tions which have things invisible for their object, and of obtaining all the blessed effects of religious principle or the divine life. The power of prayer is often felt to be great beyond our anticipations, in soothing the restless solicitude of the soul, in calming its perturbed passions, in strengthen ing its holy purposes and desires, in clearing away the obscurities produced by earthly fears and earthly hopes, in comforting the afflicted, sorrowing heart, in elevating the affections above the world, and raising them to the unseen object of devotion -in realizing his presence and affording cheering hope of his gracious approbation;-in fine, in preparing the pious servant of God, to know, to do, and to bear the will of his Father in heaven. The degree in which these effects are produced, and, above all, the impressiveness and vividness of them, will much depend upon the natural constitution, and upon the views entertained of divine truth and divine agency: and still more upon the degree in which the heart and life are submitted to the will of God; but it is probable that no one who has sat at the feet of Jesus, and, encouraged by his precepts and example, has come, with stedfast faith and filial confidence, to the throne of grace, would be unable to testify, by his own frequent experience, that such are the blessed influences of

prayer.

If to account for these effects, it is said that the great Father of our spirits has so formed the human soul, that prayer operates merely as a means of producing such effects in it, without his immediate agency, I have only to reply, that even then they would be in the strictest sense divine influences, for they would equally have their origin in our heavenly Father's wisdom and goodness and paternal care. But I cannot believe that this is all: I believe that the humble, faithful servant of God, has solid reason to conclude, that in answer to prayer, persevering trustful prayer, directed to those objects for which we cannot be too solicitous or ask amiss, God does by his immediate influence or agency, not supernatural, not mira culous, yet immédiate agency,) afford supplies of strength, of consolation, and of direction; and I rest most upon

this argument, that if, in the exercise of devout supplication, the thought should occur to the mind, that its effects in no sense directly proceed from the spirit or influence of God, but solely arise from the usual opera. tions of our own hearts, the fervour of prayer is checked, its efficacy impeded, and we no longer feel our selves engaged in the supplication that God would grant the desired blessing, but in devout desire that we may obtain it. The supposition appears to me inconsistent with the nature of prayer, in its more limited but peculiar and appropriate seuse; and I am sure, that for prayer, in that more limited sense, we have abundant warrant in the Scriptures as well as encouragement, and even direct command.

But if any devout person, under the influence of those philosophical views on the subject, which have been held by men of undoubted piety and sound understanding, believes that the influences of prayer are not thus immediate, I have only to urge him, as he desires the growth of grace in his heart, not to be less assiduous and earnest in his applications to the Father of lights; and let them be made in the firm assurance, that he is addressing a Being who heareth and who answereth prayer; and in the exercise of faith, that He will answer it in that way and by those means which he knoweth to be wisest and best. And this firm assurance, and this pious faith, we should all exercise, when we draw near unto God; and we may then indulge a cheering be lief that our prayers will be accep table in his sight, and obtain his bles sing.

But it should never be forgotten that our heavenly Father affords his gracious aids, (whatever be the precise nature of them,) duly to those who diligently employ tho e means of spiritual knowledge and holy obe dieuce which he has placed in our power. As well might we expect his miraculous assistance to enable us to cultivate the ground, or to acquire science and literature, if we will not use our hands and feet, or our senses and our intellectual powers, as expect that he will implant in us the princi ple of piety, without our employing the means of piety-or deliver us in

the hour of temptation, if we exercise no watchfulness to preserve ourselves from it, no resolution under it-or guide us to the knowledge of his will, if we will not use our eyes and understandings. The earthly parent who does nothing, with the expectation that the heavenly Parent will do every thing, must have forgotten that it is said, "Parents, bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." Whatever spiritual aid or holy influence is granted, it is granted only to those who seek it, and use faithfully whatever measure of it they obtain.

