and lives, the gospel itself will increase our con demnation. Are any of you then sensible, that your hearing has hitherto failed to influence your practice? Let me conjure you, by the love you bear to your own happiness, not to put off the alarming conviction, by saying, "Go thy way, at this time, when I have " a convenient opportunity I will call for thee." It is not yet too late: "Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation:" But you know not how soon the Master of the house may shut to the door; and then it will be too late to begin to say, "Lord, Lord, open to us;" for he will silence every plea, and bid you "depart as workers " of iniquity." But have you, my brethren, begun seriously to practise what you know, and to enquire the will of God that you may do it? Blessed be the Lord, for his grace bestowed on you! Go on in this way, my beloved brethren; and even the most humiliating discoveries you make of yourselves, will serve to endear the gospel of salvation to you. "Then shall you know, if you follow on to know "the Lord:" "For the path of the just shineth more and more to the perfect day." The prac tice of duty will prepare your hearts for the reception of truth; by removing those prejudices, with which the prevalence of carnal affections closes the understandings of the disobedient: and every ow abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity. apostle, in this remarkable chapter, shews rinthians, that the most splendid and usethose miraculous powers, which they emucoveted and ostentatiously displayed, were erior in value to sanctifying grace: yea, hen united with the deepest knowledge of mysteries, the most self-denying liberality, e most vehement zeal, they were nothing t charity; and did not so much as prove sessor to be a real Christian of the lowest He then describes charity, as a man would gold, by its distinguishing properties, which same in a grain as in a ton; but the more possesses, and the less alloy is found in the the richer he is. -And having shewn, that would never fail; whereas miraculous substitute love in the place of i known that the original word translated. I shall endeavour, t I. To consider separatel nature, exercise, and use of love. II. To shew in what res greatest of the three; and ho the doctrines of salvation by fication by faith alone. The subject before us, my bre greatest importance, and often f stood. Let me then beg a рес your attention; and let us lift u God, beseeching him to open "ings, that we may understand 66 and be guided into the knowledge of his holy truth. I. Let us consider separately the peculiar nature, exercise, and use of faith, hope, and love. We begin with faith. That peculiar act of the understanding, by which we avail ourselves of information, in those things which fall not under our own observation, and which do not admit of proof in a way of reasoning, is called faith or believing. If we credit testimony without sufficient grounds, we are unreasonably credulous: if we refuse to believe testimony, which has sufficient grounds of credibility, we are unreasonably incredulous. It is therefore extremely absurd to oppose reason and faith, as if contrary to each other; when in fact, faith is the use of reason in a certain way, and in cases which confine us to that peculiar exercise of our rational powers. Believing may be distinguished from reasoning, and in some cases opposed to it: but in opposing faith and raason, the friends of Christianity have given its enemies an advantage, to which they are by no means entitled. It is evident to all observing men, that the complicated machine of human society is moved, almost exclusively, by that very principle, which numbers oppose and deride in speaking on religion. Testimony received and credited, directs |