because of the word, by and by they are offended." There is also the evil heart within them. There is the length and weariness of the Christian way. There is the distance of heaven from the view. There is the presumptuous, careless confidence, the natural coldness and unbelief, of the unregenerate, unconverted mind. Thus in a little they turn away. The delusion comes to an end. The character, raised for a little above the world by false and external impulse, and not by the power of heavenly grace, returns to the world again, like as a stone which is thrown into the air, as soon as the force is spent which propelled it, falls again upon the earth. II. But now, in the second place, we are ready to ask and enquire, What must a person possess then, in his Christian experience, that will entitle him humbly and confidently to believe, that he shall, through the grace of God, continue, and hold on his way, and be faithful unto death? There are many particular pledges and earnests of this, which might be mentioned, but chiefly four: Contrition, and Faith, and Love, and Holiness. If a person really possesses these, then there is good and reasonable hope, that he will never, like Demas, forsake the Lord that died for him, through the "love of this present world." For contrite, godly sorrow worketh carefulness, indignation, fear, desire, jealousy, self-revenge.* It gives a man a watchful and tender conscience, and leads him, distrusting himself, to lean on the Lord for strength. And again, the mischief with Demas was, that the world overcame him, whereas this is the character and state of a believer, that he overcometh the world; for "this is the victory that overcometh the world, * 2 Cor. vii. 11. G even our faith."* And again, as St. John declares that if any man love the world the love of the Father is not in him, the converse must also be true, that if any man love the Father, he has not, as Demas had, in a guilty sense and degree, the love of this present world. And again, “holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling :" ye "have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.”† Now then, do you, beloved brethren, find in your own experience, the humble, sin-afflicted, broken, contrite heart? And do you, in a Scriptural and spiritual way, believe on the Son of God? And is it a faith which works by love? not that sort of natural faith, which is nothing but a formal assent of the mind to what is revealed concerning him: this is what St. James calls " a dead faith, which does not justify ;” and what St. Paul says, "profiteth us nothing." But have you that faith on the Son of God, which is spoken of when it is said, "With the heart man believeth unto righteousness?" Try it by its fruits. Try it by the things which are said of it. It “purifieth the heart." It" worketh by love;” “to you which believe Christ is precious." "It overcometh the world." It is the "substance of things that are hoped for, the evidence of things that are unseen.' + Where there is this faith in the heart, and where there is the ground of it, tender sorrow for sin, and where there is the fruit of it, a holy love to the Redeemer, then there is ground for assurance, that such an one will continue, and hold the beginning of his confidence firm unto the end. "If these things be in you, ye shall never fall, but an entrance shall be minis James ii. 24, 26, I Cor. xiii. 2. 1 Peter ii. 7. * 1 John v. 4, 5. Acts xv. 9. Gal. v. 6. tered to you abundantly, into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."* And a person that examines his own heart, and looks at his private history, cannot well be mistaken, whether he has these things or not. Do this, therefore, brethren. Examine your own selves. Look to your secret experience. It cannot be a matter unknown to your recollection, whether you ever have fled for refuge to the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the hope set before you in his Holy Word: whether with a sense of your own iniquity and danger, you have looked to him as your sacrifice, and the propitiation for your sins. And if you have done this in simplicity and humble reliance, this is repentance, and this is faith. And it cannot be a matter unknown to you, whether the love of Jesus Christ is a moving principle within you. The heart must know with a certain knowledge, its own position and exercise in this respect. Examine the matter then, without delay, and come to some conclusion upon it. And if you have really come to Christ as a sinner, renouncing all other dependance, and found the forgiveness of your sins; and if, in simplicity and godly sincerity, you feel and know that you love him much, because that much is forgiven you; if these things be in you;-then here is a pledge that you are not a self-deceiver, but really born of God. "Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Ye believe in God, believe also in Christ. He is preparing a place for you. If it were not so, he would have told you. And yet a little while, he will come again, and receive you to himself." But if, upon examination, you feel you have not these things; that faith in the Son of God, that love to the Son of God, are principles to which you are a stranger, then, as you value your soul's salvation, * 2 Pet. i. 10, 11. seek for those gifts, without delusion or delay! For out of those gifts, brethren, no man can be saved. Out of those gifts, that is, out of Christ, God is to all a consuming fire. For this is the testimony of the Scripture, "Without faith it is impossible to please God." And "if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, he shall be Anathema Maranatha: the wrath of God abideth on him."* Proposing to make these four evidential graces, Godly Sorrow, and Faith, and Love, and Holiness, in an after part of this course of sermons, the particular subject of four discourses of enquiry, I leave for the present any further application. The Lord enable us all to seek that sacrifice which he will not despise, which Christ is exalted, as a Prince and a Saviour, to give to his people; that gift of God, of which Christ is the Author and Finisher, and that heavenly and holy temper, for which Christ has declared to his people, and will declare, the Father, that the love, wherewith He hath loved Christ, may be in them, and Christ in them.† * Heb. xi. 6. + Psa. li. 17. Acts v. 31. 1 Cor. xvi. 22. John iii. 36. SERMON X. PART II. DOUBTFUL CASES, AND TESTS. NICODEMUS, JOSEPH, GAMALIEL. Among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees, they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: for they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. John xii. 42, 43. WE are noticing, in regular succession, those dif ferent particular cases of different individuals, related to us in the New Testament, which bear, in different respects, upon the great and momentous subject of a soul's conversion to true religion. I have divided those cases, as they always must be divided, into three sorts; Defective, Doubtful, and Real: that is, Those which certainly and beyond a question fell short of spiritual conversion, at different degrees of approach to it, and from different kinds of deficiency: Those who lived, by their own conviction, and whose character and conduct marked them to others, uncertain and doubtful whose they were, and where their course at the last should terminate; weak, and timorous, and unstable souls: many there are, and there have been in every age, who do thus pass through the troubled sea of this trying, and difficult, and tempting world, in sorrow, and darkness, and doubt, and |