of light and purity, if we relapse into vice, we cease to be the objects of his regard.

5. But why this mass of various arguments, to show the absurdity of the sinner, who excuses himself on the ground of weakness, and indolently awaits the operations of grace? We have a shorter way to confound and resolve the sophism, adduced by his depravity. Let us open the sacred books; let us see what conclusions the Scriptures draw from the doctrine of human weakness, and the promised aids of grace. If these consequences coincide with yours, we give up the cause: but, if they clash, you ought to perceive your error. Show us a single passage in which the Scriptures, having asserted the weakness of men, and the aids of the Holy Spirit, conclude from these maxims, that you ought to continue in indolence. Is it not evident, on the contrary, that they draw conclusions directły opposite? Among many passages, I will select two: the one is a caution of Jesus Christ, the other an argument of St. Paul. Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation; for the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. Mark xiii. 33. This is the caution of Christ. Work out your salvation with fear and trembling: for it is God that worketh in you to will and to do. Phil. ii. 12, 13. This is the argument of St. Paul. Had we advanced a sophism, when, after having established the frailty of human nature, and the necessity of grace, we founded, on those very doctrines, the motives which ought to induce you to diligence, and prompt you to vigilance; it was a sophism, for which the Scriptures are responsible. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak: here is the principle of Jesus Christ. God worketh in you to will and to do: here is the principle of St. Paul. Work out your salva tion: here is the consequence. Are you, therefore actuated by a spirit of orthodoxy and truth, when you exclaim against our sermons? Are you

then more orthodox than the Holy Ghost, or more correct than eternal truth? Or rather, whence is it that you, being orthodox in the first member of the proposition of our authors, become heretics in the second? Why orthodox in the principle, and heretics in the consequence?

Collect now, my brethren, the whole of these five arguments; open your eyes to the light, communicated from all points, in order to correct your prejudice; and see how superficial is the man who draws from human weakness, and the aids of the Spirit, motives to defer his conversion. The Holy Spirit works within us, it is true; but he works in concurrence with the word and the ministry, in sending you pastors, in accompanying their word with wisdom, their exhortations with unction, their weakness with power: and you, you who have never read this word, who have absented yourselves from this ministry, who have not wished to hear these discourses, who pay no deference to these cautions, nor submission to this power, would you have the Holy Spirit to convert you by means unknown, and beyond the limits of his operations? The Holy Spirit works within us, it is true; but he requires that we seek and ask those aids, making efforts, imperfect efforts, to sanctify ourselves: and would you wish him to convert you, while you neglect to seek, while you disdain to ask to say the least, while you give up yourselves to inaction and supineness? The Holy Spirit works within us, it is true; but he requires that we act in concert with his grace, that we second his operations, and yield to his entreaties; and would you wish him to convert you, while you harden yourselves against his voice, while you never cease from grieving him? The Holy Spirit works within us, it is true; but he declares that if we obstinately resist, he will leave us to ourselves; he will refuse the aids he has offer

ed in vain; he will abandon us to our natural stupi dity and corruption: and you, already come to the crisis of vengeance, to the epoch for accomplishing his wrath, to the termination of a criminal career, can you presume that this Spirit will adopt for you a new economy, and work a miracle in your favour? The Holy Spirit works within us, it is true; but thence it is concluded in our Scriptures, that we ought to work, that we ought to labour, that we ought to ap ply to the concerns of salvation our strength of body, our facility of conception, our retention of memory, our presence of mind, our vivacity of genius: and you who devote this mind, this genius, this memory, this conception, this health, wholly to the world, do you derive from these very sermons sanction for an indolence and a delay, which the very idea of those talents ought to correct? If this be not wresting the Scriptures, if this be not offering violence to religion, and subverting the design of the Spirit in the discovery of our natural weakness, and the promised aids of grace, we must be proof against the most palpable demonstration.

Enough, I think, has been said, to establish our first proposition, that the aids of God's Spirit are founded on the necessity of discharging the offices of piety, in order to acquire the habit: and that the difficulties adduced, are all converted into proofs, in favour of what they seemed to destroy. Thus also, according to us, pure divinity, and sacred truth, ought to resound in our Protestant auditories. Happy, indeed, were the doctors, if, instead of multiplying questions and disputations, they had endeavour ed to press these important truths. O, my soul, lose not thyself in abstract and knotty speculations; fathom not the mysterious means, which God adopts to penetrate the heart. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it go.

eth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. John iii. 8. Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. Prov. xvi. 18. Before destruction the heart of man is haughty, and before honour is humility. xviii. 12. Content thyself with adoring the goodness of God, who promises thee assistance, and deigns to surmount, by grace, the corruptions of nature. But, while thou groanest under the sense of thy corruption, endeavour to surmount and vanquish thyself; draw from God's promises, motives for thy own sanctification and instruction; and even when thou sayest, I am nothing, I can do nothing, act as though the whole depended on thyself, and as though thou wouldst " do all things."

II. The notion of the aids of the Holy Spirit, was the first source of illusion we have had to attack. The notion of the mercy of God is a second, on which we shall also proceed to reflect. "God is merciful," say they; "the covenant he has established with man, is a covenant of grace: we are not come to the darkness, to the devouring fire, and the tempest. A general amnesty is granted to every sinner. Hence, though our conversion be defective, God will receive our dying breath, and yield to our tears. What, then, should deter us from giving free scope to our passions, and deferring the rigorous duties of conversion, till we are nothing worth for the world?"

Strange argument! Detestable sophism,, my brethren! Here is the highest stage of corruption, the supreme degree of ingratitude. What do I say? For, though a man be ungrateful, he discovers sensibility and acknowledgment, for the moment at least, on the reception of a favour. Forgetfulness and ingratitude are occasioned by other objects, which time and the world have presented to the mind, and which have obliterated the recollection,

of past favours. But behold, in the argument of the sinner, an expectation of a novel kind; he acquires the unhappy art of embracing, in the bosom of his ingratitude, the present and the future; the favours already received, and those which are yet to come. "I will be ungrateful before hand. I will from this instant, forget the favours I have not as yet received. In each of my acts of vice, I will recollect and anticipate the favours which God shall one day give; and I will derive, from this consideration, a fresh motive to confirm myself in revolt, and to sin with the greater assurance." Is not this the extreme of corruption, and ingratitude the most detestable ?.

But it is not sufficient to attack this system by arguments of equity and decency; this would be making of man a portrait too flattering, by inducing him to believe that he is sensible of such noble motives. This would affect the wicked little more than saying, you are very ungrateful if you persist in vice. The author of our religion knew the hu man heart too well, to leave it unopposed by the strongest banks. Let us extend the hypothesis, and demonstrate, that those who reason thus build upon false principles; relying on mercy, to which they have no possible claim. Hence to find a compassionate God, they must seek him while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near.

Here a scholastic method, and a series of questions discussed in the schools, would perhaps be acceptable, did we address an auditory of learned doctors, ready to oppose us with their arguments and proofs. But we will not disturb the repose of these disputes and controversies; we will reduce all we have to advance to terms the most plain, and ques. tions the most simple, and ask two things-Is the mercy of God offered you in the Gospel, offered absolutely without conditions? And if it have prescribed conditions, are they of a nature, to which