d
how little it takes to make a Christian. 'Only faith?' you say. Yes,
thank God! not this, or that, not rites, not anything that a priest can
do to you. Not orthodoxy; not morality; these will come, but trust in
Christ and His blood and righteousness. England is a Christian country;
is it? This is a Christian congregation; is it? You are a Christian; are
you? Are you trusting in that Christ? If you are not; no! though you be
orthodox up to the eyebrows, and though seven or seven hundred
sacraments may have been given to you, and though you be a clean living
man--all that does not make a Christian, but _this_ does--'Like precious
faith with us in the righteousness of God and our Saviour.'

Again, this great thought of the identity or uniformity of the one
characteristic may suggest to us how Christian faith is one, under all
varieties of form. There never has been in the Christian Church again,
notwithstanding all our deplorable divisions and schisms, such a
tremendous cleft as there was in the primitive Church between the Jewish
and Gentile components thereof. But Peter flings this flying bridge
across that abyss, and knits the two sides together, because he knows
that away out yonder, amongst the Gentiles, and here in the little
circle of the Jewish believers, there was the one faith that unifies
all.

So, dear friends, there should be the widest charity, but no vagueness;
for the Christian faith in Him which unifies and bridges over all
differences, mental and theological, is the Christ by whose blood we are
cleansed, with whose righteousness we are made righteous.

Again, from the same thought flows the other, of the identity of the
uniform characteristic, at all stages of development or maturity. The
mustard-seed and the tree, 'which is greater than all herbs,' have the
same life in them. And the feeblest, tremulous little spark in some
heart, just kindled, and scarcely capable of sustaining itself, is one
with the flame leaping heaven-high, which lights up and cleanses the
whole soul. So for those in advance, humility, and for those in the
rear, hope. And something more than hope, for if you have the feeblest
beginning of tremulous trust, you have that which only needs to be
fostered to make you like Jesus Christ. Look at what follows our text:
'Add to your faith, virtue, and to virtue, knowledge,' and so on,
through the whole linked series of Christian graces. They all come out
of that trust which knits us to