the apostle asserts, Rom. xiii. 10, "Love is the fulfilling of the law."

He, therefore, who loves God with his whole heart and his neighbor as himself, although his state may in some incidental respects be different from that of Adam, and especially from that of the angels in heaven, and although he may be the subject of involuntary imperfections and infirmities, which, in consequence of his relation to Adam, require confession and atonement, is, nevertheless, in the gospel sense of the terms, a holy or sanctified person. He has that love, which is the "fulfilling of the law." He bears the image of Christ. It is true, he may not have that physical or intellectual perfection which the Savior had; but he bears his moral image. And of such an one can it be said in the delightful words of the Saviour, John xiv. 23: "If a man love me, he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him."

Holiness, as the term has now been explained, in other words, pure and perfect love, is required of all persons. We do not esteem it necessary to delay and repeat all the passages, in which the requisition is made. It is written very plainly upon all parts of the Bible, from the beginning to the end of it. "But as he, which hath called you, is holy," says the apostle Peter, "so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, be ye holy, for I am holy." All, therefore, which we have to say further at the present time is this: Those, who aim at the possession of the Hidden

Life, who wish to walk with God and to hold communion with him in the interior man, as a friend converses with a friend, will find these glorious results impossible to them, except on the condition of HOLINESS OF HEART. So long as they indulge voluntarily in any known sin, they erect a wall of separation between themselves and their heav enly Father; and he cannot and will not take them into his bosom, and reveal to them the hidden secrets of his love. They must stand far off; we do not say that they are utterly rejected; but they occupy the position of their own selection; obscure and perplexed in their own experience, and darkness and perplexity to all around them.

CHAPTER THIRD.

Directions to aid in the attainment of Holiness.

HAVING in the second Chapter attempted to show, that the higher realizations of the religious life, those in which the wall of separation is broken down and the fallen spirit of man emerges into unity with its maker, can exist only in connection with holiness of heart, the next important question to be considered is, How we may attain to a state of holiness? How may we experience the desirable change from weakness of faith to assurance of faith, from a weak and vacillating love to perfection of love, or, what is to be regarded as essentially the same thing, from a partial to a state of entire sanctification? In reply to this interesting inquiry, we proceed to remark, that there are three things, upon which, in connection with the operations and influences of the Holy Spirit, this great result seems especially to depend.

FIRST.-And the first is a belief in the attainableness of sanctification or holiness at the present time.

There are two acknowledged principles in the philosophy of the human mind, which have an im

portant connection with such belief. The first is, that we never can feel under moral obligation to do a thing which we believe impossible to be done. Now the popular doctrine, that no man ever has been sanctified, or ever will be sanctified, till the moment of death, places, in the view of the common mind, the opposite doctrine, viz. that sanctification is attainable at any period of life, in the light of an impossibility. The idea, that no man has been sanctified or will be sanctified till death, is inexplicable in the view of men generally, except on the ground that there is some insuperable obstacle in the way of it, although they may not readily perceive or explain what that obstacle is. The conviction of the impossibility of present sanctification will exist in the common mind as it has done in times past, just so long as the popular doctrine, that there have not been and never will be cases of it, prevails. And the consequence is, as might naturally be expected, that throughout a great proportion of the churches the sense of obligation to be holy is very feeble. It is not wrought into the mind; it does not weigh upon it heavily, and give it no rest. Nor is it possible on the principles of mental philosophy that it should, while the common notions on this subject remain. Men will never feel the obligation to be what they believe it impossible for them to be.Now this great work of holiness, we venture to say, will never be accomplished in us without a deep sense of our obligation to be holy.

Another principle, involved in the philosophy of

the mind, and having a connection with this subject, is this: No person, such is the relation between the will and belief, can put forth a volition to do a thing, which at the same time he believes impossible to be done. I do not believe, for instance, in the possibility of flying in the air; and I am unable to put forth a volition to do any such thing. I may exercise a desire to fly in the air; but while I have an utter disbelief in its possibility, I shall never put forth a volition to do it. So if I disbelieve in the possibility of being holy, I can never put forth a volition, that is to say, a fixed determination, to be so. I may put forth a volition to do many good things; I may put forth a volition to grow in grace; but to put forth a volition, a fixed, unalterable determination, with divine assistance, to resist and overcome every sin, to be wholly the Lord's, to be holy, when I believe such a result to be unattainable, is what, on the principles of the philosophy of the mind, I am unable to do. I might as well put forth a volition to create a continent, or to remove the Rocky Mountains into the Pacific Ocean, or to do any thing else, which I know it to be impossible for me to do.

Now if these two philosophical principles have been correctly stated, first, that the sense of obligation to be holy at the present time will depend on a belief in the present attainableness of holiness; and, second, that the volition or voluntary determination to be holy now, necessarily presupposes the same belief; then we see very clearly the importance of being established in this doctrine.