is none that doth good, no not | salvation there made, I trust I one." Rom. iii. 12. have embraced, and obtained P. I am glad then you do not forgiveness through faith in Jethink me worse than my neigh-sus Christ. bors. I hope I shall do as well as others, for all are sinners.

P. I hope I have repented too I am sure if I offend God, I am sorry for it afterwards.And for faith-why, we are al Christians, I hope are we not?

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M. Therefore you think you need not be greatly troubled, if you are so too; but hope to pass in the crowd. Does not some such thought as that lurk at the M. If your repentance be sinbottom? But what signify num-cere, and your faith lively and bers with God, whose all search-true, your state is safe and haping eye no man can be concealed py. But many persons deceive from, and whose arm none can themselves by a dead faith, and resist or escape? Had you lived imperfect repentance. Are you in Sodom, this same thought willing to have yours tried? might have lulled you asleep in the prevailing sins, but would not have saved you from the streams of fire.

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P. After this rate, you damni all the world.

M. Damn!-what a word is that? It signifies to judge to eternal torment, to do which belongeth only to the righteous Judge. I would with all my soul rescue all men from that misery, and with that view, I now speak plainly and faithfully to you, and agreeably to the word of God.

P. Who then can be saved? Not you yourself. Pray, sir, did you never sin?

M. Friend, be serious. The subject we now are upon is of the utmost importance. I have sinned as well as you; I have greatly sinned, and my sins have deserved eternal damnation but God hath been pleased to awaken me to repentance; he hath shewn me my danger, and stirred me up to flee from the wrath to come. He hath shewn me also the way of escaping the wages of sin, opened in the blessed gospel. The offer of

P. I am; for the trial can do me no hurt. If I am safe, it is well; if not, I hope it is not too late to amend.

M. You say very right.— First, then, let us examine your repentance. Now true repentance implies a sense of sin, its odiousness and deformity, a hatred of it, an actual forsaking of it, and a turning to God by newness of life. Is your repentance such as this?

P. I hope it is.

M. The wages of sin is death, eternal death. Do you think you deserve this death?

P. As much as other men, for all are sinners: but God is merciful.

M. Do not talk of other men. Do you think that you deserve eternal death?

P. If God should deal with me according to strict justice, I do: but, as I think God is merciful, so I hope I shall do well enough.

M. I fear your notions of God's mercy are such as prevent true repentance. You seem to have hopes of mercy while you are insensible of your utter misery

M. God does not deal with all exactly in the same way. But take heed you do not depend too much upon outward privileges. Search your heart and life. Have you not lived for a long time together as without God in the world? Instead of renounc-dependence upon your amending the world, the flesh, and the devil, have you not followed the world in judging of things according to the opinions of men. in opposition to the word of God? Have you not in many things conformed to its customs

yourself sinful, vile and base, and | ing on yourself. With respect like Job, abhorring yourself; to the other branches of repentwhen I see you sensible that you ance, such as forsaking sin, it is are unworthy of the least mercy, evident to yourself, you have and unable of yourself to do any lived without concern in some good thing; when I see you re-habitual sins; and as to turning nouncing your best deeds as de- to God, you were never sensifiled by sin, casting yourself be-ble, that you were turned from fore God as lost and helpless ; | him. having no hope in yourself, but supported only by the promise of salvation made in Jesus Christ; when this is, not only the language of the tongue, but these convictions are deeply impressed on the heart-then shall think a real work of grace is begun in your soul.

P. Why, this is advising me to despair!

Indeed (though you seem not to know it) the ruling principle in you, and every natural man, is a principle of sin and corrup tion. Instead of seeking to please God, you have all along been seeking to please yourself; to gratify corrupt nature, by sensual delights, riches, worldly esteem, ease, or the like. This hath been the acting principle of your whole

AI. Indeed I would have you despair of all help from your-conduct, instead of obeying that self, on account of any thing you have done, or can do; for ill then, you will not sufficiently value Jesus Christ, or fly to him as your only Saviour, who came to preach deliverance to the captives, and to bind up the broken-hearted.

command, "Do all to the glory of God." Nay, if you search narrowly, you will find in your heart an enmity against God. For so saith the Apostle, Rom. viii. 7. "The carnal mind" (and such is every man's by nature) is enmity against God." And this enmity shews itself in opposing God's will, by doing what he hath forbidden, and leaving undone what he hath commanded; and also in flying M.' I doubt you never believed from God as your enemy, and at all, properly speaking: but endeavouring to hide yourself of this I will talk more with you from him like Adam. Have another time. At present, it is you not passed days and weeks plain your repentance has not without one serious thought of been real. You never saw and God, though you were all the felt your danger; consequently time receiving mercies at his could never be so desirous of hand? Have you not banished escaping it as is necessary. You and suppressed such thoughts always flattered yourself with when they have arisen in your some hopes that your state was mind? Have you not fled from safe, or certainly would be, serious thoughts of God and when you lived a little better; eternity, as enemies to your which was, at bottom depend-peace, and drowned them in

P. I believe all this may be necessary to a notorious sinner, or a heathen: but I have lived in some fear of God, attended at church, and always believed.

worldly cares, vain coversation, and idle amusements? Have you not thus fled from God? You know you have. Suffer me to be plain with you; hitherto you have gone wrong, and have been insensible of your danger, deceived yourself, and spoken peace to your soul when there was no peace. Now consider what you have heard from me, read your bible, examine yourself, and pray God to give you a sense of your real state, and a right judgment in all things.

