Perhaps, therefore, in strict accuracy of speech, there are not kinds of faith. The principle is probably one. For the sake of distinctness, we may speak of that which justifies, and that which sanctifies; that of the sinner, and that of the saint; but, it may be, that we speak all the time of a mental act really identical, only contemplated in different lights and relations; in the one case, as it has an aspect towards heaven, and in the other, towards earth; in the first, as it is viewed in itself by the Supreme Mind, and in the second, as it is seen by us in its effects. In short, if it can be so expressed without impropriety, we may be regarding, perhaps, the same thing, in the one case as it influences God, and in the other as it influences man.

We suspect that there is some truth in these suppositions. It will be our object to evince it in the succeeding remarks. Your attention will first be called to the language of the Apostle, as descriptive of faith in its most general and comprehensive sense; that sense, in which it directly bears on his present purpose, and in which we shall principally have to regard it in subsequent discourses.

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." The word rendered "substance," seems, in its application

to objects that are desirable and expected, to express, such an entire confidence in their future actual possession, or, in the sufficiency of the means by which they are secured, as imparts to them, in relation to us, the character of present reality. That, translated "evidence," is a logical term signifying conclusive demonstration; it is here applied to things that are invisible, to matters that cannot be submitted to sense, and, it imports that the mind so feels the force of the proofs by which their existence is established, as to regard them with a sentiment similar to that, with which it looks upon actual appearances. Perhaps the brief phrases "confident expectation" and "perfect persuasion" may express every thing we are warranted to include in the two terms; every thing in fact intended to be conveyed by the sacred writer. It would then be said, "faith is the confident expectation of things hoped for, the perfect persuasion of things not seen." The Apostle, it will be observed, describes two classes of objects as coming within the sphere of the general principle, and that principle as supposing the existence of two corresponding mental states, or, if you prefer it,-as comprehending the exercise of two appropriate mental emotions. The entire definition may be expressed, either by the two distinct parts

of which it consists being transposed, (a very allowable liberty by way of paraphrase,) or, by their being presented in the order that obtains in the text. The first we should term the order of nature, the second that of observation. Each would stand thus :-" Faith is the perfect persuasion of things not seen, [and] [connected with] [leading to] [terminating in] the confident expectation of things hoped for."-"Faith is the confident expectation of things hoped for, [and] [founded on] [arising from] the perfect persuasion of things not seen." In the first case, you observe, the objects are placed in the order in which they come to be perceived and felt by the mind; and the states of mind are described as they are successively experienced. In the latter case, the process is reversed. It is conceived to be completed. You are supposed to look at it as such. It is therefore presented by describing the last result, and connecting it with that which necessarily precedes it, and without which it could not be.

Both parts of this definition we should conceive to be necessary to a scriptural description of faith, and both the mental exercises to belong to the nature of the thing; and, in either case, no more. The description and the reality would thus equally be complete. In consistency with this remark, faith might, perhaps,

not improperly be denominated, the repose of the intellect and the repose of the affections that is, the understanding perfectly admitting the divine testimony, and the heart confidently trusting the divine assurances. This, at least, is that faith "by which the elders obtained a good report." And it is that by which the Christian lives and acts, and "overcomes the world." Its sphere of observation is immense. It is commensurate with the whole compass of Revelation. It includes all objects divinely attested, for it embraces ALL the "sayings of God."

III.

It will become us, however, more minutely to illustrate the text, by glancing at the principal particulars it may be considered to comprehend. Taking the parts of the definition in the order of nature, and directing our attention to the first, we may remark, that "faith," as the "perfect persuasion of things not seen," includes the admission of three different classes of facts.

The first class consists of actually existing spiritual facts. Such as, that there is a God; a supreme, infinite, eternal, holy Intelligence; perfect in all the attributes of his adorable

nature. That he governs the world; is no unconcerned spectator of the transactions of earth, but sustains certain important relations to it, and presides over the vast affairs of its moral history. Here let it be observed, that faith conceives of God, not as a discovery, but as a revelation; that is, not as an hypothesis demonstrated by reasoning, but as a truth established by testimony. It is not God, as what is termed Natural Religion describes him to be; but it is God, both as to manner of existence and actual character, as he himself says that he is. Again; that there is a heaven; the place of the visible manifestatation of Deity; "the habitation of his holiness ;" where he is revealed, in some ineffable manner, to the enraptured gaze of beatified immortals; the home alike of redeemed and unfallen natures; of those that have been ransomed from apostasy, and of those that are reaping the results of successful probation: where is the glorified person of Messiah, who is discharging certain specific offices connected with the enlargement and the sanctification of his church. That there is a hell; a place of unmixed evil, where no circumstance either arrests or alleviates the consequences of crime; where the natural connexion between departure from God and the infelicity of the creature is exhibited in the actual experience of condemned spirits-of angels