It is indeed surprising what caprices and what follies, in the heart of the sinner, are brought to light, in the condition which I am describing: what inconsistent notions! what absurd expectations! what impertinences! what perverse ideas of God! what wanton impeachment of his holy character! And has such a man a claim upon the spiritual mercies of his Maker?-the very thing which he fancies to be his!-And is God under an obligation to hear him?—the very thing he imagines him to be! Adieu, my dear sir. dispositions of your mind. Dare to examine the tiny of an Omniscient Being. Pray, and act consistently with such a prayer, "Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."* 70 LETTER IV. Common misconceptions.-Mistaken idea of a propriety in delay.--Any delay or suffering, the fault of the sinner.-Mistake relating to the necessity of a certain preparatory process. Scripture examples.-Errors relating to the duty and acceptance of prayer.-"I am not yet prepared."—" I am not holy enough.”—The inconsistency of such complaints.— Apprehended insensibility.—Analogies and illustrations.— Want of more clear views of sin.-Exact degrees of conviction not necessary, nor even possible, to be observed.-Why conviction is more difficult to be effected in a man of strict morality. The gospel invites, without reference to the degree of conviction, upon the ground of universal and most urgent necessity. - MY DEAR SIR, IF a heathen, who did not well understand the first principles of the gospel, were awakened to some sense of his guilt, we might expect him to cry out, "What shall I do to be saved?" But, suppose a man, whose home is in Christendom, and who has been imbued with a theoretical knowledge of the truths of Christianity, yet is ignorant of its power in his own experience; suppose him, for the first time, to make the fearful discovery of his lost condition, and of the neces sity of personal reconciliation to his God;would you not imagine the question wholly unnecessary on his part? Would you not say, that to him the path of the convicted soul would be plain, plain as a path in which "the wayfaring men, though fools, need not err?" Would you not believe, that nothing could stand in his way, to obstruct a direct approach to the Author of salvation? Yes; judging from common analogy, you could hardly doubt that a mind, thus instructed, would know how to advance immediately to the mercy-seat. You would look for neither turnings nor windings, in a question that appears to carry its solution with it. See how we mistake! The plan that was so easy becomes intricate, the moment it is applied to affairs of our own! The very rules we should have laid down for others, and in which we should have had every confidence in relation to them, we are unable to reduce to practice for ourselves. How shall we account for this? Does conviction darken the understanding? Or does it enfeeble our abilities? Or why, otherwise, should we not appropriate to our own use what we should have prescribed to others, in similar circumstances? This is not the place to solve these difficulties, though it might not be hard to do so. The truth, however, is as we have represented it; that, com petent as one thus instructed might believe himself, to teach others in a matter in which he has had no personal experience, he finds his ability sadly diminished when the case becomes his own. Instead of proceeding, without waiting for intermediate measures, directly to the Redeemer, we see him, from the first moment of anxiety, enveloped in perplexities of which he had not thought, and which he would have declared entirely extraneous from a sincere inquiry. He may even linger long in this embarrassment, equally unhappy and sinful as it is. The awakened sinner, who has been accustomed to the sight of others in a similar state of mind, is too apt to form conclusions from what he has thus seen or heard; and to consider exactly the same experience indispensable for himself. He knew that such a one was the prey of distress, during a given space of time; that such and such was the conflict he sustained; and that, at last, the Redeemer pitied his sufferings, and granted an answer to his prayer. Now this whole representation is incorrect; and not only so, but if the premises were just, the conclusion is fallacious. All that he heard or saw, gave him no fair insight into the truth. The simple fact here, and in every one of those cases which are presented in such a form as to lead to the inference that God is keeping the sinner at a distance, as if to make experiments on his feelings and disposition, is as follows. All delay arose from misconception of the truth as it is in the gospel, from unwillingness to relinquish cherished sins, or from an unhallowed attempt to treat with the Creator on compromising terms. But never does delay arise from any cause that is contradictory to the idea of freely tendered pardon; or which does not prove and enhance the guilt of the sinner. It might be added, that all the pity which is so often expressed for the sufferer by those around him, is usually misapplied. This sympathy, which wears SO amiable an aspect, may not infrequently be in behalf of a struggle, the principle of which is discreditable to its subject; and in behalf of sorrows which have their origin in enmity to God. I know there is an apparent sternness in this opinion but it is inseparable from the scriptural position-that all the fault of the sinner's delay is, exclusively, in himself. Contrary to this is that sentiment, so generally entertained, relative to the necessity of a certain preparatory process, which the sinner, it is supposed, must undergo previously to his acceptance by a pardoning God. Hence we hear of necessary stages in the course of inquiry; unavoidable goals, which are to be successively reached. Now all this arises from transplanting the impediments and mistakes which had been in the way E |