34
:NWARD WITNESS
TO
CHRISTIANITY.
tSERM.
III.
diligence
I
am employed
for the
honour
of
his
name
in
the
world.
These
things
I
find
wrought
in me
by
the
gospel
of
Christ The
discoveries
of
the
nature
and works
of
God,
by his gospel,
have
filled my
soul with holy won-
der,
and
bowed
my
spirit
down
to
adore
him.
The re-
velations
of
his
amazing
condescension and
love,
have
raised and
fired
my
heart
to
love
him
;
the examples
of
superlative
piety
I
meet
with in this
gospel, have
excited
my holy
imitation
;
,
and the motives proposed
here,
are
so
awful
and
so
alluring,
that
all
my
powers
of
hope
and
fear are joined
and engaged
to
constrain
my
obedience
to
the
excellent and
divine
precepts
of
this religion.
I
feel
that I
am
quite
altered
from what
I.
once
was,
I
am
a
new
creature, and the
change
is
divine
and heavenly.
There
is
something within
me,
that
bears
witness,
that
ray religion
is
from
God.
II.
It
is
a
witness
that
will,
in some
measure,
appear
in the
life,
wheresoever
it
is
written
in
the
heart
:
For
eternal
life
is
an active principle, it
will be
discovering
and exercising
itself.
Is
it
possible,
that
a
man
should
have the
pardon
of
his
sins,
and
sweet peace
of
consci-
ence,
a
sense
of
the
love
of God,
who
is
an infinite
good,
a joyful satisfaction
in
his
heavenly favour,
and
manifest nothing
of
this in his
aspect and be-
haviour
?
That
he
should
shew
no serenity
of
counte-
nance,
no
sweetness
of
temper,
no
inward
joy
?
Is
it
possible
that
he
should have an
utter
aversion
to
sin,
a
hatred of
all
iniquity
in his
heart, and
not
make
it ap-
pear
in
his
life?
That
he should
maintain
a holy
con-
tempt of
this world,
and
scorn of
it,
in
comparison
of
the
future
glories
that
his eye
is
fixed
upon,
so
warm a
zeal for
God, and
so
hearty a
love to men,
and
not
ma-
nifest
it
to the world
?
Surely
his
life
will
be
above,
where
his
heart
is
;
and
his
heart
will
he in heaven,
where
his
treasures are.
Our conversation
is
in
heaven,
says
the
blessed
Paul, under
the influence
of
this religion
and these hopes,
Phil.
iii. 20,
21.
It
is
true, indeed, this
is
a
testimony
that
cannot
be
communicated
to others,
in
the
same
measure and man-
ner that
it
is
felt
by
the persons
that
believe.
In
this
respect it
is
like the hidden manna, which none
knows
but
they
that
taste
of
it;
yet
those
that
feed
upon
it
daily
will
discover it
in some
outward
appearances;
as
5