Varieties in Anxious Inquiry

There are family traits in those who are born into the kingdom, but great diversity marks the individual features and expression. THs may be profitably studied during a Revival of Religion. This sameness and diversity are in nothing more remarkable than in the way of coming from Satan to Grod; and even more particularly in the anxiety, fear, and grief of the approach. The Malefactor on the Cross and the Philippian Jailer both had their convictions, but how unlike! Saul of Tarsus and the Ethiopian courtier of Queen Candace are aroused amidst unlike circumstances. Solitary Cornelius, and the thousands at Pentecost, have remarkable resemblances and differences. The same is true of Lydia, Timothy, and other subjects of conversion named in Scripture. Inexperience

would have all converts to bear its own favorite

Stamp; but the Spirit of God works with a lavish, manifold, and magnificent variety, which it is our province devoutly to admire. So also it is in modern awakenings.

If we love to contemplate the unity in variety which beautifully illustrates Divine skill, power, and bounty in the kinds and species of the animal kingdom, much more should we gaze with intensity of interest upon the strange but gracious examples of spiritual operation in the saving of souls. While what is said holds good of all such operations, we may profitably confine our view to the diJfferent aspects of anxiety among inquirers.

There are some things present in almost every case of awakening. In whatsoever place, time, or circumstances you were brought to consideration, you had a consciousness of being wrong and of being wretched. You felt yourself in danger, and believed you must do something to escape. The thought of the glorious God overhung your path, and caused you to meditate on your sins. But the degrees of this solicitude vary exceedingly; from slight ruffling of the sensibilities to utter desperation.

The man may be named, who went careless f

into a religious meeting, and came out with an arrow in his heart. Another has been deeply pierced by a question from a child’s lips. The bare tidings of the conversion of such or such a person may bring sudden conviction to the hearer; and the report of great numbers seeking God in one place often stimulates attention, and so prostrates the sinner. Nothing is oftener blessed to this end than some sentence of the preached Word. The opening of the Bible at an unexpected place may sting a man into anguish. The word Eternity, at the head of a tract, is said to have smitten a fashionable sinner. One of the most eminent and long-tried saints we ever knew was brought to serious consideration in a ball-room. The late eminently pious Francis Markoe was led, not to conviction only, but to salvation, on one and the same day, in his solitary apartment; having up to this time been without any religious impressions. The convictions of St. Augustine may be read in his ‘Confessions, or in Milner. Thousands have owed theii awakening to the simplest accost of a loving friend, uttered with prayer and love.

The views taken by awakened souls are U different. Some are struck down as was Saul; others come gradually to a simple judgment, by no means strong at first, that they are in a wrong way of life. If a shaking, wavering conviction, the chronic trouble of common days, does not rise to acute distress in the time of Kevival, it will be likely to depart without good results.

It is a great error of ignorant and inexperienced persons, to predetermine how much or how little shall be the terror and grief of a convinced soul. To determine this, is the prerogative of God. He may come in the great and strong wind, the earthquake, the fire, or in the still, small voice.^ “Some,” says the venerable annalist of the ^’ Great Kevival,” in New-England, *’ are from the beginning carried on with abundantly more encouragement and hope than others. Some have had ten times less trouble of mind than others, in whom yet the issue seems to be the same. Some have had such a sense of the displeasure of God, and the great danger they were in of damnation, that they could not sleep; and many have said that when they lay down, the thoughts of sleeping in such a

1 1 Klny,^ 20: 11. 12 condition have been £riglitflil to them, and they have scarcely been free from terror while they have been asleep, and have awakened with fear, heaviness, and distress, still abiding ‘on their fepirits. It has been very common, that the deep and fixed concern that has been on persons’ minds has had a painfril influence on their bodies, and given disturbance to animal nature.”

The Law of God, applied to the mind and conscience, is that which works conviction. Hence the preaching of the Law precedes the preaching of the Gospel, and is indispensable. Views of the infinite Justice of God are never wanting, in sound convictions, although as to accessories and degree, these views may diJBfer. Many who are in truth brought very low, by the convincing Spirit, are under an illusion and go about lamenting that they can not feel In others, there is a silent, but profound and immovable self-judgment, in regard to the abiding state of sin and consequent anger of God.

