arefully remembered, that this deliverance is not _forced on us_, but
_offered to us_; we are furnished indeed with every help, and are always
to bear in mind, that we are unable of ourselves to will or to do
rightly; but we are plainly admonished to "work out our own salvation
with fear and trembling[14]."--Watchful, for we are encompassed with
dangers; "putting on the whole armour of God," for "we are beset with
enemies."

May we be enabled to shake off that lethargy which is so apt to creep
upon us! For this end, a deep practical conviction of our natural
depravity and weakness will be found of eminent advantage. As it is by
this we must at first be rouzed from our fallacious security, so by this
we must be kept wakeful and active unto the end. Let us therefore make
it our business to have this doctrine firmly seated in our
understandings, and radically worked into our hearts. With a view to the
former of these objects, we should often seriously and attentively
consider the firm grounds on which it rests. It is plainly made known to
us by the light of nature, and irresistibly enforced on us by the
dictates of our unassisted understandings. But lest there should be any
so obstinately dull, as not to discern the force of the evidence
suggested to our reason, and confirmed by all experience, or rather so
heedless as not to notice it, the authoritative stamp of Revelation is
superadded, as we have seen, to complete the proof; and we must
therefore be altogether inexcusable, if we still remain unconvinced by
such accumulated mass of argument.

But we must not only _assent_ to the doctrine clearly, but _feel_ it
strongly. To this end, let the power of habit be called in to our aid.
Let us accustom ourselves to refer to our natural depravity, as to their
primary cause, the sad instances of vice and folly of which we read, or
which we see around us, or to which we feel the propensities in our own
bosoms; ever vigilant and distrustful of ourselves, and looking with an
eye of kindness and pity on the faults and infirmities of others, whom
we should learn to regard with the same tender concern as that with
which the sick are used to sympathize with those who are suffering under
the same distemper as themselves. This lesson once well acquired, we
shall feel the benefit of it in all our future progress; and though it
be a lesson which we are slow to learn, it is one in which study and
experience, the incidents of every day, and