les timidly, afraid he was saying
too much; but his irony was not discovered.

"Man cannot do it," said Freeborn; "it's the power of faith. Faith can
be vouchsafed even to the greatest sinners. You see now, perhaps," he
said, turning to Charles, "better than you did, what I meant by faith
the other day. This poor old man could have no merit; he had passed a
long life in opposing the Cross. Do your difficulties continue?"

Charles had thought over their former conversation very carefully
several times, and he answered, "Why, I don't think they do to the same
extent."

Freeborn looked pleased.

"I mean," he said, "that the idea hangs together better than I thought
it did at first."

Freeborn looked puzzled.

Charles, slightly colouring, was obliged to proceed, amid the profound
silence of the whole party. "You said, you know, that justifying faith
was without love or any other grace besides itself, and that no one
could at all tell what it was, except afterwards, from its fruits; that
there was no test by which a person could examine himself, whether or
not he was deceiving himself when he thought he had faith, so that good
and bad might equally be taking to themselves the promises and the
privileges peculiar to the gospel. I thought this a hard doctrine
certainly at first; but, then, afterwards it struck me that faith is
perhaps a result of a previous state of mind, a blessed result of a
blessed state, and therefore may be considered the reward of previous
obedience; whereas sham faith, or what merely looks like faith, is a
judicial punishment."

In proportion as the drift of the former part of this speech was
uncertain, so was the conclusion very distinct. There was no mistake,
and an audible emotion.

"There is no such thing as previous merit," said No. 1; "all is of
grace."

"Not merit, I know," said Charles, "but"----

"We must not bring in the doctrine of _de condigno_ or _de congruo_,"
said No. 2.

"But surely," said Charles, "it is a cruel thing to say to the unlearned
and the multitude, 'Believe, and you are at once saved; do not wait for
fruits, rejoice at once,' and neither to accompany this announcement by
any clear description of what faith is, nor to secure them by previous
religious training against self-deception!"

"That is the very gloriousness of the doctrine," said Freeborn, "that it
is preached to the worst of mankind. It says, 'Come as you are; don't
attempt to make yourselves better