leave so much as one of them behind to torment and sting thee to death; believe that in him, and him only, thou art restored to the favour of God, and to the power of an endless life, by a participation of his righteousness, as a member of his body; and thou shalt be a saved man. The same apostle says, "I live by the faith of the Son of God;" Gal. ii. 20; and another as full to the same purpose, "These are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing ye might have life through his name," John, xx. 31. Indeed, my brethren, these, and many such like passages of holy writ, if you will understand them in their natural, easy import, and in connexion with the Scripture doctrine of man's original sin, accumulated guilt, condemnation, and helplessness, are very, very comfortable and reviving to those who have the sentence of death in themselves, and know how unable they are to reverse it; but in effect rejected by all who fly to their sincerity, good meanings, repentance, or purposes of obedience, instead of acknowledging the truth of their case as fallen sinners, knowing God as he has revealed himself, giving him the glory of his grace, and ascribing the work of redemption solely to Christ. I know it is said that the grand design of his coming into the world was to reform it, and to bring mankind to heaven and happiness, by recovering them to holiness; he having made the way to it more easy, and put it in their power to attain it, by instructing them in the knowledge of the one true God, setting before them a perfect rule of duty, enforcing it by a clear and express reve lation of rewards and punishments in a future state, and enabling them by supernatural assistance to discharge it. Blessed be God for all this! Accursed is he who denies it; and may the God of all grace put it in the hearts of his servants faithfully to improve these singular benefits, to adorn their profession, and give all diligence to make their

calling and election sure, by abounding in the work of the Lord. But these are not the most distinguishing peculiarities of the Gospel; this, in its highest state of perfection, is not a justifying righteousness; this is not the redemption and life of the soul, this is not the Scripture testimony to Christ, nor the great design and ultimate end of his coming. Guilt was to be purged, the law was to be fulfilled in every jot and tittle of it, justice and mercy were to be reconciled and meet together in behalf of a world of condemned rebels, the serpent's head was to be bruised, death was to be abolished, and a way opened into heaven for sinners. Will you pretend, can you possibly believe that this is to be done, this work of omnipotence, by what you call your righteousness, and which you have more reason to be ashamed than boast of? And is this all your glorying in Jesus, that he has put it in your power to be your own saviours, and obtain eternal redemption for yourselves, by abating of the rigour of the law, assisting you in the performance of what he demands, accepting of sincerity instead of perfect obedience, and upon the whole making our salvation depend upon lower and easier conditions than it did before? Why, the work is great and difficult beyond all conception. It was infinitely too high for any created being to accomplish; the highest angels have no might for it. None but the eternal Son of God could perform the great, indispensable condition of the covenant of life, "Lo, I come to do thy will, O God;" none but he could fulfil the law, which must of all necessity be done in and for the human nature, before we could be reputed just in the sight of God; none but he could pay down the blood which was to be the price of our redemption, and cleanse us from all spot of sin; no other, in earth or heaven, could say, "It is finished," make reconciliation for iniquity, bring in everlasting righteousness, break the

strong bars of the grave, carry up our nature triumphantly with him into heaven, and stand in the same common relation of a Father to us for life that Adam did for death. No, O Jesus! thou seed of the woman, thou sweet and powerful name for condemned sinners, thou quickening Spirit, this is thy work and thy praise. Thou tookest our nature upon thee to do great things for it, to rescue it out of the hands of the devil, to raise it from death, and sit down in it at the right hand of God; and what thou didst was altogether in thy own person, and independently of any of thy creatures. Our peace, our life, was the fruit of thy labours, the reward of thy obedience, the purchase of thy blood, and not any thing which we are enabled to do for ourselves. Thanks be to God, therefore, "who delivered up his own Son for us all," to do what we could not, and to suffer what we should have suffered; that, "believing in him as dying for our offences, and raised again for our justification,' confessing our absolute unworthiness, and renouncing every claim of our own to a salvation which is wholly the work of another hand, we might have life through his name. For so, as I am observing to you, we become united to his satisfaction and merits, and are made partakers of his life, in the reality, virtue, and power of it, being so "joined to the Lord as to be one spirit" with him. And you now see why so great stress is laid upon faith in Scripture, and why " it is impossible to please God without it:" because it is acknowledging God to be what he is, in his holiness, justice, and mercy; Christ to be what he is, in the glory of his undertaking for sinners; the Spirit to be what he is, in his principal office of revealing Christ to the soul for life, as first revealed by him in Scripture; ourselves to be what we are, in our wretched condition of guilt and helplessness: it is because without it we deny the truth of God, and whatever else we do in

his worship and service, can only approach him with a lie in our mouths; it is because Christ is freely given to us, and therefore we must receive him in all humility as a gift, beholding him with the eye of faith as "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world," trusting in God as saving us by the grace of a Redeemer, and receiving us to the fellowship of his life, death, and resurrection.

If you should ask what the faith is by which we receive Christ, and are engrafted into him for life? I answer, the very same that was imputed to Abraham for righteousness — belief of God's promise for the effecting of a natural impossibility, and unfeigned joyful acquiescence in it. Isaac was the blessing promised to Abraham, against the course of nature; Jesus is the Son born, and given to all, that "against hope believing in hope, and though in ourselves vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," we may become children and heirs of God, in his right, and in virtue of the promise. Faith, therefore, in the simple, obvious meaning of the word, is cordial assent to the testimony of God in Scripture concerning the method of our salvation; when, having been convinced of sin, its deadly nature, and our own sinfulness, we can see no way to escape but by flying to the mercy of God in Christ, and gladly embrace it as the relief of our perishing souls. Have you this testimony of your own hearts to your acceptance of the Gospel remedy, that upon the call of God in his word you have come to Christ, as your hope, and the only Saviour of sinners? You need not doubt but that you " have the witness in yourselves," and can say, "that Jesus is the Lord by the Holy Ghost;" you may be as sure that he has wrought this faith in you, as when you see corn and other fruits of the earth come to maturity, you know it is by a blessing from above. Let not your hearts be troubled; let none take your peace

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from you, by directing you to inward speakings, feelings, or assurances, as the necessary proofs of your faith. They may be true, they may be false; they are not the general scriptural evidences of faith. Supposing them to be real, they are peculiar vouchsafements to particular persons, for reasons best known to God; but greatly mistaken by those who have them, when they prefer them to a heartfelt dependence on the infallible, abiding testimony of God in Scripture, with a sincere purpose of fidelity, and subjection to the Lord Jesus, and much more when they make them the only tests of a saving faith. If you will build your comfort upon no other ground, you may go sorrowing to your graves and, what is much to be lamented, you lay a fatal stumbling-block in the way of your Christian progress, by presuming, very unfavourably to yourselves, that as you have not yet received, and been received into Christ by faith, you have neither call nor ability to build up yourselves on it. I say again, have you under a sense of deserved condemnation fled to the name Jesus for safety? Are you come to him to the end he may save you your sins, both from the guilt and power of them? Do you desire he should, do you think he can, do you believe he will, and that he was ordained and sent of God for this purpose? If this is your real belief and persuasion, though not in the highest measure, grounded on the word of God, and working in you as a living principle, deny it not; lest you wrong your souls, diminish your comfort, hinder your growth in grace, and withhold from God the due tribute of his praise for the knowledge, light, and faith he has given you. On the other hand, let none presume upon the goodness of their state on account of an outward decency of character, human accomplishments, or even regard to the rule of Scripture, without such a faith in Christ as lays them low in their own eyes, brings

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