EXHORTATION TO THE WICKED TO PRAY.

EXHORT a wicked man to pray! God would as soon be moved by the howlings of the damned!" said a flaming declaimer in the pulpit some time since. Query, Is it right to exhort a wicked man to pray?

THE declaimer seems to have had his eye to those pasages of Scripture, which declare the sacrifice and way of the wicked to be an abomination to the Lord;* and to have concluded from them, that God does not require any sacrifice or prayer at their hand. But if so, Why did Peter exhort the sorcerer to pray? And wherefore is the fury of God denounced against the families that call not upon his name? An hypothesis which flies in the face of the express language of Scripture is inadmissible; and the framer of it, to be consistent, should avow himself an infidel. If he meant only to deny that God requires such prayers as wicked men actually offer, the prayer of a hard, impenitent, and unbelieving heart, I have no controversy with him. God cannot possibly approve any thing of this kind. But then the same is true of every other duty. Wicked men do nothing that is good or well pleasing to God; nothing which is aimed at his glory, or done in obedience to his authority; every thing that is done, is done for selfish ends. If they read the scriptures, it is not to know the will of God, and do it; or hear the word, it is not with

any true desire to profit by it: even their pursuit of the common good things of this life, is that they may consume them upon their lusts; hence the very ploughing of the wicked is sin.* Yet the declaimer himself would scarcely infer from hence, that it is not their duty to read the word of God, nor attend to the preaching of the gospel, nor pursue the necessary avocations of life: neither would he reckon it absurd to exhort them to such exercises as these.

The truth is, wicked men are required to do all these things; not carnally, but with a right end, and a right spirit: and in this way Simon, though in the gall of bitterness, and the bonds of iniquity, was exhorted to pray, not with a hard and impenitent heart, but with a spirit of true contrition. Repent, therefore, of this thy wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven thee! To repent and pray, is the same thing in effect as to pray penitently,or with a contrite spirit. Wicked men are required to read and hear the word, but not with a wicked spirit; and to plough the soil, but not that they may consume its productions upon their lusts. There are not two sorts of requirements, or two standards of obedience, one for good men, and the oth er for wicked men; the revealed will of God is one and the same, however differently creatures may stand affected towards it. The same things which are required of the righteous,(repentance, faith, love, prayer, praise, &c.) are required of the wicked. If it were not so, and the aversion of the heart tended to set aside

* Prov. xxi. 4. † Acts iii. 19. John xli. 36. Rev. xv. 4.

God's authority over it, it must of necessity follow, that a sinner can never be brought to repent, except it be for the commission of those sins which might have been avoided, consistent with the most perfect enmity against God. And this is to undermine all true repentance; for the essence of true repentance is godly sorrow, or sorrow for having displeased and dishonored God. But if, during my unregeneracy, I were under no obligation to please God, I must of course have been incapable of displeasing him; where no law is, there is no transgression; consequently I can never be sorry at heart for having displeased him: and as there would be but little, if any, ground for repentance towards God, so there would be but little, if any, need of faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ; for if, during my unregeneracy, I were under no obligation to do any thing pleasing to God and were so far incapable of doing any thing to displease him, so far I must be sinless, and therefore stand in no need of a Savior. Where there is no obligation, there can be no offence; and where there is no offence, there needs no forgiveness. Thus the notions of this declaimer, who, I suppose, would be thought to be very evangelical, will be found subversive of the first principles of the Gospel testimony.

GAIUS

ON HEARING THE WORD.

"Whether a person, who profits more from occasional hearing than by the preaching of his own pastor, may not attend constantly the ministrations of one whose sentiments, in some respects, differ from his own?” To this question I would offer the following answer:

1. THERE are some differences of sentiment which do not form sufficient ground for the formation of sep: arate churches. If the particular sentiments of your inquirer be of this kind, they, of course, oppose no obstacle to his removal into another church, with which he may agree in the grand, essential points; though there may be other reasons, which may make such removal highly proper.

2. If I be allowed to address the inquirer, as face to face, I must ask, have you adopted right views and motives in hearing the word? Ought not the Divine glory to be the polar star by which you are guided in hearing the gospel, as in the whole of your religion and existence? "Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatever ye do, do all to the glory of God." Your profiting should be considered not as a final end, to be pursued for its own sake, which would be seeking your own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's,—but as a mean for accomplishing a farther end, to glorify God. Have you, in attending upon the ministry of the Gospel, acted upon these pure, evangelical principles? Upon this the propriety of your present state of mind, and the lawfulness of the future steps which you may take, will very much depend.

3. Still, as your profiting under the Divine word is of great importance, in order to your "glorifying God in body and spirit, which are his," have you formed a right estimate of a profitable ministry? Do you judge that to be the most profitable, which is most searching and humbling? Do you value that ministry as most profitable, which gives you an insight into the genuine mind of the Spirit in the Scriptures? or do you love a pretty conceit, which discovers something new and wonderful in Scripture, no matter whether true and solid or not? Do you think yourself most profited by a grave, serious sermon, which sends you home silent and secretly praying? or do you prefer one that is noisy, dazzling, and droll? Are you best pleased when you return full of the preacher, exclaiming, what a fine man! or when you can think of nothing else but your own salvation, and the glory of Him who died for sinners? Are you of the mind of him, who said to his friend, 'You do not know what you lost in not hearing my preacher to-day; if you had, you would never have relished another?' or would you, like the wiser friend, have replied, "Then I am determined I never will hear him; for give me the preacher who will teach me to relish the gospel wherever I hear it in truth?'

4. Then when you have formed right sentiments of profitable hearing, ask whether the profit you seemed to derive from occasional hearing did not arise from its novelty, as a new dish on your table might seem nicer than any thing you ever ate before, but if it were repeated every day, you might soon find it inferior to the old. Examine whether those who constantly hear the preacher, under whom you seemed to profit, be