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The salvation which is in Christ Jesus" is one, though it includes a variety of blessings. The whole is the object of faith. Not that the believer can take it all in at once, or have a distinct apprehension of its several parts; his views gradually enlarge, as he "looks upon the things that are not seen;' new beauties and new blessings arise; but still there is not one of these which he does not recognise as belonging to that salvation which was the object of his faith when he "first trusted in Christ."

Lastly, the believer commits himself to Christ with a view to the day of his second and glorious appearance. This the apostle specifies in the text. Disbelief of a future judgment lurks at the bottom of that indifference which multitudes indulge about their souls; and a habit of putting the day of account far away in their thoughts is one great cause why the hearers of the Gospel procrastinate day after day the great concern of their salvation. Ah! my brethren, if you believed with the heart, as you confess with the mouth, that God hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world by that man whom he hath constituted the Saviour of the world, and that he shall come with flaming fire to take vengeance on all who know not God, and obey not the Gospel, you would not give you would not be able to give sleep to your eyes, or slumber to your eyelids, until you had obtained a saving acquaintance with him whose friendship and favourable recognition will be all in all on that day. The awakened sinner has a deep and realising conviction of these two truths in their indissoluble connection: "It is appointed to men once to die, and after death the judgment." And knowing the terror of the Lord, he is persuaded to "be reconciled to God" by faith in him who was, "once offered to bear the sins of many, and who, to them that look for him, will appear the second time without sin unto salvation."

It is one mark of a genuine believer that he loves and looks for the second coming of Christ-he looks forward with hope and desire to that day, the very thought of which is an object of aversion and dismay to others. Why? Just because he hath committed his soul to him against that day, not only to be saved from its terrors, but to be made participant of its joys. That will be the day of accounts, not so properly to the believer, as to Him whom he made his sole trustee and surety, and the result will be equally creditable to the one and profitable to the other. Then will he give a good account of that which was committed to him; and none and nothing shall be lost. With respect to all who were committed to him by his Father, and who were determined by grace to commit themselves to him (and they shall eventually be the same), he will say, "Here am I, and the children who were given me." That is the day in which he will make up his jewels-the day of the manifestation of the sons of God, when the Redeemer shall bring their souls with him from heaven, and call their bodies to him out of the grave, and shall present both faultless before the presence of his glory

with exceeding joy. To this the believer has a respect when he commits himself to Christ, and, in the midst of his severest afflictions, and in the view of death and the grave, exults with an ancient saint, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day on the earth; and though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God."

Let me add an inference or two from what has been said on this subject.

In the first place, you may see that, though there is no pre-requisite in the sinner as the ground of faith in Christ, yet there are important preparations to the exercise of it. The word of the Gospel concerning the Saviour, together with the call of God to embrace him, is the proper and sole ground of faith, and all are warranted to rely on him, whatever their character is, and whatever their conduct may have been. But there is a knowledge, and there are convictions which are necessarily presupposed in their believing to the saving of the soul. They must know and be convinced that they have souls to be saved that there is a law which they are under and have transgressed that they are guilty, and accursed, and depraved, and without strength. They need to be awakened, and alarmed, and convicted. Their false hopes need to be swept away, and their legal pride brought down by exhibitions of the spirituality and extent of the law of God. These things may be effected suddenly, but they must be effected; and generally they are effected in a gradual way. Ministers must travail in birth till Christ be formed in their hearers; and it is not every child of the promise that is brought forth by a single pang. The fiery law was given from Mount Sinai before the Gospel was published from Mount Sion. Though the Lord was not in the whirlwind, and fire, and earthquake, yet they were necessary to prepare the prophet for listening to the "still small voice." The ministry of the Baptist preceded that of our Saviour; and the preaching of the law is still necessary in subserviency to the gospel. The Spirit convinces men first of sin, and then of righteousness. The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness, as well as the righteousness which is of God by faith; and he that is not convinced of the former will not believe the latter. Legal doctrine is destructive to souls, because it turns men away from the only Saviour; but there is reason to fear that multitudes have been and are lulled into a false and dangerous security by not having their natural condition laid open, and by not having their attention turned to those things which the Spirit ordinarily blesses as means preparatory to faith.

2. You may perceive that the doctrine which we have been teaching is far from being unfavourable to holiness or good works. They are ignorant of the scriptural doctrine of salvation by faith, and strangers to its influence, who bring this groundless charge against it. Some are afraid that the inculcation of a full confidence in the Saviour will make

men careless about the means of salvation. Not so was the apostle : "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that worketh in you." Does a man become careless about his money when he has deposited it in the bank? Does a sick person become careless about his health, when he intrusts his cure to an able physician? And the more unreserved and implicit the confidence which he places in his skill, will he not be the more careful in using his prescriptions, and complying with his advice?

