26 INWARD WITNESS TO CHRISTIANITY. account it has someprerogatives above all the external arguments for the truth of christianity. This inward argument is always at hand, when a believer is in the exerciseof his graces, and acting according to his new nature and life: It is an argument that is not lost through the weakness of the brain, the defect of thememory, and long absence from boóks and study, to which other arguments are liable; it is an argument thatcannot be for- gotten, while true religion remains in the heart, for it is graven there in lasting characters. Those words of St. Paul to. the Corinthians, in his second epistle, chap. iii. ver. 2, 3. have a reference to our present case : Ye are manifestly declared to be the epistleof Christ ministered by vs, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but infleshly tables of the heart. Wehave a glory in our religion, that ,distinguishes it from, and advances it above the Jewish dispensation; their law was written in tables of stone, and afterwards Moses wrote it out at large in a book : But ye have something (says the apostle) written in your hearts, that proves the truth of your religion, and of my divine commission, ye who are converted by my gospel; ye Corinthians, who were once vile as the vilest, and upon whose souls the devil, by his temptations. and by his power, had inscri- bed many dark characters, and seemed to seal you over, and mark you to damnation, ye are now the epistle of Christ, ye have those dismal characters rased out, and ye have golden and bright ones inscribed. The image of our Lord .Jesus Christ, who is eternal life, appears fairly written on your souls : Ye are the epistle of Christ, and eternal life is begun in you, and thus the gospel witnesses itsown truth and divinityby aninternal evidence. Thegospelof Christ is like a seal orsignet, of suchinimitable and divine graving, that nocreated power can counterfeit it ; and when the Spirit of God has stamped thisgospel on the soul, there are somany holy and happy lines drawnor impressed thereby ; so many sacred signatures and divine features stamped on the mind, that givescertain evidence both of a heavenly signet, and a hea- venly operator. A christian, who has well studied the doctrines and proofs of christianity, can give sufficient reasons for the truth of them, and for his believing them. He finds what is sufficiently satis- factory, to confirmhis belief in the outward testimonies, in the miracles wrought in the world, and the prophecies fulfilled : " I have (says he) in my understanding manyarguments and eviden- ces of the truth of the gospel, and my reason is convinced that it is a divine religion. But there is a miracle wrought in my heart that is of more efficacy than this, and is to incamore convincing
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