seemed insupportable, and your destruction inevitable: to your own astonishment, and to the wonder of every beholder, have you not been borne up under the trial? has not your head been raised high above all your fears? darkness been made light before you, and crooked things straight? have you not been mightily upheld amidst all your sufferings, and compassed about with songs of deliverance? And to what can you ascribe your preservation but to the power and faithfulness of that God who has said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee; and who has promised to make all things work together for good to them that love him? Now, as from a part we can judge of the whole; as from the first-fruits we can estimate the quality of the approaching harvest; and from a single glass can form an idea of the contents of the ocean; so, from the specimens of Divine tenderness and faithfulness which in our own experience we have enjoyed, and from the attestations to his fidelity and love transmitted to us from our fathers, we may confidently rely on the immutability of his nature, and the infallible certainty of all the promises contained in his word; and from what we see and know of their exact fulfilment upon earth and in time, we may securely depend on their complete and glorious accomplishment in heaven through eternity. When, therefore, you look at all the evidences which God has given of the truth of the Gospel, and of his sincerity in the free, rich, and precious invitations of his grace; I must ask you, who are in earnest for eternal life and solicitously inquiring what you must do to be saved, How is it that ye have no faith? In the operations of nature, men see not the hand and agency of the Most High: but they believe themselves perfectly safe in the world which he has made; and trust with the most unbounded confidence to the connexion betwixt cause and effect, and to the steadiness and uniformity of the processes in the material creation. But on what foundation is this universal conviction built? Unless such has originally been the will of God, the husbandman, physician, and astronomer, can assign no reason for the appearances which they witness, and the facts upon which their calculations and practices are founded. He has given them no Bible to regulate their judgment in their respective pursuits; nor endowed them with any sense or organ denied to others, by which they can discern his hand and agency, and discover more manifest tokens of his presence and power on the fields of their observation, than he has afforded in the dispensations of his grace. And shall they, in the business of life, without any direct communication from heaven, or any sense or organ withheld from you, believe themselves safe in the world which he sustains, and feel themselves secure in relying on the regularity of the laws which he has prescribed to nature? And after he has lavished on you the contents of the Bible, and poured around your path all the light and radiance of revelation; why do you distrust his word, and persist in harbouring such an amount of suspicion and jealousy in the face of the strongest and most affecting demonstrations of his sincerity and truth? Even supposing that the rules of husbandry, the principles of medicine, and the laws of astronomy, had all been communicated by inspiration; the students and practitioners of these arts and sciences, could have had no greater security for the propriety and success of their measures, than what you enjoy in matters of religion, and in every subject connected with the present and everlasting welfare of your soul. There is but one God, who is in all, and through all, and over all. He who wields the sceptre over the world of matter, and upholds the mighty mass of creation, is the same who rules in the empire of mind; who pervades it in all its vast extent; who superintends all its complicated operations; and who has given as much stability and firmness to the foundations of Christian hope, as to the ordinances that determine the movements of the planetary system. How is it then that you can trust him for your bodies and the business of life; and that you distrust him where your souls and their everlasting welfare are concerned? Where was the faith or consistency of the Israelites, who, after having been delivered by the strong hand of God from the power of Pharaoh, and conducted through the sea on foot, doubted his ability to feed them in the wilderness? And where is your faith or consistency in confiding in the stability of that world which he has made and which he preserves; and in trusting to the regular succession of day and night, of summer and winter; but distracting yourselves with anxiety and care about the sufficiency of the provisions of his grace, and the safety of your souls; when in obedience to his word you embrace the invitations of the Gospel, and lay hold on the Lord Jesus Christ as the author of your own eternal salvation? In the one case, God has done nothing to confirm your hope and confidence which, for a moment, can be compared with the security which he has afforded you in the other. He has not given you his word, his promise, nor his oath, to secure you of the success of your manual labour, and of the steadiness and permanence of the laws of nature. And after he has done all this and more, to fortify your dependence upon the declarations of his grace, and to assure all the children of men, that whosoever believeth on his Son shall never perish, but have eternal life; how is it that ye have no faith? Within the confines of immensity, is there a power more high and mighty than the God of heaven? or, amidst all the sacred solemnities employed to give validity and force to the declarations of love and mercy, could the God of truth bind himself by more firm and solid bands than his promise, his oath and the gift of his Son? And yet, after all these have been employed to ratify his proclamations of generosity and tenderness: how is it that you cannot, that you will not believe? Though creation has no such security nor guard for its stability as his purposes of mercy, and promises of pardon, peace, and reconciliation to the believing penitent; do you regard yourselves as safe in the world which he has made? Do you never fear lest the earth, as it wheels with such rapid velocity in its annual revolution, will break away from the invisible course prescribed it; and, baffling all the exertions of the Almighty to recall it, wander far off into the untrodden tracks of space, beyond the cheering visitations of heat and day? And yet while you consider yourselves free from danger in the world which he has made, and which his own providence sustains: how is it that you will not believe yourselves and your eternal interests safe within the limits and protection of that scheme of boundless benignity and mercy, which he planned by his infinite wisdom, and around which he has thrown all the strong and impregnable protection of his omnipotence? Why will you not believe yourselves secure in the hands of Him, who preserves every planet in its place, and has the whole universe at his command; and who has engaged himself by every thing tender and touching in goodness, and sacred and binding in sincerity, to receive every sinner that returns, to give eternal life to all those that obey him, and never to leave nor forsake the souls of those that love him? Has the burden of your temporal interests given any shock to the firmness of the globe you dwell on, or any derangement to the regularity and magnificence of its movements? And after you have seen the ark of mercy advancing so steadily, so majestically on its course; are you terrified, lest by throwing on board the additional weight of your eternal all, you shall burst its overstrained strength, and endanger the safety of the whole that it contains? I cannot tell you all that the arm of Immanuel has already performed. But I know that he has softened hard and adamantine hearts; that he has changed slaves of Satan into sons of God; that he has driven Jordan back, opened a path for his people through the ocean; that he has plucked the prey from the grasp of death, and stopped the sun in his course, stretched out the heavens like a curtain, and planted immensity with the worlds that occupy and adorn it. Hereafter he will convert Jews and Gentiles, fill the whole earth with his glory, and raise the dead. And is the fulfilment of his promises and the salvation of your soul, a harder task than these manifestations of his might? Trust then in the Lord for ever: for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but his word shall not pass away. CHAPTER VII. ON THE WANT OF ASSURANCE OF SALVATION. "Forgive my doubts, O gracious Lord! On the subject of assurance the Christian world has been long widely divided. Some have asserted that it is impossible to attain it, and that it is highly presumptuous either to ask or expect it: whilst others have affirmed that it is not only attainable but absolutely essential to the very nature of faith, and perfectly inseparable from a state of grace. In matters of faith, we are not at liberty to call any man master. We have the Scriptures in our own hands: and by the authority of Him who gave them, we are commanded to search them, and to try by the law and the testimony every principle and every practice which are recommended to our belief and observance. On examining these conflicting opinions by the unerring standard of revelation, we shall find that neither the one nor the other is strictly correct. We shall find that, though the assurance of salvation is neither essential to the nature of faith nor inseparable from a state of grace, it is a blessing which has been attained, which is still attainable, and which it is the duty of every believer to labour to secure. We affirm, L That the assurance of salvation is neither essential |