with compassion, to subdue our fears, and to animate our hopes (15).

Futile however as the scholastical tenet appeared to be, although deficient in proof, and unsupported by example, upon this, he remarked with indignation and grief, was founded the whole system of Papal delusion. Congruous merit was said infallibly to produce condign; and, in the application of them to practical purposes, both were thought principally to consist in various external works of piety, and superstitious observances, the extravagant veneration of which extended the authority of the Church, and augmented its wealth and splendour; filled Rome with vanity, and Europe with absurdity. Besides the obvious acts of devotion and mortification within the compass of vulgar ability, the most romantic system of virtue was adopted; orders of various kinds were invented, and vows encouraged of almost every thing, which affected the lusts of the flesh, or the pride of life. Secluding themselves from all temporal concerns, some entered into solitude, and forgetting the world, forgot many important purposes, for which they came into it; solicitous to dis

charge their duty to God, they neglected, what he equally enjoined, their duty to man. Saints were believed to abound in merits beyond what their own immediate exigences required; and not only to possess such supererogatory treasures for the public good, but to preserve them even after death; in their very relics was supposed to exist a communicable property of holiness, and virtue to be derived from prostration before the shrines dedicated to their names. Pilgrimages were consequently held in universal estimation, and conceived more worthy of divine regard, if attended with difficulties and dangers, particularly when directed to that favoured land, where God dispensed his covenanted mercies to mankind. But Pilgrims were not the only devotees, whom Christianity blushed to behold in Judea: there the votaries of the Cross erected in her cause their hallowed standards, and imbrued their hands in the blood of Infidels, to obtain the remission of their sins, and the salvation of their souls.

Such were some of the consequences resulting from the doctrine of human merit; consequences, which, in Luther's idea, rendered it no less odious than contemptible. Upon these he anxiously fixed his eye, and,

H

in order to annihilate the evil, laboured with a zeal, which we cannot censure, and with a sincerity, which we must applaud, to cut off the corrupted source, from which it flowed.

SERMON V.

JOHN XV. 5.

Without me ye can do nothing.

HAVING in a former Lecture endeavoured to explain the doctrine of congruous merit, as supported by the Church of Rome, and opposed by the Lutherans, I proceed to consider the sentiments of our own Reformers upon the same subject.

I have observed, that among the Articles of our Church there are two, which evidently relate to this much controverted question; the one upon Free Will, the other upon Works before Justification. The object of the latter, from the allusions which it contains, it seems impossible to mistake; nor is that of the former less apparent, when we consider its general tendency, and the peculiar phraseology of the Schools, in which it is expressed. Both therefore take but one and that the same obvious direction, alike asserting our in

competency to please God, and obtain his favour by our own merits, in contempt of those, to which the eye of faith should be alone directed.

But because our Church ascribes not to human virtue, contemplated as independent of Christianity, the power of conciliating divine approbation, we must not hence conclude, that she restricts the uncovenanted mercies of God, withholding salvation from Heathens, upon whom, walking in darkness and the shadow of death, the light of the blessed Gospel has never arisen. Although persuaded " that

“there is none other name under heaven

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given to man, in which, and through "which, we can receive health and salva❝tion, but only the name of Christ;" although rejecting the creed of the Infidel as vain, who, actuated by presumption and pride, treads under foot the Son of God, and deems the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing; yet she determines not the case of the Gentile world, or in any way solves a question foreign to her purpose. Indeed the real sentiments of our Reformers upon this point appear to have been different from those, which some have imputed to them.