Put this question in another way: Suppose you had met Jesus Christ when He was on earth; that you had listened to one of His appeals when He preached the gospel from city to city, and felt His eye looking at you as He spoke in His own name, and in the name of His Father, saying, "Come unto me, all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest"--"The Son of man hath come to seek that which is lost," and the like; that you had witnessed the delight it gave Him to do good, and to find any one willing to receive His overflowing love, and the sorrow He endured when men would not believe in Him or trust Him, but preferred remaining without the blessing; and that you had accompanied Him during His ministry on earth, and studied His character from all you saw and heard,--could the impression made upon you in such circumstances be thus expressed, "I believe that Thou carest not for me; that my well-doing or ill-doing are equally matters of indifference to Thee; and that there is no faith or love that Thou desirest to see accomplished in my soul?" Would you have _dared_ to speak in anything like this strain of blasphemy to the holy Saviour had you met Him? Or would you not have been overwhelmed by the conviction, that whether you yielded to His wishes or not, these wishes were clear and unquestionable--that from His character as a man having fellowship with God, His work as the Saviour of sinners, His revealed will as Lord, nothing could be more certain than that He wished you _personally_ to be holy and happy through faith in His name; and accordingly, that if you accepted His call, and His offer of power to be so, you were but working _with_ Him; and that if you neglected both, you were certainly working _against_ Him? But with this personal Saviour you have to do just as really and truly now as any of His disciples who had followed Him when on earth; and so I beseech you to be fellow-labourers with Him in His own holy and living work within your own soul. Let your prayer then be: "Thy will be done! Let Thy holy and loving will, my Father, be done in me! I believe in Thy forgiveness, and am at peace with Thee, according to that will, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. And as this is also Thy will, even my sanctification, and Thy revealed purpose, that I should be made conformable to the image of Thy Son, so let Thy grace, which is sufficient for the chief of sinners, daily bring this salvation into me, by teaching me to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world; that so learning Christ, taking up His cross daily, following Him and being disciplined by Him, I may be taught to put off the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of my mind; and, as Thine own workmanship, be created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works. Amen!"