became the leader of all the faithful. Here is true faith. But is this the reception of dogmas, the admission of formal and formidable propositions drawn from Scripture, expressed in words of human device, and obtruded upon the conscience? Is this faith of Scripture, the admission of a creed; or is it not rather a heart right before God? To feel piously to God, to act justly to man, and to reverence ourselves as temples of the Holy Spirit, is not this faith? is not this the religion of Christ? We hold that it is so. To believe in any set of tenets, then, however correct, is not the essence of faith. That is reliance upon the moral character of God, producing moral conformity of character in us. Want of faith, is to be without this principle of reliance. Cain who slew his brother, Balaam who loved the wages of unrighteousness, and Peter when he denied his Master, are examples of the latter. Faith is not so much the reception of any given set of ideas, as it is the principle of mental and moral honesty, preparing and disposing us to receive and profess whatsoever ideas are forced upon us as true, according to the evidence. It is not faith, but the want of faith, that closes the mind's eye to increasing light. It is not faith to be indifferent to truth, and to be heedless in searching it out and spreading it abroad. It is not faith to take up, without inquiry, the opinions which may happen to be prevalent; or which may have been imbibed in early years, through sympathy, from the priest or the nurse. Growth in grace, is a never-failing accompaniment of true Christian sincerity; and growth in the faith, is the mark of a sound and healthy mind. The faith of the individual must expand, as his character improves and the range of his mind is enlarged to embrace new truths. The faith of a child, is not the faith of a man mature in experience. Our faith, then, must be progressive as our hearts become more united to God. In a sound and healthy mind, faith will feed itself continually by every new discovered manifestation of the Deity, by the better comprehension of the divine plan, by that gradual refinement of the moral taste, by that spiritualization of human nature, by which it becomes "one with God." How inconsistent, then, with this health and progressiveness of the mind, are those creeds which attempt to fix down into one dead form-to crystallise into one rigid mass, that which ought to be the ever-warm and onward-flowing faith of Christian men! We hear much of justifying faith; it is nothing else than sanctifying faith. Justification, as employed in the New Testament, denotes the remission of sin through God's free mercy; and our being placed, in consequence, in a new spiritual relation as disciples of Christ. But this justifying faith must prove itself sanctifying faith, by actually purifying us from all iniquity. Mere forgiveness, without purity, is a very inferior blessing. It must be followed by the greater blessedness of sanctification, or conformity to the Divine image as pictured forth in Christ. What avails it to be justified by faith, if we are not also purified by it? Will such alone save us without works? We answer, No; "it is dead, being alone." Justification has received from Christians too much attention, and sanctification too little in comparison. Yet, the latter blessing is the great and crowning one of our religion. Not merely, and not chiefly, to bring us the message of divine forgiveness, but more to purify us from all iniquity, Christ gave himself for us. Justifying faith is the commencement of the Christian's career. It is like repentance, and is joined with repentance as the beginning of the divine life; but after we are justified, or forgiven, through faith, there remains then to be accomplished the great work of life, to work out our salvation from sin— to purify the heart within from prejudice, passion, and every wrong affection, and to "perfect holiness in the fear of God." The advantages of regarding faith in some such light as we have here presented it, are manifold. First, this seems to be the leading aspect in which it is offered to us in Scripture. The faith of the eminent persons of Scripture history, is a practical, operative principle. “By faith," says the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, "they wrought righteousness." Their faith resembled in nothing, the obscure, mysterious, incomprehensible something of modern creeds and churches, which, it seems to be supposed, works its effects on the mind more in the way of charm, than of rational conviction, evidence appreciated, ideas understood, and principles felt and applied. The faith of Moses and the prophets, was the principle of obedience, reliance upon God, and just and benevolent conduct to man. Staying itself upon the Divine character the holiness, truth, and wisdom of God, faith produces those affections and actions, which in one word we express by the term, piety. In the next place; this frees us at once from all the perplexity of defining where orthodoxy ends, and heterodoxy begins; for, according to our view, faith is not chiefly placed in any opinions, but in the sentiments and