APOLLOS:

OR,

DIRECTIONS TO PERSONS JUST COMMENCING A RELIGIOUS LIFE.

1. REMEMBER that the commencement of the Christian life is to be like the "dawning light, which increaseth more and more to the perfect day." Therefore, when the hope of peace and pardon dawns in the heart, do not consider the great business of life as accomplished, but only as begun.

2. Do not expect so sudden and remarkable a change, as to leave no doubt of its reality. Did religion enter the soul in perfection, and to the entire exclusion of sin, the change would be so marked and obvious as to leave no room for doubt. But, usually, the Christian character is full of contrarieties. There is a perpetual struggle between good and evil, and thus a continual competition of evidence for and against, according as the good or evil prevails.

3. Evidence of piety is not so much to be sought in high emotions of any kind, as in

real humility, self-distrust, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, sorrow for sin, and a continual effort, in every-day life, to regulate our thoughts, feelings and conduct by the word of God. It is the nature and not the degree of our affections which is to be regarded in the examination of our evidences. Some persons are so constituted, that they are not susceptible of very strong emotions, and ought not to expect them, in reference to religion, any more than other subjects that interest the mind. The best way to know our feelings is, to see how they influence the conduct. "By their fruit ye shall know them."

4. Do not expect to find in your own case, everything you have heard or read of in the experience of others. For, it may be, many things we hear and read of, are not correct feelings, and do not afford just grounds of confidence to any one; and if they are correct experience, it may be the experience of a mature Christian, and not to be expected in the beginning of a religious life. It must be remembered that as no two countenances are formed alike, so no two hearts are fashioned alike, or placed in exactly the same circumstances; and it would be as vain to seek all the varieties of Christian experience in one

person, as to seek all the varieties of human features in one face.

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5. Do not expect that the evidence desired will all come immediately and at once. must come progressively, as the result of continued effort in obedience to the will of God.

6. Do not suppose that religion is a principle of such self-preserving energy, as that when once implanted in the soul it will continue to thrive and increase without effort. The plant of divine grace can no more thrive without care, and diligent and patient cultivation, than can those rare and valued plants, that demand the physical efforts and culture of man.

God will not sustain and bring to maturity the work of grace, without your own voluntary concurrence in the diligent use of means. He will not do it any more than he would cause the harvest to whiten in the field of the sluggard. Indulge, therefore, no such ideas of inability and dependence on God, as shall impair a full sense of perfect obligation to do whatever can be done in working out your own salvation. God never assists any but those who make efforts to aid and advance themselves.

7. Entertain no such ideas of the sove

reignty of God in the bestowment of his grace, as would awaken any doubt of his affording needful aid, where he sees sincere endeavors to grow in grace. If some Christians are more eminent than others, it is simply because they make more efforts to be so, and God aids these efforts. So that all worldly-minded and indifferent Christians continue in this state, because they do not choose to make efforts to get out of it. Any person can be an eminent Christian that chooses to be so. Christians are too apt to feel as if eminence in piety was a distinction made by the sovereignty of God, and to suppose that high attainments are not within the reach of all, and that languid and inefficient piety is the result of divine sovereignty rather than negligence and sloth. A more false or more pernicious opinion cannot easily be adopted by Christians. The truth is, that the road to eminence in gifts and graces, and the means of obtaining them, are open to all who seek them, and if any do not obtain them, it is owing to their own sloth and inefficiency, and not to any deficiency on the part of God in blessing diligent efforts. It always pleases him to crown with success the hand of the diligent instead of the hand of the