manifestations of God's Love in his dealings with his creatures! Hence he will rather exclaim with the Psalmist (cxxx. 4), For there is mercy with Thee; therefore shalt Thou be feared: more especially so, on bethinking himself what deceitful notions men are sure to form of God's Love, when they measure it by their own deceitful standard, stripping it both of its Holiness and of its Justice, without which it could have no substantial reality, and degrading it into little better than infinite goodnature and imperturbable indifference, which they may insult and mock at as long as they please. They who look in the first instance at what they call God's Love, will take the second commandment without the first, which alone can sustain and give life to it for God, they say, on his omnipotent throne cannot possibly need the love of his creatures; and they know not how it elevates and hallows the heart, to have a Being of infinite perfection to devote it to. They will take the Morality of the Gospel, without its Righteousness, and without the principle of that Righteousness; apart from which principle Morality can no more preserve an equable path, than a planet could revolve in its orbit without the centripetal attraction. For in nothing else is the wisdom of the Gospel, and its thorough knowledge of that which is in the heart of man, of his readiness to fall into every snare, and to be beguiled by every delusion, more apparent than in this, that, in singling out the primary power through the exercise of which mankind were to become partakers of the glory ordained for them, it did not, like the Law, enjoin Holiness and Purity, or any moral observance, as the ground of justification: nor did it choose out Love as that ground; precious and inestimable as it declares Love to be, and exquisite as are the colours with

which it portrays Love's surpassing excellence and beauty. The Gospel did not make Holiness the ground of justification: it did not make Love the ground of justification: but it shewed its wisdom, and its knowledge of man's weakness and of his wants, in this more especially, that it made Faith the ground of justification.

Hereby alone was it possible to ensure the building up of the Christian life to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. It is only when that life is firmly rooted and grounded in Faith (A), that the straight stem of Righteousness will rise up, and branch out into the manifold ramifications of Duty, and that it will be crowned with the brightness and the sweetness of the amaranthine blossoms of Love. When moral rectitude is disjoined from Faith, there is no trust in it. It may stiffen into pharisaical formality, or ossify into stoical severity; or it may be withered by the blight and cankerworm of expediency; or it may tumble into the stye of Epicureanism, and rot there. When Love is disjoined from Faith, there is no trust in it. Caprice may throw it to the winds; chance may nip it in the bud; pride may blast it; vanity may eat away its core; prosperity may parch it; distress may freeze it; lust may taint and poison it: the slights and neglect, which it must needs experience at times in a world of frailty and mutability, will assuredly sour and embitter it. Indeed according to the true Christian idea of Love and of Righteousness, neither the one nor the other can exist at all, except as springing out of Faith. Whereas, when Faith is genuine and strong, in proportion to its genuineness and strength will it infallibly produce both Righteousness and Love; a Righteousness and Love, which, having a living seed within them, will be abiding. Hence, as it was reserved

for the Apostle of Faith to set forth for all ages that glorious picture of Love, which he himself so nobly realized in his life, on the other hand the Apostle of Love, after inculcating the duties of Obedience and Love through the main part of his Epistle, and shewing how they mutually support and twine round one another, proceeds, in the passage which I have chosen for my text, to declare what alone will enable them to stand, what alone will enable them to withstand and overcome the multitudinous temptations and harassing opposition which they must needs have to encounter in this world, even our Faith.

Such being the importance of Faith, it becomes a question of momentous interest, What is this Faith, of which such wonderful things are declared in the Holy Scriptures? What is it as a principle or power in human nature? and what relation does it bear to man's other gifts and faculties? With regard to those two great concentric spheres of human nature, the sphere of our affections, and that of our duties, or practical life, we have seen that, excellent and pure and heavenly as are the principles of the new life brought down by Christ, there was something answering and to a certain degree analogous to them already existing among mankind, in those fragmentary relics of the divine image, which had not been utterly effaced; somewhat in the same manner as in every flower, when it opens its petals, there is a likeness, lying partly in its shape, partly in the brightness of its colouring, which bespeaks its affinity to the sun, as well as its need of the sun to enliven and enlighten it. When the Law summed itself up in the twofold commandment of Love, and when the Gospel uttered its new commandment of a still diviner Love, of a Love after the pattern of that Saviour, who came down from his throne of

glory, and gave himself up to the weaknesses and infirmities of humanity, to a life of suffering and a death of shame, for the sake of mankind,—although it had never entered into the heart of man to conceive a Love like this,-yet men had a certain notion what was meant by Love. There was a feeling in their hearts, which, though its wings had been miserably clipt by selfishness, and though its lifeblood had been poisoned by sensuality, was known to be of wondrous power, and to be the chief bestower of such happiness as man is capable of. Indeed under the form of Friendship, under which it is free from the taint of sensuality, it attained to such highths of heroic selfdevotion as have hardly been surpast: and the pictures of filial and fraternal Love, which the poets of old portrayed, still stand among the most beautiful of the exemplars that the Imagination has set up in its gallery of glorified humanity. So again the idea of Law had risen long before above the intellectual horizon. It had been impersonated in sage legislators: it had been embodied in wise and lasting and time-hallowed institutions: it had been declared to have a royal and heavenly nature, not springing from the perishable breath of man, not liable to decay or oblivion. Many of the moral virtues had been openly recognized as the noblest and most ennobling aims of human endeavour: Justice, Temperance, Fortitude were objects of admiration, almost of worship: and they had been realized in men whose names are still proverbial, and who gave proof that the being, made a little lower than the angels, and crowned with glory and worship, was still capable, even in his selfincurred degradation, of displaying features betokening his high original, and of shewing that he was designed to be the first and goodliest among the works of the Creator. A

certain dim idea of Duty the ancients had; though neither its grounds, nor its object were distinctly perceived. Even the idea of Sanctity had gleamed upon them, as of a thing admirable and desirable. The main deficiency of their ethics was, that they wanted the idea of Sin, the consciousness of their own inherent sinfulness and infirmity. Hence the moral virtues were regarded by them as so many gems in the crown of human nature, as the constituents of its dignity and majesty, to be wrested from the world by fighting against it; instead of being sought humbly by prayer as graces and gifts from above, to be nurtured in the solitude of our hearts, and guarded with unceasing watchfulness against the enemy within. They wanted the idea of Humility: they wanted the idea of Godliness: or at least they had debased it to bodily and intellectual, instead of moral and spiritual excellence. Thus their Love was imperfect, because it wanted the Love of God: their moral speculations were imperfect, because they wanted the notion of their duty to God, and of their relations to him. In a word, each wanted the groundwork and the consummating principle of Faith. In every part of the peopled earth, some sort of aspirations rose from the heart of humanity heavenward. In one country they might be rude and rugged and insulated, starting up from the midst of a dreary waste, like the pillars of Stonehenge. In another country they might be carved and polisht, and connected by figured friezes, and ranged in beautiful symmetry, and surrounded by a luxuriant cultivation, like the temples of the Greeks. But everywhere they were empty and roofless: no covering from on high had descended upon them: no headstone had placed itself at top of them, to turn them into a church.