dispositions of the mind; veneration for the high and the pure; confidence in the wisdom of Providence; fidelity to the voice of conscience, as the vicegerent of the Divinity; and obedience to the Divine will, under whatever clouds and difficulties it may be our lot to walk. This is faith. It undoubtedly implies certain views of the Divine character and government. There could be no trust, without some knowledge of the character on which trust is reposed. Faith without knowledge, is first impossible; next, it would have no value; it could admit of no expansion and purification with the growth and progress of our nature; and it would be no part of man's reasonable service to the Creator. "I know," says an Apostle, "in whom I have believed." Again we reach the view which we wish chiefly to enforce that faith is not in any or in all speculations, but in the inward sentiments of a mind resting on God. Whatever a man may believe, if he is destitute of this reference to what is high and spiritual, if he is regulated only by visible interests and narrow calculations of expediency, he walks by sight, not by faith in a righteous God, and a moral government, and an immortality of holiness. Yet again; this mode of regarding faith, is promotive of peace and charity among Christians. Instead of looking out to see whether the speculations of our neighbours cross the line which we have marked out as the limit of a safe liberality, we should be looking inward to ourselves, to see if we are cherishing the sentiments and habits of an ardent and operative piety. So long as Christian communion is made to depend upon similarity of opinion-identity of creed-there can be no peace, cooperation, and the charity that "thinketh no evil." But let faith be the inward principle of dutiful reliance and faithful obedience, and then all are Christians, possessed of the like precious faith, who bear the image of the Master. Furthermore; if this is the faith of Scripture, then the Divine approval is not made to rest on something precarious, uncertain, and beyond our power; but the thing is nigh unto us, and completely within our reach. To arrive at the same speculative views, is hardly practicable with our existing diversities of position and education; but the inward sentiments which take hold on God, and work good to man, may consist with innumerable varieties of opposed and honest conviction. If salvation depends on correct belief or the right creed, then the Deity has required, as the condition of salvation, what can only be if every individual understanding were infallible. If this is not the case, there ought to be somewhere an infallible decider of controversy-a pope; if this also is refused, then salvation and the Divine approval do not depend upon an orthodoxy. Finally, it is on some such view as that which we are adverting to, that the integrity of the devotional feelings may be preserved amid the utmost freedom of speculative inquiry. The understanding may undergo many revolutions, may pass through grades of investigation, may contemplate the history and the science of theology; still the heart's faith may be secure and untouched; we may advance in knowledge, and our intellectual convictions may be rectified, rationalised, and purified; for in all this there is no danger to a faith whose essence is devotion. Men of all creeds may be one as regards the interior sentiments. Catholic and Protestant may be united in their reliance upon a Father-God; and all efforts of reform and proselytism will be directed, not to alter the inward dependence upon a holy God, and a constant reference to moral distinctions in all thoughts and acts, but it will simply be, to remove certain excrescences which have overgrown, through length of years, our primitive Christianity. Inquiries may be pursued respecting the origin of the four Gospels, the geology of Moses, the canon and inspiration of Scripture, the principles of Interpretation, and similar topics, without in the smallest degree perilling the faith of the heart. The Unitarian's creed is not too scanty, if it embraces this heart-reliance upon God, however it may be shorn of the supernumerary honours of orthodoxy. And in the proportion that our knowledge upon the subjects in debate among Christians, is freed from mistake, and approaches to simplicity and purity, shall we perceive, that with whatever historical errors or doctrinal corruptions it may have been united, yet the principle of inward faith-spiritual reliance upon Godsurvives, like Christianity itself amid the corruptions of dark ages and the debasement of worldly hierarchies-or like conscience in man, which not even the wickedness of the wicked, nor the strength of evil habit, can utterly extinguish. A. M. TO THE MORNING STAR. "Oh could thou be with me, Daughter of Heaven, For Time hath wither'd all the beauteous flowers That once adorn'd my youthful coronet."-Sir H. Davy. STAR of the meek-eyed Morn! how like a gem By ties of kindred sympathy to dwell Oh, oft When prostrate on a bed of pain, I've gazed Which spoke of peace and tranquil joy, when freed These reconciled my heart, and nerved Newcastle-upon-Tyne. E. W. G. |