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ously to lead. No doctrine appears at first sight more likely to suspend the exertion of every active power within us than that which inculcates that all our best endeavours are the special gift of an external agency, and that our only hopes of external salvation rest not upon our own personal mérits, but upon a vicarious expiation wrought for us, without any effective assistance on our part. That such an hypothesis would tend in its operation to depress rather than to elevate the human character, seems, we confess, a natural and almost inevitable inference; and that such actually is its tendency has been not unfrequently asserted by its enemies. And yet we find, experimentally, that nothing can be more remote from the truth than such a conclusion. have reverted to these remarks, which have already been advanced on a former occasion, for the sake of the illustration they afford with respect to the value and character of the one great and prominent Christian virtue-faith. The instrument by which alone we are assured that we can lay hold of the benefits proffered to our acceptance by the Gospel Covenant is this quality of faith; and, in order that we may lie under no misapprehension with respect to the full meaning of the term, we find it repeatedly described by Scripture as being not merely an implicit belief in the fact of Christ's mission, but also a reposing confidence upon his atonement for sin, and an absolute denial and renunciation of any merit whatever as attaching to our own actions. At the same time, it is an undeniable truth, that the self-same Scriptures, which appear thus to detract from the merit of good works, are most peremptory and uncompromising in the tone in which they demand them at our hands. Here is every appearance of a direct contradiction; and yet it is only one of those seeming contradictions which, as if for the purpose of humiliating human reason, are scattered, from time to time, through the inspired volume, but which, practically,

are found to be replete with profound wisdom. If accordingly we will take a retrospective glance at human history, and ask what single quality and affection of the mind of man has achieved more acts of real heroism, has more perseveringly compassed sea and land in quest of works of charity, has more uniformly subdued the natural arrogance of the heart in the full tide of temporal prosperity, or armed it with the most exemplary and cheerful patience under the severest inflictions of adversity, we shall boldly answer, faith. There is, in fact, no imaginable state of mind, no circumstance or condition of life, to which this foremost Christian principle is not calculated to extend a beneficial influence. Faith is the appointed means by which we are enabled to avail ourselves of the benefits intended to be conveyed to mankind by the death of Christ; and it is so for this substantial reason, because it is the principle by the adoption of which we can alone render ourselves like unto him by the holiness and purity of our lives, by the unaffected humility of our obedience, and by the sublimity of our spiritual aspirations. Faith, far more than any other spiritual operation with which we are acquainted, extinguishes within us the corrupt appetites of the flesh by approximating us to, and almost indentifying us with, our great Exemplar and Pattern. To have faith in Christ, in the full Scriptural sense, is obviously, not merely to believe that he is, or that he came into the world, and continued in it for a definite period; but it is the belief that he came to save sinners, when no less a sacrifice could avert from them the Divine wrath; it is our conviction of the extreme deadliness and abomination of sin which could render so vast an expiation necessary, with the consequent inference of the obligation of aiming at the highest stage of holiness to which our imperfect nature can attain, and of cultivating the deepest sentiments of gratitude to God, of distrust of ourselves, and of charity towards our fellow-creatures,

who, having been involved in one common condemnation, are now, together with us, candidates for our Maker's unearned and gratuitous mercy. It is obvious, that nothing short of the high wrought feeling now described can deserve to be designated as that faith which the Gospel inculcates. To imagine that the same awful Being who submitted to pay the forfeiture of sin in his own person could intend, by so doing, to sanction, and even encourage, the renewed commission of it; that it is seemly, or even possible, to know that we have received so vast a benefit, and yet not to love the Benefactor; that loving him with all befitting fervour, we could deliberately wish to disobey his commands, and counteract his holy purposes, or that such fervour of love can be consistent with limited and desultory efforts after righteousness, with cruelty, selfishness, and insolence towards others, or with an undue preference of temporal to spiritual objects, are all of them manifest contradictions. "If ye love me,” says our blessed Saviour, "keep my commandments." Faith then, so far from being a merely theoretical, is, in the strongest meaning of the term, a practical excellence. It is impossible substantially to possess it without the adoption of that new life and that purity and regeneration of the character which is the best proof of the accompanying grace of God's Holy Spirit, and which the Apostle so well describes when he figuratively compares it to being dead with Christ unto sin, and raised again with him to a life of spiritual holiness; and with reference to which happy state he asserts, that he who is of Christ sins not.

Would men have early learned to distinguish between the very dissimilar ideas conveyed by the term faith when intended merely to designate belief in a purely historical fact, which is obviously compatible with a very low grade of devotional feeling, and by the same word when expressing a conscientious adoption of all the momentous inferences above enu

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merated, the false assumptions which have prevailed on both sides of this important question could never have thrown the stigma upon Christianity which, unfortunately, they have done. But the fact is, that nothing is so difficult in religious discussion as to keep the middle road. The holiest truths ever lie in close contact with the most pernicious falsehoods, and it often requires no small nicety of moral discern-ment to distinguish between them. Exaggerated statements, and the predilection for one part of a system, at the expense, and to the neglect of all the rest, are the bane of Christianity, as they have been the grand impediments in the way of man's advancement in all wholesome science whatever. It is the rectitude of the heart which can alone direct the understanding safely amid the many conflicting theories resulting from false ingenuity and partial views of the spirit of revelation: and that rectitude can be duly maintained only by keeping the devotional feelings warm, and our carnal imaginations cool and collected; by enlarged and cheering views of the arrangements of that great Being who, we are assured, would not that any, the least of his creatures, should perish, accompanied with the most unfeigned humility with regard to our own personal merits; and by a deep conviction, on the other hand, that not even the plentiude of Divine mercy itself can release us from that duty of purity and holiness which, even were all future retribution out of the question, would necessarily attach to us as moral and intellectual beings.

CHAPTER XXV.

Of Ecclesiastical Authority and Ordinances.

In the foregoing remarks we have attempted to trace the gradual growth and developement of the great scheme of revelation from its first imperfect commencement, as adapted to the wants of a comparatively low grade of society, to that later period when it at length shone forth in full splendour, and, by its overpowering brilliancy, extinguished, as it were, all the weaker lights of human ethics, which the researches of the wisest men of antiquity had set up for the guidance of mankind. We have also endeavoured to show that, perplexing as some of the facts which it announces may be to our reason, and even startling as some of its doctrines may at first sight appear to our moral feelings, the practical operation of that revelation upon the human character is what we cannot possibly appreciate too highly; and that, under its auspicious influence, the soul of man is capable, even in this world, of attaining to a moral growth and elevation of which those who derive their notions from other modifications of belief cannot form the slightest idea. Such then, we repeat, is Christianity in its essentials, both with respect to faith and practice; and such, had human nature been disposed, of its own accord, to choose the good and refuse the evil, would it probably been left to us by Providence in all its intrinsic simplicity, without those accompanying enactments and institutions which, in strictness, are to be viewed rather as necessary defensive accessories than as part and parcel of its original structure. Such, however, unfortunately, is the perversity of our passions, that almost as much elaborate contrivance is necessary to enable us to enjoy the

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