cannot absolutely secure the perseverance of Gabriel, and all heaven may yet apostatize. At any rate we have here offered to us the glorious effects which God has pressed out of sin. According to this statement, the entire influence which supports his moral empire over all heaven, and by a parity of reasoning over the whole universe, to eternity, is educed from the consequences of sin.

But you turn upon me and say, Have you not asserted such a dominion by motives, when you maintained that holy beings, while continuing holy, must be governed by holy motives? While continuing holy: that is the very effect to be accounted for. The question is, do motives cause them to continue inclined to fall in with motives? This I deny, and ascribe the effect to the power of God. If motives have an absolute dominion, they mould the heart by their own power, whether adapted to its present temper or not. This I have no where asserted but uniformly denied.

There are but three cases in which we have had an opportunity to contemplate the perfectly holy among creatures. One is that of the holy angels and "the spirits of just men made perfect;" the second is that of our first parents; the third is that of the man Christ Jesus. All these cases are in our favour.

It is certain that the angels and glorified saints are confirmed; confirmed after a period of probation, and therefore as a reward; (in the former case as a legal, in the latter as a gracious reward;) and of course confirmed by God.

After the exaltation of Christ to be head over "all

principality and power," we read of "the elect angels. And if angels, as the reward of their obedience during probation, are enrolled among the elect, they must be enrolled by God, who therefore stands pledged to keep them from falling. And how can he effectually keep them from falling, but either by efficient power or the absolute dominion of motives? If these two ways of preservation are given up, the certainty of their perseverance must be abandoned. If our brethren deny the absolute dominion of motives, and admit the confirmation of "the elect angels," they must own that the angels are kept in holiness by the efficient power of God. That glorified saints are also confirmed, is evident from their ordination "to eternal life," and from the winding up of the final scene: "These shall go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into life eternal." And if they are eternally confirmed as a covenanted recompense, awarded to them by a public and most solemn judicial sentence, then God, in the highest possible degree, is pledged to keep them forever from falling. And if he does not exercise absolute dominion by motives, he must eternally keep them by efficient power.

If you say, the dominion of motives may be absolute in heaven, and nothing but human depravity prevents it on earth; you have no right to say this after denying, or even doubting, the power of God to prevent sin. For if God can by motives exercise such a dominion over spotless beings, he could have prevented spotless beings from falling.

* 1 Tim. 5. 21.

+ Mat. 25. 46. Acts 13. 48.

It is said by our brethren that Adam was not holy when he was first created; that he was made only with faculties, and became holy at once by the right exercise of them. As I am now standing on the exercise ground, I am willing to allow that he was not holy till he exercised his faculties. But was it under the influence of divine efficiency that he exercised them aright? If so, then God made him holy at first. And what do we hear? "Lo this only have I found, that God hath made man upright, but they have sought out many inventions." God made man upright. God made Adam upright. Do we want any more? But let us go to the creation itself. "And God said, Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness.-So God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them. And God blessed them and said unto them, Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." Now I assert that creating them in the image of God, though it included intellect and knowledge, and dominion if you please, was making them holy. Did God bless them before they were holy? And yet the historian passes from their creation in God's image to the benediction without an intermediate word. This close connexion implies that their creation in the image of God was itself a preparation for the blessing. And if there could be any doubt, the language of the apostle would remove it. "Ye have-put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him."* If the new creation in the image of God makes men holy, the first creation in the image of God made Adam holy.

* Gen. 1. 26, 27. Eccl. 7. 29. Col. 3. 9, 10.

In regard to the man Christ Jesus, the Spirit was poured upon him for various purposes; to anoint him to the several offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, and to communicate wisdom and holiness. All these purposes

"The Spirit of the

are expressed in a single passage. Lord shall rest upon him; the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord; and he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears; but with righteousness shall he judge, and reprove with equity.—And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins, and faithfulness the girdle of his reins." Here is the knowledge of the Prophet, the holiness of the Priest, and the power and wisdom of the righteous King and Judge, all communicated by the unction of the Spirit.

1. The Prophet should have both knowledge and the gift of utterance; and both were communicated to Jesus by the Spirit. Christians of that day had an unction which taught them "all things ;" and it seems to have been this inspiring Spirit of knowledge that was meant when it was said, "He whom the Father hath sent speaketh the words of God; for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him." "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary.". "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek."

2. As the Jewish priests, at their consecration, were

washed with water and anointed with oil; so Christ, when set apart to the priestly office, was baptised by John and anointed by the Holy Ghost, expressly at the age at which by law the priests had been consecrated. To make the sacrifice of this Priest expressive of God's unchangeable resolution to support his law by executing its penalty on future offenders, he must be dear to the Father, and must therefore be rendered dear by a course of filial obedience. Hence that ordination to the priesthood, (which was in fact his introduction to the public character of a Son,) seems to be called his generation. "No man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also Christ glorified not himself to be made a high priest, but he that said unto him, Thou art my Son, to-day have I begotten thee. As he saith also in another place, Thou art a priest forever after the order of Melchisedec." On that occasion therefore the voice from heaven pronounced him the "beloved Son.”

3. By the same unction he received the power of a King and the wisdom of a righteous Judge, and was visibly appointed to dominion over a numerous seed, and to the inheritance as "the First born among many brethren." "With my holy oil have I anointed him.-He shall cry unto me, Thou art my Father.—I will make him my First born. His seed also will I make to endure forever and his throne as the days of heaven." The very unction which he received when he came up out of Jordan, gave him power to redeem his subjects by baptising them with the Holy Ghost, and power to cast out devils and to work all his miracles. "He that sent me to baptise with water,