SERM. III. INWARD WITNESS TO CHRISTIANITY. 47 Thence it comes to pass, that when Christians have grown to a good degree of strength in faith, and great measures of holiness in this world, all the temptations that they meet with to turn them aside from the doc- trines of Christ, are esteemedbut as straw andstubble ; they cannot move nor stir them from the faith that is in Jesus, because the evidence hath grown strongwith years: . and as they have attended long upon the minis- tration of this gospel, they have found more and more of this eternal life wrought in their hearts ; they havé got nearer to heaven, they have pressed on continually towards perfection, they havé found sweet assurance of the pardon of sin in their conscience, and diviner sensa- tions of the love of 'God communicated to them, and their own love both to God and man increasing; they have found their hearts moreaverse to all iniquity, they have felt themselves rising higher and higher above this world, as they have come nearer to the end of their days ; and a holy contempt of this world has grown bolder : They take greater delight in God, and more gustful satisfaction in his worship, and in his company; Their zeal for his honour is warmer and stronger; they are perpetually employing themselves in contrivances for the glory of God among men. Thus in every part of this spiritual- life the testimony increases, the evidence grows brighter, as eternal life advances in them. In the last place : As it is a growing witness, so it is such an one as never can be utterly lost; and that cha- racter of it is derived from the very name, for it is eter- nal life. Where it is once wrought in the soul, it shall be everlasting, it shall never die. The seed of God abides in those that are born ofGod, 1 John iii. 9. for they are born not ofcorruptible seed, but of incorrupti- ble, even the word of God, which lives and abides for ever, 1 Pet. i. 23: His gospel, which is an everlasting gospel, continues that heavenly work in the soul, which that gospel did first begin. It may be darkened indeed, it may be hidden for a season; sometimes the violent temptations of the evil 'one, inay, as it were, stop the mouth of this divine wit- ness; and sometimes, defiling lusts rising upon the face of the soul, may darken these evidences, but can never entirely blot them out. Eternal life -must abide for ever, according to the name and nature of it. Though the
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