arrives at a town, where he is an entire stranger. He is taken ill. He knows nothing of the physicians of the place. He makes inquiry. He receives a very favourable testimony to the skill, the experience, the assiduity, and the kindliness of one of them. He has reason to confide in those by whom the testimony is given, as persons who have had means of knowing, and who would not deceive him. He believes it to be true; and, in consequence of his so believing it, he intrusts to the physician in question the care of his health. And thus it is with regard to every thing interesting to us, of which the charge must be devolved upon another. If inquiry must be made to ascertain personal or professional character, it is obvious that, in proportion to the confidence I have in the general veracity of my informant, will be the degree of credit or faith which I attach to his testimony in the particular case ;—and that, in proportion to the degree of this credit, will be the confidence with which I commit the management of my business into the hands of the individual whose character he attests :-and in this case, I trust because I believe; my trust is the effect of my faith. And is it otherwise in the case before us? The subjects and ends to which it relates are, it is true, infinitely superior; but the process of mind is the same. God gives us, in his word, a testimony concerning his Son, as a divine and therefore all-sufficient Saviour, able and willing to save to the utter

most all that come to him. If we are convinced that this testimony is indeed from God; then, knowing that "it is impossible for God to lie," we believe it with a corresponding firmness; and in proportion to the firmness with which we believe it to be true, or (which is the same thing, since there can never be a doubt of the divine veracity) with which we believe it to be from God, will be the degree of our trust in the Saviour, who is the subject of the testimony.

Faith, then, is believing. It may arise from different descriptions of evidence. We may believe on the evidence of sense; directly, with regard to facts; indirectly, with regard to doctrines. When Thomas had the opportunity given him of seeing Jesus after his resurrection, of putting his finger into the print of the nails, and thrusting his hand into his side, and, his incredulity being overcome, exclaimed, in delighted wonder and adoring love, "My Lord, and my God!" -he believed the fact of his Master's resurrection directly upon the testimony of his senses :-he saw him, he heard him, he handled him. And, although the claims and doctrines of Jesus could not thus, in regard to their truth or authority, be the direct objects of sense; yet in consequence of the connexion of the visible fact with these claims and doctrines, (a connexion arising from this fact having been previously appealed to as the test by which they should be tried and estimated)-Thomas had indirectly, the evidence

of his senses for the truth and divinity of them, as well as for the reality of the fact.-But faith, as we have at present to do with it, rests not on the evidence of sense. It is the belief of a testimony, arising from a conviction of the veracity of the testifier. And saving faith is the belief of the divine testimony concerning Christ, resting on a full conviction of the veracity of God:-for, on the one hand, he who receives the testimony "sets to his seal that God is true;' ."* and on the other, "he that believeth not God, hath made him a liar, because he hath not believed the record that God hath given of his Son."+-Saving faith is the belief of this record, as coming from God. In other words, saving faith is the belief of saving truth.

These things, simple as they appear, will be still more manifest, when we have considered a little, as we shall now proceed to do, how and why eternal life is connected with faith or believing.-There is frequently a vast deal of unnecessary and perplexing mysticism associated with this matter: whereas in the word of God it seems to be abundantly plain, and free of every thing that should be felt bewildering by the simplest mind. We shall assign to this point a sepa

rate section.

* John iii. 33.

1 John v. 10.

SECTION II.

There exists, I apprehend, a very prevalent conception, as if the connexion of life or salvation with faith arose entirely from the sovereign and arbitrary appointment of God, that so it should be. But this conception has its origin in a confused and mystical notion of what faith is. It is, in the minds of such persons, a something, they cannot distinctly tell what, with which it has pleased God to connect salvation; and they often profess to be wishing for it and seeking after it, when their wishes and pursuit have no well understood or definite object. But when we regard faith as having respect to a testimony, and as incapable, from its very nature, of any existence otherwise,-as being the reception of that testimony,-the believing or crediting of it, as the truth of God;—every thing then is clear. The connexion of eternal life with believing arises not from any mere appointment or will that it should be so-it arises, in a very great degree at least, from the nature of the thing.-The gospel is a testimony from God. In that form it comes to us; and it demands our credence. It reveals to us certain blessings, to be enjoyed on a certain ground. How, then, is it conceivable, that blessings thus revealed should be received and enjoyed otherwise than by the reception or belief of the testimony which reveals them? I do not of course speak of infants, or of any who are na

turally incapable of understanding and believing that or any other testimony:-I speak of those to whom the gospel comes, and whose minds are capable of having it addressed to them, and of comprehending its meaning. It is from the case of such, that the general representations of the Bible are framed-it is of such they speak, when they declare (as they uniformly and explicitly do) eternal life to be by faith. Now, the divine testimony is contained in the 11th and 12th verses of this chapter:-" And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life."-How, then, in the nature of the thing, can the life which this testimony makes known as the gift of God through his Son, be received in any other way than by the reception of the testimony which makes it known? From the nature of the blessings contained in eternal life, and especially, as we shall immediately see, of some of them, it is a thing that cannot (if I may so express myself) be forced into a man's possession. It is such, that no one can be made a partaker of it against his will, as qualities and possessions may be that are merely extraneous and physical. It must be accepted on the part of the sinner,-received, as the gift of God, with a willing mind. In no other way is it, from its nature, capable of being possessed :—and in what way it can be received otherwise than by receiv