ite. So much, in fact, did their partiality for Struensee increase, that, in a very short time, he was appointed Prime Minister with almost unlimited powers. As a statesman, he evinced talents of no ordinary extent. By some of his measures, however, he rendered him. self unpopular, more especially by banishing from the court Count Bernstorff, a man of unblemished character and high reputation.

The rapid elevation of Struensee, combined with the laxity of his moral principles, led him to indulge in the most unbridled licentiousness. He was profligate himself, and sought to corrupt the purity of the Court with which he was unhappily connected. He feared neither God nor man. He scoffed at religion, and disseminated all around him the most pernicious opi nions, striving to discourage and to undermine every right feeling, every proper principle. Scenes of dissi pation and vice were his favourite haunts, and to these he sought to allure all within his reach. His primary ambition, in fact, appeared to be to introduce among the Danish people a general depravity of morals, and a disregard of all religious restraints. Such unblushing profligacy excited a feeling of disgust in the popular mind, which was rendered all the more intense by Lis repeal of a very old and severe law against adultery.

an antiquated superstition. At first sight this boast- | George III., King of Great Britain, with whom, as ing may appear to arise from some defect in the evi-well as with the King, he soon became a great favourdences of religion as presented to this haughty infidel's mind. It is not so. The defect is not in the light, but in the eye which is turned towards it. The evidence has proved sufficient to convince multitudes of far more vigorous and acute intellect than he can pretend to. Why, then, does he not believe? Plainly because he will not. "And this," says our blessed Lord," is the condeinnation, that light hath come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." Here we have the true secret of infidelity. It is not a mere error of judgment, as some would mildly term it, it is a moral crime, originating not so much in the head as in the heart. They love the darkness, they refuse to examine, they will not be convinced. The Bible is opposed to their whole character, and dispositions, and modes of acting, and they are unwilling to find that to be true which thus declares war against their whole habits of thinking and feeling. It is difficult to discover what we would be sorry to find. The infidel makes no great efforts, therefore, to ascertain the truth of the Scriptures. He shuts his eyes upon the light, he encourages himself in ignorance, and unbelief, and contempt of the truth. This is the real nature of infidelity; it is the reverse of candid, and diligent, and pains-taking in its inquiries; it bates the light, it will not come to the light, lest its deeds should be reproved. We have been led into this train of reflection by the perusal of a letter from an unknown correspondent, whose attention appears to be drawn with the utmost earnestness to the awful position in which he stands, as having long shut his eyes against the light, and been contented to remain in a state of midnight darkness and estrangement from God. That he, and indeed all our readers, may be led to review the grounds on which rests the truth of revealed religion, we have resolved to devote a short series of papers to the conversion of Count Struensee, one of the most noted infidels of his day.

The Count was born on the 5th of August 1737. His father, who was a German divine of some eminence, held the office of Professor of Theology at Halle in Saxony. The early education of the subject of our present Sketch was received in the celebrated Orphan House of Dr Francke, and he afterwards attended the University of Halle, where he studied medicine. It was at this period of his life that he imbibed infidel opinions from some of his class-fellows. When his studies at college were finished, he went with his father to Altona, where he commenced the practice of medicine with reputation and success. His fame as a physician gradually gained ground, until, in 1768, we find him raised to the rank of physician to Christian VII., King of Denmark, and appointed to accompany him on a tour to the different Courts of Europe. During his travels, Struensee ingratiated himself to such an extent with the King, that, on his Majesty's return to Copenhagen, he was made a Privy Councillor, and presented to the Queen, the sister of

For the guidance of our correspondent, and of all in similar circumstances, we would suggest a careful and prayerfui perusal of D: Olmthus Gregory's Letters on the Evidences of Christianity; Erskine's Essay on the Internal Evidence of Revealed Religion; Leshe's Short Way with the Deists, and Dr Bogue's Essay on the New Testament.

The headlong career of this infatuated profligate was, in the wise and merciful providence of God, speedily checked. The promotion of a foreigner to the chief honours of the kingdom had roused the indignation and the envy of some of the ancient nobility, who, having gained over to their purposes the Queen Dowager and her son, sought to effect the ruin of Struensee. Having matured their plans accordingly, they persuaded the King that there was a conspiracy against his person and government, at the head of which was his wife, Count Struensee, and their associates. Christian refused to believe the intelligence, but by coaxing, in the first instance, and at length by threats, they obtained his reluctant signature to an order for the arrest of the alleged conspirators. The nobility had now gained their object. They lost no time in seizing Struensee and his friend, Count Brandt, both of whom they conveyed to the citadel, and the Queen they imprisoned in Cronsburg, a fortress about twenty-four miles from Copenhagen. Knowing that the crime with which the prisoners were charged was of a capital nature, and being desirous that Count Struensee should have an opportunity of renouncing his infidel opinions before his death, the government appointed Dr Munter, the minister of a German church in Copenhagen, to visit him in prison, and converse with him on religious subjects.

