-where much is new, mysterious, sublime, incomprehensible, we cannot act too warily.

The extent, then, to which faith must be carried, is such as to embrace all the parts of the Bible; to give to each its relative importance; to stop, with minute and watchful conscientiousness, where the Revelation stops; and to express ourselves as much as possible in the very words of the divinely-inspired volume.

1. We must extend our faith to EVERY PART OF THE REVELATION made to us by Almighty God, not excepting any, but considering the whole entire book as one complete communication made by God to man, for the most important purposes. We are to explore the Scriptures as a mine of precious ore, where the vein runs in every direction, and where a new source of riches opens continually on every side, and when we least expect it.

We are not merely to believe, with a general faith, in all that the Scripture reveals, without entering into detail, or understanding the particular truths of which it consists; but we are to pursue out the subject, and go into all its ramifications, and believe explicitly in each part of the matter of Revelation.

The Scriptures relate facts which God has confirmed; they contain doctrines which God has immediately inspired; they hold forth promises and assurances concerning the future, which God has engaged to accomplish; they lay down rules of conduct, which God has prescribed; they make discoveries of mysteries in the divine nature, and will, and purposes, and operations, which God has been pleased to attest. They contain sanctions and threatenings, which God has seen fit to pronounce.

These various elements of truth, are partly involved in the history of the patriarchal age, in the lives of saints and prophets, in the rise and progress of the Jewish nation, and in the series of the history of the kings of Israel and Judah; and they are partly found in the divine poems and psalms, indited by inspired men. Many truths, again, are conveyed in the types and ceremonies of the law; and others in the discourses of the prophets. Then, the gospels con

tain large portions of truth; and the acts of the apostles, and the epistles, yet larger, being the final developement of the Revelation. Now faith marches through the whole land, and sees what are the truths communicated in each part of the Revelation.

Faith regards the perfections of God, his righteousness, his law, his government, his decrees; the creation of the world, the entrance of sin and misery, the fall of man, the evil and desert of sin, the deceitfulness and wickedness of the human heart, the immortality of the soul, an eternal state of happiness and misery.

Faith especially regards the testimony of God concerning his Son. It respects the exceeding great and precious promises made in him; and the blessings of pardon, justification, adoption into God's family, the grace of the Holy Spirit, and the hope of everlasting life, which are bestowed as the purchase of his death.

Faith becomes also the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen; it penetrates the invisible world, lays heaven and hell open to our view, contemplates the hosts of good and evil spirits, with which we are surrounded, and looks forward to eternity and the day of judgment, as just at hand. These are merely some capital points; but faith receives every subordinate one also, and omits nothing that God has thought fit to communicate.

2. But not only so: this principle of faith gives to every part of Revelation THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE which it finds assigned to it. There is an analogy, a harmony, a proportion, in the divine truths. They compose a whole; they are united with each other; they spring one from another, as we have frequently observed; they are revealed for certain purposes, with certain limitations, and in connexion with certain preceding and following truths. Faith regards not only the doctrine, but the manner in which it is communicated, the frequency of its occurrence, the use to which it is applied, the proportion in which its several parts stand to each other.

(m) Heb. xi. 1.

The more we examine Scripture, the more we find that its instructions are not all of equal importance to us, though none are unimportant; and we must determine, from Scripture itself, what is important, and what less so. Some truths are more obvious, more elementary than others. Some are primary, if you regard them as in God; but secondary and matters of inference, if you regard them as affecting man. Some are suited to one age of life and one degree of progress, and some to another. Therefore all is to be reverenced, followed, obeyed, in proportion as it is more or less applicable to our own circumstances and duties.

The moment we gather any principle from Revelation, and find it recurring through the Scriptures-for example the infinite evil of sin-we are to admit it as a principle in all our other studies of the divine book.

The moment we find any fact declared to be of a commanding nature, and to influence all the Revelation-for instance, the incarnation of the Son of God-we are to give it its position in all our conceptions of truth.

