mediately infpired of God, were ready to fink under its weight. Labouring under many perfonal infirmities, your minifter has likewife to ftruggle with many trials peculiar to his office. Sometimes he is obliged to speak in great darkness and distress of foul; and perhaps is frequently affaulted by the fiery darts of Satan, which minifters often experience in a more diftreffing degree than others †. Were you witness to his fighs and groans, before God in fecret, you would acknowledge that he deferves your prayers.

Can you profefs to be a Chriftian, and be negligent or formal in the difcharge of this duty? Ought not the fuccefs of his miniftry among you, to rank among the foremost of your withes? How defirable an event muft this be in itself, and to thofe whofe fouls are alive to God! How calculated to promote the happiness of your minifter, the fpiritual advantage of individuals, your comfort as a church, and to advance the glory of God in the midst of you! Oh! then plead fervently in his behalf, for all the fuccefs of his miniftry is entirely dependant on God ‡. Not one finner will be converted, not one mourner comforted, nor one faint edified, by all his labours, without the unction and energy of God accompanying them. A minifter's mouth

and ufefulness have fometimes been ftopt, as a chastisement, perhaps, for his own fins §; or perhaps, for the people's. With what earneft importunity then thould you addrefs a throne of grace in his behalf!

If you would gratify your paftor, intercede with God for him. Faithful minifters value and requeft their people's prayers. Their chief happiness is to be among a praying people. When they are perfuaded that their flock are with God for them, it is often a mean of ftrengthening their hands, and they are both happy and useful in their work. The experience of multitudes alfo teftifies that your own happiness is connected with this duty. Praying individuals. generally derive perfonal advantage from a miniftry they accompany with prayer. May the great Head of the Church pour out a fpirit of grace and fupplication, both on minifters and people, and antwer their united cries for the spread of the gofpel, and the falvation of fouls. Amen.

MANCUNIENSIS.

* Ex. iv. 10. and Jer. i. 6. 2 Cor. ii. 15, &c. Luk. xxii. 31. 2 Cor. xii. 7.

Cor. iii. 5, &c.

+ Zech. iii. 1. § Jer. i. 17.

Ezek. ii. 26.

Rom. xv. 30.

THE

THE POWER OF CONSCIENCE.

ONSCIENCE is that power of our minds which compares our actions with the law of God, approving that which is good, and condemning that which is evil. Too often it is dormant, unfaithful, or defiled, and fometimes callous, "feared, as it were, with a hot iron." Ignorance of the fpirituality of God's law, hardness of heart, and habits of fin, together with wrong notions of the way of reconciliation to God, keep the foul in a falfe peace. Nevertheless, when perfons commit atrocious actions, criminal even in the eyes of natural men, and destructive of the bonds by which human fociety is held together, it is often found impoffible to filence the clamours of an accufing confcience; and death itself, in its moft dreadful forms, is preferred to the intolerable gnawings of this agonizing worm. Permit me to illuftrate this fad truth, by the following ANECDOTE, with which, probably, few of your readers are acquainted *.

"A JEWELLER, a man of good character and confiderable wealth, having occafion, in the way of his business, to travel at fome diftance from the place of his abode, took along with him a fervant, in order to take care of his portmanteau. He had with him fome of his best jewels, and a large fum of money, to which his fervant was likewife privy. The mafter having occafion to difmount on the road, the fervant watching his opportunity, took a pistol from his mafter's faddle, and fhot him dead on the fpot; then rifled him of his jewels and money, and hanging a large ftone to his neck, he threw him into the nearest canal. With this booty he made off to a diftant part of the country, where he had reafon to believe that neither he nor his mafter were known. There he began to trade in a very low way at firft, that his obfcurity might fcreen him from obfervation; and in the courfe of a good many years, feemed to rife, by the natural progrefs of his bufinefs, into wealth and confideration; fo that his good fortune appeared at once the effect and reward of industry and virtue. Of thefe he counterfeited the appearance fo well, that he

Related by Mr. Fordyce, is his Dialogues on Education, Vol. II. p. 401, and inferted in the Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol. V. Part I. as a real occurrence which happened in a neighbouring state not many years ago.

grew

grew into great credit, married into a good family, and by laying out his hidden ftores difcreetly, as he faw occafion, and joining to all an univerfal affability, he was admitted to a fhare of the government of the town, and rofe from one poft to another, till at length he was chofen chief magiftrate. In this office he maintained a fair character, and continued to fill it with no fmall applaufe, both as governor and a judge; till one day, as he fat on the bench with fome of his brethren, a criminal was brought before him who was accused of murdering his mafter. The evidence came out full, the jury brought in their verdict that the prifoner was guilty, and the whole affembly waited, with great fufpence, the fentence of the prefident of the court, which he happened to be on that day. Meanwhile he appeared to be in unufual diforder and agitation of mind, and his colour changed often; at length he arofe from his feat, and coming down from the bench, placed himself just by the unfortunate man at the bar. "You fee before you, faid he, (addreffing himself to thofe who had fat on the "bench with him), a friking inftance of the juft rewards "of heaven, which this day, after thirty years conceal"ment, prefents to you a greater criminal than the man "juft now found guilty." Then he made an ample confeffion of his guilt, and of all its aggravations. "Nor can "I feel, continued he, any relief from the agonies of an "awakened confcience, but by requiring that juftice be "forthwith done against me, in the mioft publick and

folemn manner." We may eafily fuppofe the amazement of all the affembly, and efpecially of his fellowjudges. However, they proceeded, upon this confeffion, to pass fentence upon him, and he died with all the fymptoms of a penitent mind.

