Faith, Treated in a Series of Discourses

DuEmG the years 1856 and 1857 Dr. Alexander delivered to his congregation at intervals a series of discourses on Faith. These he intended to enlarge and throw into the form of a treatise, and had actually made arrangements for its publication, when his failing health prevented its accomplishment. Knowing that the author had expended much labour in the preparation of these discourses, and believing that they clear up many difficulties connected with the subject, I now present them to the public just as they were delivered.

Although much is lost in the arrangement, and in the absence of matter wliicli Dr. Alexander intended to have incorporated, yet enough remains to authorize their publication. I have added one or two discourses of a more general character, to bring the volume to a convenient size.

S. D. A.

1 John ii. 1. — And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Our translators have left some words in their original Greek and Hebrew form. Sach are Amen Selah, Hallelujah, Baptize, Baptist

In some instances this was done on account of the want of an exact equivalent. One of these words, which has no answerable term in English, is the very term here rendered Advocate. This Greek word, of frequent occurrence, and great preciousness, sometimes means one who takes up his client’s cause, to carry it through by pleadings and acts, an Advocate; sometimes one who goes forth to make peace

y between two parties, beseeching for an offender, an Intercessor; sometimes one who stands by the sinking sufferer, uttering words of consolation and strength, a Comforter, All these offices concur in Jesus Christ, who is our Advocate to urge our cause — an Intercessor to make our peace — our Comforter to fill us with joy; and hence one might almost wish the text had said, “If any man sin, we have a Paradetos with the Father.”

Kow, though this name of love is also given to the Holy Spirit, there is something delightful in regarding both the adorable Son and the Spirit as standing towards us in this same benignant relation of manifold good. In our mind’s apprehension of Divine consolation, there need be no nice discriminating between the Yfork of the Son and the work of the Spirit, for when the Lord Jesus comforts, it is by the hand of the Comforter. Far different, however, is the work here ascribed to Christ as our Paraclete. Here he transacts, not in us, but for us; not on earth, but in heaven; not with creatures, but with God. The topic presented to us is the Lord Jesus Christ as

OUR Mediator and Head, acting on our

BEHALF ABOVE, IN VIRTUE OF HiS PEtlFECT RIGHTEOUSNESS.

You will at once be struck, on examination, with the strong contrast in the text between sin and rio-liteousness. It is I the sinful one: it is Jesus Christ the righteous. And this has a bearing which cuisoiy readers and superficial theologians are apt to overlook, being indeed the solution of the main difficulty to mankind. This is clearly and fully before the mind of the apostle John, whose characteristic it is, as a thinker and writer under Divine guidance, to unite depth of meaning with childlike plainness of words. His truths are solid and precious as the diamond, while they are no less simple and pellucid.

I. Consider the case thus: If there were no such thing in the world as consciousness of sin the vast structures of all religions for procuring pardon and peace would tumble down or moulder away. It is sense of sin that troubles mankind. It is a pronouncing and punishing Conscience that anoints priests, declares fasts.

keeps lents, rears altars, and sacrifices hecatombs. It is the self-accused sinner who cries, “Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and how shall I bow myself before the High God? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with yearlings? will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? “Mic. vi. 6. Yes, many have replied, and vainly endeavored to offer the richest and bloodiest oblations to escape the intolerable sting of sin in the conscience. So much worse is pain of mind than pain of body, that pagans and papists do most willingly endure and even will inflict on themselves any degree of suffering, from hunger, whips, hot iron, knives, ingenious and continued tortures, in order to get rid of the more direful inward furies of an eldl Conscience. Under Christianity relief is afforded, but (mark it) only through Christian means. Christ cures this inward fever and frenzy; but only in those who drink of his fountain. The consciousness of sin, with its accompanying pain, sometimes dull and subdued, but always ready on provocation, or at the dying hour, or in eternity, to become poignant and agonizing, exists in all men; and whenever the thought has become explicit, whenever the soul has come to comprehend itself, it leads up to the idea of God as holy and as offended. ‘Nor is this internal principle ever eradicated. It belongs to man as man; and it stino-s and wounds and curses sinful man as sinful man. And when religious transfoiTQation takes place, though there be a new nature, there is no new faculty; and Conscience abides on the vicarious throne as truly in heaven as in hell. The intermediate realm of the present life affords abundant scope for the work of Conscience, both in the righteous and the wicked. None are wholly pure: all are either wholly or partially unclean. As early as the first century this holy Apostle found reason to guard against the shallow conceit of sinless perfection, i. 8:” If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins (a prompting of Conscience when led up to the Lawgiver and Judge) he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse

US from all unrighteousness.” Consciousness of impurity begets repentance, and so confession, and so cleansing. “If we say (he adds) that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and his truth is not in us.” Words which strikingly convey that truth we have been asserting, and which deserve our careful consideration.

Any proposition introduced by the holy writer mth such unwonted and startling language must be of singular moment. Any error that would make the Lord a liar is an error not only to be forsaken, but guarded against and abhorred. This error is the alleging that we have not sinned. The doctrine of sin is fundamental. This dark side of the contrast is always present, like the background of the painting, or, still more exactly, the chaos out of which order and light emerge. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. The preaching of every apostle, nay, the entire Christian system, proceeds upon this. There is no such thing as becoming a true Christian by a process of making that which is not quite good, to grow gradually better. It is day out of night. There must be a tliorougli clearing away of every self-righteous figment, before the first stone of the gracious edifice can be laid In this we discern the reason why Paul, as a master workman, in his great epistle to the Romans, begins his sweeping process by utterly demolishing every ground of merit, and clearing away out of sight every pretence of Gentile and of Jewish righteousness. And we seem to behold him, after the completion of this herculean task, and cleaning of this Augean stable, proclaiming, “But the Scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith might be given to them that believe.” Gal. iii. 22. Corresponding to which is the secret operation of God in the heart, by which he turns doctrines into experience, the doctrine of sin into the experience of conviction; and thus he leads the soul to feel its utter condemnation and absolute need of help from without. However deeply a man may feel the discontent of a worldly life, and how much soever he may desire religion, as a new and better means of comforting himself, he has as yet done nothing, unless he has known himself to be a sinner. In truth, this is the very thing and only thing, for which the Lord Jesus Christ first reveals himself. All other and lesser benefits are but so many results. That which the sinner wants, is to be freed from his sin. This was the single charm which made the Gospel welcome to thousands, both Jews and Gentiles, at its first publication. The beautiful picture given by Neander in his Memorabilia is not overdrawn. Dire eclipse was over the nations by reason of sin. Athens and Alexandria had reared thoughtful minds, opened their vision to the likeness of virtue, lifted them up to behold the goodly and unattainable prospect, and then dropped them far down into the depth of the ocean. When a conscience-smitten and heart-sick philosopher, like him of the Clementina,^^ had come wan and panting, out of the round of rites, penances, mysteries, necromancies, schools, and systems, to the Church; which he delighted in, which filled him with rapture, and which was sweetly symbolized by his baptism, it was the rising of a new luminary on his midnight of Sin. And the operations of light in the natural world are not more constant than the operations of God’s Spirit in

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