babe before he became a man of unparralleled strength.

The human mind is subject to the same law. The Creator of our rational faculties developes them gradually. The memory be comes tenacious only by habit, and the power of reasoning is matured by use. The greatest mathematician had once to learn that five and five equal ten; and the astronomer whose capacious intellect spans the heavens, that all the parts of a circle are equally distant from the centre. Bacon, Calvin, Addison and Johnson were once ignorant of the alphabet; and once our Washington was incapable of holding either a sword or a pen.

It is most astonishing of all, that the man Christ Jesus should not have been exempted from this rule of progression. He was once an infant, and he grew in stature, in knowledge, and in favour, both with God and man.

How then, can it be expected that faith should be vigorous in its commencement? Why should there not be an infancy in the divine life? We are powerfully constrained to believe, that in the production of saving knowledge and grace, God does not deviate from his accustomed mode of operation.

II. That saving faith, in its incipient state, is commonly weak, the Scriptures plainly teach. Through a divine blessing on the means of grace, the seed of faith is sown in regener

.ation.

The first act of faith resembles the germination of the future plant; and the progress of the grace of faith is compared to the increase of the blade until it becomes a stalk bearing a green ear, which in due time contains ripe fruit. God is the only husbandman who can raise "trees of righteousness," plants of salvation, and fruits of eternal life. His word is the seed, and by his sowers, the ministers of the word, he prepares the ground, and distributes that which his dews of grace and light of life will cause gradually to increase. This doctrine our Saviour has taught at large, in the gospel by Mark. "So is the kingdom of God," he 66 says, as if a man should cast seed in the ground; and should sleep and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how."* The gradual advancement is denoted by his declaration that the blade, or tender sprout first appears, then the ear, and after that, the full corn in the

ear.

The weakness of faith in its first stage could not be more happily inculated, than by this allusion to the tender blade of corn, which imperceptibly will find its way to the surface of the soil, that it may enjoy the air and be invigorated by the sun. After germination the appearance of the plant is sooner or later, according to the state of the soil, and other

* Mark iv. 26.

influential circumstances.

I have seen the pale green germe that might be broken by the touch, issuing from the tough, unbeaten sod, after many struggles of vegetable life; and have said, even so, with difficulty, does the divine life manifest itself in one, who is timid by nature, and whose giddy, unchristian associates seek to suppress evangelical religion. The young person who becomes pious in the gay circle, in the wordly family, without the fostering hand of pious parents or friends, is a goodly plant in an unfriendly soil, shooting from the greensward instead of the mellow ridge. If the faith of such a person should long remain weak, it would not be surprising; and indeed, should not the divine CULTIVATOR regard it with peculiar care, it would as certainly perish as those plants which are choked by thorns.

To imprint on our minds the same truth, Jesus has said, the kingdom of God, or the reign of God in subduing sinners to himself, by working faith in them, "is like to a grain of mustard seed, which, when it is sown in the earth, is less than all the seeds that be in earth; but when it is sown it groweth up, and becometh greater than all herbs, and shooteth out great branches; so that the fowls of the air may lodge under the shadow of it."

Our Lord, in all his intercourse with his Apostles, taught, that even they had little faith, and were slow of heart to believe. He

had many things to communicate, which, because of the imbecility of their faith, they were unable to bear.

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The various characters under which Christians are represented denote, that many of them are weak. They are compared to sheep, of which many are feeble; and to a flock, of which many are lambs. Believers say, “we are thy people and the sheep of thy pasture. Jesus responds, "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. I know my sheep and am known of mine." "My she ep wandered through all the mountains, and upon every high hill; yea, my flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth." "I will feed my flock, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord God. I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick." Ezek. xxxiv. 6, 16." He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arms, and carry them in his bosom." Isa. xlv. 11.

Paul repeatedly styles some believers babes in Christ, and declares, that they must be nourished with milk, the simple food of children, because they cannot bear the strong meat of those who have arrived at the stature of men. Many are the directions which he gives to the weak; and to the strong, for the regulation of their conduct towards the weak.

Our text is an example. "Him that is weak in the faith receive ye."

III. Believers often have internal evidence of the existence of a weak faith. Most persons of feeble confidence in Christ are disposed to think that they have never experienced saving faith; but the internal evidence of which I treat arises from retrospection. The person who has made some progress in the divine life, and has gained more accurate knowledge of evangelical religion than he formerly possessed, looks upon the past and feels the change. He contrasts his present hopes, fears, and anxieties with his former, and can say that his hopes are now more constant, his fears less slavish, and his anxieties. more becoming a Christian than those which occupied his bosom when he first believed. It follows of course, that once his faith was weaker than it is at the present time.

Others are conscious, at the moment of self-examination, that their faith is weak. They would not for their lives say, that they reject Christ and have no desire to be saved by his atonement. They would lie were they to affirm, that they were conscious of hating Jesus, and of delighting in rebellion. Consequently, since all who are not against Christ are for him, they have a correct persuasion that they have some faith, while they feel constrained to cry out, "Lord pardon our remaining unbelief." When a believer