The Saint and the Sinner.
By Nevins
If Christ should say to the wicked as to the righteous, on the last day, "I was an hungered and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink," &c., they would not ask, "when saw ye thee hungry?" &c. They would think themselves worthy of the commendation; for they always contended that they had good hearts and loved Christ. Just so it is now. His enemies most confidently and strenuously assert that they do love him, while his friends are very suspicious of themselves, often doubt whether they do love him, and always slow to declare it, and when they do, it is always with regret that they love him so little. Christians wonder why they should be saved. Sinners wonder why they should not be saved. The sinner asks, "What have I done?" The Christian, "What have I not done?" The sinner says he does the best he can. The Christian knows he does not. Who was it that said, "Behold I am vile!" Was it Saul, Judas, or Jeroboam? No. It was Job, "a perfect and upright man, one that feared God and eschewed50evil." The habits of an evangelically righteous man are holy; his sins are but occasional acts, contrary to his fixed habits; whereas, with the unregenerate, it is just the reverse. He may do good actions, but his habits are sinful. The Christian acts out of character when he sins, the other acts in character. With the former, sin is a digression; with the latter, it is the main stay. The one walks in the ways of obedience, though he is guilty of occasional aberrations; the other walks in the ways of disobedience habitually. Devotion is with the Christian a habit, though he is sometimes indevout; so is trust in God, though he sometimes distrusts him; so is the strictest sobriety and the severest rectitude, though he may occasionally be betrayed into acts that are opposed to these virtues. It must be acknowledged, that if the sinners are not out of their senses, the saints are. There is madness somewhere. If Festus was not beside himself, Paul certainly was. The one party or the other is dreaming. Who is it? Paul or Festus?—Nevins.