Remarks on the Princeton Review [pp. 306-347]

Three Leading Characteristics.
fests itself in all appropriate holy acts. This life is sustained
by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, to whose influence all right
exercises are to be referred. Salvation is thus in its provision,
application, and consummation entirely of grace.
Conviction of sin under this system is more than remorse for
actual transgressions, it is also a sense of the thorough depravity of the whole nature penetrating far beneath the acts of the
soul, affecting its permanent moral states which lie beyond the
reach of the will: and a sense of helplessness is more than a
conviction of the stubbornness of the will; it is a consciousness
of an entire want of power to change those inherent, moral
states in which our depravity principally consists, and a consequent persuasion that we are absolutely dependent on God.
Christ is not regarded in this system as simply rendering it consistent in God to bestow blessings upon sinners; so that we can
come to the Father of ourselves with a mere obeisance to the Lord
Jesus for having opened the door. Christ is declared to be our
righteousness and life; we are united to him not merely in feeling, but by covenant and vitally by his Spirit, so that the life
which we live is Christ living in us. He is therefore, our all,
our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption; and
consequently what the sinner is called upon to do in order to
be saved is not merely to submit to God as his sovereign, or to
make choice of God as his portion; that indeed he does, but
the specific act by which he is saved, is receiving and resting
on Christ alone for salvation. Hence, neither benevolence nor
philanthropy, nor any other principle of natural piety is the
governing motive of the believer's life, but the love of Christ,
who loved us and gave himself for us. Whether the believer
lives, he lives unto the Lord; or whether he dies, he dies unto
the Lord, so that living or dying he is the Lord's; who for this
end both died and rose again that he might be the Lord both of
the dead and of the living.
There are three leading characteristics of this system, by
which it is distinguished from that to which it stands opposed.
The latter is characteristically rational. It seeks to explain
every thing so as to be intelligible to the speculative understanding. The former is confessedly mysterious. The Apostle
pronounces the judgment of God to be unsearchable and his
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