given. If therefore we be justified by a mere notion of the truth antecedent to all exercise of affection, we are forgiven in the same way; that is, our sins are forgiven before we repent of them. Mr. SANDEMAN, I conceive, would have avowed this consequence. Indeed he does avow it, in effect, in declaring that " he can never begin to love God till he first see him just in justifying him, ungodly as he stands. If he cannot begin to love God, he cannot begin to be sorry for having sinned against him, unless it be for the consequences which it has brought upon himself. By being justified "ungodly as he stands," he means to say therefore that he is justified, and forgiven, while his mind is in a state of impenitence, and that it is the consideration of this that renders him penitent.

Whether this notion be not in direct opposition to the whole current of both the old and new testament, let the following passages, out of many more which might be selected, determine.

-"I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.If thy people Israel sin against thee, and repent, and make supplication unto thee towards this house, then hear thou from heaven thy dwelling place and forgive thy people.-He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardonThus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise

from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem-Repent therefore and be baptized, every one of you, for the remission of sins.Repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out.-Him hath God exalted to be a prince and a saviour, to give repentance to Israel, and the forgiveness of sins-If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."*

I shall not stop here to inquire into the order in which the scriptures represent repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ. This I shall attend to in a letter by itself. It is sufficient at present to observe, that whatever be the order of repentance in respect of faith, it is uniformly represented in the scriptures as necessary to forgiveness. Every notion therefore of standing forgiven in a state of impenitence, and of this being the only motive. that can lead a sinner to repentance, is false and delusive.

Secondly, On this principle faith in Christ is not a duty, and unbelief is not a sin. I am not sure whether Mr. SANDEMAN would have avowed both, or either, of these consequences. He however utterly disavows urging unbelievers to the least shadow of obedience to the gospel in order to justification, as leading them to establish

*Ps. xxxii. 5.-1 Kings, viii. 46-50-Prov. xxviii. 13.—Isa. lv. 7.—Luke, xxiv. 46, 47.—Acts, ii. 38.ii. 19.-Y. 31.- John, i, 9

their own righteousness.* The faith therefore which he allows to be necessary to justification includes no obedience, which is the same thing as its being no duty. And if it be not a duty, unbelief is not a sin; for where there is no obligation, there can be no transgression.

But a system which goes to nullify the command of God to believe in his son Jesus Christ, and to excuse the sin which is threatened with eternal damnation, must be fundamentally erroneous, and as far as it operates, subversive of true religion.

Mr. M'LEAN is very far from admitting this consequence, though he retains in part the principle from which it proceeds. He allows, as we have seen already, that faith is a duty, an act of obedience, to God, and a holy exercise of mind: yet he pleads for its containing nothing pertaining to the will. Is it possible then for any thing to be either an act, or a duty, or to contain obedience, which is purely intellectual? In whatever belongs to the understanding only, exclusive of the will and affections, the soul, I conceive, is passive. There are acts, no doubt, which pertain to the intellectual, as well as to the visive faculty; but they are only such as fall under the influence of the will. It is an act to look, but not to see, and to collect information, but not to be informed. If therefore believing be an act of the mind, it must fall under the influence of the will.

Mr. SANDEMAN is consistent with himself,

* Epis. Cor. p. 29.

however inconsistent he may be with the scrip tures. In confining faith to the understanding, he was aware that he disowned its being an act, and therefore in his usual strain of banter, selected some of the grossest representations of his opponents, and endeavoured to hold up acts of faith to ridicule. But Mr.. M'LEAN allows of faith being an act, and an act of obedience, and yet will have it that it contains nothing pertaining to the will, except in its effects. I can no otherwise account for such reasoning, in a writer of his talents, than by ascribing it to the influence of early prejudices, contracted by having drank too deeply into the system of Mr. S. and retained by a partiality for what he has once imbibed, though utterly inconsistent with other sentiments which he has since learned from the scriptures. That nothing can contain obedience but that which includes the state or exercises of the will, or has some dependence opon it, is manifest from universal experience. Tell a man that God hath commanded him to be or do that in which he is absolutely involuntary, and that the contrary is a sin, and see whether you can fasten conviction on his conscience. Nay, make the experiment on yourself. Did you ever perceive yourself obliged to any thing in which your will had no concern, or for a moment repent of living in the neglect of it? Knowledge may be a duty, and ignorance a sin, so far as each is dependent on the will, and comprehensive of approbation, but no further. LOVE IS THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW, or that which

comprehends the whole of duty. So much

therefore as there is of love in any exercise of mind, so much there is of duty, or obedience, and no more. Duty supposes knowledge indeed, as Christianity supposes humanity; but the essence of it consists in disposition. It may be our duty to examine, and that with care, diligence, and impartiality; but if disposition have no place in faith, it cannot be our duty to believe.

If faith be merely light in the understanding, unbelief must be merely the absence of it; and if the former include nothing pertaining to the will neither does the latter. To say that though unbelief contain a voluntary rejection of the truth, yet, faith contains no voluntary reception of it, is saying that belief and unbelief are not opposites, which is equal to denying a self-evident proposition. If one be purely intellectual, so is the other; and as there is no obedience in the first, there is no disobedience in the last.

Mr. M'LEAN has said every thing on this subject that I could desire, except drawing the conclusion. Thus he reasons when proving faith to be a duty. "Unbelief, which is the opposite of faith, is always represented as a very great and heinous sin against God. The unbelieving heart is termed an evil heart, Heb. iii. 12, and there are many evils in the heart of man which both occasion and attend unbelief. It is frequently ascribed to ignorance, Matt. xiii. 19.— Rom. x. 3.- xi. 7, 25; yet not to simple ignorance from want of information, or natural capacity, in which case it would be excusable, John ix. 41.-xv. 22, 24; but such as arises from the