2d remark. You learn here an excellent rule for self-examination, whether you have true faith or no. If you have, it will be accompanied with this evidence: for this eternal life begun in the soul, does not merely prove that christianity is a true doctrine, but it proves also that the faith of that person is true, where this eternal life is begun. This is mentioned in the foregoing sermon, therefore I shall pass it over briefly. The apostle asserts this sufficiently, ver. 13. _These things have I written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life._ The duties of morality, both of the first and second table, will be written upon the heart, and will, in some degree, be practised in the life, where the gospel is written in the heart, and where christianity is wrought in its power in the soul. But, on the other hand, those who neglect the duties of the first table, or indulge themselves in a very careless performance of them; those who pass by the duties of the second table, and those relative engagements which they lie under to their neighbour by the law of God, can never have the evidence within themselves, neither of the truth of christianity, nor of the truth of their own faith: They may be heathens, they may be heroes, they may be philosophers, they may be any thing but christians. 3d remark. Learn the true method of confirming your souls in the christian faith: seek daily greater degrees of this divine life wrought in you. This advice is also hinted by the apostle John, in the 13th verse, _I have written these things to you_ concerning the witness of christianity, that consists in having _eternal life_ begun in you, not only that ye may know ye have it, but that ye may go on to _believe on the name of the Son of God_. We have need in our day to be well seasoned with arguments against the dangers of the times, and the temptations of the age in which, we dwell. Christianity begins to be a stumbling-block, and the doctrine of the gospel is called folly; it is reproached to a very great and shameful degree, in a nation, which in public professes christianity. When we therefore shall be attacked with arguments to baffle our faith, and when the _wind of false doctrine_ shall grow strong, and shall carry away many; how shall we be able to stand our ground, and hold fast our faith in Christ, if we have not this inward witness, the beginnings of eternal life? Therefore it is that so many christians waver and are led away, sometimes to this new doctrine, sometimes to another, because they feel so little of the efficacy and power of the gospel in their hearts, so very little of holiness and eternal life within them.