this Son of God became the Son of man for us for this express purpose of presenting himself an object of faith and trust to the repenting sinner; for the very end of supplying that peace with God, which nothing else can give. And this Divine man spared not his own self for us; He yielded up himself a sacrifice for sin; He fulfilled all the conditions necessary for our complete acceptance; "by one offering once offered, He perfected for ever them that are sanctified."-O then for a life by faith in Him! O for a full enjoyment of the one great gift which He has purchased-peace with God! Recollect, if you undervalue this one source of confidence, you are turning from God's own remedy; you are opposing, and are frustrating, his mercy and compassion. "I do not," says St. Paul, in the next verse,-"I do not frustrate the grace of God;" I do not make all that He has planned, and done, and sacrificed for my salvation, vain and ineffectual, by seeking peace from other quarters: I do not still pursue acceptance from the law, when in Christ and Him alone it can be found; for, if this were possible and right—" if righteousness could come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain ;"-then this wondrous blood-shedding, and this expensive offering is null and void. Take then, Brethren,

the alternative! See, for a moment, where we are, if not exercising the faith which Paul describes in our text! We are, first, trusting in lying vanities, which may lull the conscience for a time, only to wake it up in tenfold bitterness to all eternity; and, next, we are setting ourselves against God; we are scorning his compassionate smile; we are turning from his outstretched arm of mercy; we are dashing to the earth the gift of God, which is eternal life!

Nor let us neglect this blessing, any more than undervalue it: let it be not merely our occasional refuge, but our life; our constant cordial; our food and medicine; our all. Why was Paul such as no Christian has been since ? Why are his faith, his hope, his peace, his diligence, and patience, and heavenly-mindedness, and love-why are these the objects, next to Jesus, best fitted for our imitation? Because he experienced deeply the feeling of our text: because it pervaded his whole mind. The whole life that he lived on earth was a life of faith in Jesus. He walked by faith, and not by sight; and for this cause, he fainted not, but though his outward man decayed, his inward man was renewed day by day. Christians! would you have his liveliness, and usefulness, and triumph? Cultivate his faith!

SERMON VIII.

FAITH, ITS NATURE.

ROMANS V. 1.

Therefore, being justified by Faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ.

THE sentiment which animates the renewed mind, is, as we have seen, Faith. And the object by which Faith is excited, and from which it derives all its confidence, is the all-sufficient sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

And this sentiment of faith I described briefly as a filial confidence in God as our reconciled Father, a quiet reliance upon Him in all things.

But, the nature of a feeling so important, of a temper which is the grand characteristic of the renewed mind, deserves a more particular consideration.

May God lead us to the experience of it, while we dwell upon its character!

And here we must notice at the outset, that the Faith of which we speak, and which St. Paul refers to in our text, is not a notion, but a sentiment, a feeling: not a belief merely of certain truths declared to us, not an acknowledgment only of our assent to them; but a trust, a confidence, a prevailing hopefulness of mind, resulting from the admission of them. It is not credence only, but affiance; not an act of the mind, but rather a habit of mind; it is not the assurance of a thing, but it is dependance on a person it is not the conviction that there is a God, and there is a Saviour, but it is the trusting in this God as our God, and the relying on this Saviour as our Saviour. "It is not only" (says our Homily on Faith) "the common belief of the articles of our faith, but it is also a true trust and confidence of the mercy of God through our Lord Jesus Christ, and a stedfast hope of all good things to be received at God's hand." And again; "The very sure and lively Christian faith is not only to believe all things of God which are contained in Holy Scripture; but also is an earnest trust and confidence in God that He doth regard us, and that

He is careful over us, as the father is over the child whom he doth love." In a word, Brethren! it is the exercise of that same feeling which each of us has lived in the experience of towards our earthly parent,—of that unquestioning confidence, that almost instinctive falling back of the mind upon our Father; which, though never perhaps brought distinctly before our consciousness, and made an object of argumentation, or spoken forth as a declaration of belief, yet is always existing in the depths of our spirit, and forms the ground-work and incentive and encouragement to our pursuitsunexamined, unasked, unthought of;—it is the exercise of this same feeling towards our Heavenly Parent, our Father in Christ Jesus. dispositions which we are called to exercise towards God, are but the same in kind with those dispositions which by the teaching of nature and providence have been generated in us towards man the same in kind, though changed in direction and heightened in degree; and we shall best learn both what our feelings ought to be towards God, and also how far we have turned them to Him, by comparing them with a corresponding exercise of heart towards man. Brethren have we faith in God? Have we this confiding disposition? This dependant state and

The