I mean a belief, in spite of some objections which we cannot answer, that then a good man will hold to that conclusion which keeps truth and goodness united, rather than to that which must overwhelm him with a difficulty absolutely maddening, by tearing their eternal bond asunder.

And it should be further observed, that although there may be difficulties in the question, speaking intellectually, which we may be unable to answer; yet that practically the belief of the existence of God is full of nothing but the most entire consistency and likelihood. Take it as a truth, and work from it, and the result will convince us every day more and more that we assumed its truth justly. For it is manifest, that in proportion as we do work from it, the result of happiness to ourselves and others will be increased; and that if all men did work from it, the state of the world would be so manifestly like heaven, that to doubt of God would then really amount to insanity. Whereas, if we conceive it possible that men could work out the principles of ungodliness to their full extent; that is, resolving good and evil into a mere matter of taste, and expressly denying the reasonableness of self-reproach for any thing.

that we may have done; and it is quite manifest that the state of the world would be so like hell, that it would be no less insane to doubt the source of the principles from which this result also had been effected.

Thus then we may, I think, render a sufficient reason for the hope that is in us, that this world is not left without God. We hope it reasonably, because we see a great many unanswerable arguments, leading directly to this conclusion; because if, moved by certain theoretical difficulties, we were to adopt the opposite belief, there would arise the greatest possible contradiction which it is possible to conceive, namely, that truth is an evil, and falsehood a good; because, by acting as if there were a God, the result is virtue and happiness, and by acting as if there were none, the result is vice and misery. This is such a reason for the hope that is in us as shall save us abundantly from the charge of hoping in foolishness. But if it should so happen that what is in us with respect to the existence of God is not hope, but indifference, at the least, if not fear; if we should not care to be told that there was no God, or if it would actually be a relief from a burden, what is to be said then ?-Say that what we

have in us is a fearful looking for of judgment; that we shrink from death, not only as the end of all our happiness here, but possibly as the beginning of a life of eternal misery. Shall we be able long to give, either to ourselves or others, a reason of the fear that is in us? I am afraid we shall not: faith we shall have indeed still; but it will be Satan's faith, not God's: we shall never be able to answer the arguments in favour of God's existence, but still we shall resolve not to believe it; for it is misery not to be endured to think that we are accursed for ever. And are we, then, more reasonable than the believer in God? Nay, much less so; for, intellectually speaking, our belief is formed in defiance of much greater difficulties; and, morally speaking, we make the whole of life a chaos or a hell. We shall have submitted our understandings more, but it will have been to Satan, not to God; and our hearts will have found the while neither peace nor happiness.

I have purposely chosen rather to understate than overstate the force of the argument; for if it be at all overstated, the distrust of the mind, when it discovers the error, is apt to lead to a dangerous recoil; while, by understating it, we have the pleasure of a conscious

reserve of strength, of obliging the enemy to show all his force, and meeting it undismayed; while the extent of our own unemployed resources has never been explored. Take the case as I have stated it, without attempting to display the force of the arguments for the being of God, or to lessen the difficulties which are brought against it; still to us, not intellectual beings only, but reasonable and spiritual, with a moral nature as well as an intellectual, to believe in God is the height of reason, to disbelieve him the extremity of wickedness or madness. This is, or should be, enough; it will be enough if we remember the tenure of our condition here, that we live by faith, not by sight; and that we cannot expect to be so sure of God's existence whilst here, as to have no greater force of conviction to look for when we shall see him as he is.

SERMON XIX.

OUR HOPE TOWARDS GOD IN CHRIST.

ACTS II. 32.

This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. THE Continuation of the subject which I began last Sunday, falls in most happily with this day, which is the festival of the great Apostle, St. Peter. From his epistle were taken the words which I chose for the text of this whole inquiry; the words in which he urges us to be ready to give a reason of the hope that is in us. On him, in a more especial manner, the first planting of the church of Christ rested; and by his preaching at Jerusalem, the knowledge of salvation by Christ was first declared. No man also could ever have exemplified more fully than St. Peter, the onward course of a Christian from less faith to more; none was better fitted than he to have compassion on the ignorant, and on the weak in