FULL ASSURANCE.

I speak affectionately to the weaker ones, who cannot yet say that they know they have believed. I speak not to your condemnation, but to comfort you. Full assurance is not essential to salvation, but it is essential to satisfaction. May you get it-may you get it at once, at any rate, may you never be satisfied to live without it. You may have full assurance. You may have it without personal revelations, it is wrought in us by the Word of God. These things are written that you may have it, and we can be sure that the means used by the Spirit are equal to the effect which He desires. Under the guidance of the Spirit of God, John so wrote as to attain his end in writing. What, then, has he written with the design of making us know that we have eternal life? Go through the of his whole epistle, and you will see that it all presses in that direction.
He begins thus, " Whosoever believeth that Jesus is The Christ is born of God." Do you believe that Jesus is the anointed of God? Is He so to you? Is He anointed as your prophet, priest and king? Have you realised His anointing so as to put your trust in Him? Do you recieve Jesus as appointed of God to be the mediator, the propitiation for sin, the Saviour of men? If so then you are born of God. "How may I know this " Brethren, our evidence is the witness of God Himself as here recorded. We need no other witness. Suppose an angel were to tell you that you were born of God, would that be a more sure testimony than the infallible scripture? If you believe that Jesus is the Christ, you are born of God. John has thus positively declared the truth, that you may know that you have eternal life. Can anything be more clear than this?
The loving spirit of John leads him to say, " everyone that loveth Him that begat, loveth Him also that is begotten of Him." Do you love God? Do you love His only begotten Son? You can answer these two questions surely. I knew a dear christian woman who would sometimes say, " I know that I love Jesus, but my fear is that He does not love me." Her doubt used to make me smile, for it never could have occurred to me. If I love Him, I know it is because He first loved me. Love to God in us is always the work of God's love towards us. Jesus loved us, and gave Himself for us, and therefore we love Him in return. Love to Jesus is an effect which proves existence of the cause. Do you love Jesus? Do you feel a delight in Him? Is His name as music to your ear and honey to your tongue? Do you love to hear Him praised? Ah dear friends! I know that to many of you a sermon full of His dear name is as a royal banquet, and if there is no Christ in a discourse, it is empty and void and vain to you. Is it not so? If you do indeed love Him that begat and Him that is begotten of Him, then this is one of the things that is written, " that ye may know that ye have eternal life."

THE INDWELLING CHRIST.

That spiritual life, which is the innermost recieving of Christ, that new life, which no man knows but he that has recieved it, that quickening of the spirit, which makes the christian as much superior to ordinary men, as men are above, dumb, driven cattle-if we recieve that blessed gift, then shall we with emphasis be entertaining our Lord as a stranger.
Profession is abundant, but the secret life is rare. The name to live is everywhere, but where is the life fully seen? To be rather than to talk, to enjoy rather than to pretend, to have Christ truly within, this is not every man's attainment, but those who have it are among the God-like ones, the true sons of God.
A strange thing is the fact that Jesus will deign to dwell in our hearts. Such a One as Jesus in such a one as I am! The King of glory in a sinner's bosom! This is a miracle of grace, yet the manner of it is simple enough. A humble repenting faith opens the door, and Jesus enters the heart at once. Love shuts to the door with the hand of penitence, and holy watchfulness keeps out intruders. Thus is the promise made good, "if any man hear My voice, and open the door I will come in to him, and will sup with him and he with Me." Meditation, contemplation, prayer, praise and daily obedience, keep the house in order for The Lord, and then follows the consecration of our entire nature to His use as a temple. The dedication of spirit, soul and body, and all their powers as holy vessels of the sanctuary, the writing of "holiness unto the Lord" upon all that is about us. until our everyday garments become vestments, our meals sacraments, our life a ministry and ourselves priests unto the Most High. Oh the supreme condescension of this indwelling! He never dwelt in an angel, but He resides in a contrite spirit. There is a world of meaning in the Redeemer's words " I in them. " May we know them as Paul translates them, "Christ in you, the hope of glory."

Heaven An Inheritance

"The inheritance of the saints" So then heaven, with all it's glories is an inheritance. Now an inheritance is not a thing that can be bought with money, earned by labour, or won by conquest. If any man hath an inheritance, in the proper sense of that term, it came to him by birth. And thus it is with heaven. The man who shall recieve this glorious heritage will not obtain it by the works of the law nor by the efforts of the flesh, it will be given to him as a matter of gracious right because he has been "begotten...again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus christ from the dead," and has thus become an heir of heaven by blood and birth. They who come unto glory are sons, for is it not written, "The Captain of (our) salvation" bringeth "many sons unto glory?" They came there not as servants, no servant has any right to the inheritance of his master. Be he ever so faithful, yet he is not his master's heir. But because you are sons-made so by The Spirit's regeneration-sons by The Father's adoption- because by supernatural energy you have been born again, you become inheritors of eternal life and may enter into the many mansions of our Father's house above. Let us always understand then, when we think of heaven, that it is to be ours and a state which we are to enjoy as a result of birth- not as a reward for work. "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God" That kingdom being an "inheritance," until you have the new birth you can have no claim to enter it.