d A ttctietE ATTEMPT, &C. and salvation : and thatwe should direct the doubtful foot ivbete to tread, and tite doubtful eye where to look for peace and par- don, for light and strength, for holiness and eternal life. You delight to hear your preachers sometimes mention the case of the afflictedand the tempted, who are engaged in a hard combat with their spiritual adversaries, with the powers ofsin within them, and temptation without them, and you wait to hear us give the feeble and the oppressed some proper advice and encouragement. You expect we should at other times take the case of backsliders in hand, and prepare a word of admonition and reproof for those that decline from the good degrees of religion which once they professed and practised; that we should strengthen the feeble, the humble and the fearful christian, and pass through the va- rious parts of spiritual experience, and the several scenes and stages of the christian life. Surely this was the fashion and practice of our fathers amongst the puritans and protestant dis- senters in their ministry : I hope this is the present mode of preaching amongst us, and I wish with all my soul this sort of ministration, this manner of dividing the word of God, and giving to each their due, may never grow out of fashion in our placesof worship. But my business is to apply this matter closely to your con- sciences: under all these advantages, as you suppose, of expe- rimental preaching, do you live any better than your neigh- bours ? Have you Iearnt more of the christian life in the various parts of it than they have done ? Are you more acquainted with the particular state and case of your own souls toward God ? Have you traced out the frame of your own spirit, or are you more solicitous to find it ? Can each of you tell where to rank yourselves? Are you mere nominal christians, or real followers of Christ ? Are you among the secure and presumptuous, or the awakened and convinced ? Are you among the irresolute, the doubtful and wavering christians, or among those who run the race of holiness with a steadiness and establishment of soul ? Are you daily growing in the things of God, or do you belong to the class of backsliders in heart and ways ? Have you ob- served the directions that have been given to persons under these different characters ? Have you made such a proficiency in re- ligion hereby, as to answer the designs of those ministrations and labours in the pulpit under which you have placed your- selves ? It is in vain for you to pretend to have enjoyed such a manner of preaching, as is most suited to bring souls onward from a-state of sin and nature to a state of grace and advancing toward glory, if you yourselves remain still in a state of sin, and are strangers to divine grace; Or if you have never applied the distinguishing evidences of formal professors and sincere cou- verts, so as to learn where to rank yourselves.
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