he had never received it upon the testimony and authority of God, the Testifier, and that if he ever yielded his assent to it, or to any part of it, or fancied that he had done so, it was upon some inferior authority.

13th. If we believe, it must be in consequence of having heard, and recognized, the voice of God, speaking directly to us in the Scriptures that is to say, our sole and simple reason for believing any thing upon divine authority, must be a Thus saith the Lord— or our regarding God himself, as the only competent witness to his own existence and truth; otherwise, our faith must, after all, rest merely upon the authority of the creature, and our obedience be directed towards a being inferior to God himself. See Confession of Faith, chap. i. sec. 4, &c.

14th. This implies that God must have some peculiar and direct way of making himself known to us, or, in other words, that an evidence must accompany and prove the truth of his word, totally distinct from all that evidence of intuition, reasoning, and sense, by which we yield our assent to truth proposed to us upon human authority. If this be not supposed and admitted, it resolves our faith in God's word into human authority after all, because it makes us to perceive its truth, upon evidence common to it with mere human writings and propositions, an effort to which mere natural characters are fully competent; and which, if allowed to be all that is requisite, does away with the necessity of the influences of the Holy Spirit altogether. See this subject treated, in his usual masterly manner, by Halyburton, in his “Reason of Faith."

15th. To bring the truth, as it is in Jesus, before the mind, with the peculiar evidence just spoken of, and thereby to seal it upon the heart and conscience, is the peculiar office and work of the Holy Spirit in conversion.

16th. I would not have it supposed from this, that the Holy Spirit merely places the truth, with its own peculiar evidence, before the mind, and leaves the mind itself to perform the task of believing; no-for this would be to make salvation, after all, not of grace, but of works. On the contrary, the same Spirit who places the truth before the mind, also opens the eyes of the understanding to perceive it, and thereby, and then, commences that new creation, which is to the believer the earnest of everlasting glory. In the whole process of believing, the mind is perfectly passive, (Con. of Faith, chap. x. sec. 2.) and thus is verified that scriptural declaration, "that Faith is the gift of God." Eph. ii. 8.

17th. The moment the saving truth has been believed, the mind remains no longer passive; but active exertion, and all the fruits

and effects of spiritual life, are immediately brought forth and displayed.

18th. This faith is so necessarily connected with salvation, that none who have thus believed can come short of the heavenly glory. See the chapters of the Confession of Faith, upon saving faith, and on the perseverance of the saints.

19th. When the saving truth, attended with that peculiar evidence which makes manifest both its author and itself, is present to the mind; or, in other words, when it is believed, the mind must be conscious that it is so present, or so believed. To deny this, would be to maintain, that it is possible for the mind to be unconscious of its own operations.

20th. As part of the divine record, or testimony concerning Christ, is, that he who believeth shall be saved, it therefore follows, that the man, who, according to the preceding proposition, is satisfied of his believing, must also be satisfied of his salvation, or of his personal interest in Christ.

21st. This explains the way in which "assurance of God's love," and "peace of conscience," are, according to the terms of the 34th question of the Shorter Catechism, made to flow from, or accompany justification, &c.; and also explains the way in which trust, which is the result of assurance of God's love, although declared not to be essential to the direct act of believing, is nevertheless made to enter into, and form a part of, the definitions of saving faith.

22d. Assurance of God's love, and trust in him as the consequence thereof, being thus intimately and necessarily connected with believing, or rather with the truth believed; that is to say, being in themselves principles incapable of subsisting independently of the saving truth; it follows, that if the saving truth be not for the time present to the mind, or, in other words, be not remembered, it is impossible that assurance of God's love can, while the truth is so absent, exist or be maintained.

23d. It would be absurd to expect from those who are in a state of insanity, from those who have not been accustomed to accuracy of thought or reasoning, or from those, who, to a certain degree, labour under erroneous views of the subject, even although they may believe the Gospel, a very distinct account of their experience in regard to the article of assurance of God's love.

24th. By perceiving that assurance of God's love, and trust founded thereon, although necessarily connected with, and flowing from, are yet not of the essence of faith, or, in other words, do not constitute part of the record which the unregenerate sinner is commanded in the first place to believe, the framers of our standards have proved themselves to have been well acquainted

with the doctrine of scripture in general, and of Romans viii. 15, 16. and of 1 John v. 10. in particular, upon the subject. It being, not in consequence of an unwarranted and enthusiastic idea, that we are the children of God, but in consequence of our own spirits, or consciousness, testifying to us that we believe the divine record, and this, accompanied by the peculiar witnessing of the Holy Spirit, in and by the divine record, to our consciences, that we are satisfied or assured of our being the children of God. 25th. This assurance of God's love being implanted by the Spirit of God, must, in itself, be a purifying and a sanctifying principle; and, therefore, any pretenders to this assurance, in whose hearts, and over whose lives, it is not exerting a purifying influence, are deceiving themselves, are yet ignorant of the gospel, and have, as yet, neither part nor lot in the great salvation. In order, however, to guard against, what to natural men may appear to be the licentious tendency of the doctrine of assurance, we are not permitted to diminish its certainty, or to render it conditional. A conditional assurance, it must be obvious to every man of common sense, is a contradiction in terms-is no assurance at all. If assurance be a doctrine of the word of God, which our standards assert it to be, it must be of a purifying nature, all God's words being pure; and therefore it follows, however paradoxical the proposition may appear, that men fall into sin, not because they have too much, but because they have too little assurance, or rather, to speak more plainly, because they have no assurance, that is to say, no faith at all. Assurance is good for every thing, or it is good for nothing; if the latter, let it be discarded at once; but let us not attempt to improve it, by making it what it is not, or expose our ignorance of ordinary language, and our want of common sense, by making certainty and uncertainty, assurance and want of assurance, to mean one and the same thing. Upon this subject of assurance, some admirable remarks will be found in Archbishop Leighton on Peter, particularly on the 1st chapter. Admirably, likewise, says the Con. of Faith, chap. 18. sec. 2: "This certainty is not a bare conjectural, and probable persuasion, grounded upon a fallible hope, but an infallible assurance of faith, founded upon the divine truth of the promises of salvation," &c.

