Mark! "most holy faith;" for there is no part of this faith that does not savour of holiness. A man must strangely pervert the whole before he can turn it to lasciviousness, wantonness, and a worldly life. The most awful case in the whole world, when it is done, is uniting an evangelical creed with a worldly heart and an ungodly life. Awful is the unnatural commixture. It is turning our "most holy faith" into the gall, and poison, and wormwood of the unrenewed heart, and in this way the love of God goes out in the soul. You may easily see how the means contribute to the end. Here is the temple that is to be built, and here is the scaffolding, and it is only through the medium of such means that you can build himself, not imputing their trespasses | tian is, that he is building up himself on unto them;" tell him that "God so loved his "most holy faith." the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life;" proclaim to him pardon and free gratuitous acceptance and adoption into the family of God by the imputation of the righteousness of Jesus Christ received by faith, and in proportion as that faith in the penitent's mind is strengthened, which commonly takes a considerable period, (every thing lasts best which goes on slowly and surely-fits and starts do little good in any thing, and least of all in religion,) in proportion, I say, therefore, as the penitent becomes a little strengthened, the doctrine of a crucified Saviour, the glory of his person, the infinite love of his death, the salvation by grace through faith in his atoning blood, will be the ap-up yourselves in your "most holy faith." propriate medicine of the broken heart, so will he cherish love to God. The doctrine of the fall and the doctrine of the recovery of man in the redemption of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by the operation of the Holy Ghost, answer to each other as the impression answers to the seal, line by line, and feature by feature. The corresponding parts of revelation, all that regards the fall of man, and then all that regards his recovery, respond to each other line by line, feature by feature, even as the impression answers to the signet by which it is made, and you will easily assume, that upon this foundation the man begins to build well. When this foundation is well laid, and you must dig deep to lay it, superficial convictions, and slight sandy foundations will not do when the storm comes; but the foundation being well laid by the instruction of ministers, the help of the primary teacher the Holy | Ghost, much prayer, the sacraments, and all the means of grace, the man begins to build up himself in love, in meekness, in lowliness of heart, in knowledge, in joy, in peace. Here the building begins to rise, and here he goes on building up himself all his life by this means upon his "most holy faith." While others are building up their houses, raising their mansions, beautifying their outward structures; the character of the sincere Chris-"most holy faith" in Christ Jesus. All attempts to bring men to love God by mere declamation, by philosophic subtleties, by dwelling upon some parts of the divine character, as you read that some of the German writers did by dwelling merely upon the amiableness, the benevolence, and the goodness of the Deity,without any distinct respect to redemption, are futile and ineffectual. Such was the error into which the mystics, Fenelon, for instance, and other contemporaneous writers, in a great measure, fell. They looked to the end, but did not consider the means-the atonement-the redemption-the propitiation of the Son of God, all the great work which he wrought on the cross, and which is the centre of revealed religion, the centre of essential and primary religion. And when men set. themselves to work on this footing of their own power, own duties, own performances, preparing themselves for faith, seeking the love of God,it is worse than the Egyptian bondage, in which the Egyptians compelled the Hebrew captives to make the bricks without straw and necessary means. It is all the mere pageantry and sophism of Satan if the gospel be left out. If this be not made the prominent, the chief means of our ever coming to the love of God, our building up ourselves, there is no building up ourselves on our e then errors and novelties, and those who would turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, and all these things lose their seductive charms. There is no room for them in the heart, because it is full of the love of God, and the man's hands are full of building up himself in his "most holy faith," and he is "praying in the Holy Ghost," and he has more than enough to do. It is those that stand idle in the market-place whom Satan masters, and renders the objects of a dangerous, novel, and corrupt influence in the church; and, therefore, it is in the use of these means that you are preserved. You have the whole structure of religion-you have But this is not the only means. We we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh must not think we can do these things by intercession for us with groanings which faith merely as an act of our own, or with- cannot be uttered," that we pray with the out God's assistance. We must not think heart. Then the love of God grows apace that any system, however correct, can then declines are presently remedied— lead to our keeping ourselves in the love then we keep