nature, than a motive to warm the heart, and to govern the temper. Hence the terms grace and faith, of which very confused, and often the most strange notions are entertained, are sometimes substituted for the sanctity of moral obligation. Grace is in reality a help to goodness, not an insensible something which supersedes its necessity; and christian faith is established, not by rapturous sensation, but by sober reason. Conversion is not miraculous, sudden or instantaneous; for it implies the correction of sinful habits, and the formation of pious principles, which both require time and energy, the first entirely to eradicate, and

the last completely to ingraft.

must spring from the united

Conversion, when real,

conviction of the mind,

and the persuasion of the heart, working a gradual change in the state of the affections, and in the habits of the conduct. In fine, conversion is no magic operation on the nerves, as it has sometimes been made, producing a violent and unusual thrill in the feelings. It consists more in the rectitude of ac tion, than in the turbulence of sensation. It is the relinquishment of wickedness both in heart and life, and turning to the love and practice of goodness. measures not therefore the will of God by the false

It

and varying standard of human feeling, but by what is laid down in the holy scriptures, as the grand test of the reality of religion in the soul. This test is, a sincere desire to know our duty to God, and our fellow creatures; and, as far as known, a conscientious endeavour to fulfil it.

4. It is true indeed that the passions or affections are not to be altogether excluded from any part of our love to God. Considered as a means of quickening and promoting the principle, they are certainly both necessary and desirable. But we see on the one hand that too much dependence is sometimes placed upon the mere feeling, whilst the influential principle of it is disregarded; and on the other hand we observe that the principle becomes sluggish and inactive, where the affections do not enliven and render it operative.

5. The author of our nature hath implanted both the feelings and judgment within us; the former to arouse the latter that it need not slumber, and the latter to correct and chasten the former, that directed

and controlled by reason, it need not degenerate into wild enthusiasm.

6. The passion of this love will appear in infinite variety, according to the variation in men's constitutional ardour; and persons possessed of the principle in equal degrees, may yet possess the passion in degrees that are quite unequal. This must be evident to the most superficial observer. As its sensations and its influence are not at all times alike powerful in the same person, so will they vary also in different characters. In some men they will be stronger, and in others weaker, in some they will be more ardent, and in others more faint, according to their different attainments in religion; according to education, to the ardency or coolness of their natural temperament; according to their bodily health or indisposition, and according as age or infirmities may have abated their constitutional vivacity. It would therefore be dangerous to prescribe exactly the same degree of sensations. in all, whilst these sensations differ so much, at different times, in the same person; because to do this, might discourage the timid, and yet embolden the presumptuous. Let the humble and distrustful mind, that loves God, but fears it knows him not, take encouragement from hence, and remember that the

B 2

scriptures declare, that by this we know we have the love of God, by keeping his commandments.

7. Good endeavours on the part of man seem to be the conditions on which spiritual help is promised in the new covenant of salvation. They appear introductory to its infusion, and the medium of its agency. They are associated with the free gift of grace, and grace increases their strength, and facilitates their execution. Wherever there is an earnest striving after moral righteousness, a thirst of the affections, and a labour of the will, to perform that law which is impressed on the conscience, and inscribed on the heart, as in the case of Cornelius, whose prayers and alms had gone up in memorial before God, his grace, or favour, is shed upon the soul.

8. Grace is not only a blessing on the actual exertions of man to do the will of God, but a power given him, to do it more effectually. When grace is thus used, it produces more grace; and the right and reasonable application of the increased and increasing portions of it, which the righteous receive, gradually promotes the growth, and matures the strength of those habits of holiness which lead to immortality.

9. If sensation were the only channel, through which the communications of grace were made to flow, and to which its experience were confined, then it would rather be a pleasure to be enjoyed, than a power to be exercised; it would rather be an appeal to our animal, than to our rational nature; rather an agreeable impulse on the flesh, than a purifying aspiration on the soul. But if moral goodness be the cov~ enanted condition to which grace belongs, not of right, but by the mercy of God, and if an increased desire of improving in righteousness, and an increased activity in doing the will of God, be the only true scriptural test of its possession, then grace must certainly be not so much an ecstacy to ravish, as a talent to employ. And it appears from various intimations in the scriptures, and from many analogies in the natural world, that grace must be used if we wish it to be increased, and that it will not be increased if it be not used.

10. The more we labour to do good, the greater aversion shall we feel to do evil. But he who labours to do good, ought always to remember with humility, that he will labour in vain without divine co-operation. He should work, but he should work without pride,