I see no reason from Scripture, or from the experience of wise and good men, to believe that God does now communicate by his direct and immediate agency on the human heart, any supplies of knowledge as to Christian truth and duty. Inspiration, in the strict sense of the term, referring to the supernatural communication of knowledge, without the intellectual efforts of the individual, is not to be expected. God hath given us understanding; he hath given us conscience; he hath given us means of knowing him and his will, in his works, in his ways, and in his word. These are the sources of religious knowledge; and in his great wisdom he hath made pious, humble, honest, teachable hearts, the best preparation for the illumination of divine truth; and as far as his holy influence aids in cherishing those qualities of the heart, and in strengthening the disposition to seek for that guidance, which in various ways he graciously affords to his pious servants, so far may that influence or spirit be itself said to il luminate the mind. I think that prayer, and the divine aids which it obtains, bring the mind into the best state for discerning the way to heaven. I do not doubt that they co-operate to dispel those mists by which pride and worldly passions continually obscure the radiance of divine truth: and further, that where the darkness of the understanding is that of iguorance or unavoidable prejudice, having no sinful character, they introduce such beamings from the Sun of Righteousness, as either gradually remove error, or make it harmless to the individuals: in short, that they communicate that wisdom which is

profitable to direct in the duties and difficulties of the divine life. But that God in any way directly communicates doctrinal truths, I see no where taught in the Scriptures; and I perceive no room to doubt that it is contrary to fact and experience. Pious men of all denominations (and I rejoice in the belief that such there are) have prayed, I doubt not with equal sincerity, with equal perseverance, with equal faith in the divine power and disposition to guide then, and yet have walked, nay, have thought them selves led, in different roads of speculative faith. But they have walked in the same principle of Christian duty and filial obedience; and if the darkness of their intellect has not been removed, that of their affections has been; and they have beeu guided by that light which shineth more and more unto the perfect day of unclouded truth and holiness and happiness.

The strong and sudden impressions of the mind, and impulses of the feelings, the flash of conviction, of which we sometimes hear, as the basis of belief in certain religious opinions, are always suspicious. They shew that the mind is not in that calm state which is peculiarly important in the search after truth: they shew that the imagination and feelings are at work, rather than the understanding: and as they have been frequently experienced, where afterwards persons have seen reason to believe that they were the mere play of the fancy or the heart,-as they have often been brought to prove or support opinions which are contradictory one of another,

and as no promise of the Scriptures, extending beyond the age of the apostles, (if beyond the apostles themselves,) authorizes to expect that God will, by his divine influence or holy spirit, communicate to men the knowledge of the truth,-it is wise not to expect it by any such means; and, at any rate, not to regard opinions as indisputably true, contrary to the evidence of the external word, contrary to the plain dictates of the understanding, because, in a way for which we cannot account, conviction has suddenly entered into the heart, and impressed views before unknown or rejected. I have no doubt that God now gives a holy spirit, or divine influence, to those who seek for it;

but the operation of this divine influence, in the present day, is not to give truth of doctrine, but wisdom of duty, and holiness in heart and life. And even admitting that divine truth is thus communicated into the heart of man in the present day, yet since it is certain that the feelings and couvietions which accompany this working of the mind are often experienced from other causes, it is the part of Christian caution to observe closely that we do not labour under any delusion, and especially that we try the spirits by the written word, that thus we may see whether they are of God.

And to the same test must those strong emotions and convictions be subjected which are called conversion. The passions and affections of the heart are the great engines by which religion operates in it to produce Christian obedience; and neither philosophy nor experience justify the Christian preacher in declining to appeal to them. But he that calls the strong emotions which are excited by the hopes and fears, the promises and threatenings of the gospel, religion itself; or who even considers the fervours of feeling and an overheated imagination as the proofs of repentance and consequent remission of sin,-is alike ignorant of the nature of the human mind, and of the tenor and spirit of Christianity.

