ness to himself, he finds it easy to forgive others, if he has aught against any. A due sense of what he is in the sight of the Lord, preserves him from giving way to anger, positiveness, and resentment: he is not easily provoked, but is swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; and if offended, easy to be entreated, and disposed, not only to yield to a reconciliation, but to seek it. As Jesus is his life, and righteousness, and strength, so he is his pattern. By faith he contemplates and studies this great exemplar of philanthropy. With a holy ambition he treads in the footsteps of his Lord and Master, and learns of him to be meek and lowly, to requite injuries with kindness, and to overcome evil with good. From the same views, by faith, he derives a benevolent spirit, and, according to his sphere and ability, he endeavours to promote the welfare of all around him. The law of love being thus written in his heart, and his soul set at liberty from the low and narrow dictates of a selfish spirit, his language will be truth, and his dealings equity. His promise may be depended on without the interposition of oath, bond, or witness; and the feelings of his own heart, under the direction of an enlightened conscience, and the precepts of Scripture, prompt him to do unto others as he would desire they, in the like circumstances, should do unto him.' If he is a master, he is gentle and compassionate; if a servant, he is faithful and obedient; for in either relation he acts by faith, under the eye of his Master in heaven. If he is a trader, he neither dares nor wishes to take advantage either of the ignorance or the necessities of those with whom he deals. And the same principle of love influences his whole conversation. A sense of his own infirmities makes him candid to those of others; he will not readily believe reports to their prejudice, without sufficient proof; and even then he will not repeat them unless he is lawfully called to it. He believes that the precept, Speak evil of no man,' is founded upon the same authority with those which forbid committing adultery or murder; and therefore he keeps his tongue as with a bridle.'

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Lastly, Faith is of daily use as a preservative from a compliance with the ccrrupt customs and maxims of the world. The believer, though IN the world, is not or it: by faith he triumphs over its smiles and enticements; he sees that all that is in the world, suited to gratify the desires of the flesh or the eye, is not only to be avoided as sinful, but as incompatible with his best pleasures. He will mix with the world so far as is necessary, in the discharge of the duties of that station of life in which the providence of God has placed him, but no further. His leisure and inclinations are engaged in a different pursuit. They who fear the Lord are his chosen companions; and the blessings he VOL. I.

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derives from the word, and throne, and ordinances of grace, make him look upon the poor pleasures and amusements of those who live without God in the world with a mixture of disdain and pity; and, by faith, he is proof against its frowns. He will obey God rather than man; he will have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but will rather reprove them.' And if, upon this account, he should be despised and injuriously treated, whatever loss he suffer in such a cause he accounts his gain, and esteems such disgrace his glory.

I am not aiming to draw a perfect character, but to show the proper effects of that faith which justifies, which purifies the heart, worketh by love, and overcomes the world. An habitual endeavour to possess such a frame of spirit, and thus to adorn the Gospel of Christ, and that with growing success, is what I am persuaded you are not a stranger to; and I am afraid that they who can content themselves with aiming at any thing short of this in their profession, are too much strangers to themselves, and to the nature of that liberty wherewith Jesus has promised to make his people free. That you may go on from strength to strength, increasing in the light and image of our Lord and Saviour, is the sincere prayer of, &c.

LETTER VII.

On the Propriety of a Ministerial Address to the Unconverted.

SIR,

In a late conversation, you desired my thoughts concerning a scriptural and consistent manner of addressing the consciences of unawakened sinners in the course of your ministry. It is a point on which many eminent ministers have been, and are not a little divided; and it therefore becomes me to propose my sentiments with modesty and caution, so far as I am constrained to differ from any from whom, in general, I would be glad to learn.

Some think that it is sufficient to preach the great truths of the word of God in their hearing; to set forth the atterly ruined and helpless state of fallen man by nature, and the appointed method of salvation by grace, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; and then to leave the application entirely to the agency of the Holy Spirit, who alone can enlighten the dark understandings of sinners, and enable them to receive, in a due manner, the doctrines either of the law or the Gospel. And they apprehend that all exhortations, arguments, and motives, addressed to those who

are supposed to be still under the influence of the carnal mind, are inconsistent with the principles of free grace, and the acknowledged inability of such persons to perform any spiritual acts; and that therefore the preachers who, avowing the doctrines of free grace, do, notwithstanding, plead and expostulate with sinners, usually contradict themselves, and retract in their application what they had laboured to establish in the course of their sermons.

There are others who, though they would be extremely unwilling to derogate from the free grace and sovereign power of God in the great work of conversion, or in the least degree to encourage the mistaken notion which every unconverted person has of his own power, yet think it their duty to deal with sinners as rational men and moral agents: and, as such, besides declaring the counsel of God in a doctrinal way, to warn them by the terrors of the Lord, and to beseech them by his tender mercies, that they receive not the grace of God, in a preached Gospel, in vain.Nor can it be denied, but that some of them, when deeply affected with the worth of souls, and the awful importance of eternal things, have sometimes, in the warmth of their hearts, dropped unguarded expressions, and such as have been justly liable to exception.

