It would seem to follow, then, from what has been said, that the faith, which we especially need, is a personal or appropriating faith; a faith which will disintegrate us from the mass, and will enable us to take Christ home in all his offices to our own business and our own bosoms. We must be enabled to say, if we would realize the astonishing cleansing and healing efficacy there is in the gospel, of God that he is My God, of the Saviour that he is My Saviour. We must be enabled to lay hold of the blessed promisses, and exclaim, these are the gift of My Father, these are the purchase of My Savior, these are meant for ME.

It was thus, that patriarchs, prophets and apostles believed. This was the faith of those consecrated ones, of whom the world was not worthy, recorded in the eleventh chapter of Hebrews. Hear the language of the Psalmist, as an illustration of what is to be found frequently in the Scriptures. How precise, how personal, how remote from unmeaning generalities. "I will love thee, O Lord, MY strength. The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and мy deliverer; My God, MY strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler and the horn of My salvation, and My high tower." And it is worthy of notice, that the first word of the Lord's prayer has this appropriating character. "OUR Father, who art in heaven."

It is here, in connection with this form of faith, that we find the great and effective instrument of progress and of victory in the Interior Life. If

we possess an appropriating faith, and if our faith be operative and strong as it should be, we shall not only gain the victory over the various temptations which beset us in the present life, but shall find ourselves rapidly forming a new and wonderful acquaintance with God. In the present life a strong and operative appropriating faith is the key which unlocks the mysteries of the divine nature, and admits the soul to a present and intuitive acquaintance with its exceeding heights and depths of purity and love. No man, who has not this faith or has it not in a high degree, can be said to live in true union with the divine mind, with God and in God. Hence we consider it important to say distinctly, in endeavoring to sketch some of the traits and principles of the interior or hidden life, that those persons will have no true and experimental knowledge of the things which we affirm, who merely believe generically and not specifically; in other words, who believe for others rather than themselves; who, in the exercise of a sort of discursive faith which embraces the mass of mankind, cannot be said to possess it individually and personally, and for their own soul's good. Let us, then, begin to learn the great lesson of faith ; of faith in its general nature; of faith in its various modifications; and particularly the indispensable lesson of appropriating faith. Well has Martin Luther somewhere remarked, that the marrow of the gospel is to be found in the pronouns MEUM and NOSTRUM, MY and OUR.

Faith is better to us, far better, than mere intel

lectual illumination; better than any strength of joyous emotion; better than any thing and every thing else, except holy love, of which it is the true parent. The fallen angels, in their primitive state of holiness, had illuminations, great discoveries of God and of heavenly things, and great raptures. But when their faith failed, when they ceased to have perfect confidence in God, they fell never to rise again. Our first parents fell in the same way; because they ceased to have confidence in God; because they ceased to believe him to be what he professed to be, and that he would do what he declared he would do. Their previous glorious experiences, their illuminations and joys, availed nothing, as soon as unbelief entered. Unbelief in them, and unbelief in their descendants, has ever been the great, the destructive sin. And faith on the other hand, an implicit confidence in God, a perfect self-abandonment into his hands, ever has been, and from the nature of the case ever must be, the fountain of all other internal good, the life of all other life in the soul.

And it may be remarked here in addition to what has been said, that God, in his infinite mercy, knowing the ruinous effects of unbelief, seems determined to try and to strengthen the belief of his people during their present state of probation. His word declares, that they must walk by faith in the present life. All his various Providences point in the same direction. He, who attempts to walk in any other way, will find himself inconsistent, changeable, subject to unsuitable elevations and de

pressions; and in many respects falling short of what a Christian ought to be. Not that faith is the only Christian principle, or the only Christian grace. By no means. But it is the fundamental principle; the prerequisite and preparatory element; especially of that Love, which purifies the heart, and is the "FULFILLING OF THE LAW." And to which, therefore, as another great and indispensable Christian trait, which, though second in the order of nature, is generally considered more eminently and peculiarly characteristic of the true inward life than any other, we proceed to give a renewed attention.

CHAPTER SIXTH.

Of disinterested or pure Love in distinction
from interested Love.

Ir will be recollected, that it was attempted to be shown in one of the preceding chapters, that evangelical holiness is to be regarded as the same thing with perfect love. The great commandment is: "Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." He who begins to love may be said to begin to be holy; but it is he, and he only, in whom the principle of love has subdued that of selfishness, and who loves with his whole heart, in whom holiness can be said to be complete or entire. Faith undoubtedly, whether we consider the subject scripturally or psychologically, is the foundation of love. The views, which have been presented in the two last chapters, abundantly show, that faith is a principle, antecedent to love in time, and absolutely indispensable. But it is love, nevertheless, to which God has assigned the high honor of declaring it to be "the fulfilling of the law." So that the great question, that in comparison with which every other is of small importance, whether we are wholly