tures describe that of the first converts to have been? Does it consist of those elementary qualities, lead to those feelings, produce those fruits, issue in that tranquillity of heart, which it did in the apostolic times? Does it bring not only knowledge, but love; not only assent, but persuasion; not only profession in words, but obedience in the life and conduct?

Alas! too many before me have, I fear, no true faith. They have never sought for it by fervent prayer. They have never appropriated to their own use the great truths of Revelation. They have never seen the glory, and reposed on the sacrifice of the Son of God. They have never built on him as the sure foundation of hope. They have never looked to him, as the bitten Israelite to the brazen serpent, for healing and life. They have never fled to him as the manslayer fled to his city of refuge. They have never sought deliverance and salvation in him, as Noah entered the ark and escaped the threatened deluge. Truth lies torpid and inactive in their understanding. It never penetrates the soul, never rouses to exertion, never warms with love, never constrains by the secret charm of gratitude for benefits received.

No; you are yet dead and lifeless as to God. Your faith is a mere speculative act of the understanding. You never read with devout prayer for the illumination of the Holy Spirit, the records of Revelation; it is neither your companion nor your delight. Any book is more interesting; any tidings produce more impression. And is this the manner in which you receive a communication from your Creator, your Benefactor, your Sovereign, your future Judge ? Is this the return you offer for the condescension and grace of a divine Revelation? Is this the use you make of the stupendous discoveries of eternity, and the infinite blessings of redemption? Is this the way you prepare for an everlasting state? What! you hear of God, and never believe in him; you hear of a Saviour,

and never receive him; you hear of the fallen and guilty condition of man, and never tremble on account of it; you hear of heaven and hell, and never prepare to attain the one and escape the other.

Awake," then, "thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead." 20 Remember, a mere notional faith is a mockery of God, a frustrating of all the ends of Revelation, an aggravation of your guilt, a resigning yourself to the same punishment with those fallen spirits who only believe and tremble.

But you are aroused to some consideration. You are convinced that your present nominal Christianity will not suffice. You ask me how you can obtain a lively faith. I direct you then

II. TO IMPLORE THE GRACE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT TO IMPART TO YOU THIS BLESSING.

A true faith, like a true love to God, can be obtained in no other way. And our heavenly Father has promised his Holy Spirit to them that ask him. It is the capital blessing of Revelation, next to the gift of a Saviour; or rather, it is the blessing through which the gift of a Saviour and every other gift becomes truly beneficial to us. The influences of grace, like dew in the natural world, soften, penetrate, and fertilize. The hardest heart yields to this sacred power. The will is changed; the importance of truth is perceived; the mind is directed with a strong self-application to the consideration of the doctrines it had before passed over; the emotions of fear, alarm, remorse, penitence, are awakened; the soul becomes contrite. In such a heart, as in a genial and fruitful soil, faith quickly grows up. The man who had been exercising the natural capacity of believing on human testimony all his life, and had always been roused, directed, animated, consoled, alarmed by it, according

20 Eph. v.
14.

to the matter of that testimony; whilst he had never exerted that capacity upon divine Revelation, nor once yielded his heart and conscience to its discoveries; this man begins to come to himself, to act as a reasonable being, to repose on the word of the eternal God that faith which he had been previously refusing to do.

All is now hopeful; life appears; he now earnestly prays for the grace and assistance of which he feels deeply the need; he seizes his Bible; he reads it with new eyes; it seems to speak to him individually; he receives with the simplicity and affection of a child all that his heavenly Father declares; he applies truth to its proper purposes. The first is to lay him low in contrition for sin; the next is to fix his eye on the meritorious cross of his Saviour; the third is to produce peace of conscience, by the forgiveness of sins. The following steps of love, gratitude, obedience, separation from the world, holy mortification of sin, follow.

Go on, then, in this course. Implore daily the aids of grace to repair a decayed, and succour a trembling, and confirm a feeble faith. Faith is a constant victory over interposing doubts. It is a conflict, in one form or other, with the objections and fallacies which we considered in our last Lectures.21 It is a conquest over the dictates of mere human wisdom, and the conclusions of mere external perception. It unites us with Christ, takes up the cross, endures as seeing him who is invisible, realises eternal and future blessings-and "looks not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen.'

You must, therefore, continually depend on the succours of grace to strengthen in you the HABIT OF FAITH, and preserve it in life and vigour; to give you the impression of its REASONABLENESS, after having

21 Lectures XXI, XXII.

22

2 Cor. iv. 18.

once admitted the truth of Christianity; and to lead you to exercise it to all the EXTENT which the nature of the case demands, and apply it to every part of Scripture.

Thus will you grow in faith more and more; interposing doubts and objections will less annoy you; the temptations of Satan will less prevail; nay, the SHIELD OF FAITH WILL QUENCH THE FIERY DARTS OF THE DEVIL.23

III. And in this progress, you will learn ever to RETAIN THAT HUMILITY OF MIND, which the highest degrees of faith are the best calculated to produce. For this most peculiarly becomes us in a state of discipline and comparative darkness, like that in which we now are. The divisions of the church have much arisen from a want of the due union of humility with faith. And yet the very nature of this grace should, and will, in proportion as it is genuine, produce lowliness of mind.

Humility is the very handmaid of true faith; the only soil where it will flourish. While pride, and presumption, and unholy curiosity engage the heart, doubts prevail, objections retain their force, faith cannot enter. And if these evils ever regain their influence after they have been dethroned, faith languishes, doubts thicken, objections recur; the strength of the soul is gone; eternal realities fade from the view; temporal interests assume a false magnitude; Satan, the great adversary, gains an advantage over us; and sensual passions are at hand, as instruments of his

snares.

Let us, then, walk in humility of heart. This is the lesson of the entire revelation of the Gospel; and more especially of the subject to which we have been now attending.

23 Eph. vi. 16.

66

We should be thankful, indeed, for the sure testimony of God, and for the least measure of true faith in it. This blessing is incalculable. Compared with the darkness of nature, Revelation is a blazing light; the Saviour is the Sun of Righteousness; the gospel a day of illumination and joy. But still, as respects our own imperfect apprehension of these blessings, our dangers from our spiritual adversaries, and the brighter discoveries of eternity, we are in an obscure and confused state. We walk by faith, not by sight." "4 "We see through a glass darkly," "5-in an enigma —we speak only as children; we know partially. We are making our way through the night of this world; faith is only as a lamp glimmering in a sepulchre, sufficient to guide our lowly path, but never intended to administer to our self-confidence and pride. It has its best effect when it leads us to repose on the "sure word of prophecy, and thereunto to take heed, as unto a light shining in a dark place, till the day dawn, and the day-star arise in our hearts." 26

24 2 Cor. v. 7.

26 2 Pet. i. 19.

25 1 Cor. xiii. 12.