Divine favor which blend in with all that he enjoys and all that he suffers. In his passage to the eternal rest, not one inch will be too thorny, nor one moment too dark. No cup will be too bitter when he is convinced that his Heavenly Father has given it to him to drink; but breasting himself against the flood of evils which he may be called to meet-or rather strengthened by Divine grace cheerfully to bear, what Divine providence has justly assigned,---he will go on his way rejoicing, in the full belief that all things will at last work together for his good.

CHAPTER X.

THE JOY OF SALVATION.

In the remarks already made, it has been implied, as the reader will perceive, that he who rejoices in God is one who is through Divine mercy reconciled to Him.

in a state of salvation.

In one word, he is

This new relation

which the soul sustains to its Creator and Sovereign is the grand source of its highest felicities; and the consciousness of this change, together with the exercises which grow out of it, afford the most heart-felt joy. This is the joy of salvation.

It is this great change, together with the effects of it on the heart and life-on the hopes and prospects, that distinguishes the truly pious from those who are unconverted. To know what this change is, and properly to appreciate its benign effects in the production of human happiness, it is necessary personally to experi

ence it. "The natural man," says St. Paul, "receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God."

Let those then speak of the blessedness of this state who through Divine grace have enjoyed it; and let none question the truth of their testimony, nor the sincerity of their professions.

The very term, salvation, implies subject matter for joy and praise. But the depth of the emotion must depend, in some degree, on the amount of evil from which the soul perceives itself rescued. If a man is delivered from a state of mere ignorance, he would naturally rejoice in the change. Now if the gospel simply revealed a clearer dispensation, and unfolded some new moral motives-the only view, alas, which many take-it would cause, in a mind anxious to acquire religious knowledge, a spring of fresh delight. But it will be seen that, in this case, nothing more is conceded to the gospel than an increase of moral light. The joy, therefore, if real, cannot be as deep as

it will be according to another and more scriptural view, which we present.

Suppose the individual, in addition to being in a state of ignorance, to be also in a state of guilt and condemnation. He mourns, not only that he is in darkness, but that he is in the "bonds of iniquity." He finds within an evil heart of unbelief-a heart of stone-a deepseated alienation from God, which, according to the principles of the Divine government, renders him liable to everlasting death; nay, God has actually passed upon him already the sentence of condemnation. The individual, we say, has a conviction of all this, which mars every earthly pleasure, and fixes his thoughts intensely on his doom. It is a conviction which saddens and depresses the soul, and incapacitates it for the enjoyment of those things which the world covets and esteems. Now, mark; this is not religion; but a deep sense of the need of it. The indiscriminate observer sometimes confounds this anterior state of anxiety with religion. It is, however, only conviction; and we

do not pretend there is any joy in such a state of mind. But, as the sun shines the brighter when the dark cloud is broken, and the muttering thunders are dying away in the distance, so the soul that flies terror-struck from Mount Sinai, and comes in view of the hill of Calvary, rejoices the more from the impressive contrast of its emotions.

It is at the point of transition that we wish to contemplate it; when it comes "out of darkness into God's marvellous light." In proportion to the depth of these convictions and the evils which they respect, must be the joy of deliverance. But who can measure these emotions; or what mind, but that which has felt them, can understand the oppressive nature of these convictions! Various and striking are the emblems used in Scripture to denote this wretchedness from which the sinner, by the gospel salvation, is delivered. It is called a "horrible pit”—a "state of darkness." The soul is said to be "lost," to be under “condemnation ;” a prisoner in fetters; "dead in sin;""sold under sin."