without their spirit or their character: for, look to him diligently, and you will find him to be just as intent on lucre, as keen in bargains, as busy and breathless in all the pursuits of merchandise, as agonized by the crosses of misadventure, as enraptured at the sight of profits and of snug accumulations; in a word, not only as laborious with his hand, but, more material still, as wholly given over, with his heart, to the pursuits and interests of a short-lived day, as are the great bulk, and common-place, of our ordinary men.

But, again, if faith, in the Apostle's sense of it, cannot be ascribed to the openly regardless, and cannot be ascribed to those seemingly religious, whose only homage to the cause is that of their personal attendance upon its decencies and its forms-ought it not, at least, to be ascribed to another and a higher class— even to those who are zealous for the faith? It might well be imagined, of him who thinks to purchase heaven by his works of devoteeship, that, all scrupulous as he is of Sabbath and sacramental proprieties, he may still be wanting in the faith. But,

can this be alleged of him who has oft been heard to speak of faith and of works together-and who, after argumenting the utter worthlessness of the latter, has confined most rigidly to the former all of power and of efficacy that there is in the business of salvation? How is it, that the man who ever and anon pronounces on the vanity of his own righteousness, and professes the righteousness of Christ, as appropriated and laid hold of by faith, to be the alone plea on which a sinner can be justified-how is it that he can, at the same time, be destitute of faith? Surely,

if faith is to be found at all upon our earth, it must be among those men of a jealous and stickling orthodoxy, who are ever on the alert, and on the alarm, when human morality lifts its pretensions against the supremacy of faith, and offers presumptuously to usurp, or to derogate, from its honours. Where is faith to be met with, if not among its own professed and earnest advocates ?-and how can the credit of faith be denied to those, who say, they hold by it alone as their passport to heaven, and that to it alone they look for being justified?

To know, and to think, that a man is justified by faith, is one thing: actually to have that faith, is another. One may know, that he who possesses a certain title-deed, has the property of certain landsbut this is wholly different from his being himself the possessor of it. Your religious knowledge may qualify you for enumerating all the powers and privileges which belong to faith-but it does not therefore follow, that this faith actually belongs to you. It is but a distant connexion to have with an earthly estate, that you know what sort of rights they are, by the holding of which it becomes the property of the owner. This you may know most thoroughly, and yet have no personal interest in the rights or in the property whatever. And distant, indeed, is your connexion with heaven, if you but know, how it is by faith that man acquires a part and an inheritance therein. The question recurs, Have you that faith? It is not of your knowledge, or your opinion, that we at present inquire. You may know that faith justifies a man, and yet have no faith whatever of your own. It may be a favourite dogma, this article

of justification; and you, having the dogma, yet wanting the faith, may have no justification. You may embrace, and with fond affection too, the sound doctrines upon this subject, and yet not, by any faith of your own, have actually embraced the righteousness of Christ: and so this doctrine of theology may be of as little avail toward the peace and joy of your eternity, as any doctrine of politics, or of philosophy, or of agriculture.

Neither is it enough, that you assert with vehemence, and abide with most opinionative tenacity by, the right doctrines of justification. Who has not

All

witnessed the very same vehemence, and the very
same tenacity, on other fields of speculation?
that ardour, and earnestness, and intolerance of what
is pronounced to be damnable error, which are so
often exhibited in theological controversy, may often
be resolved into the pride of argument, the impatience
of defeat, the jealousy of other powers and other un-
derstandings. These are the principles which up-
hold the zeal and strenuousness of so many comba-
tants on the arena of a merely secular debate, and
make each so resolute in the affirmation and defence
of his own dogma. And on no other principles may
you have taken your side on the agitated question
of our acceptance with God; and may have urged it
with most intense affection and energy, that this ac-
ceptance hangs upon faith, and upon it alone. This
you may do, and yet be personally without the faith
yourself a fierce and eager partizan, and on the
right side too, of this evangelical warfare-though,
within the receptacles of your moral system, there
be nought of "the substance of things hoped for,"
and nought of" the evidence of things not seen."

Γ

for

We think that, on the first blush and aspect of it, the thing is quite palpable to the eye of general observation. It is surely an oft-exemplified phenomenon, that a man should be quite sturdy in his adherence to the orthodox creed, and yet be all the while a man of earthly pursuits and earthly affections. He may lay claim to the dogmata thereof, as all his own, and yet the living realities of which they treat, may never have impressed one touch of their practical and persuasive ascendency over him. His mouth may be filled with the language, and his understanding be busied with the arguments, of orthodoxy, and yet the spiritual things, of which words are but the representatives and the symbols, may never once have come into living play, either with the purposes of his life, or with the affections of his still unregenerated bosom. He stand up may all the articles, and yet be standing up for mere phraseology, and nothing more. It may be a mere germ of curiosity, or imagination, with the terms of theology; while the truths of it have never once stood before the eye of his conscience, clothed in all the urgent and impressive characters of their high bearing upon his everlasting welfare. They may have never, indeed, carried him forward to any one of those futurities, to which he will be so speedily conducted, by the flight of those successive years that roll over him. The coming death, and the coming judgment, and the coming eternity, may all be unheeded, and at the very moment, too, when he is agitating the terms on which death is plucked of its sting, and judgment is disarmed by mercy, and an avenue to the bliss of eternity is again opened for

those sinners who had cast it away from them. The urgencies of the present world may enslave him, even while the concerns of the future world are to him the topics, both of busy thought and busy conversation. The matters of God's kingdom may be quite familiar to him in word, which never are felt by him in their power. They have had interest enough to attract his gaze, but not energy enough to move his practice. They play, in speculation, around his fancy or his head, but they have never yet stimulated him to action; and while his talk is of the mysteries of heaven, his path in life is that of a devoted worldling.

There may be something in the apostolical definition of faith that is fitted to expose, and perhaps to remedy, this delusion. It is such a faith as, at least, carries hope in its train. It has for its object such things as are hoped for-that is, hoped for to the individual himself. One may believe of a thousand things in which he personally has no share and no interest-but hope implies a certain degree of appropriation. It may be easy to give a general consent to the truth-that, by Christ the Saviour, the gate of heaven has been opened for sinnersbut, by the faith of our text, the sinner sees the gate of heaven to be open for himself; and so he rejoices in the bright anticipation, and betakes himself to all the required and preparatory movements for his entrance thereinto. One can imagine, that the report of a Saviour for the sinners of another country, would carry in it none of the personal excitement of hope, and none of the personal exertion correspondent thereunto, to the sinners of our own land.

And