"The grace of God which bringeth salvation teacheth" all who embrace it, "to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ." I do not say that all who profess this doctrine have been so taught. I know that there are some who pretend a great regard for evangelical truth, who fall far short of others in moral conduct, who are remiss and partial, if not faithless, in the discharge of relative duties, covetous, selfish, unsocial, uncharitable. Such are the characters of whom Paul could not speak but in tears; Enemies to the cross of Christ," though they profess to be its friends, who mind earthly things, whose God is their belly, and whose end is destruction." Such also are the professors of whom the apostle James speaks, or rather whom he repudiates: "What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say that he hath faith, and hath not works? Can faith save him? Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead, being alone." Remember that there is a wide and essential difference between being justified by faith only, and justified by that faith which is alone. True and saving faith is never alone; it worketh by love-by love to God, which is evinced by keeping his commandments, and by love to our fellow-creatures, which is shown by doing them good as we have opportunity.

There are two sayings which the apostle lays down as equally true, and charges ministers to inculcate in their preaching. The one is immediately addressed to all the hearers of the Gospel: "This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."1

The second, which is like unto it, is addressed to believers: "This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly; that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works."

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SERMON XV.

ASSURANCE.

“I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”—2 TIM. i. 12.

HAVING considered, in the former discourse, the exercise of the sinner in committing his soul to Christ, I now proceed to speak of the persuasion which the believer has of the safety of his deposit. "I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day ;" i. e. I am assured of the safety of my soul in his hands, or that I shall be saved in the day of his glorious appearing. Let us then endeavour to open up the nature, grounds, and effects of a scriptural assurance of complete and final salvation.

I begin with premising that this assurance is no apostolical gift, or extraordinary attainment, confined to the first age of the Gospel, or to a favoured class of Christians. Judas, though an apostle, did not possess it and Paul never speaks of it as a privilege of office, or an effect of inspiration. He does not say on this as he says on another subject, "Am I not an apostle? have not I seen the Lord ?" He does not come to visions and revelations of the Lord," he does not speak as one "caught up to the third heavens;" for he knew that he might have enjoyed all these privileges, and yet "be a castaway." It was as a sinner-the "chief of sinners," that he committed his soul to Christ: and it is as a believer, and on grounds common to all believers in every age, that he expresses the persuasion in the text. What he here avows as an individual he elsewhere expresses in the name of all believers: "We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." And all the saints at Rome he associates with himself in that triumphant passage: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? I am persuaded that neither life nor death, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." God forbid that we should cut off the streams of Christian consolation, and dry up the most fertile source of Christian holiness, by confining this attainment either to apostolical men, or to the primitive Christians. This were not to "follow their faith, considering the end of their conversation, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." Their minds

might be more deeply imbued with the Spirit of truth; but we having the same Spirit of faith, according as it is written, "I have believed, and therefore have I spoken;" we may believe, and so speak. Every believer in Christ possesses this persuasion in some degree, and may attain to the full assurance of understanding, and faith, and hope.

The inquiry is of no minor importance in itself, and it claims particular attention at present, when a disposition is evinced to run to opposite extremes as to the doctrine of Christian assurance. What I have to advance will fall in under the illustration of the following propositions, that it is an intelligent and enlightened persuasion; that it rests on the surest grounds, as laid down in the word of God; that it is strengthened by Christian experience; that it will stand the severest test; and that it exerts a powerful and extensive influence on the Christian life.

I. It is an intelligent and enlightened persuasion. "I know-and am persuaded," says the apostle. How and whence he knew this, will afterwards be noticed; in the mean time, it is proper to observe at the very outset, that he bases his persuasion on knowledge. What is said of it in all the riches of its full-grown strength, is true of it in its greenest and least advanced state-it is the " assurance of understanding." It differs essentially and totally from all blind impulses, all enthusiastic imaginations, all sudden impressions made on the mind, but of which the person can give no intelligent or satisfactory account. It is not the result of dreams or visions. It is not produced by immediate suggestions of the Spirit. It is not grafted on texts of Scripture ill-understood, and broken off from their connection, which have been forcibly injected into the mind, or selected by a kind of spiritual lottery. "This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you," Christian; but is to be suspected of delusion, nourishing pride and self-conceit, and creating a fanciful and presumptuous confidence, accompanied with a feverish tumult in the affections, which bursts out into extravagance of sentiment and irregularity of conduct, and then gradually subsides and sinks to the point of freezing indifference and incredulity.

Genuine Christian assurance proceeds from spiritual illumination by means of the word of God. It is the effect of the Spirit's "opening the understanding to understand the Scriptures," and to know what they testify of Christ. "The God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance." "We have known and believed the love of God to us.' "The Son of God is come, and hath given us an understanding that we may know him that is true." Faith is the act of an enlightened mind. The convinced sinner does not commit himself to the Saviour blindly, or in ignorance of his revealed character and qualifications. The weakest believer is always ready to give