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it is not the persuasion of this, whether it be a truth or not, that we are the favourites of God; but it is such a spiritual perception of the goodness and power of GOD to save the soul through Christ, as leads us heartily to receive Christ, and to approve the whole method of salvation by him, to give ourselves to be saved by Christ in his own way. The single isolated persuasion that we are pardoned may be false, or it may be true. If it is false, it will be accompanied by all the mischievous effects that ever attend falsehood; but a spiritual perception of the Divine glory as seen in the person and work of Christ, such as I have mentioned, can only bring forth an affectionate obedience and genuine faith.

This disposition to obey Christ, wholly to obey him, uniformly, under all circumstances, and for ever, is sometimes not severely tried during that delightful period of the Christian life which follows the first full discovery of the Saviour. It may please God to reserve severer trials for a later period in the Christian course, when grace has become more mature, and the soul is strengthened to endure them. Sometimes, however, where the discovery of the love of Christ has been exceedingly powerful, and has led to a corresponding decision and conduct and profession, the Christian, now for the first time assured in Christ, is often led to such a boldness in the Christian course, as brings on him, even in the first beginning of his Christian course, a whole flood of trials. It may bring him to wrestle with numerous and varied difficulties, and may make the way of duty to him exceedingly hard; yet in such a state of mind the vigour of faith, of hope, of love, and joy prepares him for them all, and he proves most deeply the truth of that Scripture, "The joy of your LORD is your strength."

Let me notice some of those difficulties which a Christian, under the powerful influence of a real faith in the Lord Jesus, is enabled to wrestle with and surmount. He is called to maintain at once the doctrines and precepts of the Gospel against the popular notions that contradict him. Against his views, often, the most opposite charges are blended together. Some will say that his doctrines sap all the foundations of morality, others that his rules poison the springs of social enjoyment. Some will complain that his rigid system cramps all the faculties of the soul, others that his enthusiastical cordials administer a dangerous excitement. Some will charge him with credulity, others with a presumptuous dogmatism. Some will eject him from society as a mischievous hypocrite, others will exclude him from all fellowship as a silly enthusiast. Without an experimental knowledge of the glory and goodness of Christ, the believer might have his faith swept away by a torrent of invictive argument and satire; but he knows Christ, he loves Christ, and he dares to confess Christ; he knows, "that with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." Is not Christ's will to be maintained, whatever the opposing world may think of it? Are not the Scriptures the revealed will of Christ? And is not his own view of Scripture a sound one? Will the opinions opposed to his bear any serious comparison with Scripture? If not, they are opposed to the will of the LORD of heaven and earth; and then to yield to those opposing views would be infidelity to Christ, of which, if he has a faith that works well, he will never systematically be guilty.

Perhaps the believer is called to a new conflict with the world-perhaps so long as they remain inactive the world wlil tolerate them; but if they in

terfere with its practices they must be decidedly proscribed. Now the Christian soon finds the necessity of giving up some popular habits and amusements much valued in the world, and if he be young, often he must give them up against the judgment and solicitation of those to whose judgment he has been accustomed to defer. In his altered state of mind the amusements themselves might be surrendered without any sacrifice; for they are attended with circumstances so disagreeable to the renewed mind, that they would be given up as painful if they were not renounced as wrong; but circumstances may make it exceedingly painful to relinquish them. To worldly minds they do not seem wrong, and may not, in fact, be injurious. Of course, then, such persons will think him fanciful, precise, and absurdly scrupulous in terming them injurious to himself. At the same time, they are not only thought pleasant to young persons, but subservient to some important ends in the manoeuvering of life. The young Christian, therefore, would have to relinquish them at the cost of seriously displeasing, perhaps, affectionate relatives, from whom the charge of obstinacy, presumption, moroseness, and even ingratitude, will be backed by a thousand plausible arguments in favour of such pleasures; and, perhaps, some threats even urged against the means of grace. Still he will find, in fact, they injure him, and injure others they hinder prayer they promote vanity-GoD is forgotten in them-they weaken all Christian resolution-they indispose for meditation-they waste time, strength, and money, when there are pressing claims of duty on them all. He cannot ask the blessing of God upon them-he cannot feel sure that they are according to God's will-he loves Christ too well to yield to the most affectionate

solicitations. In this case, though the struggle is sometimes, to a young person hard, faith works by love and makes him more than conqueror in rising superior to the seductive influence of an evil world.

