Faith is not simply an act of the mind; but an abiding principle. Believ ing is its exercise. Hence we speak of acts of faith. But if there were no fixed principle; if faith were merely an act, it would be absurd to speak of acts of faith, that is, acts of " an act of the mind."

2nd. Faith has for its specific object truth. What the mind perceives to be true it believes-it rests upon. Veracity is the attribute in a witness which secures the mind's belief and confidence.

3rd. Sin has so impaired the original powers of the soul that men, in their unconverted state, are unable to perceive the truth of God's testimony concerning his Son. They have no spiritual vision and consequently are shut up in unbelief. Their understanding is blinded; their foolish heart is darkened; their affections are alienated from God. They have no fixed habitual disposition to accredit the testimony of God in the matters of salvation. "The carnal mind is enmity against God." And in this wretched condition men abide until renewing grace, restores them.

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4th. Saving faith is a grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner by the Spirit and word of God: whereby he assents to the truth of the promise of the gospel, and receives and rests upon Christ and his righteousness therein held forth, for pardon of sin and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation. In the gospel are presented atoning blood and meritorious, justifying righteousness, viz. Christ's passive and active obedience. The veracity of God in Christ is pledged to impute these to every believer, to every sinner who by trusting in Jesus shows that he is one of his people, for whom he obeyed suffered and died. By grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (Eph. 2:8.) "To another is given faith by the same spirit." (1 Cor. 12:9.) If the gifts alluded to in this last text and those connected with it, are gifts, as distinguished from graces: if the faith of miracles is meant, it strength ens the argument. Because graces are superior to mere gifts: if therefore the power of the Holy Ghost is necessary to confer gifts: much more to confer graces. Accordingly Paul (Eph. 1:19,) speaks of "the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power," and compares the energy operated in the heart of the believer to that by which Christ was raised from the dead. He also speaks (Heb. 13:21,) of the God of peace-working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight." And undoubtedly the chief thing is that faith "without which it is impossible to please God." Hence the prayer ❝ increase our faith-help thou mine unbelief." Hence,

5th. Faith is the instrumental cause of justification. It is not the acting of the principle, it is not the principle itself; but it is the righteousness of Christ-his active and passive obedience-that is imputed, set down to the believing sinner, and makes him righteous. "By the obedience of one," not the act of the believer's mind—but the obedience of the one many are" -not treated as if they were righteous-but "made righteous." Christ's whole righteousness, the entire, seamless, untorn robe, passes over to the believer it is his. The Father declares the fact. The believer is justified. Faith justifies by uniting us to Christ.

6th. One remark more and we have done with saving faith and the doctrinal discussion of the whole subject. It is this, that faith is a duty; or in other words, that all men are bound to accredit all the testimonies of God presented to them, and to exercise the highest measure of confidence in him. Let the remark be taken as universal. All intelligent beings are bound to exercise faith in God. In every form of its presentation to him, for his belief, Satan is under perpetual obligation to accredit God's testimony. And

thus it is in reference to every other moral duty. He is bound to be holy -to return to his allegiance to obey his Creator. He is unable and unwilling. But neither the indisposition, nor the incapacity cancels the obligation.

Thus, too, men are bound to return to God and obey his law. They will thus be bound in eternal ages. The principle, that incapacity to perform duty, cancels obligation, places the sinner above law. And he who, to a race of sinful beings, prescribes their present abilities as the limit and measure of their present duties, is a dangerous man and ought to be watched. I would not lend him money; for, feeling that his inability to pay, released him from the obligation, I should fear he would never be able to pay. This principle, in the business world, would be even more efficient than the statutes of limitation and the laws of Chancery.

Apply the true principle, that faith is a duty, and you make men feel that their unbelief is a sin. They are opposites. If therefore unbelief is a sin, faith is a duty. "He that believeth not God hath made him a liar." God testifieth that adherence to mere human works as the ground of justification leads to death. The unbeliever denies. He testifies that faith in Christ secures life. The unbeliever denies; he rejects the testimony of God against his own soul, and perishes.

