let him ponder over the grace and the promise of God to his Church, contained in the following two verses, and hush his fears for ever :—

"Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.

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'Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands.'"*

And, now," observed the lady to her kind monitor, "while I desire to express to you my grateful thanks for thus exhibiting before me such an illustrious and consolatory display of the Divine goodness, in the various Scriptures which you have in so Christian a manner brought to my notice, I am anxious to lead your attention to the principal subject for which I solicited this interview. The point to which I allude, and on which I am desirous of obtaining your opinion, for the purpose of clearing up a difficult passage of the Bible, is that of the seeming discrepancy, as to doctrine, between St. Paul and St. James, respecting 'justification by works.'

You very rightly call it a seeming discrepancy,'" replied Mr. Gracelove; "for, in strict truth, there is no discrepancy at all between them. The two apostles mean the self-same thing, but expressed in different language, and by a different mode of stating the same argument. That such is the scriptural fact," he continued, "it is only necessary to observe, that both the apostles illustrate their meaning by the very identical instance of Abraham, who was called emphatically the 'friend of God.' This at once, in my humble opinion, decides the controversy with respect to the supposed difference of doctrine between them. When St. Paul speaks of justification by faith,-when he says, 'Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness,'--and that they which are of faith, the

* Isa. xlix. 15, 16.

same are the children of Abraham,'* he does not mean it to be understood that it is a simply barren faith—a bare assent of the understanding, wholly unproductive of the fruits of obedience. For He that has enjoined upon the heart the principle of faith, has also said,- Keep the commandments." But if, while a man expresses his belief in God, and in his dear Son Jesus Christ, he rebels against those commandments, this is doing no more than the devils do, who believe and tremble.' This surely, therefore, could not be the faith of St. Paul. If, then, the apostle meant a faith working by love,an obedient faith, which, while it believes, obeys also the laws of the Great Being who ordained that faith, then is there no difference whatever between St. Paul and St. James. And that the apostle of the Gentiles did so mean, there can be no doubt whatever in the mind of any one who reads carefully his Epistles with a teachable spirit. But, as I observed before," repeated our friend, "the circumstance of both the apostles having appealed to the self-same instance that of Abraham, of whom it is again said, 'they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham,'-in confirmation of their doctrine, is an incontestable evidence that the doctrine in question was one and the same.

"I have, however," he proceeded, "an opportunity of presenting you with two authorities on this interesting subject very much superior to my own, in the persons of two celebrated divines of our church. I have, fortunately, brought the book with me containing their opinions, and, with your permission, I will go to my room for it, and will read them for your edification, as I feel convinced you will confess to be the case." After an absence of two or three minutes, our friend returned with the book, and, resuming his chair, turned at once to the passage in question.

* Gal. iii. 7.

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The first opinion I shall give you," he said, addressing the lady, "is that of Archbishop Secker, which, with your leave, I will read to you in his own words. His Grace writes thus:

"When St. Paul says, that men are 'justified by faith, without the deeds of the law;' (Rom. iii. 28,) and St. James, that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only;' the former means, that believers in Christ will be saved without the observance of the Mosaick law, or the perfect observance of the natural law, to which our sinful natures cannot attain; and the latter means, that believers in Christ will not be saved by their faith singly, without a sincere, though imperfect observance of the precepts of the Gospel. For it seems there were some of wrong minds, who fell into an error, which indeed none of right dispositions could; and hearing the apostles say, that men were not under the law, but under grace,' (Rom. vi. 14,) and that Christ hath made us free' from what the Jews were bound to, (Gal. v. 1,) either imagined or pretended, that their Christian liberty exempted them from all law, and even from that of the civil magistrate. This was a most pernicious opinion. And not only St. James here declared against it, and St. Peter, too, in his Epistle, but St. Paul is very express, that though with respect to the Mosaick rites, Christians are without law, yet they are not without law' in regard to God, but under the law to Christ,' (1 Cor. ix. 21,) and, by His command, under that of men also. This, then, is the doctrine of the New Testament; that, according to the tenour of the Gospel, neither the observance of the Mosaick law will justify men, nor the non-observance of it condemn them; but that a thorough change of heart and life from evil to good, effected by the power of God's almighty grace, is the one thing needful; for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision; but a new creature.'' (Gal. vi. 15.)

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Such is the enlightened view," said Mr. Gracelove, "enter

tained on this important point by Archbishop Secker. The second, which I shall proceed to lay before you, emanates from the sound piety and evangelical mind of Bishop Horne. He

observes:

"The case of Abraham, of whom St. Paul asserts that 'he believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness,' is here brought by St. James as an instance of one who was justified by works. Wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

Seest thou,'-and wonderful it is that there should be any one who does not see, how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?' And so, his works being all wrought through faith, the Scripture was still fulfilled, which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was counted unto him for righteousness;' his faith working by love was accepted in Christ Jesus, according to the terms of that Gospel, which the Scripture preached before unto him.' Thus, in this instance of the father of the faithful, as in a common centre, are the doctrines of both apostles met: one says, a man is justified by faith working; the other, by working faith; and this is really, and truly, all the difference between them. What pity then is it, that so many volumes should have been written, to the infinite vexation and disturbance of the church upon the question, whether a man is justified by faith or works, seeing they are two essential parts of the same thing! The body and the spirit make the man; faith and works make the Christian. For as the body without the spirit is dead,'—and therefore but half the man,— 'so faith without works is dead also,' and therefore but half the Christian. Nor can any son of Abraham be justified otherwise than his father is declared to have been: wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect.''

Faith

"And now," said our Christian expositor, placing the book in the hands of the lady that she might peruse it at her leisure, "I do hope I have entirely removed the doubt and difficulty under which you laboured with respect to this interesting and important subject."

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"You have, indeed most successfully," she responded.

Nothing can be more lucid and satisfactory than the explanations of the two bishops. Of discrepancy between the two apostles I now perceive there is not a particle. Whoever thinks so, makes a distinction without a difference. I can now clearly recognize the motive of St. James in laying a more particular stress on 'works' than on faith,' in seeming opposition, and seeming only, to the declaration of St. Paul, from what is so well stated by Archbishop Secker. For if the former apostle had a strong perception on his mind, at the time he wrote-which was the case, of the pernicious doctrine and evil conduct of those wrong-minded men in his days, alluded to by the archbishop, who imagined that their Christian liberty not only exempted them from the rites and ceremonies of the Jews, but from all law whatever, and even from that of the civil magistrate,-then, if we wonder at all, our surprise should rather be, that works,' as the demonstration of faith, were not even still more strongly insisted on, for the purpose of at once putting down such licentious and profligate principles.

"One thing, however," continued the lady, "is perfectly plain to my conviction, namely that those two holy men entertained the self-same unalloyed and unqualified doctrine on the subject of faith and works. If, however, there could be the slightest doubt whatever on the subject, yet, after reading the context of each epistle, in connection with the passages in question, that doubt must be immediately solved in favour of identity of meaning; since we perceive, unequivocally, that Abraham is made equally an illustration of his doctrine by