when sanctified by humility and suffering itself to be tuned and struck and moved by the Holy Spirit of God according to its particular frame and turn, helps mightily to increase that harmony of divine praise, thanksgiving, and adoration, which must arise from different instruments, sounds, and voices. To condemn this variety in the servants of God, or to be angry at those who have not served Him in the way that we have chosen for ourselves, is but too plain a sign that we have not enough renounced the elements of selfishness, pride, and anger. From this variety of complexions, both in the inward and outward man, we may make some useful observations. And the first may be this, that every man whose complexion is strong in him, as to one particular kind, is vehemently inclined to imprint the same upon others, and that others of the same kind are naturally disposed to catch and receive it from him. But I shall consider this matter only with regard to religion. Let it be supposed that men of a certain complexion have taken upon them to try the religious state of others by these questions: -Are you sure that should be able to die a martyr? Do you find certain strong resolutions, not in your head or your brain, but in your inward man, that would not refuse a martyrdom of any kind? Have you the witness of the Spirit within you, bearing witness with your spirit that you are in this state? Now it is beyond all question that an examination of this kind, or a demand of such faith, can have no better foundation than complexion. Who do you think would be most likely to come into this faith? It would be those who are most unlikely to keep it. It would be those who knew the least of themselves and whose piety had more of heat than of light in it. It would be those whose outward man was of the same complexion, that was sanguine, capable of a false fire, and willing to have the glory of resolutions and fine persuasions at so easy a rate. Let it now be supposed that people of another complexion should put such questions as these:-Do you know and feel that all your sins are forgiven you? Do you you you know when and where, and at what time and in what place, you received this forgiveness? Do you know when and where you ceased to be one of those sinners called to repentance, and became one of those whole that need no physician? Have you an absolute assurance of your salvation, and that you cannot possibly fall from your state of grace? Now, who may be thought to be the most likely to come into this religion? Not he who is deeply humble, that abhors self-justification, and truly knows the free grace of God. Such a one would say: I believe the forgiveness of sins with as much assurance as I believe there is a God; I believe that Jesus Christ does now to all those who have a true and full faith in Him that which He did to those who so believed in Him when He was upon earth; that He forgives their sins as immediately, as certainly, as fully, as when He said by an outward voice, Thy sins are forgiven thee;' I believe that in this faith lies all our strength and possibility of growing up in the inward man and recovering that image and likeness of God in which we were created; that to this faith all things are possible, and that by this faith every enemy we have, whether he be within us or without us, may, and mus, be entirely overcome; I believe that to repentance and faith in Christ salvation is made as secure and as absolutely assured as paradise was made secure to the thief upon the cross by the express word of our Saviour; I believe that my own sins, were they greater and more than the sins of the whole world, would be wholly expiated and taken away by my faith in the Blood and Life of my Blessed Saviour; but if I now want to add something of my own to this faith, if this great and glorious faith is defective and saves me not till I can add my own sense and my own feeling to it at such a time or place, is not this saying in the plainest manner that faith alone cannot justify me? Is not this making this faith in the Blood of Christ defective and insufficient to my salvation till a self-satisfaction, an own pleasure, an own taste are joined with it? Might it not better be said that faith could not justify me till it had works, than that it cannot justify me without these inward workings, feelings, witnessings of my own mind, sense, and imagination? Is there not likely to be a more hurtful self-seeking, a more hurtful self-confidence, a more hurtful self-trust, a more dangerous self-deceit, in making faith to depend upon these inward workings and feelings than in making it depend upon outward good works of our own? . . . ACTER I hope it will here be observed, that I no way depreciate, NOT CHARundervalue, or reject any particular impressions, strong influences, delightful sensations, or heavenly foretastes in the inward man, which the Holy Spirit of God may at times bestow upon good souls. I leave them their just worth, I acknowledge them to be the good gifts of God, as special calls and awakenings to forsake our sins, as great incitements to deny ourselves, and take up our cross, and follow Christ with greater courage and resolution. They may be as beneficial and useful to us in our spiritual life as other blessings of God, such as prosperity, health, happy complexion, and the like. But then, as outward blessings, remarkable providences, religious complexion, and the like, may be very serviceable to awaken us, and excite our conversion to God, and much assist the spiritual life, so they may very easily have a contrary effect, serve to fill us with pride and self-satisfaction, and make us esteem ourselves as greater favourites of God than those that want them, who may yet be led to a higher degree of goodness, be in a more purified state, and stand nearer to God, in their poor, naked, and destitute condition, than we in the midst of great blessings. It is just thus with regard to those inward blessings of the spiritual life. They are so many spurs, motives, and incitements to live wholly unto God; yet they may instead of that fill us with self-satisfaction and self-esteem, and prompt us to despise others that want them, as in a poor, mean, and reprobate state, who yet may be higher advanced, and stand in a nearer degree of union with God, by humility, faith, resignation, and pure love in their inward poverty K and emptiness, than we who live high upon spiritual satisfactions and can talk of nothing but our feasts of fat things. All that I would here say of these inward delights and enjoyments is only this: they are not holiness, they are not piety, they are not perfection, but they are God's gracious allurements and calls to seek after holiness and spiritual perfection. They are not to be sought for for their own sakes; they are not to be prayed for, but with such a perfect indifference and resignation as we must pray for any earthly blessings; they are not to be rested in as the perfection of our souls, but to be received as cordials, that suppose us to be sick, faint, and languishing, and ought rather to convince us that we are as yet but babes, than that we are really men of God.-[Christian Regeneration, pp. 80, 91.] THIS SENSIBILITY SELF-EVIDEN1 HIS salvation, which is God's mercy to the fallen soul of SALVATION man merely as fallen, must be something that meets every man; and which every man, as fallen, has something that directs him to turn to it. For as the fall of man is the reason of this mercy, so the fall must be the guide to it. The want must shew the thing that is wanted. And, therefore, the manifestation of this one salvation or mercy to man must have a nature suitable, not to this or that great reader of history or able critic in Hebrew roots and Greek phrases, but suitable to the common state and condition of every son of Adam. It must be something as grounded in human nature as the fall itself is, which wants no art to make it known, but to which the common nature of man is the only guide in one man as well as another. Now, this something, which is thus obvious to every man, and which opens the way to Christian redemption in every soul, is a sense of the vanity and misery of this world, and a prayer of faith and hope to God to be raised to a better state. Now, in this sensibility, which every man's own nature leads him into, lies the whole of man's salvation. Here the mercy of God and the misery of man are met together; here the fall and the redemption kiss each other. This is the Christianity which is as old as the fall, which alone saved the first man, and can alone save the last. This is it, on which hang all the law and the prophets, and which fulfils them both; for they have only this end, to turn man from the lusts of this life to a desire and faith and hope of a better. Thus does the whole of Christian redemp |