The moment we find any doctrine explicitly declared in the last and concluding part of the Revelation, the apostolic epistles, to be the leading doctrine of the whole gospel-for example, the cross and sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and the justification which is by faith in his obedience unto death-we are to give it the like prominence, and let all other truths be ranged around it, and illustrate it.

The moment we find any state of mind and temper to be characteristic of the evangelical dispensation-charity, for instance-we are to give it that prominent station.

Thus faith rightly divides the word of truth;" places every thing in its place; not only follows Revelation in the detail, but in the disposition and relative importance of its con

tents.

3. But, more than this, faith STOPS, WITH MINUTE AND WATCHFUL CONSCIENTIOUSNESS, WHERE THE REVELATION STOPS. Though it may think other truths follow from those revealed, yet it attributes not the same authority to those deductions, which it assigns to the revealed doctrines them

(n) 2 Tim. ii. 15.

selves. The Christian must draw inferences; he must bring out conclusions from premises, where the premises are strong and clear; but if the premises are in the Bible, and the inference not, he considers the one of divine, the other of human, authority. He treads with such awe on the unknown land, that he dares not venture beyond what God has explicitly revealed. He knows not what may be involved in a single step beyond the record.

Every thing is relative in the world, and in the holy Scriptures, corresponding with our faculties, and answering the divine purposes in the government of man. Certain impressions are made upon us, according to our faculties; not with reference to the essences and qualities of things, but to what they are with respect to us, and the impression they make upon us. All objects strike our organs of sense, and speak to us in that language; which is the only one we can understand. God is pleased to address us in the same manner. If men were constructed differently, objects would make a different impression on us. Quicquid recipitur, recipitur modo recipientis. We have no right to demand information as to the essences of things, which God conceals. God represents himself to us according to the relations in human life, with which we are acquainted, as Judge, Rewarder, Guide, Father, Deliverer, Benefactor. The truths in Scripture, therefore, are to be minutely and exactly followed, as they are there revealed, without superaddition or subtraction. The divinity of Christ, the atonement of his death, the person and grace of the Holy Spirit, faith receives as truths contained in the Scriptures, though we cannot comprehend them. But what do we comprehend? The being and attributes of God? Infinity? Faith, therefore, keeps closely to the limits of the divine manifestation.

This point is of the last moment. Much concerning the fall of man, the decrees and purposes of God, the operations of grace, are of a nature to demand constant caution, lest human reasoning should attribute to its own inferences, the authority which belongs only to the divinely inspired premises. The inferences may be right or wrong. They

are not in the record; and faith, therefore, insists not on them as divine.

The progress of true faith in the present day very much appears, in its following more simply the several parts of the divine word, without attempting to deduce inferences, or frame systems from them. In religion, as in natural philosophy, men must be students and inquirers. Formerly they made hypotheses about the laws of nature; they thought they understood the essences of things. At length they acknowledge they know nothing beyond the phenomena.

Now, in Christianity, the declarations of the Bible are our phenomena, our first principles. As faith is more simple, it acknowledges it knows as little of God and his will and counsels, abstractedly and hypothetically and universally, as we profess is the case with regard to his works. Faith confines herself to the record, and stops where that stops.

Still, as in philosophy, axioms are framed, laws of philosophising laid down, principles adopted, facts accumulated, generalized, and established as maxims of natural science; so in the Bible faith has found her axioms, her laws, her principles, her facts.

But, as in natural philosophy, these are always referable to first principles, and every thing is tried and examined by them; so is it in religion. The Bible is still our standard; and every thing there found is a part of those first principles to which all subsequent advances must be referred.

And as there are discoveries made in the natural world, by cautious observation and simple obedience to fact and experiment; so, in the Bible, faith, by the same means, makes continual discoveries; not, indeed, in the great features of truth-for these rest upon a few facts, expounded by a few main doctrines-but in the detail, the application, the effects, and use of truth.

4. And this leads the Christian to FOLLOW, AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, THE LANGUAGE, as well as the sentiments of the holy Scriptures. The disposition to acquiesce in God's Revelation is so entire, and the fear of overstepping the limits of the record is so wakeful, that the true Christian naturally and almost necessarily adopts the expressions,