SELF-EXAMINATION. BY THE REV. J. CULROSS, M.A., AUTHOR OF “ LAZARUS REVIVED."

"Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith.”—2 Cor. xiii. 5. The duty of self-examination is not very frequently enjoined in the New Testament; only twice in so many words; and both times to the Church in Corinth. In religious books you sometimes find it placed in the forefront of Christian duties, as one to which constant attention should be given. It is indeed a most important one, to be performed thoroughly and satisfactorily. But, at the same time, the habit of ever looking inward, watching our frames, studying our motives, determining the moral character of our feelings, is not a very profitable one. It is beset by many and very subtle dangers. Often it leads, not to self-knowledge, which is a good thing, but to self-conceit and cant. I believe that the more simply and heartily we trust the Lord Jesus, the more earnestly we serve him, and the less self-conscious we are, so much the better for us. It was the saying of one of the seven wise men of Greece, containing the kernel and soul and pith of his whole wisdom,--Man, know thyself. I was reading a book lately which proposes that these words should be written in gold, and hung up in every Christian's chamber. I very much question the wisdom of that. Without in the least undervaluing self-knowledge, I maintain that the spirit of the New Testament is not expressed in the words, Know thyself, but in these other words, “This is life eternal, to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” We are not to be evermore turning the eye inward, but outward, looking unto Jesus. I make these remarks to set this duty of self-examination in what I believe to be its Scriptural place, as a most important duty, to be done thoroughly and satisfactorily; but not to be abused (as it need not be) by our ever looking inward upon our own motives and frames and feelings. Instead of laying down a set of rules to guide you in self-scrutiny, which would be a small service to any, I rather request you to do for a little what is here enjoined Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith.

You observe then-to begin-that the question to be solved is, whether ye be in the faith. The question is not as to the truth of the Gospel, but whether you have embraced it: not as to the soundness of your creed, but as to its place in your heart: not as to the measure of your grace, but as to the existence of it: not as to the progress you are making, but whether you are in the way of life at all. “Examine yourselves whether ye be in the faith.”

It is a question, then, which may be solved. Else it would not be here. I do not believe the theory, but protest against it, that we can never be sure whether we are in Christ till we die. It is an irrational, unscriptural, and dangerous theory, and has to answer for the ruin of souls.

The question is for those who think themselves Christians; who may, or may not, have openly put on the Christian profession. No one has a right to put it by him because he has long worn the

Christian name, and reckons himself above suspicion. In truth, none need self-examination more than those who have slightest sense of their need. I wish to say at once that my object is not to detect hypocrites. If any of you are such, self-examination is not the thing you need. For you there are other texts; and to you I do not now address myself. I only entreat you to apply in earnest, and that immediately, to that Saviour you are mocking, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and who searcheth the reins and heart ; ere fearfulness surprise you, and your feet stumble upon the dark mountains. There is mercy even for you: there is blood that can wash away even your sin. Nor do I speak to those who are evidently living in the flesh, and fulfilling its lusts. In your case, there is no need to go farther; the question is already settled; they that do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of Christ and of God. But there are other two classes of people who may get good from self-examination. First, those who really think themselves Christians, but on insufficient grounds; who are deceiving their own selves, and cherishing a hope to which they have no title. And second, those who have been truly reconciled to God, but are troubled with many doubts as to their state ; who have not entered into calm and steadfast joy; who have had great gleams of light, quenched again in darkness and despondency.

