delights in the phraseology, employs in preference the words, and appeals perpetually to the authority of the sacred word. The Bible is a book by itself. Its sanctity, its new and heavenly doctrines, the inspiration under which it was written, invest it with a peculiarity which no human wisdom can imitate. It has been uniformly found, that when the faith of the church has declined, the language of Scripture has become neglected. The Bible was seldom cited during the dark ages. At the Reformation the use of its terms and expressions revived with a love for its main doctrines. In fact, the Revelation itself provides for this. The apostles oppose the wisdom of God to the wisdom of men, and the words of the Holy Ghost to those of human invention. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. The same direction is involved in the commands to search the Scriptures, to hide them in our heart, to make them our counsellors, to meditate therein day and night, to delight in them above gold and precious stones to account them sweeter than honey, yea than the honeycomb, to rejoice in them as one that findeth great spoil. He that does this, insensibly adopts their manner of expression, their turn of thought, their way of stating things; his mind is cast into the mould of the Bible, and he labors to receive more and more its exact form and impress.

Such, then, being the nature, reasonableness, and extent of faith, a reflection or two may be offered, before we proceed to our conclusion, on the tranquillity of mind which it produces; and on the necessary influence it exerts on the whole life of a Christian.

1. Observe THE TRANQUILLITY which this faith produces. There is an acquiescence of mind in divine truth, a cheerful resignation of the understanding and will to the testimony of God. Thus one great end of Revelation is attained.

The perturbation, the forebodings of conscience, the apprehension of futurity, the dread of the almighty Arbiter of the universe, the uncertainty of human opinion, the tossings

(0) 1 Cor. ii. 10.

and tempests of conjecture and prejudice, are all terminated. Faith settles every thing. The truths of Scripture are as exactly adapted to this exercise of a contrite and humble. mind, as the light of heaven is to the natural eye. The same divine Spirit, which indited the Scriptures, knew what was in man, and disposes his heart to receive what is revealed. The result is a tranquillity of soul, arising from a correspondence between the faculty and the object. Reliance on the inspired Scriptures brings that calm joy, which the revelation of such important truths might be expected to produce.

The discovery of truth, of whatever kind, is delightful to man.P Mathematical knowledge, physical, metaphysical, create repose in a certain way, from the pleasure of discovering what is new and useful in the worlds of science. But in divine truth there is that repose which springs from the impression of the greatness of the mercy vouchsafed in Revelation, of the magnitude of the truths communicated both in themselves and to man, of the high and elevated and purifying effects produced, of the bright and cheerful hopes awakened. The soul attains its rest. Faith completes the noblest instinct in man, that natural pulse which he has after truth and happiness. It meets his inmost wants, it agrees with his accountable nature; and with all his primary duties to Almighty God. Faith rectifies, as it were, the illusions of vision; brings forward into near view those eternal things which, from their remoteness, are apt to be either wholly overlooked or appear but faintly in the utmost bounds of the horizon; and removes backward and reduces to their true comparative size the objects of the present life, which are apt to fill the human eye and assume a false magnitude from their vicinity." And this is the source of tranquillity.

Faith especially fixes the mind on one grand object, in which all the lines of revealed truth converge, as in their centre, THE PERSON OF JESUS CHRIST; and thus brings us to

(p) La logique est un besoin de l'espirt, comme la religion est un besoin de l'ame. -Frayssinous. (r) Wilberforce.

(q) Lect. xiv.

the fountain of felicity. The very conviction of our own ignorance and of the infinite wisdom and truth of God, promotes the same calmness of spirit. I am in a dark and sinful world; I am surrounded with mysteries; but my heavenly Father has revealed to me a sufficient guide; things are all, practically speaking, well; he assures me all shall be cleared up in a future world. I leave them with him; I follow by faith in the track of patriarchs and prophets, evangelists and apostles; my mind is tranquil, and resigns itself to God; I give over conjecturing, reasoning, disputing, in order to

BELIEVE.

