LECTURE IV.

Che Witness in Oneself.

1 JOHN V. 10.

"He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself."

A CHRISTIAN minister should often press upon his hearers the difference between historical and saving faith, and entreat them to take heed lest, to the ruin of the soul, they confound things which are so essentially distinct. We may wonder indeed that the confusion should be made; for it is quite clear that historical faith is, in no sense, influential; and a faith which is not influential, can hardly be suspected of being saving. No man's conduct, for example, is at all affected by his belief in the actions which are ascribed to Julius Cæsar. If a new history of ancient days is put into his hands, he may store his mind with fresh incidents, but not his heart with fresh motives: he will never dream of giving to his faith in the death of some great leader or philosopher of antiquity, any uniform dominion over his actions and conversation. He has no personal concern with the worthies of whom he reads: they are nothing to him, and he is nothing to them, except as the possession of a common nature makes a link

of association. The chasm of many centuries separates between himself and the heroes or sages of olden times; and though this chasm may for a while be overleaped, whilst he ponders their achievements, or studies their writings, yet there is no such thing as the bringing down antiquity into present being, annihilating the interval of days, and walking side by side with the dead through existing scenes and occupations.

And you will hardly require proof, that faith of this kind is not the faith which we are called on to put in the Gospel of Christ. If the Bible be dealt with just as we deal with the volumes of history, satisfying ourselves first, on external evidence, of the authenticity and credibility of the work, and then assenting, by a cold act of the understanding, to the veracity of the facts alleged in its pages; certainly we shall never believe with what the Bible itself calls belief; for the truths, to which we have assented, become not the heart-springs by which our actions are guided. The seat, in short, of historical faith is the head; whilst the requisition of the Almighty is, "My son, give me thine heart;" and the head and the heart, if not far removed in the body, are widely separated in all that relates to vital religion.

We introduce our discourse with these few remarks on the difference between saving and historical faith, in order that we may point out to you the difference between the evidences by which the two are supported. The historical faith requires nothing but what are popularly called the evidences of Christianity; and a volume from the hands of such writers as Paley or Chalmers, gathering to a point with industry and intelligence the scattered testimonies to

the divine origin of our religion, suffices, with every inquiring mind, to produce a conviction that the Bible is no cunningly-devised fable." But saving faith, whilst it does not discard the evidences which serve as out-works to Christianity, possesses others which are peculiar to itself; and just as historical faith being seated in the head, the proofs on which it rests address themselves to the head, so saving faith being seated in the heart, in the heart dwell the evidences to which it makes its appeal. There has often been given melancholy proof, that men may be thoroughly acquainted with the evidences of Christianity, and yet be completely ignorant of its vital truths. And the caution can never be out of place, that we confound not the historical with the saving belief; nor conclude that, because we can demonstrate the inspiration of Scripture, we have felt its power, and yielded to its authority.

It is essential that we bear these considerations in mind, as we proceed to review the assertion of our text, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself." The character, to which the Apostle refers, is unquestionably that of a true believer in Christ, one who believes to the saving of the soul, and not merely with the assent of the understanding. Hence, according to our foregoing remarks, he is one who must be possessed of an evidence widely differing from that which goes to the establishing historical faith; and, consequently, we find that St. John affirms the existence of such evidence, saying, "He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself;" in himself, so that the witness can have nothing whatever in common with the logic of the Schools, or the deductions of analysis, but is a secret, though indelible

thing, graven upon tablets which are not to be surveyed by the natural eye. The context of the passage might indeed warrant our confining the witness to points immediately associated with the great truth that Jesus is the Christ. For the Apostle begins the chapter with stating, "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God;" and the strain of his after argument has a clear and continued reference to this first announcement. But there is no necessity, that, in discoursing on the passage, we should confine ourselves to this or that portion of the Gospel. The Messiahship of Jesus is a kind of centre, whence emanate those various truths, through belief in which we become raised from the ruins of the fall; and no man can have faith in Jesus as the Christ, the anointed of God, except so far as he has faith in the life-giving doctrines which he was anointed to proclaim. Come, then, with us to a survey of sundry of these doctrines. The whole Bible may be epitomized as exhibiting man's state by nature, and his state by grace-let us seize on these two grand divisions; and let us labour to show you, that he that "believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself," first, to the ruin consequent on transgression; and secondly, to the rescue perfected by redemption.

Now, it is the result only of spiritual perception, that man beholds and recognises in himself a fallen being. He cannot indeed wholly shut his eyes to the ravages which sin has made in our creation; and he must be an infidel as to the first principles of even natural theology, if he think that the scathed and stricken globe, on which he dwells, is the fair unspotted world which the Almighty regarded with infinite complacence. The traces of wrath

are too manifest throughout the provinces of the earth, to allow of doubt in any reflecting mind, that some fearful apostacy has divided us from God, and that we stand not in the rank which we occupied, when the Omnipotent fashioned man after the image of Himself. But, individually considered, the great result to ourselves of the fall of Adam has been such a prostration of moral power, that we have no ability of turning unto God, or of doing things that shall be pleasing in his sight. We are so fallen as to be unable to rise; and herein it is that we maintain the need of spiritual perception; for the carnal, whilst it may distinguish, accurately enough, the lineaments of decay which demonstrate the introduction of evil, looks upon man only as he "lieth in wickedness," and therefore discerns nothing of his incapacity to rise. The effort must be made, before the incapacity can be displayed; and the making the effort presupposes the operations of a higher agency than human; so that, with all the confession which is generally and frankly put forth, of the tremendous consequences of early rebellion, of the loss of birthright, and of the degenerate and sunken estate of our race, the heart of the apostacy is never approached, and the man of historical faith cannot, in strict truth, know himself fallen, because mere historical faith will never lead him to strive to rise from his degradation.

But how different with the man who truly "believeth on the Son of God." He "hath the witness in himself." He has been subjected to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord. He has passed through the successive processes of conviction and conversion. He has, it may be, long resisted the motions which would have led him to Christ,.