to hear the invitation, and to understand the promife, of the Holy Spirit: that, whatever may have been the caufes which have prevented you from obeying the call and accept ing the boon, want of power has not been of the number..

in

t

But perhaps you imagine that efforts on your part are to have no fhare in the attainment of the grace of Chrift: that your exertions would be either prefùmptuous, or ufe lefs, or needlefs: that it is your duty to wait in patient inactivity unto the time when it may please God, who worketh all in all, to vouchsafe to you the gift of his Holy Spirit. These are not your thoughts. You have not thus grofsly misunderstood the fcriptures. You confefs that, although it be God that worketh you both to will and to do of his good pleafure; you feel yourselves no less efficaciously free, no less truly moral agents in the ace quifition of divine grace than you are in the acquifition of any of the gifts of God, which you are to collect from the bofom of the earth. You confefs that Jefus Chrift, who commands that his grace be fought by the ufe of means; has not left you either ignorant of the means, or incapable of employing them. You confefs that prayer, animated by fuitable difpofitions and urged with due perfeverance, is a neceffary and certain inftru

ment

ment by which the influence of the Holy Spirit in abundance proportioned to our need is to be drawn down from heaven: and that a reverent and edifying application of grace already received is an indispensable condition, not of its increafe only, but of its continuance.

Perhaps then you may be doubtful, for there is fcarcely any measure of self-decep tion too large to find admiffion into the hu man heart, whether you may not already be under the effectual guidance of the Spirit of God. You may be of opinion that there are not any unequivocal marks, by which his prefence may be ascertained; nor any tokens, which are infallible indications of his absence. Yet affuredly I have again failed to specify the causes of your difregard. What is the language of your fecret thoughts, but an acknowledgement that the fplendor of noon and the blacknefs of midnight are not removed, each from the other, by a distance more wide, by characters more striking, than those which feparate and difcriminate the works of the flesh from the fruits of the Spirit? What is their language but an acknow ledgement that you detect within your bofom proofs too plain to be controverted that it is the habitation of worldly lufts, not the Tem

ple

ple of the Holy Ghoft; that you have not the Spirit of Chrift, and are therefore none of his?

It is poffible, however, that you may dif truft the fufficiency of the grace of Chrift. You may have become perfuaded, that to a being by nature fo unholy, by tranfgreffion fo depraved, as yourfelf; to fuch a being encompaffed by the fnares, and affailed by the malignity, of the powers of darknefs, the divine affiftance is granted in vain. But your hearts recoil from this fuppofition. You "believe in the Holy Ghoft, the Lord and "Giver of life."

You believe in the om

nipotence of God. You do not exalt Satan to the fovereignty of the universe. You are convinced that he whom God bleffeth is bleffed; that he whom God affifteth muft be victorious: that he who taketh to himself the whole armour of God, the breaft-plate of righteoufnefs, the fhield of faith, the fword of the fpirit, will be able to withstand all the wiles of the devil, to quench all his fiery darts, and to lay hold in the ftrength of divine grace on the crown of everlafting falvation. What then am I to conclude? For what cause, unhappy victim of delufion, difregardeft or defpifeft thou the riches of the grace of Chrift?

6

Chrift? If thou art unable or unwilling to anfwer the queftion; I read the true reply in the word of God: After thy hardness and impenitent heart thou treafureft up unto thyfelf wrath against the day of wrath. Thy neglect, thy contempt, of divine grace fprings from hardness of heart, from ftubborn reluctance to repent. Hence thou art infenfible to danger, carelefs as to confequences. The God of this world has blinded thy mind. In the centre of the fulness of the light of the gospel, thou haft hitherto lived in wilful darkness. Surrounded with all the bleffings of Christian inftruction, all the benefits and encourage ments of Chriftian communion; thou haft hitherto displayed the ignorance or the indifference of a heathen. Stationed on the verge of a boundless eternity, into which thou must fhortly pafs; elevated on an eminence, whence thou mayeft behold the regions of everlasting blifs, and the abodes of never-ending woe; thou hast conducted thyfelf as though the prospect were an airy vifion, as though death were a perpetual fleep. Year after year the Spirit of God has ftretched forth his hand to pluck thee as a brand out of the burning; but thine hand thou haft obftinately withdrawn. His hand is ftretched out ftill. Doft thou ftill withdraw thine? Repentance is not

yet

yet too late even for thee. Doft thou ftill refuse the grace of repentance? From the throne of heaven God calls thee to himself. To-day, if thou wilt hear his voice, harden not thy heart. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghoft invite thee to pardon, redemption, fanctification. They invite thee to falvation: they pledge the promise of the unchangeable Godhead to give thee ftrength, if even yet thou wilt accept ftrength, to attain falvation. To prefer perdition is within thy choice. Doft thou choofe hell or heaven? Oy 200

You

2. To thofe among you who have laboured to obtain the grace of Chrift, and to apply to its proper object the strength which is granted from above, meditations on the nature and the efficacy of the promised gift of the Spirit of God are perhaps not lefs important than to the careless or the hardened finner. may not need, like the careless and the hardened, continually to be reminded that the guidance and fupport of the Holy Ghoft, purchased by the atoning facrifice of the Lord Jefus, aré effential to falvation, are freely offered to all men, are placed within the grafp of every man: for you have fought them, you fill feek them, as necellary to you, as propofed to you, as attainable by you. You may not equally with the inconfiderate and the fcorner

require