GOD is sifting your sincerity by the errors which He suffers to compass you about. “I hear there are divisions among you, and I believe it,” says the Apostle, “for there _must_ be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest.” {17b} And your stability He is sifting—whether or not you are as Reuben, “unstable as water,” weak, and soft, and yielding, and inconstant. And your zeal, and your knowledge, and your love,—He is sifting all these, in this your day of probation. You have had great gifts at GOD’S Hand, unspeakable opportunities of knowing Him and His Truth—the Word of GOD, the witness of the Church, and the “Spirit leading you into all Truth” through the ordained means of grace—through Sacraments and Prayer. How is it with you? Are you yet “men” in knowledge, with the “full assurance of understanding to the acknowledgment of the mystery of GOD, and of the FATHER, and of CHRIST, in Whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” {18a} Or are you “children in understanding,” “tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive?” {18b} Now is the test of your weakness or of your strength. Now it will be seen _who_ is possessed by that enervated and timid spirit which inspires so many faltering hearts, and directs so many enfeebled wills, in this day of conflict for the Church of GOD. And, above all, your love is being sifted. Is your hold upon the Church and her teaching “rooted and grounded in love?” GOD is trying your _love_—your love to Himself, to CHRIST, to the Truth. The head is not a casket in which Truth can safely lie enshrined. It is soon stolen from thence. But, if you have lodged it in the heart, and embedded it there in folds of love, men may take out your heart, but out of your heart they cannot take the Truth. It is for want of love that so many men among us are cowards,—that so much is sacrificed to the first appearance of danger,—that so much is offered up to expediency, to popularity, to success. The world is a worshipper of success. But the world has no love for the Truth. The world knows nothing of the blessed joy of undergoing persecution and danger, and making ventures, for the Truth’s sake. And so, as “Ephraim has mixed himself” with the world, he is as “a cake not turned,” and “strangers have devoured his strength,” in this age of concession and falling away. But what says “He Who sitteth upon the throne?” “He that overcometh shall inherit all things.” {19} But the “fearful” or cowardly, (the _δειλοὶ_,) and the unfaithful or “unbelieving” (the _ἄπιστοι_,) the deserters who fall off from want of faith and patience, what of them? “they shall have their part with murderers, and whore-mongers, and idolaters, and liars, in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” {20a}