"Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin." 5. Godly sorrow is indicated by its universality. It has respect to all manner of sin. The heart is regarded as the fountain, but all the streams which flow from it, are contemplated with grief and aversion. So little does the penitent perform, of the much which he feels himself bound to do, that his sins of omission bring him daily with penitent confession to the throne of grace; while the much which is said and done amiss, creates sometimes doubts concerning the reality of his piety, and always that grief and shame which an ingenuous mind cannot fail to feel in doing that which it does not allow. Where can he look with complacency? His heart is deceitful and wicked, his thoughts are often vain, his best motives mingled with alloy, his best deeds polluted. The prevalence of sin in others, does not divest it of its odiousness; the repetition of it in his own experience, does not reconcile him to the habit. Sin is a law warring against the law of his mind, and bringing him into a captivity which makes him wretched. 6. Another indication of godly sorrow is the constant resistance which is made to sin. The penitent does not say, 'I shall never be perfect; it is in vain therefore to resist evil. I must be saved by grace at last, and a few sins, more or less, will make but little difference in the account; I will therefore cease from the conflict.' The awakened sinner may find striving irksome, and cease from exertion, and the false professor of the religion of Jesus may acquiesce in captivity to sin; but the true penitent cannot be at peace with sin. The Spirit will strive against it. The law of his mind will war against it. His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God. Though foiled, he will not yield; though led into captivity, he does not take up his abode in the land of exile. He sighs, and weeps, and shakes his chains, and cries for help. 7. Godly sorrow is invariably productive of reformation. Though the heart may not seem to grow better, it does in fact escape gradually from the dominion of sin, and come under the dominion of holiness. This change though not perceptible at each moment of the transition, is perceptible by a comparison of the heart with itself, at distant intervals. Sin, as a general principle, does decline, and holiness gains strength; and in like manner will the evil and the gracious affections exhibit evidence at distant intervals, the one of decline and the other of augmented vigor. The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.' 'The kingdom of God is as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and it should spring up and grow; first the blade, then the ear, and after that the full corn in the ear.' The hatred of sin, the watchfulness and self denial and supplication for help, of the penitent, are not in vain. Jesus Christ gives him, progressively, the victory. While he leads him on from conflict to conflict, he leads him on from strength to strength. Though as enemies are enfeebled and fall, new ones unseen before, rise up and press on to the conflict; still, his way is marked with monuments of victory, so that he may humbly say of some sins and temptations to sin, the Egyptians which I have seen to day I shall see no more.' Especially, will godly sorrow be distinguished and evidenced by unequivocal reformation of life and conversation. some who are visited with periodical terrors and reformations, which they call seasons of repentance, from which they relapse into their wonted way; and although the relapse is long, and the reformation short, yet they cannot give up their hope. They know that they live not as they ought, but they never can sin without remorse, and this, with their temporary reformations, makes up their evidence of godly sorrow. But let all such persons of periodical amendment and habitua! There are transgression, assuredly know that their hope is vain. Their remorse and terror are but the commencement of that fear and distress and anguish, which will be the attendants of their way forever; and their reformation is nothing but the violent though effectual resistance, which their abused conscience makes to their hearts. He that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself; and godly sorrow is repentance so sincere and efficacious as needs not to be repented of, while it produces indignation with respect to past sins, carefulness and zeal in the resistance of existing temptation, and earnest desire to be delivered from sin in time to come. Finally, godly sorrow extinguishes selfrighteous hopes, and renders Jesus Christ preeminently precious. It prepares the subject to feel the necessity of his atonement, of his grace to purify the heart, and of his righteousness as the meritorious cause of justification through faith in him. What things were gain to him, he now counts loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord, that he may be found in him, not having on his own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of God by faith. Conscious in full view of sins within, and enemies without, that he can do nothing of himself, and can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth him. Some of those who read this discourse indulge the hope that they have experienced godly sorrow. If so, and we have done justice to the subject, you can set your seal to our testimony, that it is true. What then is the fact? Are you acquainted, experimentally, with the nature and evidences of godly sorrow? Is your sorrow occasioned by sin? Is it sorrow for having sinned against God? Does the ingratitude of sin add poignancy to your sorrow? What sins occasion the most annoyance and grief? Are they the sins of your heart? Do you feel and mourn over the relative deficiency of all good desires and affections? Do you perceive and are you affected by the prevalence of the depraved affections? Do selfishness and pride trouble you? Does your worldliness