about, and to you Christian men I
come and say, Be very sure that your professions of inward communion
and happy consciousness that you are Christ's are verified to
yourself and to others by a plain outward life of righteousness like
the Lord's. Have you got that seal stamped upon your lives, like the
hall-mark that says, 'This is genuine silver, and no plated Brummagem
stuff'? Have you got that seal of a visible righteousness and
every-day purity to confirm your assertion that you belong to Christ?
Is it woven into the whole length of your being, like the scarlet
thread that is spun into every Admiralty cable as a sign that it is
Crown property? God's seal, visible to me and to nobody else, is my
consciousness that I am His; but that consciousness is vindicated and
delivered from the possibility of illusion or hypocrisy, only when it
is checked and fortified by the outward evidence of the holy life
which the Spirit of God has wrought.

Further, this sealing, which is thus the token of God's ownership, is
also the pledge of security. A seal is stamped in order that there
may be no tampering with what it seals; that it may be kept safe from
all assaults, thieves, and violence. And in the metaphor of our text
there is included this thought, too, which is also of an intensely
practical nature. For it just comes to this--our true guarantee that
we shall come at last into the sweet security and safety of the
perfect state is present likeness to the indwelling Spirit and
present reception of divine grace. The seal is the pledge of
security, just because it is the mark of ownership. When, by God's
Spirit dwelling in us, we are led to love the things that are fair,
and to long after more possession of whatever things are of good
report, that is like God's hoisting His flag upon a newly-annexed
territory. And is He going to be so careless in the preservation of
His property as that He will allow that which is thus acquired to
slip away from Him? Does He account us as of so small value as to
hold 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