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adopted it into my opinions, and this passed with me for conversion. I attended the preaching of those who mingled the law with the letter of the gospel, and this often stirred up my legal conscience against me; then my aim was to appease it; and when conscience was quieted, either by the sense of guilt wearing off, or by performing dead works, or by any other means, no matter how, I was satisfied. I attended prayer and experience meetings, but never knew what it was to have access to God in prayer, nor ever expected any answer to my petitions, further than hoping all would be well at last. I could talk fluently on the doctrines of the gospel, and this served to nurse my pride. Nay, I remember I once went so far at one of these meetings as to say that I could as soon be brought to believe that there was no Holy Ghost, as that I had not found him present with me, when, alas! I knew nothing of that blessed Spirit's quickening influence; nothing of the power of the kingdom of heaven; nothing of the covenant of grace, nor of the love of God in Christ Jesus. I was bolstered up in self-confidence, daubed with untempered morter, and vainly puffed up in my fleshly mind. After some years I heard Mr. Romaine preach, and then you, and sat under both for some time; but, though I had light enough to see that this preaching was different from what I had before attended, and believed it to be the truth, yet, as the excellency of the power is all of God, and not of man, I still remained a whole

hearted sinner. Thus I went on for years, con science at times still reproving me; but, as I had only jumped into a profession at first in the bonds. of natural affection, and as the charms of novelty had worn off, at length these bonds became weaker and weaker, I began to grow more remiss, religion became wearisome to me, and then, for want of root, my profession withered; and as I had received no benefit from it, it could not hold me. I returned into the world and its pleasures again, and became as a tree twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Yet, as conscience would never be entirely quiet, I sometimes used to come to the chapel when the sermon was more than half over, and then crept in behind, ashamed to shew my face; nor could I altogether leave off prayer, or at least attempting to pray; and there is one thought that would sometimes strike my mind, even in this dead season, which I have since considered as an indication that God had not altogether given me up to a reprobate mind; it was, that if my brother, or any other person whom I really believed to be a child of God, should backslide, or leave God's ways and worship, it would have grieved me to the very heart to see it, both for his own sake, and for the honour and cause of God. In this dreary state I continued for, I believe, more than five years, and never knew what real peace was all the time. Add to this, my backsliding would cause all religion to stink in the nostrils of those who knew not God, and had seen

my former high profession, for a backslider I was, and still consider myself to have been, from the light and knowledge I had received, although there was nothing of a saving nature in it. I do not mean to say that my profession has been of no service at all, for I believe it has since pleased the blessed Spirit of God so far to make use of it, as to shew me, experimentally, the difference between a form of godliness and the power thereof, and, by the contrast, to make his own work more manifest. Also, having learnt that salvation was only in Christ, I did not, when afterwards seeking it earnestly, fly to the letter of commandments to earn life by my own endeavours to keep them, though I have found that this sort of knowledge never destroyed the dominion of sin, nor that legal spirit that was within me, and for which I have often had occasion to loathe myself, as well as for my sinful nature. But herein appears the long suffering of God in preserving me through this state of ignorance and sin to a future calling; and I have often thought it was, if I may use the expression, a double stretch of his great power to rescue me from the strong bands of sin and Satan, since it is declared that such as were in my case were further from the kingdom of heaven than publicans and harlots.

About four or five years ago it pleased the Lord to lay the guilt of sin upon my conscience as a burden too heavy for me to bear, so that I earnestly desired to flee from the wrath to come; at other

times I felt my spirit drawn out in secret desires and breathings after God: and this burden and these desires continued, so that I was led to wait upon the Lord in the public means of grace, in hope that I might get something that would satisfy my soul. About this time I heard you preach a sermon at Providence Chapel from these words, "The full soul loathes the honeycomb, but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet." This, I believe, was the first sermon that I ever heard to real profit. The bitter things you described were such as my soul then felt; and, bitter as they were, I could truly say they were sweeter than all the pleasures of sin, inasmuch as I was led to hope this was the way of God's dealing with his children and my desire was that the Lord would be pleased to search and try me; and, rather than suffer me to fall back again into the way of the world, that he would still further prove me, and know my thoughts; and, however sharp his chastisements might be, that he would still carry on this searching work, and bring me forth to the light, that I might praise his name. And I do bless the Lord that from that time he has never suffered me to say, "Prophesy smooth things, prophesy deceits;" nor to desire the cry of Peace, peace,' to my soul, when God has not spoken peace; but that every refuge of lies may be swept away; that my conscience may be exposed to the glass of his word; and that I may know by experience the truth of his own declaration, "I wound, and I

heal." And God knows that I have since seen so much of the evil and the deceitfulness of my own heart, and my utter inability to think or do the least thing of myself that can be acceptable to him, as for ever to stain the pride of all human glory, and cut off all hope from an arm of flesh. I think I have been so exercised and disciplined in this way, and so foiled in matters apparently the most easy in themselves, that scarcely any creature can have a lower idea, or be more fully convinced than I am, of the wretched weakness of free-will or human power. But the Lord saw the necessity of thus dealing with my deceitful heart and corrupt nature; and I bless his name that he has not left me ignorant of it, though I often, to my sorrow, find it still clinging to me. About the same time a sermon by Mr. Brook, from these words, in Isaiah, "O Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us, for thou hast wrought all our works in us," afforded me encouragement, from the hope that there was a set time of peace ordained for me. And here I will also note another sermon that he preached some considerable time afterwards, from Psalm Ixviii. 20, "He that is our God is the God of salvation and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death;" which was blessed to my refreshment. But to return: From the period abovementioned it has pleased the Lord to carry on his work by degrees in my soul; and, though I have been very dark, ignorant, and confused, yet at times the blessed Spirit has shone upon this his

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