alarm you? Is your stupidity grievous, and your sloth endured as a body of death? Do you, the more you examine, and the longer you live, make increasing discoveries of the deceitfulness and wickedness of your heart? And yet do you discover in it something which is opposed to sin, and makes habitual resistance? And is this resistance so far effectual, as that from one period to another, there is a perceptible decline of some sinful passions or affections, and a perceptible vigor added, in some respects, to the graces of the Spirit ? And especially, is there a reformation prompt and unequivocal from every immorality? And still do you feel your unworthiness and helplessness, and does your need of Christ, as well as his excellencies, render him more and more precious? If, so far as you can determine your habit of thought, and course of experience, it is in coincidence with this outline, the scriptures justify the conclusion, that you have passed from death unto life, and shall not come into condemnation. But are you all able to come to this conclusion? Are none of you constrained to say, 'if such as we have read is the nature, and if such are the evidences of godly sorrow, we are strangers to it.' Then are ye aliens from the kingdom of God, and strangers from the covenants of promise, children of wrath because children of disobedience. Your rebellion against God is unquestionable, but of your repentance there is no memorial. Your obligations to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ are infinite, but they have, like the laws of God, been constantly violated. With the heart you have never obeyed, but have sinned only and constantly. God has regarded you with good will, but never with complacency. In view of your character, he is angry with you every day. The curses of the violated law, and of the despised gospel, in one deep and fiery stream of wrath, are rolling to sweep you away; and you cannot flee from, and you cannot resist, or when it shall come, endure the desolation. Now is your time to escape. God from heaven beholds your danger, and calls aloud to you to repent and es cape his displeasure. Repent therefore, that your sins may be blotted out, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent, knowing that except you repent you must perish, and that now for a long time your damnation slumbereth not. Miscellaneous. For the Christian Spectator. of two years, an affecting event led Unhappy instance of conformity to her to consider more attentively the world. [We are assured from the most respectable authority, that the following account is strictly true.] M. was a brilliant character. Her person was attractive, and her mind and heart were capable of receiving and retaining the most refined sentiments of polite education. She possessed the advantages and all the qualities necessary to find acceptance, and hold an important place in the society in which she moved. Pleasure and admiration attended wherever she went. At the age of twenty, her heart was impressed with the truths of religion, and she soon afforded clear and decisive evidence of a work of grace. She turned from lying vanities to the pursuit of heavenly wisdom, and, for a time, found great joy and peace in believing. Unhappily, however, she began to feel that the world was too good to lose. It held out flattering prospects, and worldly people wished for her society. She resolved to be a christian, but she also resolved not always to appear such. She would go with the world to the extent of what she deemed, christian liberty, but would be the more careful to maintain piety in the closet. We hardly need assert that the comfort of M. gradually declined. She wished to make a public profession of her faith, but she wished for better evidence of her piety, and wondered where was the blessedness of which she once spake. At the end Vol. 3.-No. IV. 24 her true situation, and she was humbled in the dust to perceive where she had been, and what she had been doing. She seemed to herself to have received the grace of God in vain, to have abused his mercy and grieved his Holy Spirit; but she determined again to return unto the Lord. With purpose of heart to new obedience, she confessed Christ before men, again found tranquillity, and walked as a child of the light and of the day. Her heart glowed with love, and she seemed to be taking up the cross and following Christ. She found ready acceptance with the pious, her powers found better, and higher employment, and she promised fairer attainments than others in a devout and holy life. But her besetting sin, though quieted, was not subdued. It became clamorous for indulgence, and she would yield a little and little, to induce its quietness. She became afraid of differing too widely in opinion, habits, and pursuits, from those with whom she associated. She would not go to the full extent of worldly pleasure, but she would show complacency in it. She was naturally cheerful, animated, intelligent, and she now contributed by her conversation a full share of pleasure and instruction in the social circle. She wished to maintain her influence, imagining that thereby she might win some to the cause of truth, not aware that instead of recommending her religion, she was only recommending herself; and that it was the absence of piety which gained her success. She was vainly striving to unite the irreconcilable interests of earth and heaven, not willing to lose the one, and determined to keep her hold upon the other; not considering that the world is the stronger party, and that the kind hearted reformer is more likely to become conformed to the world, than the world to be allured to embrace religion. We follow ed her through a series of experiments and trying conflicts, till her health began to decline, chiefly from the pressure of mental exertion, which her delicate frame could not sustain. Those who honour God, he will honour. We saw her fast declining, and greatly feared her sun would