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While under the controul of bad principles, he gave into every species of licentiousness---saving that, even then, the native nobleness of his mind made him despise whatever he thought mean and dishonourable. Into this state of slavery he was brought by his sin but here the mercy of God taught him some most important lessons, which influenced his views and governed his ministry through after life; and the same mercy then rescued him from the slavery to which he had submitted. The penetration and grandeur of his mind, with his natural superiority to sensual pleasures, made him feel the littleness of every object which the ambition and the desires of the carnal man: engages insomuch that God had given him, in this unusual way of bringing him to himself, a thorough disgust of the world before he had gained any hold of higher objects and better pleasures.

It was thus that God prepared him for further communications of mercy. And here he felt the advantage of having been connected with sincere Christians. He knew them to be holy, and he felt that they were happy. "It was one of the first things," said he, "which struck my mind in a profligate state, that, in spite of all the folly and hypocrisy and fanaticism which may be seen among religious professors, there was a mind after Christ, a holiness, a heavenliness, among real Christians." He added, on another occasion, "My first convictions on the subject of religion were confirmed from observing that really religious persons had some solid happiness among them, which I had felt that the vanities of the world could not give. I shall never forget standing by the bed of my sick mother. "Are not you afraid to die?" I asked her: "No." "No! Why tainty of another state give you no concern?"

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"Because God

has said to me, Fear not: when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee: and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee.' The remembrance of this scene has oftentimes since drawn an ardent prayer from me that I might die the death of the righteous."

His mind opened very gradually to the truths of the Gospel: and the process through which he was led, is a striking evidence

of the imminence of his past danger. "My feelings," he said, "when I was first beginning to recover from my Infidelity, prove that I had been suffered to go great lengths; and to a very awful degree, to believe my own lie. My mind revolted from Christianity. God did not bring me to himself, by any of the peculiar motives of the Gospel. When I was about twenty years old, I became utterly sick of the vanity, and disgusted with the folly, of the world. I had no thought of Jesus Christ, or of Redemption. The very notion of Jesus Christ or of Redemption repelled me.. I could not endure a system so degrading. I thought there might possibly be a Supreme Being; and if there were such a Being, he might hear me when I prayed. To worship the Supreme Being seemed somewhat dignified. There was something grand and elevating in the idea. But the whole scheme and plan of Redemption appeared mean, and degrading, and dishonourable to man. The New Testament, in its sentiments and institutions repelled me; and seemed impossible to be believed, as a religion suitable to man.”

The grace of God triumphed, however, over all opposition. The religion, which began in this disgust with the world and disaffection to the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel, made rapid advances in his mind. The seed sown in tears by his inestimable mother, though long buried, now burst into life, and shot forth with vigour and he became a preacher of that truth, which once he laboured to destroy! Yet grace did not annihilate the natural character and qualities of the mind; though it regulated and directed them. The Christian's feelings and experience were modified by the constitution of the man. After a long course of spiritual watchfulness and warfare, he spoke thus of himself:

Tell me such

"There is what Bacon calls a DRY LIGHT, in which subjects are viewed, without any predilection, or passion, or emotion, but simply as they exist. This is very much my character as a Christian. I have great constitutional resistance. a thing is my DUTY-I know it is, but there I stop. of HELL--my heart would rise with a sort of daring stubbornness. There is a constitutional desperation about me,. which was

Talk to me

the most conspicuous feature in my character when young, and which has risen up against the gracious measures which God has all my life taken to subdue and break it. I feel I can do little in religion without ENCOURAGEMENT. I am persuaded and satisfied, tied and bound, by its truth and importance and value; but I view the subject in a DRY LIGHT. A strong sense of DIVINE FRIENDSHIP goes a vast way with me. When I fall, God will raise me. When I want, God will provide. When I am in perplexity, God will deliver. He cares for me---pities me-bears with me---guides me-loves me."

But the energy of Divine Grace was most conspicuous, in the controul and mastery of this resisting and high spirit of which our friend complained. Nay, if there were any one Christian Virtue in which he was more advanced than any other, it appears to me to have been HUMILITY—not that humility which debases itself that it may be exalted, and which is offended if its professions be believed: but the humility which arose from abiding and growing conviction of his infinite distance from the standard of perfection, and the little comparative use which he had made of his many means and helps in approaching that standard—an humility that expressed itself, therefore, in a teachableness of mind, a ready acknowledgment of excellence in others, and a candour in judging of other persons, which are seldom equalled; and which were rare endowments in a mind that could not but feel its own powers, and its superiority to that of most other men. But God has a thousand unseen methods of forming and cherishing those graces in his servants, which seem most opposed to their constitution, and least to be expected in their circumstances.