The first interview between the Count and his spiritual instructor took place on the 1st of March 1772. He received Dr Munter with a severe and gloomy countenance, but a few preliminary remarks, in reference to the object of his visit, tended to impart confidence, and he speedily assumed an air of kindness. In the view of his approaching end the clergyman directed his attention to the doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments. On this point he did not enlarge, in the first instance, but being desirous to ascertain the views of the Count on religious topics in

From your first doubts,' said I, 'you mean to draw the inference, that it was against the goodness and justice of God not to reveal to all men a doctrine which is the only one that can render man perfectly

happy.. And can a man, whom God has presented with

a blessing, which he denied to others, think himself for this reason entitled not to mind this blessing or not to value it, because God has not given it to all men? Has he not distributed all the blessings of his mercy unequally among men; for instance, honour, riches, health, talents, and even the knowledge of natural religion? You see by this that your objection proves

The God against whom we rebelled, is here represented under the character of a father. He WE LOOKED FOR HAPPINESS AND PEACE. gave us our being, and endued us with all the

a child of wrath, and an heir of hell. In the conduct of the younger son, we see

The principle of our original apostasy. Ver. 12, "And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me." He assigned no reason for making this request. He might have pretended, indeed, that his object was to enlarge his knowledge by travelling, or to increase his fortune by trading, or to improve his mind by study, or to extend his usefulness by forming new connections in the world. From his subsequent conduct, it is evident that he had become impatient of a father's control, and desired to be entirely his own master. He considered himself quite competent to undertake the management of his own affairs, and persuaded himself that he would be far happier if left to the guidance of his own wisdom, and allowed the unrestrained indulgence of his own inclinations. It was precisely a similar delusion that the tempter practised upon our first parents in the garden of innocence. He made them believe that the prohibition to eat of the forbidden tree was both unnecessary and hurtful, and that it might be violated, not only with safety, but with advantage. He inspired them with the hope of becoming gods; and by this hope he prevailed upon them to cast off their subjection to God. He that committeth sin, acts on the principle, and imitates the example of Adam's rebellion. He relinquishes the place which belongs to him as the creature of God, and sets himself up for a god to himself. Every sin he commits, is just a repetition of the first attempt to dethrone God; the assertion of a claim to be independent of him; a refusal to be governed by him: it is the evidence of a determination to exalt the creature, and to serve the creature instead of the Creator.

The enemies of revelation ignorantly ridicule the idea, that the mere act of eating a little fruit should have caused the ruin of a world. But it is not the act that we are to look to in estimating the guilt of the first transgression, but the motive that prompted it, and the principle that was expressed by it. Any thing else might have been employed as a test of man's obedience. By this one act of transgression, he betrayed the trust that had been reposed in him, violated the covenant that had been entered into with him, and deliberately sold himself to the devil, whose word he believed, and whose service he preferred, and in whose hand he became the willing instrument of destruction to himself and his unborn posterity. The fall of man in Adam is purely a matter of revelation. And the testimony of Scripture on this momentous subject, is confirmed and illustrated by universal experience. We feel in ourselves, and see in all around us, the mournful proof of our apostasy; and in the events of every day, the awful fact is presented to our attention, with undeniable and continually accumulating evidence, that "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.",

In the condition of the younger son, we behold a striking picture of

The sad effects of our original apostasy. Poverty came upon him as an armed man: and in his case it was rendered doubly severe, by a consciousness of the sinful extravagance by which it had been occasioned, and by the remembrance of his former abundance. The companions of his guilty pleasures now forsook him, and he became a miserable exile from society, without resources in himself, and without friendship or pity from others. To this state of abject helplessness and destitution was man reduced by the fall. He is poor and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked; unable by any efforts of his own to remedy the evils of his past guilt, or to provide for the supply of his future necessities. He is in want of every thing, and yet has a claim to nothing; and must be indebted to free and sovereign grace for every comfort of existence, and every hope of deliverance.

Yet the sinner does attempt to better his condition. Having forsaken the fountain of living waters, he hews out for himself broken cisterns which can hold no water. He vainly seeks in the creature that happiness which he can no longer find in the Creator; or he tries to propitiate an offended God, by penances, and pilgrimages, and numberless other expedients of a similar kind; or he hopes, by pouring forth the blood of animal sacrifices, or by offering the fruit of his body, to make atonement for the sin of his soul; or, like the spider, that weaves a web out of her own body for a covering, he goes about seeking to establish a righteousness that will recommend him to favour; or he takes refuge in the delusions of infidelity, or gives himself up to the absurdities of superstition, or plunges into the excesses of voluptuousness. But he finds them all to be refuges of lies, miserable comforters, and physicians of no value. In the condition of the younger son, we see not only the helplessness, but also

