but from a consciousness that you was weary and heavy laden, and by being taught that this was a true sign of future deliverance. You have found rest, it seems, without coming to Jesus that you may have life.

If indeed your spirit is " poor and contrite;" if it be a grief of heart to you to reflect on your conduct towards the best of beings; if a view of the cross of Christ excite to mourning, on account of that for which he died; then is thy heart with my heart; and with the greatest satisfaction I can add, give me thine hand. Yes; if so, your heart is with God's heart, with Christ's heart, and with the heart of all holy beings; and all holy beings will offer thee their hand. But in this case you not only can, but do repent, and believe in Jesus. The question is, is that distress of soul which is antecedent to all godly sorrow for sin, and in the midst of which the sinner is not willing to come to Jesus as utterly unworthy that he may have life, any evidence of a work of grace? If it be, Saul during his last years, and Judas in his last hours, were each gracious characters. If ever men were weary and heavy laden, they were but neither of them came to Jesus with his burden-neither of them found rest for his soul.

Consider, I beseech you, whether that distress of soul which has preceded and issued in true conversion, be ever represented in the scripture as an evidence of a work of grace; or whether the parties were ever comforted on that ground. Do re-peruse the cases already referred to, of Peter's address to the murderers of Christ, and that of Paul and Silas to the jailor.

Consider impartially, whether the distinction of sinners into insensible and sensible, with a design to exclude the former from being the proper objects of gospel invitation, be justifiable. A compliance with the invitation doubtless implies a just sense of sin, and a thirst after spiritual blessings; and so does a compliance with the divine precepts: but it does not follow that either the invitations or the precepts are improperly addressed to sinners, whether sensible or insensible. Those who made light of the gospel supper, were as really and properly invited to to it as those who accepted it. Those also who were invited to buy and eat, to buy wine and milk without money and without price, are described as VOL. IV.

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'spending their money for that which was not bread, and their labour for that which satisfieth not. The same invitation, which, in the beginning of that chapter, is given in figurative language, is immediately afterwards expressed literally, and runs thus-Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts, and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. The thirst, therefore, which they are supposed to feel, could be no other than the desire of happiness, which they vainly hoped to assuage in the enjoyments of this world; but which God assures them could never be assuaged but by the blessings of the gospel, the sure mercies of David. The invitation of our Saviour to the weary and heavy laden, is manifestly a quotation from Jeremiah vi. 16. and the people who were there invited to stand in the ways and see, to inquire after the old paths, and the good way, and to walk therein, with the promise that they should find rest to their souls, were so far from being sensible of their sin, that they impudently answered, We will not walk therein. To confine the invitations of scripture to sensible sinners, and to hold up the blessings of the gospel as belonging to them, before, and as the ground of their compliance, is to pervert the word of God.

But why do I thus write? Is it because I want to plunge my dear young friend into the gulf of despondency? Far be this from me! My desire is to draw him off from all false dependencies, and to lead him if it might be, to rest upon the Rock of Ages. Is it consolation that he wants? Let me remind him of what I have said before. If he be willing to relinquish every other ground of hope, and to embrace Jesus as the only name given under heaven and among men, by which we can be saved, there is nothing in heaven or earth to hinder it. I have no desire to persuade you that you are not in a converted state. It may be, that which you have said of your being unable to repent or believe in Christ, was the language of despondency. Hardness of heart and unbelief are found even in believers themselves, and are frequently the objects of lamentation. There are seasons especially, in which it may seem, even to a good man, as if he were void of all tenderness of heart, and all regard for Christ. Whether this was your

case at that time, or not, I feel no regret for having directed you, as a perishing sinner, to believe in Jesus for salvation, rather than encouraged you to think the best of your state from any supposed symptoms of grace that might be found in you. I would do the same with any religious professor who should be in a state of doubt and darkness respecting the reality of his religion for if there be any true religion in us, it is much more likely to be discovered and drawn forth into actual exercise by an exhibition of the glory and grace of Christ, than by searching for it among the rubbish of our past feelings. To discover the small grains of steel mixed among a quantity of dust, it were much better to make use of a magnet than a microscope.

An exhibition of the name of Christ is that by which the thoughts of the heart are revealed. To him, therefore, as a guilty and perishing sinner, I must still direct you. If you be indeed of a broken and contrite spirit; if true grace have a being in your soul, though it be but as the smoking flax, his name will so far be precious to you. To him your desires will ascend; in him they will centre; on his righteousness all your hope of acceptance with God will be placed; and, when this is the case, you will find rest to your soul.

I am,

Yours, with sincere affection,

ARCHIPPUS.

PART OF

BODY OF DIVINITY.*

LETTER I.

My Dear Brother,

RESPECTING your request of a monthly letter, I acknowledge I have wished, for several years past, to give as far as I was able, a connected view of the gospel; but have hitherto wanted either sufficient leisure, or sufficient inducement, seriously to set about it. The difficulty of giving every part of divine truth its due importance, and of placing it in the system where it will have the greatest effact, is such, that I have no expectation of doing it to my own satisfaction: but I am willing to try. May the Holy Spirit of God preserve my heart and mind, that I may neither be misled, nor

* 1 think it was about the beginning of the year 1814, that Mr. Fuller, in compliance with my request, began a series of letters, intending to send me one of them every month, till he had gone through a Body of Divinity. His ill health and many engagements prevented him from punctually fulfilling his design; and I had received only nine letters, when his blessed master called him away. These he had no opportunity to correct, nor can any perfect idea be formed of the whole plan he would have pursued: yet they seem to me too valuable to be withheld from the public; though they certainly demand a more candid perusal than if they had been prepared by himself for the press.

R.