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vail upon me to relinquish my pursuit. And if no power but nature had been with me to resist her claim, very sure am I, that I must have yielded to entreaties coming from an advocate so endearing. If,' said she, in a moment of peculiar solemnity, after speaking of a dear friend to both, departed into the world of spirits, if those new sentiments of yours be really founded in truth, what is become of him whom we followed to the grave? It is impossible that so much sweetness and amiableness can be lost.'-The reader who knows what the conflicts of nature and grace mean; whose heart at times is like that of the Shulamite, in the contentions of two armies, will know somewhat of what I have felt in those seasons.

Adored Redeemer! I have not wanted, thou knowest, that evidence of being thy follower; in plucking out an eye, cutting off an arm, and taking up a cross!-It was the legacy of my late companion, that I might know the fellowship of Christ's sufferings. And here was an answer to his prayer.

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It was much about the same period, in which my

friend was thus deeply exercised with the unceasing importunity and persecutions of my relations, that I received a more formidable assault from another quarter. While I was seek.

ing consolation from retirement and reading in the intervals of more important engagements, a circumstance arose in consequence of the latter, which very much affected me.

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I FOUND an author, whose writings were particularly directed to the subject of divine grace. The title first attracted my notice and invited me to the perusal. But the trial it afterwards proved to me, will be, I hope, thus far useful, to caution me against curiosity in future. It is a good thing, (the apostle saith,) that the heart be established with grace*. But it is dangerous in the unexperienced and the unestablished, to be running about in quest of novelty. The leading doctrines of this writer's creed, founded on what hath been generally distinguished by the five points of the Dort Assembly, from being originally formed there, were to this purpose: That grace is equally free, and equally offered to all; the acceptance or refusal of it depended upon ourselves. And hence, that the improvement or mis-improvement rests upon the will of man. That the regeneration of the Holy *Heb. xiii. 9.

Ghost doth not so operate as to be irresistibly effectual, but that a man's own conduct may frustrate the life-giving power. And lastly, the final perdition of the people of God is very possible, notwithstanding all that the everlasting love of the Father, and the infinite merits of the Redeemer, and the operation of the Holy Ghost, hath wrought, in order to prevent it.

The reader who hath accompanied me thus far in my pilgrimage, hath seen enough of my weakness not to know that such a train of doctrine was sufficient for a time to throw a damp upon all my confidence. I am like the sensitive plant in these things; the least touch makes me recoil. To hear, therefore, of the bare possibility of falling from grace, in the close of life, and apostatizing from him whom my soul loveth,' (and apostatize I certainly should, if the perseverance depended upon myself,) what a distressing apprehension!

Neither did my trials end here. There was yet another in reserve for this season of temptation. What David remarks of the natural world, is equally applicable to the spiritual;

Thou makest darkness, and it is night; wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth. When the Lord withdraws his shining on the

soul, the enemy, who knows the time of darkness to be the most favourable for his work, 'goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.' And never till the sun ariseth again, will he lay him down in his den*.*

THE BROTHERS.

Ir happened of an evening, while my mind was reeking under all these united attacks, I that walked forth into the way. My path lay through a field, in which there were two men; who, from the congeniality of their sentiments, more than from the tie of consanguinity, I considered to be brothers. They were so engaged in conversation, as they walked before me, that I escaped their notice; so that I had opportunity of hearing the whole of their discourse unperceived.

"Can you reconcile your mind to the doctrine of redemption,' said the one to the other, ' and place the least confidence in the merits of Christ? For my part,' continued he, I am quite a free thinker; I see no necessity upon which it is founded. The world, take it alto* Psalm civ. 20-22.

gether, according to my opinion, is good enough; and cannot need an expiation. And indeed, when I consider what modern discoveries have been made respecting the immensity of creation, and that the globe which we inhabit is but as a speck in it, the idea lessens the doctrine of revelation altogether in my esteem.'

'You are perfectly right,' answered the other; 'I have long thought as you do, and have made up my mind to reject it altogether. All the doctrines of Christianity, excepting the moral part of it, (and that the world had before,) are, in my esteem, only calculated for weak and vulgar minds. And indeed their authority is precarious depending upon writings that, for aught we know, may or may not be true,'

The reader will at once conclude, that these observations tended not to dissipate my former gloom. And although, low as my spirits then were, I thought a mere child in grace might casily have refuted their false reasonings; yet my mind was too sore and toc sorrowful in the moment, to enter into controversy. Every application to a wound, if put on with roughness, acts like a caustic.

I had heard enough not to covet more; and therefore withdrew from the brothers as un

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