yourself to believe one point in the Gospel, at first. Suppose that point had been the promise, that "whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved;" or the assurance, that "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." Either of these great truths is quite sufficient to give any sinner a good hope through grace; or, at least, to create hope enough to keep him praying: and that (every Christian will tell you) is the best kind and degree of hope, eventually. Now, do you not see how your faith, if it had confined itself at first to the willingness of God and the power of Christ to save you, might have soon become strong faith? Consider the willingness of God, and the ability of the Lamb, are not doubtful nor dark truths. If any thing be clear or sure, they are unquestionable and resplendent facts. Their strong evidence is calculated to produce strong faith. They win the confidence they ask for, when they are duly weighed. Well; this is the GOSPEL! This is just what a sinner should believe, when seeking mercy through the blood of Atonement. His language should be, "God is willing, and Christ is able, to save even me." Why then should not you go back to this point, if, after all your efforts to get higher, you are still in doubt as to the reality of your faith? Why not try for a time what you can make of believing these two truths? Until you have strong faith in them, your faith in every other part of the Gospel must remain very weak. Do you What is it but weak here also ? not believe that God is willing to save you? Do you really doubt the ability of Christ to deliver you from the wrath to come? If soyou must be very unhappy whenever you think of your own case. I would not, for worlds, doubt either truth. My heart would break, or my reason expire, if I suspected that God was unwilling or Christ unable to save me. But, as they have not said so, I do not suspect the willingness of the Father, nor the power of the Son. Why should 214 VARIETIES, FROM MISTRUST. I suspect either, when neither forbid me to hope ? Nothing short of a prohibition to hope, could warrant despair: and as there are express commands, as well as beseeching invitations, to hope in Christ, despair and despondency must be as criminal as they are unwise. No. VI. VARIETIES, FROM MODESTY. IT is both gratifying and encouraging to be able to trace in our own character and spirit, any real resemblance to those who are truly pious. Any likeness we bear to "the excellent of the earth," helps us to hope that we are not altogether strangers to the grace which made them so excellent. We see and deplore the sad difference there is between them and ourselves, and sometimes feel discouraged as well as reproved by it, because we can hardly see how we can ever come up to their standard but still, we cling to the fond hope, that we have something of their spirit, or a spark of the same grace. We cherish this hope the more freely, because our conscience bears us witness, that we really desire to be more like the Christians we admire most, and would be very glad to get over that in which we chiefly differ from them. Another thing very encouraging, is, that we can trace some resemblance between their early experience and our own. Few things, perhaps, please or surprise us more than the discovery, that some of the loveliest and most happy Christians had to struggle hard, at first, with many of the same doubts, fears, and temptations which now harass us. This, we did not expect to find in the experience of the very holy and happy. We imagined that, from the first, their conversion must have been so complete, as to place them above all such conflicts between the flesh and the spirit. We took for granted, that they had never found it difficult to believe, or to hope, or to pray. This difficulty we thought peculiar to ourselves. And, as to treachery of heart, weakness of purpose, changeableness of feeling, and floods of vain and unholy thoughts, we were almost sure that no re 1 Christian had ever felt as |