For there is something in our nature which tells us unequivocally, (speculate as we may,) that we are responsible for our neglect, and deserve punishment for our dislike, of God. We feel that we owe to him a very different return for all his goodness to us, and that the debt must be reckoned to our account. And this dread of God is not removed even by the submission of our heart to him. Nay it is deepened, in proportion to that growing consciousness of sin and guilt which accompanies the workings of a true Repentance. For no sorrow for our breach of God's law can do away the claims of that Law—no resolutions for the future can obliterate the past. And the more, therefore, the heart is softened, the greater becomes its despondency-the stronger its desire to turn to God, the more it needs to be assured that it may turn to Him as to a Friend—a pacified, forgiving, satisfied Friend. A sense of personal acceptance-a trust in God as entering into a new relation with us, an animating consciousness of our heavenly Father's presence, care, and approbation- this is essential to our running the new race of holiness to which repentance pledges us, with that quiet vigour which alone ensures success. And this state of mind is called in Scripture the state of Justification-the being "justified by Faith, and having Peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord,”

the having "the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry, Abba Father,”—the enjoying " fellowship with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ," - the "joying in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have received the Atonement."

Once more. The unconverted man has no definite and lively Hope in God. The future is to him. a blank, or at best the sphere of mere conjecture and assumption. Each imagined contingency of the present life excites, according to his temperament and circumstances, unfounded expectation or anxious fear. He has no one on whom to cast the burden of the coming day. And with respect to the life to come, even if he escapes the forebodings of an uneasy though slumbering conscience, he attains but to the vapid self-security of one who, having gained the necessary passports thinks no more of his departure till the time of separation from his friends can be no longer delayed. His best anticipations are unthinking confidence. His worst are blank despair. Nor is the Christian convert without his perplexities and apprehensions. He feels almost alone in a world of trial and temptation. He cannot depend upon himself. He knows that few will understand him, sympathize with him, assist him, in the race that he is running. He needs, therefore, a child-like confidence in God as his unfailing Counsellor and Preserver, — depend

92 THE PROCESS OF THE SPIRITUAL LIFE.

ance on his guidance and support through each successive difficulty of this world — and that "blessed Hope of everlasting life," which looks forward to the world to come as to our dwellingplace and home. And this the Scriptures call the spirit of Assurance - the "walking by Faith and not by sight," the "holding fast the confidence and the rejoicing of our Hope firm unto the end"the "rejoicing in Hope of the glory of God."

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Such then are some of the principal manifestations of that Spiritual life which, welling out from the secret fountains of the soul, purifies and quickens all the better feelings of our nature, and rises into that commingled Love, and Joy, and Hope, the exercise of which toward God forms the essential Spirit of Christian Piety here, and is the foretaste of eternal blessedness hereafter. O may God pour such a stream of Godliness and Gladness into our hearts!

CHAPTER III.

SPIRITUAL AWAKENING.

As we cannot appreciate the worth of Christianity in general but as we consider the actual condition and necessities of human nature, to meet which Christianity was vouchsafed; so neither shall we be prepared to acquiesce in the Scripture statements concerning the process by which the life of Christianity usually manifests itself in the individual soul, unless we have fixed our attention on some of the broader features of our natural state of mind, and have thus convinced ourselves of the extent of the transformation that we need, in order to become new creatures in Christ Jesus. We must duly estimate the natural Indifference, Ignorance, Alienation, Dread, and Despondency of the human mind before we can duly estimate either the necessity or the worth of that Spiritual Awakening, Illumination, Conversion, Peace, and Hope, which the influences of the Holy Ghost produce.

Let us, therefore, now devote ourselves to the consideration of these particulars in detail. And,

First, let us bring before our minds the Fact of man's INDIFFERENCE TO GOD.

Men are naturally indifferent to God:- this is the first broad fact of our fallen condition, which the slightest observation may convince us of. They need, therefore, as the first step to Salvation, to have their Attention awakened to Him :- this is the conclusion of Reason from the observation of that obvious fact. And the Excitement of this Attention is the work of God:--this is the Assertion of Scripture in answer to the demands of that need.

All our observation and experience testify to us the first broad Fact of our condition, that man is naturally INDIFFERENT TO GOD. It is only by degrees that we gain any conception of God and of his relation to us, and of the infinite importance of that relation to our welfare; and without some knowledge of these truths, there can of course be no interest in them. We are to God. all of us in childhood, many of us through youth and manhood, and many, alas! yet longer still, yea, even throughout their lives we are to God, as the infant to its parent; deriving from Him our being; fed and warmed, and nourished by His care; watched over by His never-sleeping eye; and guarded and sustained by his ever extended arm;—but yet unconscious of Him; occupied only with the gifts, unknowing, or heedless of the Giver; and even when