face to the Lord God, to feek by prayer and fupplications, with fafting, and fackcloth, and afbes. Dan. ix. 3. So, alfo, there is a fet time to favour Zion, and every one that is ordained to be of her community; a fet time for every purpose; and, when that time is up, which the Holy Spirit is perfectly acquainted with, then he makes interceffion with fuch energy, that the kingdom of heaven, which fuffereth violence, is taken by force. The Holy Spirit furnifhes the foul with fuitable promises to plead, with invitations and encouraging paffages of fcripture: these he brings to the mind and puts into the mouth, enabling the foul to use all forts of arguments, pleadings, interceffions, fupplications, confeffions, and reafonings; and, at the fame time, helps the poor creature against his unbelief, mifgivings of heart, defponding thoughts, fhame, fear, and confufion of face. He draws forth faith into lively exercise, and raises up hopes and expectations of being heard and answered. emboldens the poor finner, and fortifies his mind; he ftrengthens his heart, filences his accufers, and clothes his words with power; enabling him to pour out his very foul before God with earnest cries and tears, till his cares and concerns, his burdens, his griefs, his diftreffes and forrows, his doubts and fears, all flow out with his words; and he goes from Shiloh with his countenance no more fad. How did he help Manaffeh, who was an idolater and a wizard, who made Judah and Jerufalem do worfe than the heathen, and who was deaf to all warning and admonition,

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monition, till God brought an hoft against him, who took him and bound him with fetters, and carried him to Babylon? And when he was in affliction he befaught the Lord his God, and humbled himself greatly before the God of his fathers, and prayed unto bim; and he was entreated of him, and heard his fupplication, and brought him again to Jerufalem into bis kingdom. Then Manaffeh knew that the Lord he was God. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 12, 13. How did the Holy Spirit furnish the poor Syrophenician woman with her great faith and treble plea, till fhe got all her heart's defire? He made the poor prodigal claim his fonship in a far country, even when stung with the guilt of finning against heaven and before God, as his own father in covenant; and Hezekiah, alfo, when both heaven and earth feemed to combine against him. Some of the children of God, who have foully fallen, and brought on themselves, and on God's cause and family, open reproach and fcandal, as Noah, David, Peter, &c. and those who have awfully backflidden, and got into fin and into the world, till their hearts have been almost hardened from fear, and who would have gone from bad to worse, till they had become quite callous; and return no more, if the Holy Spirit, either by his own immediate operations, or by the inftrumentality of fome Nathan, did not alarm and awaken them to a fenfe of their ftate; and, when they are awakened and brought to a sense of their fins, their crimes are aggravated with fuch a complication

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plication of circumstances, and attended with such bitter reflections as would fink them for ever, if power of the Spirit was not put forth in them. Sins against light and love; against comfort, joy, and peace; against a merciful and compaffionate Father; against all the bleffings of the better teftament; against a God formerly known and enjoyed, and against a Saviour revealed, and after union, communion, and fellowship with him; and against the confolations, witneffing, and fealing of the Holy Spirit of promise. Looking back to the glorious times that are paft; to the bleffed days of the Son of man; and to the joy, peace, reft, quietude, and happiness then enjoyed.-But now all is gone. "Fool that I am," fays the poor creature; "for a little pelf, a little imagined pleafure, and by the deceitfulness of fin, am I fhorn of all my ftrength, and divested of all true happiness. I have ftumbled the weak, and have opened the mouths of the enemies of my God: they that have watched for my halting, and who would rejoice when I am moved, and who eat up the fin of God's people as they eat bread, will now fay, This is the day that we have looked for. My fmiling God is gone, and all fweet intercourfe appears to be cut off. The Holy Spirit is grieved; no access to a throne of grace, no liberty in the Spirit, no liberty of speech. A difmal gloom appears in the Bible; nothing but reproofs and rebukes from the pulpit, barrennefs in the pew, a fallen counte

nance before the world; and nothing but fecret rage, envy, and jealoufy in my heart, when I am among them that love God, which cafts a damp upon all their holy fire. O my bafe ingratitude!— Fools, becaufe of their iniquities, are afflicted. I may go halting to my grave under fatherly feverity, and perhaps it will be worse than that. Who knows but I have committed the unpardonable fin, and have crucified Chrift afresh, and done defpite to the Spirit of grace, and therefore am a caftaway ?"

A sheep thus ftrayed would never return, a foul thus fallen would never rife more, without the affiftance of the Holy Spirit. David knew this when he prayed-Caft me not away from thy prefence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Pfalm li. 11. A foul under fuch circumftances watches, obferves, and attends all the day long to the Holy Spirit, to fee if he can find any enlargement of heart, any rifings of hope and expectation, any goings forth in faith or affection, any freedom of foul or of speech in prayer, any flowings out of godly forrow, any founding of the bowels after God, any real compunction, contrition, or pious mourning after the Lord; if there be any goings forth of love to him; if any filial or childlike fear of him fpringing up, which has the goodnefs of God for its object; if he can find any fortitude, help, or inward fupport, or affiftance in prayer ; if any word come to affuage his grief, to foften the heart, to fupport, encourage, or to produce fubmiffion to the will of God; if

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there be any difperfion of his fears and terrors; if any felf-abhorrence or felf-loathing; if Satan's accufations and fiery darts lose their force, or abate in their violence; if the reproaches of confcience get lefs fevere. Thus does the poor distreffed foul wait upon the Holy Spirit, and watch and obferve every influence, operation, or change, that is made in the heart; and greedily catches every hint, dictate, fenfation, motion, affection, allurement, or encouragement, which is produced in the foul; and weighs it, "confiders it, embraces it, and interprets it in his own favour as far as circumstances, truth, and conscience will permit him.

Sometimes fouls under fuch relapfes find that the law is armed with fresh wrath and terrors against them, and that bitter things in that hand-writing appear against them; that it lays a fresh hold of them, and binds them faft-The ftrength of fin is the law. 1 Cor. xv. 56. The spirit of bondage feizes them and shuts them up; which is nothing else but the anger of God working wrath, flavifh fear, terror, and torment, in them; under which they are contracted, bound, and hemmed in; fhut up in unbelief, in hardness of heart, and under the rebukes of God, and in fear of worfe to come; and while thus imprisoned neither faith nor love dare to venture out. Hence David complains in his fallSave me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my foul. I fink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am

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