the fulness of thy redeeming merit, gifts and graces, if I be but willing to receive them without money and without price! And am I not willing, yea, intensely desirous to receive them thus! Searcher of hearts, see if I deceive not myself-see all the powers of my soul bowing in humble and adoring thankfulness, to accept thy offer. I receive it, just as thou dost proffer it. I receive thee, O my gracious condescending Redeemer! in all thy precious offices, as my prophet, priest, and king. I receive thy atoning sacrifice as the full expiation of all my crimson and scarlet sins. I receive thy finished righteousness to be upon me, as my justifying righteousness, to satisfy all the demands of thy law, and to ensure me an acquittal as guiltless, before the bar of God. I receive it as my title to eternal life. I receive thy Spirit to lead me into all truth, and to sanctify me in all my powers. I receive thee as my holy, and rightful Sovereign, to give me thy laws as the rule of my duty in all things; to reign in my soul, to conquer its corruptions, and subdue it wholly to thyself; to protect me from all my spiritual enemies; to order my whole lot in life; to make thy grace sufficient for me at all times; to sustain me in the trying hour of death; to own me as thine in judgment, at the great day; and to make me a partaker, with all thy redeemed people, of the eternal and ineffable bliss of heaven. O astonishing, overwhelming grace! O condescension and love unutterable! that such blessings should be conferred

acts of saving faith, in which the believing sinner receives Christ his Saviour. I thought, too, that the subject would be best illustrated by a short description of the exercises themselves. Such exercises, or rather, such as my description does not reach, and indeed no language can adequately express, many a believer has known, on his first coming, in a saving manner, to Christ Jesus; and often afterward, in his spiritual intercourse with his Saviour. Yet you are to observe and carefully remember, that these high exercises, however desirable, are not essential to the actings of saving faith. They have, I doubt not, been but little known by some of the most sincere, deeply sanctified, and exemplary Christians. Religious sensibilities, of all kinds, depend, not a little, on constitutional make, habits of thought, and methods of education, as well as on the sovereign and special communications of divine grace-God adapts the dispensations of his Spirit, in a measure, to our natural temperament, and the allotments of his providence, awarded by himself, to each of his own people. What is essential to these actings of saving faith is, a complete rejection of all our own righteousnesses as filthy rags; an entire willingness to make the Saviour the all and all of our souls, in the matter of our salvation; a wellpleasedness-an unspeakable preference to be saved by the imputation of Christ's righteousness, rather than in any other way; and an actual, hearty, fiducial reliance on his finished work, as the entire ground of our acceptance with God-accompanied with strong desires for the sanctification of the soul, deliverance from all sin, and conformity of heart and life to the whole law of God.

In our Shorter Catechism there is scarcely a redundant word; and therefore it is reasonable to believe that its framers did not consider

the terms, receiving and resting on Christ, as entirely synonymous. They have, indeed, a closely related, yet a somewhat different meaning. Those who truly receive Christ Jesus, always, in some measure, rest upon him; yet resting upon him implies not only a continuance of the acts by which he is received, but a firmness and stability of faith, and a perseverance in its exercise, which is something additional to what takes place at first. "As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord," says the Apostle Paul, "so walk ye in him; rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving." The excellent commentary of Scott on these words is as follows: "As they [the Colossians] had by faith received Christ Jesus to be their Saviour, according to the several offices which he sustained for the benefit of his church, let them continue in habitual dependance on him, and obedience to him; let them seek all their wisdom, strength, hope, holiness, and comfort from him, and aim in all things to serve and glorify him. Thus being rooted in him, as trees in a fruitful soil, and builded upon him as a house upon a firm foundation; and being established by living faith in him, according to the doctrine which they had been taught; they would abound more and more in faith, and proceed in their course with fervent thanksgiving to God for all his benefits." When believers obtain their first release from the bondage of sin and fear, by those lively views and actings of faith which you have heard described, they are ready to think that their difficulties and conflicts are terminated forever that their mountain now stands strong, and that they shall never be moved. Yet rarely indeed, if ever, are those high expectations realized. The vivid views of faith

