difference between a speculative assent, and a cordial and thorough belief in the matters of Revelation; and when it discerns the reasonableness of exercising such a trust, it will discern also the fitness of submitting to God's directions as to the manner of attaining it; and finding it is described as the gift of God, it will pray and earnestly seek for the communication of the gift from the source of all light and grace.

In fact, it is highly reasonable for man, in every important undertaking, and therefore most of all in the reception of Christianity, to be dependent on God, to feel his weakness and ignorance, and to rely on divine aid. Even natural religion teaches us man's feebleness. Revelation opens that disease to the bottom. Revelation proceeds on the fall and corruption of man. Revelation declares that faith must be a living principle, operating upon the whole soul. Revelation pronounces the Holy Ghost to be the divine agent who produces such a faith. And nothing can be so clear as the reasonableness of all this; the first step in the argument being granted, that the Revelation requiring this faith and promising this grace which produces it, has come from God.

But let us consider, as we proposed,

III. THE EXTENT TO WHICH, FROM THE NATURE OF THE CASE, FAITH SHOULD BE CARRIED.

For the case is this. We receive a Revelation from Almighty God with a heartfelt repose and acquiescence in the divine testimony. We do this cheerfully as the most reasonable and becoming act of an accountable being to its Creator revealing his will. We seek the grace necessary for believing aright. Then surely the utmost care is necessary not to go beyond, nor stop short in a concern of such importance. We must be much on our guardnot to add to, nor diminish from, the testimony on which our faith rests. We must be watchful not to impose our opinions or errors on the divine record. For in proportion as faith resigns us unreservedly to the directions of Christianity, we must see that it be indeed to Christianity that we thus yield up our whole understanding and heart. This is demanded by the very nature of the case.

We travel an unknown road; dangers beset us on all hands; precipices, and morasses, and bye-paths present themselves. We have an unerring guide; but then we must follow sedulously his conduct. We must not overrun, not linger behind, not start on either side of the path wherein he leads us.

If the case were different; if we were on our own bottom, or treating a subject of human cognizance, or temporary interest, errors would be of less moment; but in a divine Revelation, where we know nothing but what we are taught 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 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 contain large portions of truth; and the acts of the apostles, and the epistles, yet larger, being the final development 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

1 Heb. xi. 1.