Creeds, in expressing ourselves about it, nor ever speak of it without the present consciousness of his greatness, and nearness, and most awful majesty. As the presence of God on earth, let us hallow it by duty to God in the Church, the body of Christ; by submission,-holy, active subjection; by seeing Him ever in his earthly ministers, people, rites, ordinances, judgments, mercies; by feeling ourselves already living in his continual sight and presence; his eye upon our bodies and our souls, upon our thoughts, our words, and deeds; his Spirit striving in our hearts with increasing or decaying grace, according to our increasing or decaying efforts to cherish it; his holy Son not far from every one of us, who are planted into his body, buried into his death, risen with his resurrection, fed with his sacred body and blood, who are, unless we be reprobates, living stones of the most holy temple, in which He abideth for ever, even unto the end of the

4 Severianus (apud Suicerum sub voce ὄνομα): ̔Αγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου οὐχὶ ὅτι ὑπὲρ τοῦ ὀνόματος τοῦ Θεοῦ εὐχόμεθα, (τὸ γὰρ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἁγιάζει πάντα, ἀλλ ̓ ἐπειδὰν τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ ἐπικέκληται ἡμῖν (Χριστιανοὶ γὰρ ἀπὸ Χριστοῦ καλούμεθα) λέγει, Τὸ ὄνομά σου ἐφ' ἡμῖν ἁγιασθήτω. Improbat Suicerus, sed adi S. Cyprianum de Orat. Dom. "Sanctificetur nomen tuum, non quod optemus Deo, ut sanctificetur orationibus nostris, sed quod petamus ex eo, ut nomen ejus sanctificetur in nobis:— id petimus et rogamus, ut qui in baptismo sanctificati sumus, in eo quod esse cœpimus perseveremus, et hoc quotidiè deprecamur."

world. As a profession, let us hallow it, by holding it fast, and never swerving, in liberal word, or wavering thought, or inconsistent deed, from its simple, sacred, divine firmness. It admitted us to the militant kingdom; kept whole and undefiled from heretical taint, or falling away of sin, it shall admit us to the triumphant. "For if baptism," says the great St. Basil, speaking of the holy baptismal tradition of the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, "is the beginning of my life, and the day of my regeneration to me the first of days; surely, the words which were uttered when the grace of sonship was given to me, are the most precious of all words. Shall I then ever betray the tradition which thus introduced me to the light, through which I was declared the child of God, who before that time had been his enemy through sin, because I am deceived by the specious arguments of men? Nay, rather, I pray in my heart that I may, with this confession on my lips, depart hence unto the Lord 5."

5 St. Basil de Sp. S. c. x.

DISCOURSE V.

Τῇ γὰρ χάριτί ἐστε σεσωσμένοι διὰ τῆς πίστεως· καὶ τοῦτο οὐκ ἐξ ὑμῶν, Θεοῦ τὸ δῶρον. Eph. ii. 8.

tized.

BESIDES the general commission of the Church to VIII. The privileges occupy the Lord's place upon the earth, and the of the bapparticular offices and powers entrusted to the Apostles as governors and teachers, our holy Lord did also, in the great Forty days of his remaining upon earth in his glorified body, say very gracious things of the privileges and blessings which should belong to the separate individuals who by Holy Baptism should be grafted rightly into his Church.

The first of these is thus given by St. Mark: "He that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved 1."

This saying, regarded in connexion with the words that precede it in St. Mark's Gospel, seems

1 St. Mark xvi. 16.

The Nature of Faith.

in the first place to point out who are the fit subjects for Holy Baptism. Sent out into all the world to make disciples of all nations, by what rule were the Apostles to proceed in admitting persons to the great Name with which they were entrusted? What was to be the qualification for baptism? what the attainment which should fit persons to be taken out of heathenism, out of the power of Satan, and admitted into the kingdom of God, the mysterious and saving Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost? These words supply the true answer to such a question. "He that believeth" may be baptized. "If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest "," were the express words of the deacon Philip to the. Ethiopian eunuch. He that believeth," but what? What is the truth, the message, the doctrine to be delivered by the Apostles, and believed in all the world? No doubt, as it has been fully explained in the last discourse, the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. So in effect, and almost in words, the eunuch confessed; so Timothy doubtless professed his good profession before many witnesses3; so Christians have made profession at the holy font of baptism in every age of the Church's history.

66

But there is no need to enter further than has

2

Acts viii. 37.

3

1 Tim. vi. 12.

been done already into the illustration of this point. We must now rather ask, What is it to believe? What is the nature of that belief or faith of which our Lord herein speaks? What is that faith which qualifies for baptism, and which, with baptism, gives salvation? which may, and by God's help shall, perform miracles? which is doubly blest when unaided by sight? What is, as nearly as we may be able to ascertain it, the exact nature of faith, that virtue which precedes and follows baptism, the gift of God, whose early beginnings fit a man for the justification of baptism, whose later maturity perfects him for final acceptance, the title, from the first to the last, of the just man's life?

If ever there were a word which requires clear definition, that word is faith, respecting which there is apparently such deep and sore disagreement amongst Christians; to which there are attached so many meanings and shades of meaning; respecting which no man seems to doubt when he uses it, that he understands fully what he means, and is in no danger of being misunderstood by others.

cipal senses

Holy Scrip

The word faith, then, appears to be used in Two prinHoly Scripture in several senses, differing, some of of Faith in them widely from one another. For instance, (1) in one place it means certainty of mind, or undoubtingness; and in this use it does not neces

4

4 See Rom. xiv. 22, 23.

ture.