from the dominion of fin. If he feels not this conviction, and cherishes not this defire; it cannot with truth be affirmed that he repents. If he labours under the conviction of guilt and the dread of punishment; yet is no farther folicitous to be livered from the dominion of fin than in proportion as he difcerns that penal confequences are the attendants of tranfgreffion: fin is not hated for its own fake, is not abhorred as odious to God: there is no love of holiness in the heart, no fcriptural repentance. If he entertains a feeble and unmeaning defire to be preserved from the power of fin for the future; yet admits not a deep impreffion of his actual guilt; feels no acute compunctions, no ferious uneafinefs, in the recollection of the years during which he has lived without God in the world: he is in his own eftimation whole, and has not perceived his need of a phyfician; he is in his own eyes righteous, and has not regarded the call of Chrift to repentance. Unlefs both the conviction and the defire are riveted in his bosom; he repenteth not. The Scripture, which denounces vengeance against all who are impenitent, gives him not a title to take comfort. Its promifes presuppose

true repentance.

As yet therefore they belong not to him. Is he anxious for confolation? Let him hear the voice of the Apostle: Repent, and be converted, that thy fins may be blotted out. Then may he fubmiffively hope with filial faith, that even in the exifting fcene of trial the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

But if by the refult of his enquiry he is authorised humbly to confide that the conviction and the defire, not irrationally and unfcripturally feparated, but co-existing in fober and cordial union, decidedly characterise the habitual frame of his foul: he is, in other words, authorised to confide that God has bestowed upon him the gift of repentance; and is warranted in applying to himself the fcriptural promises made to the penitent. He falls under our Saviour's defcription of thofe that mourn; and may therefore truft in the hope of being comforted. He labours and is heavy laden: and may therefore be affured that Chrift is ready to give him reft. His heart is broken and contrite: he may therefore rely that it is a heart which Thou, O God, wilt not defpife. His is the godly forrow that worketh repentance: therefore may

he

he be affured that, if he continues the fervant of Jefus, it will terminate in fal

vation.

III. Unequivocally and repeatedly and prominently as these truths ftand forth in the word of God; many an individual under the overwhelming influence of dejection is deterred, and deterred in different cafes by different views, from profiting by their confoling import.

Sometimes the defponder argues thus: "God is a God of mercy:

mercy: but mercy has "its limits. Inferior offenders may be "bleffed with forgiveness: but how can I "prefume to nourish hope? So many are "the years during which I have lived not "unto Chrift but unto myfelf; to fenfu

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ality, or to pride, or to vanity, or to "covetoufness, or to diffipation, or to fome "other flagrant fin; warm as to worldly

objects, dead to religion; maintaining a form, it may be, of godlinefs, but deny

ing the power thereof: fo ample have "been the offers, fo abundant the opportu"nities, of religious inftruction and edifi"cation which I have flighted and abufed; "fo loud the warnings of Providence to "which I have refused to liften; fo fignal "and

VOL. II.

A a

"and special the mercies which my hard"ened heart has withstood: fo long have "I finned, and with fuch aggravations, "that even by a moft merciful God I am

juftly abandoned to defpair." Abandoned to defpair! Does not the voice of God proclaim in the Scriptures that upon true repentance all fins fhall be forgiven unto the fons of men; that the blood of Chrift cleanf eth from all fin; that though your fins be as fcarlet, they fhall become white as Snow? Have you not heard, do you not believe, the universal invitation, the unlimited promife, of your Saviour: Come unto me, all who labour and are heavy laden; and I will give you reft.-Him that cometh unto me, whoever he may be, whatever he may have been; I will in no wife caft out? Is not the parable of the prodigal fon a practical illuftration and establishment of these truths?

But, alas!" another fufferer replies, "the very first words which you cited as proclaimed by the voice of God are con"nected by the fame voice with others "which feal my deftruction. All fins fhall be forgiven unto the fons of men, and blafphemies wherewithfoever they shall blafpheme. But is there not an exception fub"joined?

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joined? He that shall blafpheme against "the Holy Ghoft bath never forgiveness. "Behold the fin, the unpardonable fin, "with the commiffion of which my terri"fied confcience charges me. I know that on the nature of this fin confiderable ob

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fcurity refts. I know that by fome interpreters the guilt is reftrained to the "crime of thofe felf-convicted oppofers, "who afcribed to the power of Satan the "miracles of the Son of God. I know that

you

by others it is fcarcely extended beyond "that obdurate malignity, which defied "the extraordinary wonders wrought "through the effufion of the Holy Ghost "in the days of the Apoftles. But do "not admit that the fin may be perpetrated "in modern times? And if it has been perpetrated by me; is not my despondence judicial, incurable, the prelude of "damnation ?" That the fin may be perpetrated in modern times fhall not be denied. That it has not been perpetrated by you is an indifputable truth. Together with deep and abiding conviction of guilt do not you also cherish a rooted and earnest defire to be delivered through the Lord Jefus Chrift from the dominion no lefs than from the punishment of fin? Then A a 2

have