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they find greater satisfaction. For example: a man addicted to gross vices may be diverted from his besetting temptations by powerful worldly objects; and, in the pursuit of a successful prospect which opens before him, may find himself so much engaged, and that in lawful things, as almost to forget his former propensities. But the tempter has only to return with his accustomed persuasions, in order to prove that the mansion which appeared swept and garnished was still the abode of every unholy affection.

2. Others fancy that a particular sin has ceased to reign over them, when it has only taken some new and more specious direction. The man who was proud, or worldly, or uncharitable before, continues so now, though he indulges his propensity in a way that gives less uneasiness to his conscience. This is sometimes seen among persons who take up a profession of religion without counting the cost, or being prepared to make the sacrifices which it involves. Thus we witness the disputatious man indulging the same angry passions under the guise of zeal for God, which he once exemplified on subjects of temporal interest; while another carries into his intercourse with society, after his professed reformation, the same pride, or censoriousness, or overbearing spirit which he once displayed among his worldly companions. In the mean time, a false peace is experienced, and the selfdeceiver hopes that God will be satisfied with the empty appearance which contents his own conscience.

3. Others take credit for having truly forsaken some particular sin, when, from any cause, they happen for the time to be tired of it. The false attractions with which unlawful pleasures appear arrayed often vanish after a more close acquaintance. The world cannot satisfy the desires of its most zealous votaries; its poisoned food soon palls upon the taste; and thus the sinner,

cloyed with vicious indulgences, often turns with disgust from the accustomed temptation. But this is not conversion to God: the affections remain as sinfully disposed as ever; and if the very sin which has been apparently forsaken could present the same attractive appearance which it did at first, there would be the same disposition to fall into it.

4. Others, again, think they have forsaken sin when they change one sin for another, and perhaps for a worse. A young man may relinquish the sins of childhood for others to which his age presents greater temptations; and he may quit these again, as he advances in life, for others of a more decorous kind; yet, in all these changes, not experience one single emotion of hatred to sin, as being contrary to the law of God, and fatal to the eternal welfare of his own soul.

5. Indeed, the mere absence of temptation is often sufficient to create this injurious self-flattery. A man of unbridled temper sometimes assumes merit to himself, that his angry passions are subdued merely because every thing around him has been prosperous; his wishes have been consulted and gratified, and there has been little or nothing to bring him to the test, and to prove in what degree, or whether in any degree, the power of religion has really effected a change in his nature. So again the man who is supremely devoted to the world, either in its pleasures, its honours, or its riches, is often apt to conceive that he has gained a victory over his inordinate desires, when pain or sickness, or some overwhelming visitation of Divine Providence, has for the moment deadened him to every sensation but that of present affliction. And in a variety of other ways are men accustomed to deceive themselves with the hope that the evil spirit has finally departed, when he is but occasionally absent, and may very probably and shortly return

with new and still more seductive temptations.

The case then of a sinner, during a partial and temporary reformation, is far from being of that hopeful kind which he is apt to imagine. On the contrary, it is one of peculiar danger. The false security which he experiences, prevents his probing into the mystery of iniquity which lurks within his heart, or looking to the Saviour for pardon, or to the Holy Spirit for sanctification. He has healed the wound in his conscience slightly, crying Peace, peace, when there is no peace and hence he is insensible to the threatenings of God's law against sin, because he persuades himself that they do not apply to his case; while he comforts himself with the promises of the Go. spel, to which he has no scriptural title: for those promises are made to none but the truly penitent sinner, who deeply laments his transgressions, and turns with full purpose of heart to the God whom he has offended, trusting to the sacrifice of his Redeemer alone for pardon, and endeavouring to walk worthy of his high vocation, in all holiness, obedience, and good works.

Secondly. But there is a second stage of the sinner's progress which we are now briefly to consider; namely, his case when this superficial and short-lived amendment has subsided, and he has gone back, and perhaps with new aggravations, to his accustomed sins. And this, it should be observed, very frequently happens; for where there is no real hatred to sin implanted in the heart, and where there is not a constant spirit of prayer and vigilance against its incursions, there is no dependence to be placed upon the durability of any supposed reformation. Even while the conduct was outwardly decent, the vital substance of religion was wanting; the fairest virtues had no root in scriptural principles; and hence with the first blast of

temptation they wither and die. Now, our Lord says of the state of such a man-of one out of whom an unclean spirit had departed for a season, but returned with seven other spirits more wicked than himself that it was worse than at the first. The higher our attainments in religion, and the more specious our amendment of heart or life, the greater is our danger after a relapse. Thus, St. Paul says, "It is impossible"-that is, it is a matter of extreme difficulty and improbability, and but for the renewing grace of God of absolute impossibility-" it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance, seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame."

