Christ, and receive in your own person the farther provocation of a slighted and rereward which he hath purchased for you,-jected gospel. only think of the aspect it must bear in the II. We shall conclude, for the present, eye of Heaven, when the offer of the perfect these brief and imperfect remarks, by adrighteousness is contemptuously set aside, verting to the solidity of that foundation of and the sinner chooses to appear in his own peace, which the gospel scheme of mercy character before the presence of the Eternal. provides for every sinner who concurs in When the imputation of vanity and useless-it. It is altogether worthy of observation, ness is thus fastened on all that the Son hath how, under this exquisite contrivance, the done, and on all that the Father hath devised very elements of disquietude in a sinner's for the redemption of the guilty,-when that righteousness, to accomplish which, Christ had to travail in the greatness of his strength, is thus held to be nothing, by creatures whose every thought, and every performance, have the stain of corruption in them when that doctrine of his death, on which, in the book of God's counsel, is made to turn the deliverance of our world, is counted to be foolishness,—when the sinner thus persists in obtruding his own virtue on the notice of the Lawgiver, and refuses to put on, as a covering of defence, the virtue of his Saviour,-we have only to contrast the lean, shrivelled, paltry dimensions of the one, with the faultless, and sustained, and Godlike perfection of the other, to perceive how desperate is the folly, and how unescapable is the doom of him who hath neglected the great salvation.

bosom, are turned into the elements of comfort and confidence in the mind of a believer. It is the unswerving truth of God, which haunts the former by the thought of the certainty of his coming vengeance. But this very truth, committed to the fulfilment of all those promises, which are yea and amen in Christ Jesus, sustains the latter by the thought of the certainty of his coming salvation. It is justice, unbending justice, which sets such a seal on the condemnation of the disobedient, that every sinner who is out of Christ, feels it to be irrevocable. In Christ, this attribute, instead of a terror, becomes a security; for it is just in God to justify him who believes in Jesus. It is the sense of God's violated authority which fills the heart of an awakened sinner with the fear that he is undone. But this authority under the gospel proclamation, is leagued It is thus that the refusal of Christ, as our on the side of comfort, and not of fear; for righteousness, stamps a deeper and a more this is the commandment of God, that we atrocious character of rebellion on the guilty believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, than before, and it is thus that the word as he has given us commandment. It is not of his mouth, like a two-edged sword, per- by an act of mercy, triumphing over the forms one function on him who accepts, other attributes, that pardon is extended to and an opposite function on him who de- the sinful; for, under the economy of the spises it. If the gospel be not the savour of gospel, these attributes are all engaged on life unto life, it will be the savour of death the side of mercy; and God is not only unto death. If it be not a rock of confi- merciful, but he is faithful and just in fordence, it will be a rock of offence, and it will giving the sins of those who accept of Christ, fall upon him who resists it, and grind him as he is offered to them in the gospel. Those into powder. If we kiss not the Son, in the very perfections, then, which fix and necesday of our peace, the day of his wrath is sitate the doom of the rebellious, form into coming, and who shall be able to stand when a canopy of defence around the head of the his anger is kindled but a little? We have believer. The guarantees of a sinner's punalready offended God by the sinfulness of ishment now become the guarantees of our practice, we may yet offend him still promise; and while, like the flaming sword more by the haughtiness of our pretensions. at the gate of paradise, they turn every The evil of our best works constitutes them an abomination in his sight; but nothing remains to avert the hostility of his truth and his holiness against us, if by those works we seek to be justified. It will indeed be the sealing up of our iniquity, if our obedience, impregnated as it is with the very spirit of that iniquity, shall be set up in rivalship to the obedience of his only and well beloved Son,-if, by viewing the defect of our righteousness, as a thing of indifference, and the fulness of his, as a thing of no value, we shall heap insult upon transgression, and if, after the provocation of a broken law, we shall maintain the boastful attitude of him who hath won the merit and the reward of victory, and in this attitude add the

way, and shut him out of every access to the Deity but one,-let him take to that one, and they instantly become to him the sureties and the safe-guard of that hidingplace into which he has entered.

