SERMON XXII.

ON THE POWER OF CHRISTIAN FAITH.*

ST JOHN, v. 4.

"Whatsoever is born of God, overcometh "the world; and this is the victory that "overcometh the world, even our faith."

THESE words, which are prescribed by our church for the instruction of this day, are taken from the Epistle of St John; and there is perhaps no portion of Scripture more proper for our medita

* First Sunday after Easter.

tion at this season, than that short but beautiful epistle.

The great events which the Apostle had witnessed were passed. The Master whom he followed, and the Friend whom he had loved, had ascended into Heaven; and the faith which he taught was now beginning to spread itself through a rejoicing world. It was at this time, when the distance of years enabled him to look back upon all the wonders which he had witnessed with gratitude, rather than with astonishment ;—when experience had taught him all the joy, and all the exaltation of Christian belief;-and when he saw "the "glad tidings of salvation," pervading every region around him, that he poured out to his disciples the overflowings of his heart, in the epistle which we are now considering.

Among the different epistles of the Apostles, adapted to peculiar exigencies

of the infant church, and perhaps fully intelligible only when these temporary exigencies are understood, the character of the Epistle of St John is peculiar. It is not a system of doctrine, or a detail of reasoning or of proof. It is, on the contrary, a simple display of faith and of feeling ;—a representation of the mercy of God, on the one hand, and of the sentiments that become man, on the other; the picture of a mind penetrated at once with the glory of the revelation it had received, and filled with all the moral and prophetic influences which such a revelation can infuse. There is a tone accordingly of triumph and of joy through the whole of it, which cannot be read without emotion; and which, better than all the reasoning in the world, impresses upon us the conviction of that exaltation of thought, that ardour of benevolence, and that purity of soul, which

the Gospel of our Lord is formed, from the experience of the Apostle, both to create and to maintain.

In these hours, therefore, when we are in circumstances not unlike those of the Apostle, when we have just returned from a nearer approach to this revelation of mercy, and when its influences are yet warm in our hearts,-I know not that I can point out any portion of Scripture more proper for your private study, or for the instruction of your children, than this memorable epistle. It is short, and intelligible even to the young. It addresses itself to the highest principles, and to the best feelings of their nature. It is fitted to make religion appear lovely in their infant eyes and thus to afford them the surest of all preservations against the temptations and the dangers of the world through which they are destined to pass.

Into that world we are all, young and

old, about to return; it is through its dangers, and hardships, and temptations, that we are all appointed to travel to our final home; and to be able" to overcome " it,” is the wish not only of religion, but of reason. To account for its dangers, we have no necessity (I fear) to have recourse to any dominion of evil beyond ourselves. It is in our own bosoms where it dwells ; in those various appetites and desires which make up our nature; which in themselves are all legitimate and useful, but which when suffered, like the desires of the poor prodigal of the Gospel, to gain the mastery over reason and conscience, lead headlong to folly, to guilt, and to ruin. It is in holding the firm dominion over them ;—in subjecting appetite to the control of reason; in restraining desire when it approaches the boundary of duty;-in maintaining over every lower passion the high and habitual authority of Conscience, that the true dignity and integrity of the hu