The reason why the condition of such a person is so peculiarly dangerous will be evident, if we consider how many warnings he must have resisted, how often he must have hardened his heart against the remonstrances of conscience, and the secret strivings of God's Holy Spirit; and being a professed disciple of Christ, how often, to use the Apostle's language, he must have crucified the Saviour afresh by his unholy and inconsistent conduct. A physician usually experiences far greater difficulty in treating a con stitutional malady, into which the patient has relapsed after an ap parent recovery, than a recent disorder. So it is spiritually with those who are hardened by the deceitfulness of sin; every fresh indulgence aggravates their malady, till at length the heart often becomes seared to all salutary impression, and the disease is incurably confirmed.

To apply this subject to our own case let us learn our awful condi tion while under the dominion of

sin, and a prey to every temptation of our spiritual enemy, who makes his baneful incursions into our hearts unnoticed and uncontrolled. And whence arises this unhappy degradation of our once pure and exalted nature? It is because we have expelled from our bosoms their rightful Sovereign; because we would not that God should rule over us, and have sold ourselves as the servants of sin. Yet even in this condition we are not abandoned by our justly offended God; he does not at once reject us; he gave his Son to die as a sacrifice for us; he bestows on us a space for repentance; he admonishes us by his Spirit and his word; he invites us to return; he is willing to listen to our petitions; he even indites our requests; he promises his Holy Spirit to all that call upon him, and is willing to dwell in those hearts which had been defiled by the dominion of Satan, and to pu. rify them by his presence as a temple for himself. Let us then eagerly embrace this offered mercy; let us not slight our convictions, and especially at those favourable moments when the tempter seems to be absent for a season, or to exert

less than his usual power over our hearts; when the conscience is alarmed, and the mind serious; when we are convinced of the importance of religion, and are almost persuaded to begin in earnest to devote ourselves to the service of God. Another such an' opportunity may not return; the Spirit of God may not again strive with us; and if we stifle our awakened impressions it may be for the last time; according to the language of the text, the tempter may return with seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and our last state become worse than the first.

Let us then open our hearts to the Heavenly Guest who seeks admission; to the God whose we are and whom we ought to serve; to the Saviour who bought us with the price of his own blood, that we should no longer live to ourselves, but to Him who loved us and gave Himself for us; and to the Holy Spirit, whose sacred influences and indwelling are alone equal to the task of expelling the powers of darkness from our souls, and of filling them with all the graces and charities of the Christian character.

MISCELLANEOUS.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. IN reading the Review of Mr. Simeon's Hora Homileticæ, in a late Number of your publication (vol. for 1820, p. 761), my attention was particularly arrested by some valuable remarks on the too frequent inefficacy of sermons, and on the causes of so lamentable a fact. I have had many opportunities of witnessing the truth of your reviewer's observations in some clergymen, who in the main preach the pure doctrines of the Gospel, and that in perfect agreement with CHRIST. OBSERV, No. 231.

the established formularies of the church. But I am inclined, in some cases, and under certain circumstances, to attribute this inefficacy, in part at least, to a cause somewhat different from the several ones mentioned by your reviewer; but which, in my judgment, merits equal notice with them. I have known some pious and faithful ministers, who have been labouring in the vineyard of their heavenly Master for a number of years with little or no apparent success. Now, it is recorded in the words of unerring prophecy, that "the word

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of God shall not return unto Him void, but shall accomplish that whereunto it was sent:"-and when our blessed Lord, after his resurrection, commissioned his Apostles to go and teach all nations, he left this encouraging assurance with them; "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." I have therefore often been induced to examine, how it is that these promises appear in some instances to be so partially accomplished: and shall be happy indeed, should this letter be the means of exciting a spirit of self-examination among those ministers who, though in the main faithful and zealous, yet feel conscious that their pulpit ministrations have been attended with little or no visible success. Would that they may be led to inquire how far this unhappy result may have arisen from any defect either in the choice of their subjects, or in the matter, the composition, or the delivery of their discourses: and may the Holy Spirit assist them in their inquiries, and lead them into all truth!