The degradation and infamy of our fallen condition. It is said, " And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine." Swine were pronounced unclean by the Mosaic law, and they were held in universal abhorrence by the Jewish people. It would have been considered dishonourable to keep swine; there could not be a more humiliating occupation than to be employed in feeding swine. Mankind are, in like manner, reduced to a state of the most degrading servitude. They serve diverse lusts and passions, yet they all obey the same master; their master is the devil, they indulge his spirit, they bear his likeness, they uphold his empire, they execute his purposes, they bow to his sceptre, and obey his commands. Their captivity is abject and infamous. The service in which they engage is unworthy of their rational nature. The gratifications in which they indulge, their aims, and their employments, all partake of the same mean, and degraded, and polluted, and

disgraceful character; they are all fitly represented | backward on the conduct of his life, and upward by the occupation of feeding swine. They are not only degrading and despicable, they are also unsatisfying and fruitless. The apostle could ask such as had been turned from these sinful vanities, "What fruit had ye in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death." The experience of the wretched prodigal speaks the same language, for it proclaims not only the helplessness and infamy of the sinner, but

also his

to the God whom he has offended, and forward to the judgment-seat before which he must appear. Attend to the reflection of the lonely, helpless, unhappy prodigal. He contrasted the wretchedness of his present situation with the comforts that he had left behind. The thought of his father's house now, for the first time, occurred; the image of domestic happiness again presented itself to his mind, and, in the bitterness of his anguish, he exclaimed, "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough, and to spare, and I perish with hunger!"

Extreme positive misery. His allowance of food was barely sufficient to keep soul and body together, and it was of the coarsest and most re- He had, indeed, forfeited every claim to the volting description. Even the swine which he sympathy of a father whose indulgence he had had been taught to abhor were now to him objects abused, whose counsels he had disobeyed, and of envy. Thus it is with the sinner; he feedeth whose very name he had dishonoured. But he on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside. knew from experience the tenderness of his father's Not only is he unsatisfied; he is truly and abso- heart, and this knowledge both encouraged his lutely wretched. Such is the state of mankind hope, and quickened his repentance. There can indiscriminately and without exception, alienated be no true repentance without an acquaintance from God, guilty, depraved, impoverished, de- with the merciful character of God. A sense of graded, and miserable. They may not be, and, to sin may alarm the conscience, but the apprehen a large extent they are not, sensible of their true sion of mercy alone can melt the heart. It is condition. The fact is, notwithstanding, unques- said of Judas that he repented, but he despaired of tionable. The evidence of it appears alike in the forgiveness, and in the agony of remorse be put material and in the moral world, and it shines an end to his existence. It is the contemplation forth with the light of a sunbeam on every page of the love of God in sending his Son into the of inspiration. The best thing that God can do world, and giving him up to the death of the cross, for us is to show us the danger of our condition as that whosoever believeth in him might not perish, sinners, to make us feel the entire and hopeless but have everlasting life,—it is this that softens the wretchedness of it, to bring us down to the depths heart into the tenderness of contrition, and revives of conscious unworthiness, and despairing fear, and the spirit of confidence in God, and calls forth the distressing alarm, and penitential abasement. He affection of love to him, and creates the desire to cannot, in the first instance, do us a greater favour enjoy his favour, and to be employed in his service. than to place us in the situation of the deserted, despised, and wretched prodigal, that he may teach us what we are, and what we deserve, and cause us to sigh for relief, and out of the depths to cry for deliverance. And this is his way of procedure. He thus humbles that he may exalt, wounds that he may heal, afflicts that he may console, destroys that he may make alive, excites the inquiry, "What must. I do to be saved?" that he may carry home the answer, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Having presented a picture of the sinner's apostasy from Actuated by these feelings, the repenting proGod, our Lord proceeds to give, as the counter-digal resolved to go back to the house of his father, part, an example of the sinner's repentance. The first thing observable in the younger son is a very decided and

True repentance supposes deep sense of personal unworthiness. The penitent has been made to feel that all the misery he suffers is chargeable on himself, that he deserves nothing at the hand of God, and has no right to approach his throne; the place which belongs to him is in the dust of self-abasement, as a worthless transgressor, who has no refuge but in the mercy of that Sovereign whose authority he has despised, whose perfections he has insulted, and whose friendship he has treated with contempt.

and to ask admission. But he did not presume to aspire after the high and honourable place from which he had fallen. Not worthy to be owned as Favourable change of mind. Ever since he left a son, he was desirous to be received as a servant. his father's house he had been like a man beside And even this humble place he ventured to exhimself; he had renounced the guidance of rea-pect, and intended to ask, not as a privilege to son and conscience, he had been acting the part of a madman, blind to all his best interests, rushing headlong to his own ruin. But solitude and suffering brought him to his senses. And he no sooner recovered his reason than he began to reflect on the folly of his past conduct. Consideration is the first step to repentance. A most important point is gained when the sinner has been awakened to serious reflection, when he has been made to look inward on the state of his heart, and

which he was entitled but as a favour of which he was altogether undeserving. Upon no other terms can the returning penitent hope to find acceptance in the sight of God. The only plea which can avail is that with which God himself has furnished us in the obedience of his own Son; and repentance can be either honouring or acceptable 10 him only in so far as it is exercised in dependance on the foundation which he has laid, and influenced by the grace which he has promised.