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Saint John: "if we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is the witness of God which he hath testified of his Son. He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself. He that believeth not God hath made him a liar, because he believeth not the record that God gave of his Son. And this is the record that God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that hath not the Son hath not life."

In other places of scripture, the Holy Spirit is said to baptize us with fire-to shed abroad the love of God in our hearts-to be in us a well of water springing up to everlasting life-to be a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God-a Spirit of grace and supplication in our devotion, to strengthen us with might in the inner man, to abide with us for ever, and to seal us to the day of redemption. These are distinct and appropriate characters; and in these have the saints of all ages and nations received him. And though they may have differed a little in their mode of expression, yet the prominent features of the experience are precisely the same.

Having promises so numerous and explicit, so consolatory and inviting, what can be more reasonable than for the sincere inquirers after truth to come and ask of God the approving test? "Ask," says Jesus, "and ye shall receive. If ye, being evil, know how to give good things unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things," or his Holy Spirit, "to them that ask him ?" Could we desire a religion to be more open, a test better defined, or more efficacious in regenerating the human heart?

It must here be added, by way of caution, that the witness of the Spirit is not intended to supersede the internal and external evidences of the truth of Christianity; nor to distinguish in the scriptures, when various readings occur, which is pure, and which is cor rupt: we may be saved without perfection in this kind

of knowledge; but when the great truths of religion are laid before us, it is intended to apply them with divine power to the heart. Now, when we pray in the name of Christ, and receive a sense of pardon and comfort, it really proves that he is our propitiation, and that he is glorified with the Father. If otherwise, it proves that the Father bears witness to a lie, or deceives us in the tenderest concerns of our salvation. I am perfectly aware that God does daily comfort his children under many harmless errors and mistakes; but to suppose that he can comfort us while worshipping Jesus, a mere man, is to suppose that God can give his glory to a creature. This is impossible: the God of holiness cannot change-the God of truth cannot lie. He can no more smile on a gross act of idolatry than he can smile on a gross act of adultery; we, therefore, conclude with St. Paul, that our trust in Christ is well placed, because God hath given us the first fruits of the Spirit, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession. St. Peter proved, likewise, his ascension and godhead from the gifts of the Holy Ghost. "He hath shed forth that which ye now see and hear."

Every one who is desirous to investigate this grand test of the truth of Christianity, should be further apprized, that a sincere and devout mind is indispensibly required. If a man be not seeking virtue as well as truth, he is destitute of the grand qualification on which his success depends. No man can judge of doctrines which have holiness for their object, unless he be seeking purity of heart. So the scriptures every where inculcate; and he who sincerely seeks is sure to succeed. "The meek will he guide in judgment, the meek will he teach his way. They shall all," says Jesus, "be taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath heard, and hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me. If any man will do his will, he shall know of my doctrine whether it be of God, or her I speak of myself," Psalm xxv. 8. John vii.

An admired French writer expresses himself to the same effect. He exhorts the inquirer after sacred truth to imitate the Cyrils, the Basils, the Augustines, the Leons, exalted geniuses of antiquity, whose minds were elevated above the prejudices of their age." "Like them," says he, "commence your researches by seeking virtue, whose divine flame alone can point you out the path of truth, extinguish ignoble passions, recede from fatal connexions, become docile, simple, chaste, modest, and approach with humility the sanctuary, which is the repose of truth." A few lines after he adds, "God penetrates and charms my heart with the radiance of his glory! I see-I hear-I believe: my reason hearkens to the supreme Oracle, and to him alone." Whether Rousseau really believed what he here wrote, or whether the reading of Racine's beautiful poem Sur la Religion, had made a momentary impression on his heart, is not my business to determine: I am concerned only with the advice, which is perfectly agreeable to the scriptures, and indispensibly requisite for the successful investigation of sacred truth.

