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submitting to his righteousness," and supremely valuing his salvation; as well as in cheerful unreserved obedience to his commands, from love to his name and gratitude for his mercies.-Purity of heart would be discerned in their abhorrence of sin, and the anguish of still feeling its detested influence, interrupting and defiling every devotional service or act of obedience; notwithstanding all their watchfulness, persevering prayers for complete deliverance, and constant opposition to its first risings in the soul. For what can so fully prove our hearts pure, while any sin remains in them, as habitual abhorrence of that sin? sorrow and bitterness on account of it, and carnest desires for its extirpation? Once these same evils reigned in undisturbed dominion: but as there was nothing contrary to them in the temper of the heart, they were scarcely noticed, and gave very little uneasiness. Then we were wholly impure in heart, though prone to boast of the goodness of our hearts: but now that we feel, detest, lament, and groan, being burdened on account of these inward evils; we are become in a measure pure in heart, and shall in due season be made perfectly holy.

The love of the soul to God, likewise may be as certainly recognized, in the sinner's mourning after him, in his grief for having offended or dishonoured him, longing for the tokens of his reconciled love, and with his patient persevering diligence, seeking it in the appointed way; as in the higher exercises of delighting in God, rejoicing in hope, and with enlivened gratitude celebrating his praises and glorifying his name.

If then weak and trembling believers were directed to look to such things, as infallible evidences of saving grace; it would do unspeakably more towards comforting and establishing them, than reiterated exhortations and persuasions to take it for granted that they are safe, while they can discern no evidences of their safety. Indeed, to speak the truth plainly, the stress that is often laid upon assurance of personal safety, as almost, if not quite, essential to faith in Christ; and the outcry made against evidences, in our own experience and consciousness of sanctification, as legal and tending to self-righteousness,

and to keep the soul in bondage; is exactly calculated to buoy up the confidence of self-deceived hypocrites, and to cast into deeper dejection those, who are already discouraged through weakness of faith, temptation, and manifold infirmities. For after all, no description of men whatever, actually satisfy themselves without evidences of some kind or other: and when such as the Scriptures continually insist upon are discarded, others are imperceptibly substituted. Thus a door is opened to a variety of enthusiastical impressions, dreams, visions, and other species of new revelation, to inform individuals that they are the children of God; while they either are strangers to, or overlook, the sanctification of the Spirit, with which God himself seals and distinguishes those who are reconciled to him by faith in Christ Jesus. Nay, even assurance itself is often most absurdly made an evidence of saving faith! though nothing can possibly be more unattainable by the trembling discouraged believer. But, whatever other evidences a man may possess; if he do not love Christ and keep his commandments, he has no right to deem himself his disciple; if St. John be admitted as competent to decide the question: for he says expressly, "Hereby we "do know that we know him, if we keep his command"ments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not "his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in "him". Let those therefore, who deny sanctification to be the proper, and the only decisive evidence of justification, fairly meet this apostolical declaration, before they attempt to reply to any of our arguments on the subject.

The discouragement, to which the upright are exposed from poring on evidences, arises from their overlooking those beginnings of sanctification, which uniformly and inseparably accompany salvation; and judging of their state by such attainments as are peculiar to comparatively few of the whole multitude of believers, and to them only in the more advanced stages of their profession. The former they have, and could discern, were

I 1 John ii. 3, 4.

they but instructed to regard them as decisive: the latter they either have not, or they are incapable of ascertaining their existence.

It is of the greatest importance to the established peace and hope of believers, to distinguish accurately between the incipient holiness of a saint on earth, amidst all his conflicts and temptations; and the perfect holiness of an angel or a saint in glory. When this distinction is well understood, the deepest humiliation for detested and lamented defilements will not weaken a believer in discouragement, or lead him to conclude himself a hypocrite. He will in this manner be enabled to take the comfort of what the Lord hath done in him by his Spirit; as well as of what he hath done for him in the redemption of his Son: even while increasing knowledge and sensibility of conscience render him far more aware of his sinfulness, and far more grieved for it, than he formerly was. Self-dissatisfaction must be essential to the holiness of an imperfect creature: nay. the more he is enlightened and renewed, the more he delights in God and communes with him, and the more he loves and longs after holiness; the lower will he sink in humility of heart, and at last deem his humiliation, all things considered, lamentably defective. This was the case with St. Paul. While he was unquestionably one of the most eminent believers on earth, he deemed himself less than the least of all saints:" yet he never intimated a doubt, but that he was a saint; and had he been interrogated on the subject, would probably have considered his present lowly view of himself, contrasted with his former self-exaltation and self-complacency, when a persecuting Pharisee, as a most decisive evidence that he was "in Christ a new creature: so that old things were passed away, and behold! all things "were become new."