set in darkness. No one doubted her piety, but she had not suffered it to shine, and it continued clouded in her own mind. The solemn hour of death seemed doubly solemn. She feared to appear before her God, and she felt, at times, as much distress as she could possibly endure. She was awakened to see clearly that conformity to the world had been the bane of her peace, and had well nigh proved her ruin. She had intervals of light through the valley, which had else been of intolerable darkness, and we saw her, as we doubt not, sleep in Jesus, though barely sustained by the hope that her sins might be forgiven her. C. L. [From the Christian Instructor.] Anecdote of the late Rev. John New ton. Two or three years before the death of this eminent servant of Christ, when his sight was become so dim, that he was no longer able to read, an aged friend and brother in the ministry, now living, called on him to breakfast. Family prayer succeeding, the portion of scripture for the 66 day was read to him. It was taken out of Bogatsky's Golden Treasury: "By the grace of God, I am what I am." It was the pious man's custom on these occasions, to make a short familiar exposition of the passage read. After the reading of this text, he paused for some moments, and then uttered the following affecting soliloquy :-"I am not what I ought to be! Ah! how imperfect and deficient!-I am not what I wish to be! I'abhor what is evil,' and I would cleave to what is good!'-—I am not what I hope to be!-Soon, soon, I shall put off mortality: and with mortality all sin and imperfection! Yet, though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be, I can truly say, I am not what I once was-a slave to sin and Satan; and I can heartily join with the Apostle, and acknowl edge; By the grace of God, I am what I am! Let us pray!" CHURCH FELLOWSHIP. People of the living God! have sought the world around, Lonely I no longer roam, Tell me not of gain and loss, "Follow me!"-I know thy voice, Keview of New Publications. Review of Pamphlets on the Unitarian Controversy. (Concluded from page 149.) 2. Unitarians are chargeable with exalting reason above Revelation. The present controversy has seldom come before the public without more or less dispute respecting the legitimate use of reason in deciding the We have chief questions in debate. complaints on this subject from both Mr. C. and the Reviewer. The principles adopted by the class of Christians, in whose name I speak,need to be explained, because they are often misunderstood. We are particularly accused of making an unwarrantable use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture. We are said to exalt reason above revelation, to prefer Loose and unour own wisdom to God's, defined charges of this kind, are circulated so freely, and with such injurious intentions, that we think it due to ourselves, and to the cause of truth, to express our views with some particularity.—p. 5. Vid. also Rev. p. 382. Mr. C. proceeds to shew the necessity of employing reason in the interpretation of Scripture. With the general course of his remarks, Mr. S. fully agrees; nor do we suppose that the divines in New-England would hesitate to subscribe to the principles laid down by Mr. C. to the same exHad tent in which Mr. S. has done. Mr. C., had the Reviewer, faithfully adhered to that use of reason which the sermon prescribes, we should have found little cause for complaint. So far however is this from being the fact, so unequivocal are the proofs of an unwarrantable use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture furnished by these writers, and so much do the main questions in controversy depend on the true principles of interpretation, that we feel bound to notice this part of the subject. We do not consider it as a crime, but as an indispensable duty,to employ reason in the interpretation of the Scrip tures. We do not charge Mr. C. and the Reviewer with the right use of reason, and of thus coming to results inconsistent with the truths of the divine word. We do not charge them with rejecting on the authority of reason, what they believe to be the true import of the sacred volume. But we maintain that they exalt reason above revelation, by rejecting the true import of the divine declarations on the authority of reason, when its decisions, through perversion are erroneous, and when through incompetence they are unauthorized. The principles of interpretation by which the Trinitarian import of texts is rejected will be seen in the following extracts. Mr. C. says, These latter passages we do not hesitate to modify, and restrain and turn from the most obvious sense, because this sense is opposed to the known properties of the beings to whom they relate; and we maintain, that we adhere to the same principle, and use no greater latitude, in explaining, as we do, the passages which are thought to support the Godhead of Christ.-p. 23. When it is considered, that the term God is sometimes applied in the Scriptures to men and higher beings, who in authority or other circumstances resemble the supreme God, we shall see that we have authority for explaining the term with a degree of latitude in the text under consideration.-p. 48. The Reviewer has discussed still more extensively the subject of interpretation. He says, The state of the case then, as far as it regards the interpretation of these passages, we conceive to be this. Our opponents quote certain texts, and explain them in a meaning which, regarding only some particular expresions in these texts, goes to support their opinions. We explain the same texts in a very different meaning; and believe our sense to be the true one. The words, considered in them selves, will perhaps bear either meaning, that of our opponents, as well as our own, We will at least concede, for the sake of In what manner, then, are we to decide which argument, that this is the case. meaning is the true one? How are we to determine, whether the meaning in which |