an answer of peace. All the way from heaven to earth there has rushed a mighty shock of healing virtue, which has come from Christ to yon. Since you have touched him the healing virtue has touched you.

Now, as Jesus knows of your salvation, he wishes other people to know it, and that is why he has put it in my heart to say-Somebody has touched the Lord. Where is that somebody? Somebody, where are you? Somebody, where are you? You have touched Christ, though with a feeble finger, and you are saved. Let us know it. It is due to us to let us know. You cannot guess what joy it gives us when we hear of sick ones being healed by our Master. Some of you, perhaps, have known the Lord for months, and you have not yet come forward to make an avowal of it; we beg you to do so. You may come forward tremblingly, as the woman did; you may perhaps say, "I do not know what I should tell you." Well, you must tell us what she told the Lord; she told him all the truth. We do not want any thing else. We do not desire any sham experience. We do not want you to manufacture feelings like somebody else's that you have read of in a book. Come and tell us what you have felt. We shall not ask you to tell us what you have not felt, or what you do not know. But, if you have touched Christ, and you have been healed, I ask it, and I think I may ask it as your duty, as well as a favour to us, to come and tell us what the Lord hath done for your soul.

And you, believers, when you come to the Lord's table, if you draw near to Christ, and have a sweet season, tell it to your brethren. Just as when Benjamin's brethren went down to Egypt to buy corn, they left Benjamin at home, but they took a sack for Benjamin, so you ought always to take a word home for the sick wife at home, or the child who cannot come out. Take home food for those of the family who cannot come for it. God grant that you may have always something sweet to tell of what you have experimentally known of precious truth, for while the sermon may have been sweet in itself, it comes with a double power when you can add, "and there was a savour about it which I enjoyed, and which made my heart leap for joy!"

Whoever you may be, my dear friend, though you may be nothing but a poor "somebody," yet if you have touched Christ, tell others about it, in order that they may come and touch him too; and the Lord bless you, for Christ's sake. Amen.

The Object of Saving Faith.

BY G. ROGERS, PRINCIPAL OF THE PASTORS' COLLEGE.

WHAT

WHAT an old fashioned subject! say some. It is as old as Adam. Yes, we reply, and older too. It is as old as the hills, say others. Yes, and older too. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills, it was brought forth; and when the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, this theme will remain, ever old and ever young. What a Puritanical theme! say some. Yes, we reply, and Apostolic, too. Its head and its hairs are white like wool, as white as snow, but

the hoary head is a crown of glory when found in the way of righteousness. Let not our subject therefore be regarded as unprofitable because it is not new, or cold because it is old.

What is the object of saving faith? This question supposes the need of salvation, that salvation has been provided for man adequate to his need, and that this one salvation is equally needed by all. It supposes this salvation to be received by faith, and consequently that in that salvation there is some one definite object of faith. What that object is, we have now to consider. This is a momentous enquiry at all times, and never more so than in the present age. If we can clearly ascertain what is the real and only object of saving faith, if we can draw a line, clear, sharp, and well defined, between what is saving as an object of faith and what is not, we shall be better able to go forward amidst the conflicting opinions of our day, separating the chaff from the wheat, the dross from the pure gold, putting on one side of the line all that is sound and saving, and tossing all the rubbish of modern times on the other, keeping up, in fact, the wide difference between gospel and law, grace and works, salvation and perdition.

