SERMON XIX.

OUR HOPE TOWARDS GOD IN CHRIST.

ACTS II. 32.

This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.

THE Continuation of the subject which I began last Sunday, falls in most happily with this day, which is the festival of the great Apostle, St. Peter. From his epistle were taken the words which I chose for the text of this whole inquiry; the words in which he urges us to be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in us. On him, in a more especial manner, the first planting of the church of Christ rested; and by his preaching at Jerusalem, the knowledge of salvation by Christ was first declared. No man also could ever have exemplified more fully than St. Peter, the onward course of a Christian from less faith to more; none was better fitted than he to have compassion on the ignorant, and on the weak in

faith, when he remembered from what imperfect and unworthy notions, from what an overconfident, and therefore failing spirit, his mind and heart had grown up under the teaching of the Holy Ghost to understand, and believe, and love, and obey, all the counsel of God. And though he, like the humblest believer, is now veiled from our knowledge; for in the unseen world, we have to do with Jesus only, the first-fruits of the dead; with all others our intercourse is delayed, till Christ's coming again; yet we cannot better celebrate his memory than by endeavouring to establish that faith, of which he was the earliest preacher, by striving to raise ourselves from that weak faith in which he once lived, to that full faith, and therefore full holiness, which marked the latter years of his life, after he had received the teaching of Christ's Spirit.

In pursuance, then, of the plan which I began last Sunday, I am now to lay before you some of the reasons for our hope as Christians; that supposing us to be fully convinced that God is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him, we may justify our farther and more particular hope, that God has given to us eternal life, and that this life is

in his Son.

I prefer this manner of stating the question at the outset, rather than to say, that I wish to state" the principal evidences of Christianity." Not only does it accord better with St. Peter's direction, "to give a reason of the hope that is in us," but it makes the subject far more simple and practical, and keeps before our minds the only way in which the question of the evidences, as they are called, may be profitably examined. Supposing us to have heard of the good tidings of salvation, that God has given to us eternal life in his Son Jesus Christ; that the tidings seem to us of infinite value, telling us what we should, above all things, wish to be true; but that we would fain be satisfied, not only of the delightfulness of such a promise, but of its reality; then, as the question is simple and natural, so the answer given to it may be abundantly plain and satisfactory.

Our parents told us in our earliest years, that we should rise again after death to a life of eternal happiness. And when we are old enough to read for ourselves that book, on whose authority they told it us, we there find it said, even as our parents reported, that God has given to us eternal life. Some may say, that they do not need that book's witness; that they hope for eternal life, not because of

its saying, but because nature, or God in nature, speaks to them in a voice not to be mistaken, that there is something in them which will not die. No doubt, what nature does say to us is worthy of our earnest attention, for God speaks to us through her means. But he must be a bold man, and of a sanguine faith, who thinks that nature does really speak so clearly on this point as to require no confirmation of her witness. What arguments she draws from our own condition, in part encourage our hope, in part forbid it; we have faculties which might seem to reach beyond this world; yet, on the other hand, we see these faculties decay before we leave this world, so that their perfection appears to be designed for this present state of being, or else they would rather go on improving till death interrupted their advance. But what arguments nature, if indeed it be nature, draws from the love and unchangeableness of God, these are far more satisfactory. Would a father, at any time of his being, consent to destroy a son whom he loved, and who loved him in return? On the contrary, nature seems, as it were, so to compassionate his feelings of sorrow, if he were obliged to witness the destruction of the child to whom he had given birth, that in the common course of

things, the tie remains unbroken, so long as he himself exists; he has no consciousness of his child in any other state than as living, and loving him, and being loved by him. And if our Father in heaven loves us, and has enabled us to love him, will he destroy this bond which even our earthly fathers prize so dearly? or will he not, as he is eternal and almighty, be for ever the living Father of his living children, that because he lives, we may live also?

I might well doubt, however, whether nature would teach us this; for such notions of God seem peculiarly to flow from a revealed knowledge of him; and these seem to have been the considerations which urged good men, in some instances, under the Jewish dispensation, to hope, with whatever degree of assurance, for a life to come. But now many men borrow knowledge from revelation, without being aware of it; and it is possible, I do not say that it is probable, perhaps it may never have occurred, but it is certainly possible for a man to persuade himself that he has, on these grounds, a sufficient hope of eternal life, and that he need not apply for it to the gospel. Now we must not dispute his general reasoning, for it is sound; and Christ himself, and the