Page:Last and great sermon, of the Rev Dr William Dodd.pdf/6

( 6 ) this moment and death, we may exert faith, perform obedience, and excercise repentence, in a manner which our heavenly Father may, in his infinite mercy, vouch safe to accept.

1. Faith is the foundation of all Christian virtue. It is that without which it is impossible to please God. I shall therefore consider, first, how Faith is to be particularly exerted by us in our present state.

Faith is a full and undoubting conscience in the declarations made by God in the holy scriptures; a sincere reception of the doctrines taught by our blessed Saviour, with a firm assurance that he died to take away the sins of the world, and that we have, each of us, a part in the boundless benefits of the universal sacrifice. To this faith we must have recoursed at all times, but particularly if we find ourselves tempted to despair. If thoughts arise in our minds which suggest that we have sinned beyond the hope of pardon, and that therefore it is vain to seek for reconciliation by repentence; we must remember how God willeth that every man should be saved, and that those who obey his call, however late, will not be rejected. If we are tempted to think that the injuries we have done are unrepaired, and therefore repentence is vain, let us remember, that the reparation which is impossible is not required; that sincerely to will is to do the fight of Him to whom all hearts are open; and th what is dificient in our endeavours is supplied by the merits of Him who died to redeem us.

Yet let us likewise be careful lest an erroneous opinion of the all-sufficiency of our Saviour’s merit lull us into carelessness and security. His merits are indeed all-sufficient! but he has pre-scribed the terms on which they are to operate. He died to save sinners but to save only, those sinners that repent. Pet who denied him was forgiven but he obtained his pardon by weeping bitterly. They who have lived in perpetual regularity of duty, and are free from any gross or visible transgressions, are yet but unprofitable for