I. Salvation must be in the object of saving failh. It must be either in the object of faith or in the faith itself. It cannot be in the faith because faith itself is nothing apart from its object. It must therefore be in the object. There is no believing without something to believe, as there is no knowing without something to know, no loving without something to love, and no doing without something to do. Neither has faith any effect upon its object, but all the effect is from the object upon the faith. Things are not therefore what we believe them to be. They are to us, not what we believe them to be, but what they really are. If I believe an artificial flower to be a real flower, or counterfeit coin to be real gold, or clouds to be solid mountains, or poison to be nutritious food, or an enemy to be a friend, it makes no difference in the things themselves, as experience soon testifies. On the other hand, if I believe the natural flower to be artificial, or the gold coin to be base metal, or the nutritious food to be poison, or the friend. to be an enemy, they will not be to me what they really are, because I shall not avail myself of them as such. In the one case, we see that what we believe to be in an object must be really there; and in the other, that we must believe it to be there, in order that it may be what it really is to us. This shows that salvation must be in the object of saving faith. It must be contained in what we believe in for salvation; not the fact merely that there is salvation, but the salvation itself must be there. The fact that there is salvation is no part of the salvation. It simply teaches that it is, not what it is; and faith in the existence of a thing is not faith in the thing itself. Faith in the existence of a remedy is one thing, faith in the remedy itself is another. So faith in a salvation for man is one thing, faith in the salvation is another. It is the salvation itself as revealed in the New Testament that is presented for our belief. Faith cannot receive from an object what is not in it. If, therefore, salvation be not in the object, it cannot be in the faith. If mercy only be in the object, then mercy only apart from justice can come from it. If Christ be there as a model man only, nothing but an example of perfect humanity can come out of it. Salvation itself

must be in the object that salvation itself may come from it. If not in the object it cannot be in the faith of that object. If salvation be not in a text, it cannot come out of it; and if it be not in a sermon it is impossible that it should come out of it. Whether or not every sermon should have in it the way of salvation, it is quite certain that it must be in it before it can come out of it.

II. The object of saving faith is contained in the Scriptures. It is here, and here only. The Bible was given for this end. If we meet with it elsewhere it must have have come from the Scriptures. Inspired truth Whatever cannot be traced to is inspired truth, find it where we may. this source is not the object of saving faith. Salvation comes from this book, and from this book alone. This is both the object and the ground of our belief. We are to believe what it teaches upon its own testimony, and there can be no firmer ground of belief. It is a sure word to which we do well to take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place. There is no need, says an apostle, to ascend into heaven to bring down the object of saving faith from above, nor to descend into the deep to bring it up from thence, but it is nigh thee, that is the word of faith which we preach. It is in that word. Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. We have the object of saving faith, then, in the divine word, not in human reason or tradition, and we have it in the plain declarations and common-sense interpretations of that word. Whether we have it in refined criticisms and learned annotations upon the Scriptures is always uncertain, but that we have it in plain and direct propositions, and in the full and concurrent testimony of the book itself, is always sure. The object of saving faith, therefore, depends much upon where it comes from. However beautiful, emotional, and rational other truths may be, they cannot save. Salvation is not in them, and therefore cannot come out of them. Whatever we bring to the Scriptures, and is not brought out of them, is not saving. Originality in preaching (so far as it applies to the subject, and not to the manner of its presentation), from the very fact of its originality, cannot save. So far as we have plain Scripture teaching in our sermons, so far we may rest satisfied that we have in them the object of saving faith.

III. What is the object of saving faith made known to us in the Scriptures? All Scripture is not the object of saving faith. All is proffered for our faith, but not all for saving faith. We are not required to believe all the truths of the Bible in order to be saved. That which is necessary to be believed in order to salvation is that part in which the salvation is said to be contained. There is no salvation without Christ. Christ, therefore, must be in the object of saving faith. If the only Saviour be not there, the only salvation cannot be there. There is no salvation without Mediation. This is the only method by which reconciliation can be effected between those with whom God cannot deal directly on account of justice, nor they with him on account of sin. This, therefore, which is an essential part of the object, must be in the faith. There is no salvation without Substitution, consequently no saving faith. There is no salvation without Atonement, and no real atonement but in the cross at Calvary. This, therefore, which enters into the salvation must enter into saving faith. There is no salvation without Imputed Righteousness. How, then, can we be justified by faith

