according to this rule [of obedience,] peace be on them and mercy," for such are Israelites indeed, not after the flesh, but after the Spirit of God. True faith therefore is a practical thing of the heart or will, producing love, obedience, or good works, and holy conversation. The kingdom of God is not in word but in the power of godliness, and in keeping of the whole law and covenant of God. OUR BLESSED LORD delivered a brief but emphatic description of faith to the tempting lawyer. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." This faith must descend into the heart, and become a principle of religion. The wicked and unreasonable man is an utter stranger to this faith; he only believes with the understanding, and like the devil, he trembles at his prospects without obedience. The true faith makes us cleave steadfastly to the Lord, with full purpose of heart to believe and obey. Faith is the reception and firm holding in the heart of those truths which have been revealed by our heavenly Father as they are embodied in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds. A principal article of which is, the belief of our Lord's divine and human natures, which St. John calls "the faith which overcometh the world," and it is therefore the faith by which we shall be justified, and which was imputed to Abraham for righteousness. Justification is promised to those of his spiritual seed only that "walk in the steps of his faith," implying the moral and active character of their faith, their love, and their obedience. Faith being a surrender of the whole heart to revealed truths, must be thoroughly conjoined with acts of self-sacrifice and devotion to God; without which there cannot be a lively faith. Our faith, as well as our love, and all our good thoughts are the effect of sanctification, the being drawn of God; they are the gifts of God, for every good and perfect gift is from above, and no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Yet our faith is not the meritorious cause of our justification, but only the condition of it, which is also the gift of God, through faith in the atoning blood of Christ.. THE WORD Faith, however, has another meaning in the Apostolic writings. It frequently is used in Scripture to signify the Gospel, or the Christian religion—“a great company of the [Jewish] priests were obedient to the faith3," that is, they embraced the Gospel and became Christians. Elymas "sought to turn away the deputy from the faith," or from the Christian religion". Again St. Paul uses it in this sense when he asks by what other means a man may be justified "but by the law of faith"-"through the righteousness of faith?"—"the righteousness which is of faith." In all these places, and in others where justification is said to be by faith, the word faith as opposed to works signifies the Gospel, or the whole Christian religion as opposed to the Jewish dispensation. On the other hand by the words "the Circumcision," "the Law," "Works," and the "works of the law," when the apostles are writing of justification, always signify the Mosaical law or the Jewish economy as opposed to Christianity. The expressions, therefore, "the works of the law," means Judaism or the Jewish religion; but "faith" and "the hearing of faith" mean the Christian dispensation or religion. Thus "we conclude that a man is justified by faith [the gospel] without the deeds of the law" or the ceremonial observances of the Jewish Church. The word Cross is frequently put for the whole Christian economy, as "the preaching of the Cross" means the whole Gospel or Christian dispensation; again, "And I brethren if I yet preach circumcision," or the Jewish religion of ceremonial works, "why do I yet suffer persecution? then is the offence of the Cross ceased10" Here the Cross means the Christian religion or the being saved only by the death of Christ, as "circumcision" means the Jewish Church or the "body of Moses." In the language of Dr. Hickes, God's "infinite beneficence made Him change the old covenant of works into a new covenant of grace; in which we are justified not by sinless, exact, and unerring obedience, which is impossible; but by honest and sincere obedience, which the Gospel, by a metonymy of the cause for the effect calls faith; as it is written 'Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness," 5 Acts vi. 7. 6 Acts xiii. 8. 7 Rom. iii. 27: iv. 13: ix. 30; x. 6. and 'the just shall live by faith,' saith the apostle out of the prophets, ie., by this Abrahamical sort of faith1." FAITH ALSO denotes the word of God, or the doctrines of Christianity, the Christian religion itself, as contradistinguished from the Jewish religion or the "law of works,” and the Apostle says "Before faith came," that is, before the Christian religion was revealed and propagated, "we were kept under the law," or the preparatory dispensation of Moses; “shut up unto," or in the expectation of "the faith" of Christ, "which should afterwards be revealed. Wherefore the law," or Mosaical religion, "was our schoolmaster," to instruct and prepare the Jews, by types and ceremonies, and "to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith," or the profession and practice of the Christian religion'. St. Paul argues that the Gentiles who had in their native state no expectation of Christ, or hope of pardon and salvation by Him, obtained justification or remission of their sins, because they sought it by embracing the Christian faith. On the contrary, justification or righteousness was denied to the Jews, because they endeavoured