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great facility? Does it diminish the value of health, of liberty, of learning, or of fortune; that they have been acquired with little fatigue and trouble, with little suffering and solicitude? And can it lower the riches of redeeming mercy or the worth of eternal glory, that these immense and inestimable blessings have been gained with too great readiness and ease?

Salvation is the gift of grace. Could you wait in trembling anxiety and painful expectation till the blast of the last trumpet; if even then you would receive it, you must receive it as a free gift. As such it is proposed to you now. The God of truth this day declares, Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely. Amidst the convulsions and the crash of a dissolving universe, Omnipotence cannot render the gift of salvation more gratuitous than it is at this passing moment.

If therefore you desire to be saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation, take encouragement and come to him instantly. Wait for no additional preparation.

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It is a blessed thing to be humble and broken-hearted : but it is unspeakably dangerous to rely on our humility and contrition. Take care lest, by rejecting the free and gracious offers of the gospel, on the ground that you are not sufficiently affected with a sense of your sins; you make an idol of your convictions and sorrows, and either place them beside the righteousness of Christ, or substitute them in its room. The heart is deceitful, and ever ready to introduce some ground of self-dependence. Many long for greater humiliation, not to make them more sensible of their need of Christ, but to entitle them to his favour, and to render them less indebted to his mercy. Maintain a vigilant watch against this alluring, but ruinous delusion. For if you neglect the Saviour and lose an interest in his salvation; what does it signify whether this is the consequence of a love of iniquity, or of a legal and

preposterous search after better qualifications to recommend you to the acceptance of that Saviour, who tells us that he came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance?

CHAPTER V.

ON DISTRESS ARISING FROM THE WEAKNESS OR WANT OF FAITH.

"O for a heart to trust the Lord,
Who bids our sorrows cease!

For faith, to claim that gracious word
Mourner, cease thy tears."

FAITH enters so essentially into the substance of religion, that without it we cannot be christians at all. It is from the habitual use that he is required to make of this principle, that the christian receives the name of a believer, or a man of faith. He walks by faith; he lives by faith; he works by faith; he prays in faith; he suffers in faith; and, when the solemn day of his departure from time to eternity arrives, he dies in faith.

Nothing contributes so much to the happiness and holiness of the christian as a strong and lively faith; and nothing is more painful and discouraging than its feebleness and languor. Many of the children of God spend their days in sighing and their years in grief, from an apprehension that their faith is too weak to be genuine, and mixed with too much timidity and doubt to be either salutary or acceptable. They read of others who have been strong in faith; who have been able to hope against hope; and to declare, even amidst the most alarming and desolating dispensations, that though God should slay them yet they would trust in him. But the least trial is sufficient to shake their fortitude and blast their joys. A disappointment in their worldly prospects, or a slight distress in their families or amongst their friends, discon

certs and embarrasses them. The continuance of a temptation, the withholding of an answer to their prayers, the want of expected and implored communion with God, the loss of a relative, or the apparent approach of their own dissolution, covers their countenance with sadness, and fills their hearts with consternation and terror. They imagine that this would not be the case if they were rooted and grounded in the truth. They suppose that if they were possessed of a proper degree of faith in the Son of man, it would expel every slavish and distressing fear; that it would keep them in perfect peace; that it would make them strong in the Lord and in the power of his might; and inspire them with constant serenity and heartelevating joy.

In endeavouring to minister to the encouragement and comfort of persons who are labouring under this distress, it is necessary to observe; that, though it is the duty of every christian to grow in grace, and to be strong in faith; the weakness, or supposed want of faith, is no conclusive proof of its absence; and complaints and fears on the subject, so far from being an unfavourable symptom, are in fact a token for good. The ruin of most men is, that they feel no solicitude about the matter. Without the slightest inquiry into the origin or nature of their religion, they take it for granted that their faith must be real, because they entertain no doubt of the truth of Christianity in general; and fancy that their state must be safe, because they are free from all apprehension about its issue. In spite of every remonstrance to examine and prove themselves, they go on with the lulling and fallacious cry of Peace, peace; at the very time when every thing in their spirit and practice gives sad reason to suspect that they are under sentence of condemnation, and far from God and hope.

Complaints, therefore, of the weakness or want of faith, are pleasing and encouraging circumstances. They prove that the man is concerned about the one thing needful, and indicate that he is possessed of some good thing towards the Lord God of Israel. I do not blame my friend for the want of attachment, who is daily affording me in

dubitable proofs of his affection, and after all is deeply sorry that he cannot give me more substantial marks of his regard. It is that man's friendship which I question, who has the opportunity and means of effectually serving me, but who treats my wishes and interests with cold neglect. And I have no fear of the faith and the religious affection of the man, whatever depression he may feel, who is uniformly and earnestly labouring to walk before God with an humble and perfect heart, and to abound in all the fruits of righteousness. But I tremble for that man's situation, who is full of hope, whilst his temper and conduct are betraying a sad inconsistency with the principles of genuine godliness, and who discovers no contrition for the evils he has done, nor any steady determined effort to avoid them.

When a man is grieved on account of the strength of his fears and the weakness of his faith; when he is ashamed and confounded because he cannot rely more firmly on the word of God, nor bear his trials with greater fortitude and patience, nor delight in the Lord more fully, nor serve him with greater cheerfulness and vigour: in all these cases we have reason to regard his complaints as things that accompany salvation.

In order to provide for the consolation and establishment of persons in these circumstances, we shall shew,

I. That many involve themselves in perplexity and trouble, from mistaking the nature of faith and the foundation of religious comfort.

II. That faith, though weak, may be real and saving. We shall then,

III. Give some directions to those who are weak in faith.

I. Many involve themselves in perplexity and trouble, from mistaking the nature of faith and the proper foundation of religious comfort.

Whatever definition may be given of faith: whether it is said to be a belief of the truth, or a trusting in Christ for the forgiveness of sin and the acceptance of our per

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