is saving to all men (ἡ χάρις τοῦ θεοῦ σωτήριος πᾶσιν ἀνθρώ TO, Tit. 2:11), is not an impersonal substance or force, something separable from God, and capable of producing effects apart from Him; but it is a feeling or disposition of God-His will determined by His love-and directed towards the sinner in such way as to accomplish in his soul a specific moral result. That result is the remission of sin, that is, the extinguishment of its guilt and the destruction of its power, and the formation of a Christian or Christ-like character; and this result is brought to pass, not in the way of a physical, but in the way of a moral process, that is to say, through the conscience and will of the human subject. In the work of grace the personality of man is not ignored or suppressed, but recognized and respected. And the sinner is not treated as if he were a mere thing, a machine, for example, whose defects, if it have any, can be remedied by an external or mechanical operation, but as a personal spirit, self-existent (für-sich-seiend) and self-determined, whose nature can be affected and improved only through its own intelligence and will coming in contact with a higher and better personality.

There is something like moral tonic in the contact of a great and good personality. A great and good man exercises a wide moral influence. Those who come in contact with him are elevated and made better. A subtle power, sometimes called magnetism, seems to emanate from the soul of such a man and to insinuate itself into the souls of those around him, with the effect of elevating and improving their mental and moral character. So in the contact of the soul with Christ, through the operation of the Spirit by means of the Gospel, in which contact there is felt the very beating of God's pure and loving heart towards men, there is new moral and spiritual life for the sinner. This comparison is not intended, of course, as an explanation, but only as a distant analogy, serving dimly to illustrate the mode of operation of the gracious power of Christ upon the souls of men.

During His earthly life Christ came in contact with sinners

of every shade and degree; and whenever there was a prop response to His Spirit in their souls, the result was that th became new moral beings. A two-fold effect was produced their consciousness: first a feeling of pardon, or of the mission of the guilt of sin on the part of God; and, second) a feeling of new moral power and aspiration, enabling t sinners to live a new moral life, conformable to the life of the great Benefactor. Christ said to the sinner: "Be of goo courage; thy sins are forgiven thee; sin no more." And th gracious words of absolution at once carried into the heart o the sinner a new moral power, so that he was able to go awa and begin a new moral life. And that is the way in which the grace of God in Christ now operates by the Holy Spirit. I the spirit Christ Himself comes into immediate contact with the human soul; and in such contact there is a quickening energy capable of transforming the sinner morally and spiritually into a new being. The Spirit is not a substitute for Christ, but the medium of Christ's own personal presence in the church and among men; and the office of the Spirit in the work of grace is not to exercise an independent creative activity in the soul, as the consequence of a legal transaction either between Christ and God the Father, or between Christ and the divine attribute of justice; but the office of the Spirit is to awaken in the soul a sense of Christ's presence in the fullness of His grace, as the condition of personal conjunction with Him and of moral transformation through Him.*

Should it be objected that this seems to be turning the grace

*The notion that Christ came into the world simply to make satisfaction for sin to the divine law by suffering its penalty, so that the way might thus be legally opened for the Holy Spirit to perform the work of purifying and sanctifying men's souls, which is sometimes represented as the "plan of salvation," is altogether too mechanical a conception to commend itself to the best Christian thought. Christ, in this scheme, becomes merely a helping factor, instead of the central principle of salvation. The real work of salvation, that of restoring the soul to moral soundness or health, belongs not to Christ, but to the Holy Spirit. This is not Christological or Christocentric doctrine.

God into mere moral influence, and to leave no room for the ea of anything substantial or ontological, that has usually been -nnected with it, we would reply that in all moral processes ere is something ontological; and that this is especially the se in the moral process of love, which is the very essence of e relation between the Christian soul and Christ. In perfect ve, such as is the love of God in Christ, there is a perfect wing together and mutual indwelling of the persons ving, of course without the loss of independent personality self-existence in either. When St. Paul prays for the phesians that, they "having become rooted and grounded in ve, Christ may dwell in their hearts through faith," and that they may be filled with all the fullness of God," this does not ply merely an ideal inhabitation of Christ in their thoughts d affections, but a substantial personal union with them. And such union of the soul with Christ, which, though moral as nditioned by faith and love, is yet substantial and real, ere is a new-creative, regenerative and sanctifying force for e sinner.

