16. This is properly the ground of a Christian’s joy. We may now therefore readily conceive, how he that hath this testimony in himself, _rejoiceth evermore. My soul_, may he say, _doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoiceth in God my Saviour_. I rejoice in him, who of his own unmerited love, of his own free and tender mercy, _hath called me into this state of salvation_, wherein thro’ his power I now stand. I rejoice because his Spirit beareth witness to my spirit, that I am bought with the blood of the Lamb, and that believing in him, “I am a member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven.” I rejoice because the sense of God’s love to me, hath by the same Spirit wrought in me to love him, and to love for his sake every child of man, every soul that he hath made. I rejoice, because he gives me to feel in myself _the mind that was in Christ_: simplicity, a single eye to him, in every motion of my heart; power always to fix the loving eye of my soul on him who _loved me, and gave himself for me_, to aim at him alone, at his glorious will, in all I think or speak or do: purity, desiring nothing more but God, _crucifying the flesh with its affections and lusts, setting my affections on things above, not on things of the earth_: holiness, a recovery of the image of God, a renewal of soul after his likeness: and godly sincerity, directing all my words and works, so as to conduce to his glory. In this I likewise rejoice, yea and will rejoice, because my conscience beareth me witness in the Holy Ghost, by the light he continually pours in upon it, that I _walk worthy of the vocation wherewith_ I am _called_: that I _abstain from all appearance of evil, fleeing from sin as from the face of a serpent_; that as I have opportunity, I do all possible good, in every kind, to all men; that I follow my Lord in all my steps, and do what is acceptable in his sight. I rejoice because I both see and feel, through the inspiration of God’s holy Spirit, that all my works are wrought in him, yea and that it is he who worketh all my works in me. I rejoice in seeing, thro’ the light of God which shines in my heart, that I have power to walk in his ways, and that thro’ his grace, I turn not therefrom, to the right hand or to the left.