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our union with the Lord Jesus, and a consciousness that we are within the bonds of the covenant of grace, so that by the aid of the Holy Ghost, we can say with Paul, He loved me and gave himself for me.' "Laying hold on eternal life," and apprehending Christ with a faith which says, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me," we are blessed indeed, and exclaim in the language of faith's assurance, My Lord, and my God."

As on a previous occasion we noticed the additional force of the words, "with our eyes," so here again, we may observe how the Apostle gives additional strength to his meaning, by a similar form of speech; " which our hands have handled." By this he marks how personal as well as experimental was his own faith; and we may infer, that if we possess like precious faith, it should enable us, each one for himself, so to apprehend Christ, as to know of a truth, that he has made our individual peace with God, and has fully reconciled us to the Father. The assurance that we are interested in all the promises of grace, mercy, and peace, made in Christ to a world dead in sin, is the blessed effect of our having thus handled the word of life. But nothing short of an experimental union with the Lord, can produce this assurance. look upon the blessed Jesus.

We hear, we see, we

And all this is well. For

happy are the ears that hear, and the eyes that see that Christ, whom prophets and righteous men desired to see, yet saw him not, as he is clearly manifested unto us. But that our joy may be full, and our fellowship with the Father and the Son complete, we must lay hold, not only on the garment of the Lord, but on the Lord himself. And then shall we know, by the teaching of the Holy Ghost, that we are "bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh; " even that mystical bride

for whose sake he endured the humiliation and agony of the cross.

Now this experience of “ handling with our hands the word of life, can only become intelligible to any of us, by the special and peculiar teaching of God the Holy Ghost. It is one of the spiritual matters which is foolishness to the natural man; because it is spiritually discerned. To the ignorance of the unenlightened, it appears a species of enthusiasm to enlarge on such a subject; and presumption as well as folly, for any to attest that they have attained in spirit to the experience of faith described by the Apostle. And some who cannot be classed with the ignorant or carnally-minded, are yet fearful of insisting too much on the assurance of faith, lest on the one hand, presumption be the consequence, and on the other hand despair. It may be asserted however, without fear of contradiction from the word of God, that vital saving faith cannot be certainly ascertained to exist, except its reality is attested by a consciousness and belief of the fact, that we are personally interested in the covenant of grace. Nor have we any warrant for supposing, as some do, that larger measures of the assurance of faith were vouchsafed to the first Christians, than we may reasonably now expect. This opinion, if it does not strike at the very root of faith, sadly tends to check and stunt the growth of that plant of heavenly planting. No one promise or high attainment of faith is peculiar to the apostolic age, except it be the promises made individually to the apostles themselves, in connexion with their office. Not only to apostles and primitive believers was it given spiritually to hear, see, look upon, and handle with their own hands the word of life; the same experience of faith is as necessary

for us as for them. And " as face answereth to face

in a glass," and (in his natural state) the heart of man to man," so in his renewed state, and when under the influence of faith, the same indications take place, in a measure at least, in every individual case. There is the same hearing ear, and seeing eye, and the same hand omnipotent in faith, laying hold upon the angel of the covenant, whilst the heart exclaims with the patriarch of old, I will not let thee go, except thou bless me." And but for such a realizing faith, but for such internal perceptions, and workings, and actings, of the soul, how shall faith in any case be ascertained to be real? Now the experiences that have been described, are such as do not leave the soul in doubt whether it has faith or not. Where they exist, there is no doubt as to the existence of faith. That power of consciousness, by which the mind has an immediate knowledge of its own operations, discovers to the subject of these experiences, that in them he possesses the scriptural faith of God's elect. The testimony of consciousness is unerring; but if such a consciousness of faith be wanting, where is faith? The apostle Paul describes faith to be "the evidence of things not seen." Faith is then itself the witness of those spiritual truths which are not revealed to the natural man; and faith is itself the testimony of the reality of those things which it discovers and apprehends. And shall faith be generally and universally "the evidence of things not seen,' and shall it not also give evidence of itself at the same time? The discussions that are carried on, on the subject of faith and its evidences, are often of a highly objectionable kind. For the fact of faith's existence in the heart, is too commonly supposed to be more properly ascertained by its external fruits, than by look

ing within the soul for its internal marks. But such an error, and such a mode of instruction tends entirely to reverse the order which should be observed. The inside of the cup and platter must be first ascertained to be clean. So our Lord directs. The existence of faith in the soul should be ascertained, not in the first place by any external fruits, but by the consciousness that we possess the hearing ear, which loves" the truth as it is in Jesus," and the seeing eye, which, enamoured with his beauty, looks on Him, in whom by nature we discern neither form nor comeliness. But above all, by the consciousness, that in the discovery of our lost state by reason of sin, we have come to God the Father in the name of his Son, imploring for his sake to be admitted into the bond of the covenant of grace. And here is the witness of faith, and its only really satisfactory evidence; That we have sued for the proffered blessing, and have obtained the same. Faith does not only reveal the heavenly gift; it puts us in possession of the gift. Faith discovers to us Christ, as the beloved of the Father, in whom he is well pleased. But faith shews us more than this. It reveals to us, that because we desire to be saved by this Christ, we shall be saved by him; nay more, that we are saved by him with an everlasting salvation. Faith does not hear of Jesus, see him, look on him, and then conclude that her work is finished. The crowning act remains behind: the work is still incomplete. Jesus must be possessed. He must be known to be our own.

possessing Christ.

All is worthless if we fail of Without him we are yet in our sins. But when we have really made him our own by special acts of faith, how clear is the assurance that he is ours. There is no doubt in the mind. We have done our part; all we can do, and all that God has told us to do;

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and will not God perform his part? Will he fail the spiritual David? (Psalm lxxxix. 35.) Will he break the covenant" ordered in all things and sure?" Faith knows that this is impossible. "6 God is not a man that

he should lie, nor the Son of Man that he should repent. Hath he said and will he not do it; and has he spoken and will he not bring it to

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Then faith infers, and knows of a truth, that Jesus is her own, for he receives all, and gives himself to all, who come to God by him." The listless unconcern, the apathy, the indifference, to say nothing of the enmity and contempt with which the generality of professing Christians treat the subject of the internal evidence of faith, makes it of the utmost consequence, that this all-important matter should be again and again discussed, and made as prominent as possible. The mistake, which is so common, about faith and its evidences, must be opposed, and that perseveringly.

No sort of false charity must be shown to those who dissemble and pervert the doctrine of the evidence of faith. It is an act of suicide towards our own souls to flinch from the declaration of the whole truth in this particular; and we dishonour God the Holy Ghost, by putting contempt on his most gracious work, whenever we fail to ascribe to faith, the effects which the word of God ascribes to it. And in vain shall any presume, (as so many do in the blindness and hardness of their hearts,) that such works as God will approve, can by any possibility be produced, except there be first of all in the heart, the unquestionable evidence of saving faith. Too many of our teachers direct us almost exclusively, to judge of our faith by our works of a legal kind. If they direct us to judge of its existence, by our works of an evangelical kind, they are also wrong; but in the