NATURE. We shall have, not only these external evidences of truth, which apply to our natural understanding, and which indeed stand upon such strong and invincible facts as may yield the most clear conviction to the mind; but also those internal proofs, which have entered into the experience of faithful men from age to age, and which, brought into the heart by similar experience to us, will give the most lively and irresistable demonstration, that God is faithful and just, and that he hath never called upon the children of men to believe a lie, or to hope in vain. Then, O Christian, these doctrines of Grace, and the heart-felt experience of their reality and power, wrought in thee by the Holy Comforter, who first led thee to Christ, and taught thee to build thy whole confidence upon his atonement and righteousness, will appear to be fixed upon a rock absolutely firm and impreg impregnable. Thou wilt also find the sweetest honey from this rock, and a reviving cordial indeed :-- A cordial, which shall gladden thy heart amidst all the pangs of death, and exhilarate thy spirit in the nearest prospect of the grave. This it hath done to numberless multitudes of thy brethren before thee :* And He is still faithful who hath promised. Then shall the vastness of eternity lose its former sad and tremendous gloom. * In addition to that practical and lively proof of these truths, related by Dr. DODDRIDGE in his life of Colonel GARDINER, the reader may find another, almost similar, in the memoir of Mr. William Howard, by that excellent and learned minister of Hull, the late Rev. Joseph Milner. In reading these indisputable testimonies, the serious Christian will rejoice to find, that "the Lord's hand is not shortened," but can save, as in the days of old, the most atrocious of sinners, in a way far above the reach of human means, and therefore conspicuously his own, from the worst and most deplorable extremities. The - The chearing beams of the Sun of Righteousness shall shine through its darkest recesses, shall dispel the clouds of sin and the blackness of sorrow, shall render the whole unbounded expanse beautiful, bright, and chearing, before thee. Surely, can this be less than the gracious work of an omnipotent hand, thus to create light and peace within the soul of a drooping sinner; thus to abolish death and hell before him; thus to present him, in all the tranquillity of faithful courage, without spot of sin unto salvation! And yet this our unerring and undeceiving God can, doubtless, perform for thee, for me, for millions yet unborn. He will indeed perform all that is right in this behalf; because he is engaged by his covenanted truth, by his own immutable oath, to do exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think, not to one only, but to every one that believeth; to every one, L who, who, renouncing all confidence in the flesh and abhorring all false ways, is enabled, simply and truly, to cast every interest of body and soul, of time and eternity, upon his faithfulness and promise, in sweet submission to his wise, and gracious, and sovereign, disposal. $76. THE SUM of the whole matter, both in doctrine and practice, appears to be this: That man, through the fault and corruption of his nature derived from his original parents, is inclined to nothing but evil, and for this evil nature and its evil fruits deserves God's wrath and damnation. That this infection of nature, called in Scripture flesh, leaven, corruption, has nothing in it but that lust, wisdom, sensuality, affection, or desire, which is contrary and not subject to the law of God. That he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith and and calling upon God; but must stand indebted for all this to the grace of God by Christ preventing (or going first before) him, that he may have a good will, and working with him, when he has it. That no man is accounted* righteous L 2 * These words, accounted righteous through the merit of Christ, are of the same import with the merit of Christ imputed; because they do not refer to a righteousness inherent in the subject, but to a gift bestowed upon it, and thus reckoned as its own. It stands upon equal ground with the transfer of sin to Christ; for, as the sins of God's people were imputed to Christ, and he took upon himself all the consequences of that imputation; in like manner, Christ's righteousness, which he paid to the law, is imputed to them, and they enjoy every benefit and blessing resulting from it, in their union with him. Thus he, as their High Priest and Forerunner, is for them entered into the Holiest of all, clothed in the white robes of his own unspotted righteousness; and they, in their several orders and times, follow him into the heavens, arrayed with the white raiment, |