blood; and which operating by love to him, procures us an unmerited pardon, for his sake.* He who has obtained this grace, though he may live many years as a child of God, always remembers it is an unmerited grace he has received.

Disciple. As for me, I know how to apply to myself the promises of the Gospel, and the grace of God.

Pastor. If you have made that application with so much ease, without prayers, tears and groans, your assurance appears to me to be very suspicious: I fear, as I said before, it is the mere work of your own imagination. I must inform you that no one can, in his own strength, believe in the Lord Jesus, or draw nigh unto him: " No man can come to me," said he, "except the Father draw him," John vi. Without this gracious attraction, and the conviction of his misery, under the malediction of the law, man remains cold and insensible; or at most, makes

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* It is plain the Author does not treat of faith, here, as being the meritorious cause of pardon, which is the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus, to the utter exclusion of every thing besides. He speaks of it as a grace of the Holy Spirit, and the operative means by which the soul is made partaker of the pardon, already merited and obtained for sinners, and which is styled by the Apostle, Faith which worketh by love," Gal. v. 6.

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but ineffectual efforts; and certainly is, as yet, no partaker of the grace of God. It is for this reason St. Paul says, Sin, that it might appear sin, working death in me, by that which is good, that sin, by the commandment, might become exceeding sinful," Rom. vii. 13. Besides, if you have not in you the same mind that was in Christ Jesus, and you are not seen following his steps in humility, love, meekness, and contempt of the world, it is a sign that your pretended state of grace is a mere illusion. You are one of those of whom the Saviour says, they "Receive the word with gladness, and have no root in themselves," Mark iv. 16, 17.

Disciple.-I cannot believe that I am in such a bad condition; I pray, I study to act properly, and knowing what it is to live as a Christian, I exhort others to do so, and rebuke them when they do wrong.

Pastor. It appears that you entertain a good opinion of yourself; but you do not see that, in the eyes of the Lord, you are "Miserable and poor and blind and naked," Rev. iii. 17. Have you ever, in the course of your life, discovered with grief the total depravity of the heart of man ; his blindness, impotency; the depth of unbelief, ingratitude, insensibility and coldness he naturally has towards his God, towards that good and com

passionate Saviour who has purchased the salvation of a lost and wicked world at the price of his blood and life? Can you recollect the day, the moment, when as a poor leper you threw yourself at the feet of this Jesus, to implore life and the cure of your soul? Have you, indeed, experienced how efficacious his blood is to cleanse the heart, to blot out sin, to extinguish the impure flame of the passions, and to communicate a new life to the soul? If this language appear strange to you, or rather, if you have never felt its reality, I can consider you only as a man who knows not the Saviour, and consequently distant from salvation : for, you must know, that no one remains at a distance from the Saviour, but he who is ignorant of his misery. "Those who need the physician," who implore his help, and confide in him, are they that are sick," Luke v. 31. He came to heal the sick, the blind, the leprous, the unclean, the sinful; that is, the wicked and ungodly, so that there are none but those who regard themselves as outcasts and lost that come and prostrate themselves before him, Isaiah xxvii. 13. The Church of Jesus Christ, his kingdom of grace upon earth, resembles closely that of David;

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and every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented, gathered themselves to him, and he

became Captain over them," 1 Sam. xxii. 2. This consciousness of our misery, which leads us to Jesus, is the only thing necessary; but it is usually wanting in those who, from their youth, think they have " kept all the commandments," Mark x.

20, 21.

Disciple-I have, nevertheless, a good heart; it is to be wished that many others resembled me, and that there was no one more wicked than myself.

Pastor. Your language is that of the greater part of natural men, and even of the avowed ungodly; at the time that they make no scruple to curse, swear, lie, deceive and practise all kinds of wickedness, they flatter themselves that they have a good heart. It is, by far, the saddest and most dangerous state they can be in. On the contrary, the soul that the Saviour has visited by the light of his grace, immediately perceives how defiled, poor, and unworthy it is. A man that knows his own heart, thinks no one so bad as himself; and the moment wherein he discovers his miserable condition, is precisely that in which it begins to amend, for he directly seeks a remedy for his miseries. The less a person is willing to be convinced of his corruption, the less he is able to get rid of it; whilst the more he is enlightened by the Holy Spirit, and draws nigh to the Saviour, the

more also he discovers fresh spots, which he seeks to be cleansed from in the blood of the Lamb and it is thus he is renewed, day by day, in the image of the Son of God. A pure heart is not one that is exempt from spots, but one which, perceiving them, hastens to Jesus, who blots out the offence. An impure heart, on the contrary, is that which presumes itself to be clean, when it is defiled. Solomon says, "There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet is not washed from their filthiness," Prov. xxx. 12. O! how great and deplorable is the blindness of men, and how many there be that resist the light of truth, the admonitions of their consciences, and the convictions of the Holy Spirit, to create for themselves a pleasing, but fatal illusion! "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," 1 John i. 8.

Disciple.-I can, however, say that I am different, at present, from what I formerly was.

Pastor. What do you mean by that? Is it because your conduct is a little more decent than heretofore, that you do not swear or rob, and that you have reformed your outward behaviour? This change is praiseworthy, indeed, in the eyes of men; but you will experience a much greater alteration if ever you come to know your own heart thoroughly, and seriously flee to Jesus, by