This difficulty not unfrequently entails another. His progress has depended much on the use of the means of grace, particularly on the use of Scripture and on prayer. It may have been aided by the public ministry and by the conversation of Christian friends. For these two latter advantages, if he acts properly, he will make such sacrifices as show that he knows the value of all advances in the Divine life; but as to the two former he will never consent to intermit them, they must be adhered to in compliance with the express will of his Master. These are indispensably requisite for his safety as well as necessary tests of his faithfulness. To these, when tempted, young Christians have clung with a pertinacity and decision strongly contrasted with their former pliancy of habit; but again, here faith has wrought by love, and they can venture to obey Christ, to serve him, and to honour him, however painful the conflict may be, through which that service is maintained.

Again, sometimes in the beginning of a decided Christian course, a believer has to displease others more seriously, by adhering to duty, in such a way, as to interfere with their interests or their enjoyments. So much that is common is wrong, and men's actions are so intertwined with one another in society, that an inflexible course upon steady principle can scarcely fail to clash sometimes with the course of a companion who may be determined by worldly honour or by worldly convenience, and that inflexibility of Christian principle will be ever hateful, in proportion to the inconvenience which the other feels from it. The Christian,

therefore, will often reap obloquy be- | the Gospel, then, in his opposition to

cause he chooses to forego unjust and improper ease; yet even here an affectionate faith is strong also to conquer.

Occasionally a Christian is so situated that he must displease, not only by being himself faithful to duty, but also by obliging others to be faithful too. In a place of trust he is responsible for the conduct of others, and he must make them often perform unpalatable duties. Where this is only a matter in which he manifests justice to those who have placed him in a situation of trust, the esteem of his employer may counterbalance the odium which he has gained from others; but where the rights of GOD are in question, and not those of man, with no human gratitude to relieve his unpopularity, he must look for merciless criticism, if not unjust imputations. Accused of severity to others, he will be nicely watched himself, and may often bear the charge of criminality, as Joseph did in Egypt, only because grace has made him above being criminal. This it will be hard to bear, and harder still to choose before-hand to bear it, yet affectionate faith can endure even that.

Perhaps, however, a believer may be called to do more. His present interests are often placed, by GoD's overruling providence, in the hands of other persons; and if those on whom he depends are they who wish him to associate with them in habits which he knows to be wrong-to join in public amusements-to relinguish the means of grace to renounce the doctrines of

their wishes, they may think it right to forbear from serving him, as a proper punishment for such foolish, selfwilled, and mischievous fanaticism. He may lose a fortune-he may be obliged to surrender an employment—he may alienate a patron, yet if faith be strong, he can bear that too. Instances of such patient endurance are not wanting up to the present hour; nor have those who have adhered to duty, at such a cost, ever repented it, unless sad declension has first lessened their gratitude by impairing their faith.

Now, it is much, when a believer is enabled, through an affectionate sense of the glory of Christ, to meet such difficulties, as those I have mentioned; but the greatest are those which he meets in subduing his own mind to Christ. Evil dispositions, which the first discovery of the love of Christ seemed to charm into inaction, begin to appear and gain their original dominion; and here, an affectionate faith displays all its powers. He is tempted, perhaps constitutionally, to sloth-he is tempted to sloth in business, but shall he bring disgrace on his profession, and forego the influence with which industry would furnish him to honour Christ? Shall the world say his views of Christ have unfitted him to discharge the ordinary duties of life, and made him useless in the world? Gratitude forbids it; and he, through faith, triumphs over that constitutional tendency, becomes more punctual, faithful, and diligent than he ever was before.

(To be continued.)

London: Published for the Proprietors, by T. GRIFFITHS, Wellington Street, Strand; and Sold by all Booksellers in Town and Country.

Printed by Lowndes and White, Crane Court, Fleet Street.

SERMON BY THE REV. B. NOEL.
SERMON BY THE REV. W. CUNNINGHAM.
SERMON BY THE REV. J. H. EVANS.

No. 35.]

THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1831.

(The Rev. B. Noel's Sermon concluded.)

[Price 3d.

or gain, to accumulate business on his hands till he has no leisure left for meditation, for prayer or for benevolent exertion to do good to others. Here, again, an affectionate faith in the Lord Jesus Christ will rescue him from his danger. He cannot bear to forget Christ -he cannot bear to lose his presencehe would not hinder his spiritual zeal— he would not lessen his reward in heaven

He is tempted, perhaps, to sloth | tendency to the acquirement of power in devotion, but he knows it will impair all his graces, that it will hinder communion with Christ, that it will take away his spiritual strength; and the declension that would ensue, is so intolerable to his mind, that in order to avoid it, he is resolute in maintaining diligence. He may be tempted to sloth in other things, but he knows a vacant mind affords easy entrance to Satan. He knows he has much to do, and little time to do it in; and this makes him, in every thing, diligent, and he girds up the loins of his mind that he may advance on his way to heaven.