The foundation, then, of a believer's peace, is, in every way, as sure and as solid as is the foundation of a sinner's fears. The very truth which makes the one tremble, because staked to the execution of an unfulfilled threat, ministers to the other the strongest consolation. It is impossible for God to lie, says an awakened sinner, and this thought pursues him with the agony of an arrow sticking fast. It is impossible for God to lie, says a believer; and as he hath not only said but sworn, there are two immutable

things by which to anchor the confidence | gains peace to his own heart; and the jusof him who hath fled for refuge to the hope tice which beams a terror on all who stand set before him. He staggers not at the without, utterly passes by the shielded head promises of God, because of unbelief. He of him who hath turned to the strong hold, holds himself steadfast, by simply counting and taken a place under the shadow of his him to be faithful who hath promised. It wings, who hath satisfied the justice of God, is through that very faith, by being strong and taken upon himself the burden of its in which he gives glory to God, that he fullest vindication.

SERMON XVII.

The purifying Influence of the Christian Faith.

"Sanctified by faith."-Acts xxvi. 18.

III. It is a matter of direct and obvious | tinue the same motives to abstain from sin, understanding, how the law, by its promises as those intelligible ones which the law and its threatenings, should exert an influ- furnishes, or even other motives of more ence over human conduct. We seem to walk in a plain path, when we pass onwards from the enforcements of the law, to the effect of them on the fears, and the hopes, and the purposes of man. Do this, and you shall live; and do the opposite of this, and you shall forfeit life, form two clear and distinct processes, in the conceiving of which, there is no difficulty whatever. The motive and the movement both stand intelligibly out to the discernment of common sense; nor in the application of such argument as this, to the design of operating on the character or life of a human being, is there any mystery to embarrass, any hidden step, which, by baffling our every attempt to seize upon it, leaves us in a state of helpless perplexity.

The same is not true of the gospel, or of the manner in which it operates on the springs of human action. It is not so readily seen how its privileges can be appropriated by faith, and at the same time its precepts can retain their practical authority over the conduct of a believer. There is an alarm, and an honest alarm, on the part of many, lest a proclamation of free grace unto the world, should undermine all our securities for the cause of righteousness in the world. They look with jealousy upon the freeness. They fear lest a deed so ample and unconditional, of forgiveness for the past, should give rise, in the heart of a sinner, to a secure opinion of its impunity for the future. What they dread is, that to proclaim such a freeness of pardon on the part of God, would be to proclaim a corresponding freeness of practice on the part of man. They are able to comprehend how the law, by its direct enforcements, should operate in keeping men from sin; but they are not able to comprehend how, when not under the law, but under grace, there should con

powerful operation. We are quite sure that there is something here which needs to be made plain to the understandings of a very numerous class of inquirers, a knot of difficulty which needs to be untied,-a hidden step in the process of explanation, on which they may firmly pass from what is known to what is unknown. There are not two terms in the whole compass of human language, which stand more frequently and more familiarly contrasted with each other, than those of faith and good works; and this, not merely on the question of our acceptance before God, but also on the question of the personal character and acquirements of a true disciple of Christ. It is positively not seen, how the possession of the one should at all stimulate to the performance of the other, how the peace of the gospel should reside in the same heart, from which there emanates, on the life of a believer, the practice of the gospel,-how a righteousness that is without the deeds of the law, should stand connected, in the actual history of him who obtains it, with a zealous, and diligent, and every-day doing of these deeds.

There is much in all this to puzzle the man who is experimentally a stranger to the truth as it is in Jesus. Nor does it at all serve to extricate or to enlighten him, when he is made to perceive, that, in point of fact, those men who most cordially assent to the doctrine of salvation being all of grace and not of works, are most assiduous in so walking, and in so working, and in so painstaking, as if salvation were all of works, and not of grace. The fact is quite obvious and unquestionable. But the principle on which it rests, remains a mystery to the general eye of the world. They marvel, but they go no farther. They see that thus it is, but they see not how it is; and they put

it down among those inexplicable oddities | taste,—or will behold the sportive felicity of which do at times occur, both in the moral and natural kingdom of the creation.

