testimony of a good conscience; for this the Apostle did5': but we recommend it to you to " rejoice with trembling :" for we are sure that such a frame of mind is most favourable to a discovery of our real principles, and most conducive to our ultimate salvation.]
2. Commit yourselves to the care of your gracious
God and Saviour —
[To whom can you look for succour, but to that blessed Saviour, who has promised to " keep the feet of his saints ? " He alone can "put truth in your inward parts," and keep you " sincere and without offence unto the day of Christ." Yet, however preserved by his grace, you will need to be washed continually in the fountain of his blood. Sprinkle yourselves then continually with his precious blood : from thence derive all your hope and peace ; and doubt not but that he will both " keep you from falling, and present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy2."]
y 2 Cor. i. 12. z Jude, ver. 24.
Luke xii. 4, 5. I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will foreivarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.
AN undue regard to the good opinion of mankind operates to the production of two apparently opposite effects, namely, a hypocritical assumption of the religious character, and a cowardly concealment of it. Moreover, the same persons may be alternately tempted to both these evils, according as the one kintt of dissimulation or the other may be best suited to their present circumstances. The persons most likely to feel their influence, are those who have lately begun to venerate religion, and to desire the attainment of it in their hearts. Hence our blessed Lord earnestly cautioned his Disciples against them. He began with guarding them against hypocrisy, which was the leaven that pervaded all the Pharisees;