Some boldly affirm that its attainment is impossible. While they admit that inspired men, whose office and qualifications were extraordinary, did possess this assurance; they maintain that it is presumptuous for any one to imagine that it is now attainable, and that all pretensions to it are nothing better than enthusiastic delusions. Others, running into the opposite extreme, with equal confidence assert that it is possessed by every genuine believer in Christ; that it is essential to the very nature of faith in him; and that all who are destitute of it ought to regard themselves in a state of condemnation.

Now, the scripture account of this doctrine lies between these extremes. While, on the one hand, it is not true that assurance of salvation is essential to the existence of faith, and possessed by every believer in Christ; on the other hand, it is equally false that it was the exclusive attainment of prophets and apostles. Some in all ages have enjoyed this blessing, and the people of God have still encouragement to seek and to expect its attainment. These points I shall endeavour briefly to illustrate under the following positions ;-that assurance of salvation has been attained by many, that the sacred scriptures exhort us to seek it, and encourage us to expect it, that they furnish us with numerous marks of Christian character for this purpose, that the Holy Spirit is said to witness with the hearts of God's children respecting their interest in Christ, that assurance is not inseparably connected with faith in Christ, and therefore not a common attainment of

genuine believers, that none but saints of eminent holiness can ordinarily reach it,-that after it is obtained, for a season it may be obscured or lost,and that, as it may be obtained by every believer, so none should rest satisfied without diligently seeking it.

1. Assurance of salvation has been attained by many. This is a truth which no person can presume to doubt, who admits the testimony of the sacred scriptures. The history of many of the saints whose experience is here recorded, puts the matter beyond all contradiction. Let us look at a few of these examples. The patriarch Job possessed this inestimable attainment. "I know," says he, "that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God; whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another: though my reins be consumed within me."* The Psalmist David frequently employs the language of assurance in the book of Psalms. With holy ecstacy he exclaims, "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee. My flesh and my heart faileth; but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever." The weeping prophet Jeremiah, amid all his distresses, could say in the boldness of faith, "The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore

will I hope in him."* The apostle Paul also enjoyed this exalted and animating blessing;-"I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give to me at that day." "I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord." And the beloved disciple, John, frequently speaks with filial confidence of his certain knowledge of his interest in the love of God:- "Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. And hereby we know that we are of the truth, and shall assure our hearts before God." 66 Hereby we know that we dwell in him, and he in us, because he hath given us his Spirit."

*Lam. iii. 24. + Gal. ii. 20; 2 Tim. i. 12; iv. 6; Rom. viii. 38, 39.

"These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life."

That these scripture saints did possess assurance of their salvation, is too evident from these passages to admit of doubt. But while this is granted, the opponents of this doctrine object, "that all these were inspired men, persons whose office and qualifications were extraordinary; and, consequently, that nothing can be legitimately inferred from their case, in proof that this blessing may be attained by Christians in our days." It is strange indeed that any man, who has examined these examples, should have started this objection. For though we should admit that it appears to have some validity in all the cases specified, except these written by John, yet the language employed by him totally overthrows it. In every one of the above citations, he speaks, not simply in his own name, but in that of other Christians to whom he wrote: "We are the sons of God;"—" we know," &c. And, in the last quotation, he plainly and expressly mentions, that he wrote to believers in Christ, for the very purpose that they might know their title to eternal life. But if all genuine believers might know this, during the primitive age of the church, where is the proof that they cannot now reach this attainment? Assurance of salvation was not an extraordinary gift of the Spirit in those early times, a thing limited to comparatively a few; but a blessing attainable by all the children

* 1 John iii. 2, 14, 19; iv. 13; v. 13.

of God. And if all then might, what is the reason that some now may not, know their calling of God?

Besides, if the testimony of some of the best of men who have lived in later times, be worthy of credit, we cannot doubt that many of them have enjoyed assurance of their salvation. In documents written by their own hand, contained in their memoirs, more than a few of them testify, that they have sometimes been blessed with clear and most consoling evidence of their interest in Christ. So animated have their souls been with the humble, but unclouded persuasion of this, that, like Paul, they have expressed to God their panting desire to depart and to be with Christ. -Nor has this been the transitory ebullition of the heated imagination of weak minded fanatics. It has been the deliberate testimony of men distinguished for mental capacity, soundness of intellect, and eminent attainments in science and literature.

2. The sacred scriptures exhort us to seek to know our faith in Christ, and encourage us to expect success in this inquiry.-Addressing the members of the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul thus solemnly charges them, "Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves: know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates ?"* To the brethren of the churches in Galatia he gives a similar injunction ;"If a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoic

*2 Cor. xiii, 5.