unless the gift of righteousness becomes the object of that faith? There is no salvation but by Grace. This too, therefore, must be an object of faith. These truths are inseparable from each other, and are essentially one. They must be known to be believed, and in the right knowledge of them and belief of them salvation consists. The words of Christ himself are, "This is life eternal to know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent." The words of the chief of his apostles, are, "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." Of faith in him the Christ testifies, "If he believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins," and the apostle testifies, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shall be saved." To these may be added the testimony of the beloved disciple, "He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son of God hath not life, but the wrath of God abideth on him." Now the Christ of all these prepositions, the Christ to be known and believed, must be the real Christ as he is revealed in the Scriptures, for if it be another Christ, it is another subject altogether to which the predicates of salvation and eternal life do not apply, and of which they are expressly denied. What we maintain then is, that there must be a clear objective Christ before he can be subjectively received by faith. Salvation must be seen to be in him, before it is felt to be in us. We must not only see that God will forgive sin, but how he forgives it through the merits of his Son. We must believe him not to be merciful merely, but to be "faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," and this cannot be believed without believing in Christ as a real and full substitute on our behalf. This is the salvation, and must therefore be in saving faith. Is there no faith, then, but this that saves? Must this be the object of all saving faith? We reply, Yes! If the Scriptures are true, Yes! If the testimony of the best of men in all ages is to be trusted, Yes! If experience is to be our guide, Yes! If the testimony of the dying can be credited, Yes! If the effects of this faith and the effects of other faith for salvation upon the life and death of others can teach us, again we reply, Yes! There are those, we are aware and their name is Legion, who say, No! It is not necessary, they tell us, to believe in Christ in order to salvation or even to know him. Let men trust in the mercy of God for pardon, and they need not know on what ground they are pardoned; as though faith in the mere mercy of God were the faith of the gospel. It is not necessary, we are told, if we do believe in Christ, to believe in his Divinity in order to be saved through him. Is there any Christ left, we would ask, if we take his Divinity away? It is not necessary, say others, to believe any part of the work of Christ to be substitutionary, as his death for propitiation and his obedience for justification in behalf of others. What again, we ask, is left of Christ as he is revealed in the New Testament? There is no salvation in the object, and consequently none in the faith. There is nothing to connect the salvation with the individual who seeks to be saved.

If it be true that the Son of God became man; if it be true that the Father sent the Son to be the Redeemer of the world; if it be true that he took upon him the likeness of sinful flesh, and became a man of sorrows

and acquainted with grief; if it be true that the Lord laid on him theiniquity of us all, pouring upon him the vials of his wrath that they might not be poured upon us; if it be true that he was more willing that the fierce anger of his Father for our sins should be upon him than upon us; if it be true that he died the just for the unjust to bring us to God, and by his stripes we are healed; if it be true that he gave a perfect obedience to the law we have broken that it might be set to our account for complete, instantaneous, and eternal justification as soon as we believe in him; if it be true that God the Father was so well pleased and glorified by this whole work on man's behalf that he has placed his Son for ever upon the throne of the universe in that person in which it was performed; if all this be true, and true it must be if there be any truth in God and in his creation, then no room is left for any other salvation, it covers the whole area, and precludes the possibility of any other; it is all in all. Nor is it possible to conceive how the faith which ignores all this could derive any benefit from it. Certainly it is not the faith which is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things

not seen.

If

That such is the real and only object of saving faith, may be seen. from another point of view. What the servants of God are commissioned to preach is the object of saving faith. They are commissioned to preach not the fact of salvation merely, but the salvation itself, and consequently it must be both known and believed. It was clearly and fully explained in the preaching of Christ and his apostles. Why was this, if it were not necessary to be believed in order to salvation? it be not necessary to believe in a way of salvation, why make it the chief thing and the first thing in the ministry of the word? Why speak of Christ first and put the cross at once before the sinner, if it be not needful to saving faith? Why not simply declare that God is merciful, and preach his universal Fatherhood, if that will suffice? It would be a much shorter and easier way of dealing with the souls of men. It is what many are doing in our day. Why not do it? Because it was not the preaching of Christ and his apostles; because it is not the commission that we have received; and because we do not hold it to be a sufficient object for saving faith.

R

(To be continued.)

Bare Providence.

ECORDS of the direct interposition of Providence in times of danger and fierce persecution come to us as welcome encouragement, even in our own times of peace. To find such things we have to turn aside from the broad, well-beaten track of general history and seek them in highways and byways comparatively little frequented. Many such life-histories shed cheerful gleams through the darkest era of Puritan persecution.

Directly associated with Monmouth's rising in the West, in 1685, was a person of the name of Story, who was sufficiently unfortunate to