us with so slack a hand?  But no man has a right to rest on the assurance of God’s saving him into the heavenly kingdom, unless He is saving him at this moment from the devil and his own evil heart.  And, therefore, I say the Christian character, in its outward manifestations and in its sweet inward secrets of communion, is the guarantee that we shall not fall.  Rest upon Him, and He will hold you up.  We are ‘kept by the power of God unto salvation,’ and that power keeps us and that final salvation becomes ours, ‘through faith.’

II.  Now, secondly, turn to the other emblem, that ‘earnest’ which consists in like manner ‘of the Spirit.’

The ‘earnest,’ of course, is a small portion of purchase-money, or wages, or contract-money, which is given at the making of a bargain, as an assurance that the whole amount will be paid in due time.  And, says the Apostle, this seal is also an earnest.  It not only makes certain God’s ownership and guarantees the security of those on whom it is impressed, but it also points onwards to the future, and at once guarantees that, and to a large extent reveals the nature of it.  So, then, we have here two thoughts on which I touch.

The Christian character and experience are the earnest of the inheritance, in the sense of being its guarantee, inasmuch as the experiences of the Christian life here are plainly immortal.  The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the objective and external proof of a future life.  The facts of the Christian life, its aspirations, its communion, its clasp of God as its very own, are the subjective and inward proofs of a future life.  As a matter of fact, if you will take the Old Testament, you will see that the highest summits in it, to which the hope of immortality soared, spring directly from the experience of deep and blessed communion with the living God.  When the Psalmist said ’Thou wilt not leave my soul in Sheol; neither wilt Thou suffer Thy Holy One to see corruption,’ he was speaking a conviction that had been floated into his mind on the crest of a great wave of religious enjoyment and communion.  And, in like manner, when the other Psalmist said, ’Thou art the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever,’ he was speaking of the glimpse that he had got of the land that was very far off, from the height which he had climbed on the Mount of fellowship with God.  And for us, I suppose that the same experience holds good.  Howsoever much we may say that we believe in a future life and in a heaven, we really grasp them as facts that will be true about ourselves, in the proportion in which we are living here in direct contact and communion with God.  The conviction of immortality is the distinct and direct result of the present enjoyment of communion with Him, and it is a reasonable result.  No man who has known what it is to turn himself to God with a glow of humble love, and to feel that he is not turning his face to vacuity, but to a Face that looks on him