therefore, have no more power to save of itself than imperfect obedience. Moreover, faith supposes the work of Christ. Without it, it would have no ground to stand upon. It is in fact the belief, not that we can reconcile ourselves to God, but that Christ has reconciled us to Him by the death of the cross.

If the question, again, be "What is the ground of my hope that I am a true believer?"-the answer is the evidence supplied by consciousness, and experience, as well as by the perception of the influence of the gospel upon my spirit and conduct, that I have been indeed brought to the knowledge and faith of the gospel. The primary evidence is consciousness. Without entering upon any philosophical disquisition concerning the nature of consciousness, it will be sufficient, for the present purpose, to state, in popular phraseology, that no man can be the subject of an emotion, or perform an act of mind, without knowing it. If a man be angry, or joyful, or believe what is told him, he knows it; if he credit what God testifies concerning his Son, he knows it.

The primary evidence, then, that I am a believer, is consciousness of the act of believing; and, to assure me of the act of believing itself, I need no other.

Still, as to be a believer, in the scriptural sense of the phrase, is not merely to believe something, but to believe the gospel scripturally understood,-and, as consciousness can only testify to the act of believing, and cannot assure us that what we believe is the gospel thus scripturally understood,—it is right to take the secondary evidence of experience, or the influence of the gospel, said to be believed, upon the heart. All-important truth, adapted in itself to awaken emotion, must do this when it is received by faith. Hence, the gospel is said to work effectually in them that believe, producing deep penitence on account of sin, dread and hatred of sin, desire to avoid it, fervent gratitude to God, holy love to the Saviour, and to all his disciples, and strong desires to be conformed to his

image. This renewed and holy state of mind, is not merely,-nor so much, perhaps,-an evidence that we believe, that is, perform the act of faith (for consciousness, as we have seen, attests this) but that what we believe is the gospel the truth, with the reception of which the salvation of the soul is connected by the oath as well as the promise of that God "who cannot lie." Where this evidence, that persons are believers really exists-especially if the mental feelings enumerated are vivid-it will generally prove strong and convincing. Yet, as there are states of mind which might be mistaken-and which sometimes are so-for those sanctified feelings (just referred to) which the belief of the gospel invariably kindles in the mind, it will be expedient for a person to examine, thirdly, into the effects which his conceived faith has upon his conduct. All true spiritual feelings-that is, feelings kindled by the gospel (for there are none others)are practical: they cannot lie buried in the bosom; they must become visible in the life. The Scriptures recognize no feeling, as a distinctive mark of the Christian character, which is not thus practical; just because, if the feeling does not appear in the life, it is not in the heart: "If ye love me," said our Lord to his disciples, keep my commandments." There can be, as though he had said, no valid proof of love but this. "What doth it profit, my brethren," said James, "though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? Can faith save him?" Perhaps it might, if it could be genuine-which it cannot-without works. "If we say," adds the apostle John, "we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth."

Recollecting these, and a variety of other declarations of the same descrip tion, it appears that we are bound to test the reality of our knowledge and faith in the gospel, by examining their effects upon our conduct. That we have taken the right medicine, is proved by the production of its specific effects. If our

professed faith produces works of righteousness-if it restrains us from walking in darkness—if it kindles practical love to the great Head of his body the church, and to every member of that body, we have in this, as well as in consciousness and experience, a basis of hope that we are believers; and that, consequently, on the ground of the atonement, we are accepted of God, and may be strong in the confidence that we shall find "mercy of the Lord in that day."

Now this ground of hope, or rather the ground of this hope, is not without us. The consciousness of believing is in the mind. Penitence for sin, hatred of sin, love to the Saviour and his people, are all in the mind. And, though this cannot be said of those works of faith and labours of love which are the invariable fruits of faith, they are not out of the individual in the sense in which the hope of a believer, as formerly explained, is out of himself.

Thus we reach the conclusion that the hope of the believer that he shall "find mercy of the Lord in that day," and hear the heart-cheering words "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord," rests, and rests exclusively, upon the obedience and death, the resurrection, ascension, and intercession of the Lamb that was slain; and that the hope of any man that he is a believer, in that sense of the word that has the promise of salvation connected with it, bases itself upon those evidences of faith to which reference has been just made.

It is not always that these different hopes, or rather this hope of different things, are kept so distinct in the conceptions of persons as they should be. "I trust," says an imperfectly enlightened man, "that I shall be accepted and treated as righteous at the great day, because I am conscious of love to the Saviour." This language may, perhaps, be so explained as to purge it of all serious errors, yet is it not to be defended. Not any, nor, indeed, all the evidence we may have that we have received the record which God has given of his Son

though it should be abundantly satisfactory-can be safely made the basis of hope that we shall be treated as righteous at the last day. It is on the ground of a perfect righteousness only that the moral governor can thus treat any one. Now all men are sinners. A man may have unfeigned faith, enlightened piety, ardent love, but still he is imperfect. His faith, piety, and love, are all imperfect, and cannot therefore be safely relied upon as a ground of hope for eternity.

We believe the importance of making the distinction, marked out in this paper, is immense. To the blending together of these different hopes, or to a defective perception of their difference, may be traced much of the presumption, and much of the groundless distress, which no doubt exist now, as they did formerly. It may be well to trace its influence in a case or two. Take, then, the instance of a man who has evidently not experienced a change of heart. He hears others talk of their deep penitence on account of sin, of their warm love to the Saviour, of their ardent desires to enjoy the rest, and the blessedness, and the holiness of heaven. He has none of these feelings, and he is conscious he has them not. This conviction would be likely to disturb him. He has heard, however, that the ground of a sinner's hope is entirely without him-that it is the perfect work of "the Lord our righteousness,”—that that should give him comfort and hope, and not anything he may find, or fancy he finds, in himself. His anxiety to escape the painful conviction that all is not right with him, predisposes him to believe that those who talk about their experience and feelings, are drawing their comfort and hope from something within themselves. Shunning their mistake-as he is willing to believe it-he professedly founds his hope for eternity upon the atonement; and either neglects to examine the state of his heart altogether, or, if not, and if the result of a cursory and most imperfect examination should force him to acknowledge that it is not altogether what it should be, the