tiatory atonement for the sins of mankind. Man knows not how to approach God with acceptance but through the gospel, and failing in this, the first rudiment of duty, he cannot reasonably hope for the divine favour.

Further, if man be an accountable creature, the equitable judgment in his case, must have reference to rules, and the favour of his Judge may be supposed to depend upon his observance of the best rules with which he is acquainted. Now it is confessed that a morality so pure and perfect has no where else been taught as in the gospel. So that if men desired to be good men, to live and die usefully and happily, they would meet with more helps and motives to these ends in the gospel than any where else. Besides this, though reason might be supposed to discover, it cannot assist us to perform, the duties upon which our felicities depends. In both these views the gospel becomes necessary to our salvation, by its furnishing that system of morality which alone is acceptable to God, and by giving us that grace without which he cannot do what we know to be our duty.

So perfectly is it adapted to the wants of mankind, that reason at once inclines us to view favourably the evidence which it brings of its divine origin, and it may with truth be affirmed, that he who with an honest heart, and a love for truth, and a desire to practice it, sets himself to examine the subject without prejudice, and with an humble appeal to the divine help, will perceive in the Christian system an irradiation of heavenly light, recommending itself both to his understanding and his heart. We have high authority for this sentiment in this declaration of our Saviour, "If any man will do my will, he shall know of the doctrine if it be of God." On the other hand he has authorized the opinion, that when a man does not discern this light, and refuses his belief, it is because sin has obscured or enfeebled his mental sight. He loves darkness rather than light, because his deeds are evil.”

"It is not in general," says Bishop Porteus, "the want of evdience, so much as the want of virtue, which makes

men unbelievers." It is not with the head, but with the heart, that men disbelieve unto unrighteousness.

If this be true, the gospel may be considered as the test of a virtuous state of the heart, and it would seem to follow, that when we plead an inability to believe it, it is only saying that we are too sinful to relish and practise its holy precepts, too strongly wedded to our lusts, to welcome that sword of the spirit which comes to make these painful separations.

The love of happiness is a constituent part of the nature of man, coeval with his existence, and through every period of his life inseparable from him. As God has surrounded our bodies with a nervous system, which by its exquisitely nice sensibilities, teaches us by painful feelings, what to avoid as being injurious, and as he who runs counter to these feelings is an enemy to his natural life; so has he endowed us with a moral sense, designed to guard us against moral evil, and he who violates it is guilty of criminal inattention to his best interests. Men can never cease to consider themselves accountable beings. This is a natural sentiment, the plain result of that reason which is born within us, and be it true, or be it false, it has an important influence on our happiness. Destined then as we feel ourselves to be for immortality, there rests upon us a moral obligation to use every means of securing our happiness in that everlasting state to which we are travelling. Now when the scriptures declare that there is no other name by which we may be saved, but that of Jesus Christ, when we see great and good men, who have studied this subject with an earnestness and diligence correspondent to its vast importance deliberately concluding, that the evidence which supports the assertion is fully established, and resting their hopes of heaven upon that foundation; surely he who rejects this evidence without due care, impartiality and labour, and without devoutly imploring the blessing of God upon his endeavours, cannot answer to his conscience and his God for his unbelief.

Faith, in one sense, may be defined as consisting not so much in a belief of any abstract religious truth or proposition, as in a sincere attachment of the heart to God, with an earnest desire to know and do his will. And he who has these dispositions, may be assured of the blessing of Heaven, displaying itself, not perhaps in worldly riches or honors, but in something infinitely more valuable-a secret influence upon his heart and understanding, to direct his conduct, to improve his nature and to lead him, though in the lowly vale, along the path of peace. Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, even Jesus Christ. "He that believeth on the Son, hath everlasting life; and he that believ eth not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." The heathen who live without the law are a law unto themselves, but even they will owe their salvation to the great atonement offered by him who, by the grace of God, tasted death for every man, and who, by his sovereign influence pervades, enlightens and sanctifies the whole moral world: for verily there is no other name under Heaven whereby man can be saved.