The conversion, the regeneration, the new creation, &c., which the Scriptures represent to us, as in fact all in all for salvation, consist in something more than strong agitation of mind; they consist in a change of heart and life. "If any man be in Christ," (if he have that genuine, vital principle of faith in Christ, which alone deserves the name, and which alone can entitle him to the all-important blessings, of which it is made the condition,) "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away, behold all things are become new.' His desires, his purposes, his dispositions, his conduct, and with them his final prospects are all changed. Before he was the servant of sin unto death; now he is alive unto God, unto righteousness and true holiness. And where the evidence of this is given by a holy life and conversation, there the Christian minister may justly raise the still trembling heart, with the

promise of divine mercy through Jesus Christ. But he who not only points out to the repentant sinner the hopes of the gospel, but also encourages in his mind the convictions which eminent saints have expressed, after a long course of Christian obedience, (and which in the Scriptures none else do express,) and leads those who have long been running a course of abandoned wickedness, or at least living in the utter neglect of God and Christ, to entertain, at once, an esim. rance of having obtained divine for giveness through the blood of Christ, (because they have a strong and ago nizing conviction of the guilt and folly of their past lives, and are alarmed at the awful judgments which are hanging over them, and with these impres sions of terror and anguish, cling to those hopes of salvation which the gospel proposes,) and under the influence of such assurance to indulge in ecstacy and transport, when there is no evidence but that of strong emotion that the great change has really taken place within them, on which aloue they can rest their peace and joy, he has no warrant from Scripture for his presumption. It cannot be that the gospel promises eternal life to terror and anguish and vivid assurances.

That repentance to which the gospel promises pardon, I feel mysel authorized by the Scriptures in pronouncing to be a godly sorrow, an sing from the conviction of having broken the laws of God, either by the transgression or the neglect of them, accompanied with sincere and earnest resolutions and endeavours after new and better obedience. He who s cerely repents of his past sins, will pray to God to deliver him from evil, and will add to prayer, that withert which prayer is a mockery, watchfulness and caution, lest he be led inte temptation, and holy resolutions, lest he fall when exposed to it. Repentance (or, if you please, the work of conversion) may be begun in a moment. Often has the conscience on a sudden been awakened, the conviction of sin deeply impressed on the heart. the sense of danger been aroused, and the careless, the profane, and the worldly-minded, who have too much lived without God in the world, have been led to cry out, " What shall wr

do to be saved?" But this is only the beginning of repentance. Thousands have gone thus far and no further. Thousands have gone thus far, and returned to plunge themselves yet deeper in perdition. And yet, on such uncertain, and often deceitful appearances, ministers of the gospel have frequently implanted a hope, nay even a confidence in the Divine forgiveness and he who one hour was the slave of sin, in the next assures himself of peace and pardon through the blood of Christ, and from the depth of agonizing sorrow, rises to the ecstacy of transport, in the belief that he is now a child of God.

:

But how, I would ask, does it become fallible mortals, unaided by divine power, to pronounce as to the spiritual condition of others, where the fruits are wanting by which alone the tree can be distinguished? We may charitably hope that where there are the marks of sincere and deep contrition, and earnest purposes of amendment, the work of repentance will go on and lead to works meet for repentance. We may encourage the contrite soul with the promises of the gospel, if the heart and life are really amended, if God and religion be henceforth sought in earnest, if past sins are forsaken, and those duties be henceforth in some good measure discharged which have been left undoue. If such are the blessed fruits of penitence, then, we cannot doubt it, will be receive forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance among them which are sanctified through faith in Christ. It is not, indeed, for mortals to set limits to the exercise of divine mercy: He who knoweth the heart, sees all its secret emotions, and can correctly judge their value and efficacy,-He alone can tell whether that repentance which is begun in the soul, is repentance unto salvation; whether, if time were allowed to complete the work, it would be completed. And to his mercy must we leave those whose last days are their only good days; who, in the immediate prospect of eternity, have been awakened from their dreams of worldly pleasures and interests, and their heedlessness of the great purposes of life;-and those who, by the execution of human laws, are cut off from this life, for crimes against which the laws of God de4 N

VOL. XIV.

nounce the judgments of another. To pronounce their perdition might be a cruel error; but it is a much more fatal one to suppose that in a few short days, or even a few short hours, aye, and even a few moments, the Divine forgiveness can be secured for a life of carelessness and sin.

