to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." These words contain a statement admirably adapted to preserve at once from presumption, and from despair; guarding alike against each of the two extremes. Who does not feel presumption in sin repressed, when he hears the declaration, "These things write I unto you, THAT YE SIN NOT?" and who, amidst his consciousness of many sins and universal failure, does not feel the weight of despair lifted from his spirit, and his heart still cheered with a sense of God's love and with the light of hope, when it is added, “And if any man sin we HAVE AN ADVOCATE WITH THE FATHER, JESUS CHRIST THE RIGHTEOUS ?" But, while we must be ever looking unto Jesus," and making Him, who is our "propitiation" and our "Advocate" our simple and exclusive confidence; not only will our peace be the more steadfast; there is another effect which will at the same time result,-the holy influence of the truth will be the greater and the more apparent, the practical efficiency of faith being in proportion to its simplicity. The same believing view of the cross, which conveys peace to the conscience, conveys at the same time purity to the heart; so that there is some radical and deadly error, when a man professes that by "looking unto Jesus" he has found peace, if there be no appearance of his having found holiness. Of this, however, we shall have occasion to say a little more by and by. I close this branch of my subject with the words of the Apostle Peter, by which the statements that

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have been made are strikingly confirmed. He enjoins upon believers that they "give diligence to make their calling and election sure:" which amounts to much the same thing as " knowing that they had eternal life."-And what is his inspired direction for the attainment of this end? Is it simply to think of their consciousness of believing? By no means. Simple faith in Jesus is presupposed; and the exhortation given is to its various practical manifestations :—“ :—“ Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, (fortitude,) and to fortitude knowledge, and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren (Gr. idle) nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure; for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."* And the mention of this "abundant entrance into Christ's everlasting kingdom," leads me forward naturally to the inquiry, how believers are to" know that they have eternal life," in regard to their future prospects" the life that is to

come."

3. I come now, as I have said in the close of the preceding paragraph, to consider the question, how believers are to" know that they have eternal life,"

* 2 Peter i. 5-11

as it regards their future prospects, their hopes of the life to come. And to this question, my general answer is very short. We have seen what is written, whereby believers are to know that they have life in regard to legal state, and in regard to spiritual character. When the inquiry, then, respects their prospects for the life to come, my reply to it is, that their security for the life of heaven arises from a union of the evidences of the other two. Thus :-if we know, in the first instance, our having "passed from death unto life" in regard to our state before God, or, in other words, our having our sins forgiven, and the sentence of death withdrawn,-by simply taking God at his word, in that testimony which as'sures of acceptance and forgiveness all who come to him in the name of his Son :-if, again, we know our having become the subjects of spiritual life, by consciousness of the symptoms of that life within us, as they are described in the scriptures, and by all the manifestations of faith there specified, by the correspondence between the Spirit's testimony in the word, and the Spirit's work in our souls:-we know that we have a legitimate and scripturallyfounded hope of the life to come, by the union of both.

When a sinner spiritually understands and receives the gospel, the same truth which gives him a sense of forgiveness, and peace with God, necessarily gives him at the same time, hope. The fear of the wrath to come, or of the second death, arises from a consciousness of guilt and of righteous condemnation, and must always be in proportion to the vividness and depth of such consciousness. The same faith, therefore, that is, the belief of the same truth, that takes away the sense of condemnation and the fears of wrath, must proportionally impart the hope of life. The two are, in the nature of things, inseparable, and may, indeed, be regarded

as one and the same.-Now, it is of essential consequence to observe, (what has before been briefly hinted,) that the ground of the hope which thus enters the mind when the gospel is believed, continues ever after the same, without addition, without change. The sinner can never have any thing else, and never any thing more. He may obtain clearer and larger views of the foundation of his hope; but if the grace of God through the finished work of Jesus was its ground at the first (and if it had any other it was false and unsanctioned ;) the same grace, through the same all-perfect work, must continue to be its ground to the last. The entire course of the believer's experience and service, however long, however spiritual, however zealous, and active, and useful, however beneficial to men, however glorifying to God, can add nothing whatever to it. Nothing thought, or felt, or said, or done by him, can ever be incorporated with it without profanity, and without subverting, in regard to the sinner who would so desecrate and dishonour it, its power to save. The work which constitutes this foundation was completed on Calvary. It was to that finished work of substitutionary obedience unto death that Jehovah set his seal of approbation and acceptance, when he raised his Son from the dead. It remains to this hour the same; and so does the divine satisfaction in it. He who builds upon it simply as it stands, is safe but he who presumes to introduce into it any thing of his own,-to combine with it any thing whatever of his own doing or his own devising, forfeits life and hope by the presumption :-he "falls from grace," and "Christ becomes of no effect unto him." Let the believer, then, remember, that, make of his experience what he will, no part of it must he ever think of incorporating with the work of Christ in the ground of his hope. Nothing of ours can be

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admitted there; nothing done by us, nothing wrought in us; neither faith itself, nor any of its fruits. "Other foundation," either in whole or in part, can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ." Who, indeed, can ever add to what Jesus, with his dying breath, declared he had finished? The attempt is a denial of its perfection. Who can mend without marring-who can touch without polluting it? It is a work, in which the hand of the Master has left nothing to be filled up or improved by the disciple. It stands forth, in all its divine excellence and completeness, challenging the admiration, and inviting the confidence, of the chief of sinners, but disclaiming any co-operation from the chief of saints. Who will presume to affix any codicil to that will, to which the seal of Heaven has been appended, sanctioning its provisions as perfect and unalterable? To the very last hour of the believer's life, the ground of his hope remains the same. He wishes no change. The more he knows of himself, the more sensitively does he shrink from the thought of associating aught of his with the divine work of his Lord: and the more he knows of his Lord, the firmer does his confidence become, and with the greater simplicity and exclusiveness does he adopt the Apostle's language," God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world."

But while this is truth, important truth, on which we cannot too strongly insist ;-that no obedience of ours, nothing of ours whatever, at the close any more than at the commencement of our course, can ever come to be any part of the ground of our confidence:-yet in perfect harmony with this truth, we say, without hesitation, that the soundness and legitimacy of our hope, as truly resting on the right foundation, is manifested by the influence, in