The Nature of Faith.

A faith which consists in a bare assent to the truth of certain propositions, without producing any change of the heart, is not the faith which pleases God. The faith which saves the soul, is not barely an assent to the truths of revelation, but a powerful persuasion of the heart, which kindles the affections and animates the conduct in the love and practice of the precepts of the gospel.

This kind of "faith is the gift of God."* It is not meant here, however, that the influence of the Holy Spirit supersede, in any degree, the use of means-the necessity of rational and diligent inquiry.

But it is evident that this quality cannot be wrought in us by our own power. No man in this sense can say

* Ephes. ii. 8.

that Jesus is Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. "Blessed art thou Simon Barjonas, flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but the Holy Ghost."

Our Church constantly directs us to the Holy Spirit as the only power which can raise in us this wonder working faith. In the collects we pray, that by "his holy inspiration we may think these things that are good, "* that by the same spirit we may have a right judgment in all things," that he would "give unto us the increase of faith, hope and charity.‡

"The right faith," says St. Basil, "is not that which is forced by mathematical demonstration; but that which grows in the mind from the operation or energies of the Holy Spirit" "We must carry this yet further," says Bishop Burnet, "than the bare believing that these things (the doctrines of Christianity) are true; such a faith devils have. We must make our people understand, that this faith purifies the heart, and works by love; and it only becomes a saving and justifying faith, when upon our entering on the practice of those rules that this religion prescribes, we feel a real virtue derived into us, that makes us new creatures, and gives us such a vital perception of the truth of the promises made us in it, that we receive these as earnests of our inheritance, and so taste and see that God is gracious to us. This makes us living stones in the spiritual building.

Bishop Pearson, who is in the highest esteem as a divine, and whose work on the creed is recommended by the house of Bishops to all students in divinity, says, "As the increase and perfection, so the original or initiation of faith, is from the spirit of God, not only by an external proposal in the word, but by an internal illumination in the soul, by which we are inclined to the

Collect for 5th Sunday after Easter.

† Collect for Whitsunday.

Collect for 14th Sunday after Trinity. § St. Basil in Psalm p. 195.

Bishop Burnet's charge.

Bishop Pearson on the creed. Article 8.

obedience of faith, in assenting to those truths which unto a natural and carnal man are foolishness. And thus we affirm not only the revelation of the will of God, but also the illumination of the soul of man to be part of the office of the spirit of God."

"Illuminating grace," says Dr. Ridley, "consists not in the assent we give to the history of the Gospel, as a narration of matters of fact, sufficiently supported by human evidence, for this may be purely the effect of our study and learning. This sort of faith is an acquisition. of our own. But faith is the gift of God."

Dr. Barrow, "Our reason is shut up and barred with various appetites, humours, and passions against Gospel truths; nor can we admit them into our hearts, except God by his spirit do set open our minds and work a free passage for them into us. It is he who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, that must as St. Paul speaketh, illustrate our hearts with the knowledge of these things. An unction from the Holy One, clearing our eyes, softening our hearts, healing our distempered faculties, must, as St. John informeth us, teach us this sort of truths. A hearty belief of these seemingly incredible propositions must indeed be, as St. Paul calleth it, the gift of God; such faith is not as St. Basil saith, engendered by geometrical necessities, but by the effectual operations of the Holy Ghost. Flesh and blood will not reveal it to us, nor can any man with clear confidence say that Jesus is the Lord (the Messias, the infal lible Prophet, the universal Lawgiver, the Son of the living God) but by the Holy Ghost."

Dr. Scott, celebrated for a book entitled "The Christian Life," says, "without the Holy Ghost we can do nothing. He is the author and finisher of our faith, who worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. Beside the external illuminations of the Holy Spirit, there is also an internal one, which consists in impressing that exter nal light and evidence of scripture upon our understandings, whereby we are able more clearly to apprehend, and more effectually to believe it.

"Justification may not be separated from good works.