If we examine the direction of that wind which “bloweth where it listeth,” we shall find it uniformly setting towards self-reminciation. “I am in the hands of a sovereign God,” is the language of the sinner. The blasts of the law are driving him away from self-dependence to reliance on God. “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.”i He is becoming “sick” by the law; yea he is becoming “dead.”^ Hear the groaning of such a one, in his secret chamber: O Lord! help, or I perish! Without a Mediator, I am lost, lost forever. By the beams of thy holy and immutable law, I see myself depraved and guilty. The stirring up of enmity within me shows me to myself as worse, rather than better. Once I felt only my outward sins; now the rule is applied to my secret sins, my sins of purpose, sentiment, and thought, my habits and principles of sin, nay my inmost state of sin I God be merciful to me a sinner I

While to some favored souls the Lord Jesus is revealed in his plenitude of saving compassion, from the very beginning of their inquiring state; to others he seems long inaccessible. The sufferer cries: “Oh! that I knew where I might find him!” Kenewed convictions lead to renewed struggles. There are prayers, tears, and groans, with abundant en-

1 Matt. 9: 12. 2 CoL 3: 3; Rom. T: 9.

deavors to make the heart better, which all the while seems to grow worse. Those exercises, in which perhaps there was a certain complacency at first, lose all power of quieting the conscience. Thej have no merit; they give no security. So far jfrom thinking that they are in a better way on account of these impressions and struggles, convinced souls are deeply persuaded that every additional moment of unbelief adds to the aggregate of guilt. Never before, it may be, had they such self-abhorrence and despair of self-salvation as amidst the boiling corruptions and revealed impenitence which first precedes faith and rescue. “Once,” says the sinner, “I thought I had a certain amount of guilt, and I tried to wash it away. Now I see my sins innumerable, and their turpitude immeasurable. Unfit to go the fountain, I lie here on the earth, and cry, Unclean, unclean!” These are troubles out of which only Christ can deliver.

Anguish like this can not be cured by any legal performances. Indeed, the chief misery of a convinced sinner is, that he finds himself culpably unable to do the works of the law. “I have seen many,” says Luther, “who have painfully travailed, and under stress of mere conscience have done the utmost -that was possible, in fasts, prayers, hair-shirts, vexing and punishing the body with sundry penances, sufficient at length to destroy a frame of iron; and all to this end, that they might gain quietness and peace of conscience. Nevertheless, the more they wrought, the more were they stricken down with dread. Especially on the approach of death, some such persons, though they had lived holily, have departed with less courage than I have seen many murderers and other criminals. Therefore, it is most true, that they which do the law, do it not.” But despair of help by the law conducts to the free grace of the Grospel.

The gross error of limiting the Holy Spirit to one or a few methods of working in impenitent hearts, is more common than some suppose. Among its evil consequences one is realized by inquirers themselves. Instead of following the intimations of Divine Wisdom in the Word, in respect to what are proper views and affections, they not unfrequently prescribe some way in which they are to be converted. They will hear of no other. Their predilection for this way has been derived from tradition, from uninspired books, 77 or from common talk. All such expectations God is able to disappoint. The paths by which He leads to the Strait Gate are numberless. He who looked to be struck dumb with terror, is melted all at once by love; while, perhaps, he who meant to advance rationally, deliberately, and gradually, is transported into paroxysms of terror, which make him tremble for his reason. But all the varieties of conviction leave the soul deeply impressed with the insufficiency of every sacrifice but one. “Thou desirest not sacrifice, else would I give it; thou delightest not in burnt-offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, 0 God I thou wilt not despise.”^ r&

The Sinner’s Only Hope.

“Wherewith, 0 Lord! shall I draw near, And bow myself before thy face?

How in thy purer eyes appear?

“What shall I bring to gain thy grace?

“Will gifts delight the Lord Most High?

Will multiphed oblations please?
Thousands of rams his favor buy,

Or slaughtered hecatombs appease?

Can these avert the wrath of God?

Can these wash out my guilty stain?
Rivers of oil, and seas of blood,

Alas I they all must flow in vain.

“Who would himself to Thee approve. Must take the path thyself hast showed;

Justice pursue, and mercy love,

And humbly walk by faith -svith God.

But though my life henceforth be thine, Present for past can ne’er atone:

Though I to thee the whole resign,
I only give thee back thine own.

Guilty I stand before thy face;

On me I feel thy wrath abide; ‘Tis just the sentence should take place;

‘Tis just — but oh 1 thy Son hath died I 10