matter of faith founded exclusively upon the testimony and
authority of God, as is anyone of all the other doctrines of the
Bible. They all stand or fall together. They are component
parts of the same revelation, and of the same plan of redemp-
tion. They must be received or rejected together. If one be
true and of infinite moment to be believed and obeyed, not less
so is every other; and not less is this great doctrine and duty of
the world's conversion. For He who said, "Believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," also said, "Go ye
into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
If, therefore, the one saying be true, the other cannot be less
veritable; if he that believeth not the one shall be damned, he
that disobeys the other must, in like manner, be condemned,
because he hath not believed on the only begotten Son of God.
"Go preach my gospel," saith the Lord;

"Bid the whole earth my grace receive:
He shall be saved, who trusts my word,
He shall be damned who won't believe.
"Teach all the nations my commands;
I'm with you till the world shall end:
All power is trusted in my hands,
I can destroy, and I defend."

He spake, and light shone round his head;
On a bright cloud to heaven he rode :
They to the farthest nations spread

The grace of their ascended God.

THE FAITH OF ISAIAH IN THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD.

So it was from the very beginning. Let us revert to the prophecy of Isaiah, uttered nearly twenty-five hundred years ago, that "the glory of the Lord should be revealed, and that all flesh should see it together." This was clearly one of those "words of God which came of old time," through prophets who understood not the things that they utterred, though they searched diligently what, or what manner of time, the Spirit that was in them did signify when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. The prophecy was therefore more a matter of faith and obedience to Isaiah and his contemporary believers, as resting more exclusively on the authority and power of God for its accomplishment, than it is to us in these last days. How this prophecy was to be fufilled, no man at that day could possibly conjecture. But a very limited portion of the inhabitants of the globe, constituting "all flesh," was then known to the dwellers in Palestine. They were not entirely ignorant; but what they knew was little more than enough to make it certain that far more remained unknown. Many portions of the world, of which they had acquired some information, were beyond all ordinary or safe means of access. The opportunities of intercommunica

tion were very limited, expensive, and hazardous. The means for diffusing information, and interchanging ideas, were also of the most imperfect and unsatisfactory character. The production of a single volume was a work of industry for years, and of heavy expenditure. And thus also the arts and manufactures, which now elevate and refine society, which impart comfort, which induce to the cultivation of a fixed and permanent home, and which secure opportunities for instruction and learning, were then but very partially developed, and very laboriously carried on. And in addition to all these insuperable obstacles to the possible accomplishment of the promise, the work itself was, humanly speaking, among the most impossible of all impossibilities; for even then it had become a proverb, that no nation had ever changed its gods. Jer. ii. 11.

The prophecy was therefore believed to be divine, and to be a future certainty to the prophet Isaiah and contemporary believers, only because it was the fiat of Him whose will is power, whose power is infinite, whose infinity is wise, whose wisdom is omniscient, whose omniscience is omnipresent, and whose existence is an eternal now-the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.

One adequate support for Zion's hopes,

Whose towering height seemed built on nothingness,
Was laid-one only; an assured belief

That the procession of her fate, howe'er
Sad or disturbed, was ordered by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power;
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good.

The event foretold through Isaiah had as yet no existence, no being, no substance; nothing that could be either seen or handled. Darkness still shrouded in moral chaos the greater portion of the earth, and the foretold revelation of the glory of God, and the universal diffusion of spiritual light, was then as incredible and mysterious as the foretold creation of a new world out of the original chaotic void would have been to beings who preceded it. The present certainty and infallible assurance felt by the prophet, and believers of that age, that this event, as yet invisible and future, would nevertheless be literally accomplished somehow, and at some time, was therefore founded solely upon the testimony of God that such should be the case. That testimony was believed, embraced, and confided in by them with undoubting confidence. This was their faith. The same principle which enabled them to beleive, in oposition to all the theories of philosophy, that the heavens and the earth were made out of nothing by the word of God's power, led them to believe also, that a new moral heavens and earth would arise out of the chaotic ruins of this sin-cursed

and polluted world. "God," they said, "hath spoken it, and let God be true, though his truth should make every man's wisdom and philosophy a lie. With man it is impossible, but with God nothing is impossible; and having determined upon it, he will surely bring it to pass."

Here truly is something marvelous, and well deserving our most earnest consideration. Let us turn aside and contemplate this wonderful sight.

Oh, how great was the faith then exercised by the prophet and his believing countrymen! It was nothing less than the substantial embodiment, in actual reality, of the long distant consummation so devoutly hoped for; and the evidence, plain and irrefragable, of the things not yet seen. It brought, with telescopic eye, the distant near, the future present, and the invisible within the range of sight. It caught the triumph from afar, and rejoiced in hope of the glory to come. Its glimmering light penetrated the gloom of centuries, and seeing Christ's day afar off, it was glad. It laughed at impossibilities, and boldly said to every intervening mountain, "Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea." The unscalable mountains became a plain before it, the valleys were exalted, the rough places became smooth, and a glorious highway was constructed, on which the chariot of the gospel was beheld rolling onward, in its victorious march, conquering and to conquer. Against hope they believed, and against all the weakness and imbecility of man's nature, to which these events were utterly impossible, they were strong in faith, knowing that what to man was impossible, was possible and easy to God; that a thousand years were to him as one day, and one day as a thousand years; and that what he has determined shall be, is as real and as certain as what already exists. They said,

Therefore, if thou canst fail,

Then can thy truth and cause. But while rocks stand,
And rivers run, thou canst not shrink or quail:
Yea, when both rocks and all things shall disband,

Then shalt thou be our rock and tower,

And make their ruin praise thy power.

