come unto you as they will; ever meet them in the Name of that God, whose truth and faithfulness they impeach, and whose power they (in this cafe at least) limit; and whofe great Gift to man they depreciate, as unequal to the grand defign of his being fent. into the world, "to fave that which was loft," by restoring us to that image in which we were created.

But you have his faithful word of promife. Look ftill for its accomplishment, and you fhall prove Him true. He cannot deny himself, even if men, good men, wife, zealous men, yea, minifters, do in this inftance believe him not. But bleffed are ye, who by believing are stirred up to perfect holiness in his fear, and are fupported in fo doing against every difcouragement you have yet met with in your way. Fear not, only believe; and you shall fee the glorious power of God difplayed, in a performance of all that has been told you by the Lord.

He is not like to waters that fail, to those who trust in him. Nor is he man to lie, nor the son of man to utter lies. No, He is a God that keepeth covenant, and will not alter the thing which is gone out of his lips. Do you then, who are followers after holiness, perfect holiness in hope, refting on his immutability: continue to believe against all that hope, which these vain reafonings would infpire; and you too fhall find him faithful who has promifed; who alfo will do it, if all the powers of earth and hell hould exert their combined force against it! Even fo,

Soldiers of Christ, arife

And put your Armour on ;

Strong in the ftrength which GOD fupplies
Thro' his eternal SON:

Strong in the LORD of Hofts

And in his mighty power,

Who in the Strength of JESUS trufts

Is more than conqueror.

An Extract of the CONVERSION of a DEIST,

Written by himself, in a series of Letters to the Rev. Mr, JOHN NEWTON.*

WAS born in the year 1764, of worthy parents and of refpec table condition, to whom for their attention and affection manifested in the care they took of my education, I am in the highest degree indebted. My mother, who was of the flock of our Lord, was careful to instruct me in the principles of the true religion,

The Book from which the fubfequent Narrative is extracted, is intitled, "The Power of Grace illuftrated, in fix Letters from a Minifter of the Reformed Church, to John Newton, Rector of St. Mary Woolnoth, London; tranflated from the original Latin by Wm. Cowper, of the Inner Temple, Efq. Johnfon St. Paul's Church-Yard, gs. 6d.

Mr. NEWTON

religion, in my childhood. I was teachable and diligent, and early difcovered fymptoms of a defire to arrive in time at the miniftry of the gofpel; to which office I was indeed defined by my parents, and especially by my pious mother. In feveral ill neffes, and even dangerous ones, with which I was feized during my tender age, I was favoured with God's fingular providential care, and again and again fnatched from the borders of the grave, At fix years of age I was fent to U. that I might be initiated in the French language. Having, in the course of two years, made fome progrels in it, I entered on the rudiments of Latin, always defirous to learn, and, of my own accord, fufficiently inclined to ftudy. My principal bias however was to hiftory, which, unbidden by my mafter, I endeavoured to fearch diligently and to commit to memory. My memory was extremely quick and retentive, fo that I could without much difficulty get by heart, retain and detail, in their juft order, the names of countries and cities, of kings and illuftrious perfons, the principal events that had occurred in the world, and its most remarkable national revoJutions. I returned to spend fome time at home. A certain friend of my father's, with whom both he and my mother were particularly intimate, had a daughter nearly of my own age, as eminent for the beauty of her perfon as for modefly and gentlenefs of difpofition. About this time it was that I began to feel a fincere and ftrong affection for her, and it was attended with fingular confequences to myself. I was fent to N. for the purpose of learning Latin. There I lived with hardly any concern about religion, my parents feldom feeing me, or any other person who might ftrictly enquire in what manner I proceeded. Hardly any reftraints could be devifed fufficient to withhold me from the pur

Mr. NEWTON, in the Preface acquaints us, that "Thefe Letters are pub lifhed at the defire of the Writer. He is a foreigner, a minifier of the reformed church, fo ftyled upon the continent, in contradiftinction from the Lutheran. He was once a Sceptic, but now preaches with energy and fuccefs, the faith he formerly laboured to deftroy. This is all I am at liberty to fay of him; as he earneftly intreated me to avoid giving any intimation of his name, country, or fituation.