Now, how shall we proceed in the inquiry? In such a matter, it may prove disastrous, eternally disastrous, to be mistaken. A ship is caught in a storm on a dangerous coast. Nothing is seen in the fitful moonlight but the white-crested, hissing waves around, and the hurrying clouds overhead. By mistake she misses the right course; and next morning at low water, the sun is shining through her ribs on ghasily corpses strewed among the seaweed. In like manner, a mistake here may issue in the shipwreck of the soul. You feel at once that it will not do to try ourselves by the standard of our fellow-men. It matters nothing what I am, compared with my fellow-men, and in their sight; but what I am in the sight of God. On the other hand, we are not to look for perfection in ourselves, ere we conclude that we are Christ's. There is a thoughtless way of speaking on this subject, much too common, which would cut off the whole Church of Christ from hope. We break the bruised reed, and quench the smoking flax. The standard of perfection has its own uses,-to show us our deficiencies, to humble us, to awaken our admiration, to quicken us to high endeavour; but not to test the existence of the divine life. The truth is, a man may be a child of God, with many shortcomings and faults. The liglit that is in the soul may be struggling with great darkness; the sun just rising above the soul's horizon. Faith may exist as a grain of mustard seed. The divine life may be kindled, -though as feeble as natural life sometimes is in an infant child. Now it seems to me that the fair and satisfactory way is to examine ourselves by what the Word of God says, and see whether our faith has a New Testament character, and bears New Testament fruits. By the perfect law of liberty shall we be judged at the last day : and by that law are we to judge ourselves now. And let us not shrink from a painful, if true, conclusion. If you are yet in your sins, far better to know it, while it may be remedied, than not to discover it till your guilty, defiled spirit shall stand naked and shelterless on the thresh. hold of a lost eternity. Let us therefore carry into our bosom the candle of God's Word; and pray, "Examine me, O Lord, and prove me : try my reins and my heart."

I suggest a few questions, the answer to which I believe to be decisive of our state in the sight of God.

1.-Is the Gospel a thing that you really believe? The Gospel is a message from God to sinners, revealing his heart to us, and his way of showing mercy; and bidding us welcome back to him. The substance of it is, that out of pure merciful love, the great God of the universe gave his Son Jesus Christ to die for us, the Just for the unjust ; and that, through him, forgiveness is preached to the chief of sinners. These are the tidings which in a thousand ways the Word of God makes known to us, and the Holy Spirit applies. Do you believe them ? Has your heart said Yea to them? Have you laid hold upon them with the grasp of one who feels he has nothing else to keep him from sinking into the bottomless pit? There are many who like the Gospel for its beauty and pathos, who are in a measure touched by it, but have not embraced it. It is to them like a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument. But they have not heard the voice of God in it, speaking of pardon and reconciliation and eternal life ; and they have never reposed the confidence of their hearts in it. Is that the way that men, having the sentence of death in themselves, receive the tidings of heaven's mercy? Look into that prison cell, with its stone floor and bare walls and iron gratings; look on that man, condemned by the laws of his country and given over to death. There is gloom on his face; and a horror of great darkness over his soul. He has been listening all morning to the preparations going on for his execution: he has heard the hammer driving the nails into his scaffold. An unexpected pardon is sent him, and one comes in to break the news to him. How does he receive them? Look how his lip quivers. Look how his bosom heaves. Look how he turns his face aside in speechless emotion. And if the tidings of Heaven's great mercy seem as true to you, will your emotion be less deep? Now this is the first thing to examine yourself about. O my brother man, are you calmly, deeply, satisfied of the absolute truth of the Gospel of God's grace? Have you felt that you can depend upon it ? and risk everything upon it? Has your heart embraced it as a faithful saying...? : orthy of all acceptation ?

2.-Do you cordially love the Gospel? There are many who, when the Gospel is preached to them, will say, Yes, the Gospel is true. But they have no love for it. It has never made them glad; has never entered in among their affections and their joys, has never become a welcome guest in their bosoms; has never made their hearts burn within them. They have no more liking for it than for the law of gravitation, or any scientific truth. When they refer to it in conversation, it is in those cold tones and with that stony look which tell very unmistakably that they feel no interest in it,

and would rather speak of something else. It lies in their bosoms as a cold corpse in winding-sheet and collin : it is not there in its living, joyous presence, as in a home. There are others in whom it awakes the slumbering hatred of their hearts. It grates upon their feelings. They would, if they might, blot it from record and from the memory of man. Now when a man is “in the faith,” his whole heart loves the Gospel. I see this in the specimens of Christian men and women presented in the New Testament. I see that their whole hearts loved the Gospel ; and that they were ready even to let their blood be spilt in its defence. And it seems to me a fair test, easy to apply, of personal Christianity still : Do you cordially love the Gospel ?

