of spiritual death, and looks around him with an agitated feeling, to ask-" What shall I do to be saved?"

To excite the conscience to at least a momentary activity, is very often far more easy, than to meet that class of perplexities and cares to which such an excitement may lead. And hence we see many who find it no hard task to point the penalty of the law to the heart of the sinner, and to bring in array before him the terrors of an offended God; and yet whose whole instructions to one in this interesting state, are so vague, and so illdefined, as to shed no light upon his path, and to give him no clear conceptions of his real condition.

Two things strike an observer of the awakened sinner, and call for all the prudence and caution with which advice or counsel may be given. These are his difficulties and his dangers.

Among the difficulties of which he is ready to complain, is that of the want of something suitable to his own peculiar state. We follow apostolic example when we recommend him to" believe and repent." But he is not unapt to tell us that he requires a more explicit direction than this. We commend him to

prayer and the word of God. But even the effort to regard this injunction, he informs us, furnishes new cares, and exhibits new obstacles in his way. His necessities multiply, and his demands increase.

Now it would be easy to charge much of the evil upon himself, and prove to him from the economy of grace, and the character of God, that all the fault lies within his own heart; and this is a melancholy truth of which we should not permit him to lose sight. But he returns from all this to ask the particular character of the default, its causes, and the means of its removal.

If we put into his hands any of the valuable little treatises which were designed to alarm the unconverted sinner, he may assent to the truths they contain; but while his convictions are deepened, his personal difficulties are still not reached. There is much, very much, which remains unexplained; and which, while it lasts, multiplies itself, or extends through new ramifications, and creates new embarassments. And his demand is more importunate than ever, for some instruction adapted to that peculiarity of character, which he conceives to distinguish his present condition. Here is an eagerness of appetite which disposes him

to seize, with avidity, on all that bears a remote resemblance to the fancied object of his wants. And it is to meet this, that any counsel we may give, should enter as far as possible into the familiarities of the heart. And yet to do so, important as it is, requires some further knowledge of the case than we may be able to obtain.

Where the inquirer is disposed to present the exact state of his mind; and where he is able to define his feelings, the plain good sense of a private Christian may enable him to say all that is necessary. But the inquirer is not always willing to do the former; and he is very often incompetent to accomplish the latter. And yet indisposed or unable, as he may be to do either, his solicitude is not the less to learn the grand secret of the causes and remedy of his moral disorder.

Now if we were unable to meet this whole question, there is one thing which it is not out of our power to do-I mean that of furnishing to the sight of the sufferer, cases analogous to his own; or cases which may possibly strike him as similar.

Even where we are at a loss to account, in all respects, for the existence of a particular experience, we do much for the inquirer by

describing it. We prevent painful conclusions, which he is very apt to deduce from a supposed singularity; and we enable him to draw inferences for himself, which may preserve him from the extreme of presumption or despair. We abstract his attention from extraneous cares, and fix it on something which may give a clue to the windings of his heart. The sooner we can effect this desirable end, the greater probability is there of a favourable issue. And the longer he is detained from it, the greater is his hazard of fatal selfdeception; or of an equally fatal relinquishment of the interests of his soul.

But the dangers to which the inquirer is exposed, may often be commensurate with his difficulties. And among these, not the least may be found in the well meant, but injudicious advice of pious friends. A work, then, which will furnish scriptural directions for different states of mind, consequent on the natural disposition, or temporal circumstances, of the awakened sinner, is certainly a desideratum.

Or, if there be no hazard of a fictitious peace, from such a source, source, it may be the lot of the inquirer to be out of the reach of those to whom he might impart his anxieties, and from

whose experimental knowledge relief might be obtained. And in such a dilemma it is easy to foresee that all solicitude may be abandoned in hopelessness; recourse may be had to error; or postponement to a more favourable issue, may ensue.

In the private musings, too, of one in such a state, there may be imminent danger, not only from his false expectations, but from the excuses which he secretly gives to his conscience. Present disappointment induces him to look somewhere else. And thousands in a land of gospel light have given up all effort under secret pleas, as dishonourable to God as they are destructive to themselves. To enu merate these pleas, and to exhibit their criminality, might be an important engagement for one who acts as counsellor; but it belongs to a field by far too large to be occupied in every instance of application for advice; while the particular parts in which the inquirer is privately wandering, may not be discerned. A volume then, which would answer this end might assist the adviser, while it rendered the folly and inconsistency of the awakened sinner distinctly visible to his own sight.

If it be asked, whether I give the following pages to the public, with a full confidence in