will certainly fail of attainment. Let us look at the enormous turpitude of such a position.

It is not difficult to show that unbelief in Christ includes and ratifies the guilt of original sin. The sin by which man at first rebelled against God, broke his covenant with Him, trampled under foot His law, and spurned the rich and innumerable tokens of His love will be admitted to have been one characterized by the most flagrant criminality. Endowed with all the furniture and adornments of a holy nature, in sympathy by the very conditions of his being with the perfections and government of His divine Maker, possessed of a strength, graciously imparted, amply sufficient to enable him to keep the divine commands, eminently favored in having the field of temptation and the term of his trial limited by the arrangements of the covenant, and living in a state of happiness in which nothing of enjoyment was left him to desire, under a rule which was not only righteous and equitable, but kindly and parental, what shadow of excuse can be furnished for the gigantic crime of his rebellion? In the face of the most extraordinary advantages accruing from a course of obedience, of the most urgent reasons for refusing to disobey, and of the most solemn and impressive engagements by which a voluntary agent could be bound, at the very first proposal of the tempter, he discredited the divine testimony, snapped the bonds of his own plighted faith, flouted the amazing goodness of God, contemned the law before which angels bow, and with a haste, a hardihood and an audacity almost inconceivable under the circumstances, rushed into the crime of foul and undisguised revolt against his Maker, his Benefactor, and his Friend. By the terms of the covenant, which Adam thus inexcusably broke, he stood

under its provisions as the head and representative of the race which was destined to spring from his loins. Had he refrained from sinning during the limited period of probation graciously assigned him, his obedience, through the channel of federal representation, would have been derived to his posterity, and they, in consequence of the imputation to them of that obedience, would have been justified, that is to say, they would have been established in holiness and happiness and everlastingly secured against the contingency of a fall. But by the terms of the same covenant, as he' sinned, the guilt of his first transgression is, through the channel of federal representation, derived to them, and, in consequence of its imputation to them, they are justly regarded as implicated in his sin and exposed to the penalty which its commission entailed. We, then, my brethren, are involved in the guilt of that stupendous crime by which the race first shook off the government of God, and plunged into a career of disobedience. There is now, however, furnished us in the mercy of God the means by which we may be relieved from this intolerable guilt, and enabled to repair the injury occasioned by it to the law and government of God. The incarnate Son of God, as the second Adam, represents sinners under the provisions of a new and gracious covenant. In pursuance of its arrangements He undertakes, as the representative of the guilty, to render a perfect obedience to the law which they violated, and in His expiatory sufferings and death, to assume and exhaust the curse which it inflicts. This He did, and as He was a being of infinite dignity, his vicarious obedience magnifies the law and affords a satisfactory reparation to the claims of the outraged government

of God. Through the channel of the federal representation the obedience of Christ is derived to all who believe in Him, that is, to all who accept Him as a Savior and cordially and penitently rely upon Him. His perfect righteousness is imputed to the believing sinner, and characterizes him in all his personal relations to God. It is obvious, consequently, that He who believes in Christ is discharged from the guilt of original sin, and through his great representative, offers to the nature, the law, and the government of God the satisfaction which they imperatively require. The obedience of Christ neutralizes the guilt of Adam. As our birth into this world places us under subjection of Adam's guilt, faith puts us in possession of Christ's righteousness. Here, then, we have furnished us in the gospel the means, the only means, by which we can avert the consequences of our implication in the guilt of original sin, and undo the damage which through it we have done, Faith renders this means available to us. It is mercifully offered to the acceptance of our faith. He, therefore, who refuses to believe in Christ, deliberately declines the use of this means, and formally ratifies upon his soul the guilt of Adam's sin. Dreadful as it is, he accepts it as his own. For he who may be delivered from guilt, however derived, and refuses to do so, binds, by his own act, that guilt upon himself.

The unbeliever in Christ, it may be remarked in the next place, refuses to accept the removal of his guilt as a condition of rendering acceptable service to God, and, therefore, approves and sanctions a disability which keeps him in the uninterrupted commission of sin. By the term guilt is to be understood subjection to the penalty of the broken law, and exposure to the

consequences which it imposes. Now, it is plainly impossible that a guilty person can render an obedience which shall be acceptable to God. All his efforts at holiness of life must be abortive. It is a contradiction to suppose that one can suffer the curse of, God's law and at the same time sustain relations or produce an obedience which He will approve. Communion with God is the spiritual life of the soul. "His favor is life." And as guilt supposes the destruction of intercourse with God, it is a proof that spiritual life no longer exists. It will require no discussion to show that where there is no spiritual life there can be no spiritual acts. The apostle tells us that conscience in its natural and guilty condition is able only to produce dead works-works which, though they may be materially good, spring from no principle of spiritual life, are performed by persons spiritually dead and wrought with no spiritual end in view. They are dead as to the source in which they originate, dead as to the agent who discharges them, and dead as to the end which they contemplate. The sinner, therefore, in his natural, unbelieving state, lies under the sentence of the law which makes it simply impossible that either his person or his works should be accepted. He cannot be condemned and accepted at one and the same time. And his conscience, though through fear it may be. religiously stimulated, only goads him to the performance of duties which are intrinsically worthless.

This view of the sinner's disability is enhanced, too, by the consideration plainly presented in the Scriptures that a filial spirit is absolutely necessary to acceptable obedience. The temper of a condemned criminal and that of an affectionate child cannot coincide in the same heart. It is only they who are led by the

Spirit of God that are the sons of God, and “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of His." Let it be observed that it is the office of faith, and of faith alone, to remove this disability, which disqualifies the sinner from entering at all upon the acceptable service of God. The believer in Christ is discharged from the sentence of the law, which cripples his soul and holds him in bondage. His guilt is washed away in the blood of Jesus applied to him through faith. The blood of Christ purges his conscience from dead works to serve the living God. And the Spirit of Christ, applying that blood, generates in him the filial temper which prompts him to the performance of duty not as a criminal or a slave, but as an adopted and beloved child. Now, as unbelief refuses to accept the atonement of Christ, and the grace of the spirit which was acquired by His blood, it deliberately rejects the only means by which the sinner can become reconciled to God and be relieved from the disability to serve Him entailed by the penalty of the law. The unbeliever voluntarily imprisons himself in a condition in which it is impossible for him to render to God a free and acceptable obedience. He rejects the means of deliverance, prefers to be incapacitated to serve God, and chooses to continue in the undisturbed commission of his sins.

The same line of argument tends to show the heinousness of the sin of unbelief in Christ as it implies an endorsement of all the actual transgressions of which the sinner may be guilty. If God has provided the means by which we may resist and overcome our sins, then surely a rejection of those means involves a justification of our iniquities. These means have been furnished and unbelief rejects them. It is faith in