will any one say that the change, though still very imperfect,- reflects no glory on the Lord? Let the persons themselves judge : Are ye not happier now than in the days of your unregeneracy ? Would ye willingly go back to your former state? Does not every day evince to you the blessedness of the change that has taken place? and can you forbear to honour Him who, by the mighty working of his power, has wrought it in you ?]
But let us contemplate fruitfulness in that other view; namely,
II. As an evidence of our own sincerity —
Our blessed Lord told his Disciples, that " if they should continue in his word, then they should be his Disciples indeed1. In truth, fruitfulness in good works is that test of sincerity which is,
1. Exclusively admissible —
[All professions without this are vain : " Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things that I say?" "Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven ; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." But if a person manifest a great zeal for divine ordinances, will not that suffice ? No : God, speaking by the Prophet Isaiah, says of many of his professing people, " They seek me daily, and delight to know my ways, as a nation that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinances of their God : they ask of me the ordinances of justice ; they take delight in approaching to God. Wherefore have we fasted, say they, and thou seest not ? Wherefore have we afflicted our soul, and thou takest no knowledgek?" Yet these people he proves to have been immersed in the vilest wicked- ness. By the Prophet Ezekiel, also, he describes the same kind of professors in very striking terms : " Son of man, the children of thy people speak one to another, saying, Come, I pray you, and hear what is the word that cometh forth from the Lord. And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them : for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument : for they hear thy words, but they do them not1." Take the favourable part of this description, and you would suppose them all to be very eminent saints : but see the dark part of
1 John viii. 31. k Isai. lviii. 2. 3. ' Ezek. xxxiii. 30 — 32.