Christ can save to the uttermost; and there will never be a proof half so rigid, and half so overwhelming, of the ability of the Mediator to guard the bodies and the souls of his people, as that which we derive from things already done for us, in the warfare which we prosecute against Satan and the world. ing composedly on the advancing tide, which, upon human calculations, was to sweep him away, and bury all his hopes in its depths, he could avouch his unflinching persuasion, that Jesus was able to keep that which he had committed unto him against that day, when he should be glorified in his saints, and admired in all them that believe. Such, we think, is the statement of our text, when taken in the breadth of its meaning. And if we now consider the passage as descriptive simply of what is, or what ought to be, the experience of every believer in Christ, we deduce from it two facts, each of which deserves the best of your attention. In the first place, WE ASCERTAIN THAT THE BELIEVER OBTAINS A KNOWLEDge of CHRIST. In the second place, WE DETERMINE THAT THE KNOWLEDGE THUS OBTAINED IS SUCH AS TO GENERATE CONFIDENCE. We will give ourselves to the examination of these facts in succession, discussing, at the same time, such collateral truths as shall seem presented by the words of the apostle. We will now pass on, from these general remarks, to a closer examination of the subject brought before us by our text. We ask you once more to observe, that with St. Paul, experience came evidently in to the corroboration of faith; so that the apostle's faith was stronger, and that, too, as a consequence of what he knew of Christ, than when he had first of all started from the ranks of the persecutor. He had gone through affliction and toil in the service of the Savior, and he felt assured that now the period was not far distant, when he should be called to brave martyrdom in his cause. But in all the trials through which he had passed, there had been administered unto him such abundance of support and consolation, that former troubles, in place of disheartening, only nerved him for the endurance of fresh. He was nothing disquieted at the prospect of imprisonment and death. In carving his way through opposition already overcome, he had realized so much of the sustaining might of the Redeemer, that he could look forward with a noble assurance to a final, and still fiercer combat. If indeed there had been failure in the communications of assistance-if, depending on the promised support, he had gone to the bat-ments on religion, may give attention tle, and there met with discomfiture he might have been conscious of something akin to mistrust and shrinking, when he saw his foes mustering for the last assault. But he knew whom he had believed; he had put Christ, as it were, to the proof, and obtained nothing but an evidence, every day strengthened, that all the promises in him are yea, and in him amen, to the glory of God the Father. And now, though he had deposited his all with the Redeemer,though he had gathered, so to speak, his every interest, time and eternity, into one cast, and staked the whole upon the faithfulness of Christ,-he was not disturbed with the lightest apprehension of risk or peril; but, look In the first place, then, A BELIEVER OBTAINS A KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST. Now we think that it may be both from his own experience, and from the experience of others, that a christian knows whom he hath believed. You may indeed argue, that so far as the experience of others is concerned, there is no necessity that a man should be a believer in Christ in order to his obtaining acquaintance with Christ. Assuredly any one, whatsoever his own personal senti to the biography of God-fearing men, and gather from the dealings of which they have been the subjects, all the information which they furnish with regard to the character of the Mediator. But we deny this proposition, though it may seem too simple to admit of any question. Unless a man be himself a converted man, he cannot enter into the facts and the feelings which this biography lays open. The whole record will wear to him an air of strangeness and of mystery; and if he have the candor not to resolve into fanaticism the registered experience, he will be forced to pass it over as thoroughly unintelligible. If a man know nothing of chemistry, and if he take up a treatise upon chemistry, he is at a loss in every page, and can make no way, through want of that acquaintance with the subject which the work presupposes. And if the author be giving something of his own history, and if he carry the reader into his laboratory, and count over to him experiments, and bring out results, why, the man who is no chemist, and who is therefore altogether ignorant of the properties of the substances on which the scientific man works, will understand not, or appreciate not, the discoveries which are reached of the secrets of nature; but with all the apparatus of knowledge spread before him, will remain as ignorant as ever, through the not having mastered the alphabet of chemistry. And what is true of such a science as chemistry, we hold to be equally true of practical christianity. The experiments, if we may so speak, which have been made in the soul of a man of piety and prayer,-experiments of the power of grace and of indwelling sin-and the results also which have been derived from such experiments; we would certainly contend that these cannot be understood, and