But it is not in the understanding only that we require to be armed, for I believe there is no armour like _the heart’s experience of the love of God in Christ Jesus_. The happy, consistent, thankful believer, he is not afraid of the scoffer. He knows whom he has believed, and he is persuaded that he is able to keep that which he has committed to Him against that day. He pities the scoffer, therefore; but he is not afraid of him except for the harm that he may do to others. He has felt the strength of the rock under his feet, and he is not going to be driven from it on to the shifting sands of unsettled infidelity. Oh, may God grant to every one of us strong assurance in the grace wherein we stand! May He keep us in the hearty enjoyment of an abiding union with Christ Jesus our Lord! that so, strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, we may stand fast in Him; redeemed by His blood; born again by His Spirit; called by the Holy Ghost; justified in His righteousness; forgiven through His atonement; and made heirs according to the hope of eternal life! If that be granted, we can afford to be scoffed at; and if that be ours, we should be stirred in the very depths of our soul to fresh energy as the witnesses for Christ. The scoffer himself is a witness to Him, inasmuch as he is a living, speaking, visible proof of the fulfilment of the prophetic Word. But it is not so that we must bear our testimony. He is a witness to truth by his denial, we by our confession; he by his insult, we by our reverend faith; he by denying the coming of our Lord, we by expecting it; he by the assertion of his own will, we by the surrender of ourselves to the will of the Lord. So it is that we may realize the full meaning of the words of our Lord, “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me.”
IT was one of the principles of the ancient Jewish law, that “in the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” I have already exceeded that requirement in having brought before you no less than five “witnesses” to establish the truth and inspiration of the Scriptures; but I propose, if God permit, to conclude my series with two more: