Text.
Subject.
Page.
2223.
i. 11.
Richness and Fulness of the Gospel .
438
2224.
i. 11.
Suitableness and Sufficiency of the
454
2225.
i. 11.
The Excellency and Glory of the
469
2226.
i. 15.
Christ came to save Sinners
485
2227.
i. 16.
488
2228.
ii. 3, 4.
493
2229.
ii. 5, 6.
The Mediation of Christ ....
498
2230.
iii. 16.
The great Mystery of Godliness .
504
2231.
iv. 8, 9.
Godliness profitable unto all Things .
508
2232.
iv. 12.
Address to Young Persons ....
515
2233.
v. 24, 25.
The Quality of Men's Works dis-
covered in the Day of Judgment
521
2234.
vi. 3.
The Gospel productive of good Works
527
2235.
vi. 6.
Godliness with Contentment
531
2236.
vi. 9, 10.
535
2237.
vi. 11.
Practical Piety enforced ....
539
2238.
vi. 12.
The good Fight of Faith ....
543
2239.
vi. 17—19.
The true Use of Riches ....
547
Phil. i. 6. Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good ivork in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.
THERE is a just mixture of hope and fear, which every Christian should cherish in contemplating his own experience, and the state of the Church of Christ. On the one hand there certainly is ground for fear, whether we judge from analogy, or from what we behold with our eyes. What multitudes of blossoms are annually cut off by frost ! of those that set, how many are blighted by an eastern wind! of those that grow, how many are blown off by storms and tempests ! and of those that hang upon the tree, how many, when gathered, prove rotten at the core ! Thus it is seen in the religious world ; many make a fair show for a little while, and then fall off from their profession : others are blighted, and come to naught : others look well for a season, but are beaten down by storms of persecution and temptation : and of those who maintain their profession to the end, how many will at last be found unsound at heart ! But, if this cast a damp upon our joys, and teach us to moderate our expectations, it need not, it ought not, to rob us of all our confidence : for though sound fruit may be blown off from a tree, no sound Christian shall ever vol. xviii. n
o PHILIPPIANS, I. 6. [2135.
be separated from the Lord Jesus. Of this the Apostle was fully persuaded : and, under this con- viction, he thanked God for the converts at Phihppi, whose sincerity he had no reason to doubt, and of whose perseverance in the divine life he therefore entertained the most sanguine hopes.
To make a just improvement of his declaration before us, we shall shew, I. When a good work may be said to be begun in us—
It is not an easy matter to draw the line between those high attainments of religion of which we may fall short, and yet be confident that a good work is begun ; and those low attainments, which will warrant us to hope well, at the same time that they are by no means a sufficient ground of confidence. But, taking St. Paul for our guide, we trust, that we shall so discriminate, as neither to make sad the heart of the righteous, nor to countenance the delusions of the wicked. Those evidences, from whence he " knew the election" (and, of consequence, the perseverance also) of the saints at Thessalonica, will serve as a sure criterion whereby to judge of our own state3. We may be assured then that a good work is begun in us, when faith, hope, and love, shew themselves to have been formed in our hearts ; that is,
1. When our faith is operative —
[That faith, which is without works, is dead ; and is of no more value that the faith of devils b: but the faith which sti- mulates us to resist and mortify all sin, and to be conscientious in the practice of all duties, is, beyond a doubt, the gift of God, the workmanship of an almighty Agent0.]