cannot be entered into, unless the individual who peruses the record have something of fellow-feeling with the subject of the biography-unless, that is, there shall have passed on him that renovating change which has brought him out of nominal into real christianity. After all, the deriving knowledge of Christ from the experience of others must be through an act of faith. It is by belief in testimony, that what has been done for our fellow-men by the Redeemer, is turned into information to ourselves of his sufficiencies for his office. So that it were fair to argue, that a man must have faith, and there fore religious experience for himself, otherwise he possesses not the faculty by which to extract knowledge from the religious experience of others. But let a man be a believer in Christ, and every day of his life will bring him intelligence, from external testimony, of the worth of the Being on whom he fastens his faith. The witnesses who stand out and attest the excellences of the Mediator, occupy the whole scale of intelligence, from the Creator downwards, through every rank of the crea ture. The man of faith hears the Father himself bearing testimony by a voice. from heaven, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." He hears angels and archangels lauding and magnifying Christ's glorious name: for do not the winged hierarchies of heaven bow to him the knee, and that too as the consequence of his work of mediation? He hears patriarchs who lived in the infancy of the world; prophets who took up in succession the mighty strain, and sent it on from century to century; apostles who went out to the battle with idolatry, and counted not their lives dear to them, so that they might plant the cross amid the wilds of superstition :he hears all these, with one heart and one voice, witnessing to Jesus, as the Son of the Highest, the Savior of the lost. And he hears, moreover, the martyrs and the confessors of every generation; the saints who have held fast their allegiance on the rack and in the furnace; the noble champions who have risen up in the days of a declining church, and shed their blood like water in defence of the purity of doctrine; he hears the men of whom the world was not worthy, uttering an unflinching attestation to the willingness and ability of Christ to succor those who give themselves to his service. And he hears, finally, a voice from the thousands who, in more private stations, have taken Christ as their Lord and their God; who, in dependance on his might, have gone unobtrusively through duty and trial, and then have lain down on the death-bed, and worn a smile amid the decayings of the body, and this voice bears a witness, stanch and decisive, that He in whom they have trusted, has proved himself all-sufficient to deliver. And if we do right in arguing that there is poured in gradually upon a believer this scarcely measurable evidence to the power and faithfulness of Christ, will it not come to pass that he grows every day more acquainted with the excellencies of the Savior; so that, by gathering in from the accumulated stores of the testimony of others, he will be able, with a continually strengthening assurance, to declare, I know whom I have believed. If it were possible that this testimony of others should be appreciated and. grasped without faith, or without con version, then it would be certain that a vast way might be made in the knowledge of Christ, by men whose own experience could furnish no information. But, forasmuch as on the grounds already laid down, there must be a prepared soil for the reception of these testimonies to Christ, we think it fair to contend that no man can know Christ unless he believe in Christ, even though the knowledge may be fetched from the recorded attestations of every order of intelligence. It is not, however, so much from what is told him by others, as from what he experiences in himself, that a believer knows whom he hath believed. You will observe that as a result of his acting faith upon Christ, he is engaged in a moral warfare with the world, the flesh, and the devil. He goes to the combat in no strength of his own, but simply in the might of his risen Redeemer. And the question is, whether thus putting to the proof the Savior of men, he obtains an evidence for, or an evidence against, his ability to help and sustain? And can we hesitate as to the side on which the testimony turns! If a believer is at any time overborne in the conflict; if lust gain the victory, or the world for a while re-assert the sovereignty of which it hath been stripped; shall it be supposed for a moment that such result may be ascribed to deficiency in the assistance which Christ lives to communicate? If a christian is overthrown, it is because he is surprised off his guard. But is Christ chargeable with his being off his guard? It is because he is remiss in prayer, or because he parleys with temptation, or because he avails not himself of the armor provided by God. But is Christ chargeable with his negligence, with his indecision, with his carelessness in the use of instituted means? We may lay it down as an ascertained truth, that Christ never failed a believer in his hour of combat. The believer may be mastered; the enemy may come in like a flood, and there may be no efficient resistance opposed to the inrush. But whensoever there is a meeting of the foe in the strength of the Lord, there is a realization of the truth of the promise, My grace is sufficient for