Having been made of late afresh to realize the prevalence in certain quarters, of an insistence upon experience in such a way as to obscure and adulterate the grace of the gospel, I am induced to take it up briefly now. It will be allowed that whatever does this is important enough to claim examination at our hands. And alas, our minds are naturally so legal, that which under one form we have renounced and done with, under another we are but too prone to receive and welcome. Thus it can never be in vain to go back to first principles and to review what Scripture teaches upon a matter of so deep interest and value for our souls.

The doctrine to which I refer is this, that, in order to vindicate our claim to be Christians, we must be able to put our finger upon a certain date in our past history, and to say, "that was the moment of my conversion to God." It ought to be at once clear that Scripture makes no such demand upon any, and that therefore we have no right to add to Scripture. It ought to be clear moreover, that such an addition really obscures and perverts the gospel, changing the foundation upon which the soul rests from Christ to an experience:making many a heart sad that the Lord would not make sad, and rendering that insecure for all, which it is sought to establish.

John the Baptist, "filled with the Holy Ghost even from his mother's womb," would under such a test be declared an unconverted man:and this is alone sufficient to stamp the whole theory as false and tin-scriptural. How many may there not be, in these Christian days, in whom God has wrought from the very beginning of life in such a way as to make it impossible for them to say when they were not converted? while for how many others has conversion been so slow a process as to make them unable with any certainty to point to the time and steps of it! Souls are not always born to God amid the throes and agonies of intense conviction; and it is as great a folly to refuse the evidence for the present time of a Christianity which is otherwise distinct and trustworthy, as it would be to decide that the young man who stands in life and vigor before you was not alive, because he could not from his own experience, satisfy you as to the day of his birth.

But I go further than this, and ask in the conversion of a soul, as instantaneous and indubitable as that of Saul of Tarsus, upon what is it made to rest for peace? upon Christ Himself and the value of His work, is it not? and that entirety apart from anything in oneself whatever. Or does the convicted and repentant sinner rest upon the satisfactory nature of his conviction or repentance ? Are these the objects of faith, or is Christ the object ? And have not these their real value in forcing him outside of himself, to rest on Christ alone? This surely every one knows who knows the gospel aright. All is darkness until God reveals His Son in us; and the death of Christ, the precious blood shed, was shed for our sins and nothing else in us. As sinners, we rest in Him. "'When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."

How important is it that we should be dislodged from all confidence in ourselves! how many are kept from peace just by a morbid self-occupation which, if it can find no rest in good deeds that we have done, will try and make something out of groans, and tears, and experiences ! But these lose all their value just by the effort to make value out of them. And how anxious is the Lord to assure us of how freely He receives all who come to Him,-how him that cometh unto Him He will in 110 wise cast out! " Blessed are all they that put their trust in Him." Is there room here for doubt? Is not the remedy for self-deception, never to trust self?
Now, if in a true experience one has found Christ thus for one's need, is it necessary ever to turn back to the past to assure myself of title to this Christ that I have found? I need no title but His own perfect grace. I trusted Him as a sinner, when I could have no other; have I now as a saint need to reinforce this confidence by a trust in what then I renounced as trust ? Have I need of the past at all to build upon, when Christ is here and now in the present for me ?

Scripture never turns me back to past experiences to build upon, never tests things in that way. If it says, "We know that we have passed from death unto life," the proof is in the present, not the past:it is "because we love the brethren." And this is such a proof as comes from a previous and joyous confidence that we belong to the family of God,-it is the love of kinship:not anything that brought me there, or was my title to be received. Such fruits may be, and should be, pressed upon those who profess faith in Christ. More real and severe as tests than any appeal to a past history-possibly misread-they bring one face to face with his actual condition. "Faith, if it have not works, is dead, being alone." "Sin shall not have dominion over you, because ye are not under the law, but under grace." Every sweet and holy assurance, such as this last is, becomes a real test for the soul. Yet we would not escape from them. They are holy, but they are not legal. They do not show the ground of confidence, but they confirm it for the man who does confide, pointing him to results of which he will be conscious, -the holiness of grace, the fruitfulness of faith. Of such things, however feeble he may be, the true believer will be conscious. Faith and grace are what is pressed, and conscience it is that responds to the appeal :how different from the raking up of past experiences in order to question the right of present confidence! The tests used in Scripture are but the fruits and results of faith in Christ, and, rightly understood, can never shake but only confirm in it. Conscious of what faith has wrought, my rest in Christ becomes more profound. I do not need to ask if I have come honestly by what all are welcome to and besought to have.

The root of all the evil is that, in all this which I am speaking of, Christ is not really seen as offered to sinners but to saints, or at least to those who have gone through a certain quantum of preparation and fitting for Him. New birth is looked at as the ground of assurance, instead of the reception of Christ by the sinner being that ; whereas it is "to as many as receive Him, to them He gives right to be-come the children of God," while the divine explanation of how this can be is in what follows, "which were born again . . of God" (Jno. 1:)

New birth is the accomplishment of divine power in the soul,-absolutely needed for the Kingdom of God; but Christ is the Life, without the reception of which there is no birth possible. God's order then is not birth for life, but life for birth and the consequences of any other order are disastrous. Christ is then not for sinners in the full unreserved royalty of His grace, but for a class of them already begun to be changed, and finding in that change their title to Him. Assurance is the result of "introspection" therefore,-satisfaction as to this needful process, of new birth. But in this way the result is scarcely absolutely ever without doubt, and Christ is hindered from being the full occupation of the soul.

But in Scripture, new birth is never put as the gospel, or confused with it. The Lord speaks of it to Nicodemus, a Pharisee, to lay the ax at the root of his self-righteousness, and bring him to the foot of the cross; to the woman of Samaria He says nothing of it, but encourages her to the reception of God's gift of living water. Nor is it recorded that He spoke of it to any other, except as it might be involved in that eternal life which he who believed in the Son already has. And how often is that door set open!

In the epistle of John, to those who were already Christians, the moral characters of new birth are insisted on. As a means of peace or assurance to the soul it is never presented, but Christ Himself is made this, known by a faith which, as such, unites with repentance to exalt Him alone. If conversion be a "turning round" of the soul, repentance is the back turned upon self, that faith may have the Lord of glory in unobstructed vision. F. W. G.