The other, which we call the certainty of adherence, is when the heart doth cleave and stick unto that which it doth believe. This certainty is greater in us than the other ... ('down to') the fourth question resteth, and so an end of this point. These paragraphs should be written in gold. O! may these precious words be written on my heart! 1. That we all need to be redeemed, and that therefore we are all in captivity to an evil: 2. That there is a Redeemer: 3. That the redemption relatively to each individual captive is, if not effected under certain conditions, yet manifestable as far as is fitting for the soul by certain signs and consequents:--and 4. That these signs are in myself; that the conditions under which the redemption offered to all men is promised to the individual, are fulfilled in myself; these are the four great points of faith, in which the humble Christian finds and feels a gradation from trembling hope to full assurance; yet the will, the act of trust, is the same in all. Might I not almost say, that it rather increases with the decrease of the consciously discerned evidence? To assert that I have the same assurance of mind that I am saved as that I need a Saviour, would be a contradiction to my own feelings, and yet I may have an equal, that is, an equivalent assurance. How is it possible that a sick man should have the same certainty of his convalescence as of his sickness? Yet he may be assured of it. So again, my faith in the skill and integrity of my physician may be complete, but the application of it to my own case may be troubled by the sense of my own imperfect obedience to his prescriptions. The sort of our beliefs and assurances is necessarily modified by their different subjects. It argues no want of saving faith on the whole, that I cannot have the same trust in myself as I have in my God. That Christ's righteousness can save me,--that Christ's righteousness alone can save--these are simple positions, all the terms of which are steady and copresent to my mind. But that I shall be so saved,--that of the many called I have been one of the chosen,--this is no mere conclusion of mind on known or assured premisses. I can remember no other discourse that sinks into and draws up comfort from the depths of our being below our own distinct consciousness, with the clearness and godly loving-kindness of this truly evangelical God-to-be-thanked-for sermon. But how large, how important a part of our spiritual life goes on like the circulation, absorptions, and secretions of our bodily life, unrepresented by any specific sensation, and yet the ground and condition of our total sense of existence!