of His favour are shed on us, but that the Sun of Righteousness is hid; that He has hid His face; that we have aids, but not Gospel graces; signs and evidences of mercy, but not justification; faith producing such fruits as it best may in the wide world, in a wild uncertain way, just as sweet plants might flower, and rich trees bear, on the outside of Eden.

But let us bless and praise God, my brethren, that He has placed us, as we trust, within the bounds of His kingdom; let us pray Him that we may avail ourselves of this inestimable privilege; let us pray Him to bring all others into it, to give light where He gives faith, and to join to the city of the Living God all those whose faces are turned thitherward.

SERMON XIII.

JUDAISM OF THE PRESENT DAY.

HEB. xi. 13.

"These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth."

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WHAT St. Paul here plainly states is a paradox to many persons of this day, viz. that any should have faith, and yet should not have the promise. Yet the whole of this chapter is about the faith of the old fathers; and again and again in the course of it does he deny them the object of their faith. They died in faith," yet "not having received the promises," being " persuaded of them, and embracing them," yet only "seeing them afar off," and "confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau :" concerning what? "about things to come." Again he says, "These all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise." And ob

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serve in the text the strong words, "persuaded of them, and embraced them;" in modern language, their faith apprehended the promise, yet they had it not. It is one thing, then, to have faith, another thing to receive the promise through faith. Faith does not involve in itself the receipt of the promise.

It is equally clear what the promise is which is spoken of,-regeneration. "This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel,"-thus was it announced in the prophets,-"After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts." Again, "I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring." And again, And again, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you... And I will put My Spirit within you." Accordingly, when our Lord was going away, He said to His Apostles, "Behold, I send the promise of My Father upon you." Again, "Wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith He, ye have heard of Me." And hence, when the multitude asked St. Peter what to do, he said, "Repent, and be baptized ... for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, for the promise is unto you, and to your children." And St. Paul, in like manner, says that we receive "the promise of the Spirit through faith." Soon after he speaks of "the promise by faith of Jesus Christ'."

Elsewhere

1 Jer. xxxi. 33; Isa. xliv. 3; Ezek. xxxvi. 26, 27; Luke xxiv. 49; Acts i. 4; Acts ii. 38, 39; Gal. iii. 14. 22; Eph. i. 13.

he speaks of our being "sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise."

It appears, then, that faith gains the promise, and that the promise is the great gift of the Spirit; and moreover, (from the instance of the old Fathers, spoken of in the chapter from which the text is taken,) that it is not the same thing to have faith, so as to embrace and apprehend the promise, and to enjoy it; that faith is a condition of grace, and yet not a guarantee. A man may have true faith, and still not yet be justified; he may have a faith for justification, he may be ordained unto justification, yet the time of justification not yet have arrived; or, rather, though justification is not yet his, still in God's secret counsels he may be ordained unto it.

This doctrine seems to me a very consolatory one at this time, when so many persons have not, or have not certainly, the grant of justifying grace. When we consider that baptism of water is solemnly connected with regeneration by our Lord, and that such numbers among us either are not baptized at all, or in such a way, or by such persons, or under such circumstances, as to make it very doubtful whether it is real efficacious baptism or no, it is a great consolation to believe, that though they are not new-born and justified, yet they may have faith, as the old saints had, who were not justified in the Spirit; and that if they have faith, even though they be not justified to the day of their death, they are but in the condition of

the old believers; and He who allowed the latter to die without receiving the promise, He who justified martyrs of old time, not through baptism, but in their streaming blood, may at the moment of death, or before death, should it so please Him, justify them too, even though unbaptized, in His own secret way. This, of course, allows no one to slight baptism when he can obtain it, nor to quench the whispers of grace within him, suggesting to him the necessity of baptism; nor does it warrant us rashly to assert that this or that unbaptized person has true faith, much less that he is justified; nor to suppose that such persons as are in a measure accepted without baptism, would not have a much higher acceptance with it; but it comforts us with the thought, that if a man has faith, he has or will have justification. Sooner would an Angel descend from heaven, or an Apostle be provided, than one, whose prayers and alms had gone up before God, should not, at one time or another, receive the gift. Almighty God has declared the immutability of His counsel to the heirs of promise; that whom He calls, them He justifies; whom He justifies, them He glorifies. The when and the where are with Him. He will do it in His time; as, according to His will, sooner or later, He takes from earth and brings into paradise those whom He has justified, so, sooner or later, does He translate from the world into the Church, through His Spirit, those whom He has called by faith. But it is not