3. Be determined, through grace, to live and die for Christ —
[If sin be unrepented of, or self-confidence be indulged, our resolutions, like Peter's, may prove fallacious : but if formed with a humble dependence upon Divine grace, and with a penitent sense of our former miscarriages, they afford a strong additional testimony on our behalf. Peter speedily evinced the renovation of his soul, when with undaunted cou- rage he charged home upon all the Jewish Sanhedrim the murder of his Lord, and set at nought all their threatenings against him. And if we also are enabled boldly to confess Christ, and cheerfully to suffer for him, and unreservedly to devote ourselves unto him, the matter is clear ; we do indeed love him ; and we may appeal to the heart-searching God that we " love him in sincerity" and truth.]
Let us now institute the same all-important inquiry, and address to every one of you the question in the text. Let each one put his own name in the place
of Peter's, and conceive the Lord Jesus Christ saying to him, Lovest thou me ? Perhaps all of you, except a few humble and contrite souls, will be ready to answer this question in the affirmative: but if you would enter more dispassionately into it, some of you might possibly apply to yourselves what was spoken to the unbelieving Jews, " I know you, that ye have not the love of God in you1." Others of you might be in doubt what answer to make ; while others might be able to adopt the language of Peter, " Lord, thou knowest all things ; thou knowest that I love thee." Taking for granted that there are these three descrip- tions of persons here present, we shall address ourselves,
1. To those who manifestly do not love the Lord Jesus Christ —
[How surprising is it that there should be such persons in the world ! yet this is the state of the generality even of those who live in this Christian land. And what shall I say to them ? Are you not yourselves amazed at your own wickedness? Do you not appear to yourselves to be even monsters in impiety? Not to love Him, who is infinitely lovely ! Not to love Him, who is so beloved of God, and of the holy angels, and of all the saints both in heaven and earth ! Not to love Him, who has so loved you as to give himself for you, and to lay down his own life a ransom for your souls! How astonishing is it that his wrath has not long since broken forth against you to the uttermost to consume you ! Must you not assent to the justice of that denunciation, " If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maran-atham?" And do you not tremble lest the curse of God should come upon you ? O rest not in a state of such dreadful guilt and danger: but contemplate Him; and turn unto Him; and make Him " the only beloved of your souls."]
2. To those who are in doubt whether they love him or not —
[Do not leave this matter any longer in suspense. Search your own hearts, and beg of God to search and try you. In- dulge not a needless scrupulosity on the one hand, neither " speak peace unto your souls lightly" on the other hand. Of the two, it were better to be distressed by raising the standard too high, than to deceive yourselves by putting it too low; because, in the one case, your pain will be only small and 1 John v. 42. "' 1 Cor. xvi. 22.