compassion on whom he will have compassion." This pure volition we call sovereignty. Unlike justice it may, or it may not, be exercised. It can only be exercised when to proceed is not more nor less just. It is a negative term. We intend not by it that there is no reason for the preference, but that we do not know it, and that it cannot consist of any moral recommendation in ourselves. See here judgment and mercy, goodness and severity! He might have saved fallen angels, and passed by fallen man. All might have been reversed. He has made "known to us the mystery of his will." The earlier, and less warned, transgressors perish! Though diminished condescension would have sufficed to save them, while the greatest is required for our deliverance, it is not exercised! Though the creatures of heaven, needing no change of nature for restoration to it, another species physically as well as morally unfitted for it is elected, and shall take their place! They who were nearer God, they whose right hand was skilled to strike the harp, they whose brow was native to the crown, are swept away,-and the hand of man is trained, though it must be slowly, to its strings, and the brow of man is encircled, though it must be laboriously, with its splendours! There is a contrast terribly sublime in the records which we possess of this divergent course: "God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell"! "He spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all"! "We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the Atonement"! "The devils tremble"! 4. Personal sin finds ready excuse. We palliate it with a kind of unconsciousness. It is intermixed with our entire being. Nothing sets itself against it. Subterfuge need not be sought. The whole life is an evasion of the charge. But when we see the same in others, it is very differently adjudged. No selflove now gives it advocacy. It is immediately condemned. And God, who has said of sin, "Do not this abominable thing which I hate," thus causes to stand out before us a fearful example. Blind to our sinfulness, familiarised to the corruption that is in the world, we shall be instructed by a remoter spectacle. Think of these spirits! Once they were dwellers in heaven. They gathered its amaranth. They chanted its song. They stood around the throne. They were rapt in holiness and praise. They were not of inferior rank. None,-we may presume,―were more gifted and more loyal than they. Think of these spirits! With what loathing must we regard them! How odious they appear! "Get thee behind me, Satan"! "How art thou fallen from heaven, O son of the morning! Thou art brought down to hell!" What has wrought the change! Sin,-sin has transformed that beauty into deformity, that amiableness into cruelty, that obedience into rebellion, that purity into pollution, that felicity into despair. Let us look beyond ourselves! Let us see how devils tremble! Let us learn what sin is! Let not this mighty revolution of evil be lost on us! "Fear and the pit are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth"! 5. The Scripture definition of faith is most simple: it is "the belief of the truth." Its figurative language is as easy: "Setting to our seal that God is true." It can have no quality of itself. It takes its character from the testimony. As an exercise of mind, a spiritual state, it must be always identical, whatever its difference of vividness and degree: To believe, requires no more elucidation than to hope, to sorrow, or to rejoice. A Pagan never asks the Missionary what is meant by faith. If Scripture employs the term, it must be according to every man's conscious interpretation. The effect of belief altogether depends upon what is believed. There can be no distinction between the faith of men and devils, but in this. As an act of mind it is one and the same. We believe. What? That there is a salvation provided for us, full and free. We have joy and peace in believing. They believe. What? That they are for ever excluded from salvation. "They believe and tremble." To this many object, 'Is our faith no more than that of fiends?' Weigh the objection. Will you put it thus, only enouncing a little more clearly what you mean? Is our faith no better, no more excellent, no more deserving? This is the root of error. You infix the power in the belief. You treat it as though it were the doer of all. You make it a very work. How opposite is the view of Scripture! "It is of faith that it might be of grace." And we must be allowed objection in return. We hear, in current language, of “saving faith." The only advance towards such a style of language in Scripture is its refutation: "Can faith save him?" It is the gospel which saves, or rather, it is God who saves by the gospel. "By grace are ye saved through faith." Instead of magnifying faith, we ought to reduce it to the merest possible idea of medium and instrumentality. It but allows and receives and relies. And if another protest be raised,-that the belief of the gospel is a divine effect and that therefore it distinguishes it from the faith of devils, the