thee. God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able. God, so to speak, measures and weighs every trial before he permits it to be allotted. He sets it side by side with the circumstances and strength of the party upon whom it is to fall. And if he ever perceive that the temptation overpasses the capacity of resistance, so that, if thus tempted, an individual would be tempted above that he is able; then God is represented to us as refusing to permit the appointment, and therefore as watching that believers may never be unavoidably brought into such a position that their yielding to evil shall be a matter of necessity. And it certainly must follow from these scriptural premises, that the being overpowered can never be charged on a deficiency in succor; and that, though it were idle to plead for the possibility of our attaining perfection, yet the impossibility arises not from God's communicating too little of assistance, but solely from our own want of vigilance in appropriating and applying the freely offered aids. We take it, therefore, as the experience of a believer, that the Captain of Salvation strengthens his followers for the moral conflict to which they are pledged. How often, when Satan has brought all his powers to the assault, and the man has seemed within a hairbreadth of yielding, how often has an earnest prayer, thrown like an arrow to the mercy-seat, caused Christ to appear, as he once did to Joshua, the captain of the Lord's host; and the tide of battle has been turned, and the foe has been routed, and the oppressed one delivered! How often, when an evil passion has almost goaded the believer into compliance with its dictates, and there seemed no longer any likelihood of its being kept down or ejected, how, by dealing with this passion as dealt the apostles of old with foul spirits which had entered into the body, calling over it the name of the Lord Jesus,how often, we say, has the passion been cast out, and the possessed man restored quickly to soundness and peace! How often, in looking forward to duties imposed on him by his christian profession, has the believer been conscious of a kind of shrinking at the prospect! It has seemed to him almost hopeless that he should bear up under the pressure of labor; that he should meet faithfully every claim upon his time and attention; and that he should discharge, with any thing of becoming carefulness, the various offices with which he sees himself intrusted. But when he has reflected on himself as simply an instrument in the hands of his Master, and resolved to go on in a single dependence on the helps which are promised through Christ, has not the mountain become literally a plain; so that duties which, at a distance, seemed altogether overwhelming, have proved, when entered upon, the very reverse of oppressive! And what shall we assert to be the result of this continual experience of the sufficiencies of Christ, unless it be that the believer knows whom he hath believed? The stone which God laid in Zion becomes to him, according to the prophetical description, a tried stone. He no longer needs to appeal to the experience of others. He has the witness in himself, and he can use the language which the Samaritans used to the woman who first told them of Christ as the prophet,We have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Savior of the world. There can be nothing clearer than the connection between experience and knowledge. If I meet difficulties in Christ's strength, and master them; if I face enemies in Christ's strength, and vanquish them; if I undertake duties in Christ's strength, and discharge them,--the difficulties, and the enemies, and the duties being such as I could not grapple with by my own unassisted might, then my experience is actually knowledge; for experiencing Christ to be faithful and powerful, I certainly know Christ to be faithful and powerful. We may yet further observe, that knowledge, the produce of experience, is of a broader extent than our foregoing remarks would appear to mark out. The believer in Christ, if indeed he live not so far below his privileges as almost to forfeit the title, must be one who, having felt the burden of sin, has come weary and heavy laden to the Savior, and obtained the removal of the oppression from his conscience; and will it not therefore hold good, that, through experience, he knows Christ as the Lamb of God which tak eth away the sin of the world? He must, moreover, be one who, painfully alive to his own utter inability to obey God's law for himself, has turned to Jesus in search of a surety, and found, in that unvarying faithfulness with which he acted out the precepts of the Father, just that procuring cause of acceptance which is required by the fallen; and will it not therefore be true, that through experience he knows Christ as the Lord our Righteousness? He must, moreover-at least if he have travelled at all beyond the very outset of the life of faith-have been visited with spiritual trials, and perhaps also with temporal; and he will have carried his sorrows to the Redeemer, as to one who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and he will have obtained the oil and the wine of consolation; and will he not therefore, from this his experience, know Christ as that gracious being who comforteth them that are cast down, who bindeth up the broken-hearted? He must yet further be one who, conscious that the world which lieth within himself is overspread with defilement, and that