But in all our attempts to dissipate this obscurity, it is well to advert to the total difference between him who has the faith, and him who has it not. The one has the materials of the argument under his eye, and within the grasp of his handling. The other may be able to recognize in the argument, a logical and consistent process; but he is at a loss about the simple conceptions, which form the materials of the argument. He is like a man who can perform all the manipulations of an algebraical process, while he feels not the force or the significancy of the symbols. His habits of ratiocination enable him to perceive, that there is a connexion between the ideas in the argument. But the ideas themselves are not manifest to him. It is not in the power of reasoning to supply this want. Reasoning cannot create the primary materials of the argument. It only cements them together. And here it is, that you are met by the impotency of human demonstration, and are reduced to the attitude of knocking at a door which you cannot open,-and feel your need of an enlightening spirit,-and are made to perceive, that it is only on the threshold of Christianity, where you can hold the intercourse of a common sympathy and understanding with the world, and that to be admitted to the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, you must pass into a region of manifestation, where the world cannot follow, but where it will cast the imputation of madness and of mysticism after you.

animals, and thence obtain gratification to the benevolence, or will behold the precipice beneath, and thence obtain a warning of danger, or a direction of safety, or may behold a thousand different objects, and obtain a thousand different feelings and different intimations.

Now the same of faith. It has been called the eye of the mind. But whether this be a well conceived image or not, it certainly affords an inlet to the mind for a great variety of communications. The Apostle calls faith the evidence of things not seen,— not of one such thing, but of very many such things. The man who possesses faith, can be no more intellectually blind to one of these things, and at the same time knowing and believing as to another of them, than the man who possesses sight can, with his eye open, perceive one external object, and have no perception of another, which stands as nearly and as conspicuously before him. The man who is destitute of sight, will never know what it is to feel the charm of visible scenery. But grant him sight; and he will not only be made alive to this charm, but to a multitude of other influences, all emanating from the various objects of visible nature, through the eye upon the mind, and against which his blindness had before opposed a hopeless and invincible barrier. And the man who is destitute of faith, will never know what it is to feel the charm of the peace-speaking blood of Christ. But grant him faith; and he will not only be made alive to this charm, but to a multitude of other influences, all emanating from the various truths of revelation, through this intellectual organ, on the heart of him who was at one time blind, but has now been made to see. This will help, in some measure, to clear up the perplexity to which we have just now adverted. They who are under its darkening influence, conceive of the faith which worketh First, then, the whole object of faith, is peace, that it has only to do with one docthe matter of the testimony of God in trine, and that that one doctrine relates to Scripture. So that though faith be a single Christ, as a peace-offering for sin. Now, it principle, and is designated in language by is very true, that it has to do with this one a single term,-yet this by no means pre- doctrine; but it has also to do with other cludes it from being such a principle, as doctrines, all equally presented before it in comes into contact, and is conversant, with a the very same record, and the view of all very great variety of objects. In this re- which is equally to be had, from the very spect it may bear a resemblance to sight, same quarter of contemplation. In other or hearing, or any other of the senses, by words, the very same opening of the menwhich man holds communication with the tal eye, through which the peace of the external things that are near him, and gospel finds entrance into the bosom of a around him. The same eye which, when faithful man, affords an entrance for the open, looks to a friend, and can, from that righteousness of the gospel along with it. very look, afford entrance into the heart for The truth that Christ died for the sins of an emotion of tenderness, will also behold the world, will cast upon his mind its apother visible things, and take in an appro-propriate influence. But so also will the priate influence from each of them,-will truth that Christ is to judge the world, and behold the prospect of beauty that is before the truth that unless ye repent ye shall it, and thence obtain gratification to the perish, and the truth that they who have a

Without attempting to define faith, as to the nature of it, which could not be done but with other words more simple than itself, let us look to the objects of faith, and see whether there do not emanate from them, a sanctifying influence on the heart of every real believer.

right to the tree of life, are they who keep | of faith, and suppose it to be Jesus Christ the commandments, and the truth that an in his person and in his character. It is a unrighteous man shall not inherit the king-summary, but at the same time a most true dom of God. If a man see not every one object that is placed within the sphere of his natural vision, he sees none of them, and his whole body is full of darkness. If a man believe the Bible to be the word of God, he will read it; but if he read it, and believe not every one truth that lies within the grasp of his understanding, he believes none of them, and is in darkness, and knoweth not whither he is going.

