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commended, for its able advocacy of clear and scriptural views on this all-important subject. It may be well to state, that while the Bishop carefully abstains from any division of the work of Christ into parts, attributing to one. a certain value, and to another, another, -as they do who make the life justify while the death atones; yet, on the other hand, he clearly points out the error of those who regard the pardon of sin as all that is meant by the imputation of righteousness. He considers the work of Christ in the flesh, taken as a whole, to be the " proper meritorious source to the believer, both of the pardon of his offences and of the imputation of righteousness to him. To quote his own words :

"The express testimony of Scripture, then, concerning the nature of God's justification of sinners is, that besides what is naturally conveyed by the pardon of their iniquities, the covering of their sins, it includes also the imputation of righteousness unto them; that to those whom he justifies, He does not impute sin, and that He does impute righteousness to them."

The zeal of some in the present day in oppugning incautious statements concerning the doctrine of imputed righteousness, may (if it has not already done so) carry them too far on the other side, and lead many to treat the imputation of righteousness as if it were not to be distinguished from the pardon of sin; and as if the obedience of Christ, "by which many shall be made righteous," consisted only in dying on the cross, and not (as Scripture represents) becoming "obedient unto (μExp until, i.e., up to and including) death" (Phil. ii. 8). Where such defective views of imputed righteousness are held, it may not be amiss to show the hollow nature of the objections sometimes urged against the fuller view of truth, which takes the life no less than the death of Christ as an essential part of his finished work.

The first objection is, that

"While the law only requires us to obey or to suffer, this doctrine seems to require us to obey and to suffer, because according to it, Christ, as our representative, obeyed and suffered for us."

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The Bishop, as might be expected from one who is no mean master of logic, first detects the fallacy lurking in this argument, and thus having exposed its failure, he sets forth the true state of the case.

"But there is an ambiguity in the word requires, which renders it neces-sary to fix its meaning, before we can judge what this argument is worth. To make it of any value, requires ought to mean requires for our justification. This is its sense in the second proposition; but the same sense cannot be given to the word in the first proposition without making it false. The law does not propose suffering as a substitute for obedience in procuring justification, but sets it forth as the penal consequence of disobedience. If the law says, Obey or suffer, it is not as proposing two means to the same end, either of which you may take with the same result. It is an alternative of a different kind, one in which if you do not choose the first you must take the second; and the law does not represent those who take the second, and suffer accordingly, as objects of God's favour and justified by Him, but as condemned by Him, and objects of his wrath. It cannot be said, therefore, that we have suffered in Christ, and are therefore justified before God. No other way of justification but obedience is proposed to us. Reasoning, therefore, on these principles, the conclusion would seem to be that we cannot regard ourselves as justified before God, until we can say that we have obeyed in Christ."

The next objection is one not unfrequently urged in the controversy now being carried on amongst many Christians on the subject of the righteousness of God. Mr. Darby brandishes it triumphantly in his contest with the Record, in a pamphlet on this subject. His words are, "Those who are of works of law are under a curse. How so, if it is fulfilled? The curse has no ground, if the law has been vicariously fulfilled." Or, again, where (it must be admitted) he has the advantage by reason of an unwary expression of those he is opposing. "Indeed, it is a strange system which first keeps the law perfectly, in every respect surely, so that we are justified, perfectly righteous before God, and then dies for us."

If the Record had stated that by Christ keeping the law: for us, we are justified, this thrust of their opponent could not be easily parried, and this is just the weak point of those who, having divided the work of Christ into two

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parts, speak as if one part did that which really is only obtained by the two conjoined. However, the first statement of the objection as we have quoted it in the words of Mr. Darby, will not stand the keen logic of the Bishop, as will appear by what follows. Let the objection, however, be first stated in the Bishop's own words.

"If we had ourselves obeyed, could we have been justly punished: And if He has obeyed for us, can it be justly required that he should suffer for us also?"

