lents; Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all? This would be an evidence of superlative pride, and an instance of the greatest folly. My debt, like his, is enormous; and would my Creator compound for the widow's two mites, I should still be insolvent. I now find by experience that I am utterly without strength.-But supposing I possessed abilities, and were to perform a perfect obedience in future; this would make no amends for my past transgressions; the old and heavy score would still stand against me. Had my offences been committed against a fellow-creature, I might possibly have been able to make compensation. But they are against my Maker; to whom I owe my time and talents; all that I have and all that I am. If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him: but if a man sin against the LORD, who shall intreat for him; or how shall the offender atone for his crime? It is the infinite JEHOVAH against whom I have sinned: it is the eternal Sovereign of all worlds against whom I have rebelled. Who, then, shall intreat for me! Yes, I have trampled on infinite authority. The language of my stubborn heart and abominable conduct has been; Who is the Lord, that I should obey him? As the universal Governour, I have renounced his dominion, and seated myself on the throne; as my constant Benefactor, I have abused his mercies to his dishonour.--Infinitely perfect and supremely amiable as he is in himself, I have neither loved nor adored him: I have treated him as though he descryed neither affection, nor reverence. I have, shocking impiety! I have preferred the vilest lusts, and the gratification of the worst appetites, to his honour and service. How have I neglected the divine word and sacred worship? I have treated the Bible as if it were not worthy of a serious perusal, and in so do

ing have been a practical deist. The assemblies of the saints, my closet, my conscience, all bear testimony against me, that I have lived, as without God in the world. Or, if at any time I have attended religious worship in public or private; how have I mocked my Maker? I have behaved myself in his awful presence, as though he had been a senseless idol; one who neither knew nor cared how he was worshipped. When I pretend edto acknowledge my sins, my confessions froze on my formal lips: and if I asked for heavenly blessings, it was as though I had little or no necessity for them. Withdelight and avidity I have pursued transitory pleasures and vicious enjoyments; but as to the worship of God I have been ready to cry; O what a weariness is it! I have said to God, it has been the language of my heart and conduct; Depart from me; for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty that I should serve him? and what profit shall I have if I pray to him? Can I doubt, then, can I question for a single moment, whether I deserve to die, deserve to be damned? DAMNED! dreadful punishment! Imagination recoils at the thought. The idea chills my blood. Heaven avert the impending, the righteous vengeance!-But God is just; and justice requires that sin should not escape with impunity. Does it not follow, then, that my eternal misery is inevitable? In what other way can the rights of the Godhead, the honour of divine holiness, truth, and justice be maintained? If no other way can be found, wretch that I am! I am lost for ever." Thus he lies at the feet of sovereign mercy.

As a rebel against the Majesty of heaven, and conscious that he deserves to perish, he lies deep in the dust of self-abasement, and low at the foot-stool of

divine grace. But his ALL being at stake for eternity, and not being sunk into absolute despair, he ventures to address the blessed God. Being well persuaded that if his request be granted and his person accepted, his soul shall live; and that if his prayer be rejected and his person abhorred, he can but die. With trembling hands and a throbbing heart; with downcast looks and faltering lips, he therefore thus proceeds: "Offended Sovereign! I am justly under sentence of death, and should I eternally perish, yet Thou art righteous. My mouth must be stopped: I have no right to complain. But is there nothing in thy revealed character that may encourage a miserable creature and a guilty criminal, to look for mercy and hope for acceptance? Art thou not a compassionate Saviour, as well as a just God? Is not Jesus thy only Son, and hast thou not set him forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood? To Him, therefore, as my only asylum from divine wrath, I would flee. Yet, if repulsed, I dare not, I cannot object; for I have no claim on thy mercy. Only, if it seem good to Thee to save the vilest of sinners, the most wretched of creatures; if it please Thee to extend infinite mercy to one who deserves infinite misery, and is obliged to condemn himself; the greater will be the glory of thy compassion. However, as a supplicant at the throne of grace; as a perishing sinner, who has no hope but in sovereign mercy, and in the blood of the cross; I am resolved to wait until freely received, or absolutely rejected. If rejected, I must bear it as my just desert; if accepted, boundless grace shall have the glory."

* Let none of my readers imagine that the process of conviction here described, is designed as a standard for their experience; or that I would limit the Holy One of Israel to the

Thus the name and the work of Jesus forbid despair, and shed a beam of hope on his benighted soul.

One would imagine that the gospel of reigning grace, that the tidings of a free Saviour and a full salvation would be embraced with the utmost readiness by a sinner thus convinced. One would sup

pose that, so soon as he heard the divine report, he could not forbear exclaiming, in a transport of joy, "This is the Saviour I want! This salvation is every way suitable to my condition. Perfect in itself, and free for the unworthy sinner. Wonderful truth! Astonishing grace! What could I have, what can I desire more? Here I will rest; in this I will glory."

same way and manner of working on the minds of sinners, when he brings them to know themselves, their state, and their dan ger. I have no such intention; being well aware that God is a Sovereign, and acts as he pleases in this, as in all other things. For though every sinner must feel his want, before he will either seek, or accept relief at the hand of grace; yet the Lord has various ways to make his people willing in the day of his power. Some he enlightens in a more gradual way, and draws them to Christ by gentler means, as it were with the cords of love: while he strikes conviction into the minds of others, as with a voice in thunder, and sudden as a flash of lightning. They are brought to the very brink of despair, and shook, as it were, over the bottomless pit. Nor have we any business to inquire into the reason of this difference in the divine conduct. As the Lord saves whom he will, so he may bring them to the knowledge of his salvation, in what way, and by what means he pleases. If any one doubt whether his convictions be genuine, let him remember, that the questions he should ask himself, in order to attain satisfaction, are not; "How long did I lie under them? To what a degree of terror did they proceed? By what means were they wrought?" But, "Does it stand true in my conscience, that I have sinned and deserve to perish? Is it a fact, that nothing but the grace of GoD can relieve me?" These are the questions which demand his notice, and a suitable answer solves the query.

-But, alas! this is not always the case. Observa tion and experience prove, that the awakened sinner is frequently backward, exceedingly backward, to receive comfort from the glorious gospel. This arises, not from any defect in the grace it reveals, or in the salvation it brings; not because the sinner is under any necessity, or in any distress, for which it has not provided complete relief; but because he does. not behold the glory of that grace which reigns triumphant in it, and the design of God, in making such a provision. He wants to find himself some way distinguished, as a proper object of mercy, by holy tempers and sanctified affections. This is a bar to his comfort, this is his grand embarrassment. In other words he is ready to fear, that he is not sufficiently humbled under a sense of sin! That he has not a suitable abhorrence of it; or, that he has not those fervent breathings after Christ and holiness, which he ought to have, before he can be warranted to look for salvation with a well grounded hope of success.* Thus the sinner, even when his conscience is oppressed with guilt, and earnestly desirous of salvation,

*Here it should be well observed, that deep distress, arising from the fear of hell, is not required of any, in order to peace with God; for such distress does not belong to the precepts of the law, but to its curse. Terrifying apprehensions of eternal punishment are no part of that which is required of sinners, but of what is inflicted on them. There is indeed an evangelical sorrow for sin, that is our duty; which is commanded, and has promises annexed to it; but legal terrors, proceeding from the curse of the law, not from its precept; expressing a sense of danger from the law, rather than of having done evil against the law; are no marks of love to God, or of an holy temper. An awakened sinner, therefore, wishing for distresses of this kind, is a person seeking for the misery of unbelief, that he may obtain a permission to believe. See Dr. OWEN on the Holy Spirit, p. 306.

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