"Previous to his converfion, he was a fcholar. Proud of his abilities and attainments, and trufting to his reafoning powers, he difdained to think with the vulgar, and was too wife, in his own esteem, to be inftructed by divine revela, tion. And though he was not an avowed libertine in practice, his reftraints were not owing to principle, or to confcience. But while a ftranger to God, he was a franger to peace. Like a fhip in a florm without rudder or pilot, he was hurried about by the violence of tumultuous paffions, till he was weary of life. In fuch a ftate of mind, and at fuch a crifis, the light of truth broke in upon his mind. The Lord Ipake, and it was done. The florm was hushed. The man was fuddenly and totally changed. The fervant of fin, became the devoted fervant of God. He now accounts all things but lofs, for the excellency of the knowledge of that Saviour, whom, formerly, he defpifed and blafphemed.

"The fact is evident and incontrovertible. Let philofophers account for it, if they can, upon any other grounds than what the fcripture affigns. But let them be ferious, and not think to anfwer or evade the enquiry, by the ftale unmeaning cry of enthufiafm. They cannot thus fatisfy others; nor even them felves."

Fuit and indulgence of my own will and pleasure. The public prdinances and other means of grace I neglected. I rarely read the fcripture, and I believe more rarely ftill adverted to the neceffity of prayer.

Yet, negligent as I was, once or twice I fell into religious meditations. I remember that, fometimes, when I had heard a fermon on the fubject of regeneration and converfion, I felt fome fmall defire of them; but the lively conviction of fin, the fear and the anguifh which I understood to be the harbingers of con, verfion, feemed to me fo undefirable and even dreadful, that they made me tremble at the thought of it. Sometimes again, I would meditate on faith in Chrift, afking myself-What is faith? What is it to believe on Chrift? To come to him? To be united to, him? But whatever thoughts or imaginations I had on these fubjects, they were never fatisfactory to myself. One while I ac counted faith in Chrift to be merely an affent to revealed truth; at other times I fuppofed it to confift in prayer to Chrift. Yet I could not reft in either of thefe opinions. He who affented to the truth, or directed conflantly his prayers to Christ, did not feem to me for any such reasons to be united to him, but to continue ftill at a great distance from him. Chrift is in heaven-we are on earth-nor could I fee how union between the foul and him could be effected by either of those predicaments, in which I fuppofed faith in Chrift to confift. I had no idea of the fpiritual prefence of Chrift, or of the operations of the Holy Spirit. It is no wonder, therefore, that in all my fancies concerning what it is to come to Chrift-to believe in Chrift-I fill perceived a wide interval left between man and his Redeemer. Sometimes alfo the thought of death and eternity would ftrike me with fome terror, but it was of fhort duration, and produced in me no feri ous endeavours after my own conversion,

Sin in almost any fhape was welcome to me, nor have I a doubt that I fhould have fallen into open wickedness of every kind, unless the providence of God, pride, ambition, and a degree of natural bafhfulness had prevented. I wafted much time in follies and trifles, and perhaps my whole time had been fo wafted but for the vehement ambition which I ever cherished, to acquire the favour of my teachers and fuperiority to my school-fellows. Thefe were objects of my ardent and continual purfuit. I may add alfo, that remarkable attachment to the ftudy of hiftory to which I voluntarily devoted not a few of my hours. Yet after all, I gave not my whole reading-time to ufeful and laudable exercifes in that way. It happened not feldom, that, fafcinated by romance-reading to a wonderful degree, I made fuch fables my chief delight; not excepting even thofe that were most abfurd and evidently hoftile to the principles of both natural and revealed religion. A vaft number, and all forts of fuch books, I read with exquifite pleasure, and with an appetite infatiable. Their effects, and their only effects, were an encreasing depravation of taste,

and

and a ftronger irritation of all my carnal defires. Some intervals I found at this period in which my love of Mifs E. whom I had few opportunities of feeing, was much diminished; yet was it not altogether extinguished, but encreased afterward to a great degree, in proportion as an apparent probability of fuccefs excited it.

I purfued my studies in the academy at U. with much diligence. I acquired the love and the applause of my preceptors, and indeed fuch commendations from all quarters as made me excessively vain, and every day more and more fo.

