trust in myself as I have in my God. That Christ's righteousness can
save me,--that Christ's righteousness alone can save--these are simple
positions, all the terms of which are steady and copresent to my mind.
But that I shall be so saved,--that of the many called I have been one
of the chosen,--this is no mere conclusion of mind on known or assured
premisses. I can remember no other discourse that sinks into and draws
up comfort from the depths of our being below our own distinct
consciousness, with the clearness and godly loving-kindness of this
truly evangelical God-to-be-thanked-for sermon. But how large, how
important a part of our spiritual life goes on like the circulation,
absorptions, and secretions of our bodily life, unrepresented by any
specific sensation, and yet the ground and condition of our total sense
of existence!

While I feel, acknowledge, and revere the almost measureless superiority
of the sermons of the divines, who labored in the first, and even the
first two centuries of the Reformation, from Luther to Leighton, over
the prudential morals and apologizing theology that have characterized
the unfanatical clergy since the Revolution in 1688, I cannot but
regret, especially while I am listening to a Hooker, that they withheld
all light from the truths contained in the words 'Satan', 'the Serpent',
'the Evil Spirit', and this last used plurally.




A DISCOURSE OF JUSTIFICATION, WORKS, AND HOW THE FOUNDATION OF FAITH IS
OVERTHROWN.