SERMON IX.

FULL ASSURANCE OF FAITH AND HOPE.

2. TIMOTHY. 1. 12.

For I know whom I have believed; and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him, against that day.

If ever there was an unlikely subject of conversion to the Christian faith, it was Saul of Tarsus. His education, his habits, his prospects, his ardent and active zeal against Christians, his powerful intellect, his pride, his very conscience, all under the influence of wrong impressions, rendered his perseverance in Judaism morally certain, and the idea of his change, in the eyes of thinking men, perfectly chimerical. Satan himself seemed not less likely to become an apostle, than this fierce and intrepid Jew. His active spirit, and his implacable malignity, breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, would, if permitted to take its course, have "made short work with the dissenters" from the order established at Jerusalem; would

have crushed the infant church; and scarcely left materials for one paragraph of the general historian. But the Lord Jesus had other views for his church, and other employment for the persecutor. In the height of his career -in the very act of executing the bloody commission of the high priest--when surrounded by armed men, to enforce his ordersat mid-day-on the public road-near a celebrated city-a burst of glory from the face of Jesus Christ eclipses the brightness of the sun; an invisible power smites him and all his company to the earth; and a voice, the authority of which made him feel that his Creator was speaking, addressed to him those memorable words; Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? The high priest, the Sanhedrim, the nation whose hopes all centre in him, his character, his commission, are forgotten in an instant. Men have no leisure for anything else, when they are conscious that God is speaking. Who art thou, Lord? exclaimed the astonished and trembling persecutor: I am Jesus, answers the heavenly voice, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest. Lord, replies he, every disposition to cavil or tamper being perfectly subdued, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. Gentle as a lamb, the high-spirited and

Smitten

ferocious Saul obeys the mandate. blind by the light which shone around him, he is led by the hand into Damascus: where he remained three days without light, and did neither eat nor drink. Under such tutelage as no other man ever enjoyed, he passes through the process of conviction and conversion; experiences the second birth; has a new heart put within him; is instructed in the mysteries of the kingdom; is furnished with all gifts and graces; is taught the service which he is to perform, and the sufferings which he is to endure; and comes forth not a whit behind the chiefest apostles, and straightway preaches Christ in the synagogues, that he is the Son of God. Five and twenty years had he tried the service of Christ, when he penned this epistle to Timothy, proving, by turns, and sometimes all together, the honors, the victories, the disappointments, the pains, the sorrows, of his apostleship. At this very moment he was a martyr to the truth, and suffering unheard-of things for the word of his testimony. Yet he utters no complaint; his tone is firm and cheerful; it is the voice of salvation from the belly of hell. I am not ashamed, says he, for I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him, against that day.

Brethren, there is something in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and that persuasion of his ability which belongs to his faithful followers, which bears them up over every discouragement, and will at length enable them to elude the great destroyer, and to fly, on the wings of the morning, to the place of their eternal rest. Paul was an example. But he was so, on principles which are common to the household of faith. It was not as an apostle, but as a believer, that he cherished so triumphant a hope, and sung so sweet a song, in the house of his pilgrimage. It will be of advantage to if we take a nearer view of Paul's knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ; and of that perfect confidence, which he entertained, that all should be safe in his hands.

us,

I. The knowledge which Paul had of his Redeemer; I know whom I have believed.

The apostle's knowledge of Jesus Christ. was personal, that is, it was a knowledge of Christ himself, and centred in himself; not merely an acquaintance with his religion. Many people imagine, that to know something about the Christian religion, to be able to explain it, and ready to recommend it, is equivalent with knowing Christ himself. Whencesoever they imbibed such a notion, it was not from their Bible. This makes a very