AN ADDRESS TO THE SERIOUS READER.

HAVING taken my leave of the thoughtless and gay, who regard an appeal to their reason, as little as they do the warnings of their conscience, I return to thee,* serious and well-disposed reader. I am too much concerned for thy soul's welfare, to lay down my pen, without showing thee more perfectly the way to the kingdom of heaven, by testifying to thee "repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ."

Thou art happily weary of feeding upon the husks of earthly vanities. I have a right, therefore, as a steward of the mysteries of God, to bring out of the Divine treasury the pearls of evangelical truth; and I gladly cast them before thee, persuaded, that far from awakening thy anger, they will excite thy desires, and animate thy languid hopes.

Instead of ridiculing, or dreading a heart-felt conviction of thy lost estate, thou now seest it is a desirable privilege, an invaluable blessing. Ready to mourn because thou canst not mourn, thou complainest that thou hast only a confused view of thy total depravity. Thou wantest the feelings of the royal penitent when he said, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity," &c; "I acknowledge my transgressions," and "my sin is ever before me;" but conscious thou canst not raise them in thy heart by natural powers, thou desirest some Scriptural directions suitable to thy case. Give me leave to introduce them by a few

PRELIMINARY REFLECTIONS

On the nature and depth of penitential sorrow.

1. Thou knowest that "except thou" truly "repentest, thou shalt" surely " perish," and that there is no true repentance, where there is no true sorrow for sin. "I rejoice," says St. Paul to the Corinthians, "that ye were made sorry after a godly manner for godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation, not to be repented of; but the sorrow of the world worketh death." Hence it appears that there are two sorts of sorrow springing from opposite sources, God and the world; the one a "godly sorrow," and the other "the sorrow of the world." Learn to distinguish them by their various causes and effects, so shalt thou avoid the danger of mistaking the one for the other.

The sorrow of the world, which many cover with the cloak of religion, arises from fear of contempt, dread of poverty, secret jealousy, revenge dissatisfied, love disappointed, baffled schemes, losses in business, unkind

This address is only calculated for serious persons, who cordially assent to the doctrine established in the rational demonstration of our fallen and lost estate. As other readers have been dismissed with the portion of truth that belongs to them, they are desired not to meddle with this, lest their cavils confirm St. Paul's observation, "We preach Christ crucified, to the" self-righteous "Jews a stumbling block, and to the" self-conceited "Greeks foolishness."

ness of friends, provocation of enemies, or the death of some idolized relative. Nay, this sorrow may sometimes spring from a mixture of self-righteous pride and slavish fear. Some cannot bear to be robbed of their fond hopes of meriting heaven by their imaginary good works. They lose all patience when they see their best righteousness brought to light, and exposed as "filthy rags;" they are cut to the heart, when they hear their apparent good deeds deserve punishment as well as their black enormities: or, like condemned malefactors, they dread the consequences of their crimes, while they feel little or no horror for the crimes themselves.

Exceedingly fatal are the effects of this sorrow in the persons whom it overcomes: their indignant hearts, unable to bear either disappointment, contradiction, or condemnation, rise against second causes, or against the decrees of Providence; fret at the strictness of the law, or holiness of the Lawgiver; and pine away with uninterrupted discontent. Hence, spurning at advice, direction, and consolation, they wring their hands, or "gnaw their tongues with anguish;" impatience works them up into stupid sullenness, or noisy murmuring; they complain that their "punishment is greater than they can bear;" and, imagining they are more severely dealt with than others, they hastily conclude, "Behold this evil is from the Lord, why should I wait for him any longer?" Thus black despair seizes upon their spirits: and if grace does not interpose, they either live on to fill up the measure of their iniquities, as Cain, Pharaoh, and Haman; or madly lay violent hands upon themselves, as Ahithophel and Judas.

This sorrow cannot be too much guarded against, as it not only destroys many persons, but does immense hurt to religion. For those who are glad of any pretence to pour contempt upon godliness, taking occasion from the instances of this sorrow, harden their own hearts, and prejudice all around them against the blessed "godly sorrow," which every minister of the Gospel endeavours to excite; maliciously representing it as one and the same with the mischievous "sorrow of the world."

source.

Their mistake will be evident, if we trace godly sorrow back to its It does not spring merely from fear of punishment; but chiefly from humbling views of God's holiness, the impurity of the human nature, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the transcendent excellency of the law which condemns the sinner.

