But before we arrive at that final glory, the same sort of happiness is begun in every believer in a state of grace. These are the beginnings of eternal life, the earnests and the pledges of the perfect blessedness which we hope for; and this arises from our faith in the Son of God. For when we have attained a good hope of forgiving grace through the blood of Christ, and believe that we are beloved of God our Maker, what have we then to do but to abide in his love? We learn to despise those tempting objects that would awaken our intemperate passions, and walk onward in peace and pleasure towards our complete felicity. For since God is become our God through the mediation of his Son, we have no need to seek the meaner delights of sense and appetite, because we possess the supreme. We have the Son of God himself for our leader and example, and he that believes on the Son of God, walks as he also walked. Besides these moral or persuasive helps that belong to the christian life, we have also the Spirit of God given to reform our natures, to put all our misplaced and disjointed powers into their proper order again, and to maintain this divine harmony and peace. It is the blessed Spirit that inclines reason to submit to faith, and makes the lower faculties submit to reason, and obey the will of our Maker, and then gives us the pleasure of it. And if at any time, through the power of temptation, the violence of appetite, and the imperfection of grace, this blessed harmony and order be disturbed, and this pleasure interrupted; the soul of the christian is never easy till it rise again by repentance, and recur to the Son of God, to fetch new and vigorous supplies of the Spirit, and of this eternal life from him, and thereby it regains its peace and pleasure. But these thoughts naturally lead me on to the second part of this subject, _viz._ holiness. Thus much shall suffice therefore concerning the first part of eternal life, which consists in happiness, _viz._ pardon of sin, peace of conscience, the favour of God, the sense of his love, and the pleasurable harmony of our natural powers. These are found in true believers, and this is a noble witness to christianity to prove it divine. SERMON II. _The Inward Witness to Christianity._ 1 JOHN v. 10.—He that believeth on the Son of God, hath the Witness in himself. THE SECOND PART.