4S INWARD WITNESS TO CHRISTIAN/TY., CSERM. Irr, evidence for a season may be obscure, and may seem to be silent through the power ofiniquity, and the strength of temptation; yet this life will resume its activity, and discover itself, because its nature is eternal. . It is Christ Jesus living in the soul by the power of his own Spirit; Christ Jesus, who is the eternal principle of life, and his Spirit, which is the eternal Spirit; and 'where he bath begun to dwell,. he shall for ever inhabit. This evidence shall continue to all eternity, and shall give many a sweet reflection. to the saints in heaven. I feel now (says every saint there) that this was a true gospel I 'trusted in, in the days of my flesh and this religion was divine, for it hath raised me to these man- sions of blessedness. I feel now it was a doctrine came down from heaven, and that Christ Jesus was not an impostor, but the Son of God indeed, for he has brought me to his father's ,house by thisdoctrine ; he hath seated me upon his own throne, even as he is seated upon the throne of his father ; he bath made me an overcomer by believing this doctrine, even as he himself has overcome." Eternal life itself, in the perfection of it in the future world, shall be a. standing and everlasting evidence of the truth of the gospel. I will now endeavour to draw some few inferences or remarks from the discourse, and then conclude. 1. The first remark is very obvious, how glorious is the gospel of our Lord ! How preferable to all other religions ! Those which men bave invented, are not to come in competitionwith it; let none of them be named. Even that religion which God himself invented, the re- ligion of the Jews, had not such honourable charaéters .belonging to it; as this of our Saviour bath. Many ex- pressions that are used in the epistles of St. Paul, to chew the superiority of the gospel above the law, are such as givé it an infinite advantage and preference As in point of glory, so in point of evidence too. One was the letter, the other is the spirit; one was the ministra- tion of condemnation, the other of salvation ; one the ministration of death, the other of life: and as life, spiritual or eternal life, is represented as the peculiar effect and prerogative of the gospel, so it carries more light of evidence with it to confirm its heavenly origi- nal; it brings the believing soul much nearer to heaven.
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