fade away. Darkness and doubt succeed; and perhaps the genuineness of all that has been experienced is questioned; till a fresh gracious visitation, a renewed lively exercise of faith, restores confidence, and hope, and peace. In such fluctuations of elevation and depression, too many real Christians pass a great part, and some perhaps, the whole of their lives. They live, as it has been well said, entirely on their frames and feelings. This ought not to be so. Such believers can hardly be said to rest on Christ alone. They rest, so far as they have rest, too much at least, on the present state of their own minds. It is equally, my dear youth, the duty and the privilege of a child of God, to aim at knowing that he is oneknowing it on good evidence, and such as cannot be easily taken from him, or be greatly obscured. This is to be done by searching the scriptures to ascertain the reality of his gracious state, and by much prayer for the illumination and guidance of the Spirit of grace and truth; and thus getting to see satisfactorily that he is really interested in the covenant of grace, and made one with Christ. Then, rest on him alone will take place. Frames and feelings may vary greatly, as they almost invariably do, but the soul that is thus brought to rest on the rock Christ Jesus, may see the waves and billows of distress or temptation breaking around him, and at times seeming to go over him, and yet, though perhaps somewhat shaken and partially alarmed, he will not be moved away from his steadfastness. His anchor is cast within the veil, and he will ride out every storm, without shipwreck, and with but little loss. But, my beloved youth, this happy state of Christian steadfastness of a good hope through grace-of an abiding sense of the spirit of adoptionis not to be reached without much

inquiry, much self-examination, real industry in the divine life, true and frequent communion with God, a tender and conscientious Christian walk, and a diligent use of all the appointed means of grace. Need I ask, is not the attainment of such a state, worth all the pains that can be taken to secure it? Yes, unquestionably; and if it were made a distinct object of the Christian's aim, and the proper means to reach it were faithfully employed,' it would be realized a thousand times, where it is now seen in a single instance.

The question is frequently asked is assurance of the essence of faith? to which I must return a brief answer, before leaving this part of the subject.

The scriptures certainly make a clear distinction between a weak and a strong faith; and hence Pictêt has well remarked, that assurance is rather the perfection of faith than its essence. He asks, how does any one become assured of the forgiveness of his sins, or of his gracious state? It is, he answers, only by finding, on a careful examination, that he has a genuine justifying faith. Then, certainly, he remarks, the faith which existed before this examination took place, was a genuine faith, and yet not accompanied by assurance. The truth undoubtedly is, that there are many humble and diffident, but sincere believers, who seem never to have any thing that can be called the assurance of faith, or hope, and this simply and solely because they do not, or cannot, make a right estimate of their own mental acts or exercises. They have not a doubt of the all-sufficiency of Christ, not a doubt of the sincerity and freeness of his offers, and not a doubt that whosoever truly receives and rests on Christ, will assuredly be saved. All that they doubt is, whether they have, for themselves, truly received and rested upon him. They

have done it in fact, and perhaps repeated it a thousand times; but they have doubts and fears in regard to this fact, from which they hardly ever get free. It is also unquestionably true, that many real Christians have seasons in which they have such clear views of the glorious plan of redemption, and such a freedom to trust themselves unreservedly into the hands of Christ, that while those seasons last, all their doubts and fears vanish-they can say, for the present, that "they know in whom they have believed, and are persuaded that he is able to keep that which they have committed to him." And yet, at other times, these very persons shall be almost ready to condemn themselves as entirely graceless. Nothing but those reflex acts heretofore described, and getting to understand and rely on the unchanging nature of the covenant of grace, can prove a remedy to these alternations of faith and unbelief, of hope and despondency. It must also be remarked, that those who have once, and perhaps long, possessed a good hope through grace, may lose it for a season, through remissness in duty, the prevalence of corruption, falling into some gross sin, the violence of Satanic injections, the occurrence of bodily melancholy, or the withholding of those divine communications which were once experienced-for some reason not perceptible at the time, if ever understood in the present life. Watchfulness, prayer, a sense of our dependance on God, and great care not to grieve the Holy Spirit, are the important duties taught and enforced, by the possibility of losing that blessed confidence toward God, which is indeed the light of lifea possession for which there can be no equivalent, no possible compensation.

4. I am to mention, and it must be very briefly, some of the consequences, fruits, or effects, of saving

faith. The first of these is-the destruction which faith effects of all self-righteousness, and the giving of the entire glory of our salvation to the rich and free grace of God. There is scarcely a point which the great apostle of the gentiles labours more, or on which he dwells more at large, than that our salvation is all of grace through faith; that all ground of boasting, and all works, and all personal righteousness of every kind, are excluded utterly in the work of justification, which he attributes solely to the grace of faith. The conclusion which he draws from his long argument on this subject, in his epistle to the Romans, and on which he afterwards dilates most impressively, is in these words [Rom. v. 1.]: "Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Now, as faith itself is a work-a mental exercise in the mind of the believer-it may be, and has been objected, that here is a work which is concerned in our justification. Concerned we admit that it is; but only instrumentally, we affirm; and that it will be absolutely impossible to reconcile the apostle with himself, if we allow to faith itself, even the smallest degree of meritorious desert in the matter of justification. I have elsewhere had occasion to remark, that faith in its best acts is, like every other grace, imperfect; and therefore that the very act of faith by which a believer is justified, needs pardon for its imperfection, instead of being entitled to a reward for its exercise. The simple truth is, that by an act of faith, which, although imperfect, finds acceptance through the merits of that Saviour to whom it looks, he is received or appropriated as a free and glorious gift of God's transcendant grace; every duty, as well as every sin, is renounced as having any claim to the honour of deserving this migh

