this passage in the Epistle to the Romans, as well as in Hebrews chap. x. 37, that the vision of Habakkuk, like the promise in the end of Jeremiah xvii., "that kings and princes should enter into the gates of Jerusalem, sitting on the throne of David," belongs properly to the resurrection state, and cannot have its full accomplishment before it. Indeed, any dif ferent expectation could not but have the effect of separating from Christ the Captain of Salvation, who entered into his rest through death. It is thus evident that the faith which is here taught, is a confidence in God, and a trusting of ourselves to his guidance, knowing that He will lead us safely through, though it must be by a way of sorrow and death, into His own kingdom. It is such a confidence as the penitent thief on the cross had, which was not a confidence that Jesus would deliver him from the cross, but a confidence that he would carry him, through the cross, into His kingdom. This confidence made him righteous, for it subdued his will to the will of God, though manifested in the breaking of the hopes and life of his first vessel. And this same confidence made Habakkuk righteous, for it made him of one mind with God, in his whole dealings with man.

This, then, is the righteousness of faith, as set forth in the book of Habakkuk, that a man should know that the great purpose of God towards him, is to accomplish a good in him, which can only be accomplished by the breaking down of his independent will, through sorrow and death willingly endured, and that therefore his great concern is to live in this purpose, adopting it as his own purpose, and subordinating to it all the purposes which his own heart may suggest to him.

And as this passage is used by Paul as the text of the Epistle to the Romans, written expressly to show what that righteousness is, which is by the faith of Christ; and as it is also used by him in the Epistle to the Hebrews, at the close of chap. x., as a preface or introduction to that bright record which is contained in chap. xi., of the faithful before Christ, we have the most distinct proof that this same righteousness always has been, and always must be, the true righteousness which God acknowledges. On this ground, then, I understand the expression "the righteousness of God," as it occurs in chap. i. 17, iii. 21—26, and in many other places through the Epistle, to mean that condition of heart which God will acknowledge as righteous in

man, in opposition to the imaginations of man's own mind on the subject. I shall trust to the development of the argument, for the farther proof of this interpretation, without directly answering, at least in this place, the interpretations either of those who consider the expression to mean God's own righteousness in his dealings with men, or of those who consider it to mean God's method of justifying men.

When a man lives by sight, he lives in his own plans, and for this present world, which is the first vessel; when he lives by faith, he lives in God's plan, and for His coming kingdom, which is the second vessel. Now, this last life is the life which God reckons righteous, and it is really so, for it consents to the punishing of that which deserves punishment—and it waits and longs for the establishment of that which deserves to endure. Here, then, is the connection between the righteousness of faith, and the election of God. God's election rests on the second vessel, and on His own Spirit, by which He would draw men out from the first vessel, into the second vessel; and the righteousness of faith consists in man's entering into this purpose of God.

I ask the reader to judge what I write in the spirit of candour, and to try it by his own conscience, as well as by the written word. I am sure that there is no conscience that can refuse its assent to what I have said concerning righteousness. A man may suppose, from what he has been accustomed to consider the meaning of the Bible, that there is another righteousness necessary, besides this which I have described-a theological righteousness, founded on a theological faith -but I know that he cannot in his heart deny that this is true righteousness, when the creature gives up its own will and way, and adopts God's, yielding itself to Him to be slain, that it may be made truly alive. And as I do believe that there are many who would feel it to be a great relief to their hearts, and a great infusion of light, to know that the theological righteousness, is really nothing else than this righteousness which I have described, and which commends itself to every man's conscience in the sight of God, so I hope that there are some who, from what they have already met with in this book, are prepared to find many passages in the Epistle, which they have hitherto read in a different sense, really corroborative of the

view of righteousness, which the reference to Habakkuk in the commencement of the argument leads us to expect.

There is a great deal about righteousness in the Psalms, and I can appeal with confidence to every reader of the Psalms, whether the general impression conveyed by them, be not, that righteousness and confidence in God are one thing. I would refer, in special proof of this, to the 10th and 11th verses of Psalm xxxii., in which the wicked is evidently contrasted with the man that trusteth in the Lord; Many sorrows shall be to the wicked but he that trusteth in the Lord, mercy shall compass him about ;" and then the trusters in the Lord are thus addressed: "Be glad in the Lord, and rejoice, ye righteous."

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I would also refer to Psalm xl., which is one of the most marked prophecies of the gospel history in the Old Testament; because there is in it a particular exposition of righteousness. At the 9th verse, the speaker, who is certainly none other than the Saviour, says, "I have preached righteousness in the great congregation." Now, what is here meant? In the Psalm a man is set before us, standing on a rock, by the