It is very necessary sometimes to ask, especially at the beginning of our Christian life, if we are really right¬—there are so many counterfeits in the world and the church, and when once we have received the stamp and imprimatur of some Christian body, we are apt to trust it as decisive in all after time, so that when appeals are addressed to the unconverted and halting, we at once pass them off to others, feeling sure that they cannot apply to ourselves. How often do souls sit in a very shower of Gospel blessing, covered by the umbrella of having been accepted by a church, or of the approval of the leaders of a Christian Endeavour Society, passing away to others what was meant for, and needed by, themselves. When once unconverted persons become dubbed as Christians, it is the hardest matter possible to convince them of their need of the Gospel. Again, I say, it is most necessary to be quite sure that we are really right.
There was a great ado some time ago, because foreign and inferior goods were being imported into England, and stamped with the mark of the Sheffield manu¬facturers. They went out into all the world as English make, when, in point of fact, they were the poorest of foreign goods. People did not think of questioning the genuineness of the articles, because they were assured by the Sheffield stamp. After a time had passed we can almost imagine the articles themselves, thus labelled, beginning to fancy that they were genuine; and if even their right to be accounted so were chal¬lenged by the other cutlery amidst which they lay, they would haughtily decline to enter into the dis-cussion, content to quote the fact of having been properly stamped. “Do you question my right to call myself a Sheffield blade, when I have the Sheffield stamp so clearly indented?” So men ignore your appeals, if once they have been accounted truly regenerate by the recognised leaders of some Christian society.
The necessity for close self-scrutiny is the more obvious when we come face to face with the searching words of the apostle James. We have been wont to insist on faith as the essential of salvation; but he tells us that there are two kinds of faith, and it may be that, after all, we have the wrong one. It is not sufficient to say we have faith; we must be sure that it is saving faith, which links the soul with the Saviour.