doings of the Saviour. He will look to him, | pretext and a pacification to his conscience, asserting his right of authority and disposal under a wilful habit of perseverance in over those whom he has purchased unto iniquity. But, if this partial faith of his be himself. He will, by the eye of faith, see not a real faith, then we are not responsible that rebuking glance which our Saviour cast for his conduct, nor ought he to be at all over the misconduct of his disciples, and quoted as an exception against that alliance, which, when Peter saw, by the eye of sight, for which we are contending, between the he was so moved by the spectacle, that he faith of the gospel and the cause of practical went out and wept bitterly. That meek-righteousness. Only grant the faith to be ness and gentleness of Christ, in the name real, and as there is no one doctrine of the of which, Paul besought his disciples to Bible, out of which it may not gather a puwalk no more after the flesh, will be pre-rifying influence to the heart, so out of this sent in its influence on those who, though doctrine of the atonement, will such a purithey see him not, yet believe him, and have fying influence descend most abundantly on their conceptions filled and satisfied with the heart of every genuine believer. his likeness. They will behold him to be For, it first takes away a wall of partition, an exalted Prince, as well as an exalted Sa- which, in the case of every man who has viour, and they will count it a faithful say- not received this doctrine, lies across the ing, that he came to sanctify as well as re-path of his obedience at the very comdeem, and they will look upwards to his mencement. So long as I think that it is present might as a commander, as well as quite impossible for me so to run as to obforwards to his future majesty as a judge, tain, I will not move a single footstep. Unand they will be thoroughly persuaded, that der the burden of a hopeless controversy to persevere in sin, is altogether to thwart between me and God, I feel as it were the great aim of the enterprize of our re- weighed down to the inactivity of despair. demption, and they will understand as I live without hope; and so long as I do so, Paul did, who affirmed, with expostulations I live without God in the world. And beand tears, that the enemies of righteousness sides, he, while the object of my terror, is are also the enemies of the cross;--and also the object of my aversion. The helpthus, from Christ, in all his various attitudes, less necessity under which I labour, so long will a moralizing power descend on the as the question of my guilt remains unsethearts of those who really believe in him,-tled is to dread the Being whom I am comand as surely as any man possesses the faith that is in Christ Jesus, so surely will he be sanctified by that faith.

manded to love. I may occasionally cast a feeble regard towards that distant and inaccessible Lawgiver: But so long as I view And, thirdly, let us confine our attention him shrouded in the darkness of frowning still farther, to one particular article of our majesty, I can place in him no trust, and I faith. Paul was determined to know no- can bear towards him no filial tenderness. thing, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. I may occasionally consult the requireNow, conceive faith to attach itself to the ments of his law: But when I look to the latter clause of this verse, and that Christ uncancelled sentence that is against me, I crucified, for the time being, is the single can never tread, with hopeful or assured object of its contemplation. There is still footsteps, on the career of obedience. But no such thing as a true faith, attaching let me look unto Christ lifted up for our itself to this one object exclusively; and offences, and see the hand-writing of ordithough at one time it may be the sole con-nances that was against us, and which was templation which engrosses it, at other contrary unto us, nailed to his cross, and times it may have other contemplations. If, there blotted out and taken out of the way; in fact, it shut out those other contempla-and then I see the barrier in question leveltions, which are furnished by the subject-led with the ground. I now behold the way matter of the testimony of God, it may be proved now, and it will be proved in the day of reckoning, to be no faith at all. But just as it has been said, that the mind can only think of one thing at a time, so faith may be employed, for a time, in looking only towards one object; and as we said before, let Christ crucified be conceived to be that one object. From what has been said already, it will be seen, that this one exercise of faith will not counteract the legitimate effect of the other exercises. But we should like to compute the influence of this one exercise on the heart and life of a believer. In the case of an Antinomian, the doctrine of the atonement may furnish a

of repentance cleared of the obstructions, by which it was aforetime rendered utterly impassable. This is the will of God -even your sanctification, may be sounded a thousand times in the ear of an unbeliever, and leave him as immoveable as it found him; because, while under a sense of unexpiated guilt, he sees a mighty parapet before him, which he cannot scale. But if the same words be sounded in the ears of a believer, they will put him into motion. For to him the parapet is opened up, and the rough way is made smooth, and the mountain and the hill are brought low, and the valley of separation is filled, and he is made to see the salvation of God. The path of obedience