d educated in a country wherein Christianity is professed; not as
indicating a renewed nature, as expressive of a peculiar character, with
its appropriate desires and aversions, and hopes, and fears, and joys,
and sorrows. To people of this description, the solemn admonition of
Christ is addressed; "I know thy works; that thou hast a name that thou
livest, and art dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which
remain that are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect
before God."

If there be any who is inclined to listen to this solemn warning, who is
awakened from his dream of false security, and is disposed to be not
only _almost_ but _altogether_ a Christian--O! let him not stifle or
dissipate these beginnings of seriousness, but sedulously cherish them
as the "workings of the Divine Spirit," which would draw him from the
"broad" and crowded "road of destruction into the narrow" and thinly
peopled path "that leadeth to life." Let him retire from the
multitude--Let him enter into his closet, and on his bended knees
implore, for Christ's sake and in reliance on his mediation, that God
would "take away from him the heart of stone, and give him a heart of
flesh;" that the Father of light would open his eyes to his true
condition, and clear his heart from the clouds of prejudice, and
dissipate the deceitful medium of self-love. Then let him carefully
examine his past life, and his present course of conduct, comparing
himself with God's word: and considering how any one might reasonably
have been expected to conduct himself, to whom the Holy Scriptures had
been always open, and who had been used to acknowledge them to be the
revelation of the will of his Creator, and Governor, and Supreme
Benefactor; let him there peruse the awful denunciations against
impenitent sinners; let him labour to become more and more deeply
impressed with a sense of his own radical blindness and corruption;
above all, let him steadily contemplate, in all its bearings and
connections, that stupendous truth, _the incarnation and crucifixion of
the only begotten Son of God, and the message of mercy proclaimed from
the cross to repenting sinners_.--"Be ye reconciled unto God."--"Believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

When he fairly estimates the guilt of sin by the costly satisfaction
which was required to atone for it, and the worth of his soul by the
price which was paid for its redemption, and contrasts both