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view to exemplify, by facts the most awakening, the sentiments I have been endeavouring to enforce. The individual whose death is described, had been educated with religious care, but had long endeavoured to banish from his mind all the recollections which served but to embitter a course of sin and folly. At length, however, with “ the King of Terrors” in full view, he could banish those recollections no longer." No words," says the writer, "can express the agony and distress in which we found him. All his remaining strength, both of body and mind, was now called forth in the most agonizing cries for mercy, and in condemnations of his own character and conduct. You are now brought,' said the writer, to a dying bed; what do you think of Christ ? What do you think of religion now ? -Think! (said he, stretching out his arms,) I think there is nothing else in all the world; they are every thing, every thing! Will Christ save me? Will he save me? I have taken the wrong road. Oh! what a fool have I been, to squander away my precious time in vanity and sin; and now I have but a few hours to live, and every thing to be done!--And now I cannot get a moment's rest, to think with calmness on my situation; I cannot be still, I cannot be calm. Lord, have mercy upon me! Christ, have mercy upon me! Save me, or I perish" His agonies

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increasing, he looked upon us from side to side, and said, 'Cannot you help me?-Ah! it is hard work-hard work-and with a guilty conscience too. Oh, talk to me of Christ; there is not a moment to be lost; in a few hours I shall be gone for ever.-Oh, what would I now give for a few calm hours, to think on my state, and to prepare for my great change! Oh Lord! grant me six hours--six hours is all I ask; six calm hours! Oh, I would give hundreds of thousands to possess but six hours!-May I hope in Christ? Am I not too bad?'-No,' said the writer; ' he saves the very chief of sinners, and saves to the uttermost all that come to God by him.' His voice now began to falter; but he continued to cry, in tones weaker and weaker, Lord, have mercy-Christ, have mercy on me-save me, or I perish!' till he closed his eyes, and breathed his last."

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Who can resist the impression of such a recital? Who, in the possession of his thinking powers, would not recoil with terror from the thought of such a Repentance as this? It is true the heartrending narrative precludes not a degree of hope. We cling to the hope, that there was not only intense distress, but also some degree of that sorrow "which worketh Repentance unto salvation." But even on the most favourable supposition which it is possible for us to entertain,

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who would not tremble and turn pale, at the thought of such a Repentance as this? I beseech you then, by the horrors of such a scene, by the momentous realities of an eternal world, and especially by the tender mercies of a compassionate Redeemer, still waiting to be gracious, that you neglect not another day the great salvation; that you delay not another hour a repentant and believing application to that friend of sinners, who has said- and has authorised you to interpret his expressions and his disposition by his tears,-" Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out."

LECTURE III.

THE NATURE OF FAITH.

ACTS xx. 21.

Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.

So intimate is the connexion between "Repentance toward God, and Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ," that it would be difficult to trace, with entire accuracy and precision, the boundaries which separate the one from the other. Nor would less difficulty be found in the question, sometimes agitated with polemical acumen -Whether Repentance or Faith be first in point of time, in the history of divine operations on the mind of man. The fact is, that their actings are inseparably blended; and each sustains to the other, by a series of reciprocal influences, the relation both of cause and of effect. Some portion of truth must necessarily be embraced by the mind, in order to the very first elements of Repentance; for, without the operation of such a cause, no rational account can be given of the origin of such a change. By the various and

progressive workings of Repentance, the mind is prepared to embrace more and more of that truth which, before, it rejected with prejudice, or disregarded as wanting in interest. The humbling consciousness of the guilt and danger of our alienation from God, disposes us to believe and to embrace the doctrine of reconciliation by the cross of Christ; and it is in the exercise of this Faith, and in the act of looking on Him whom, by our sins, we have pierced, that we most deeply mourn over our numberless transgressions, and that we more than ever abhor ourselves, and repent in dust and ashes. Thus are the emotions of " Repentance toward God" most intimately and inseparably blended with the exercise of "Faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ."

The importance of the subject on which we now more particularly enter is, I trust, sufficiently apparent. Should any attach to it only an inferior degree of interest, I entreat their attention to one single sentence which fell from the lips of incarnate Deity :-" He that believeth on the Son of God is not condemned; but he that believeth not, is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God."

Such, then, being the magnitude of the subject before us, I wish to present it to your consideration, under several distinct aspects;

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