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risaism and impenitency stand in your way to Christianity, more than a mistaken respect for reason and truth? Nay, does not reason bid you assent to wellattested matters of fact? And are not the Jewish and Christian Revelations so inseparably connected with notorious events, that it is less absurd to doubt the exploits of Alexander and Cæsar, than to disbelieve the miracles of Moses and Jesus Christ?

4. The Heathens, who were saved without the explicit knowledge of Christ, far from despising it as you do, implicitly desired it; and those, that were blessed with a ray of it, rejoiced in it like Abraham. That precious knowledge is offered to you; and, (shocking to say!) you reject it! you make sport with it! you pass jests upon it! you call it imposture! enthusiasm! -Oh! how much more tolerable will it be for Pharisaic Heathens; yea, for Chorazin and Bethsaida, in the day of judgment, than for you, if you die under so fatal an error! And how can ye flatter yourselves, that because righteous Heathens, who have but one talent, shall be saved in the faithful improvement of it; you, who have five, shall be saved, though you bury four of them ?

"Oh! but I, for one, improve the fifth: I am moral."-God forbid, I should discountenance Morality 1 value it next to piety: Nay, true morality is the second branch of true piety. Nevertheless, this you must permit me to say: Your morality hath either pride, impenitency, and hypocrisy at the bottom; or humility, sincerity, and truth. If the former; your morality, like Jonah's gourd, has a worm at its root. When the sun of temptation shall shiue warmly upon you, or when death shall lay his cold hand upon you, your morality will wither, and afford you neither safety, nor comfort: But, if he has sincerity and truth at the bottom; and if you are faithful, your little light will increase, the clouds raised by your prejudices will break, and you shall see the glory of God shining in the face of Jesus Christ,' because, like Saul of Tarsus, you do not oppose the truth maliciously, but igno

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rantly in unbelief.' And Oh! may these pages convey to you the accents of that Truth, which shall make you free!' and may the gracious voice, which formerly thundered in the ears of the great Jewish Moralist, the fierce opposer of the Christian gospel: Saul! Saul! why persecutest thou me ?'-May that voice, I say, whisper to each of you, "Honestus! Honestus! why neglectest thou me? I am Jesus whom thou persecutest -Jesus, who yet act in the Mediator's part between my righteous Father and thy self-righteous soul. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks of my truth, and the stings of thy conscience.—I am a Sun of righteousness and truth: Wrap thyself in unbelief no more: Let the beams of my grace penetrate thy prejudiced soul, and kindle redeeming love in thy frozen breast. Nor force me, by an obstinate and final denial of me before men, to fulfil upon thee the most terrible of all my threatenings by denying thee also before my Father and his augels;' for,' if ye [to whom my gospel is fully preached] believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins.'”

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SECTION XIII.

An Address to a penitent Mourner.

THOU deniest that loving Redeemer no longer, 0 thou poor, mourning Penitent, who art ready to sink under the burden of thy sins, and longest to find rest for thy soul. The Lord, who pronounces thee blessed, says, Comfort ye, Comfort ye my mourning people.By whom shall I comfort thee?' Oh! that it were by me! Oh! that I were so happy as to administer one drop of gospel-cordial to thy fainting spirit! Though I am less than the least of my Lord's servants, he sends thee by me a Benjamin's portion: Be not above accepting it. Thou hast humbly received the wounding truths of the gospel; why shouldst thou obstinately reject the healing ones? Thou hast eaten the bitter herbs of

repentance: Yea, thou feedest upon them daily, and preferrest them to all the sweets of sin: Why then, Oh! why should thy heart rise against the flesh and blood of the true paschal Lamb? Why shouldst thou starve, when all things are now ready?' Why shouldest thou not believe the whole truth as well as one part of it? Will the word of God's grace' be more true ten years hence than it is now? Is not Christ the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever?' If thy dull believing in God has already saved thee from thy vain conversation, and thy outward sins; how much more will a cheerful believing in the Lord Jesus,' save thee into Christian righteousness, peace, and joy

in the Holy Ghost.

