shepherd, therefore, it points out the pitfalls, warns of the great adversary who goeth about to devour, and leads all who will hear its voice to the green pastures and beside the still waters of Redeeming mercy. Like a good physician the gospel probes our wounds and points out every dangerous symptom that it may make us willing to apply the balm with which it would heal us. And like a wise and skilful guide the gospel points out every devious and dangerous track,-exposes every device by which the deceitful and desperately wicked heart might be lured to perdition,-spreads out before us the law of God in all its exceeding breadth and its immutable functions,warns us that the wrath of God is revealed against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men," and "beseeches us to be reconciled to God," to "lay hold on the hope He sets before us," and to "fly for refuge" to the Saviour of sinners.

The unpardoned sinner, therefore, while such, must fear God. "Who will not fear Thee," O God, "who art able to cast both soul and body into hell forever." This God can do, for "who can stay His hand or say unto Him, what doest Thou?" This God will do, for "the wicked shall be turned into all and all that forget God." "Tribulation and anguish, for ever and ever, is a part of God's wrath revealed against all who are

ungodly and unrighteous and do not obey the truth. This God must do. For while "heaven and earth may pass away one jot or tittle of what God has said can never fail." And He has said "the soul that sinneth it shall die"-"the wrath of God abideth upon it," and it "shall never see life." This God ought to do, "seeing it is a righteous thing with God to take vengence," and "we know and are assured that the judgments of God are true and righteous altogether," and that He "cannot pass by transgression." This God has done. "The spirits now in prison" are monuments of God's just vengeance. The rich man, and all who like him have failed of the grace of God, "being in hell lift up their eyes in torment." And "the angels who kept not their first estate," are now "reserved in chains against the judgment of the great day" with "a certain and fearful looking" for it.

The sinner must therefore fear God. God is to him an angry God, an avenger-"a consuming fire." "His own heart condemns him and God is greater than his heart" and "will put all his sins on the light of His countenance" and "render unto him according to his deeds." "There is" even now "no peace to the wicked." He may cover over the fire of conscience with heaps of ashes. He may stifle conviction with engrossing worldly cares. He may drown it with potations of worldly pleasure, and he may hold the truth imprisoned within the iron bars of his own proud and obstinate resistance. But that fire will still burn until having consumed all "the hay, wood and stubble" thrown upon it it destroys with unquenchable flames the last wreck of possible endurance.

The sinner therefore is and cannot but be IN BONDAGE TO FEAR. His fear is slavish. The power he dreads he cannot resist, avoid, or escape. The lash he feels he cannot turn aside. He is environed by a God whom he hates, and by whom he is filled with terror. Oh, sinner, would to God you could feel and see in all its horror the dreadfulness of your condition. Would to God you were so filled with a sense of your sin and misery as to cry out, "Oh wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death?" "By the terrors of the Lord" which are assured by hanging over you, "we would persuade and beseech you" to "acquaint now thyself with God" "as in Christ Jesus He is reconciling sinners unto Himself not imputing unto them their iniquities," and "be at peace with Him." Christ has made a compensatory, expiatory and meritorious righteousness "by which God can be just and yet justify the ungodly" who avail themselves of it. The gospel holds faith and your acceptance in the hands of Christ, the two great remedies for guilty man, JUSTIFICATION AND REGENERATION.

"These blessings," to use the words of another, "reach to all our spiritual necessities." There is nothing which comes not under them. Justification is a qualification of title, regeneration of nature. Justification alters the relative character, regeneration the personal. Justification reconciles us to the divine favour: regeneration to the divine service. Justification removes every obstacle of law. Regeneration every obstacle of disposition. Justification destroys the incapacity of guilt: regeneration the resistance of depravity. Justification makes us one with God in acceptance: regeneration makes us one with him in will. Justification opens heaven: regeneration causes us to walk in its white. Justification furnishes the song of deliverance: regeneration teaches us to modulate it.

But it is not the sinner only who fears God. The believer in this redemption being justified by faith, hath, &c., &c., yet he fears God, but it is with the fear of reverence, of hope, of confidence and of joy. His is the fear of a child, for a beloved and indulgent parent. It is the reverence of a wife for an admired and beloved husband. It is the fear of a friend for him whom he loves even as his own soul. Hope begets fear-the fear of loss or damage. Love has for its handmaid fear, fear of anything whereby love is hindered. The more we love the more we fear. The more we fear the more we love. The more we "comprehend the love of God as it is exhibited in Jesus Christ," the more we fear to offend against it, to sleight or to forfeit it. The more we rejoice in the peace and pardon of the gospel, the more we fear lest we should again be involved in darkness and lose the sense and evidence of God's favor and friendship. The more God is present to our souls in all His purity and justice and mercy, the more do we fear to feel or think or act. unworthily. When we stand upon the Pisgah height of heavenly vision and see from what a depth of mercy we have been exalted, the more do we fear lest by any unwatchfulness we should be again "cast down to hell." And the more clearly we can see from that Pisgah height "with unbeclouded eyes" the inheritance that lies beyond the grave, beyond the mountains of sin and the swellings of Jordan, the more do we "fear lest a promise being left us of entering into that rest we should even seem to come short of it."

"This fear of the believer has no torment" and no unworthiness. It is natural. It is virtuous. It is manly. It is ennobling. It is heavenly. "We are saved"-amid all the sins and sorrows and trials of the way-"by hope" which "reaches forth to that which is before" and while it rejoices in the present earnest and antepast of coming bliss, is "full of immortality" and pregnant with "joys unspeakable" and glorious. And in like manner we are saved by fear, which keeps us ever mind