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V. Leaning on Divine help, ENDEAVOUR AT ONCE TO STAND SEPARATE FROM YOUR PARTICULAR SINS, ESPECIALLY YOUR

"EASILY BESETTING SIN." Your most besetting sin is that which is most present to you; which has most power over you; and which becomes your greatest hinderance in seeking your salvation. It may be some lust of the body-the love of ease, or the love of appetite. It may be some lust of the mindpride, anger, malice, covetousness, ambition, worldliness. It may be some gross and sensual sin; or it may be a vice reputable and profitable, according to mere human calculation: but, whatever it is, it must be sacrificed. Though useful as the right hand, it must be cut off; though dear as the eye is to you, it must be plucked out and cast away. This is made necessary as a test of your sincerity. The hypocrite, and the person who has insufficient conviction, may go a great way, but they cannot go so far as this. Herod heard many things, and did many things, with gladness; but, when pressed on his particular iniquity, he chose rather to add murder to adultery than to forsake it. It is made necessary as a term of your profession. If you would really "name the name of Christ," you must “depart from all iniquity." What, Christ and Belial! God and Mammon ! you surely would not vainly seek to unite these in your affections! "You cannot serve two masters." Religion will not consent to be one thing of many, nor one thing of Two in your choice ; it must be the ONE THING ALONE; it must be predominant and supreme; NOTHING, NO NOTHING, must be held in comparison with it! Sit down, then, and count the cost. "If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.”

VI. PUT YOURSELVES NEAR TO GOD IN THE DILIGENT USE OF THE APPOINTED MEANS OF GRACE. We are not only to seek for the blessing of God, but we are to seek it in his way. As many persons, in the life-time of our Lord, put themselves in his way, until he blessed them; so you should put yourself "in the way of his steps" by a careful use of all scriptural Give yourself to reading, to prayer, to self-inquiry; become the companion of those who fear God; cherish a "con

means.

versation according to godliness;" place yourself under a faithful and searching ministry; and especially make a spiritual and profitable use of the entire sabbath. There is the fullest encouragement to expect help for these exercises, and a blessing in them. “ Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. How much more shall your Heavenly Father give his Holy Spirit to them that ask him." "Then shall ye know, if ye follow on to know the Lord;" and as he is come like "the early rain," softening the heart and convincing you of sin ; so shall he come like " the latter rain," making you fruitful and joyful to his praise.

VII. LET YOUR THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS FIND EXPRESSION IN A FIXED RESOLUTION, BY THE AID WHICH GOD HAS PROMISED, TO DECLARE YOURSELF ON THE LORD'S SIDE. Do not delay. If you can delay, you are not sincere. Till you are prepared for this, you will want an indispensable sign of your conversion. Do not pause on conditions. Say not, Is it hard, or is it easy? what shall I lose, or what may I retain ? All have indolent wishes, and partial desires; but none who have so sought to enter into a state of salvation have succeeded. The exercise commended to you is not easy-it is hard ! unspeakably hard! If you enter in-it must be by striving, by earnest effort. The gate is so strait-the way is so narrow, that they will admit nothing but yourself; your cherished sins and pretended righteousness-all that you have-must be cast away, and left behind. You must enter ALONE, or be shut out for ever ! But can any thing be thought hard, or be called a sacrifice, when compared with the object? It is your LIFE! and every thing beside is as nothing to your life ! When the question is, whether you will part with your sins, or lose your soul, can you hesitate for a moment ? What, keep your sins, which, bring you brief pleasure and everlasting pain ! and lose your soul, which is YOURSELF, and which should be the residence of the Holy Ghost, and the subject of eternal felicity and glory! O strive to enter in! for many shall seek, with partial wishes and divided affections, to enter in, and shall not be able; and "without" is darkness, despair, and endless death !

