CHAPTER III. TEMPTATIONS. This is the very painting of your fears.-SHAKSPEARE. Me oft hath fancy Myself creating what I saw.-Cowper. THE apostle James reproves those who are too ready to connect their enticements to evil with supernatural causes; who ascribe to circumstances around them, an influence which proceeds from a susceptibility within them. Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted of evil, neither tempteth he any man. But every man away by his own is tempted when he is drawn lusts and enticed. The danger of walking among sparks belongs only to those who wear combustible garments. Nothing is more common among the desponding and morbid than a proneness to this very mistake. They im pute their unhappy experiences to a cause which very often is only "the painting of their fears." How far the prince of tempters may take occasion, from their sickly physical state, to lead them into errors concerning their spiritual, we presume not to say. There is, however, the same intervention of second causes in their case, as in that which James speaks of. They are drawn away by their own bodily affections, and enticed into grave mistakes, which cause their many doubts and disquiet about their spiritual safety. It is a temptation of some, in their desponding state, to think that they have committed THE SIN AGAINST THE HOLY GHOST. We have known Christians, with eminent gifts, and piety which nobody doubted but themselves, who have been at times exceedingly distressed with the apprehension that they were guilty of this unpardonable sin. The perplexing question concerning its nature, than which, Father Austin said, “there was no harder in all the Scriptures," is clearly answered, as they suppose, in their own forlorn experience. Among the schoolmen of the middle ages there were no less than six different opinions about this fearful sin, all of which, in later times, have been rejected as erroneous. Calvin defined it a malicious resistance to divine truth, only for the sake of resistance. In this view Arminius concurred with Calvin, although opposed to him in so many others of more importance. Since the Reformation, a more common opinion has been, that it was the sin of the Jews when they ascribed the miracles of Christ to the agency of Satan. Dr. Chalmers and others, think it to be, not so much any one sin against the Holy Ghost, as a prolonged sinning-a resisting and grieving the heavenly Comforter until he ceases to strive, and withdraws; when the forsaken heart is left like a field on which the clouds shed no more rain. The good seed of the word will not take root and bring forth fruit in the former case, any more than bare grain, wheat, or some other will germinate, so long as the earth is powder and dust in the absence of proper moisture. Conviction of sin, regenera▾ tion, sanctification, are no longer possible, because the dishonoured Spirit, so often repelled, has let these impenitent persons alone. Sinning now has become unpardonable, as it can no longer be repented of, and not because it is, in its own nature, worse than it was before the Spirit's final exit. It does not come within the scope of the present volume to write a treatise on this grave subject; but it is introduced to the reader's notice only so far as to exhibit the moral effect of a physical cause. The gloomy prognosis in cases like these, is a token, not as the sufferers suppose, that they are unconverted, but that they are unwell. Mr. Kemper says, that in ninety-nine instances out of a hundred it is a symptom of bodily disease, "of which state Satan takes advantage to annoy and distress them. This appears," he adds, "for two reasons-first, that so many recover, become comfortable, and cease to charge themselves with the commission of that most frightful of all sins: the second is, that others know their characters to be better than they say they are, and from the unreasonable charges which they bring against themselves, which others, in their sober senses, can see were impossible." We once knew a young man, who had lived twelve years under the impression that he had survived his day of grace. He supposed that he could refer to the very day, and mention the act, by which he caused the Holy Spirit to withdraw, and leave him in a condition of hopeless obduracy. In all this time he had shown a becoming respect to the preaching of the gospel, but without any benefit of which he was conscious, or that was visible to others. No one suspected what was the state of his mind-not his pastor, nor most intimate friends; for in all his conversation he had carefully concealed it from both. But the Spirit that he had exiled for ever, as he imagined, was striving with him still, and at length constrained him to reveal this oppressive secret to his pastor. He was then told that the very distress of mind which had caused him to seek that inter |