DIALOGUE II.

M. I was in hopes of seeing you before now, neighbor, that we might have an opportunity of talking together again on the same important subject.

P. Indeed, Sir, if I may make so bold, I must say I did not like what you said so well as to desire to hear any more of it. And I should not have come to you now, had it not been for something I heard in your sermon yesterday.

M. I like your honest plainness very well, neighbor. But in what was it that I offended you?

P. I thought you bore too hard upon me, and I was afraid you would make me melancholy. M. Do not you think that what I said proceeded from love to your soul?

P. Your yesterday's sermon about the day of judgment. I have been very uneasy ever since I heard it. For I am greatly afraid, that, if the day of judgment was now come, it would find me unprepared. And then-the Lord have mercy upon my poor soul !

M. It would be too late then to cry and hope for mercy. But what was it particularly that, made you form such a judgment of yourself?

P. You shewed us from the 25th chapter of St. Matthew, that judgment begins with a separation of the godly from the wicked; and that this was owing to a separation made in the present life, when the righteous were taken from among the wicked, by leaving the works and company of the ungodly. I was not sensible of any such change in me, and I am therefore afraid I am still in the state of sin, in which you told us all men are by nature.

M. You have great reason to be afraid. I told you that those only would be esteemed righteous on that day, who had fled to the Lord Jesus for righteousness to justify them; had been made holy by the Spirit of God, creating in them a new heart; and had evidenced this change by a holy conversation through the remaining part of their life, how many or great soever their sins had been: and P. I did think so then. You that the ticked were those that seemed to judge too hardly of had lived and died without faith me, and to put me on a level within Christ, and the indwelling of the worst of men. But I am now convinced that what you said was all true.

P. I really believe it did. M. Do you think I said any thing that was not true?

M. What has produced this change of your sentiments? VOL. I. NO. 10.

God's Spirit, however orderly and decent their conduct was.

P. Ay, that it was that terrified me. You told us that the most upright man had commitA aa

ted sins enough to condemn him, if he died without an interest in Christ, and without being accepted as righteous thro' him. But if this mercy and acceptance through Jesus Christ were obtained before death, no man's sins would be remembered against him on that day. And to prove this, you shewed us, that in the proceedings of the last day, as related by St. Matthew, no sins of the righteous are mentioned by the Judge, nor any good deeds of the wicked.

M. The wicked, that is, they who live and die without an humbling sense of their natural corruption and actual sins, so as never by faith to fly for refuge to God's mercy in Christ, have, properly speaking,no good works to be mentioned; for all they do is from a wrong principle, either for selfish and worldly ends, or in order to gain an interest in Christ, and pardon of their sins on account of their doings; which is seeking salvation by the law of works. On this account, their works are not regarded, being not done in faith, nor proceeding from a principle of love, which principle none can have, till they are one with Christ, who is the true vine, and believers are the branches, deriving life from him; (John xv.) without whom we can do nothing acceptable in God's sight. On the other hand, the righteous, being themselves accepted through Christ, their sins are not mentioned, because long before, forgiven and blotted out, and their imperfect services being accepted through Jesus their High Priest, who bears the iniquity of their holy things, receive at the hands of

the bountiful Judge a reward of grace. So, what principally distinguishes the godly man from the ungodly is, that the one is accepted as righteous, and has obtained forgiveness through Christ, or according to the new or gospel covenant; the other, never being fully sensible of his sinful, lost state, applies not for the mercy represented in the Gospel, and so at the day of judgment will stand on the foundation of the old covenant, or law of works, which requires perfect obedience: consequently he is without a Mediator, and without forgiveness, and therefore must be condemned.

P. But then, why are works mentioned at all on that day, as we find they are?

M. I gave you two reasons for this: First, Because though they are not the ground of any man's acceptance, yet they shew a man to be in a justified state; for we cannot bear the fruit of holines, unless we are in Christ, and abide in him. And they who do not act righteously deceive themselves, if they think themselves righteous: so that good works serve to dstinguish believers and unbelievers. Se condly, Because the different degrees of faithfulness make a difference between the godly themselves, so that God is plea sed graciously to confer upon them different degrees of glory. That any man is at all saved is owing to his faith in the Redeemer: his degree of glory is proportioned to his fruitfulness and diligence in the vineyard.

P. I have always thought that we Christians were all believers, one as much as another: and