elves, we shall profit by the doctrine
of the Church and the Bible." My brethren, the temper in which you
receive that passage, and receive it from its author, may be safely taken
by you as a sure presage whether you are to turn out a Temporary and a
Castaway or no.

Now, to conclude with a word of admission, and, bound up with it, a word
of encouragement. After all that has been said, I fully admit that we
are all Temporaries to begin with. We all cool down from our first heat
in religion. We all halt from our first spurt. We all turn back from
faith and from duty and from privilege through our fear of men, or
through our corrupt love of ourselves, or through our coarse-minded love
of this present world. Only, those who are appointed to perseverance,
and through that to eternal life, always kindle again; they are kindled
again, and they love the return of their lost warmth. They recover
themselves and address themselves again and again to the race that is
still set before them. They prove themselves not to be of those who draw
back unto perdition, but of those that believe to the saving of the soul.
Now, if you have only too good ground to suspect that you are but a
temporary believer, what are you to do to make your sure escape out of
that perilous state? What, but to keep on believing? You must cry
constantly, Lord, I believe, help Thou mine unbelief! When at any time
you are under any temptation or corruption, and you feel that your faith
and your love are letting slip their hold of Christ and of eternal life,
then knot your weak heart all the faster to the throne of grace, to the
cross of Christ, and to the gate of heaven. Give up all your mind and
heart, and all that is within you, to the one thing needful. Labour
night and day in your own heart at believing on Christ, at loving your
neighbour, and at discovering, denying, and crucifying yourself. It will
all pay you in the long run. For if you do all these things, and
persistently do them, then, though you are at this moment all but dead to
all divine things, and all but a reprobate, it will be found at last that
all the time your name was written among the elect in heaven.

The perseverance of the saints, the "five points" notwithstanding, is not
a foregone conclusion. The final perseverance of the ripest and surest
saint is all made up of ever-new beginnings in repentance, in faith, in
love, and in obedience. Begin, then, every new day to repen