The first step is to be made on our part,-God is ever ready to receive us.

As to the second part of the question, we are to judge of our religious state by the unerring rule of our Saviour,-by the fruits it produces. "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God." "Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" "The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." "And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." Read also the Sermon on the Mount. Whoever can find in himself, in any prevailing degree, these characteristics, may safely conclude that he is born of God. He hath the witness in himself. All other assurances of safety are fallacious. A man knows himself to be religious, as he knows himself to be honest, just, or temperate, that is, by his habitual intentions and

actions.

A large number of religious sects believe in the immediate, sensible operations of God's spirit, which many of them conscientiously associate with the holding of their peculiar doctrines. This is the case with the Quakers (who are Arminians, and about half of them Unitarians); with the Methodists, both Calvinistic and Arminian; with the Moravians; the Smith Baptists (who are generally Unitarians), &c. Now, as many of these sects are good men, and true Christians, and as it cannot be that the "one spirit" should teach contradictory doctrines, it must be that they mistake the operations of their own minds for divine impulses.

The authority of Jesus Christ should settle this question. "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven."

I have thus endeavoured to give a particular answer to your questions. I do not present my views to you as the truth, but as my opinion of the truth. I wish you to take nothing on my authority, but search the Scriptures and examine for yourself. Pray to God, who is the Father of lights, to enlighten your understanding and lead you into the knowledge of all necessary truth. Let your prayers be frequent and fervent, and join to them a careful reading of God's word, especially the teachings of Jesus Christ, and you cannot fall into any dangerous error. * *

March 26, 1826.

MY DEAR

I THINK you are perplexing yourself with a mere scholastic subtilty, when you doubt the genuineness of your repentance, because you are restrained from sin, only by fear of its consequences to yourself.

You say, "Did I not see, that it places me in a very critical situation, I know not that I should feel any desire to change my motives and feelings."

Now I would ask, why you are placed in that critical situation; why the wrath of God is denounced against sin

ners; and why they are "warned to flee from the wrath to

come? Are not men addressed as moral agents? as susceptible of the influence of motives, as influenced in their conduct by their hopes and fears? Were not these threatenings intended to produce some effect? If so, what effect but fear of the anger of God? If a man acts upon this motive, is it not then a good motive? A motive, which God himself presents to us? Surely, when our Saviour told the Jews, "Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish," he meant, that they should repent, and for that reason too.

I think I cannot mistake, in calling a fear of future punishment a christian motive. It is not, to be sure, the highest christian motive, "for perfect love casteth out fear; " but it is a motive, upon which Christians are again and again called to act, by Jesus Christ and his Apostles. The christian character is one of gradual growth. This is sufficiently proved by the example and precepts of the Apostles; and surely none of us, uninspired men, have reason to complain, that we have not at once" come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ."

It is easy to make refined metaphysical distinctions, and to show by plausible arguments, that we ought to love virtue in the abstract," the supremely good and fair," as the Stoics called it,-for its own sake, and without any reference to ourselves. But such opinions, I think, have no foundation in human nature, and they are certainly at war with the language of Scripture.

If we are commanded to love God, it is because "he first loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our

sins." If we are to bear our "light affliction," it is because "it worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." If we are to rejoice at reviling and persecution, it is because "great is our reward in heaven." I can feel no doubt of the purity of motives, which are thus sanctioned by the words of Jesus Christ.

I must again warn you against the danger of making mere feeling the test of character, or of spiritual condition. The very night, in which Peter denied his master, he professed with vehemence (and doubtless, at the same time, felt that he was sincere), "If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee." In the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, who went up together to the temple to pray, the Pharisee had no doubt of his acceptance with God; while the Publican had not sufficient confidence even to lift up his eyes to heaven.

A still higher example is furnished by our Saviour. When he exclaimed in his agony on the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" it cannot be doubted that he enjoyed the favor of God, as fully as when at the grave of Lazarus, he said to his Father, "I knew that thou hearest me always."

There may be much sensibility on religious subjects; and much talking, and profession, and preaching, where there is no change of character; because the whole may arise from mere feeling,-sincere feeling, no doubt, at the time, but unsupported by religious principles. This strong feeling may be a very good introduction to a religious life, but it is not itself religion. "Not every one, that saith

unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." And we are told further, that in the day of judgment many shall be rejected, who have even "prophesied" and "cast out dæmons," and done "many wonderful works."

is doubtless a

The case which you mention of very striking one; and so far as it terminates in a real change of character, in a course of christian conduct, I shall rejoice in it with all my heart. I think, however, that a more advanced Christian would have been less forward to speak of his willingness-not to say his wish-to die. St. Paul had labored in his manifold perils thirty-one years before he ventured to express his "desire to depart," and a still longer period, before he was able to say, that he was

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now ready to be offered." The first converts of the Apostles, on the day of Pentecost, were endued with the power of working miracles and of speaking in foreign languages to qualify them for preaching the Gospel; but all I find recorded of their feelings is, that they "did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God."

It is unsafe to place any confidence in this willingness to die; for if it prove any thing, it proves too much. When a votary of Juggernaut throws himself before the car of the idol, to be crushed to pieces by its wheels, what does it prove?—that he is a good man? a new creature? regenerated by the power of Juggernaut? When a deluded Hindoo widow mounts the funeral pile of her husband, and deliberately suffers herself to be burned to death, do you