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THE

Young Man's Sunday Book.

OUR FAITH MOST HOLY.

To make a wicked and sinful man most holy through his believing, is more than to create a world of nothing. Our faith most holy! Surely Solomon could not show the Queen of Sheba so much treasure in all his kingdom, as is lapt up in these words. O that our hearts were stretched out like tents, and that the eyes of our understanding were as bright as the sun, that we might thoroughly know the riches of the glorious inheritance of the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power towards us, whom he accepteth for pure and most holy, through our believing. O that the Spirit of the Lord would give this doctrine entrance into the stony and brazen heart of the Jew, who followeth the law of righteousness, but cannot attain unto the righteousness of the law! Wherefore they seek righteousness, and not by faith; wherefore they stumble at Christ, they are bruised, shivered to pieces, as a ship that hath run herself upon a rock. O that God would cast down the eyes of the proud, and humble the souls of the highminded!-that they might at length abhor the garments of their own flesh, which cannot hide their nakedness, and put on the faith of Christ

Jesus, as he did put it on, who hath said, "Doubtless I think all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have counted all things loss, and do judge them to be dung, that I might win Christ, and might be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law; but that which is through the faith of Christ, even the righteousness which is of God through faith." O that God would open the ark of mercy, wherein this doctrine lieth, and set it wide before the eyes of poor afflicted consciences, which fly up and down upon the waters of their affliction, and can see nothing but only the gulf and deluge of their sins, wherein there is no place for them to rest their feet. The God of pity and compassion give you all strength and courage every day, and every hour, and every moment, to build and edify yourselves in this most pure and holy faith.

IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECTS OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE.

THE subjects of religious knowledge are transcendently important. Its object is not to instruct us in physical or moral science, but in the divine character and government: not in the history of time, but in the realities of eternity. What is the true character of that Great Being who made, preserves, and governs all things? What are the relations in which we stand to him, and what are the duties that arise out of these relations? How came moral and physical evil into our world, and how are they to be mitigated or re

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