sion. The sinner who builds his confidence upon such fancied intimations, rests on an imaginary and "airy nothing;" not on the word of God, but on the illusions of his own mind. It is not even on any thing in the particular manner in which divine truth may have been brought home to the mind, that the sinner's confidence must repose. The dealers in this kind of ware often tell us, how texts have been unaccountably borne in upon them, (such is their phrase,) even when, perhaps, they were thinking on something entirely different; and from this, or some other peculiarity in the circumstances of their own case, they derive much of their personal confidence. They cannot but regard the intimation as having come from God, because it has come in a way which appears to them so extraordinary. This will not do. Our confidence must arise from that which is written, and not from any specialty in our own case as to the way in which what is written has been suggested to us. This book is the word of God: and here are the things that are written-be they what they may-by which it is that we are to "know that we have eternal life."

2. Farther, then; it is not less clear, that in this book there is nothing written respecting the spiritual state, and eternal prospects, of any sinner individually. Surely this is a proposition which ought not to require either illustration or proof. The Bible contains no register of the names and designations of the elect, or the saved. It is not "the Lamb's Book of Life;" nor is that book at all within our reach-its contents being among the "secret things which belong unto the Lord our God," into which it is not ours to pry. Certainly, to every man of ordinary reflection, nothing ought to be more selfevident, than that no sinner can legitimately found his confidence of his having eternal life, or bi

knowledge of the safety of his state, on any thing of the nature of direct divine testimony of his per sonal salvation. No such testimony existing, all such confidence must be delusive. This has, however, been questioned, and that in no qualified or ambiguous terms. It has, for example, been said: "Thus verily, before God, by whatever evidence I hold the resurrection of Jesus for a truth, by the same precise evidence I must hold it for a truth that I am justified, else I do verily hold God for a liar, for God himself hath equally asserted both the one and the other, in words of inseparable connexion."* Again; after quoting Acts xiii. 32, 35, and 38, 39. "And we declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second Psalm, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Be it known unto you, therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses;"after, I say, quoting these words, the same writer affirms: It is obvious, from the terms in which both these declarations are delivered, that by whatever evidence it was possible for the persons to whom they were addressed to KNOW that God had raised up Jesus again, by the same precise evidence it became impossible for them NOT TO KNOW that God had forgiven their sins, unless they esteemed him an unfaithful witness."+

Now surely there is here a singular confusion of ideas. That God raised up Jesus from the dead,

* Barclay's (John) Assurance of Faith Vindicated, p. 55. † Ibid. p. 56.

and that by so doing he attested the sufficiency and acceptance of the atonement made by his death, is a part of what is written :"-it is also a part of the divine testimony, and, if you will, the sum of it -that" if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thy heart" (that is, shalt really and sincerely believe)" that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved;" or, in other terms, that "he that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life." These things" are written." They are in the inspired record. But is it, I would ask, written there, with regard to any individual on earth, that he or she is a believer on the Son of God? Clearly not. And yet, unless it be so written, whencesoever the knowledge of our personal salvation is to be derived-legitimately and scripturally derived-it cannot be from any direct divine testimony to the fact; for there is no such thing; no such testimony exists. We must deny its existence, till he who affirms it has shown us his name and surname, accompanied with such distinctive marks as exclusively appropriate them to himself, and a divine attestation of the owner of the name being a believer in Christ, and a partaker of eternal life. Nothing short of this can be regarded as a direct divine testimony to any man's salvation.

The sentiment I am opposing has been thrown, with the triumph of logical demonstration, into the form of a syllogism; He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life:"-I believe on the Son of God; therefore, I have everlasting life. Alas, for the logic! Does not the very throwing of it into this form at once detect its fallaciousness? Does not the reader perceive, that the middle proposition of this syllogism-" I believe on the Son of God" is no part of the divine testimony? it is only the sinner's testimony respecting himself. I am not proceeding on a denial of its truth. It may

be perfectly true, and perfectly sincere. But still its truth must be ascertained by some other kind of evidence than that on which the reality of Christ's resurrection, or the truth of God's testimony, rests. One very simple question will in a moment make this evident. How does the sinner know that he himself believes the divine record? Know that I believe! he will say; how should I know it but by consciousness? and I may well be said to know it; for nothing can be more certain than that of which I am thus conscious. Be it so-although the proposition is in some points questionable-yet be it 80. I ask him, then, whether it be by consciousness that he knows the fact of the resurrection of Jesus? whether the reality of that fact, or the truth of any thing whatever testified by God in his word, depends upon any consciousness of his? The testimony of God is true, and remains for ever true, independently of the faith and the consciousness of any sinner on earth; and the sinner's saying, “I believe," is, I repeat, his own testimony, not God's. The glaring absurdity of the sinner who says so regarding the certainty of his salvation, as ascertained by the same precise evidence as that for the resurrection of Jesus, will be still more apparent, when it is considered, that, if it be so, then, since all are bound to believe in the resurrection of Jesus, all must be equally bound to believe the certainty of that individual sinner's justification and acceptance with God. The faith of all that God testifies is equally obligatory: and if this sinner believes in the certainty of his own salvation as a part of the divine testimony, others must be bound to believe it too, and bound by the same obligation which binds them to the belief of God's word. And so every sinner's professed consciousness becomes a standard of truth, not to himself only, but to all mankind! The conclusion is inevitable, and its palpable absur»

dity may satisfy every mind of the utter untenableness of the sentiment in question. Independently of the deep deceitfulness of the heart, and of the possible erroneousness of the sinner's conceptions of that truth which he says he believes, and of his consequent confidence of his salvation;-let his conceptions be supposed ever so correct, and his consciousness ever so sincere, and let the peace derived from it be ever so immediate and well-founded-still, the evidence of the two things we can never, on any account, allow to be identified. We cannot admit, in behalf of any man on earth, amidst the multiplied possibilities of mistake and self-deception which we know to exist, that the certainty of his salvation is the same, in its evidence and its degree, with the certainty of Christ's resurrection : -and it appears to me a most extraordinary and fearful inconsideration (to call it by no worse name) for any poor sinful creature, with a heart "deceit. ful above all things," to venture on the presumptuous affirmation, that if he is not a justified person, the God of truth is a liar! Should he at all qualify the affirmation, and say-" Certainly it is so, if I believe in Jesus"-I grant it: but I remind him, that the very introduction of this if destroys the supposed identity of the evidence. The truth of Christ's resurrection, or of the divine testimony concerning him, depends on no such qualifying if. And I must say once more, that I can imagine no way in which any sinner can have the same precise evidence of the safety of his own state as he has of the truth of the divine testimony concerning Christ, except his finding and producing from the divine record a direct and explicit declaration respecting himself. Such a declaration no one ever can produce; and, therefore, the ground of the knowledge that we have eternal life," must be something different from a direct divine intimation.