inquiry peculiar to itself.

The leprosy of sin is not like some other disorders which affect some individuals alone, while others escape; it is a universal malady, no child of Adam escapes it; it attaches to the whole human race; and the only persons who are not now involved in that calamity, are such as are cured, saved, redeemed from among men;-terms which in their most obvious import imply the former prevalence of disease. The bitter fruits of human apostasy extend to each individual of the human race, as may be sufficiently inferred from the very appellation of Christ, the Saviour of the world," he shall be for salvation unto the ends of the earth,"*-as well as from the most express declarations of scripture respecting the universal prevalence of guilt and corruption, in all instances where it has not been counteracted and controlled by divine grace: "Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others." +

Since this is the case, if you are not now in a state of sin, yet, as you were so formerly, you have undergone a great change, and must consequently have some recollection of the circumstances attending it; and though you may not perhaps be able to specify the precise moment of your conversion, some traces must remain upon Acts xiii. 47. † Eph. ii. 3.

your memory of the circumstances connected with an event so replete with important consequences. In the course of our discussion on this subject, we have observed, that the cure of sin must be preceded with a sense of the malady, with a humiliating conviction of defilement, urging us to cry with the leper, "Unclean, unclean." Did any ever witness in you this appearance of concern for sin, this apprehension of your misery as a guilty creature before God? Were you ever heard, we will not say to cry out in a public assembly, as did the three thousand that were converted by Peter, but in the most private intercourse with a christian friend, and inquire what you must do to be saved? Are you conscious to yourselves of having ever felt serious and lasting solicitude on that head? Did it ever rest with a weight upon your mind at all proportioned to what you have felt on other occasions of distress? Was it ever allowed to put a check to your worldly amusements, to your gay diversions, or to the pursuit of any scheme whatever, from which you could promise yourselves profit or pleasure?

We will take occasion, in treating on the subject before us, to observe that the only method of deliverance from the malady of sin is a devout and humble application to the Lord Jesus; for he, and he only," shall save his people from their sins ;”* and now, not less than in the days of his flesh, it is his prerogative to say, "I will; be thou clean.”† + Matt. viii. 3.

*Matt. i. 21.

Supposing you thus to have applied, and to have succeeded in your suit, you must have some remembrance of those solemn transactions betwixt Christ and your soul. You can recall the season when you committed yourselves into the hands of the Redeemer; when, like the leper in the gospel, you fell at his feet, crying, "If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." Your struggles after the Saviour, your attempts to believe, accompanied with prayer that he would help your unbelief, and the rest you have found in him after being tossed by the storm, cannot all have passed like the fleeting images of a dream, without leaving some traces in your mind not easily effaced. If you are conscious that nothing of this nature has taken place, you recollect no such transactions, you may be assured they never took place.

if

Waving, however, these points of inquiry, and admitting it to be possible that all this may have disappeared from your mind, still, since sin is a universal malady from which none are naturally exempted, if you are now healed, you must be conscious of your being very different from what you formerly were. Admitting you can give no account of the circumstances or time of your cure, yet you can at least say with him in the gospel, "One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.' Your taste, inclination, and pursuits, must have undergone a great alteration; and, whereas you were formerly alienated from God, and took no delight in him, he is now your

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avowed and deliberate end, your chosen portion. Whereas you were formerly utterly disinclined to prayer, it is now your constant practice, and considered as a high privilege. "Led captive" formerly" by Satan at his will," borne away by the tide of sensual inclination or corrupt example, you now feel yourselves endowed with spiritual power, so as to overcome temptation; and, having the seed of grace remaining, you keep yourselves that so "the wicked one toucheth you not." The Lord Jesus Christ, who appeared to you formerly "like a root out of a dry ground, without any beauty or comeliness in him for which you should desire him," is now in your eyes "the branch of the Lord, beautiful and glorious; the fruit of the earth, comely and pleasant." The knowledge of him, instead of being tasteless and insipid, you now find to be of so high and superlative excellence, that you account all things but loss in the comparison; nay, you esteem them "but dung that you may win Christ." You feel, it may be, some remains of your ancient distemper; but you feel at the same time that its power is broken, that the prescriptions of your Physician have wrought kindly, and that you are not far off from a complete cure.

But if you are conscious of being strangers to all this, you may rest assured your disorder remains in its full force. Nor let any flatter themselves that things are well with them because their external conduct is decent and regular, and they

are exempt from the grosser acts of immorality, while they remain alienated from God, forgetful of his presence, unawed by his authority, insensible to his goodness, strangers to his converse. In this alienation lies the very core and essence of sin ; this is the "evil heart of unbelief departing from the living God;" this is the radical distemper, of which the diversified forms of iniquity in men's lives are but the symptoms and effects. This aversion to God, this inaptitude to be influenced by considerations and motives derived from his blessed nature and holy will, is the seminal principle of all wickedness; it is the [universal,] the pervading malady, which attaches to apostate spirits, as well as to apostate men, and the only one of which disembodied spirits are capable; and which [leagues] the disobedient and rebellious in all parts of the universe in one grand confederacy against God and goodness. Till this is subdued, nothing is in reality done towards the recovery of lost souls. "Man looketh on the outward appearance, but God looketh on the heart ;" and, in consequence of this, that which is highly esteemed among men is, not unfrequently, an abomination in his sight. "There is," the Scriptures tell us, "a generation who are pure in their own eyes, but are not washed from their filthiness;" and they who value themselves on the correct exterior of their conduct, while their heart is not turned to God, are precisely that generation.

* 1 Sam. xvi. 7.

Prov. xxx. 12.