disturbed his flumbers by night; when no reflec tion on the riots of the night threw a cloud over the fucceeding day; when he was at peace with his own heart; when confcience was on his fide; when reflection was a friend; when memory presented only welcome images to the mind; when under the wings of parental care he was blessed in his going out and his coming in; when his father's eye met his with approbation and delight.

Having viewed the picture, he compares it with his present fituation. Sad contraft! By his own folly, a vagabond in a foreign land; banished from all that he valued and held dear; cut off from the joys of his better days; languifhing out life under the most abject form of mifery; pining under poverty; funk into fervitude; feeding fwine, and himself defiring to partake with them in their husks; miferable without, but more miferable within; a fpirit wounded by remorfe; a heart torn by reflec tion on itself, an accufing confcience which told him that he merited his fate, and which held up to him his past life in its blackeft colours of folly and guilt. Astonished at himself, startled at his own image, which in its true colours he had never feen before, he was afhamed of his conduct, and came to a better mind. Such were the effects of confideration, and fuch will ever be the effects of confideration to those who duly exercise it. Why does the finner go forward in the error of his ways? Because he does not confider. Confider

your

your ways, is the voice which God addreffes to mankind in every age; and unless you confider, the calls of the gofpel and the offers of grace are made to no purpofe. The world which is to come has no existence to you but what you give it yourfelves; the eternity that is before us, the happiness of heaven and the pains of retributive justice, are no more than dreams, unless you realize them to your felves, unless you give them their full force, by bringing them home to the heart. When a man reviews the error of his ways, nothing is wanting to a farther reformation but reflection and thought, Think, and the work is done. "I confidered my ways," fays the pfalmift. What was the confequence? "I turned my feet unto thy teftimonies."

So thought the loft young man; and fo the repentant finner thinks, who is in earnest, and anxious about his falvation. What a blessing, says he to himself, have I voluntarily rejected by my fins and my follies! follies! Happy had it been for me, if I had hearkened to the voice of God and of my confcience, if I had followed their affectionate admonitions and remonftrances, if I had retained my innocence, and remained faithful to my duty! How rational, how equitable, how reasonable are all the commands of God, and how happy would the obfervance of them have made me! The ineftimable favour of the fupreme being, inward peace, fatisfaction of mind, the consciousness of my

integrity,

integrity, the esteem and love of all the good, the certain hope of everlasting glory, would have delighted all my days; they would have sweetened the cup of life, and have alleviated the burden of its cares; they would have fhed a divine transport upon my foul. Under the protection of my heavenly father I fhould have dwelt in fafety; and in the fhadow of his wings have had no want or misfortune to fear. And these bleffings have I facrificed to the fallacious pleafures of fin! I have fhaken off the mild authority of my creator and benefactor, and am now under the cruel fway of the moft fcandalous and corrupt defires. All the powers of my mind are debilitated; diforder and incongruity disturb my foul; wickednefs is become as it were a fecond nature to me; and I feel myself too weak to enter the lifts against it, and recover the freedom I have loft. God has hid his gracious countenance from me. I have brought upon myself his terrible displeasure, and live at a most deplorable distance from him. And what will become of me if death overtake me in this condition, if I am cited to appear in this fad condition before the judge of the living and the dead? How can I support his look? How can I stand before him, the Omniscient! With what excufes can I palliate my premeditated and fo often repeated violations of his law, or extenuate my ingratitude and my defection! What a fevere but righteous condemnation have I to dread! How horrible will be my portion for

eternity!

eternity! Oh that I had never finned! Oh that I had never forfaken my Father and my Redeemer; never caft off the fear of God! Who will now Where fhall I find

redeem me from this mifery! help and deliverance!

But, continues the con

trite finner, is there then no precious gleam of hope, no ray of comfort, to my amazed foul? Is no remedy at hand to rescue me from deferved condemnation, for ftill becoming happy? Oh, I have read that the Lord is gracious, long-fuffering, and plenteous in mercy; that he will not despise the broken and contrite heart; that fuch as return to him he will in no wife caft out; that he will gracioufly look to him that is poor and of a contrite fpirit, and trembles at his word. Does not the gofpel tell me that he fent his fon to be the faviour of men; and that all who truft in him, and follow his facred precepts, he will for his fake again receive as his children? Perhaps then he will have compaffion on me, and give me grace for justice, if I humble myself before him, and turn to him with my whole heart. No, my mifery is too great! The danger I am in is too imminent, to allow me room to hope that any thing can fnatch me from it.

Such are the agitations and fears of the returning finner; till his fpirit worn out with woe, his eyes diffolved in tears, and his heart all rent with compunction, he takes up the refolution which we may confider as the third ftage of his converfion.

Το

To wicked men labouring under the agonies of guilty mind, the deity appears an object of terror. They figure to themselves an angry tyrant, with his thunder in his hand, delighting to punish and deftroy. They are afraid, and flee from the prefence of the Lord. But from the mind of the penitent these terrors prefently vanish, and God appears, not as a cruel and malignant power, but as the best of beings, the father of mercies and the friend of man, as a God in Chrift reconciling the world unto himself. Encouraged by these declarations, the penitent trufts to the divine goodness, and flies for refuge to the hope fet before him. Horrors of confcience and forebodings of wrath overwhelm the fons of reprobation. But the penitent never despairs. He finks indeed in his own eyes, and throws himself proftrate on the ground, but ftill throws himself at the footstool of mercy, not without the faith and the hope that he will be taken into favour. The language of his foul is: Great God, withhold from me what else thou pleaseft, but give me to enjoy the approbation of my own mind and thy favour. I would rather henceforth be the humbleft of thy fons than dwell in the tents of wickedness.

"I will arife," fays the contrite youth," and go to my father, and will fay unto him, Father, I have finned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy fon; make me as one of thy hired fervants." I will immediately

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embrace