return no more! and then, God's Spirit with drawn, you perish! Our LAST General admONITION IS THIS, 66 It is idle to expect that it will come to you as by chance or by miracle-that you will find it as your feet carelessly wander in the "high way of life," or that "a sign from heaven" will aid you to its attainment. No, my reader; put yourself in the way of influence; go where moral good may reasonably be expected; listen to the faithful counsellings of private friendship, affection, and piety; even from them there may come to you the "word in season,” and that word in season, "behold how good it is!" The Scriptures, why should they be unto you as a sealed book and a dead letter?" Were they not "written for your learning also, that you, through patience and comfort, might have hope?" "Search them," then, and see if to you they testify not convincingly of God's blessed Son? See if to you they show no record of mercy, and no charter of salvation. And in the house of God there seek the blessing of God, for there hath he promised his blessing, even life for ever more. There he is more especially present, and there does he manifest himself, as he doth not unto the world. "Seek him" there," where he may be found; call upon him" there," where he is near.” We can conceive of impenitency settling and effort and act of prayer, your stony heart will become "broken and contrite ;" and lo, for your encouragement it is written, "A broken and contrite heart, O God, wilt thou not despise." 158 CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSION. OUR intended survey of the heart in its state by nature is now completed. It might have been easily, perhaps profitably, extended. Other fields, not unworthy of observation, might have been examined-views might have been taken from other points-and the sketches here presented might have been more ample in outline, and more perfect in filling up. Enough, however, it is trusted, has been presented, to give a faithful picture of its general condition. We have seen its surface blighted and withered by sin-neglected by its possessors-uncheered by the refreshing dews of grace. To none could the view be pleasing. We like not to look upon the traces of desolation and decay. The most stately ruins are ruins still; and the ideas awakened by their contemplation, although interesting, are still sad and painful. That they are not more so, in the case of the works of creation and the monuments of human art, must be ascribed to the fact, that we are mere spectators; with an interest in them so remote, as to be wholly unconnected with feeling, while even the sadness that steals upon us is almost lost in the sublimity and awe which they inspire. But is not so with the moral ruin caused by sin, consequent on the fall. This concerns us individually. It is the ruin, not only of our common but of our personal nature. We are individually the sufferers. It is the heritage of our own heart that is laid waste. Hence the common reluctance to look upon our natural condition as it is. The natural man, shocked at the view, boldly denies its correctness: the spiritual man, aware of its fidelity, is ready to weep as he beholds it. Yet to all it may be useful. True philosophy teaches us to look upon things as they are, instead of fancying them what we desire them to be-to admit facts when their evidences are clear, how 'painful soever be the inferences-and to rise above that moral cowardice which is afraid to look an evil fairly in the face, or to measure it in its length and breadth. Had God provided, and could man employ, no remedy for moral evil, then "ignorance were bliss!" but as a remedy has been provided, and is commensurate with the requirement, the survey of fallen nature, nature in ruins, cannot lead us to despair, but will only point us to the Great Restorer. To the unrenewed, a just delineation of their state may, "through prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Christ," lead to a blessed and renovating change; |