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without any feeling of its influence. Some are brought up in the habit of constantly hearing the gospel; others are led to study the scriptures as critics, and seem to be conversant in religious truths as their profession; and all this may be without any saving understanding of divine things. Indeed, many ridicule the idea of experience in religion as fanatical. They will allow the propriety and necessity of it in almost every thing beside, but here they consider it as a mark of a weak and enthusiastic mind. But it is evident such do not know what we mean by experience. If by experience be meant, something of which we can give no rational account; an impression on the mind or an agitation of the passions which leads us to extravagant actions; a wildness of imagination that excites us to go beyond the boundaries of reason and common sense; a hearing of some voice, having some vision, or feeling some impulse of the mind that makes us imagine that we alone are the objects of divine favour; then we deny the charge, and confess that we have no experience of this nature. We grant that some people of disordered imaginations have been affected with religious truths, and perhaps, from the weakness of their intellect, a morbid temperament, or some other cause, have said and professed strange things; but they probably would have been affected in the same way, whatever subject had impressed their minds. Yet we know that the truly religious, especially those who possess any degree of zeal and animation, are branded as characters who are weak and enthusiastic. You must not be surprised, therefore, that if in the very first outset you should be treated

with opprobrium, and marked as one that is deluded and led away by false impressions. You must therefore stand on your defence, and endeavour to form clear and just notions of what is meant by experience, that you may be able to repel their attacks. And this you will easily be enabled to do, by observing the operations of your own mind in and since your conversion. You must own that it was by a supernatural power that you were first led to think on spiritual things, and to feel a delight in them; but you can safely declare that this was not done by giving you any new natural faculties; or by any miraculous gifts, or divine and immediate inspirations, like those with which the prophets and apostles were favoured. You do not pretend to any such things as these; nor is this work carried on in any other way, than by the ordinary means which God hath instituted. You do indeed profess to hold communion with him, and to be under the teachings of his grace; but not without the instruction of his word, nor without devoting yourself to his service in the solemn acts of public and private worship. Nothing, therefore, can be irrational or fanatical in this. But it may still be asked, What you mean by experience. Here a better account cannot be given than in the words of the great Dr. Owen, " By experience (says he) I intend a spiritual sense, taste, or relish, of the goodness, sweetness, useful excellency of gospel truths, endearing our hearts to God, and causing us to adhere to him with delight and constancy. And this experience, which is of so great use and advantage, consists of three things. 1. A thorough mixture of the promises with faith. It is

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that lively acting of faith, which the scripture expresses by tasting, eating, drinking, which gives a real incorporation of the things we are made the partakers of. When faith assiduously acts upon the promises, so that the mind is filled with their contents, then the foundation of this experience is laid.-2. It consists in a spiritual sense of the excellency of the things believed, wherewith the affections are touched and filled. No tongue can express that satisfaction which the soul receives in the gracious communications of a sense of divine goodness in Christ, whence it rejoiceth with joy unspeakable, and full of glory.-3. It consists in experiments of the power of the word on all occasions, especially as it is a word of righteousness. This gives peace with God. This believing in and feeling of the authority of the word, satisfies the heart in its preferring spiritual, invisible, and eternal things, before those that are present." Dr. Owen on Heb. v. 14.-This is a true account of what may be considered as an experience of the power of gospel truth in general, and may serve as an answer to all the cavils of objectors.

Some advice, however, it may be necessary to give you relative to particular experiences. And, first, you must not make the experience of any individual a rule for yourself. Various are the ways in which God calls his people to the knowledge of the truth. Some have the advantage of a religious and sanctified education, and from early age have their minds impressed with divine things. Others are suffered to go great lengths in sin before they are called. Some are drawn by love, and do not find that deep distress as

others while many are reduced to the borders of despair, under a view of their enormous guilt and transgression. What a difference, for instance, do we find in the experience of Watts and Doddridge, when compared with Bunyan and Hart! The former were initiated into the principles of christianity almost as soon as they could exercise their reasoning powers, and it does not appear that they felt any of those very dreadful terrors to which some have been subject.* The latter underwent trials and conflicts of a severe and spiritual nature, that brought them almost to despondency for a season. † Now nothing is more

* Dr. Watts had not only a remarkable inclination for learning and poetry, but likewise for theology also, at an early age. He was early taken notice of, says Dr. Jennings, for his sprightliness and vivacity; talents which too often prove fatal snares to young persons; but, through the power of divine grace, he was not only preserved from criminal follies, but had a deep sense of religion upon his heart betimes.

Of Dr. Doddridge it is said, that, before he could read, his mother taught him the history of the Old and New Testament, by the assistance of some Dutch tiles in the chimney of the room where they usually sat, and accompanied her instructions with such wise and pious reflections, as made strong and lasting impressions upon his heart.

John Bunyan had abandoned himself to all manner of wickedness; but when his heart was touched by divine grace, he had such a sense of his original and inward pollution, that he was ready to conclude that he was forsaken of God, and given up to the devil and a reprobate mind. He lamented that God had made him a man, and nor a beast, or bird, or fish, whose condition he coveted, because they were not like himself, obnoxious to the wrath of God, and to be sent to hell when they died. In this state he remained several years. Mr. Hart gives us the following account of himself. "At length (says he) despair began to make dreadful head against me; hopes grew fainter, and terrors stronger. The convictions I laboured under were horrible beyond expression. I looked on myself as a gospel sinner; one that had trampled under foot the blood of Jesus, and for whom there remained no sacrifice for sin. So deep was my despair, that I found in me a kind of wish, that I might only be damned with the common damnation of transgressors of God's law. I thought the hottest place in hell must be my portion. All the evangelical promis

common, than for young converts to be looking at others, whom they suppose to be truly converted; and if they have not undergone the same feelings of distress, or experienced the same degrees of comfort as they, that therefore they ought to doubt of their state. It is true, that there are some general impressions and convictions which are common to all. For we are all taught by one Spirit, and baptized, as the apostle says, into one body but then we must remember that God is not to be limited in the manner of his operations. He always acts as a wise sovereign; and if he chooses to allure some by his love, and to alarm others by his terrors, to accomplish his own purpose, and to bring them to the same end, who shall say unto him, "What doest thou?" Let not any doubt, therefore, of a saving change having taken place, merely because they have not been cast into that bitterness of distress, or have not enjoyed those consolations or possessed those advantages as others. Neither despondency nor ecstacy are essential to conversion. There are other marks by which we are to judge, and these are clearly laid down in the scriptures: he who has a deep conviction of his depravity, and is humbled under a sense of it, avoids the practice of wilful transgression, feels an ardent love to holiness, looks to Christ in all that he does, makes use of the means given him for his spiritual edification and advancement, although he may never

es were so far from comforting me, that they were my greatest tormentors, because they would only increase my condemnation.",

These instances I have mentioned as specimens of the difference of the experience of young converts.

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