speak forth the words of truth and soberness,"-his words avail not to convince the world. Such enthusiastic souls, men born again through firebaptism, live in the Kingdom of God, and enjoy, here and hereafter, the supreme felicity of living and loving communion with Him in the inner temple of the heart. IT REGENERATING FAITH. Tis impossible to exaggerate the importance of the subject before us. It involves some of the most momentous principles affecting our spiritual interests, and also some very delicate points of controversial theology, to which it is hardly possible to do justice in such a mixed congregation as this; and indeed I should have hesitated to discourse on such a subject, did I not know it to be quite possible to treat it from a safe, broad, and catholic standpoint. The multiplicity of churches and creeds we behold in the world is quite perplexing and embarrassing. Each church gives its peculiar solution to the problem of human salvation; each has its own theory of redeeming and regenerating faith. From such a heterogeneous mass of conflicting theories, it is difficult to evolve anything like order or unity; nor is it my present purpose to apply myself to such a task. In discussing the subject of the evening I shall avoid altogether controverted questions of polemical theology, and meet you as far as possible on common ground. I mean to proceed upon those general and admitted principles of belief-admitted at least by the intelligent congregation before me-which constitute the essence of universal and absolute religion, and challenge the assent of every unprejudiced mind. And from these simple and catholic principles only I hope to educe what appears to me to be the right idea of regenerating faith. However obvious and simple the fundamental truths of speculative and practical Theism may be, and however supported they may be by common consent, a small amount of reflection will suffice to show that there are some very important points of disagreement amongst those who profess to believe in them. The fact is, leaving aside the countless varieties of sectarian creeds,- —even in regard to catholic and essential truths, religion, as it prevails in the world, admits of a two-fold classification, and each system presents peculiar features which clearly distinguish it from the other. The material distinction which exists between these two systems of religion deserves our careful attention. In both these systems we find the same fundamental ideas and truths of religion. Both recognise the one God, and acknowledge His infinite power and wisdom, love and holiness; both admit the moral accountability of man, and the existence of a future state of rewards and punishments; both denounce sin and. afford incentives to virtue and righteousness. Yet there is a vast and almost impassable gulf between them. Both spring up originally from the same root, but soon branch off in different and opposite directions. Born of the same parentage, they vary in the course of their development, according. to the influence they respectively receive. They are one in their main principles, but in the subsequent and final issues of these principles there is great divergence-so much so, that I feel justified in calling the one the religion of the world, and the other the religion of heaven; the one man-made, the other God-made religion. It is no doubt the interest of the world, and hence its constant endeavour, to confound and identify these two systems with each. other, and deny the distinction which subsists between them. It is its interest to ignore heavenly religion, and pass off that as God's truth which is mainly its own fabrication, and this it seeks to do both by degrading what is heavenly and exalting as divine what is of the earth earthy. This pious fraud requires to be shown up in its true colours, and its evil effects exposed, that it may be universally proscribed and execrated. It is awful to contemplate the gravity and magnitude of the deception itself, and the amount of worldliness and demoralization and moral poverty it has been the means of producing in the religious world. I am, therefore, the more anxious to impress upon you, at the outset, the importance of recognising the distinction between the religion of the world and the saving religion of God, that you may avoid the one and adopt the other. In the religion of the world man is his own guide, and to a great extent his own saviour. He depends upon his own faculties and powers for the attainment of truth, and for deliverance from sin. Its prayer is that man's will may be done on earth in the name of God. Whereas the prayer of heaven's creed is that God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. In the one, religion is subordinated to man's judgment and wishes, and from the decrees of Providence there is always an appeal to human prudence for final decision. In the other, God's will is absolute and immutable law, and his judgment final and irreversible. In the one we see a stereotyped code of moral duties to be performed on the authority, and under the government of conscience, the vicegerent of God in the human mind; but in every case it is the interpretation arbitrarily put upon the code by prudence and expediency which actually rules the heart. In the other, whatever is right must be done, whether expedient or otherwise; the heart offers unquestioning submission to the Great Master's commands, however hostile they may appear to be to its temporal interests, and maigad of audaciously endeavouring to accommodate Cost's moral economy to its carnal requisitions, it accka humbly to exalt and adapt itself to the requirements of God's law. The religion of the world Mer who be characterised as the Old Testate vis man and meets his require ME* in the aeriør stages of his religious Vie: it ***** da ex ea celicious guide in the discharge of the maea could due cow which he owes to himself, to society, and a palad, & a ar belidory school of mersi |