26th. As faith or belief is that principle of mind which has respect to a testimony as true, and hope to some good thing yet in prospect, it therefore obviously follows, that there is a distinction between the principles of divine faith and divine hope. The one regards God's testimony as certainly, infallibly, or assuredly true; the other looks forward with certainty to the enjoyment of the blessings promised in the testimony. A man's consciousness that

he believes the gospel, or his assurance of God's love to himself, and consequent trust in him,-which we have shown necessarily accompanies faith,-is not, as some have absurdly maintained, the assurance of hope, there being no futurity in the case-but, on the contrary, a present blessing enjoyed-it, or rather the testimony believed, is, however, the foundation upon which the assurance of hope rests.

27th. The sum of what has been said upon this subject of faith then is, that faith, in a divine testimony, is assurance, that is to say, is a certainty in the mind of the divine testimony being true; this assurance is accompanied with an assurance of God's love to us in particular, and consequent trust in him; and upon these graces are founded, and from them are derived, all the other graces of Christianity.

I would beg leave to close what I have to say upon the subject of faith, by remarking, that, when it is considered that Protestant Divines have, since the era of the Reformation, been disputing whether trust or confidence in God, springing from a sense of his love to us in particular, enters into the essence of saving faith ;and when, even in our own Church, in the case of the Marrow controversy, and at other times, men distinguished for their piety, learning, and theological attainments, have been found ranging themselves on both sides of the question, and appealing to our standards, as well as to the scriptures, in proof of the correctness of their respective opinions;-I say, when this is considered, I account it extremely hard, that it should have been deemed by the Presbytery a sufficient ground of accusation against me, that I had taken either the one side of the question or the other. What though I should have declared it as my opinion, that assurance of God's love does enter into the essence of saving faith? Who, in that case, could have proved me to be wrong? What would have been made of those definitions of saving faith in our present standards, into which trust, founded upon the knowledge of personal interest, is made to enter as a constituent part? What of the reiterated protests of this Church, against "the general and doubtsome faith of the papists ?" What of the doctrine contained in the Confession of faith, 1560? Of the opinions of those worthies by whom our church was founded? Of the language of Craig's Catechism, sanctioned by the Church, especially question and answer 22d, where faith is declared to be "a sure persuasion that Christ is the only Saviour of the world, but our's in special, who believe in him?" What of the sentiments of the immortal Luther, and of many others of that glorious band of Brothers, by whom the Reformation was introduced? But I have done. Whatever may be thought or said upon the subject, one thing is

clear, that he who can separate assurance of God's love to us in particular, from saving faith, may call himself a Protestant if he pleases; but, assuredly, he cherishes in his bosom one of the worst features, and one of the most demoralizing principles of Popery. It is impossible that a Protestant tribunal can condemn me; but if, contrary to my expectations, I am doomed to suffer, this consolation, at least, I shall have, that the condemnation will attach not to me singly, but to some of the brightest names that have adorned the Church of God.

III. Repentance.

ALTHOUGH the entertaining of erroneous views, in regard to this subject, does not constitute one of the charges against me, and although, consequently, the Presbytery are not entitled to pronounce any judgment on this point; yet, that my defence may not be incomplete, and that all misrepresentations may, in so far as I can, be removed, I subjoin a few explanatory propositions on this subject likewise. Before proceeding to do so, however, I would just take notice, that in the course of the two years I have been among them, my congregation have had three distinct sermons on this very topic of Repentance, besides numerous occasional references to it. The texts were, Acts ii. 37, Acts xx. 21, and Luke xxiv. 47. And the occasions were, Sabbath, July 26th, 1823,-by the way, I see that I continued the same subject on the two following Sabbaths,-Sabbath, April 18th, 1824, and Sabbath, July 10th, 1825.

1st. The literal acceptation of MeTavola, the Greek word commonly used for repentance in the New Testament, is simply, change of mind, or, change of views. Dr. CAMPBELL, in his invaluable preliminary Dissertations, considers, that there is contained in the word, the additional idea of the change being lasting, and that it thus stands distinguished from Meru, the other Greek word translated repentance. To this, I can have no objection.

2d. This radical meaning, change of mind, necessarily implying, and accompanied by, a corresponding change of conduct, runs through all the acceptations in which the word for repentance is taken, and all the passages in which it occurs in the New Testament.

3d. Belief and change of mind, or faith and repentance, are in all cases inseparably connected together. That is to say-when I come to know and believe concerning any person or object, that of which I was previously ignorant, and did not believe concerning