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it not be so with you? Why seek another course, when that taken by the Philippian jailor was so simple and so successful? Do not hesitate one moment longer. What hinders you this instant crediting God's testimony? Look at it for a moment. Here is that God that cannot lie, telling you that, sinner as you are, he loved you and gave his Son to die a sacrifice for your sins, and that now he is prepared to receive you into his favour through him. Now, why not this moment believe God? Is it not much more difficult to disbelieve than it is to believe him? If you were told not to believe God, what would you say?-would you not say, I shall believe-I must believe-I do believe -I cannot but believe my God. Well, dear reader, be it so.

TRYING TO FEEL FAITH.

THERE is no doubt, dear reader, that where there is faith it is known, felt, and experienced. So distinctly is this the case, that we do not require to try to feel faith, for wherever faith is, it is felt without any effort at feeling it; and if faith be wanting, it can never be got by trying to feel it. If it is in us it makes itself felt without any effort on our part; and if it be not in us, any mere effort to feel it can never make it felt. If we feel it, we would have done so without any trying to do so. And if we suppose that we have got it by any effort at trying to feel it, we are probably mistaking something else for it. Few things, we believe, more frequently occur to the inquirer than to try to feel faith. He sees the absolute necessity of faith in order to the enjoyment of the blessings of the gospel; and he therefore very naturally looks within to see whether or not he has faith, and often in looking within himself he is anxious to persuade himself that he has the thing sought for; and if he does not at once feel it to be in his possession, he tries to feel it. Now, it is just this

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last step that is wrong. It is right to examine ourselves whether we be in the faith. Few things are more profitable than a narrow, honest, self-examination; but when the thing sought after is found to be awanting, how is it to be got, is the question? Only by that through which it is produced. Now faith is produced by testimony, and the way to know if we have faith, is to compare the testimony with our mind, and by asking ourselves the question, Do we believe this? our conscience at once replies according as the case may be. The inquirer after salvation wishes to know if he has faith-the faith which saves; how, then, is he to do? Simply to take the saving truth and ask himself, Do I believe this? am I trusting to it? am I confiding in it? am I resting upon it? am I satisfied with it? or, am I looking for something else—perhaps having so much faith in this, but still not throwing myself entirely upon it still looking for something besides? This, conscience will at once tell, and that most certainly. When a proposition is presented to the mind, and the question is put, is this believed? the answer is given as clear as when a thing is presented to the eye, and the question is asked, do you see that? In both cases we can at once answer, yes! or no! If we do not see the thing that we desire to see, we bring it nearer to the eye, or make the eye rest more closely on it, and thus are we brought to see it. We never think of trying to feel sight; but we keep the eye fixed on the object which we desire to see, and when we see it we know that we do so. Precisely so is it with faith and the gospel. If we want to know whether we have faith, bring the mind and the gospel in contact, and then it is that if we have not previously had faith, it is got, and it is known to us that we have it.

Do you, then, dear reader, believe the gospel testimony? Do you believe that the Father sent the Son to be your Saviour? Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins according to the Scriptures? Do you believe that he, the just, suffered for you, the unjust, that he might bring you to God? Are you trusting, confiding, resting on these glorious facts?

PRAYING FOR FAITH TO BELIEVE.

Do you understand, dear reader, what you mean, when you say that you are praying for faith to believe? Does the word of God tell you to do what you say you are about? No, it does not. It tells you first of all to believe. It tells you that without faith it is impossible to please God. It tells you to pray certainly, but it says, pray in faith-not for faith, but in faith. Jas. i. 6, 7, says, ‘Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering; for he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord.' Again, Rom. x. 13, says, 'Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved,' but verse 14 adds 'How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?' Thus you must believe ere you pray. When you pray, you must do so in faith. Unless you ask in faith, you shall receive nothing for your asking. But not only so. For when you do pray, you must do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. This proves not only that faith is an indispensable prerequisite and adjunct to prayer, but that the faith thus required is faith in the Lord Jesus. It is on the name of the Lord that you are to call, and your faith is to be in him in whose name you plead.

You know, dear reader, that in prayer you approach God. Prayer is your coming to God. This being so, you see in these passages quoted, not only the general principle that faith is essential to acceptable prayer-not only the fact, that he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him; but likewise the special application of that general principle in reference to the sinner and the Saviour. That is, in coming to God, you come by prayer, believing prayer, but you must come through Jesus; for says he, I am the way and the truth and the life, no man cometh unto the Father but by me.' So reads John xiv. 6; and says Heb. vii. 25, 'He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him.' It is self-evident, then, that we

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cannot approach acceptably to God but through the One Mediator, Christ Jesus, and that as faith is a necessary element in our coming to Jehovah, we must have faith in him by whom we come to God. This must be so, for it is only by faith in Jesus that we can come to God through him as our Mediator. With these principles before you, dear reader, you cannot fail to see the import of the apostolic form of prayer and invocation-'for Christ's sake.' Jesus' sake is the one great argument which God in his love has given the unworthy sinner to plead. This argument alone is of any weight with God; and O, sinner, rejoice that with him it is all powerful and prevailing. He cannot deny it. To do so, would be to deny his own dear Son, in whom he declares himself well pleased. With this plea, dear reader, you can with holy boldness, at all times, approach the throne of Jehovah, and that in the certain confidence of finding acceptance. Go then, sinner, to God, with this plea, for every thing you need. But dare not to use it as a mere form, in which you have no faith yourself. Plead not a name in which you do not believe. But why should you not believe in the name of him who loved you unto death, and why should you fear to plead that name which Jehovah delights to acknowledge?

SAVING FAITH.

It is not improbable, dear friend, that you have been considerably perplexed with the distinction of common from saving faith; or that you have given yourself great anxiety about getting the latter; or again, that you have been anxious to know whether the faith that you may have is really saving. You have very likely got it into your mind that saving faith is not the belief of the saving truth; but a particular mode of believing, or the manag ing to rise to a certain pitch of mental effort of rare and

difficult attaintment. If any such fancy as this has obtained possession of your mind, we entreat you to observe that saving faith is no particular mode of believing; that it does not require any extraordinary mental energy, or any attempt at flights of mind, but that it is simply a steady, unwavering heart-felt reliance upon that truth which has in it the power to save. It matters not how correct a person's notions may be, or how philosophical his mode of applying his thoughts to truth, if he believes not the saving truth, his faith does not and cannot save him. And again, it signifies nothing how crude an individual's notions are of the operations of the mind in the act or state of believing, if that person's mind is fixed believingly on the soul-saving truth, he is saved thereby. The great question, then, with the sinner in search of saving faithis not, how am I to believe? but, what am I to believe?

We have answers to this question in many parts of scripture. We have a very express answer in Rom. i. 16, 'I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.' Here it is most unequivocally stated that it is the gospel of Christ that must be believed. What then is the gospel? becomes the question. Here there must be no mistake. Error here cannot but be fatal. Do you then, dear reader, understand what the gospel is? Now we must here tell you, that the gospel is not what many imagine it to be. It is not the Bible-it is not religion-it is not the church it is not faith-it is not justification-it is not baptism it is not prayer-it is not the supper-it is not your good works-it is not God—it is not the holy Spirit-but it is the good news concerning Jesus. Now what good news is it? We are told in 1 Cor. xv. 1-4: 'Moreover, brethren,' says the apostle, 'I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand, by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain; for I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died FOR OUR SINS according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scrip

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