Accordant with this view, you find every where faith is presented with authority. "Come unto me all ye that labor." "Seek the Lord while he may be found.” "Call ye upon him while he is near." "Repent ye and believe the gospel." The language is mandatory; the duty imperative. It remains to make a few practical remarks from the whole subject. 1st. This doctrine presents the beautiful consistency of the divine attributes, justice and mercy. All the schemes of human device" set at odds heaven's jarring attributes." "A God all mercy, is a God unjust." This brings them together. "Justice and judgment "Justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne." Thence in awful and frowning majesty the minister of vengeance issues forth, arrayed in terrible grandeur, his wings plumed with lightning, and in his hand a flaming sword. Downward to this world of rebels is his rapid flight. By Ornon's threshing floor he takes his stand. "Where is the blasphemer of my God! The rebel where, on whom this arm must execute due vengeance.'

To meet him from the opposing mount advances meek eyed mercy, daughter too of heaven by birth: her head a rainbow circles; in her hand the price untold of man's redemption; her bosom open thrown. "On me thou messenger of wrath thy stroke let fall." They close on Calvary's daydark brow. A groan proclaims-" "Tis finished." The darkness flees away. When lo! these cherubim that met in hostile attitudes, stand with outstretched wings over the mercy-seat, whence issue pardons bought with blood. "Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace kiss each other." Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will to men." 2nd. This doctrine "stains the pride of all human glory." Not Abraham himself hath whereof to glory before God. He is made to feel, as he is enabled to see, that his own righteousness has not merited this lofty seat which he occupies. He is made to feel that his patience, and trials, and sufferings have not extinguished the fires of death. In the smoke of his altar, on mount Moriah, he sees the victim of Calvary, and exclaims "JehovahJireh."

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3rd. This doctrine puts the crown of glory on the only head worthy to wear it. It holds up the only begotten and the well beloved, to the admiring gaze of redeemed millions; whilst it extorts from the myriads of rebellion,

an acknowledgment of propriety in the song, "worthy is the Lamb that was slain."

4th. This doctrine leads to holiness of life. Faith is a living principle. It works by love-it purifies the heart-it overcomes the world-it transforms the sinner into the moral image of his Savior.

5th. This doctrine gives security to God's redeemed. They are not simply treated, by an arbitrary or sovereign act as if they were righteous, but they are righteous, and therefore are justified, and have in their Savior a title to life and glory. To them it is all of grace, but in him it is of merit. It is secured by the perfection of his work on their behalf. Their Advocate is their Judge and will not deny himself.

6th. This doctrine teaches the true position of good works in the economy of redemption. They follow justification as necessarily as the goodness of the fruit is secured by the change in the nature of the tree.

7th. This doctrine presents the church in a glorious attitude. Her robes are of needle wrought. "Her garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia." The righteousness in which the believer stands enrobed before the bar of God, is not the righteousness of a man, nor of an angel-it is the RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD.

8th. Every sinner of Adam's race is either a believer or an unbeliever; in a state of justification or of condemnation. There is no middle ground. There can be none, for there is no neutrality in morals. "He that is not with me is against me." Reader! you are now an heir of glory or a child of wrath. The curse of God's law is now upon you, or you have passed from death unto life, and are rejoicing in Christ Jesus. On whose side do you stand?

9th. Let me invite, and beseech, and command you in the name and by the authority of the Lord of all worlds, to flee from the coming wrath. Lo! upon mount Calvary, the bleeding cross. See the outstretched arms of a

dying Savior. "Turn ye-turn ye-why will ye die?" "Oh! Jerusalem, Jerusalem! thou that killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!" Therefore, lastly,

10th. Where the gospel is preached no man can perish, but by a double destruction. He must reject Christ. There must necessarily be a deliberate and wilful thrusting away of the Redeemer—a positive action of the soul in opposition to him. This Stone is again placed before thee, reader! Thou must either build upon it a house that will stand the storms of time and the tempests of eternity, or thou wilt stumble over it and plunge into the burning lake of God's eternal wrath. May He forbid it in tender mercy. Amen.

SERMON XLIII.

BY GEORGE JUNKIN, D. D.

PRESIDENT OF LA FAYETTE COLLEGE.

PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES AND ENCOURAGEMENTS. GENESIS 18:19-For I know him, that he will command his chil. dren and his household after him; and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.