And this happy sorrow differs not less from the other in its effects, than it does in its cause. The persons who are blessed with it, far from murmuring or fretting at the Divine commandment, see it to be "holy, just, and good," both in its preceptive and penal part. They so absolutely acquiesce in it that they would not alter it if they could. They clear God, accuse themselves, subscribe their own sentence, and acknowledge, "it is of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed." Each of them can say, "Wherefore should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins? It is good that he should both hope, and quietly wait, for God's salvation: I will therefore watch to see what he will say unto me, for he will speak peace unto his people." Thus in a constant use of all the ordinances of God, they meekly wait, wrestling with their unbelieving fears, till victorious "faith comes by hearing" of the

matchless love of Jesus Christ; and then, "fearing the Lord and his goodness," they "sing the song of the Lamb," and run upon his delightful errands.

As thou seest, serious reader, the nature, necessity, and excellence of "godly sorrow," thou art probably desirous of being informed how deep thine must be, to constitute thee a true penitent. Know then, that it must be deep enough to embitter thy most pleasing, profitable, and habitual sins, and to prevent thy resting without a clear sense of thy peculiar interest in Christ. It must be profound enough to make him and his Gospel infinitely precious to thee, and to produce, under God, the blessed effects mentioned in the fifth part of the preceding treatise.

To be more particular: a true penitent may certainly, without despair or madness, go as far in godly sorrow, as David does in his penitential Psalms, or our Church in the first part of the Homily on Fasting. “When good men," says she, "feel in themselves the heavy burthen of sin, see damnation to be the reward of it, and behold with the eye of their mind the horror of hell, they tremble, they quake, they are inwardly touched with sorrowfulness of heart for their offences, and cannot but accuse themselves, and open their grief unto almighty God, and call on him for mercy. This being done seriously, their mind is so occupied, partly with sorrow and heaviness, partly with an earnest desire to be delivered from this danger of hell and damnation, that all desire of meat and drink is laid aside, and loathing of all worldly things and pleasures comes in place, so that they like nothing better than to weep, to lament, to mourn, and, both with words and behaviour of body, to show themselves weary of this life."

Nevertheless, it must be observed that godly sorrow needs not be equal, either in degree or duration, in all penitents. Those whose hearts, through Divine grace, open as readily and gently as that of Lydia, happily avoid many of David's pangs and Job's terrors. The powerful and instantaneous, or the gentle and gradual manner, in which souls are awakened; the difference of constitutions; the peculiar services that a few are called to, and for which they are prepared by peculiar exercises; the horrid aggravations that have attended the sins of some; and the severe correction which the Lord is obliged to give others, for their stout resistance against his grace; all this may help us to account for the various depths of distress, through which different penitents pass in their way to Christ and salvation.

The Lord does not needlessly afflict the children of men, any more than a tender father unnecessarily corrects his disobedient children; he only wants us to forsake our sins, renounce our own imaginary righteousness, and come to Christ to be partakers of his merits, holiness, and felicity. The sorrow which answers these ends is quite sufficient, though it should be ever so light, and of ever so short a duration. On the contrary, a distress as heavy as that of Judas is unavailable, if, instead of driving us from sin to Jesus Christ, it only drives us from profaneness to hypocrisy, or from presumption to despair.

If, still perplexed, thou askest what thou must do to get a sense of thy depravity productive of true repentance; I answer, that an affecting discovery of the guilt, nature, and danger of sin, is only attained by the assistance of God's Spirit, "who alone effectually convinces the world

of sin," John xvi, 8. But the Lord has graciously appointed means, in the right use of which he never denies a sinner the convincing and con. verting power of his blessed Spirit; and what they are, thou art informed in the following

DIRECTIONS

Proper for a half-awakened sinner, desirous of being duly convinced of his corrupt and lost estate.

II. Beware of "fools," that "make a mock at" sorrow for sin, and at "sin" itself. Beware of those "blind leaders of the blind," who, "having a form of godliness, deny the power thereof:" instead of point. ing thee to the throne of grace, and bidding thee "behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world," they will only direct thee to the church walls and communion table: and, perhaps, if they see thee under dejection of spirit for thy sins, they will recommend the play house, the card table, or what they call a "cheerful glass." "From such turn away," or they will persuade thee that repentance is melan. choly; conviction of sin despair; and the love of God enthusiasm, 2 Tim. iii, 5.

