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Excerpt from An Appeal to the Religious Community, on the Disputed Questions of the Times: In Three Lectures, on the Doctrine of Sacramental Efficacy, the Claim of Apostolical Succession, and the Union of Church and State If this definition be admitted, you will be prepared for a brief summary descriptive of evangelical piety. The immutable basis of all religion must be love to God and obedience to his will. In these, sinners have failed; and it is the doctrine of scripture that all men are sinners, that our first parents' fall brought ruin on the whole race, and that it is now in the nature of fallen man to sin. The gospel reveals mercy to our sinful race, - and, inasmuch as love and obedience are reasonable requirements, the obligation of which cannot be relaxed, -the system of mediation has been devised, wherein the innocent voluntarily suffers the penalty due to the sinful, that his vicarious merit may be a ground of their righteous acceptance. The incarnation and death of the Lord J esus, God's well-beloved Son, elevates this scheme to stupendous importance. It has none of the littleness of a mere expedient; mercy involves no compromise, and justice expresses nothing vindictive. An awful and an attractive display is made of love, transcendent love and of unbending rectoral integrity. Evangelical religion inspires dispositions appropriate to such a manifestation of Deity. First, and indispensably necessary, is faith, believing the manifestation, and embracing the method of recovering mercy: inseparably connected with faith is repentance, the sister grace, twin sister with faith, acknowledging the desert of sin, self renouncing and self-loathing, mourning the evil of offence against God: love is an immediate operation of faith, lowly, grateful, complacent love towards the God and F ather of our Lord J esus Christ, and towards the Saviour himself a purifying inuence is exerted by these inward principles, and sin is abhorred and gradually purged away fellowship