2. Nor is it difficult to perceive how this faith is THE PRINCIPLE OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE. For as the eye receives the light and directs the whole body, so faith, the eye of the soul, receives the light of Revelation and directs the life. All depends upon it. Truth operates on the heart only as it is appropriated by this principle. We wonder not that it is described as the grace which apprehends the promises of Christ for justification, which works in a way of love to the things revealed, which overcomes the smiles and frowns of the world, which purifies the heart, which produces uniform and cheerful obedience. It cannot be otherwise. If it be a living and active principle, it is the reliance of an enlightened and renewed heart upon the testimony of Almighty God; and every act of it excites the correspondent affections and produces the becoming conduct. As it respects the testimony of God in Revelation itself, it is the first link of union between truth and the heart of man; as it respects the promises of forgiveness in a Saviour, it is the instrument of justification; as it regards the entire compass of truth and duty, of which Christianity consists, it is the principle of the whole life and behavior; as it looks

(s) The act of faith as justifying, and justifying alone, and yet as standing, in other views, in connexion with the whole Christian life, has been thus illustrated. While the poor criminal, who fled to the altar for refuge, laid hold of the horns of it with his hands alone, his heart would beat, his blood circulate, and his other limbs and senses perform their proper functions. Thus the penitent sinner by faith alone lays hold of Christ; yet his soul is alive to God; and all the graces of the Christian life are at the same time exercised according to their proper nature and functions.

forward into futurity, it is the parent of hope, and the spring of love, patience, enterprise.

Let me, then, in conclusion, press on all before me the importance of examining themselves whether they have a lively faith; of imploring the grace of the Holy Spirit to impart to them this blessing, or increase it if they already possess it; and of ever retaining that humility of mind. which the highest degrees of it are best calculated to enforce.

I. EXAMINE YOURSELVES, my young friends, whether your faith be living and influential or not; a mistake here is very common and most destructive. That you assent to the truth of Christianity I doubt not. That you are in some measure impressed with the force of the evidences which we have been considering, I am ready to admit. That you have some knowledge of the main doctrines and duties of Revelation, and some persuasion of the importance of them, I allow. But, I ask, is your faith such as the Scriptures describe that of the first converts to have been? Does it consist of those elementary qualities, lead to those feelings, produce those fruits, issue in that tranquillity of heart, which it did in the apostolic times? Does it bring not only knowledge, but love; not only assent, but persuasion; not only profession in words, but obedience in the life and conduct?

Alas! too many before me have, I fear, no true faith. They have never sought for it by fervent prayer. They have never appropriated to their own use the great truths of Revelation. They have never seen the glory and reposed on the sacrifice of the Son of God. They have never built on him as the sure foundation of hope. They have never looked to him, as the bitten Israelite to the brazen serpent, for healing and life. They have never fled to him as the manslayer fled to his city of refuge. They have never sought deliverance and salvation in him, as Noah entered the ark and escaped the threatened deluge. Truth lies torpid and inactive in their understanding. It never penetrates the soul, never rouses to exertion, never warms with love, never

constrains by the secret charm of gratitude for benefits received.

No; you are yet dead and lifeless as to God. Your faith is a mere speculative act of the understanding. You never read with devout prayer for the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the records of Revelation; it is neither your companion nor your delight. Any book is more interesting; any tidings produce more impression. And is this the manner in which you receive a communication from your Creator, your Benefactor, your Sovereign, your future Judge? Is this the return you offer for the condescension and grace of a divine Revelation? Is this the use you make of the stupendous discoveries of eternity, and the infinite blessings of redemption? Is this the way you prepare for an everlasting state? What! you hear of God, and never believe in him; you hear of a Saviour, and never receive him; you hear of the fallen and guilty condition of man, and never tremble on account of it; you hear of heaven and hell, and never prepare to attain the one and escape the other.

Awake, then, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead. Remember, a mere notional faith is a mockery of God, a frustrating of all the ends of Revelation, an aggravation of your guilt, a resigning yourself to the same punishment with those fallen spirits who only believe and tremble. But you are aroused to some consideration. convinced that your present nominal Christianity will not suffice. You ask me how you can obtain a lively faith. I direct you then

You are

II. TO IMPLORE THE GRACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT TO IMPART TO YOU THIS BLESSING. A true faith, like a true love to God, can be obtained in no other way. And our heavenly Father has promised his Holy Spirit to them that ask him. It is the capital blessing of Revelation, next to the gift of a Saviour; or rather, it is the blessing through which the gift of a Saviour and every other gift becomes truly beneficial to us. The influences of grace, like dew

(t) Eph. v. 14.