holiness? And is thy help for the most part in thyself? As thou believest, so will it be done unto thee. Thou shalt be left to stand or fall by thyself.

-And his servant was healed in the self-same hour.-As, upon hearing the words, he believed he would. From this passage we may learn what faith is. It is an earnest desire of Christ's benefits, and firm trust in him for them, from a sense of our perishing state, and his readiness to help us. Nothing short of this can be accounted faith, and it need not be any thing more. Some are very positive that it cannot be saving, unless it is a particular, personal assurance of an interest in Christ, given to the soul of the believer: but now observe, if the centurion had answered, "Lord, it is not enough to hear thee speak the word, I must also have an inward revelation, or immediate testimony of the Spirit, that it will be as thou hast said," would not this have been a horrible affront and indignity offered to Christ? The word of Scripture, therefore, is sufficient ground for believing, and the faith which is built upon it, by the divine assistance, is undoubtedly scriptural and saving.

LECTURE.

THE gospels are the history of the birth, actions, miracles, discourses, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus; and we are expressly told by St. John for what end, these things were written, viz. " that we might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, we might have life through his name.". Then surely what is thus written for our instruction, must be read, understood, and applied; it is for the life of our souls, and in the neglect, ignorance, or disbelief of it, we lose our portion in the Son of God. His name was called Jesus, because he saves his people from their sins. Sin is death, and salvation from

VOL. I.

Jesus is nothing to them,

it is life, and none but he could save us from the guilt and curse of our sins: but whom does he save? Who are his people? Not all, nor the greatest part of those who are baptized in his name, and call him Lord; not the careless and unawakened, who never were convinced of sin, know nothing of the evil of their state and nature, believe nothing of the danger and misery of it, and have not been stirred up to seek deliverance from it. as they feel no want, they desire no help, and what they read or hear of him makes no impression upon their hearts. Come, my brethren, let us be the Lord's people in faith and understanding, let us be the redeemed of Jesus. Read, and consider, and pray over the Scripture, that you may know what he is, and what you are, what he has done for you, and what life and death is, that you may attain to the one and escape the other. I am endeavouring, as God shall enable me, to help you in the understanding of Scripture, and calling upon you to know the things which belong to your everlasting peace: let me not always speak to you in vain; let not what I am now doing be a witness against you at the day of judgment, that you would not hear and be converted.

How have you profited? What have you gained by the chapters we have already gone through? In particular, when you heard our Lord's sermon on the mount, did it awaken no serious thought; cause no searchings of heart concerning your state; bring you to no resolution of knowing more of him; and especially of putting yourselves into his hands for the life you want, for the remission of your sins in his blood, and the blessedness of a new will to live unto God according to his teaching? When he had finished it, the hearers, it is said, were astonished, and that great multitudes followed him. They were struck with the authority of his teaching, the power of truth, and the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and, we may

suppose, were desirous of hearing more such discourses from him. And yet at that time they knew but very imperfectly who and what he was, and in what respects he was to be a Saviour to them. We have the advantage of knowing that he came into the world to die for us, to make our peace with God by bearing our sins in his own body on the cross, to restore us to the hope of heaven, and qualify us for it. Oh! let us follow him, hungering and thirsting after his heavenly doctrines and instructions. Let us apply what we read to our own case, by seeing ourselves in all those who came to him for healing, and a full belief of his power and will to help and to save us. Theirs were bodily diseases; ours are of a worse kind, deadly to the soul; but the Jesus whom we are reading of is mighty to save, and has healing in his name and nature, and every miracle he wrought is a pledge and assurance of our own recovery, points him out to us as sent of God for our relief, and was written on purpose to engage our trust and confidence in him as our all-sufficient helper. I shall have frequent occasion to remind you of this, as the great use we are to make of his miracles of healing; for every one of them says to every one of us, you are diseased, you are in a perishing condition, you must have help or be undone, and here is the very help and the very person you want; come to Jesus in the faith of his being appointed of God, and having all power to save you. For instance, what can it signify to us to hear of his healing the leprosy, if we do not turn our eyes inward to see the leprosy of an evil heart and evil nature in ourselves, and at the same time look to Jesus for our cleansing? The leprosy was a loathsome distemper in that country, and incurable by human means; but was cured immediately by the word and touch of Jesus. Do thou come to him with a true feeling of thy distemper, thy inveterate and more loathsome plague of sin; do thou worship him, and say to him with the same humble faith,

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"Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean;" and thou mayest conclude, on the warrant of what thou here readest, that his word is as powerful for thy healing, and his heart as ready to supply all thy wants. Again, art thou daunted at thy weakness, seeing thyself utterly disabled? Know thy Lord is not; the sickness, the death of thy soul is nothing to him; look at the centurion's faith: say, as he did, speak the word only, and thy servant shall be healed," and the word is here spoken; behold, it is here, written in the book, and appointed of God for thy comfort-" go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee." Thou needest not to have it spoken to thy soul by a particular testimony; it may or may not, as God pleases; believe God, believe the word, give but the same credit to the word of God as thou wouldest to the word of an honest man; believe that thou art helpless and undone in thyself, and come to Jesus for his salvation upon the call of God in Scripture, and thy faith will save thee. It will be the joy of thy heart to know that thou art safe in him from all thy fears of condemnation; and the prayer of thy heart to live unto him that died for thee, and show thy love to him by keeping his commandments.

PRAYER.

Grant, O Lord, that our faith in thy sight may never be reproved. Thou hast given unto us thy blessed Son to help and to save us, to wash us from our sins in his own blood, and to cure all the diseases of our souls; and thou hast caused his miracles of healing to be recorded, that all generations might trust in his grace and power: bring us to him, we beseech thee, in a humbling sense of our want of him. Discover to us, O thou Searcher of hearts, the charge that is against us; let thy Spirit convince us of sin, as the leprosy which cleaves to our natures, and how loathsome we are in

it, that we may fly to the remedy which thou hast provided for us, and adore thy mercy. Thou seest that we are utterly disabled, and have neither strength nor the will to help ourselves; raise up thy power and come among us, and with great might succour us. Open our eyes to see the things which belong to our everlasting peace, and stir us up effectually to seek after them. Bless the reading of thy word to us, and make it our guide to Jesus; that, knowing him to be the way, the truth, and the life, we may come unto thee by him, gladly receive thy covenant of grace, glorify thee by our lives, and when we die be received into thy everlasting kingdom of glory, for his sake, and through his merits, our blessed Saviour and Redeemer. Amen.

SECTION XVI.

ST. MATTHEW, viii. 15.

AND she arose, and ministered unto them.-We may be sure, with alacrity and great gratitude. This is the way he takes with us all. What shall we not do in the belief of his love?

Ver. 16. They brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, &c. - This is always doing in the world; he is always casting out devils. Say not, "thou hast no devil;" when deep-rooted aversion to God, pride, wrath, envy, and other diabolical tempers, have possession of thy soul.

-He cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick-That we might be convinced of his power, and in the belief of this word come to him with