The principles of the text will be evolved, by a discussion of the two following propositions, viz:

I. A godly man will faithfully train his children and his household, in the right ways of the Lord.

II. This training will secure the blessings of the promised salvation. I. As to the first of these-let us state its general truths, and glance at the mode of their application.

1. The family is the primitive social institution and the foundation of all others. Two societies only have been organized among men, by immediate divine authority, viz. the family and the church.

2. The law of creation has constituted the husband head of the house. Every social body must have a head.

3. The head of the family is vested with authority, a right to exercise governing power. This is indeed what constitutes headship. And its exercise is not a matter of volition but of moral necessity. No man constituted by the God of providence head of an household, can permanently divest himself, either by delegation or resignation, of the power entrusted to him.

4. For the exercise of his authority, every head of a family shall give account of himself to God. That thus it must be is evident from the very nature of a trust. Occupy till I come," implies a limit to the possession, and an account of its manner.

Abraham is in this text commended for the faithful exercise of his trust. And at a distant day, Eli was fearfully reprimanded for his infidelity to his Let us view,

5. The extent of authority. It confines with the family or household. The partner of his bosom, the fruit of their body, and the stranger that is within thy gates, are within its range. In other words, the children and the other inmates of the dwelling; all to whom he is a parental head. Should the providence of God throw the fatherless and the orphan under his roof, he may not withhold paternal discipline: he may not refuse the legitimate exercise of family training. 6. As to the mode of its exercise, this vested authority is not arbitrary, cold, forbidding; but tempered throughout with love. Accordingly divine wisdom has thrown around it a cluster of feelings and affections of a very tender character.

7. The ultimate ends of family government may be summed up in the word holiness. A godly seed is thus secured to the church, and a succession of sound members to the body politic. To perfect and

to perpetuate the human character, and thereby to promote the glory of God, as seen in the holiness of his people, should be to every christian parent the ever present object of his unwearied efforts.

How are these principles to be applied in the attainment of this object? I answer,

1. By the slow and silent, but certain operations of parental example. He that will train up a child in the way he should go, must himself walk in that way. "He will command his children and his household after him."

⚫ 2. Another and most important theatre on which to exhibit the power of imitation, is in the great concerns of religion. Let the little child be accustomed from its earliest capability of observation to see its parent daily consulting the oracles of God with profound veneration, and it is almost impossible that he should not grow up with a feeling of deep reverence for the bible. Let the voice of praise to God be sounded in his ears from their first opening, and they will always delight in the songs of Zion. Let the parental knee be daily bended at the family altar, and the fervent aspirations, warm from a parent's heart, ascend in sweetest sympathy to the throne of mercy, and the blessed example cannot miss of its legitimate and most benign influence.

3. Let us remark, that the faithful inculcation of divine truth constitutes a very important item in the system of family training. How shall a man walk in the ways of the Lord unless he know them? Mere example is not expected to work miracles of transformation upon character. But let the religious and moral truth, which lies spread out in the living page of a parent's conduct, be also set forth in his preceptive instruction-let there be precept upon precept-plain familiar illustration, and the force of example receives an impulse which cannot be resisted.

II. This training will secure the blessings of the promised salvation. In illustrating this position-let us remark, first. That there exists, substantially, a covenant between God and the believing parent. "I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee." (Gen. 17:7.)

Now that the passage quoted has reference to the great ecclesiastical constitution, called in the Old Testament, "the congregation of the Lord," and in the New, "the church of God," is not to be doubted.. Equally true and obvious it is that "thy seed" here, is Christ, (Gal. 3:16,) and that in reference both to his mediatorial person and to his body the church. Still, however, it includes in this last, the children of believing parents. Indeed so intimately blended are the interests of these too divinely constituted social bodies, the family and the church,, that we often find difficulty in settling the question to which many passages of scripture relate. And I can see no violation of the soundest rules of interpretation, in the application of such to both.

2. Therefore, I remark that this covenant guarantees to the seed of the faithful the blessings of the covenant of grace.

3. FAITHFULNESS to his covenant engagements on the part of the parent, is indispensable to foreclose the obligation and bind down the faithfulness of a covenant keeping God. Let this be displayed in all