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There are clergymen who, though they admit the Gospel to be a dispensation of mercy to fallen man, perpetually clothe it, I had almost said, in the terrors which accompanied the delivery of the Law at Mount Sinai; and in a hard and unfeeling manner, as if not subject themselves to the like infirmities with their hearers, constantly overwhelm their people with a black and appalling catalogue of their transgressions; and habitually pourtray, in the most tremendous colours, the punishment of the wicked in the eternal world; and then, as if mercy formed no part of the scheme of redemption, with scarcely a mention of the way of salvation by Christ, they leave their audience the chilling alternative of embracing a religion which they have never beheld but amidst the frowns of justice and the thunders of vengeance, or of persisting in their evil course, with the certainty of

incurring the awful destruction which the preacher has described. Now, what I complain of is, that during the denunciation of these affecting truths, little apparent concern or compassion is manifested for those to whom they are de→ livered; so that the good effect which they might perhaps otherwise have produced is destroyed, either by a seeming insensibility in the preacher to the future state of his hearers, or by an impetuosity and warmth of temper, savouring too much of that "wrath of man which worketh not the righteousness of God." Accustomed to hear the threatenings of Scripture constantly brought forward, and seeing their minister apparently un concerned in denouncing them, an audience grows hardened under rebuke; while unused, on the other hand, to view religion as the remedy for every moral disease, as the balm of consolation to the wounded spirit, as the only source of real happiness, they recoil from it as calculated only to disturb their peace, to fill their minds with vain' apprehensions, and to deprive them of what they esteem the substantial felicities of life.

Let not my meaning, however, be misunderstood, by supposing that I am offended at the plain declaration of the truths of Revelation, though of ever so alarming an import; or that I would desire to see Christianity softened down to suit the sickly delicacy of a fasti dious ear. The minister of Christ must indeed try all methods, if by any means he may save some of the souls committed to his charge. Now there are, in almost every congregation, persons whose attention to religious subjects can be excited only by an appeal to their fears; persons on whose hearts the merciful tidings of the love of God, and the atonement of Christ, make comparatively little impression. The faithful shepherd is therefore obliged to enforce the terrors of the Lord. He is compelled to re

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The late Mr. Newton, in a "Letter to a young Minister," remarks; "There is another strain of preaching which, though it wears the garb of zeal, is seldom a proof of any power but the power of self. I mean angry and scolding preaching. The Gospel is a benevolent scheme, and whoever speaks in the power of it will assuredly speak in love. In the most faithful rebukes of sin, in the most solen declarations of God's displeasure against it, a preacher may give evidence of a disposition of good-will and compassion to sinners, and assuredly will, if he speaks under the influence of the power of Truth. If we can indulge invective and bitterness in the pulpit, we know not what spirit we are of; we are but gratifying our own evil tempers, under the pretence of a concern for the cause of God and truth. Persons of this character may ap plaud their own faithfulness and courage, and think it a great attainment that they can so easily and constantly set their congregation at defiance; but they must not expect to be useful, so long as it remains a truth that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God."

mind his hearers, that "the wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the people that forget God;-that there is no peace to the wicked ;that he who believeth shall be saved, and he who believeth not shall be condemned." These truths constitute a most important part of the disclosures of Revelation,and should be frequently and solemnly enforced; but they should not usurp the place of other truths equally important. I can discover no reason why one part alone of those motives by which men are persuaded to accept of salvation, should be constantly exhibited, to the exclusion of all others; and still less why the part selected should be the one most revolting to the human mind. It is granted indeed, that the natural mind is enmity against God; and that the whole scheme of the Gospel is uncongenial to the vicious taste: but this is an additional inducement to throw no unnecessary stumblingblock in the way of the most hardened sinner, and to avoid giving to the Gospel an air of unmerited austerity and repulsiveness, which it does not wear in the wisely blend. ed pages of sacred writ, and in the preaching of our Lord and his Apostles, who, knowing the terrors of the Lord, persuaded men. It is, however, the manner, even more than the matter, that constitutes "angry preaching ;" and I am not to be understood as arguing that the threatenings of God against sin are not to be earnestly and often dwelt upon; but only that they should be enforced in a way that indicates real Christian sympathy and tenderness of heart upon the part of the preacher, and with a soberness of language, and a solemnity of appearance, which shew an evident reluctance to wound, except in order to heal. Allow me, in confirmation of my remarks, to adduce the testimonies of two or three writers, whose office or characler entitles their opinions to attention.

In the "Remains of the Rev. R. Cecil," the sentiments of that eminent servant of Christ are clearly expressed on this point. "The zeal of some men is of a haughty, unbending, ferocious character. They have the letter of truth, but they mount the pulpit like prize-fighters. It is with them a perpetual scold. This spirit is a reproach to the Gospel. It is not the spirit of Jesus Christ. He seems to have laboured to win men. But there is an opposite extreme. The love of some men is all milk and mildness! There is so much delicacy, and so much fastidiousness! They touch with such tenderness!-and, if the patient shrinks, they will touch no more! The times are too flagrant for such a disposition. The Gospel is sometimes preached in this

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