+I. The wisdom and prudence of the Gospel are manifested by showing
with equal distinctness the Divine justice and mercy.+--Justice does
not arrest the hand of mercy; mercy does not restrain the hand of
justice. They speak with a united voice, they command with a united
authority, they shine with a united glory. Neither excels. The one
does not overbear the other. Their common splendour is like the
neutral tint, the effulgent colourlessness of the undecomposed ray.
+II. By exhibiting the incarnate Son as alike the object of love and
adoration.+
+III. By insisting most uniformly on Divine grace and human
responsibility.+
+IV. By the proposal of the freest terms of acceptance and the
enforcement of the most universal practice of obedience.+
+V. By inspiring the most elevated joy in connection with the deepest
self-abhorrence.+
+VI. By displaying the different conduct pursued by the Deity towards
sin and the sinner.+
+VII. By combining the genuine humility of the Gospel with our
dignity as creatures and our conscientiousness as saints.+
+VIII. By causing all supernatural influence to operate through our
rational powers and by intelligent means.+
+IX. By resting our evidence of safety and spiritual welfare upon
personal virtues.+
+X. By supplying the absence of enslaving fear with salutary caution.+
+XI. The actual existence of our depraved nature and the work of
sanctification in us pressing forward to its maturity tend to that
regulated temperament of mind which we urge.+
+XII. Certain views of personal conduct are so coupled in the Gospel
with the noblest views of grace that any improper warping of our
minds is counteracted.+
+XIII. While the distinctive blessings and honours of the Christian
might tend to elate him, he is affected by the most opposite motives.+
+XIV. God abounds in this wisdom and prudence towards us by most
strongly abstracting us from the things of earth and yet giving us
the deepest interest in its relations and engagements.+--All the
truths of revelation are only parts of one system, but their effects
upon the believing mind are common and interchangeable. There is no
extraneous, no irreconcilable, no confusing element in Christianity.
It is of One; it is one. And if we be Christians, our experience will
be the counterpart of it. As it works out from apparent shocks and
collisions its perfect unity, so shall our experience be wrought in
the same way. In obeying from our hearts its form, whatever of its
influence may seem to interfere with each other, they will all be
found to establish our heart; as the opposing currents often swell
the tide and more proudly waft the noble bark it carries, as the
counterbalancing forces of the firmament bear the star onward in its
unquivering poise and undeviating revolution.--_R. W. Hamilton._