RULES FOR OBTAINING FÖRG1VENESS. 303 joy are detained from some believers and granted to others. You are, therefore, to receive forgiveness by a pure act of believing, in the way already described; and are not to think it is not in you, unless you have constantly a spiritual sense of it in your heart. See, in the mean time, that your faith bringeth forth obedience, and God, in due time, will cause it to bring forth peace. Much the same may be said concerning the grace we have from God in Christ for our sanctification. When the soul cannot find this in itself, when it has not a spi- ritual sense and experience of its power, when it can- not evidently distinguish it from that which is not right or genuine, it is filled with fears and perplexities, and thinks it is yet in its sins. He is so indeed who path no grace in him ; but not he always who can find none in him : these are different things. A man may have grace, and yet not have it at some times much acting; he may have grace for life, when he has it not for fruit- fulness and comfort, though it be his duty so to have it. Rev. 3 : 2 ; 2 Tim. 1 : 6. And a man may have grace acting in him, and yet not know, not be sensible that he has acting grace.. We see persons frequently under great apprehension that they have no grace at all, who yet, at the same time, to the clearest conviction of all who are able to discern spiritual things, sweetly and genuinely act faith, love, submission to God, and that in a high and eminent manner. Psalm 88. The Psalmist complains that he was free among the dead, a man of no strength, ver. 4, 5, as one who had no spiritual life, no grace. This afflicted his mind, and almost distracted him, ver. 15; and yet there can be no greater expres-
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