ourselves in the love of God of God. No; we must remember, that unless we pray much for the Holy Ghost, all is dead in our religion. Not all the grace of Christ-not all the wonders of Bethlehem-not all the unutterable agonies of Gethsemane-not all the mysterious death of the cross can save the soul without the Holy Spirit. "Praying in the Holy Ghost" is as necessary in order to keep the heart in God's love, or to bring it there, or to recover it if it be at all declining, which it frequently, I was going to say almost always is, more or less in our hearts: " Praying in the Holy Ghost" is as essential as building up ourselves in our "most holy faith." For, beloved, remember prayer is the breath all the doctrinal duties-you have all the of the soul-prayer is the link between miserable man and his merciful Creator -prayer is the channel by which all our desires are conveyed, and flow upwards as it were to God, and all his benefits and blessings are conveyed, and flow downwards to us, and therefore it is that we must pray much in the Holy Ghost. Formal prayers will do no good. "This And now, dear brethren, upon this people draw near to me with their lips branch of our subject, are you as cordialand with their mouths." They show me ly agreeing with me, and as deeply conmuch love, but their heart is gone after vinced how dependent we are upon the their covetousness. Dear brethren, we means as you are persuaded of the magnicannot pray with fervour, with simplicity, tude, and loftiness, and pre-eminence of with humility, with perseverance, with that in which the sum and substance of out the Holy Ghost; in fact, such is our religion itself consists? No man ever yet weakness, that we can but just pray aright felt the value of the love of God that did with the Holy Ghost. What are we with- not cling pretty closely to the means by out the Holy Ghost? We are without which it is to be brought into, and kept love without meaning in our prayers- alive in, the heart. And this is the real without humility-without fervour-with- foundation of a consistent ardour in the out importunity-without spirituality. It church-of that devotional habit in our is a carcass dead, and even offensive, own heart which it so pre-eminently tends without the inspiring Spirit that makes to nourish-of the fruitful Christian being life, and gives health and animation, and efficacy to all the parts of our Christian frame. It is when, as the apostle says, "we pray always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit"-it is when "the Spirit helpeth our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray for as means of grace-you have all the sacraments-you have all the various methods which Almighty God has appointed for diffusing the blessings of Christianity, faith and prayer, doctrine and devotion, preaching and adoration-these are the means by which the love of God is preserved in the heart. content with his own minister, his own place, or church, and the means of grace offered to him by the God of Providence, knowing that in this way he is far more likely to prosper than by being like the wandering stars, now here, now there, first under one and then under another in structor; and thus all the sap and life of religion is evaporated, and a dangerous excitement is very often substituted for the real scriptural, sober piety of the gospel. And therefore you should pray, beloved, that the doctrines of faith and of the Holy Ghost in this church, and wherever God's word is preached, may be maintained; for undoubtedly it is essential to the efficacy of all the other means of grace that there should be the preaching of the word, because God has appointed it as the living organ, the life-stirring trump that is to blow up and to convoke the assemblies of the Lord; and because all other means will too frequently sink into the mere opus operatum, a mere formality, if there be not the living minister to quicken-to arouse -to awaken-to stir up the hearts of men -to call the ungodly to the Saviour, whatever he may have to endure in rousing the attention of a careless world, and in reviving, as far as he can, the tone of sober, scriptural, spiritual, evangelical religion. And it is a singular comfort to my own mind to know, that in the years that have passed, there has been a rapid rise throughout our beloved national church | of this genuine spirit of godliness and piety, of evangelical doctrine and faithful administration of the sacraments in and throughout her clergy. I feel, as to my own honoured parish, the most complete satisfaction of mind in the ministers who have been appointed, and who will continue to labour among you. There wants only the mutual prayer, "praying in the Holy Ghost," in order that your doctrine and faith may be kept pure and enlightened, that the love of God may be the great object to which they are directing your endeavours, and an elevated tone of religion the blessed result. But you will say, with such a system of means to be employed, and so great a point as the main object of religion, is there any inspiring and adequate encouragement to cheer us up under the whole ? What is the inspiring hope? What is the comfort?