truths, but of which you can say I know the firmness and the certainty of my own faith in them. In like` manner, a man may both believe in a gospel truth, and which is a distinct thing, may know that he believes it. The Spirit may have so far enlightened him as to the doctrine, that he is quite satisfied as to the truth of it; and may also have so far enlightened him as to the state of his own mind, that he knows the belief or the conviction to be assuredly there. Let him have no doubt upon this point; and, on the single assertion that he who bebelieveth in Christ shall be saved, he may have no doubt of his salvation. If he know himself to be a believer, and also knoweth that every believer shall go to heaven, what more is necessary to assure him of his own destination to an inheritance of glory? He hath data enough for such a conclusion. He hath both the major and the minor proposition for the winding up of an argument, which to him at least is irresistible. Still it is the Spirit which hath furnished him with both. By it he discerns the evidence that there is in the Bible, and by it he discerns the reflection that there is of that evidence in his own heart so that he not only recognises the Bible to be true, but recognises himself to be a believer in the Bible. The one recognition in fact may be so clear and confident and strong, as to lead instantaneously and forcibly to the other. And thus believing in the Son of God, may he come to have the witness in himself, and assuredly to know that he is one of God's children.

No man can know any thing, or believe any thing, but upon evidence. Yet this evidence may be of such prompt occurrence to him when he goes in quest of it; and it may work its convictions upon the mind so quickly and so powerfully; and with all the rapidity of consciousness might so hasten on the argument-that, as the Bible is true, and he is thoroughly aware of his own belief in it, therefore to him all its promises are sure, and all its glorious prospects are unquestionably in reserve for him: And this sunshine of hope may come so immediately on the back of prayer, or be so lighted up at the view of a scriptural passage, or be so supported by all the regards that he is enabled to throw on his past history or on his present feelings -as not only to assure him of the sufficiency of all these proofs for his personal interest in the gospel, but also that it is the Spirit of God who at the moment hath assembled them in such force and frequency and radiance around him- Not an intimation from that Spirit either by a voice or a direct impulse, but an intimation rationally gathered from those materials of contemplation which it is the office of the Spirit to set before him-gathered from that written record, to understand which the Holy Ghost hath opened his understanding-gathered from what he knows of his own believing heart to perceive which the Holy Ghost hath enlightened his conscience-gathered from the retrospect of his bygone experience, for the perusal of which the Holy Ghost hath performed the office that belongs

to Him, of bringing all things to his remembrance: And thus through the medium, not of visionary but most significant and substantial proofs, yet proofs brought together in a way that announces the preternatural agency concerned in the representation of them-may the Spirit of God witness to the spirit of man, that he is a child of mercy, and that the seal of his redemption is set upon him.

I could not, without making my own doctrine outstrip my own experience, vouch for any other intimation of the Spirit of God, than that which He gives in the act of making the word of God clear unto you, and the state of your own heart clear unto you. From the one you draw what are its promises-from the other what are your own personal characteristics; and the application of the first to the second may conduct to a most legitimate argument, that you personally are one of the saved-and that not a tardy or elaborate argument either, but with an evidence quick and powerful as the light of intuition. By a single deposition of conscience, for example, I may know that I do indeed hunger and thirst after righteousness; and, by a single glance with the eye of my understanding, I may recognise a Saviour's truth, and a Saviour's tenderness in the promise that all who do so shall be filled; and, without the intervention of any lengthened process of reasoning, I may confidently give to this general announcement in the gospel such a specific application to myself, as to carry my own distinct and assured hope of a particular

interest therein. Spirit, distinct from the testimony of the word. Thus there is no irradiation, but that thereby the mind is enabled to look reflexly and with rational discernment upon itself. And here there is no conclusion, but what comes immediately and irresistibly out of premises which are clear to me, while they lie hid in deepest obscurity from other men-And all this you will observe with the rapidity of thought-by a flight of steps so few, as to be got over in an instant of time-by a train of considerations strictly logical, while the mind that enjoys and is imprest with all this light is not sensible of any logic-and yet withal by the Spirit of God; for it is He who hath brought the word nigh, and given it weight and significancy to my understanding; and it is He who hath manifested to me the thoughts and intents of my own heart, and evinced some personal characteristic within that is coincident with the promise without; and it is He who sustains me in the work of making a firm and confident application. In all this He utters no voice. The word of God made plain to my conviction, and His own work upon me made plain to my conscience-these are the vocables, and I do imagine the only vocables, by which He expresses Himself; but enough to furnish any Christian with a reason of the hope that is in him, and, better than articulation itself, to solace and to satisfy the enquiring spirit of its relationship to the family of God.

Thus there is no whisper by the

Mine eye can carry me no farther among these

experimental processes-these hidden mysteries of the Christian life-these lofty eminences of grace and of attainment, which, high and inaccessible as they may appear to many who are here present, have nevertheless been reached and realised by believers in this world. And would And would you like to rea

lise them? Are you convinced that there is much of recorded experience in the Bible, and even much of actual and yet occurring experience among the Christians of the day, which overshoots all that you have ever felt or become familiar with in the intimacies of your own bosom? Would you like personally to taste of this experience, to ascertain and upon your own finding what sort of thing after all it is-Really to have to do with these witnessings of the Spirit-these communications of light and love from the upper sanctuary—these foretastes of a coming blessedness-these ecstacies, that, almost look like so many inspirations of which you read in the lives of the holy, but which belong it would seem to a more elevated region of faith or of fancy than you have yet soared into? We hold it to be no fancy. We deem that such a region exists, and we also deem that there is a series of firm stepping-stones by which it may be gained. We have already spoken, and at the outset of these remarks, of the direct exercise of faith in the gospel; and we now say, that, up to your faith in the doctrine, let be your diligent following of the duties of the gospel. The manifestations for which you long, are given to those who do the