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only can illuminate his spiritual understanding, and preserve him from error and from sin. But this reliance is placed on God, in the way which God has himself prescribed. And as, in the affairs of this life, he knows that though it is the blessing of God that makes the corn to grow and bring fruit to perfection, yet God requires him to sow the seed, and labour in the cultivation of the ground; and though without His blessing it is in vain that the man of business rises early and so late takes rest, and eats the bread of carefulness1 ; yet is he commanded to be not slothful in business, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord2: so, in the concerns of his soul, he relies on God to bless the means which He has appointed as the modes in which He will communicate and preserve His heavenly gifts. But this reliance is free from enthusiasm and presumption; and, therefore, the more simply he depends on God, the more diligent he is in using and observing all those remedies and precautions which

his heavenly Physician has prescribed to him.

4. The man who putteth his trust in the Lord is rational, because his confidence is founded not upon his own imaginations, but upon the revelation which God has been pleased to make of himseif. It is very easy to find persons who speak of relying on God, who if they could but calmly examine the ground of their confidence, would see that it is in the highest degree unreasonable and presumptuous. What reason have mankind to expect any thing from that Being whom they are every day offending by innumerable transgressions; nay, by that which is unspeakably more wicked than any or all of their transgressions, by a total absence of all love for Him, of all regard to Him, to His will, or His glory? And yet they say, God is merciful and good-we trust in His mercy,-we trust in His providence, to make all things work together for our good. But let me ask you, why do you rely on His mercy? Is it because your faith is fixed on Jesus Christ our Lord, who has shed His precious blood

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to reconcile you to God, and to make it possible for a just and holy God to take back into His family such guilty rebels as You have not perhaps considered the question; you have a vague and undefined dependance on God's mercy; you consider it needless to meddle with what appears to you mere theological speculation. But let me intreat you to recollect that we know nothing of God's mercy, positively nothing, except what He has himself revealed in His word. He has there informed us how He has destroyed the works of the devil, and opened the doors of His mercy to sinful man. And do you think it rational or wise to refuse to examine what He has caused to be written for our instruction? Is it not possible that His mercy is to be given only to those who seek it in a way prescribed by Him. And is it reasonable to remain ignorant on this point, and never to consider whether there is any limitation or condition to His promises? Have you never heard that God so loved the world, that He gave His only be

Him should not perish, but have everlasting life? Consider, I beseech you, if you can possibly aggravate your guilt by any thing more than by a confident flattering of yourselves that you are the objects of His mercy, and the heirs of everlasting life, when you do not even in your acknowledgments of His goodness, recognize the unutterable love which moved the Father to sacrifice His only and well-beloved Son for your sakes? It was no light danger that called for such a remedy. It was no trifling sin or venial errors that required such a victim. It was no small emergency that could induce our Creator to interpose and cast His blessed Son into the hands of wicked men, and suffer Him to be mocked and insulted and crucified. How wonderful is the delusion and blindness of mankind! The Scripture declares that he who loves not the Lord Jesus Christ is accursed1; and yet men will trust in God's mercy, who have never an idea of loving Christ, and affect to be surprised that we should think

11 Cor. xvi. 22.

it necessary. The Scripture says, "Blessed is every one that feareth the Lord 1;" and yet men will talk of their hope of blessedness, who have no fear of God before their eyes. The Scripture says, that without holiness no man can see the Lord2; and yet they trust that they shall see Him, who have not holiness, who have never sought it, nor intend to seek it; who know not what holiness is, or what God Almighty means when He says, that without it they cannot stand in His sight. Surely this is not really to trust in God: it is to trust in their own foolish and corrupt imaginations of that Being, of whom, without the light of His word, we are utterly ignorant.

But the charge may be retorted against ourselves. We may be told that we have no right to console ourselves with promises, which, however certain in their original intention, can have no just application beyond the persons to whom they were addressed. No doubt many of the promises of Scripture, inasmuch as they

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