SERMON VI.

FAITH AND EXPERIENCE.

1 SAM. xvi. 7.-" The Lord seeth not as man seeth for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."

HE among the sons of Jesse, whom Samuel thought to be the destined king of Israel, was of imposing countenance and stature; not like David, a youth, ruddy indeed, and handsome, but one whom the Philistines might despise. Samuel and Goliath, a prophet of God, and a heathen giant, both judged by what met their eyes. Samuel, when he saw the manly form and face of Eliab, said, "Surely the Lord's anointed is before Him." And God answered him, "Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature, because I have refused him, for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." And Goliath, when " he looked about and saw David," ""disdained him, for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance." And to him David answered for himself; "The Lord saveth not with sword and spear, for the battle is the Lord's."* Even then, as in the latter days, the weak were strong, and the strong weak; the first last, and the last first; the mighty cast down from their seat, and the humble and meek exalted.

And much more now, when the Most High has hid Himself beneath a servant's form, and after ascending into heaven, sent His Holy Ghost as our invisible Guide and Comforter, now, far more than before, do we require to be warned, not to judge by what we see, but by what God has said. When His word and His outward world are at variance in the information they convey to us, it is our bounden duty to trust the revealed word, and not the visible world. Not that sight is not His gift, but that He has demanded of us as Christians, as a sort of poor return for His love to us, that when these two informants, one natural, the other revealed, oppose each other, we should trust for a little while the latter,—for a little while, till this world of shadows passes away, and we find ourselves in that new world, in which there is no contradiction between sight and hearing, but absolute unity and harmony in all things, for He is the light of it. But till then, it is our very profession, as children of the kingdom, to walk by faith not by sight. And hence many warnings are given us in the New Testament, against our forming absolute judgments of men and things, from what we see; to "judge nothing before the time, till the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts; and then shall every man have praise of God." Again, St. Paul says-"Do we look on things after the outward appearance? If any man trust to himself that he is Christ's, let him of himself think this again, that as he is Christ's, even so are we Christ's." And in like manner our Saviour, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment."*

Now I propose to consider one part of this large subject; viz. to insist on a point which is very important, the necessity we lie under, if we would be Christians indeed, of

* 1 Cor. iv. 5. 2 Cor. x. 7. John vii. 24.

drawing our religious notions and views, not from what we see, but from what we do not see, but only hear; or rather, the great mistake under which men of the world lie, of judging of religious subjects merely by what the experience of life tells them. We must believe something; the difference between religious men and others is, that the latter trust this world, the former the world unseen. Both of them have faith, but the one have faith in the surface of things, the other in the word of God. Men of the world take it for granted, that all that seems to be really is. They fancy there is nothing deeper than what presents itself at first view. They cannot bring themselves to think that truth is hidden; that men's characters, words, works, professions, fortunes, doctrines, reasonings, must be carefully and critically examined, before we can find even the traces of it. They readily allow that in sciences of the world, the appearance is contrary to the truth of things. They quite understand that the great agencies in the material system are invisible, and that what is visible is deceptive. They are not loth to admit that the stars do not move, though they seem to do so; and that subtle fluids and mysterious influences, which it has required ages to detect, are the causes of the most wonderful revolutions in nature; yet they think it folly to distrust the face of the world in religious matters, or to search amid the perishable shadows of time for the footsteps and the resting-places of the Eternal.

On the other hand, the very ground from which religious men start, is the avowal, that the sights of this world are against them, and that they must believe God in spite of this. This deserves attention, because it is very common for cavillers to bring it, and for Christians to feel it, as an objection to the doctrines of Scripture, that they contradict sight. But whatever be the worth of the objection in the mouth of an unbeliever, it is irrelevant and preposterous when dwelt upon by Christians; seeing that, when we

were made Christians, we began as a first step by owning that sight was against us, and resolving, by God's grace, to trust His word more than sight. This is a representation, which, so made, few persons will deny; I proceed to exemplify more fully what I mean by particular instances, which will make it, I fear, more difficult to be received by a good many.

1. For instance: Let us consider a doctrine much debated and much resisted at this day,-the doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration. Scripture tells us expressly that," except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God;" and that God has saved " by the washing of regeneration ;" and that" Baptism saves us ;" and that we 66 wash away our sins" by Baptism. No other means has been pointed out to us for attaining regeneration, or the new birth; so that, while Baptism is said to take us out of a state of nature into a state of grace, if a man is not born again in Baptism, it does not appear how he is to be born again. Such is the true doctrine, which has ever been received in the whole Church. Yet on the other hand, consider how hard a battle faith has to fight against experience in this matter, and how certain it is that nothing but faith can overcome it.

That Baptism really does change a man's moral state as well as his state in God's sight, that it gives him the means of being a better man than he otherwise would be, and therefore, in the end, occasions his being a much better or a much worse man than he would have been without it : that two souls, one baptized and one not, are not in the same moral condition, but that the baptized, as having been regenerate, is inwardly either better or worse, or both at once,—in some things better, and in some things worse,than the unbaptized; so that Baptism may be said to be like the effect of the sun's light in place of twilight, removing the sameness or the dulness of the landscape, and bringing

it out into all sorts of hues, pleasant or unpleasant, according as we profit by it or not; or like education, which also (though in another way) developes and diversifies the mind: -all this seems to be certain from Scripture. But whether certain or not, this effect does not show itself perceptible at first, or perhaps at all. Knowing others, as we here know them at best, knowing them but a little, and not any number of them in the same respect, so that we cannot compare them together, we are not able, commonly speaking, to discover the minute points of their character; and therefore the great difficulties which I am going to state lie in the way of the Scripture doctrine of Baptismal Regeneration.

I say, then, we have these startling appearances:— Persons brought up without Baptism may show themselves just the same in character, temper, opinions, and conduct, with those who have been baptized; or when these differ from those, this difference may be sufficiently or exactly accounted for by their education.

An unbaptized person may be brought up with baptized persons, and acquire their tone of thought, their mode of viewing things, and their principles and opinions, just as if he were baptized. He may suppose that he has been baptized, and others may think so; and on inquiry it may be found out that he has not been baptized.

On the other hand, a baptized person may acquire the ways of going on, and the sentiments and modes of talking of those who despise Baptism, and seem neither better nor worse than they, but just the same.

An unbaptized person may in after-life be baptized; and if quiet and religious before, may remain so afterwards, with no change of any kind in his own consciousness about himself, or in the impression of others about him.

Or, he may have had a formed character before Baptism, and not a pleasing one; he may have been rude and irreverent,