II. The second thing I proposed to consider, is, _What is the inward witness that faith gives to the truth of christianity?_ At the first promulgation of the gospel, there were some souls overpowered with present miracles, attended with a divine light shining into them. This was such as they could not resist, such as carried glorious evidence with it, and effectually wrought upon them to believe that our religion was from heaven, that Christ was the Son of God, and that his name was the only ground of hope for salvation. This was miraculous and extraordinary, and not to be expected every day now; such was the conversion of St. Paul to christianity, and many such instances of miracles appeared in the first seasons of the gospel. But the witness that the apostle John speaks of in my text, is such as belongs to every believer. It is an universal proposition, _He that believes, has the witness in himself_. In order therefore to enquire into the nature of this testimony, I shall not lead you, nor myself into the land of blind enthusiasm, that region of clouds and darkness, that pretends to divine light. The apostle does not mean here a strong impulse, an irrational and ungrounded assurance that our religion is true. Many times these vehement impulses are but the foolish fires of fancy, that give the enquiring traveller no steady light or conduct, but lead him far astray from truth. Christianity has a better witness than this; being such as belongs to every believer, it must approve itself to the reason of men. And I will endeavour to explain it thus according to scripture. Let it first be noted here, that the word _witness_ is used frequently, by our translators, to signify _testimony_, or _evidence_. Nor will it create any confusion to use these words promiscuously in this discourse, while we distinguish them from the _thing witnessed_, (which in the original, is also μαρτυρια) and is translated the _record_, ver. 10, 11. Now if we enquire what is that _testimony_ to christianity, or that _inward witness_ that every believer has in himself, let us consider what that record is which God has testified concerning his Son Christ Jesus. That you will find in the context, ver. 11, 12. _This is the record_ or thing witnessed, _that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son; he that hath the Son of God hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life_. He then that _believes on the Son of God hath the witness_, or testimony to christianity, in himself, for he hath within him the _thing testified_. He hath eternal life in himself, he hath this eternal life already begun, and it shall be carried on and fulfilled in the days of eternity. By believing in Christ, we have a glorious testimony, or witness, within ourselves, that Christ is the Son of God, the Saviour of the world, and the author of eternal life; that his person is divine, that his doctrine is true, for eternal life is begun in us.