Answer." This reasoning appears plausible, but it is really founded upon an inadequate statement of the case. For Christ's obedience has been rendered for man, not simply as subject to the law, but as a sinner against the law. No obedience rendered by such a one, and, therefore, no obedience rendered for him, could expiate his past guilt, or could secure his justification, while his guilt was unexpiated. And for this the other part of the Lord's work was necessary."

It would be well if the result of the present controversy should be to keep those who write on the subject of justification from making distinctions and divisions where Scripture has made none: but it would be deplorable indeed if the foundation of a believer's faith were shaken to gratify the inordinate delight which some have in attacking everything which other Christians value. The destructive element in character never shows itself in a more dangerous form than when it lays itself out to overturn the foundations on which the faith of simple-minded Spirit-taught Christians has, for ages, rested. A combative spirit may rejoice in detecting flaws in unwary state-ments of truth, but he is a safer guide, as well as a wiser man, who, while keeping close to Scripture expressions, will not reject Scripture truth because clothed in faulty or defective language. If he is counted a mad-man who throws away a precious gem because he detects flaws in its setting, how much more is he, who casts away precious truth, because it is unwisely or inaccurately stated.

August 1, 1862.

"HE MADE KNOWN HIS WAYS UNTO MOSES." PSALM CIII. 7.

N important principle is involved in this simple utterance of the sweet Psalmist, to which (as it admits of manifold illustration) the attention of the reader is earnestly invited.

The native dignity of the opening verses of our Bible affords the earliest illustration of the signal favour granted to Israel's lawgiver. Moses alone, of all existing men, was commissioned to record (in order to "make known to future generations) that "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The isolated grandeur of his opening utterance of Scripture is so familiar to us, and the inditer of it is so entirely kept out of view, that it is not improbable that the circumstance of its being "made known" to the writer, in the way of a revealed commission, may not have occurred to those who, from the days of childhood, have been accustomed to listen to it. That the privileges of the prophet extended far beyond the circumstance of his being the instrument selected by the Lord to transmit to future ages an authentic account of the creation and of Jehovah's dealings with our earliest progenitors, his subsequent history will sufficiently unfold.

From the narrative in Acts vii. it is clear that a divine communication must have been made to Moses prior to his presenting himself as a deliverer before God's ancient people, otherwise he could not have "supposed his brethren would have understood how that God, by his hand, would deliver them." It is not the manner of the Most High to "hide from " his children that which He is about to do. We need not be surprised, therefore, that Moses was informed of his exact destiny, at least forty years before

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"When forty years

he was called to exercise its functions. were expired,” we read of the Lord revealing himself to him by a name which bespoke the eternity, and unchanging nature of Him who thus "made himself known "-the name Jehovah. It is worthy of note that the Most High, in each successive commission with which He entrusts his servant connects his name with that by which He had been previously known to his people. To "the children of Israel," ""the elders of Israel," and "unto the king of Egypt," in succession, is the embassage conveyed in the name of "Jehovah, God of their fathers," and "Jehovah, God of the Hebrews," respectively. Unchanging is Jehovah; eternally in covenant with the one, and not less unbending, in his judicial aspect, toward the other! Such was the revelation made by Him, who, when first He appeared to Moses, spoke of himself merely as "the God of Abraham," &c. The future leader of Israel "hid his face," we are told, "for he was afraid to look upon God; and then, in the peculiarly appropriate nomenclature of Scripture, we read: "And Jehovah (the Lord) said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows; and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large, unto a land flowing with milk and honey," &c. (Exod. iii. 7-12). A sevenfold declaration is here made by the most High (significant of the perfection of his ways) as to his watchfulness over, and purposed deliverance of, his favoured people. Thus is Moses, at Mount Horeb, in the peninsula of Sinai, made the depositary of the divine purpose of the deliverance and blessing of Israel, while the people were still in Egypt, groaning beneath "the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppressed them." Thus does the Lord "make known his ways unto Moses," on this occasion