Dear Reader, let this remarkable difplay of the power of conscience, remind you of what will happen in the great day. In the procefs of eternal judgment, the books will be opened. Probably, the book of God's holy law-the book of God's remembrance, and the book of confcience;—this will prove an exact counterpart of the former. The writing in this book is faint, feldom reviewed, and fcarcely legible; like that, fays one, which is written with the juice of lemons, not to be read till brought to the fire. That fire, which fhall try every man's work, will render this writing legible to all the world, and the operation of confcience, in every unpardoned finner, thall be as mighty as in the inftance juft related.

Happy

Happy believer, who, convinced of fin, and felf-condemned, haft already known the power of confcience, haft had the moft lively feeling of fin and its fatal defert; who, in confequence of this, haft fled to the crofs for refuge; whofe "heart is fprinkled from an evil confcience" by the blood of Chrift; and who can liften to "the answer of a good confcience by the refurrection of Jefus from the dead."

Refolve, by divine grace, with Job, that thine heart fhall not reproach thee with allowed fin as long as thou liveft; and labour, with Paul, to maintain always a confcience void of offence towards God and man,

I

To the Editor of the Evangelical Magazine.

SIR,

G. B.

HAVE lately met with a display of fuperabounding grace, in reclaiming and converting a man totally ignorant of religion; and what rendered the mercy the more remarkable, the wife of his bofom, who had been his. partner in the ways of fin, was caught at the fame time in the gofpel net.

It is now above twelve years fince I was called to preach. at W. when multitudes came to hear, and fome, awful to relate! came to oppose, perfecute, and even to break up our affemblies. Among thefe laft was a defperate young man, who came with fome other diffolute youths like himfelf, each mounted upon a horfe, in order to ride full fpeed into the congregation, and by fo doing, to spoil their devotion and difperfe the worfhippers. They came as Saul did to Damafcus, "breathing out threatenings against the difciples," but more particularly against the minister. A little before they arrived at the place, where I was preaching from Luke xiv. 23. ("Go out into the highways and hedges," &c.) the night being very ftill and ferene, and my voice naturally strong, they heard me preach at a confiderable diftance: this put them rather to a fland, and they began to deliberate upon their mode of attack. Fear and fhame now feized them; they defifted from their. firft project, and, at fome diftance, employed themselves in leaping their horfes over the hedges during the time I was preaching. The young man above mentioned went home much difappointed and chagrined, but foon forgot it. VOL. VI.

Two

Two or three years paffed on without his thinking any thing, either of oppofing or efpoufing the gofpel, but, being a spendthrift, his temporal circumftances became critical, and he fled to the afylum which numbers have recourfe to in fimilar circumstances, namely, the keeping of a public-houfe, which happened to be clofe adjoining to the parish of R. This feemed an unlikely step to lead to converfion, but the Lord can and does accomplith his purpofes by occurrences not of man's devifing, but of his own decrees. A man was taken very ill in the parish of R▬▬▬, very near to this public-house, and as there is no refident Clergyman in the parish, and the prayers of a Minister were deemed neceffary, the parents of the dying man thought a Diffenting Minifter would be better than none at all, and accordingly fent for me. When I came near the house where the dying man lay, to my great surprife, there were not fewer than fixty or feventy people collected together, to pay their laft vifit to him. The fight of fuch a number gladdened my heart, as I fuppofed it would afford me a favourable opportunity of preffing the great and weighty matters of religion home upon their fouls. The poor creature I went to vifit was ftretched forth upon his bed, the pale meflenger of death had seized him, he was all perturbation, and filled with anxious folicitude concerning the confequences of death. To him I immediately addreffed myfelf upon the most important articles of Chriftianity. The nature and neceffity of the new birth was the firft fubject of difcuffion; the evidences of fuch a ftate upon the mind of the perfon thus regenerated, and the fruit which would flow from the life and converfation of the nian. I endeavoured to prove that the word of God reprefented man, while in a ftate of nature, to be in a ftate of enmity against God; hence a change of heart as well as life became neceffary to fit him for communion with God on earth, and to prepare him for the realms of glory above. I then fupplicated the Throne of Grace, that the Father of Mercics would be gracious to the dying man, by working powerfully, favingly and effectually, previous to his departure into the eternal ftate. After this I turned myself to the furrounding people, and addreffed them in the most folemn manner I was able. I endeavoured to prove the neceffity as well as importance of an acquaintance with God, a devotednefs to his fervice, and an habitual