The mind naturally adverts, in this connexion, to those numerous cases which have of late years occurred, in which the execution of the criminal has resembled the triumphant martyrdom of the Christian professor; and I must relate to you one among the various instances in which the strong appearance of repentances, inducing the religious friend to raise the mind of the unhappy sufferer to the feeling of assurance in the Divine forgiveness, have afterwards proved to be fallacious. The one I refer to occurred many years ago at Northampton. A man, whose life had been one continued scene of desperate villainy, after having often escaped the hand of justice, was at last apprehended, convicted, and left for execution. A minister of the gospel, prompted by a zeal which was no doubt in part under the influence of Christian love, but in no degree under the guidance of Christian knowledge, frequently visited him; and, as he believed, was made the instrument of his conversion. His own delusive views of the terms and exercise of divine mercy, were doubtless communicated to the prisoner; and he went joyfully to the scaffold, and died, as it is termed, triumphantly. So strongly impressed was the minister, with the conviction that his repentance was real, and his conversion complete, and that he had obtained the pardoning mercy of God, that in a book which he published on the occasion, he expressed his wish that his own soul was in his soul's place; and declared that he would stake his own salvation on the sincerity of his convert. It was afterwards ascertained, that the wretched man had confessed his guilt to his legal adviser; and in the midst of this fervour of feeling and fever of imagination, he had been contriving and executing means to secure to his friends the money of which he had unjustly deprived others.

Surely we may say that such transports are like the vivid gleams of

lightning, which for a moment dazzle the eye of the spectator, and then leave him in deeper darkness. And such circumstances surely should make us careful, lest we build hay and stubble on the foundation which is alone a secure one: lest we confound religious principle with frames and feelings: lest we mistake the anguish of an overheated imagination and over. excited sensibility, for repentance unto salvation; or their fervours of transport, for that love to God and love to man in which religion chiefly consists.

Perhaps the views of Christian truth, entertained by the Unitarian Christian, may give less transport to the sinner; but they give him that hope which maketh not ashamed; that hope which, cherished by faithful obedience, will communicate what is infinitely more valuable than religious ecstacy, religious peace and comfort, founded on the testimony of heart, that God and Christian duty are now sincerely sought, and that he is now earnestly and steadily endeavouring to comply with the terms of love and mercy.

As a conclusion of the whole, let it be deeply impressed on our hearts, that if we hope for divine aid in the work and trials of the Christian life, we must earnestly work out our own salvation with watchfulness and holy fear; that if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his; and that the fruit of the spirit, by which alone we can be secure we have received the influences of our heavenly Father, are piety and purity, upright ness and benevolence, meekness and patience, and, in a word, a holy life and conversation. In such fruits may ye abound, and may ye be finally owned as the disciples of Jesus Christ.

the sense in which an Unitarian mimister recommends the use of such addresses, and the result which he supposes to be connected with them.

"The text assures you, my young friends, that if you acknowledge Ged in all your ways, he will direct your steps. Possibly the journey of life which lies before you may be long and intricate; but it will not be less happy on that account, if you conduct yourselves wisely and virtuously amidst the various scenes and events of it; if you are favoured with the direction and blessing of that Being, without whom our strength is weakness, our prescience the most presumptuous folly, and our animated and confident expectation, the most absurd and mortifying delusion. But if your thoughts and desires be directed to God; if your prayers be offered to him; if you seek that wisdom which cometh from above,' and do not wholly rely upon your own sagacity and circumspection, then will you be able to perceive the leadings of Divine Provi dence, then will you hear, as it were, a voice behind you, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.' I presume, my young friends, that you will not any of you imagine that I am leading you to expect any supernatural impression, any impulse or bias upon your minds, or any suggestion to your understanding which is not consistent with the usual and ordinary operation of causes and their effects. You will not expect that, without any effort on your part, you will retire from the throue of grace, where you have been seeking that direction or consolation which you need, with greater wisdom, or with greater composure and tranquillity than when you presented yourselves there, if you have not been accustomed, in every thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, to make known your requests unto God;' for all your suacquiescence and confidence and joy, perior discernment, all your increased

must result from the more lively per ception of the Divine agency, and the deeper conviction of the Divine presence and care, which will thus be impressed upon your minds, and proportionably influence your conduct. You will feel nothing of that inspiration, or of that supernatural guidance, of which some have presumptuously