he is possessed of no native energy by which to carry purity into the recesses of the heart, has turned to Jesus in order that he might obtain the inworking of a holiness which should fit him for heaven, and has realized the processes of an on-going sanctification; and does not then his experience cause him to know Christ as made unto his people wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption? He must, finally, be one who, feeling himself no creature of a day, but sublimely conscious that immortality throbbed in his veins, has looked fruitlessly on earth for an object which might fill his soul; and then fastening upon God manifest in the flesh, has found the enormous void occupied to the overflow, and hath not then his experience led him to know Christ as formed in his people the hope of glory? We might extend this adduction of particulars; but we think that what has been already advanced will suffice for our carrying you along with us in the conclusion, that where faith resides, there must be experience; and that experience, in natural course, produces knowledge,--nay, rather that experience is identical with -- knowledge; so that all true believers, who have walked a while in the heaven-ward path, may declare with St. Paul, I know whom I have believed. And we would again press upon your attention the important fact, that as faith, being followed by experience, will issue in knowledge, so the knowledge thus acquired will tell back upon the faith, and throw into it nerve and stability. We are persuaded that, by a wonderful and most merciful arrangement, God hath ordered that experience should grow into such a witness for the truth of christianity, that scepticism, though brought forward with all that is pointed in argument and splendid in oratory, hath literally no likelihood whatever of success, even when the attack is on a believer who has nothing of human weapon at his disposal. If you sent the most accomplished of infidels into the cottage of the meanest of our peasants, or into the workshop of the poorest of our artisans, the peasant, or the artisan, being supposed a true believer in Christ -we should entertain not the slightest apprehension as to the issue of a conflict between parties apparently so illmatched; but on the contrary, should await the result in the most perfect assurance, that though there might be no taking off the objections of the infidel, there would be no overthrowing the faith of the believer. Scepticism can make no way where there is real christianity; all its triumphs are won on the field of nominal christianity. And it is a phenomenon which might, at first sight, well draw our amazement, that just where we should look for the least of resistance, and where we should conclude that, almost as a matter of course, the sophistry of the infidel might enter and carry every thing before it-that there we find a power of withstanding which is perhaps even greater than could be exhibited in a higher and more educated circle-so that the believing mechanic shall outdo the believing philosopher in the vigor with which he repels the insinuations of a sceptic. We are not arguing that the mechanic will make the most way in confuting the sceptic. On the contrary, there will be a vast probability against his being able to expose the fallacy of a solitary objec tion. But then he will take refuge simply in his experience. He will not, as the philosopher may do, divide himself between experience and argument. If he have no apparatus at his command with which to meet, and dissect, and lay bare, a hollow, but plausible reasoning, he has his own knowledge to which to turn-and then the whole question lies between a theory and a matter-of-fact. His knowledge is matter-of-fact-and argument will always be worthless if it set itself against matter-of-fact. He knows whom he hath believed. There may be in this knowledge none of the elements of another man's conviction, but there is to himself the material of an overpowering assurance. It might be quite impossible to take this knowledge, and make it available as an argument with which to bear down on his infidel assailant. It is a visionary thing to his opponentbut it is a matter of fact to himself. And we contend that in this lies the grand secret of a poor man's capability of resisting the advancings of infidelity. It is no theory with him that Jesus is the Christ. It is no speculation that the Gospel offers a remedy for those moral disorders which sin hath fastened on the ereature. He has not merely read the Bible-he has felt the Bible. He has not merely heard of the medicine-he has taken the medicine. And now, we again say, when you would argue with him against christianity, you argue with him against matter-of-fact. You argue against the existence of fire, to a man who has been scorched by the flame; and against the existence of water, to a man who has been drenched in the depths; and against the existence of light, to a man who has looked out on the landscape; and argument can make no head when it sets itself against matter-of-fact. If I had labored under a painful and deadly disease, and if I had gone to a physician-and if I had received from him a medicine which brought the health back into my limbs-what success would attend the most clever of reasoners who should set himself to prove to me that no such being as this physician had ever existed, or that there was no virtue whatsoever in the draught which had wrought in me with so healing an energy? He |