A fhort time before I bade farewell to common fchools, I met with an accident that confined me fome days at home. My indif. pofition did not appear to be at all dangerous, but on this occafion my confcience was terribly alarmed, and that unfounded tranquillity in which I had hitherto indulged myfelf, was wonderfully difturbed. I prayed with much ferioufnefs for the pardon of my fins, but efpecially for recovery. I promised every thing, bound myfelf by fervent vows to the performance, and took up folemn refolutions to lead a very different life in future. Shedding many tears, and with unusual emotions of mind, I daily read and prayed over several pfalms of David, particularly the fixth, the thirtyeighth, and the fixty-ninth. In a word, my converfion never feemed nearer or more certain than at this time. But alas! all was as the morning cloud and as the early dew which paffeth away, I neither knew the glory and holiness of God, nor myfelf. I was foon healed, and, almost as foon, my ferious fentiments and religious affections all vanifhed like fmoke, together; from that time forth I feldom or never troubled myself about them. Except in this inftance, when my mind was thus agitated, I had rarely an idea of a serious and religious caft, unless when great danger feemed to threaten me, as in fome violent storm perhaps of thunder and lightning. But the effect was quickly over, and differed much from the agitation of mind above mentioned, both in its efficacy and duration; though even that left no valuable fruit behind it; but rather ferved only to enhance my criminality, as from that time I defiled myself with all manner of evil, without either confcience or confideration. My dear mother would frequently admonish and exhort me to prayer and conversion, but I difdained all her counsel and treated it as nothing worth.

I had not hitherto been fo far left to myfelf, as to call in queftion the principles of all religion. But no fooner was I advanced to the univerfity, than I began to amufe myself with various fubtleties and fophiftries, and to indulge a genius fanciful and wanton in the extreme; I framed and put together all manner of nice and fpecious reasonings, which the prince of dark nefs, whofe willing fervant I was, understood how to imprefs on my mind with fuch force and effect, that in a fhort time I doubted even the existence of a God. All the arguments, if fuch they must be called, that are cuftomarily adduced against his exiftence, 1 feized with the

avidity

avidity that belongs to a heart partial and prone to every thing abfurd and abominable. I remember that to a certain friend of mine, I endeavoured with much earnestness and zeal to prove, that the fame infolvable difficulties that cleave to the idea of eter nity and the neceffity of the world's exiftence, are found alfo in the idea of an eternal God exifting from neceffity. Thus rafhly, wretch that I was! both by thought and word, did I dare to fight openly against my Creator and Benefactor, to whom I owe life and breath and all things, and in whom, even at the moment of my wicked attempt to make his very being questionable, I lived and moved and had my own being.

Juftly, while I was making public profeffion of a mind fo much at war with him, might God have crufhed me with his mighty hand, and have given me, by dreadful experience, to know, not his existence only, but the majesty of his existence alfo; he fpared me, that to eternity I might record the praife of his adorable grace, and be, myself, a fignal monument of his free love, and of his unfpeakable power and wifdom. This gracious God permitted not these atheistical notions to root themselves deeply in my mind. The voice of confcience, contemplation on the works of God, and inftruction drawn from ufeful texts of fcripture, confpired to weaken them day by day, fo that in a fhoit time, if they did not entirely leave me, at least they returned but feldom, and never won my hearty affent again.

In the first year of my refidence at the univerfity I was initiated, and made fome proficiency, in the rudiments of the Hebrew language, and in fome branches alfo of philofophy. But following an order and method of ftudy not the moft convenient, I Leaped lefs fruit of my labours than I had expected. I fquandered not a little of my time in vain converfation and in the reading of ufelefs and hurtful books. Liftening to my preceptors always with attention, and answering them in fuch manner as to win applaufe, though with an appearance of much modefty, I could not fail to please them. But alas! I defiled myself in the mean time with many fins, known only to God and myself. The providence of God fo ordered it, that ambition and a certain degree of natural bashfulness would not fuffer the depravity and wickedness of my heart to break forth into open and daily enormities. Accordingly I was in fhow, modeft, but in reality a ftranger to all modefty and to all religion. My polluted heart was full of evil concupifcence, and notwithstanding the admonitions of conscience, I delivered myself over fecretly to the commiffion of fuch fins as I ought never to recollect without the utmost shame, and the moft fenfible forrow.

I almost always neglected the public miniflry, and attended but little to the few fermons at which I was prefent. Seldom made any use of my Bible, and if I ever looked into it, it was only when, in the course of my ftudies, I had occafion to refer to it. At times, indeed, a sudden fear of death and hell would feize me,