VIII. IN ONE WORD, BE CAREFUL NOT TO LET YOUR THOUGHTS REST ON ANY OBJECT SHORT OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, AS HE IS PRESENTED TO YOU IN THE GOSPEL. If, under a deep and penitential conviction of your sinfulness, you are ready to exclaim, "What shall I do to be saved?" then the one simple, scriptural response to this inquiry is, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved!" This faith, however, is not a mere admission of the facts, that the Bible came from God-that Jesus Christ is the true Messiahand that he died to bring life into the world: many have consented to these and similar truths, who nevertheless have lived and have died in their sins. Living faith is a dependence on Him-a trust in Him-a submission to Him. As we commit our life to the physician, and our cause to the advocate, so are we to commit the keeping of our souls into the hands of Jesus the Mediator. Faith sits at His feet, as the Great Teacher; relies on His sacrifice, as the Great High Priest; and submits to His laws, as the King invisible and immortal. You must not suffer any consideration to withhold you from this exercise. No confidence in any resolutions you have formed, nor in any tears you have shed, must prevent you from an instant acceptance of Christ, and an entire reliance on Him for salvation. Nor must you allow any discouragement to tempt you from this end. You are not to stay away till you are better, but come to Him that you may be made so. No sense of your unworthiness-no sense of present temptation and sin must keep you away. The worse your state is, the more you need his help. He came to save sinners. His arms are open-his invitations are free-his love, his pity, are boundless. He will in no wise,―on NO ACCOUNT-cast you out! Wait then for nothing! Cast your objections and scruples to the windaccept Jesus Christ to your heart as your Saviour and Sovereign, and yield yourself up to Him as a devoted servant, and an affectionate child, in the bonds of an everlasting covenant. NoneNO, NOT ONE-who so trusts in Christ shall ever perish.

IX. Finally, think it not enough that you have read this address; but SET APART SOME TIME SPECIALLY TO REALISE

ITS IMPORTANT OBJECT. We will not say a whole day, though that is desirable if it can be done; but say the evening, the long evening of a day, at the earliest opportunity. "Enter into thy chamber, and shut thy doors." Exclude ordinary cares, and deal only with your spiritual concerns. Read penitential portions of Scripture; humble yourself before God in the free confession of your sin; meditate at large on all the points here submitted to your attention. Be sensible, that however necessary prayer, and penitence, and faith are, they are the gift of God by Jesus Christ. Look up to Him, from your helplessness, for the grace of His Holy Spirit, under a conviction, that if you ask you shall receive. Relying on this assistance, give yourself to prayer, and supplication; for "the kingdom of heaven is entered by violence." Make a solemn surrender of yourself, body, soul, and spirit, to the Lord Jesus Christ, to be his, and his alone, for ever. And, whatever may be the hope and joy of these salutary engagements, still remember, that he who falls short of a REAL CONVERSION, is in a state of POSITIVE AND PRESENT

CONDEMNATION.

* Ps. xxxii.; Ps. li.; Isaiah i.; Jer. xxxi.; Luke xv.; John iii.

THE ENGLISH MONTHLY TRACT SOCIETY,

27, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON;

AND J. F. SHAW, BOOKSELLER, SOUTHAMPTON ROW.

J. & W. Rider, Printers, Bartholomew Close, London.

A LADY in Paris, moving in the higher circles of life, of cultivated mind and of elegant manners, but a disciple of the infidel philosophy, lost, in a fatal duel, a few years since, her son-her only child; "and she was a widow."

The Countess of, a lady not only professing Christianity, but giving decided evidence in her life of the influence of real religion over her heart, sought her bereaved friend. She found the widow on her couch, cold-silent-restless-melancholyand on the verge of despair. The philosophy which she had. embraced, had left her destitute of any comfort in that time when most she needed solace; it afforded no stay for her sinking spirit-it brought no balm to her stricken heart. It had banished, long since, from her thoughts, the only real source of consolation; and having led her to renounce God, it offered her now no compensation for the absence of Him, who is, to those who fear Him, "the strength of their heart and their portion for It was a distressing scene, and naturally suggested to the mind of her visitor the course-the only course - which could be adopted to relieve her sorrow effectually. This was to bring before the attention of the mourner, the scriptural representations of God, as a being whose nature and attributes render him the worthy object of his creatures' confidence, whose greatness and goodness encourage their dependence, and should excite their expectations, when every other resource is proved to be powerless. The Countess, therefore, began to speak of Him as a refuge for the distressed soul-a description which, in a rich variety of forms, is repeated in the Sacred Volume. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble," Ps. xlvi. 1. "Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved," Ps. lv. 22. "The Lord is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him," Nahum i. 7. " Thy Maker is thy husband; the Lord of Hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called," Isa. liv. 5. "My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever," Ps. lxxiii. 26.

Whilst she was thus employed in pointing out the repose which the soul may find in addressing itself to God from the very depths of affliction, the wretched parent turned

upon

her a

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