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God sent to deliver His Church from the thick darkness spread over it, and to reproclaim the great truth, that man is justified by Faith without the works of the Law, — I cannot forget that on this day that true and valiant man of God, the holy Martin Luther, entered into immortality. It is a day which to me also personally has been hallowed by the deepest grief and the most blessed assurance: for on this day he who had been the light of my life gave up his soul to his Saviour. O that a blessing might rest on these Sermons, so that they might help some in embracing the truth which Luther taught ! O that they might strengthen their author to walk in the path in which his

brother shewed him the way!

Herstmonceux, February 18th, 1840.

SERMON I.

FAITH, THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH THE world.

1 John v. 4.

This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.

ONE of the first things which must needs strike every reader of the New Testament, even the most thoughtless and careless, is the perpetual mention that is made of Faith, the great and paramount importance attacht to Faith. Faith is there spoken of as the foundation, the source, and the principle of everything that can be excellent and praiseworthy in man,-as the power by which all manner of signs and wonders are to be wrought, as the golden key by which alone the treasures of heaven are to be unlockt,-as the unshakable indestructible rock on which the Christian Church is to be built. When our Lord came down from the mount, where the glory of the godhead shone through its earthly tabernacle during the fervour of his prayer, and where his spirit was refresht by talking with Moses and Elias on the great work he was about to accomplish,-when, after this brief interval of heavenly communion, he returned to the earth, and was met by that woful spectacle of its misery and helplessness, physical and moral, the child who was sore vext by the evil spirit, and whom his disciples could not heal,—and when, the cure having been wrought instantaneously by his

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omnipotent word, he was askt by his disciples why they had been unable to effect it, he replied, Because of your unbelief. And then, having thus taught them what was the cause of their weakness, he tried to revive and renew their hearts by telling them how they might gain strength, and how great strength they might gain: Verily I say to you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustardseed, ye shall say to this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you: thus encouraging them by declaring the infinite power that lies in the very least Faith, if it be but genuine and living. In like manner, when the wonder of the disciples is excited by the withering of the fig-tree, he calls away their thoughts from the particular outward effect, to the principle by which such effects, and far greater, may be produced: Verily I say to you, if ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig-tree, but also, if ye shall say to this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done. When we pass on from the Gospels to the Epistles, we find the power and workings of Faith still more frequently urged, and still more emphatically dwelt on. The most inattentive reader can hardly fail to observe, how the justifying character of Faith, in its absolute exclusive primacy, forms the central point of St Paul's preaching. And in the text we hear the Apostle of Love, joining his voice with that of him who is more especially the Apostle of Faith, and proclaiming that this, and this alone, is the victory which overcometh the world, even our Faith.

In the Old Testament, it is true, this great evangelical doctrine of the power of Faith is not often stated in the

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