The grace of God is by no means a mere passive feeling or position in God's mind. The sinner is not saved simply in sequence of something that passes in the mind of Godne immanent purpose or resolve, or in consequence of someng that passes between the persons of the Godhead-some enant or contract between the Father and the Son; as if he re admitted into the realms of the blest and made happy rely by the imputation to him of a righteousness not his own; he is saved in consequence of something that takes place his own soul. The love or grace of God in Christ is not rely an immanent activity in the mind of God, but a transiactivity, that passes over from the heart of God into the rt of the sinner-though not, of course, by crossing over intervening space and there becomes a regenerative, reative power.

But though thus creative, the grace of God does cease to be ctly a moral force. Though exerting a regenerative in

fluence upon the nature or substance of the soul, it ne becomes a mere physical energy. This implies that its eff are always conditioned by the freedom of the human subje It does not produce its results with the necessity and irresisti regularity which belong to a law or force of nature. The gra of God, in itself considered, is universal, contemplating t salvation of every human soul; but it does not compel the s vation of a single one. The conception of divine grace as arbitrary election, choosing for salvation, out of the whole ma of sinful humanity, a certain number of men, who are by natu not less sinful and depraved than the rest, and then fitting the for their destiny by a series of divine operations, legally con ditioned or made possible by the atoning work of Christ, an distinguished as prevenient, operative and co-operative grace which grace is practically irresistible in all its stages-this con ception belongs to a system of theology, which, whatever els may be said of it, is at least not Christological; for it attributes neither to Christ nor to man the dignity and worth which the Christological principle implies. A system of theology does not become Christological, or Christo-centric, by bringing in Christ at a certain point and making Him play a subordinate rôle, such as that of satisfying the abstract notion of justice, and thus making possible the accomplishment of the absolute decree of election. In a system like that the idea of Christ may indeed be present, but it is not the central or ruling idea.

The Christological principle compels us, in view of the universality of Christ's humanity, and in view of the disclosure of the divine life in Christ as absolute love, to assume the universality of God's grace. It compels us to assume that God wills the salvation of every human soul, and that He must therefore exhibit and grant His saving grace to every one. If it appears that in the present life all men do not receive the offer of God's saving grace, it only follows that we are bound to enlarge our conception of the limits of the reign of grace; and if in this way room should be made for the salvation of a larger number of men than has usually been conceded by the

imates of our narrow theology, we should rather rejoice and glad than allow ourselves to fret and scold in petty alousy and spite because some of our theology has been oilt. But the Christological principle compels us also to sume that the saving grace of God treats men as men, worthy the divine love, by respecting the freedom of their personty, and not as things, by becoming irresistible, and overthrowg the very foundation of their spiritual life. The idea of the wer of divine grace has been magnified in the interest of the vine glory. It has been thought that the glory of God would somewhat diminished, if anything were left to the voluntary oice of man himself, in the work of his own salvation. But believe that a profounder way of thinking on the subject ll show that there is more glory in saving a free personal irit, that has power even to oppose the pressure of God's ving love, as a necessary correlate of the power of free acptance, than there would be in saving a mere block or stone at could offer no resistance.

In close connection, historically and logically, with the conption of divine grace as an irresistible force, appears the idea hich regards it somehow as an impersonal substance or inence-a sort of spiritual fluid, that has been separated from hrist and deposited in the church as in a reservoir, to be nveyed from thence to individual souls now by men fitted for is office by particular physical ceremonies, and through ordinces divinely appointed as conducting channels or conduits; e effect being supposed to be conditioned always upon the rrect investiture of the officiating persons, and upon the rrect manipulation of the ordinances; as the desired effect of me magic charms is believed to depend upon the due performce of certain unintelligible rites. This idea also violates e Christological principle; for according to this principle the bodiment or substance of the divine grace is Christ HimIf, who is always personally present with us and working for r salvation, not by magical, but by rational and moral means;