There is a just mixture of hope and fear, which every Christian would cherish in contemplating his own experience, and the state of the Church of Christ. On the one hand there certainly is ground for fear, whether we judge from analogy, or from what we behold with our eyes:
What multitudes of blossoms are annually cut off by frost!
Of those that set, how many are blighted by an eastern wind!
Of those that grow, how many are blown off by storms and tempests!
Of those that hang upon the tree, how many, when gathered, prove rotten at the core!
Thus, it is seen in the religious world:
Many make a fair show for a little while, and then fall off from their profession.
Others are blighted and come to naught.
Others look well for a season but are beaten down by storms of persecution and temptation.
And of those who maintain their profession to the end, how many will at last be found unsound at heart!
If this casts a damp upon our joys, and teaches us to moderate our expectations, it need not, it ought not, to rob us of all our confidence: for though sound fruit may be blown off from a tree, no sound Christian shall ever be separated from the Lord Jesus!
Of this the Apostle was fully persuaded: and, under this conviction, he thanked God for the converts at Philippi, whose sincerity he had no reason to doubt, and of whose perseverance in the divine life he therefore entertained the most optimistic hopes.
[Charles Simeon]
Philippians 1:6 ... Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
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