That they may not be able to laugh or frown thee out of the way of salvation, dwell in thy thoughts on God's awful perfections. "Justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne." The unspotted, resplendent holiness beaming forth from him, as from an immensely glorious Sun of righteousness, will show thee thy sins as innumerable as the flying motes discovered in a dusty room, where the natural sun can penetrate. Consider that they are committed by a worm of earth, against the Majesty of heaven; and they will all appear to thee infinitely great especially if thou measurest them and thyself by the true rule, the oracles of God; casting away the three false standards which selfdeceivers measure themselves by, namely, the good opinion of their worldly minded neighbours, the defective examples of their fellow sinners, and the flattering suggestions of their own blind self love.

Follow the example of "the noble Bereans: search the Scriptures daily, whether these things are so," Acts xvii, 11. View, in that faithful mirror, the picture both of the natural and of the regenerate man, and ask thy conscience which thou resemblest most. If imitating the godly man described in the first Psalm, thou" meditatest in the law of the Lord day and night," the straitness of the heavenly rule will soon show thee how very far gone thy thoughts, words, actions, tempers, and nature are from original righteousness.

To this meditation add a frequent survey of the follies of thy child. hood, the vanity of thy youth, the worldly mindedness of thy riper years, the capital transgressions which conscience accuses thee of, and the "hardness of heart," and "alienation from the life of God," that the Scriptures charge thee with. Confess all to the Lord as thou art able, remembering that "the wages of sin is death," who flies fast upon thee with the wings of time-death, who often gives no warning, and ushers in judgment, with all the horrors of hell, or the joys of heaven; and pray that these awful realities may affect thee now, as they will in thy last moments.

Frequently reflect how total must be our loss of spiritual life, which

cannot be repaired but by a "resurrection," a "new birth,” or a “new creation," Col. iii, 1; John iii, 7; Gal. vi, 5. And how desperate the disease of our fallen nature, which cannot be healed but with the blood of a Divine Physician. Consider attentively, consider Him, whose piercing look softened the obdurate heart of cursing Peter, whose amazing sufferings brought a hardened thief under the deepest concern for his salvation, and whose dying groans "rent the rocks, shook the earth, and opened the graves." The tender flower of evangelical sorrow grows best in the shade of his cross; a believing view of him, as suffering for thee, will melt thee into penitential tears, and seal upon thy relenting heart the gracious promise, "They shall look upon him whom they have pierced, and mourn," Zech. xii, 10.

In the meantime improve the daily opportunities which thou hast of studying human corruption in the life and tempers of all around thee, but chiefly in thy own careless and deceitful heart: take notice of its pride and self seeking, of its risings, and secret workings, especially when unexpected temptations trouble thy imaginary peace of mind: for at such a time thy corruption, like the sediment in the bottom of a vial that is shaken, will show its loathsomeness and strength.

sin.

Converse, frequently if thou canst, with persons deeply convinced of

Attend a plain, heart-searching ministry as often as possible; and when the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, pierces thy soul, beware of fretful impatience. Instead of rising with indignation against the preacher, and saying as proud Ahab did to the man of God, "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?" account him thy best friend that wounds thee deepest, provided he brings thee to Christ for a cure: and when the arrows of the word fly abroad, drop the shield of unbelief, make bare thy breast, welcome the blessed shaft, and remember that the only way of conquering sin is to fall wounded and helpless at the Redeemer's feet.

Nevertheless, the impressions of the word will soon wear off if thou dost not importunately entreat the Searcher of hearts to light the candle of his grace in thy soul, that thou mayest clearly see whether "thy inward parts" are "holiness to the Lord," as thou fondly supposedst; or "very wickedness," as the Scripture testifies. It is only in God's light that we can clearly discover our blindness.

This "light," it is true, "shineth in darkness," but frequently "the darkness comprehendeth it not." That this be not thy dreadful case, do not grieve and quench the convincing Spirit, by persisting in the wilful omission of any duty, or deliberate commission of any sin: nothing but obstinate unbelief darkens the mind, and hardens the heart, more than this. Therefore, instead of burying thy "one talent" with the "slothful servant," earnestly pray the Lord to make thee faithful in thy convictions, and to deepen them daily till they end in a sound conversion.

In order to this, do not slightly heal the wound in thy conscience: it is better to keep it open than to skin it over by improper means: many, through a natural forwardness and impatience, have recourse to them, and ruin is the consequence of their mistake. That thou mayest avoid it, serious reader, I entreat thee to pay a due regard to the following