Mr. Cecil gave me one day the following remarkable illustration of this subject in his own case:-" It is a nice question in casuistry-How far a man may feel complacency in the exercise of

"A friend, who knew him for thirty or forty years, has informed me," says Mr. Wilson, "that he was more ready to hear of his faults from persons whom he esteemed, than most men. When any failings were pointed out to him, he usually thanked the reprover, and anxiously enquired for further admonitions. I have observed myself, that, when he gave advice, which he did with acuteness and decision, he was quite superior to that little vanity which is offended if the counsel be not followed.”

talent. A hawk exults on his wing: he skims and sails, delighting in the consciousness of his powers. I know nothing of this feeling. DISSATISFACTION accompanies me, in the study and in the pulpit. I never made a sermon, with which I felt satisfied: I never preached a sermon, with which I felt satisfied. I have always present to my mind such a conception of what MIGHT be done, and I sometimes hear the thing so done, that what I do falls very far beneath what it seems to me it should be. Some sermons which I have heard have made me sick of my own for a month afterwards. Many ministers have no conception of anything beyond their own world: they compare themselves only with themselves; and, perhaps they must do so: if I could give them my views of their ministry, without changing the men, they would be ruined; while now they are eminent instruments in God's hands. But some men see too much beyond themselves for their own comfort. Perhaps complacency in the exercise of talent, be it what it may, is hardly to be separated, in such a wretched heart as man's from pride. It seems to me that this dissatisfaction with myself, is the messenger sent to buffet me and keep me down. In other men, the separation between complacency and pride may be possible; but I scarcely think it is so in me."*

I have alluded to Mr. Cecil's READY ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE WORTH OF OTHERS; and I must add, that he cultivated that discrimination of excellence, which leads a man to discover and esteem it in the midst of imperfections. He had an unfeigned regard to real worth, wherever it was found. The powers of the understanding have often fascinated men of inferior wisdom, and lessened the odiousness of an immoral state of heart too plainly seen in others; but, if the excellencies of the head and the heart must be disjoined, he never failed to value that which

• Mr. Churton has a remark on Dr. Johnson, somewhat of a similar nature to this of Mr. C. on himself. He thinks that " Johnson's morbid melancholy and constitutional infirmities were intended by Providence, like St. Paul's thorn in the flesh, to check intellectual conceit and arrogance; which the consciousness of his extraordinary talents, awake as he was to the voice of praise, might otberwise have generated in a very culpable degree." Boswell's Life of Johnson, 2d Edit. 8vo. vol. III. P. 564.

is most truly valuable. He would say—“ Such a friend of ours is what many men look down on, as a weak man; but I honour his wisdom and his devotedness. He throws himself out, and all the powers which God has given him, into the service of his Master, in all those ways which seem to him best; and, though perhaps he and I should for ever differ on the best way, and though I see in him many peculiarities and weaknesses, yet I honour and love the man: I revere his simplicity and his piety. He is what God has made him; and all that he is he puts into action for God." If Mr. Cecil was at any time severe in his remarks on others, his severity was chiefly directed against that ignorant vanity and affectation, which push a man forward where great men would retire, and which make him dogmatical where wise men would speak with humility and candour.

Closely allied with his humility, was that OPENNESS TO CONVICTION, which Mr. Cecil possessed in an unusual degree. He had dived so deeply into his own heart, and had read man so accurately-his short sightedness, his scanty span, his pride, and his passions that he was, more than most men, superior to that little feeling which makes us quit the scholar's form. Many men speak of themselves and of all around them as in a state of pupilage and childhood, but I never approached a man, on whose mind this conviction had a more real and practical influence.

DISINTERESTEDNESS was a pre-eminent characteristic of Mr. Cecil as a Christian. His whole spirit and conduct spoke one language:-"Let me and mine be nothing, so that thy kingdom may come!" His disinterestedness was grounded on his conviction of the absolute nothingness of all earthly good, compared with the glory of Christ and the interests of his kingdom. In all pecuniary transactions, of a private or public nature, he was governed by this principle; and made a free and chearful sacrifice of what he might have lawfully obtained, if he thought his receiving it would impede his usefulness.

On one occasion of this nature, he explained the noble principle on which he acted:"A Christian is called to refrain from some things, which, though actually right, yet will not bear a VOL. I.

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