If we were to decide to which of these different methods of preaching the preference is due, by the discernible effects of each, it will perhaps appear, in fact, without making any invidious comparisons, that those ministers whom the Lord has honoured with the greatest success in awakening and converting sinners, have generally been led to adopt the more popular way of exhortation and address; while they who have been studiously careful to avoid any direct application to sinners, as unnecessary and improper, if they have not been altogether without seals to their ministry, yet their labours have been more owned in building up those who have already received the knowledge of the truth, than in adding to their number. Now, as he that winneth souls is wise,' and as every faithful labourer has a warm desire of being instrumental in raising the dead in sin to a life of righteousness, this seems at least a presumptive argument in favour of those, who, besides stating the doctrines of the Gospel, endeavour, by earnest persuasions and expostulations, to impress them upon the hearts of their hearers, and entreat and warn them to consider, 'how they shall escape if they neglect so great salvation.' For it is not easy to conceive, that the Lord should most signally bear testimony in favour of that mode of preaching which is least consistent with the truth, and with itself.

But not to insist on this, nor to rest the cause on the authority or examples of men, the best of whom are imperfect and fallible, let us consult the Scriptures, which, as they furnish us with the whole subject matter of our ministry, so they afford us perfect precepts and patterns for its due and orderly dispensation.. With respect to the subject of our inquiry, the examples of our Lord Christ, and of his authorized ministers, the apostles, are both our rule and our warrant. The Lord Jesus was the great preacher of free grace, who spake as never man spake;' and his ministry, while it provided relief for the weary and heavy laden, was eminently designed to stain the pride of all human glory. He knew what was in man, and declared, that none could come unto him, unless drawn and taught of God;' John vi. 44

And yet he often speaks to sinners in terms which, if they were not known to be his, might, perhaps, be censured as inconsistent and illegal; John vi. 27. Luke xiii. 24-27. John xii. 35. It appears, both from the context and the tenor of these passages, that they were immediately spoken, not to his disciples, but to the multitude. The apostles copied from their Lord; they taught that we have no sufficiency of ourselves, even to think a good thought, and that it is not of him that willeth, or of him that runneth, but of God who showeth mercy; yet they plainly called upon sinners (and that before they had given evident signs that they were pricked to the heart, as Acts iii. 31) 'to repent, and to turn from their vanities to the living God;' Acts iii. 19, and xiv. 15, and xvii. 30. Peter's advice to Simon Magus is very full and express to this point; for though he perceived him to be in the very gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity,' he exhorted him to repent, and to pray, if perhaps the thought of his heart might be forgiven.' It may be presumed, that we cannot have stronger evidence that any of our hearers are in a carnal and unconverted state, than Peter had in the case of Simon Magus; and therefore there seems no sufficient reason why we should hesitate to follow the apostle's example.

You have been told that repentance and faith are spiritual acts, for the performance of which a principle of spiritual life is absolutely necessary; and that, therefore, to exhort an unregenerate sinner to repent or believe, must be as vain and fruitless as to call a dead person out of his grave. To this it may be answered, That we might cheerfully and confidently undertake even to call the dead out of their graves, if we had the command and promise of God to warrant the attempt; for then we might expect his power would accompany our word. The vision of Ezekiel, chap. xxxvii, may be fitly accommodated to illustrate both the difficulties and the encouragement of a Gospel minister. The deplora

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ble state of many of our hearers may often remind us of the Lord's question to the prophet, Can these dry bones live?' Our resource, like that of the prophet, is entirely in the sovereignty, grace, and power of the Lord: O Lord, thou knowest; impossible as it is to us, it is easy for thee to raise them unto life; therefore, we renounce our own reasonings; and though we see that they are dead, we call upon them at thy bidding, as if they were alive, and say, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! The means is our part, the work is thine, and to thee be all the praise.' The dry bones could not hear the prophet; but while he spoke the Lord caused breath to enter into them, and they lived, but the word was spoken to them considered as dry and dead.

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It is true, the Lord can, and I hope he often does, make that preaching effectual to the conversion of sinners, wherein little is said expressly to them, only the truths of the Gospel are declared in their hearing; but he who knows the frame of the human heart has provided us with a variety of topics which have a moral suitableness to engage the faculties, affections, and consciences of sinners, so far at least as to leave themselves condemned if they persist in their sins, and by which he often effects the purposes of his grace; though none of the means of grace by which he ordinarily works, can produce a real change in the heart, unless they are accompanied with the efficacious power of his Spirit. Should we admit, that an unconverted person is not a proper ject of ministerial exhortation, because he has no power in himself to comply, the just consequences of this position would perhaps extend too far, even to prove the impropriety of all exhortation universally for when we invite the weary and heavy laden to come to Jesus, that they may find rest; when we call upon backsliders to remember from whence they are fallen, to repent, and to do their first works; yea, when we exhort believers to walk worthy of God, who has called them to his kingdom and glory;' in each of these cases we press them to acts for which they have no inherent power of their own and unless the Lord, the Spirit, is pleased to apply the word to their hearts, we do but speak into the air; and our endeavours can have no more effect, in these instances, than if we were to say to a dead body, 'Arise and walk.' For an exertion of divine power is no less necessary to the healing of a wounded conscience, than to the breaking of a hard heart; and only he who has beguu the good work of grace, is able either to revive or maintain it.

Though sinners are destitute of spiritual life, they are not therefore, mere machines. They have a power to do many things, which they may be called upon to exert. They are ca