Should this sketch of the reasonableness of Christianity fall into the hands of those who are earnestly desirous to find the truth, and resolved to put religion to the test, by devoutly pleading its promises at the throne of grace, I should indeed count it one of the richest favors of heaven to render them some further aid in the affairs of their salvation." With a view to this, I beg leave, as one that hath obtained mercy, to address them on the great importance of a change of heart, and a religious life.

My dear friends, and fellow-partakers of our Creator's bounty, open your bosom to conviction, and be not unwilling to know the worst of your moral depravity. Take an impartial and deliberate view of all those sins which lie heaviest on your conscience, and make you afraid to die. Examine closely their atrocity, and all the aggravating circumstances which attended them; and in doing this, you will find them connected with a multitude of other sins, although of

inferior magnitude. “Who can understand his errors, or count the number of his faults ?"

You will then be led to consider the critical and awful situation to which you are reduced. The holy law has made manifest your sin, and the righteous God has pronounced you guilty. His mercy suspends you over hell, while his justice is importunate to cut the thread, and then you fall into your own place. In a situation so truly alarming, let not the vain pursuits of life soothe you into a fatal slumber. It is the extreme of folly to despise the justice of omnipotence, and of impiety to abuse his mercy.

Consider how the Lord Jesus hath wept, and bled, and died, to put away your sin; and how earnestly he intercedes for you in heaven! Consider his longsuffering and kindness, the means he employs to effectuate your conversion, and all the riches of his grace, which are presented to you in the gospel. He shows you his bleeding hands and feet, all his grief and pain for sin, and then the fountain that gushes from his side! Hear how he expostulates with the wicked: "O Ephraim, Ephraim, my son, how shall I give thee up! My relentings are kindled-how shall I seal thy destruction!" O what a look of love he casts on your wretched soul! And can you crucify him again by despising his mercy, and retaining your sins? Can the pleasures, the momentary pleasures of a sensual age, compensate for the loss of heaven, and for bringing down on your guilty heads the wrath of a vindictive God?

Perhaps Satan and your deceitful heart suggest, that you are young, that God is merciful, and that you may safely defer your repentance to a later period. Consider again, I entreat, the nature and tendency of such a thought, before consideration be too late. Is not this to ask long life, and all temporal happiness of a bounteous God, and then to offer him itude of old age. How long, I pray, would bear with a servant who should talk and his manner?

I fear you are not aware of

the fallacy of this temptation. If you are unwilling to part with your sins, and repent to-day, you will bẹ more unwilling to-morrow, for your heart will be har dened in proportion as you increase in guilt. If this warning be unattended with success, what hope then can be entertained that any future warning will have more effect? Hence, by rejecting grace to-day, you know not but you reject it for ever. It is preposterous in the extreme to trifle with sin and holiness, with death and eternity.

Admitting, for a moment, the hazardous supposition, that you should repent and find pardon in old age, even then your loss would be incalculable; for you would have no time to grow in grace, and to glorify God by a life of active or of suffering piety. Those who have served the Lord from their youth, who have borne reproach and persecution, and made a great progress in knowledge and holiness, will assuredly be qualified to receive a larger degree of glory and happiness, than those who are plucked as brands from the burning. Personal rewards in glory shall be given in proportion to our holiness, our sufferings, and our works. He that had gained five talents was made lord over five cities, and he that had gained ten talents was made lord over ten cities. And shall men who boast of reason and knowledge, act a part so very irrational ? Shall they barter the eternal glories and happiness of heaven, for the momentary pleasures of sin? Nor should it be overlooked, that if repentance be now deferred, you have merely a precarious hope of ever obtaining it. And if you should presume to ask mercy in your affliction, you leave Satan a just ground to suggest, that having rejected the Lord while young, he will now reject you when old; whereas, if you now repent and turn to God, you have a thousand explicit promises, that he will in no wise cast you out.

Say not as some, that the wicked are happy; nor indulge a wish to imitate their life. When you see them cheerful and gay in company, sprightly and fa

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