premiss is gratefully and adoringly allowed. Our "faith is of the operation of God." There is spiritual self-sufficiency to be overcome. We see not our need. The things of the Spirit must be spiritually discerned. This influence is only necessary to our state and disposition of mind. But the revelation to devils is that of punishment. Its certainty lies within the scope of their capacity and their fear. In the same way the "natural man," without any inward divine illumination, "trembles," when we "reason of judgment to come." Can we wonder that such different truths, as severally fall under the belief of devils and men, should produce such diverse effects? The faith of the one, "worketh wrath:" the faith of the other, "worketh by love." 6. The Christian system, while solemn in all its bearings upon us, is a system of tender mercy, and its purpose is to give us strong consolation. It is our remedy for all evil, or our solace under it. It is adapted to impart to the believer immediate relief. Since we are justified at the moment of believing,-so perfectly that we could not be more justified,-we are warranted to look for an instantaneous peace. If we were not, we must suppose that delay would qualify us for it. Alas, how does selfrighteousness defeat the grace of the gospel! in unison with that which they believe: "they tremble." Is there as exact fidelity in our feelings to the mind of God, in his gospel, concerning us? Are there not those who believe it, who profess to believe it, still only to tremble? Is this the appropriate emotion? There is, indeed, a hallowed awe,—we may "tremble at the word of God,"-we may "rejoice with trem Devils exactly feel bling," it is a chastened, but not less an overflowing, delight. This, however, is "a spirit of bondage again to fear." Is it honourable to the gospel? Think not chiefly about your manner of belief. Looking at your faith is to look upon the waters rather than upon Him who treads their waves. Ask not principally how you believe. Seek your comfort in the truth, and in the Saviour to whom it points. Oh what ought to be our "joy of faith"! What "our comfort of love"! What our "triumph in Christ"! What our "glorying in the cross"! What our "rejoicing evermore"! their 7. But there are some who ought to "tremble." This would express a state of mind becoming them. They die! They perish! But they walk on in darkness. They are blinded by the ignorance which is in them. They are past feeling. They reject the counsel of God against themselves. "Their judgment lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." But will heart endure," when God shall "require their soul"? Will they be "stout-hearted" in the "day of visitation"? Will their proud spirit then refuse to bend? Shall they not then tremble? Rend your hearts! Repent and be converted! Believe with your heart unto righteousness! But if "after your hard and impenitent heart you treasure up wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God,"-one reflection may move you yet! Devils trembling and you not trembling! They have not trifled with a Saviour, they are not guilty of his blood, they do not despise so great salvation,—this guilt is not on them, but, they tremble! They have not refused the reconciliation of the gospel,-still, they tremble! They have not withstood the beseechings of mercy,-notwithstanding, they tremble! Oh greater cause is there that horror should seize on you! For them never was sacrifice for sin,-for you there was,-but there is no more! To them the door was never open,-it was for you, --but it is henceforth shut! SERMON XXIV. THE INFLUENCE OF THE PIOUS UPON THE AGE IN WHICH THEY LIVE.* ACTS xiii. 36. "FOR DAVID, AFTER HE HAD SERVED HIS OWN GENERATION BY THE WILL OF GOD, FELL ON SLEEP, AND WAS LAID UNTO HIS FATHERS, AND SAW CORRUPTION." -AND "one generation passeth away, and another cometh." There is nothing constant but vicissitude. Nothing abides but the great law of change. It is with melancholy reflections that we mark those ancient convulsions of our planet, in which whole races of the inferior animals, once inhabitants of it, have perished, leaving but their frail shell or huge skeleton behind, embalmed as in their very destruction. But how far more sad and solemn is the thought, that entire successions of our fellow-men, at numerous given points of time, have been swept into the dark recesses of the earth, and been reconverted into its dust. They lie not in the integrity and the inviolate security of such lower tribes,-in majestic chambers, in the sarcophagus of deep-hid, incorrodible, alabaster and marble. Our graves are not built, like theirs, of the everlasting rocks. Our forms do not retain the impression of our habits, and proclaim the history of our lives, from untold ages. Man, in comparison, quickly sees corruption. Yet, though his physical relics do not survive, though the granite *This Sermon was preached in the Independent Meeting-House, Stepney, at the Two Hundredth Anniversary from the Founding of the Church in that place, October 24th, 1844. "Fani quidem Advena, Religionis autem Indigena. |