apostle, I can do all things, through Christ strengthening me.

As this work, then, is immediately from God, it must be a good work. It is good in its origin. It emanates from the Father of lights, from whom cometh down every good and every perfect gift. And it is also good in its effects. Of this Paul himself affords an eminent example. Before his conversion he was a blood-thirsty persecutor: after it, the object of his former hatred and scorn became the object of his supreme affection and delight. The grace of our Lord, says he, was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. Having been forgiven much, he loved much. His zeal for the glory of his Saviour, after his conversion to the faith, was proportioned to the bitterness of his hatred, when formerly he had attempted to destroy it. As none had equalled him as a persecutor of the saints, so none can compare with him in ardent and unwearied labours for Christ, or in tender pity and compassion for the souls of men, after he was called to the apostleship. His converts every where, and especially those at Philippi, as they were quickened by the same Spirit, and were partakers of the same faith and love, walked also as they had him for an example; and were not only blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation; but they shone as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life. And this character is more or less applicable to the disciples of Christ in every age, as well as to his immediate followers. And if we

be of that number, if we have indeed been translated from the kingdom of darkness, we will have no longer any fellowship with its unfruitful works. If God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, we shall be changed into the same image from glory to glory; that is, from one degree of holiness, or moral excellence, unto another, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. If we have received the grace of God in truth, it will not only teach us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, but to live soberly, righteously and godly in the world. And if we really acknowledge that we are bought with a price, even with the precious blood of Christ, we will feel and act as those who regard themselves no longer as their own, but his, who gave himself for them. And since we are assured that he gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify us unto himself as a peculiar people zealous of good works, we shall be as zealous in the performance of them as if we could merit heaven by our own doings, and as self-denied as if we had done nothing. We shall both feel and acknowledge that we are unprofitable servants, and that eternal life is the gift, the free and unmerited gift, of God through Jesus Christ. And if this is our character, and these are our sentiments, we may be confident in this very thing, that God hath begun in us a good work; that we are God's workmanship, built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone,

in whom the whole building fitly framed together groweth up unto an holy temple in the Lord, and is become an habitation of God through the Spirit.

3. Wherever this good work is thus begun, it will be carried on till it be completed in the day of Jesus Christ.

God, we have seen, is the Author of it. The work itself is a good work; a work worthy of the majesty of God, and fit to employ the exertion of his infinite power, since its object is to change the guilty and the vile into the glorious image of his own immaculate purity. Now, if God has already. exerted his power in the commencement of this good work, because it is a work worthy of himself, and because it could not be so much as begun by the exertion of any energy short of omnipotence, it cannot be supposed that he will turn away his eye from what his hand has already wrought, or that he would begin a building without any intention of finishing it. In some instances, indeed, it looks as if this were the case. And hence we hear the Christian complaining that it is not with him as in times past, when the candle of the Lord shone upon his tabernacle; whereas now he walks in darkness, and has no light. But, however difficult it may be, at such seasons, for the Christian to persuade himself that God may be carrying on his own good work, by means of these dark and trying dispensations, more effectually than when, in his own estimation, all things seemed to be going on smoothly and prosperously with him, this may, nevertheless, be the case. He leads the blind by a

way which they know not. His thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor his ways as ours. We may be certain, however, that the great end which God has in view in this, and in all the dispensations of his providence and grace, is our spiritual improvement, and our progress in real and vital religion. The path of the just is as the shining light, or as the dawn of the morning increasing to the meridian splendor. It is not only an increase of light, or knowledge, but also of energy. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles ; they shall run and not be weary, and they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah, xl. 30, 31. And to the same purpose we are assured, that the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree, and grow like a cedar in Lebanon; and that those that are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God, and shall bring forth fruit in old age. And the work which is thus begun and carried on in the soul, shall be brought to perfection at the day of Jesus Christ; that is, at that great day when he shall come again to judge the world in righteousness, to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe. Or, the day of Christ may refer to the day when Christ shall send his angels to convey the departing spirit into his own immediate presence and glory: for we are assured, that they who belong to him shall, when absent from the body, be present with the Lord.

The view of religion which the whole of this

- delineation of it is intended to impress upon our minds is, that a work of grace here is the commencement of that glory which the righteous shall for ever enjoy hereafter in the house which is not made with hands, which is eternal in the heavens. And if glory be the consummation of grace, or religion in its most improved and perfect state, then it is evident, that if a work of grace be not begun in the soul in the present life; if we are not renewed here in the spirit of our minds, and made partakers of a new and a heavenly nature, we have no authority to expect, either from the nature of the thing itself, or from the word of God, that we shall be made partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Nay, we are assured by our Saviour and Judge, that except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. A right knowledge of the state of our souls is, therefore, of the utmost consequence, in order to prevent, on the one hand, a dangerous and fatal mistake at the last, and, on the other hand, to secure us against groundless fears and apprehensions, which not only tend to mar our present comfort, but to obstruct our progress and improvement in the divine life. In order, therefore, to prevent mistakes on a subject of such infinite importance, I proceed,

II. To point out certain distinctions which it behoves us carefully to attend to, in order to discriminate the character of the real Christian, in whom the good work, which has been described, has actually been begun, and is advancing, from