can do but this is not necessary to evidence the truth of grace. Happy is he who, in this case, can say, as the blind man in the gospel," One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see." For as you know that there is fire when you see the flame, though you know not how or when it began: so also it may be discerned, that you have really undergone a saving change, though you know not how or when it was wrought in your hearts. If you answer the characters I laid down in the preceding discourses, as essential to the truly regenerate, (which are all comprehended in repentance and faith, producing an unfeigned love and uniform obedience,) you may trace the cause from the effect with far greater certainty than you could have traced such an effect, as what would infallibly follow from any cause which you could have perceived in your minds previous to it. There may be great awakenings, violent terrors, and ecstatic joys, where there is no saving work of God on the soul: but where the divine image is produced, and the soul is actually renewed, we are sure (as was before observed,) that grace has been working though we know not when, or where, or how. And therefore on the whole, guarding against both these extremes, and to cure them both,

(3.) Let Christians, in a prudent and humble manner, be ready to communicate their religious experiences to each other.

God undoubtedly intended that the variety of his operations should be observed and owned in the world of grace, as well as in that of nature; and as these things pass in the secret recesses of men's

hearts, how should they be known, unless they will themselves communicate and declare them? And let me caution you against that strange averseness to all freedoms of this kind, which, especially in persons of a reserved temper, is so ready to prevail. Let not any think it beneath them to do it. You well know that David, who was not only a man of an admirable genius, but a mighty prince too, was far from thinking it so; on the contrary, deeply impressed with the divine condescension in all the gracious visits he had received from him, he calls, as it were, the whole pious world around him, that they might be edified and comforted by the relation: "Come," says he," and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul." He proclaimed it, not with his voice and harp alone, but with his immortal pen; and many other noble and excellent persons concurred with him; and the invaluable treasure of their experiences, in as great a variety of circumstances as we can well imagine, is transmitted to us in the book of Psalms. Can any

just reason then be assigned, why they who live under a nobler dispensation, and a more abundant communication of the Spirit, should be entirely silent on this subject?

There may indeed be an over-forwardness, which is the apparent effect of pride and self-conceit, and which, with thinking people, may bring even the sincerity of the speaker into question, or put his indiscretion beyond all possibility of being questioned; but it would be very unreasonable to argue, that because a thing may be done ill, it cannot possibly be done well.

Why may not intimate friends open their hearts to each other on such delightful topics? Why may not they who have met with any thing peculiar of this kind, communicate it to their minister? And though I must, in conscience, declare against making it absolutely and universally a term of communion, yet I am well assured, that, in some instances, a prudent and serious communication of these things to a Christian society, when a person is to be admitted into fellowship with it, has often answered very valuable ends. By this means, God has the honour of his own work; and others have the pleasure of sympathizing with the relator, both in his sorrows and his joys; they derive from hence such additional satisfaction as to his fitness for an approach to the Lord's table; they learn with pleasure, the divine blessing which attends the administration of ordinances among them; and make observations and remarks which may assist them in offering their addresses to God, and in giving proper advices to others who are in circumstances like those related. To all which we may add, that the ministers of Christ do, in particular, learn what may be a means of forming them to a more experimental manner of preaching, as well as, in many instances, discover those before unknown tokens of success which may strengthen their hands in the work of their great Master.

It is by frequent conversations of this kind, that I have learned many of the particulars on which I have grounded the preceding discourse. I hope, therefore, you will excuse me, if, on so natural an occasion, I have borne my public testimony to what

has been so edifying to me, both as a minister and a Christian. And the tender regard which I have for young persons, training up for the work of the ministry, and my ardent desire that they may learn the language of Sion, and have those peculiar advantages which nothing but an acquaintance with cases, and an observation on facts can give,' has been a farther inducement to me to add this reflection, with which I conclude my discourse; humbly hoping that what you have heard upon this occasion will, by the divine blessing, furnish out agreeable matter for such conversation as I have now romecmended, to the glory of God, and to the advancement of religion among you. Amen.

SERMON IX.

DIRECTIONS TO AWAKENED SINNERS.

Acrs ix. 6.

"And he, trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?"

He

THESE are the words of Saul, who also is called Paul, when he was stricken to the ground as he was going to Damascus and any one who had looked upon him in his present circumstances, and know nothing more of him than that view, in comparison with his past life, could have given, would have imagined him one of the most miserable creatures that ever lived upon earth, and would have expected that he should very soon have been numbered amongst the most miserable of those in hell. was engaged in a course of such savage cruelty, as can, upon no principle of common morality, be vindicated, even though the Christians had been as much mistaken as he rashly and foolishly concluded they were. After having "dragged many of them into prison, and giving his voice against some that were put to death, he persecuted others into strange cities:" and had now obtained a commission from the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem, to carry this holy, or rather this impious war into Damascus, and to bring all the proselytes to the religion of the blessed Jesus bound from thence to Jerusalem; probably that