Again, a believer may have an excessive love for amusement and pleasure, perhaps fostered much for want of mental discipline in his earlier years. This may tempt him to seek amusements which are not in themselves desirable, and forgetting that the legitimate end of amusement is to refit the wearied mind for duty, he may bestow too much time and thought and pains in the acquisition of them. But love to Christ shows him that this is unworthy a disciple of Christ, and this must lead him to fill up his thoughts and his time with such serious pursuits as leave behind them some fruit for Eternity, and in the acquiring of them, to honour his Lord. He loves Christ too well to continue frivolous or injuriously self-indulgent. Again, a believer may feel a strong

VOL. II.

he would not injure others by his example-he would not make the world think that there is no difference or little between unbelief and faith, between the reception of Christ and the rejection of him he would not for worlds deliberately injure the cause of his Saviour, he therefore stirs himself up to more spirituality of mind and more devotedness of conduct, and, in that struggle, faith working by love, renders him successful. But most of all, he has to struggle with more subtle and more obstinate sins; he has to contend with pride, and with what, for want of a better term, I must call self-seeking, by which I mean a disposition perpetually to seek his own glory. These dispositions are the more difficult to eradicate, because they can exist when all open sins have been renounced, when all the means of religion are diligently used, and there is much zeal and apparent progress in grace.

Indeed there is scarcely any thing which may not cherish these dispositions, absurd and immensely wicked as

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they are. All advantages we possess, natural or acquired, external or essential to us, those of nature and those even of grace, may make us proud. We may be proud of our knowledge of Scripture, we may be proud of our views of GOD, we may be proud of our self-knowledge or of our discernment of the characters of others. The performance of our duties may make us proud, and so may our resistance of sin. We may be proud of our Christian experience and our usefulness; our very confession of guilt may make us proud. We may be proud of our contrition, yea, pride can nourish itself even on humility. But wherever pride is, there it impels the soul irresistibly to seek its own glory, and where pride and self-seeking are, there, we cannot seek simply the glory of GoD, but instead of seeking the glory of GoD in what we do, we seek, idolatrously, our own glory. These are dispositions which spoil perhaps the whole of an exemplary course, and turn that which appears most fair before men into an abomination in the sight of God.

This the Christian knows well, and, knowing it, he dreads the domination of these wicked dispositions, and dreading, he longs to forsake them; but it is passing strange how obstinately they may resist all efforts to subdue them, what wounds they may survive, what long and immense exertions they may seem to laugh to scorn; yet faith, working by love here, in its longest and severest battle, can make the Christian more than conqueror. By slow and painful degrees, perhaps, and yet progressively, it does master pride, and brings down the haughtiness of the soul which would once not bow to GOD; and although it is true, that he will not yet, till he has had repeated falls to bring down that pride, learn how essentially mean it is; still faith, and love, and hope, will lead him more and more to depend on the Saviour

from whom they spring, and so to abhor the pride and the self-seeking that alienates him from so much goodness. I may mention only one more instance, in which faith, working in the believer by love, enables him to surmount evil. It is when it makes him not only to mortify those things which are positively sinful, but guard against temptation too. There are many things which, in themselves, are not sinful, which yet, so generally lead to sin, that a Christian cannot safely indulge in them. Now, while we have a proud self-confidence, and, therefore, think that we can easily surmount temptation, we shall not avoid such things; or while we yet but a little dislike the sin, and therefore do not dread the occasion of falling into it, we shall yield to such things; or, while we are yet too light-minded or too light-hearted to reflect on our conduct, we shall not avoid them; but the Christian who has discovered, who has known the goodness and glory of the Lord, has so learnt to dislike the sin which brought Christ to suffer, and that which it is in Christ's heart to mortify in him, that he dare not plunge into temptation; consequently, whatever he knows, by experience, does betray him into sin, even though it be in itself innocent, by steady self-denial, he will avoid. What I said with respect to pride is eminently true of temptation too, that it is not till after many falls he will learn thoroughly the sad lesson of his own weakness, and thoroughly, therefore, dread temptation; but, even in this early stage of his progress, the love he bears to Christ, and the consequent dislike he has to sin, will be a substitute for experience, and give him a sort of instinctive dread of those things which made him to offend his gracious Lord.

In all these particulars then, faith, working by love, makes the believer more than conqueror. We have seen,

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