actions, for of these his bad health renders him incapable, and in that incapacity, indeed, his bad health consists; but by the use of some remedial system, and as health returns, its proper and natural actions return along with it. His health is not produced by these actions, but it is followed by them, and strengthened by them. The enjoyment of the body consists in these healthful actions, they are the spontaneous language of health. They constitute the music, as it were, which results from the organs being well tuned. It is the same thing with the actions of the soul: Spiritual health is not acquired by good actions, it is followed by them, and strengthened by them. They are also music, sweet music. And oh, were these spirits of ours, with their thousand strings, but rightly tuned, what a swell of high and lovely song would issue from them, a song of holy joy and praise, commencing even here, and still rising upwards, until it mixed with the full harmony of that choir which surrounds the throne of God.

Good works, then, are not undervalued by those who hold the doctrine of unconditional

pardonin its highest sense. On the contrary, they have a more elevated place in their sys tem, than in the system of those who regand them as the price paid for pardon. For, ach cording to the unconditional system, good works are the perfection and expression of holy principles, the very end and object of all religion, the very substance of happiness, the veryelement of heaven. Whereas, on the conditional system, they are only the way to happiness, or rather the price paid for it. There is surely more honour paid to them, in making them the end than the names, the building than the scaffolding and in attributing to them an intrinsic than a conventional value.

Good works are holiness in action-and this is a chief element of heaven. Some moralists have thought that the hope of heaven taints the purity of virtue, by destroying its disinterestedness. But they do not know what heaven is. It is the sense of his spiritual corruption, rather than the sense of sorrow, which makes the Christian long after heaven. The holiness of heaven is still more attractive to him than its happiness, In heaven also the af

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fections meet, and are for ever imited to their proper object. They are filled and satisfied with the presence of God, Imis this that they thirst after. They desire his favourable presence as their chief goothizz It is an interest undoubtedly the highest interest.But is it a selfish interest ? Shall the desire of dson, to behold once more the face of his father, after a few years of absence, be esteemed a pure and generous desire; and shall the desire of a spirit, long exiled from its native sphere, to return to its Father and its God, the centre of its be ing, the fountain of light, and life, and love, be called anselfish or interested desire ? No, it is a pure desire which is sent down into the spirit from the heart of God, and which remains unsatisfied, until it has again mingled with its souree. No, it is a noble desire, and speaks a noble origin! And the fear connected with the idea of missing this object, is not a base fear it is the horror which a pure spitit feels at the thought of mixing with pollution, and of being tainted by it! The desire of doing that which is fight for its own sake, is in truth'a part of the Christian's desire after heaven, ali ned

TURN, if you please, to the Epistle to the Romans, 6th chapter, 1st verse. I venture to think, that the meaning of the apostle has been very generally mistaken by translators and commentators. Our version (and all the others agree with it) supposes him to be meeting an objection which might naturally be made to the moral tendency of his doctrine. He had just given a most magnificent view of the riches of divine grace, and he supposes that some one may say, "But does not this system lead to indulgence in sin? If our own deservings have nothing to do with our par

don, why not go on in our own way, rely ing on the treasury of merit that is in Christ ?" Doubtless, this is a most important point in the Christian scheme; but if we look attentively at the answer which is contained in the six following verses, we shall, I think, come to the conclusion, that the apostle had some other meaning in the first verse than our version has attributed to him. The moral tendency of the doctrine of grace would have been his theme, if he had intended to answer such an objection as that which is supposed. But, instead of this, we find in these verses only a most direct and explicit assertion of the substitution of Christ in the place of the guilty, and of their virtual participation (in conse quence of this substitution) in all that he has done or is doing as their representa tive. Allow me to give here a translation, perhaps a little free, but such as I am sure could be well defended, of the following verses: "Not so: how shall we who have already died under the condemnation of sin, continue under it, now that we are restored to life? (And we have in truth virtually both suffered death, and been restor