them; and he did not create them to satisfy the soul that was living in neglect of him. If she believed that God was the Maker of heaven and earth, she could not delude herself with these vain hopes of creature delight. The Christian too often repeats it with a downcast air, which shows how little he grasps the glorious truth, that God his Father is Almighty,-and how much need he has to couple it with the prayer, “Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief." Yet these words have been repeated with full confidence of faith; and then there has been an energy in them, which the world could not understand. She threatened the loss of those things to her most precious, but the Christian, believing in God, could, with Moses of old, "count the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt;" or, with the Philippians, even "take joyfully the spoiling of his goods." She remembered the feebleness of the flesh, and tried cruel torture, but they believed in God, and would not accept deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. She arrayed against them all the powers of earth, but what was earthly power to those who believed in God, the King of kings, the Father Almighty-like Luther at Worms, they could stand unmoved, before kings and princes, saying, 'I can do no otherwise, so help me God.' And if, proceeding to the last extremity of human power, the world has tried the terrors of death, here too she finds that she is baffled For what is death to those who believe in the God of life? why should they fear them "who kill the body, and after that, have no more that they can do?" They count not their lives dear unto them, that they may finish their course with joy. "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." This is the royal grace, which stamps a kingly dignity on the meanest

believer, making him more than conqueror through him that loved him.

'I believe in God:' in one sense this is the almost unanimous voice of the children of men, with the exception of a few tribes, sunk in the most sensual barbarism, or, a few daring infidels, who having sold themselves to Satan, may, for a time, have stifled the voice of nature. The universal instinct of humanity is to look up to some supreme power, that has some claim to reverence, and from whom we may expect some protection, or, at least, whose wrath must be deprecated.

Tell me what is the nature of God,' was the inquiry of a king to a heathen sage, and he requested one day to consider the subject. On the question being repeated at its close, he asked three days, then nine, then twentyseven; and when the king inquired the cause of this conduct, he owned, that the more he dwelt upon the subject, the more impossible he found it to fathom its depths. Well might the heathen philosopher say this; for, when Moses enquired of the Lord himself in what name he should bear the appointed message to his people," I am what I am," was the mysterious reply. The nature of God's being was far beyond the reach of human reason. In these few words,' I believe in God,' what a boundless field of thought is open to us: how much may be known of Him in his works, " for the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." How much is, and must be unknown to us, and remains to awaken our awe and revereace. It is a want of this awe and reverence, which is urged as one great objection against evangelical religion, and Tractarians would

have us strive to excite it by the doctrine of reserve, by mysterious types and symbols, but surely the Scriptures have set before us a more excellent way. We need reserve nothing they have declared; for it is in the fullest revelation, that we realize most our own littleness in the vastness of the truths set before us. We need make no petty mysteries for ourselves and others, when we tread every moment on the verge of mysteries so deep and awful, that the only fear is, lest faith should lose its hold.

However, Adam in Paradise might have rejoiced simply in God as the Maker of heaven and earth, the Father Almighty, this is not now sufficient for the sinner. We must, if we would find solid peace, continue, with the second part of the Creed.

And in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.'

Each word here, were we to stop to unfold it, might occupy many pages. Jesus-Jehovah our Saviour. Christ -the anointed one, our prophet, priest, and king. His only Son-then One who is God, and not man, for, if he were merely a creature, he could not be God's only Son in that respect we are all sons of God, and have one common Father. Our Lord-then we are bound to obey him.

'Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.'

Here again mystery meets us we cannot understand this conception or this birth: "Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh :" yet the truth it unfolds is the life of our souls, for it tells us how Christ took our nature upon him, and could therefore be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He was in all points tempted like as we are; yet, though born of a sinful mother, being con

ceived of the Holy Ghost, he was without sin, and therefore meet to be a spotless sacrifice.

'Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.'

How could the innocent be justly doomed to suffer? how could the Lord of life become subject to death? Such transfer in an earthly court would not be sanctioned by justice: how can it stand in the supreme court of heaven, where, though so much surpasses our reason, nothing opposes the divinely-implanted instincts of our moral nature? Here again we are thrown on the mystery of the Incarnation; the substitute has done that which could never be done in an earthly court he has assumed the nature of the criminal. The Saviour becoming man, became, though in a manner beyond our comprehension, responsible for human guilt. Here again, though reason cannot fathom the mystery that is set before us, what ample scope is there for the exercise of faith and love. He suffered, he was crucified, dead, and buried. Faith sees the penalty once borne; knows a righteous God will not demand it a second time, rejoices in the victory of the cross, and exclaims, "He made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Love, too, beholds the suffering Saviour, knows that he shared all the sinless frailty of our nature, that his flesh quivered in agony on the cross, that in utter exhaustion he said, "I am poured out like water; all my bones are out of joint :" that he shrank from the awful conflict with death, even while he passed through all its sharpness. Amidst all the joy of pardoned guilt, she mourns over the suffering of her Lord, and learns a deep hatred to the sin which caused it. 'He descended into hell.'

These words have been the subject of frequent discussion. Some have unscripturally explained hell, or Hades, as if it were the same with Gehenna, the place of final torment, to which the term is now applied in popular use. Others, as unscripturally, when Scripture tells us that the soul of Christ was in hell before the resurrection, would persuade us that it was in the highest heaven. The general lesson of these words, which are, in fact, the words of the Psalmist, applied to our Lord by the inspired Apostle, is very plain, whatever difficulties may otherwise attend them. The humiliation of our Lord was complete. He experienced, to the very uttermost, the bitterness of death. His spirit, when separated from the body, shared in the sentence, which he bore on the cross for sinners. He descended, as St. Paul tells us, into the deep, before He rose and ascended on high, that He might fill all things. So that the believer, in this view of his Lord's sufferings, may find a sure ground of sympathy and confidence. He cannot sink so low, in the hour of death, and in the dread of the spirit, to pass unclothed into the unseen world, but his Lord has stooped still lower. He who is now seated on the throne of glory, has known the agony of the parting hour, and sounded the deepest sorrows, short of despair, which the spirit of man can endure. His love has thus a depth, as well as a height, that passeth knowledge, and is the unfailing stay of His people in their darkest hours of fear and sorrow.

'The third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.'

Love might have dwelt on the self-sacrifice of One, who assayed for us the dreadful conflict with death;