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fer, upon all occasions, his will to our own, and to sacrifice our bosom sins, our darling vices, upon the altar of Christianity; then commences the struggle: the inbred venom of our nature immediately shows i'self; our very spirit rises both against the law and the lawgiver; and we discover the utter impossibility of working any change in our affections merely by our own efforts. No human arguments can persuade a man to love what he hates, and to delight in what he detests. Submission they may perhaps teach him; but it will be the sullen submission of a slave, not the cheerful acquiescence of a son. To produce this change is the peculiar office of the Holy Spirit; and, since none but he can produce it, his ordinary influence is absolutely and universally necessary at present,

and will be equally so even to the very end of the world.

In the following pages, I have endeavoured to state what appears to me the plain doctrine of Scripture and the Church of England. Though we are repeatedly assured by the word of God, that of ourselves we can do no good thing; yet we are never represented as mere machines, subjected to an overwhelming and irresistible influence. The aid of the Holy Spirit is freely offered unto all; nor does that blessed Person cease to strive even with the most profligate, till they have obstinately rejected the counsel of God against themselves. The still small voice of conscience, which is in effect the voice of God, long eontinues to admonish them; and the ex

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treme difficulty, which they find in silencing it, sufficiently shows how unwilling the Almighty is that any should perish. All, that will, may be saved; for our Lord hath expressly declared, that, whosoever cometh unto him, he will in no wise cast him out. Let none therefore despair on the ground of their being rejected by a tremendous and irreversible decree of exclusion for surely, if such a decree existed, God's repeated expostulations with sinners for slighting his gracious offers, when at the same time they lay under a fatal necessity of slighting them, would be a solemn mockery, unworthy of a being of infinite mercy and holiness.

In fact, the general experience of mankind perfectly agrees with scripture. There never yet was a good man who did

not find that he both required and received divine assistance to enable him to overcome his corruptions; and there never yet was a bad man, who did not perceive somewhat within him forcibly restraining him from the commission of sin, and warmly urging him to the practice of holiness. Half of the follies and vanities of the world are mere contrivances to silence this troublesome monitor. Men love darkness rather than light, simply because their deeds are evil.

May 21, 1800.

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