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If self-abasement, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, constant application to Christ, with believing reliance and earnest desire, for all the blessings of his new covenant, from unfeigned consciousness of our entire indigence and unworthiness, be not considered as

real holiness; it must follow, that the more humble we become, the less we shall be able to rejoice in God: except we close our eyes to all those passages in the Scripture, which declare a new creation to good works, a spiritual mind, and the fruits of the Spirit, to be essential to a state of acceptance with God. For in that case, increasing humility would render us less capable of discerning, and less disposed to consider, these distinguishing effects of special grace: and how could we give God the glory of having made us to differ, if we could not, without pride, perceive that we were actually made to differ? But if we admit that the things, above considered, constitute an important part of holiness, and are inseparably connected with all the rest; then indeed the life of faith will carry its own evidence along with it; except in seasons of peculiar darkness and temptation, when we cannot ascertain the real nature of our own desires and experiences. And at these times, we should come as sinners on the warrant of the general invitations, which after a while will again clear up our special interest in the promises made to believers.

If these things be not attended to, unestablished christians, when exhorted to " examine themselves whether "they be in the faith;" are exceedingly perplexed, and scarcely know how to set about it: and this perplexity is frequently increased by an indeterminate way of speaking concerning the sins of believers, which prevails both in books and sermons. The language of the sacred oracles, concerning the daring rebellions of the Israelites, who, like nominal christians, were too generally mere formalists, is often accommodated, without much precision, to the lamented sins of true believers; and even unfeigned humility leads some excellent persons to mention their own experience in terms which may be misunderstood by carnal persons, (who wish to conclude that there is no essential difference betwixt themselves and pious christians,) to mean habitual and allowed transgression. -And thus, while "workers of iniquity" are emboldened in the confident hope of salvation, notwithstanding their wilful and unrepented crimes; discouraged and tempted believers are led to think themselves like Ahab,

or Judas, or other reprobates mentioned in the Scripture; because, in some one particular, they seem to discern a faint similitude between a part of their conduct, and that of these hypocrites and apostates in ancient times.

No doubt the holiness of a real believer includes a disposition to love and delight in the whole law of God, to hate and forsake all sin, to practise all good works, and to aspire in all respects unto more perfect conformity to the divine image: and no supposed humiliation, experience, or reliance on the Saviour, can prove any one a true Christian, who allows himself in known sin, or habitually neglects known duty. Yet the exercises of heart, above insisted on, are undoubtedly holiness in its root and seminal principle: and if weak and wavering believers were instructed to find the evidences of their safety, and the pledges of their felicity, in those things about which they are most conversant, and from which their distresses commonly arise; they would more speedily be brought to establishment.-When this was done, they would have more leisure, composure, and encouragement, to study and practise all other duties, to "crucify," still further, "the flesh with its affections and lusts," to cultivate all those holy tempers in which they had been most defective, and to improve their talents to the glory of God and the benefit of mankind.

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Even in "giving all diligence to add to our faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity;"-in order to "make our "calling and election sure;" it is of great importance to know the nature and value of those things which we have already received: and in all the subsequent experience of the most assured believer, his habitual judgment, affections, and state of mind, relative to Christ and his salvation, must concur with every other evidence, to preserve his confidence unwavering, that "he has passed "from death unto life." It is, therefore, in all respects of the greatest moment, to the real christian's comfort, establishment, and fruitfulness, to possess a clear perception, that every acting of true faith implies a degree

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