-for we have divers afflictions to meet with in life-our faith has many fiery trials to pass through we have much to endure from a world lying in wickedness, and which has a corres pondence with the traitorous passions in our own hearts. Satan has the advantage in his work, for he knows there is a traitor in the garrison-our remaining corruption. There is an affinity between Satan's temptations, the world's seductions, all kinds of errors, and the remaining disorders and corruptions in our understanding, affection, will, and conscience, and therefore we have all these to battle against. It is not plain sailing; it is not a mere thing that may be learned easily. Brethren, there is no getting to heaven in an easy manner; at least, I never found it out. My Saviour teaches me, that "strait is the gate,” and then when we get in, "narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." As soon as you enter the way, Satan sets out, the spiritual adversary; and he stands across the path, as it were, to resist you, so that it is natural to ask, 18 Thirdly, WHAT ENCOURAGEMENT THERE? WHAT IS THERE TO CHEER THE HEART and to form a COMPENSATING MOTIVE FOR ALL THIS EFFORT? THERE 18 мUCH, AND IT IS NO LESS THAN ETERNAL LIFE, "LOOKING FOR THE MERCY OF OUR LORD JESUS Christ unto ETERNAL LIFE.' The endless fruition of God, the presence of that God which constitutes life in itself, which is eternal life, is our encouragement. The life we now live is a kind of death-like life. It is a doubtful life; it is a flickering flame, as it were, which sometimes seems to almost expire, and then it seems to start up again into brightness. This life is a brief life; it is an uncertain life; it is a mingled life, a great part of it lies in the valley of humiliation and in the shadow of darkness. But that life deserves the name-it is that life which consists in the perfect knowledge, love, and fruition of God-that life which is never to end, never to abate in intensity of enjoyment. Conceive of that idea, never to abate in intensity of enjoyment, but always to go on augmenting and augmenting in larger measures of the vision, knowledge, love, and communion of God. For though I apprehend perfection as to the measure of our capacity will be vouchsafed even immediately after death, and when the resurrection restores these mor tal bodies and kindred spirits, yet I con- | last, give me the prospect of the object ceive, also, there will be a continual pro- accomplished, and then the soul reposes gress in the capacities of enjoyment, an augmentation in all the means and inlets of knowledge, the visions of love, the extacies of joy, increased communion with God throughout eternity. I conceive that Satan, from the moment of his fall, has been augmenting in his satanic capacities, in his deteriorations, alienations, distances, and so on; and I apprehend every saint will be in the opposite state, ever increasing and augmenting in that eternal life upon which he will enter. This eternal life, beloved, is the natural close of the love of God in which we keep curselves upon earth. It is nothing more, in fact, than that love developed; it is nothing more than the sweet and fragrant bud fully brought out to its bloom. We are to eternity what we make ourselves in time, taking the expression "make ourselves" with its proper limit, and remembering always the grace and sovereignty of God. Time is the seed-plot for eternity. The love of God now needs only to have its surrounding impediments removed, and its inward principle deepened, and there is eternal life, the presence of God flowing in upon it; and this blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ unto eternal life, is just the encouragement we want. This world is not to last for ever. These changes and separations are not to be repeated without intermission; it is only for a short time, and then we shall all be swallowed up, "That mortality might be swallowed up of life." "Looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." We must look from the storm when it beats, from the creatures when they disappoint us, which they constantly do; it is meant they should, they are not capable of doing any thing else; and it is only just in set ting lightly by them, and just letting them lightly into the heart, and keeping the heart in the love of God supremely, that we have the real enjoyment of the crea ture. And then it is in this way that we are kept and go on looking for this mercy. Give me relief at last, give me peace at itself and solaces itself in God. That is the principle, I apprehend, upon which God has constituted the human mind. We are capable of great exertion if we have but an adequate prospect. That is the stimulus upon which we are continually acting. All our pursuits, all our schemes, all our mercantile speculations, all our maritime discoveries, all our efforts to advance science, all the nights and days spent by philosophers in the examination of the physical sciences and arts, what is the stimulus to these varied occupations? Every party is animated by the pleasures of discovery and by the hopes of success. How much more when these principles of our nature are sanctified by that which contains all philosophy and all science, and every thing that man has ever devised, and are animated by the brightest prospects beyond the grave! It is in this way we are sustained, "by hope we are saved," by hope we go on. The separations, and griefs, and unmanly and excessive sorrows, which depress the worldly heart, that sees all dark, of course, beyond present enjoyment, are not removed from the Christian, but alleviated, rendered tolerable by the mighty power of those