INTRODUCTORY ESSAY ΤΟ PRIVATE THOUGHTS ON RELIGION AND A CHRISTIAN LIFE. BY WILLIAM BEVERIDGE, D.D. THERE is a passage in the New Testament, where the law is made to stand to the sinner in the relation of a first husband; and on this relation being dissolved, which it is at the moment when the sinner becomes a believer, then Christ stands to him in the relation of a second husband; under which new relation, he brings forth fruit unto God, or, to use the expression of the apostle, "lives unto God." There is another passage from which we can gather, what indeed is abundantly manifest from the whole of Scripture, that to live unto God is in every way tantamount to living unto Christ-it being there represented as the general habit of believers, "to live no longer unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again." So that though there be no single quotation, where the two phrases are brought together, still it is a sound, because truly a scriptural, representation of the state of a believer, that he is dead unto the law, and alive unto Christ. Now we are sensible, that these, and similar phrases, have been understood in two meanings, which, though not opposite, are at least wholly distinct from each other; that is, either as expressive of the judicial state, or the personal character of a believer. By one's judicial state, we mean that state into which he is put by the judgment or sentence of a law. If the law, for example, condemn us, we are judicially, by that law, in a state of condemnation. This may be viewed distinctly from our personal character. Now the first meaning of the phrases, or that by which they are expressive of a judicial state, would be more accurately rendered, by slightly changing each of the phrases, into "dead by the law," and "alive by Christ." Whereas the "being dead unto the law," and "alive unto Christ," serve, without any change, accurately to express the second meaning, or that which is descriptive of the personal character of those to whom it is applied. There is no liberty used with the Bible, when we affirm, that whether the one or other of these meanings be indeed the meaning in any particular case, the doctrine involved in each is true and scriptural doctrine-that, in the first instance, every believer is dead by the law, and alive by Christ; and that, in the second instance, he is dead unto the law, and alive unto Christ,-or, in other words, that in whomsoever the former truth has been realized, the latter truth shall be realized also. Every believer, and indeed every man is dead by the law. This is naturally the judicial state of The law issued its commandments, and made death the penalty of their violation. We have all all. incurred that penalty. It demanded not any given fraction of obedience, but a whole obedience—and this we have all come short of. We have at least incurred the sentence; and if the execution of it has not yet been fully inflicted, it is at least in sure reserve for those on whom it is to fall. They are like malefactors in custody. Their doom is awaiting them. They are not yet dead in reality, but they are dead in law. They have the dread prospect of the reality before them; and, if they have nought but the law to deal with, they may well tremble or be in despair, as the prisoners of a hopeless condemnation. The greater part of men are at ease, even amid the urgencies of a state so alarming. That they have broken the law of God gives them no concern ; and their life passes as carelessly along, as if the future reckoning, and future vengeance, were all a fable. So cheap do they hold the high jurisprudence of Heaven, that they are scarcely conscious of having offended against it; or if ever visited with the suspicion that their obedience is not up to the lofty standard of God's commandments, they compound the matter in another way, and bring down the commandments of God to the lowly standard of their own obedience. God hath revealed Himself to the world, under the impressive character of a God who is not to be mocked-yet would they inflict upon Him most degrading mockery, by robbing every proclamation of His against the transgressors of the law of all effect and all significancy. If there be any dignity in Heaven's throne, cr any truth, and power, and force of character in Him who sitteth thereon, His ordinations must stand fast, and His penalties, by which their authority is guarded, must have fulfilment. The government of the Supreme would be despoiled of all its majesty, if mercy were ever at hand to obliterate the guilt of our rebellion against it. The carnal heart of man may be proof against these demonstrations of guilt and of danger; yet, notwithstanding, it is true that we have incurred the debt, and come under the denunciations of a law, whereof it has been said, that heaven and earth must pass away ere one jot or one tittle of it shall fail. This is the appalling condition of humanity, however seldom it may be adverted to, and however slightly it may be felt, in the listlessness of nature. To the great majority of men, all secure and unconscious as they are, it gives no disturbance. They are so much hurried with the manifold relations in which they stand to the things and the interests that are around them, that they overlook their great relation to God the Lawgiver, and to that law, all whose mandates have a force and a sanction that cannot be recalled. They are asleep to the awful realities of their state. They have trampled upon an authority which must be vindicated. They have incurred a threatening which must be discharged. They have insulted a throne whose dignity must be asserted and cast contempt on a government, which shall rise in its might and its majesty from the degradation which they have tried to inflict upon it. The high attributes of the Divinity are against them. His Justice demands a satisfaction. His Holiness cannot but manifest the force of its recoil from moral evil. the death and the destruction of sinners-and a nature so immutable as His, never can recede from those great principles which mark the character of His administration. The greater part of men escape from all this terror, while they live in mere insensibility; and some there are, who, because less enormous transgressors than their fellows, can lull their every apprehension, and be at ease. But the law will admit of no compromise. degree or modification of evil. His word stands committed to It will treat with no some of the things contained in the book of God's law, and by the law they are dead. The most exempt, perhaps, from all disquietude on the score of that death to which the law has condemned them, are they who, decorous in all the proprieties, and honourable in all the equities, and alive, by the tenderness of a softened, sympathetic nature, to all the kindnesses of life, stand the freest from all those visible delinquencies by which the law is most notoriously and most disgracefully violated. They lie not—they steal not-they defraud not. They are ever prompt in humanity, and most punctual in justice. They acquit themselves of every relative duty to the satisfaction of those who are the objects of it; and exemplary in all the moralities of our social state, they sustain upon earth a high and honourable reputation. Nevertheless it is possible, nay it is frequent, that a man may be signalized by all these graces of character, and yet be devoid of godliness. The first and greatest commandment, which is the love of God, may be the object, not of his occasional, but of his constant and |