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Do not begin to make excuse,' and say, "I must not believe the joyous truths of the gospel, till they are first powerfully applied to my soul." It is right, very right for thee, for all, never to rest short of such an application. But how art thou to wait for it? In the way of duty, or out of it? Surely in the way of duty. And is it not thy duty, no longer to make God a liar?' Is it not thy bounden duty, as it is thy glorious privilege, to set thy seal,' as thou canst, to the word of God's Grace, as well as to the declaration of his Justice? Does he not charge thee to believe,' though it should be in hope against hope,' the reviving record which he has given of his Son?' Is not this the record? That God has given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son? That to as many as receive him-that is, to as many as believe on his name, he gives power to become the sons of God:-That God commendeth his love towards us, in that when we were yet sinners, Christ died for us [men and for our salvation :]-That his blood [through faith on our part] cleanseth from all sin :-That he was delivered for our offences, and rose again for our justification :' -And that he even now 'maketh intercession for is;' bearing us up in the arms of his mercy, that we ink not into hell, and drawing to Him, who justifith the ungodly, all men,' that renounce their ungodVOL. II.

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liness as thou hast done, and believe in Jesus as I want thee to do?

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If it is a saying worthy of all men to be received, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save even the chief of sinners,' upon gospel terms; he undoubtedly came to save me and thee. Do not thou then foolishly excommunicate thyself from redeeming love. Away with thy unchristian, discouraging notions about Absolute Reprobation, Præterition, Non-election, &c. &c. Doubt not but thou art conditionally elected, that is, 'chosen in Christ' to eternal salvation; yea peculiarly chosen of God explicitly to believe in that Just One who gave himself a ransom for all,' and "by this one oblation of Himself once offered, made a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world."-Believe then thy election and that of God. As certainly as Christ hung upon the cross, flesh of thy flesh, and bone of thy bone, thou art chosen to eternal salvation THROUGH sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth. Wilt thou then be powerfully saved here, and eternally saved hereafter? Only make thy calling and election sure, through sanctification of the Spirit;' and make 'sanctification of the Spirit sure, through belief of the truth.'

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Believe, as well as thou canst, this comfortable, this sanctifying truth, God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life. Be not afraid to conclude, upon the divine record, God loves thee, that Christ gave himself for thee, and that the Holy Ghost will gloriously witness the Saviour's love to thy soul. And calmly, yet earnestly, wait for a divine token, and an abiding sense of this love upor thy heart.

But, I repeat it, wait in faith :-Wait, believing the truth-Wait, doing thy work; and Christ will surely finish his own: He will save thee to the uttermost from sin and hell, into holiness and heaven. Remem ber, that as he once bled for thee, so he now worket

in thee both to will and to do.-Up then and be doing. 'Work out thy own salvation with fear and trembling.' Thou canst never do God's part, and he will never do thine: Do not expect it; nor let the song of "finished salvation" make thee conclude, that thou hast nothing to do. Even John Bunyan, in his "Heavenly Footman," cries out to the slothful, "If thou wilt have heaven, thou must run for it." And if thou dost not believe him, believe the Christians of the Lock Chapel, and of the Tabernacle, who, when they do justice to the second gospel-axiom, agree to 66 complain of spiritual sloth," in the following well-known hymu,

Our drowsy powers, why sleep ye so?
Awake each sluggish soul;

Nothing has half thy work to do,

Yet nothing's half so dull, &c.

The God of truth will warm thy heart in a rational manner, by the Truth, which is the divine cordial generally used by the Comforter for that purpose. Thou must therefore take that cordial first. If thou art of little faith,' there is no need that thou shouldst be of little sense alsc. Some absurdly refuse to believe the gospel till they can feel it, (if I may so speak,) with their finger and thumb: So gross, so carnal are their ideas of truth! And others think it their duty just to look at, or to hear about the gospel-feast; supinely waiting till all its rich blessings are forcibly thrust into their hearts, or at least conveyed there, without any endeavour of their own. "When the truth shall be powerfully applied to my soul," says a modern Thomas, "I will believe, and not before." Avoid this common mistake. If thou wert invited to a feast, and one said, "You must not eat this rich food, unless it is first powerfully applied to your stomach;" wouldst thon not reply, that thou must first eat it, in order to such an application? Be as wise in spiritual things; and remember that the way of relishing the gospel,

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