[To this truth the whole voice of Scripture bears witness. We know full well that there are many promises made to the people of God; and that of those who have been given to Christ he will lose none. But it were a dreadful perversion of those promises, to think that we can be saved in any other way than that of " a patient continuance in well-doing ^" We must not attempt to make void the most positive declarations of Holy
Writ^ but must learn, like the Apostle Paul himself,
to make them an incentive to unwearied watchfulness and diligence^ ]
2. By our continuance in well-doing our salvation is secured —
[The promise in our text is absolute and universal : and throughout every part of Scripture God says to us, " Be thou
<= Heb. X. 24, 25. d Heb. xii. 15. e Rom. ii. 7.
f Ezek. xviii. 24. and xxxiii. 12, 13. Heb. x. 26, 27, 38, 39. B 1 Cor. ix. 27.
faithful unto death; and I will give thee a crown of life" We need not disquiet ourselves about God's fulfil- ment of his promises : let us only attend to our own duties, and leave him to accomplish his own word in his own time and way. We shall find at last, that " not a jot or tittle of his
word has ever failed" The words of our text were
fulfilled literally to every true disciple at the destruction of Jerusalem, when every apostate perished. A refuge was pro- vided for the whole body of Christians, at Pella, and a way was opened for their escape thither : and so it shall be in the day of judgment, when Christ's faithful servants universally, and they only, shall be saved.]
3. The consideration of these truths would be an effectual preservative against spiritual declension —
[Suppose iniquity to abound ever so much, what is that to us, except as a matter of grief and lamentation for the persons who commit it? Let the iniquity shew itself in any persons, or in any degree, it is no reason that our love to God and man should wax cold : it should rather operate as a reason for us to stir up our love to a flame, in order to impede the progress of the corruption, or at least to prevent its assaults upon our own souls ; as travellers in a wilderness kindle fii'es around them, in order to protect themselves from the assaults of ravenous and ferocious beasts. At all events, however much any persons may injure their own souls, and endanger their own salvation, it becomes us to take care that they do not destroy or injure us ]
Address —
1. Let us above all things cultivate a spirit of love —
[This is the characteristic feature of all God's children : and the want of it, whatever else we may possess, proves us to be only as sounding brass or as tinkling cymbals '\ A growth in
this is the surest evidence of our growth in grace'
and by this, more than by any thing else, is our establishment
in the divine life secured'' Let us then " take care
lest any root of bitterness spring up in our hearts ;" and let us daily " put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness^"'\
2. Let us beg of God the assistance of his Holy Spirit —
[The consideration of our final happiness depending so en- tirely on our own continuance in well-doing, would be discourag- ing, if we did not know, that God has promised to us the aids
^ 1 Cor. xiii. 1—3. * 2 Thess. i. 3, 4.
•^ 1 Thess. iii. 12, 13. ' Col. iii. 14.