to receive, with self-abasing credulity, her interpretation of Revealed Truth, even though the doctrine she propounds be not merely above, but absolutely contradictory, to human reason; thus Popery would enjoin its devotee to an undoubting belief of the awful and mysterious miracle of transubstantiation, notwithstanding that the testimony of his own senses-the only competent judges in such a case of the reality of the stupendous change, and the very judges appealed to by our Lord himself in establishing the identity of his risen body— positively denies that the asserted marvel has been wrought. Rationalism, on the contrary, invites her admirers to accept with self-complacent approval, her explanation of God's Word, even though the compendium she offers, has degraded Revelation to a level beneath the credence of that faculty, which renders man capable of such faith as is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen;" thus Socinianism would flatter its follower into a contemptuous disbelief of the sublime truth of a Divine Trinity-into a scornful rejection of the great "mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh"-and into a proud refusal of the spiritual aid of "the eternal" "Comforter," although his own finite intellect will naturally anticipate, in an apocalypse of the Infinite Intelli

gence, a communication of super-human knowledge, and although the voice of his own reason must echo the very question of his Bible, “Canst thou by searching find out God; canst thou understand the Almighty unto perfection ?"i

We perceive, therefore, how utterly at variance with each other are the religious systems of which I have been speaking; and yet, I ask, do we not, at the present moment, see them closely combined, by the wisdom of the Serpent, in a monstrous alliance for the prosecution of a common aim? The Papist and the Socinian, the Deist and "the fool" who "hath said in his heart there is no God," are, indeed, actuated by different motives, though they have coalesced for a single purpose; and, no doubt, the overthrow of the Established Religion of these realms, recommends itself, on peculiar and seemingly righteous grounds, to each individual section of the heterogeneous body which is favourable to that object; but-unlike these his always deluded, and, in Christian charity I would believe, his usually unconscious agents-the Prince of Darkness himself is ever influenced by one solitary feeling, even the desire of frustrating "the common salvation;" and, assuredly, he sees in the downfall of our Church, the most effectual means of completing his object. He has found her the faithful and the firm, although

the tolerant guardian of "the glorious Gospel of the blessed God;" and the perilous position in which he has placed her, through the concurrent assault of a host of foes, inveterately hostile to each other as regards almost every principle save that of enmity towards her, affords conclusive evidence that the barrier she has opposed, through "the sword of the Spirit which is the word of God," to Apostacy and Heterodoxy and Anti-christ under every varying garb and form, has not been opposed in vain.

Whilst, however, we thus perceive that "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places,"" we learn, at the same time, that "the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;" and, therefore, even though the cunning of political expediency, and the bitterness of religious rivalry, and the liberalism of latitudinarian principle should visit us, because we "speak the things which become sound doctrine," with the stigma of partisanship, we feel, in the present posture of affairs, especially bound, as men "who watch for souls as as they that must give account," to address, at once to ourselves, to each other, and to our

n Eph. vi. 12.

11 Tim. i. 11.
o 2 Cor. x. 4.

m Eph. vi. 17.
p Tit. ii. 1.

q Heb. xiii. 17.

charge, the general warning of St. Peter, " Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the Devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about seeking whom he may devour: whom resist, stedfast in the faith;" and that this admonition, which the Apostle so solemnly offers, alike to the “Shepherd” and to the "flock of God,” may be duly attended to by each, let us, with an earnest prayer for the presence and guidance of that Holy Ghost, who only can "lead” us “into all truth," proceed to consider the divine exposition contained in my text of THE FAITH, through stedfastness wherein, we are enjoined to resist our common "adversary the Devil."

"Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me."

These words of our blessed Lord imply a fact, which it is the first object of the Bible to reveal, the fact that Man is by nature in a state of separation from his Heavenly Father. Now St. Paul's declaration that the Creator" is not far from every one of us, for in him we live and move and have our being," and the sublime inquiry of the Psalmist, "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.

r 1 Peter v. 8.

t Acts xvii. 27. 28.

s John xvi. 13.

If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me ""_these Scriptural texts prove plainly that this separation is not a physical, but a moral one; and the occasion of it is proclaimed to every man in those few and simple, yet incontrovertible, words of the prophet Isaiah, "Your iniquities have separated between you and your God."

That "all we like sheep have gone astray;" that "we have turned every one to his own way," is the confession which our Church has borrowed from the lips of inspiration, and is the language which each really enlightened conscience will whisper from the inmost recesses of the soul; and though, alas! too many of that multitude, who "profess and call themselves Christians," forget that, because "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," "man is very far gone from original righteousness," yet, I apprehend, there are few of them, who would refuse to exclaim with the Psalmist, "I have gone astray like a lost sheep;" or, who would deny, as an abstract proposition, that affirmation of our Lord, which my text contains, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me:"

u Ps. cxxxix. 7, 8, 9, 10.

x Jer. xvii. 9.

v Isa. lix. 2. w Isa. liii, 6. y 9th Article. z Ps. cxix.