358 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE \}792 



But when once the hearts of men are truly mollified, and brought to 

 a sense of their own corruption and danger through sin; and when, by 

 the grace of God, they are purged from the dross of pride and preju- 

 dice, they will fly to Christ, and submit to the operations of the Holy 

 Spirit, the witness within them. They will then embrace Him as the 

 Way and the Life; they Avill rejoice in hearing his Holy Word, and lay 

 hold of his blessed Gospel as the great charter of their salvation ; the 

 richest legacy or gift which heaven could give, or man receive. 



Thus touched by God and convinced of sin, the soul will pant for 

 salvation,' in his own blessed way, according to the sound doctrine of 

 Christ and his apostles; not by cunningly-devised fables, not in man's 

 wisdom, disputing about the means and the mystery; not conferring 

 with flesh and blood; but by a strong faith, not wavering; an animating 

 hope, that maketh not ashamed, and a burning love, that never can be 

 quenched; silencing every doubt of carnal reason, and subduing the 

 whole spiritual man to the obedience of faith under grace. 



Being now brought into this holy submission, the soul no longer re- 

 sists the drawings of the Father to the son; but receives that spirit of 

 adoption promised by God, whereby we become his children, and ob- 

 tain that new birth so often spoken of and so little understood; leading 

 us to delight in hearing the word, joy in all holy exercises, conscious of 

 the power of God in the soul, through Christ, sitting and ruling with 

 his sceptre of righteousness in the hidden man of the heart. 



But it is not so with the unregenerated, whose souls are not brought 

 into this holy submission. Some of them are wholly listless, and loth 

 to hear, or examine for themselves. Others of more active and restless 

 powers, those men of itching ears already spoken of, must be doing 

 something, although it be often worse than nothing. But in their 

 doings they are unstable as the waves, and led, as they phrase it, to kill 

 precious time, running about, like the Athenians of old, to tell or to 

 hear some Jicw thing; flying from altar to altar, from teacher to teacher, 

 some of them teaching for doctrine, as St. Matthew expresses it, the com- 

 mandments of men, and some of them, as St. Paul says, "giving heed 

 to seducing spirits and the very doctrines of devils." 



But, my beloved brethren, is this the way to learn or to know Clirist? 

 Alas ! it is far otherwise. He is not a divided Christ, nor are his doc- 

 trines either new or uncertain. It is time, and indeed more than time, 

 for all those who profess his blessed name, pastors as well as people, to 

 be united in those solid and essential truths which lead to salvation ; to 

 bid adieu to whatever is new fangled and conjectural ; and to deal no 

 more in that light bread which satisfieth not the soul, but in that bread 

 which came down from heaven, and strengtheneth a man's heart. 



Could Christians be united thus, in love and in doctrine, the great 

 obstacles to the success of the preached Gospel would more easily be 

 removed. But although we cannot expect to arrive wholly to this point 