Christian principles, which, when they enter the heart, rule there, are not subject, and subordinate, and petty servants in the heart, but are sovereign there, and rule supreme. But mark, it is "the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ." Mercy, that is what we first pray for-mercy; the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who died upon the cross-that is the blessing we next pray for. The mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave his Holy Spirit to sanctify the church, that is the next blessing we pray for. The mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ in all the subsequent events of life, the trials of life, the sorrows of life, the pressure of declining age, the torrent of trouble that every now and then bursts across our way, overflows all the banks, and inundates as it were the soul-then it is the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ of which we stand in need. And in this frame we come up to heaven's gates. You must H come up to the gates of heaven a contrite | blessing," then that Saviour is as the sinner, or you never can look for the mercy apostle tells us he is, "the great God and of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. our Saviour Jesus Christ;" or as the The very last step taken in this world apostle says in this very epistle, "denymust be that of joy and consolation, occa-ing the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus sionally indeed of lively hope, but of con- Christ;" or as the apostle says in another trition and penitence for sin, or else you place, "Jesus Christ who is God over all cannot come into the condition in which blessed for ever." Dear brethren, the alone you can enter heaven, looking for doctrine of our Lord's divinity with that "the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto of the personality and Deity of the Holy eternal life." Let those look to merits Ghost, (who is described in Scripture who can find any on which to rest; let as coming, as guiding, as sending, as those look to their own works who think being grieved, as consoling, which are as they have enough to build upon; let those much personal acts as any of our Relook to their own sufferings and sorrows deemer's acts were personal,) is as clearly who have got any to show; but let us, revealed as is the existence of God. And knowing our unworthiness, and the mise- then, in the text, we are commanded to rable character of all our best services, "pray in the Holy Ghost;" and he that let us look to the "mercy of our Lord prays in the Holy Ghost, acknowledges Jesus Christ unto eternal life." The by his language the divinity of the Holy mercy, the act of mercy-probably the Ghost. Then you have in the doctrine apostle may refer to that act of mercy of this day's solemnity the blessed and which is the last we shall want, when at adorable Trinity-the Three-One, the the bar of Christ, standing with an assem- Trinity of the Godhead in the mystery of bled world, nothing but the mercy of our the divine glory, which I know not how Lord Jesus Christ can adjudge us eternal to explain, and which I would not atlife. It is therefore, I apprehend, to the tempt to explain, and which the Bible merciful sentence, the last act, the great does not require me to explain, because conclusion of the whole scene of our duty, it tells me, "great is the mystery of godto which we are here looking, "looking liness, God manifest in the flesh." But for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ all the objections I ever had the misforunto eternal life." tune to hear against the doctrine of the Trinity were mis-statements of facts, mis denial of the common language and obvious meaning of the Holy Ghost; and by these artifices I could prove any thing, set aside any act of parliament, change any one of the ten commandments, and make the whole Bible out a nullity. The common-sense interpretation of the Bible is involved in the faith which believes that God speaks to man in the language of man, that by man it may be received. I pause here to direct your attention to the divinity of Christ implied in this lan-apprehensions of arguments, and a plain guage. What am I to do? To look for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Then is he no better than myself? Is he only a man? To entertain such sentiments is blasphemy; but I trust it is only in the most intense ignorance that they have been formed. No, brethren; if I am to look to him in all my struggles and emergencies, if I am to say with Stephen in the article of death, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;" if with St. Paul I am to pray to my Redeemer that the thorn may be taken out of my flesh-(thrice did the apostle pray that it might be taken from him, and he gloried in his infirmities that the power of Christ might rest upon him) -if in heaven I am to sing that blessed song, "worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches, and wisdom and strength, and honour and glory, and But to return. It is in this temper that we are to "look for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life;" and it is in this way that we have abundant encouragement to inspire our languid hearts, and such is the elevated tone of religion to which, with the apostle, I would venture to exhort you. Such is our privilege, such the sum and substance of our duty, to walk in the love of God, to keep in |