ty boon; the crown is placed solely on the Saviour's head, and the believing sinner lies at his feet, to be sprinkled from all uncleanness by his atoning blood, to be clothed with the spotless robe of his righteousness, to be sanctified by his Holy Spirit, and thus, through his unmingled and superabounding grace, to be made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light.

2. It will ever be found, as one of the precious fruits or effects of a true justifying faith, that it both comforts and invigorates the believing soul. That complete renunciation of all self-righteousness which has just been stated, and which is taught in all that you have heard on this subject, never leaves the believer in an abject and forlorn situation. The renunciation which he makes is never constrained, or mingled with reluctance. It is made most willingly, and from a full perception and deep conviction, that it is demanded by reason and equity, as well as by the divine requisition: and now, having taken his proper place-having become emptied of himself-he is prepared to receive from the fulness of Christ, grace for graceto be filled with all joy and peace in believing. In place of the filthy rags of his own righteousness, he now perceives and O how he wonders while he perceives!—that he is arrayed in the righteousness of his redeeming God. Instead of that proud self-gratulation, which used to be excited by some fancied merit of his own, he is now made to rejoice "with a joy that is exceeding great and full of glory," by the views which he is enabled by the good Spirit of the Lord, to take of his interest in the infinite merits of his blessed Saviour; and in feeling the love of God shed abroad in his heart, producing consolations unutterable, and sometimes affording a prelibation of the felicity of heaven. My dear young friends, I am not delivering to you

the fictions of fancy, or truths merely speculative. No, verily; they are truths both solid and practical. Every exercised Christian will cheerfully testify, that the highest happiness he ever knows on earth, is when he is most emptied of himself, and drinks most freely and largely from the fountain of his Redeemer's plenitude. He will tell you, too, with the apostle Paul, that "when he is weak, then is he strong." That he never attempts duty with so much alacrity, nor performs it with so much vigour and so much effect, as when feeling most his own insufficiency, he goes to its discharge, leaning most sensibly on his Saviour-trusting in his strength for the performance, and looking to his power to crown his efforts with success.

3. One of the consequences of a true justifying faith, will always be seen in its tendency to increase every other Christian grace, and to render the believer fruitful in holiness, and in all good works. Faith may be called the foundation grace. It is alone in the work of justification; but it is never alone in the soul where it exists, but is always associated with genuine repentance, a lively hope, a fervent love, and a deep humility; and its natural tendency to increase all these graces is obvious. Never is repentance so evangelical and so tender, as when. faith takes her clearest look at the desert of sin in the cross of Christ, and sees its enormity and its pardon in a single view; never can hope be so lively and cheering as when faith lays her firmest hold on the Saviour's unfailing covenant; never can love to God, and love to man be so pure and active, as when faith brings into view all the loveliness of Jehovah's attributes, and especially the love of God in the gift of his son to a

guilty and perishing world; and when the Saviour's dying love, prayer for his enemies with his expiring breath, and his command to love the brethren, to forgive as we hope to be forgiven, and to do good to all men as opportunity offers, are, by faith, brought home to the believer's heart; and never is humility so perfect, so unaffected, and so amiable, as when in the bright visions of faith the Christian sees the condescension of his Redeemer, drinks most largely into his spirit, and desires most earnestly to walk in his footsteps.

"Show me thy faith by thy works," said the apostle James. Genuine faith will always abide this test; nay, just in proportion as faith is pure and vigorous, will the believer be ready to every good word and work. I have no time at present to illustrate this by argument; but facts are better than arguments. In whom, I ask, have been seen, the best and brightest, and most lovely examples, of all social and relative duties? In none, I affirm without hesitation or reserve-in none have they ever been observed to cluster more conspicuously, or to shine more benignantly, than in the decided advocates and practical exhibitors of this very doctrine of justification solely by faith, through the righteousness of Christ. To the names of Howard and Thornton, I could add very many, both of the living and the dead; but observe them for yourselves, my dear youth, both in your reading and in your intercourse with the world; and may the Spirit of all grace add you to the number of those who, through the influence of the faith which you have heard described, shall adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. Amen.