THE GOOD FIGHT OF FAITH.

I HAVE fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me in that day. 2 Timothy iv. 7, 8.

A GREAT man in this nation, (Cardinal Wolsey,) in the near prospect of death, made that melancholy declaration, "If I had served my God, as I have served my King, he would not have forsaken me in my last moments." Thus even the men of this world, when they can think, 66 set to their seal that God is true;" that " precious in his sight is the death of his saints;" and that, in walking through the valley and shadow of death, they need fear no evil. The experience of this blessedness is the high privilege of those who "come out from the world, continue separate, and no longer touch the unclean thing." The Lord receives them, is a Father to them, and they are "sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty." Of this blessedness St. Paul was a witness.

The happiness supposed by the

dying Cardinal,

the Apostle realized in his soul. He was truly a servant of Christ; and he served him to the end, and found that his God did not forsake him in his last moments. While living, the Lord was the strength of his heart in the great work to which He called his servant. "He is a chosen vessel to me," says the Lord, "to bear my name before Kings, and before the children of Israel." St. Paul had recently experienced the faithfulness of his Divine Master in one of those trying scenes. "At my first answer," says he, "no man stood with me, but all men forsook me; notwithstanding, the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me, that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: To whom be the glory for ever and ever!"

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But this deliverance from the monster Nero was only a respite. The Lord's time was not fully come, to be glorified in the death of his servant, therefore "the heart of the" Emperor was turned as the rivers of waters." But it soon returned to its murderous course, and the life of the Apostle of God was vilely cast away. In a prophetic view of this, St. Paul declared to his beloved Timotheus, "I am now ready to be

offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me in that day."

The Lord whom we worship is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." His service is also the same; and they who now become his servants in the way taught by this Apostle, namely, "repentance towards God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ," they know, that still "his ear is not heavy, nor his arm shortened. Because he liveth, they live also. Their life is hid with Christ in God." In death also they find, that "love never faileth." They give up their souls into his hands, "knowing in whom they have believed;"-that "to depart is to be with Christ;" and that, "when Christ who is their life shall appear, they also shall appear with him in glory.” Such was the way in which our honoured brother, whose remains we have committed to the dust this day, ("in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life,") "became a fellow

servant and citizen with the saints, and of the household of God. The new and the living way into the holiest of all, by the blood of Jesus," he proved to be still open, and still powerful. In the course of a long life, and uninterrupted public

service of his Lord, for nearly forty-four years, he experienced that faithfulness and support from his Divine Master, which has been the theme of all his fellow-servants. The Lord was with him "in the fire and in the water;" and in the close of his labours he viewed the promised land with exulting hope, and departed to his heavenly inheritance in the full triumph of faith.

The words of my text seem therefore strikingly proper upon this occasion. A "partaker of like precious faith" with the Apostle, like him, our honoured brother "fought " to keep it. Like him, he maintained the "course" pointed out to him by the Lord; and bore "the shield of faith" also triumphantly through the last conflict, resigning it only, with his soul, "into the hands of his merciful and faithful Creator."

For our edification who are here before the Lord, I shall consider those words in the order which "the analogy of faith" requires.

I. The "faith" which the Apostle obtained and kept.

II. The "course" which he ran to diffuse the holiness and happiness of this faith.

III. The "fight" which he maintained in order to keep it; and

IV. The "glorying of hope" which he "held fast unto the end." This will introduce an account of our honoured brother, (the father in the Lord

of many who hear me this day,) who followed the footsteps of this great Apostle as he followed Christ, and who, dying, found the same support and victory.

I. We behold in the records of truth what Paul was in his natural state, and what he became by grace. He was a man of "like passions with us; and as he thought "he ought to do many things against the name of Jesus," his passions obtained the sanction of religion, to support and applaud them in their violence; and he became thus "a blasphemer, a persecutor, and injurious. But when the loving kindness of God our Saviour towards man appeared" in all its beauty to his violent and contracted mind, he learned another lesson. "Not by works of righteousness which we have done," says he, "but by his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost." He was thus "saved by grace through faith."

He now with "unveiled face" entered into the great and merciful design of God, "hid from ages and generations," namely, to give a Divine Redeemer to a ruined world;-that this Redeemer, who was foretold and prefigured throughout these ages, was now manifested in the person of Jesus Christ;-that "in him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ;-that "he offered himself to God, an offering," and "a sacrifice;"—that