law," was in itself an abrogation of the law of Moses, and redeemed those who were under it from its obligations, for it superseded the ancient dispensation, and declared it imperfect and obsolete. Had Jesus belonged to any other nation, his religion would not have annulled the institutions of Moses, and there would have been two religions in the world of equal authority. Just so it is with his argument from marriage, in the seventh chapter of his Epistle to the Romans. It is an analogy, but not a proof. "A woman," says he, "is bound to her husband as long as he liveth, but when he is dead she may be married to another man. So we were once bound to the Jewish law; but now that is dead, we are at liberty to become connected with another dispensation."

Such is the argumentation by which Paul would convey to the minds of his converts the great truths, which he knew to be certain, independently of argumentation, and it was useful to those to whom it was addressed. But to us, who receive these truths without argumentation, the reasoning is useless, and to a great extent, uninteresting.

There are few things more curious than the uses which have been made of this controversial language of Paul in the different ages of the Christian church. In his age, justification by faith without the law, meant nothing more nor less, than the sufficiency of the religion of Christ to salvation, without submitting to

the law of Moses. The early Reformers, Luther and Calvin, turning it into a new sense, made it their grand weapon against the Papists. Narrowing down faith from a general term for the Christian religion, as contrasted with Judaism, into a mere belief in Christ, and changing works of the law into good works in general, they said: "If a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law, then that fund of merit, which the Catholics pretend has been accumulating in the church, upon the strength of which they sell pardons and grant indulgences, must be fictitious."

Then again it was wrested and perverted by the Calvinists against the Arminians, in sustaining the doctrine of human inability. "If man cannot be justified by the deeds of the law, then man can do nothing toward his own salvation, and God must save him by arbitrary election, or he is lost."

In our own days it is used with equal dexterity and equal disingenuousness by the Old School Divinity against the New. They say, "if a man can do nothing, it is vain for him to try, or at least to try to hasten God's time by machinery and excitement."

Thus the language of the first controversy in the Christian church has been perpetuated for the use of almost every one that has succeeded. In a few years this first controversy, which so long agitated the church, received its decision by the Providence of

Almighty God. That nation, which had expected perpetual duration and universal dominion, rebelled against the Roman power, and became engaged in a struggle with it for its very existence. In the year sixty-six, when all the Apostles except John had finished their course, having established the Christian church on a firm and permanent foundation, that war broke out between the Jews and Romans, which, for obstinacy and carnage, has scarce a parallel in the history of the world, and which resulted in the total destruction of the ancient people of God, and the final abolishment of their national religion. About this time a sudden madness seems to have seized the whole nation. Encouraged by the hope of a national deliverer, the materials of sedition every where seem to have simultaneously burst into a flame. Throughout the whole country, for the space of four years, there was nothing but insurrection, war and slaughter. The Jews became divided among themselves, and by mutual hostilities destroyed almost as many lives as the Romans, their common enemies. By gradual advances, that indefatigable people reconquered the whole country, and drove almost the whole population, a mass of depravity and crime, within the walls of their capital. This happened at the feast of the Passover. Six months this obstinate people held out against their besiegers, till exhausted by famine and wasted by sedition, they surrendered to their con

258 FIRST CONTROVERSY IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH.

querors, and the city and temple were levelled to the ground. Eleven hundred thousand perished in the siege, and ninety-seven thousand were sold into slavery. The great controversy was now decided, and Christianity rose up perfect, beautiful, independent, immortal, from the ashes of the institutions. of Moses.

Lecture XIV.

FAITH IN CHRIST.

GALATIANS 3: 7.-Know ye therefore, that they which are of faith are the children of Abraham.

JESUS of Nazareth formed a new community in the world, on a principle hitherto unknown, that of faith or belief. The principle of association under the ancient dispensation was birth, hereditary descent. The posterity of Abraham, through Isaac and Jacob, were considered as sustaining a peculiar relation to God. In the Old Testament, they are called the sons, or the children of God. In the fourteenth chapter of Deuteronomy, it is said: "Ye are the sons of Jehovah your God. Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead. For thou art an holy people unto Jehovah thy God, and Jehovah hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." On this distinction they greatly prided themselves, thought themselves the peculiar favorites of Heaven, and therefore, sure of salvation. The outward badge of this relationship