effect shall not be precisely the same upon any two of them.

It must be admitted as a universal truth, that the natural understanding has no relish for the spiritualities of the gospel. A man of no spiritual taste or sensibility may not only entertain some repugnance to its phraseology, or the singularity of its diction, (a fault, if it be one, which arose from the state of the age in which our translation was made, as well as from a subject without analogy,) but he may regard it as something so mystical in its character, and so different from his own ideas of religion, as to produce an aversion which he is little disposed to repress. Habit and education may, in certain cases, and to a certain degree, qualify this repugnance: and a sense of duty, or a negative kind of veneration for what is divine, may carry the effect somewhat further. Yet, without an acquired taste for spiritual things, there can be none of those peaceful feelings which are the legitimate fruits of the holy word in the renewed soul.

But, admitted as all this may be on the part of the inquirer, it furnishes no solution to his most pressing questions. If he cannot enter with all that freedom into the comforts of the gospel, so fully avowed by the growing Christian; if there be no delight for him in pondering the testimonies of God; why does he not find something suited to

his own case, in a revelation expressly intended to be universal, something adapted to relieve an anxiety which its own truths have occasioned?' Perhaps the following remarks may furnish an answer to the question. The convicted sinner is usually disposed, on his first alarm, to resort to the bible for light and relief; and he is right in doing so. But he is not unapt to open its pages with expectations which can never be justified by success. He looks for some instantaneous operation upon his mind, perceptible in itself and miraculous in its nature. He has, perhaps, heard of the wonderful influence thus produced upon others, and he readily anticipates the same on his own behalf. Something is immediately to occur worthy of the power of the DIVINE WORD. Some energetic passage is to carry its force, at once, to the heart, with light and life. He reads. No such result ensues. And the disappointment changes the attitude of his thoughts, and the nature of his impressions.

Now the cause of this disappointment is obvious. His mind had been occupied with fanciful expectations, and the proper bearing of the truths which he read was suffered to escape it. A miraculous energy was anticipated from language, without its reaching him by the ordinary channel of reflection and comparison. This is a perversion of the design of the scriptures: and it

was no wonder that it was productive of no benefit to the heart or to the mind. Whatever extraordinary events of this kind may have occurred in the lives of others, (and not a few of them have been the offspring of a heated imagination,) they should never form the object of our own expectations. The dealings of the Holy Spirit are not likely to be inconsistent with what is suited to the state and faculties of man as an intelligent and intellectual creature. Depend upon it, any expectation of miraculous iufluence, as the ground of consolation or as the rule of practice, is indicative of some radical defect. Here the hope is not placed upon any thing in the word of God itself, but, virtually, on the expected influence, whatever it may be. This is a regard to neither reason nor revelation; but it may be the effect of that superstition to which a weak mind is ever prone; and from which an intellect of even greater strength is not always exempted. And if there be any thing, above all others, most adapted to promote an unhallowed enthusiasm, it is this expectation.

I have known others who looked for no miraculous effect on their feelings, and yet who stretched their expectations to a point even more absurd and injurious. These persons, in the midst of distressing fears, have resolved to dismiss their apprehensions, or to change them into despair,

answer.

by an appeal to which they were confident of an For this purpose they have resolved, that, on opening the bible, the first passage should be taken as the answer from God respecting their future fate. An instance is now presented to my own recollection of this baneful trifling with the hidden things of God.

It was that of a female, who had suffered a morbidness of feeling to weaken both her sense of duty and her judgment. In an unhappy moment, she had resolved to take the first verse which met her eye as her answer from heaven. The experiment failed; for the verse was a portion of genealogy. The next trial presented a sentence quite as incapable of leading to any decision. The third produced a word of reproof to the impenitent sinner. This was deemed conclusive. The former failures were considered as an indication of a reluctance on the part of her Maker to disclose her fate; and this idea strengthened the conviction that a final answer had been given. The shock, which succeeded this supposed discovery, was followed by a gradual and growing indifference to the concerns of her soul. Happily, after some years, these serious impressions returned; and the subject of them is now, we have reason to believe, an eminent Christian. But to this day she does not cease to lament the presumption which so long kept her

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back from the Redeemer; nor does she ever mention the transition without emotion, in recollecting the awful danger to which it exposed her, and the criminal unbelief and presumption in which it originated.

The impiety and absurdity of such a practice will plainly appear, when we recollect how diametrically it is opposed to the prescribed will of God, to whom alone secret things belong. We have no right to seek for supernatural evidence of our condition. This is to be ascertained only by the real character of the heart and the life. Any supposed satisfaction which can ever be obtained in this forbidden way, will usually be unaccompanied with a single mark of grace. The heart will continue unaffected; and the disposition and temper will undergo no favourable change. All the gratitude which may arise in the bosom is the product of a selfish feeling; and will be in no wise connected with a love to the true character of God. The proper source of our comfort should be found in the fitness of the word to our wants, and not in the particular state of our minds.

A third reason, why the bible continues a sealed book in the hands of many, is to be found in the listlessness with which they turn over its pages. We should imagine that one, who is deeply impressed with a sense of his danger, would exert all his powers to obtain the real and genuine mean