thren, I would have you observe in what Josiah's
chief excellence lay. This is the character given him when his name is
first mentioned; "He did . . . right in the sight of the Lord, and
walked in all the ways of David his father, and turned not aside to the
right hand or to the left[26]." He kept the narrow middle way. Now
what is this strict virtue called? it is called _faith_. It is no
matter whether we call it faith or conscientiousness, they are in
substance one and the same: where there is faith, there is
conscientiousness--where there is conscientiousness, there is faith;
they may be distinguished from each other in words, but they are not
divided in fact. They belong to one, and but one, habit of
mind--dutifulness; they show themselves in obedience, in the careful,
anxious observance of God's will, however we learn it. Hence it is
that St. Paul tells us that "the just shall live by faith" under
_every_ dispensation of God's mercy. And this is called _faith_,
because it implies a reliance on the mere word of the unseen God
overpowering the temptations of sight. Whether it be we read and
accept His word in Scripture (as Christians do), or His word in our
conscience, the law written on the heart (as is the case with
heathens); in either case, it is by following it, in spite of the
seductions of the world around us, that we please God. St. Paul calls
it faith; saying after the prophet, "The just shall live by faith:" and
St. Peter, in the tenth chapter of the Acts, calls it "fearing and
_working righteousness_," where he says, that "in every nation he that
feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." It is all
one: both Apostles say that God loves those who prefer Him to the
world; whose _character and frame_ of mind is such. Elsewhere St. Paul
also speaks like St. Peter, when he declares that God will render
eternal life to them, who by "patient _continuance_ in well-doing seek
for glory[27]." St. John adds his testimony: "Little children, let no
man deceive you. He that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He
is righteous[28]." And our Saviour's last words at the end of the
whole Scripture, long after the coming of the Spirit, after the death
of all the Apostles but St. John, are the same: "Blessed are they that
_do His_ commandments, that they may _have right_ to the tree of
life[29]."

And if such is God's mercy, as we trust, to all men, wherever any one
with a perfect heart s