How does faith, this hope in despair, this love for Christ unseen, this work for Christ's kingdom, though yet unestablished, and all this manifested by those to whom Christ, "the glory of the Lord," was yet unrevealed and his work unfinished-oh! how does this faith of a prophetic age rebuke and put to shame our littleness of faith in the universal extension of that kingdom which "the glory of Jehovah," manifest as our incarnate Saviour, has actually established by his finished sacrifice and death, and over which he now ever presides in all the glory and the power of his infinite attributes! Why, oh,

2-VOL. VII.

why are we so faithless and unbelieving! With all that was most inconceivable to the mind of man in the early promises of redemption, brought to pass in the wondrous life and expiatory death of the divine Deliverer, why should we limit the high and mighty Ruler of this divine kingdom, or question the promise of his coming, or hesitate to live and act in view of the ultimate success of all his decrees, and the literal fulfilment of all his prophesies? What though there are difficulties, insurmountable by human wisdom, in the way! What though but partial success has thus far resulted from past achievements and expenditure! What though clouds and darkness are round about the christian host, and envelope the movements of the Captain of their salvation! He who is our Leader and Commander, has all times and seasons, as well as all hearts in his hands, and in his own measure and manner will surely perform all that he has purposed, and all that he has promised.

All hail, triumphant Lord!

Heaven with hosannas rings,
While earth, in humble strains,

Thy praise responsive sings:

Worthy art thou, who once was slain,
Through endless years to live and reign.

Gird on, great God, thy sword,
Ascend thy conquering car,

While justice, truth, and love,

Maintain the glorious war:

Victorious, thou thy foes shalt tread,

And sin and hell in triumph lead.

Make bare thy potent arm,

And wing the unerring dart

With salutary pangs,

To each rebellious heart;

Then dying souls for life shall sue,
Numerous as drops of morning dew.

THE FAITH OF PATRIARCHS IN THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD.

But there is a sight even more wonderful and more overpowering than this wondrous faith of a prophetic age. For great as was the faith of Isaiah and his contemporary believers in the future universality and triumph of the kingdom of Christ, it was not as great as that of previous ages. Isaiah had an earlier testimony on which to fall back. Other prophets-Nahum, Hosea, Micah, Amos, Joel, Solomon, David, Samuel, Moses, Jacob, Abraham, Enoch-had all preceded him, and had kindled beacon lights along the coasts of time, and left memorials of God's wonderul works already performed, as sureties of the mightier marvels yet to be accomplished. God had thus, at sundry times and in divers manners, spoken in past times, the glorious things in store for his Church. The light of prophecy and promise was kindled even in Eden, when God announced the coming Deliverer, and complete redemption

to fallen man. It was more brightly illumined by the establishment of the Church in the family of Adam, and among "the sons of God" in the ante-diluvian dispensation. It was kept burning with bright hope, in the ark, amid the raging waves of a deluged world. It was again rekindled on Ararat, and in the bow of promise. The stars of heaven combined their effulgence to increase its significance to Abraham, and to his believing seed in all generations. And thus had the shining light shone more and more clearly and convincingly, as the perfect day of full and final completion drew on.

A wanderer through the vale of years,
Faith westward bent her pilgrim feet,
And here hath made her blest retreat.
A wondrous key her shoulder bears,
The blue of heaven the stole she wears.
When angels left sad Eden's seat,
She staid, fallen man's companion meet:
Again his downcast head she rears,
And seeks the lost to calm their fears.
'Twas she at Jordan's vigils kept,
And by Euphrates sat and wept:
To those who still her secret prove,

A hidden power she doth disclose,

A word that may the mountains move.

Now on all this series of fulfilled prophecy and developed providential events, all corresponding parts of the one great prophecy, and all conspiring to its consummation, Isaiah could fall back. To this law and testimony he could bring his own revelations. In its light he could see to read their obscure and doubtful interpretation. He could compare the one with the other; and finding them exactly accordant in principle, and only differing in form and degree, he could confirm and strengthen his faith by looking to what was already done, while anticipating with undoubting assurance what was yet dark and distant.

The course of Providence, in the great work of redemption, resembles a boundless ocean; the distance between the commencement and the termination of whose onward flow is as far as from the beginning to the end of time. Innumerable are the bays and inlets, the shoals and quicksands, the rocks and tempests, that interrupt and shape its course. And often in the thick fog, and the murky night, and the lowering storm, and when the lights burn dim, the future has seemed to be a dreary blank. But in Isaiah's time the divine chart of prophecy had hitherto guided the vessel of the Church safely and prosperously through many a fearful tempest, and had thus inspired her brave mariners with implicit confidence in steering right onward, amid every future vicissitude. The anchor they well knew was within the veil, invisible to mortal eyes, but sure-fastened to the eternal throne. Every new promise, and every fresh