Page:Some Reflections on the Importance of a Religious Life.djvu/15

 is our high calling of God in Christ Jesus; and at the same time, such is the corruption of the human heart, and its continued proneness to sin, that there is an unceasing need to maintain the warfare by obeying the sacred charge, “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,” in thankful reliance on the subjoined declaration, “for it is God who worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”

The most experienced Christians have to acknowledge that salvation is the free and unmerited gift of God. “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy, he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly, through Jesus Christ our Saviour.” What a blessing it is to be permitted to attain to a well-grounded hope, that having sought, earnestly and honestly sought, to live according to the will of God, we shall be accepted of him, in and through our blessed Saviour, not having on our own righteousness, but being clothed with the righteousness of Christ. May this, my dear young friends, be the happy attainment of every one of you.