emainders of sin in the regenerate try their
love? Why, surely, in this way. If we really loved sin at the deepest
bottom of our hearts, and only loved holiness on the surface, would we
not in our deepest hearts close with sin, give ourselves up to it, and
make no stand at all against it? Would we not in our deepest and most
secret hearts welcome it, and embrace it, look out for it with desire and
delight, and part with it with regret? But if, as a matter of fact, we
at our deepest and most hidden heart turn from sin, flee from it, fight
against it, rejoice when we are rid of it, and have horror at the return
of it,--what better proof than that could Christ and His angels have that
at bottom we are His and not the devil's? And that grace, at bottom, has
our hearts, and not sin; heaven, and not hell? The apostle's protesting
cry is our cry also; we also delight in the law of God after our most
inward man. For, after our saddest surprises into sin, after its worst
outbreaks and overthrows, such all the time were our reluctances,
recalcitrations, and resistances, that, swept away as we were, yet all
the time, and after it was again over, it was with some good conscience
that we said to Christ that He knew all things, and that He knew that we
loved Him.

'O benefit of ill! now I find true
That better is by evil still made better;
And ruined love, when it is built anew,
Grows fairer than at first, more strong, far greater,
So I return rebuked to my content,
And gain by ill thrice more than I have spent.'

Yes; it is a sure and certain proof how truly we love our dearest friend,
that, after all our envy and ill-will, yet it is as true as that God is
in heaven that, all the time, maugre the devil of self that remains in
our heart,--after he has done his worst--we would still pluck out our
eyes for our friend and shed our blood. I have no better proof to myself
of the depth and the divineness of my love to my friend than just this,
that I still love him and love him more tenderly and loyally, after
having so treacherously hurt him. And my heavenly friends and my earthly
friends, if they will still have me, must both be content to go into the
same bundle both of my remaining enmity and my increasing love; my
remainders of sin, and my slow growth in regeneration. So when they had
dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou Me
more than these? He saith unto Him, Yea,