I say?" If the main lesson I have tried to expound be understood and acted on, you will "hold fast your confidence and the rejoicing of your hope firm unto the end." In one word, let me follow it up by the lesson of another scripture. "Be stedfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord-forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”

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LECTURE LXXXI.

ROMANS, X, 10--13.

"For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek; for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."

BEFORE entering on the consideration of these verses, we would briefly advert to one lesson, which, if not contained in the passage that we have just left, has at least been suggested by it. To bring Christ down from above, or to bring Him up from the dead, would be to present Him to the view of the senses, and make Him an object of sight-after which there could be no doubt of His resurrection. One of the common and current aphorisms which we hear most frequently is, that seeing is believing; yet though thus identified, there is a distinction made in Scripture between them. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, faith is defined the assurance of things not seen. A belief through the medium of the senses is differently regarded, and we may add far less valued than a belief in a testimony-belief in the word-belief

2

given way

tion." 66

991

It is thus that

in what prophets "have spoken. after His resurrection He upbraids those disciples, not who believed Him not after they had seen, but who believed not the report of those who had seen Him. It was on this principle too that He valued less the faith of Thomas, after he had at length under the power of an ocular demonstraThomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen me, and yet have believed." When faith supports itself under the want of sensible helps and accompaniments—then it is that the "trial of it is precious" —when, though not seeing Christ, yet we love Him; and in whom, "though now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory."3 We meet with the same high estimate of faith in many other places-that is, when it is faith in the naked word, faith without the aid of vision, the faith which maintains its strength and constancy against even the likelihoods of nature and experience, which simply reckons that what God hath said is true, and is "fully persuaded that what He hath promised He is able also to perform."

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Now there is another, a third way, in which an absent thing might be viewed by us-not as an object of sight, for we are supposing it so separate or removed as to be unseen by us-neither as an object of faith; but as an object of conception, an

3

Luke, xxiv, 25.

3 1 Peter, i, 7, 8.

2 Mark, xvi, 14.

4 Romans, iv, 21.

act often conjoined with faith, yet perfectly distinct from it so distinct as to be referred by certain mental philosophers to a special power or faculty of its own. One might conceive a thing without any belief in its reality; and, on the other hand, though one can scarcely believe without some conception of the object of faith-yet may that conception be so dull and languid and hazy, as almost to justify the expression of our believing in the dark. We should like you to discriminate between belief in a thing and the conception of that thing. You might believe not only in the existence of an absent friend, but in the reality and warmth of his intense affection for yourself; and this belief might be as strong to-morrow as it is to-day-and yet it is possible, that your conception of all this might not be so lively or strong to-morrow as it is to-day. His benignant smile, his looks of graciousness, his whole countenance and manner and tones of voice, bespeaking the utmost cordiality and kind affection -these may all tell more vividly on the imagination at one time than another; and in proportion to the vivacity and force, wherewith they are thus presented and pictured forth as it were to the eye of the mind, will the spirits be exhilarated, and the whole man experience an animation and a comfort, as he dwells on a contemplation which the conceiving faculty has made for the time so bright and joyful to him. Now it must be obvious to the experience of all that this conception flits and fluctuates, as if dependent on the ever varying mood of the

spirit at one time gleaming forth towards the vivacity of sense, and at another fading almost onward in deeper and deeper shades of obscuration to extinction and utter vacancy. But the remarkable thing to be observed is, that, under all these varieties of conception, the faith might remain invariable, a constant quantity as it were, an element which abideth stedfastly and substantially the same amid all those changing hues which affect the colour or representation of the. objeet, but do not in the least affect our belief in its reality. There may be a dimness in the contemplation, without the slightest mixture of a doubt in the object contemplated. The man never lets go his confidence in his friend-though just as this power of conception is in languid or vigorous exercise, he may sometimes have greater and sometimes less degrees of sensible comfort in the contemplation of his friendship.

What is true of an earthly friend, is true of our Friend in heaven. He is far removed out of sight, but may become the object of faith through the word that is nigh unto us. And he might also become the object of conception, which is a sort of substitute for sight, brightening and clearing as it sometimes does towards the vivacity of a sensible demonstration. But let us never forget, that as faith without sight is all the more pleasing to God in that it subsists on its own unborrowed strength without the aid of the senses-so might faith be in the absence of any lucid or enlivening conception, having nothing to sustain it but the simple credit