abominations have been harboured, he finds the traitors in arms, and ready to rebel, obstinately disputing the right to the throne; and that efforts to sweep the heart do but stir up evils that were undiscovered until now. 66 The flesh lusteth against the spirit," when he "would do good, evil is present with him." Instead of improvement he seems to grow worse, and his best resolutions appear to be abortive and vain. When urging upon himself the act of openly warring with Satan as a witness for truth, he is dismayed and awestruck by finding an unaccountable remissness. Sinners are left unreproved, he hears the evil and strangely passes by the occasion in which it might have been exposed. In the domestic circle, instead of advancing truth in the way he had arranged, his own speech seems paralized; or if he speaks, it is done with constraint, with rashness, with a spirit of impatience and irritation, very unlike what he had imagined he should evince. Thus instead of gratification, he is filled with shame; he returns to his closet full of selfdisgust and confusion; he prostrates himself before God in utter distress of mind, and exclaims in the bitterness of his spirit, "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me!"

The distress of this stage of experience is greatly increased by the malignity of Satan and the world. These enemies fail not to take advantage of these circumstances. Satan will suggest that the things which have been

received as true, cannot in fact be so, that the divine promises are not fulfilled, and not to be relied upon; or possibly that scriptures have been misinterpreted and misapplied; or that if true to others, they are not so to him; that he can have no part or lot in the matter since he is thus weak, overcome, and disconsolate; that were he interested in the covenant, no doubt he would, like those christians whose victorious course he has contemplated, have his trophies of triumph to bring before his Saviour; that possibly he is too vile to be an object of divine favour, or an abode for the Spirit to inhabit; and that in fact he has been very presumptuous in his former hopes and expectations! The world too he acknowledges may justly suspect him to be a hypocrite, and perhaps does so at this moment. His family may with propriety charge him with inconsistency. No wonder they have not confided in him; they perceive no difference in his spirit from theirs: why should they respect such an one? it were better not to appear the disciple he has professed to be, and to keep his religion, his hopes, and his fears to himself. These are the bitter things which Satan suggests, working through the world, and upon his own natural mind, and prompting him to allow the power of unbelief, and to sink in discouragement, giving up the war. This is a frame of mind most miserable to the sufferer, and most perilous, because its tendency is to generate distance of conduct towards God,

a restraint of prayer and a distrust of divine mercy.

Let us therefore seek wisdom, that we may rightly interpret these divine methods, for they are divine, the result of God's tender and cove nant care for the prosperity of the soul that he loves. There are many important parts of christian experience, which are secured through this conflicting exercise.

In the first place, it is necessary to possess experimental self knowledge; to which end the condition we have contemplated may be considered as a manifesting light. It is true, that the Holy Ghost conducts the mind into the deep caverns and recesses of a sinful heart, disclosing the hidden things of darkness, and causing the dreadful extent of spiritual ruin to be understood. In this operation he carries with him the spiritual law as a detector and touchstone, shewing by the spirituality of the requirement, the contrariety of nature to the mind of God, and thus convincing of sin in a peculiar sense of the word. Of this St. Paul speaks, declaring, "I had not known sin but by the law,"-" when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." And in the interesting disclosure of his painful experience, contained in Rom. vii, we have a full detail of what the soul endures in this state of discipline, and the end for which it is appointed. This is necessary in every individual case of a converted soul, for we have otherwise no knowledge of sin

but intellectually, and no knowledge of self but superficially.

It is further necessary for the purpose of producing in us an entire persuasion, that in us there dwelleth, not only "no good thing," but no strength to overcome the evil things. Until we have made trial of our ability, we conceive it to be great; but trial brings down our lofty imagina tions, and leaves us with the conviction that we are helpless; that it is not even in a will governed by renewed affections, and true in its allegiance to God, to accomplish any thing independently, but that we depend upon the continued operation of the Holy Ghost, for his actings upon the faculties he has himself given and sanctified, in order to accomplish any thing effectually, or to the glory of God.

By this painful experience we are also greatly excited in our warfare: the upright will becomes proportionably resolute by the difficulties it encounters for although there are awful convulsions which agitate the bosom, and many temptations to despondency presented to the mind, the Lord, the Spirit, preserves the work in vigour. If foes are formidable, the believer's energy shall rise correspondingly; he finds the necessity of fighting in earnest, not as one who beateth the air; he feels the necessity of girding on his spiritual weapons; of keeping under the body, of watching unto prayer, and of living habitually as a soldier of the cross. Thus his affections obtain more substantial ex

istence by the means of a deep apprehension of the exposure of his soul. All this is learnt by the conflicting experience described, and therefore sufficiently demonstrates that it is appointed in love.

It is of equal interest and importance to understand that there is an experimental acquaintance with the doctrines of grace, which is very distinct from the speculative, superficial, hard-hearted, and arrogant disposition, with which some persons discuss those parts of revelation; and we should perceive how such an experience is only attainable through this sense of our own misery.

As we learn the nature of original sin with its accompanying power and results, through this dispensation of conflict, so we learn the glorious plan of salvation from sin in the best way, when it is given through the same medium. Hence it is that we learn the necessity for the doctrine of election if ever we have hope. Others may dispute about it in a variety of human modes, but we, if experimentally sure of our own death in trespasses and sins, must be equally sure that if we live it is by a sovereign invincible act in God's part freely proceeding from himself. We therefore hang to the doctrine as our dearest ground of comfort, as it is our only ground of hope; and when we listen to the voice of Scripture proclaiming the existence of such a purpose in behalf of wretched souls, our fervent desire is to lay hold upon it as affording encouragement to