to obtain God's mercy by a rigorous adherence to the ceremonial law of Moses, instead of by faith in Christ. They stumbled or were offended at the Cross, although it had been pointed out to their faith by the prophet Isaiah, and ought to have been familiar to them:-"Behold I lay in Zion a Corner Stone, elect and precious; and whosoever believeth in HIM, shall not be ashamed3." But the unbelieving Jews were ashamed of this Stone of stumbling, they were offended at this Rock on account of the poverty and humility which they had witnessed, and for the ignominious death to which He had submitted. They disliked and contemned the spirituality of His religion; they clung to the shadow after the substance had been revealed; they preferred the pomp and ceremonies of Moses, to the spiritual worship of Christ, as their murmuring forefathers in the desert longed for the flesh-pots of Egypt. The true Christian or the Israelite, indeed, is so far from being ashamed of the Cross that he glories in it; he crucifies himself unto the world, and to the sinful lusts of the flesh, becomes a 1 Collection of Sermons by Dr. Hickes, Sermon xiv. II. 274. 2 Gal. iii. 23, 24, Isaiah xxviii. 16. new creature by dying daily to sin, and separating himself from the world to take up his cross and to follow Christ. THE "HEARING OF FAITH" is put for belief in the Gospel but especially in the resurrection of Christ, by whom we are justified or reconciled to God. St. Paul asks the Galatian Church whether they had received the precious gifts of the Spirit by the observance of the legal rights of Moses, or by "the hearing of faith," that is, by the belief of the Gospel or the Christian religion. The latter was a manifest token that their justification was a consequence of their faith and not of any legal observances. He reckons it folly or sin to desire to be placed under the burthensome ceremonial law of Moses, seeing it was the gracious design of God to save and justify all men, by the "hearing of faith" or the preaching of the same Gospel that He had delivered to faithful Abraham. He promised Abraham that in his Seed Christ, all the families of the earth should be blessed; this was the preaching of the Gospel, the hearing of faith, which Abraham believed, and which God "counted or reckoned to him for righteousness";" and the Apostle adds that those who hold this faith firmly are the spiritual children of faithful Abraham, and like him will be justified by it. Abraham rejoiced to see Christ's day; and he saw it by the eye of faith, and was glad when the Gospel was declared unto him, and that which he saw and believed prospectively, we his children believe has really and truly been accomplished in the life, death, and resurrection of his Seed the Lord Jesus Christ. IT WAS THE Sin of the Jews that they rejected the hearing of faith as the means of reconciliation with God, and trusted in the sign of circumcision for their being accounted righteous. St. Paul however undeceived them by asserting that the faith that gained the imputation of righteousness to Abraham was professed by him before that mark of his acceptance was imposed on him and on his natural posterity. He farther teaches that the imposition of the sign after the profession of his faith in the promised Redeemer, was a proof that the mighty blessing of pardon and reconciliation, was designed to be extended to the uncircumcised Gentiles who should become Abraham's spiritual children. It was not circumcision, but faith in God's promises and obedience to His commands that made Abraham the father and pattern of all true believers. The sign of circumcision was therefore given him to shew him how acceptable his faith was, and how faithfully it will be rewarded, not only to himself but to all his natural and spiritual posterity that should walk in the footsteps of his faith. A JACOBITE RELIC. IN THE YEAR 1745 when Lord Pitsligo put his foot into the stirrup to join the standard of Prince Charles Edward, he was in his sixty-seventh year, and afflicted with an asthma. Notwithstanding his age and his ill health, he served the whole campaign with the Prince's army; and after its defeat at Culloden the next year, he experienced nearly as many perilous adventures and hair-breadth escapes as the royal chief himself had done. He had been out in the previous rising under Lord Marr his uncle; after the affair at Sheriffmuir he went abroad and attached himself for some time to the court of the son of James II. After this second defeat the Government became more vindictive, and a price was set on his head; yet he determined to spin out the remainder of his days among his own tenants on what had been his own estate of Pitsligo, in the northern part of Aberdeenshire. Under this determination he wandered about upon the lands that had once been his own, in the garb of a mendicant, a sort of Edie Ochiltree; and well known to the farmers who protected him. The only mark of recognition which they gave was that the poor beggar ate with the good-man, and they gave him their best bed. He lay concealed for some time in a cave amongst the rocks of that iron bound coast, and the cave is still pointed out as Lord Pitsligo's cave, near the village of Rosehearty. HIS LORDSHIP was sleeping one night amongst the straw in the barn on the farm of Smytheyhill when it was surrounded by a party of Dragoons which had got notice that he was concealed in that farm-house. They inquired at the farmer whether or not any stranger lodged with them that night; and was informed that there was only an old beggar-man in |