marks, and go much on the inward witness of the Spirit, and outward evidences of a humble, and self-denying life.

What think you was the reply of Philemon? Do not trifle, Sir, exclaimed he, somewhat loud and rudely, either with your own soul or that of other men; if you would gladly convince your people of sin, why do you not first convince yourself of the sin of preaching such a lean gospel? I hate your milk-and-water preaching, your tinsel passes off for the gold of Ophir! your interpretations and expression of feelings, for the mind of God's spirit! I long to see all man's high imaginations pulled down; but he pulls nothing down, whatever you may think to the contrary, who runs down and utterly despises all your self-righteous schemes of getting an interest in Christ, and all your fallible tests and marks of grace: but he breaks down all, both in prospect and design, and that with a sacrilegious hand too, who trenches on the foundation of Christianity, who labors to beat down all that God has set up from everlasting, viz. the salvation of the elect and the damnation of the reprobate! those who hold your sentiments and promulgate them, whether ministers or people, are the alone workmen in the Lord's vineyard, that needeth to be ashamed. (2 Tim. ii. 15.)

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In the third place, I have observed in him a growing tendency to turn every useful conversation into matter for disputation; instead of being a quiet listener, he is now an arguer, simple piety is not cherished; every topic must needs assume the shape of an argument; you can hardly

express a religious sentiment, or offer a religious opinion, but it must needs be questioned, canvassed, and brought to his own standard, and it is of no manner of use to vary the existing turn of thought, or to pass it by, or to give the lines of thought another and quite new direction, so entirely is his mind bent upon unprofitable disputation, rather than godly edifying, which is in Christ Jesus; (1 Tim. i. 4.) that he really renders himself very offensive, and others, in converse with him, most uncomfortable: and wherever I have observed this spirit of disputation—and a disposition of the soul to shift itself from simple piety, and to forego savoury discourse for idle talking, it has always proved, by after consequences, that the love of Christ was fast ebbing

out.

I might add, without the least breach of charity, that I fear he is not so given to his religious duties as formerly; his private devotions are less frequent; the scriptures are less read; he is too much of a busy-bustling Christian; he seems wholly given up to the cultivation of other men's vineyards; his time is always wholly occupied in attending meetings, hearing new preachers, and forming new societies or associations; there is a round of official duty from morning to night.

I need not tell you, dear Sir, that in such a manner of life, there is much that leads to declension in religion; you soon discover the effects of popular favour, risings of unconscious pride, and self-importance, high thoughts of self, and low thoughts of others; you may soon see such a man, like many others in the present day, living, in a measure, on each other's good opinion, and

laying a flattering unction on the soul, by a comparison of themselves with each other; "but," says the Apostle, "comparing themselves with themselves, they are not wise." (2 Cor. x. 12.)

Timotheus.-If Philemon would compare his present with his former state, I doubt not, such a comparison would show him, pretty clearly, what spirit he is now of; it would also, funder God, produce the conviction, that he has not been advancing, but receding, both as it respects growth in grace, and the whole mystery of godliness.

Epaphroditus.-Painful and distressing as it has been to my feelings, to make these communications respecting him thus openly, yet I could not withhold them from you: my sole object, I trust, is to prevent his further mischief and misery and it is not, I know my own heart, that secret spirit of scandalizing a brother in his absence; much less the propagating of groundless charges against him, which I abhor; but it is an earnest desire, under God, to see him brought back to his former state of mind, and an anxious and increasing solicitude which I truly feel for his present and eternal welfare.

Epaphras.-There is no surer mark of your real Christian love and faithful friendship for him, than the anxiety you feel for his salvation ; let us, however, hope for the best; and believe that God's grace, may still preserve and keep him from falling; but how needful is the Psalmist's prayer in his behalf, "hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not." (Psalm xvii. 5.)

SECTION XXV.

REPENTING.

PHILEMON.-EPAPHRAS.

Philemon.-What, my dear Sir, do you understand by that passage of Scripture," Godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of." (2 Cor. vii. 10.)

Epaphras.-I apprehend by it, that whenever there is a sorrowing towards God, it is not repented of by God; for he graciously accepts it; nor by us, for we shall ever have abundant cause to be thankful for it.

Philemon.-Oh, Sir! I find it an easy thing, comparatively, to confess sin; for it soothes the burdened conscience to do so; but it is a hard matter to repent of sin.

Epaphras. It is a high privilege to taste the sweetness of godly sorrow, and this privilege is not enough thought of: we had deemed it a hard case, if the grace of repentance had never been offered us; harder still, if after we had fallen we had been rendered utterly incapable of repenting; and yet, what has been, might have been.

The angels that fell, lie under a moral incapacity to repent in the very nature of things: the reason is, because they have no new ground upon which they can alter their mind; they do not gain wisdom or additional information as we do; they know nothing of knowledge possessed through the various channels of reading and writing; ex

ample, observation, and experience; what they know, they know correctly: they see things as they are, and they see them at once; and whatever they do, is not only in the full blaze of superior intelligence, but with deliberation and choice; they have no indistinctness of apprehension from ignorance within, and no temptation from without. Hence they can never have any additional source of information to alter their mind, and, therefore, in sinning, they committed, in the highest sense of the word, the unpardonable of fence; and when, by transgression, they died the first, they died the second death at the same time!

Philemon.-How dreadful is their condition! Epaphras.-And yet their condition, dreadful as it is, is irremediable; for as they could not rebel against God, from inward depravity, (there being no seeds of evil within them) nor sin from error of judgment; so they are utterly and hopelessly lost; because their sin was from malice propense against the Holy Ghost, and probably from a spirit of jealousy, because they could not bear to see a worm of the earth raised above themselves, and bearing the moral image of God!

Man, on the contrary, is a creature formed for repentance; what he sees, is as through a glass darkly; what he does, is done most imperfectly; what he believes at the time to be best, does not prove so, though he thinks so; his mental vision is often darkened by sin; his affections are captivated by lusts and strong passions; his heart is prone to go astray by the evil of his nature, and his whole frame, from within and from without,