3.-Has the Gospel given you peace? Cordially embraced, it always does that. There is peace in believing. It is a proclamation of peace; and when it is received, peace is realised in the conscience. There is a new relationship of peace, and a new feeling of peace. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." There are two sorts of peace in human hearts. There is the peace of death, such as you see in the church. yard, or such as you see when enemies who met at bayonet-point lie together, stiff and still and gory, on the red battle plain. There is peace: hostility is quenched : but it is the peace of death. The peace which a believed gospel brings is of a different sort. It is the peace of life; of a soul reconciled to God; whose deepest wishes are in harmony with the will of God. Has the Gospel brought you peace of a different sort from any you ever had before,-the peace of felt forgiveness, of conscious harmony between what is deepest in your heart and God, a peace which when it first dawned in your bosom you felt you could lie down and die with ? I am not contending for aught exceptional or extraordinary; or saying that you must necessarily have your bosom filled with peace all the day long,-calm, steadfast, tinged with rapture, never ruffled ; but have you really tasted the thing? When you have sat down in some calm unexcited hour, and examined the foundation of your hope, have you felt, with a quiet heart, that the ground is good beneath your feet ?

4.-Has the Gospel brought you to God? That is a thing which it always does, if truly embraced and loved. Those who were formerly at a distance from God, disliking him, distrusting him, afraid of him, keeping from contact with him,-it brings them nigh. Suppose that when the prodigal son was in the far country, his father had found means of sending him a message of love and reconciliation, you see at once that the right effect of the message would have been to bring the young man back with swift steps to his father's feet. And just such is the effect which the Gospel produces whenever cordially embraced ; it brings us straight back to God, in penitence, in confidence, in love, in worship; and it establishes our hearts in habits of loving intercourse with him. Has the Gospel done this for you? You were once at a guilty distance from God. You never thought of him with pleasure. Your mind swung like a pendulum between careless indifference

toward him, and dislike and dread. Is it otherwise now ? Question yourself about it, and get a true answer.

5.—Has the Gospel changed your life? Changed it so that by no mere figure of speech you are a "new creature”? You may give a bramble bush the sunniest corner in your garden, and dig about it, and prune it, and train it, and pare off its prickles ; but you cannot make it bear grapes : it is a bramble bush to the end. Even so the old nature, though subjected to the most careful training and culture, will never bring forth the fruits of righteousness. But if you are “in the faith, you have been made partaker of the divine nature. “If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.” He is not the man he was before at all. There is a change in his spirit, pursuits, motives, habits; in the manner of his thinking, feeling, and acting ; in the things that are loved, and the things that are feared, and the things that are hoped for. Even where he was amiable before, there is a new creation. Just as if a Scotch moor, covered with furze and heath, with here and there a sweet wild flower peeping through, were made rich and fertile, and covered with the bloom of old Éden; so, when a man enters into the faith, the old, beautiful as it may have been, is transformed and glorified and made divine. There is nothing more distinctly and abundantly recognised in Scripture than that newness of life comes of faith in Christ. Now it seems to me a fair and decisive test of personal Christianity,

Has the Gospel made life cease to be the poor, narrow, selfish, earthly, carnal thing it once was, and made it new ? has it opened eternity to you? has it brought you into living fellowship with the spiritual and the unseen? has it given you aspirations after the Infinite and Eternal ? has it enabled you to walk with God? If one should go with you into your closet, would he see a difference there? Has prayer become a joy to you ? and the Bible full of sweet meanings ? If one should spend an evening with you, by your own fireside, would he see a difference there-in the tone of your conversation, in your bearing, in your temper and spirit? If one should go with you into the world, and observe you in your daily employment, would he see a difference there? Have you begun a new life-a life to God-in holiness and righteousness and mercy?

These questions seem to me fair and Scriptural tests of personal Christianity. If you can say Yea to them, though with a very deep sense of personal unworthiness and sinfulness, God's Word bids you rejoice: says to you, Go in peace : if, on the other hand, you must say No, do not hide it from yourself that you are yet in your sins. And if you are still in your sins, it is not yet too late to apply for mercy. “The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.”

Stirling.

CHRISTIANS.

BY TIE REV. C. LARO M. Many are called by this name, but they to whom it truly applies are not so many. We wish to contemplate them as they are