Plain Discourses Delivered to a Country Congregation (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ,41 SERMON XXV. ' 1 Johkt, ii: 9 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness, even until now. :":.' ..'.'., ... - .' . Actions are the test of faith, not only to our own conscience, but to the world at large. God, indeed, wants no test .to certify to him; for he knows our hearts, and also who are his, from all eternity. To strip God of his attribute of omniscience is to rob him of a part of his divinity. But to know whether we be in the faith, it is necessary that we examine ourselves and prove ourselves. We must not deceive ourselves with vain notions and idle professions, and call ourselves believers, because we think we believe. We must have some substantial ground to build upon, before we can,have the hearty approbation of oar conscience that we are really what we would wish to be. When we see and taste the- fruit of a tree, we can then pronounce with a tolerable degree of certainty, what kind of tree it is. " The tree i known by its fruits." And this is the very comparison our Lord himself in stitutes, when he speaks of those who are faithful, and of those who are not -r " By their fruits," says he, " shall ye know them;" that is, the actions of men declare, both to themselves and the world- around them, the sincerity of their religion. If a man profess faith, and if he have no good fruits to make it evident to his own conscience and to others, he is a hypocrite and a deceiver. The second chapter of St. James's Epistle i written expressly on this subject, to distinguish the true from' the false believer by the fruit of their doings. Hear our Lord also i " I am the vine," says Christ, and my Father is the husbandman'". every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away." And again, " He that abideth in me, and I in him...