ITS FRUITS IN REGARD TO THE CHARACTER AND HAPPI

NESS OF ITS GENUINE DISCIPLES.

It is not without reflection that I introduce this subject into the department of external evidence. I am aware that it is generally considered as belonging exclusively to the class of arguments denominated internal; but I see not with what propriety. So far as any effects of christianity on individual disciples are incapable of being brought under the observation of others, being confined to the inward experience of the true believer, they are unquestionably internal in their character, and do not belong to our present department. But if they be such effects as witnesses can take knowledge of; if the proof of them may be seen and appreciated by those that are without, and who can look only on the outward appearance; I see not but they belong, as appropriately, to the external evidence, as any of the effects of christianity upon society at large. Without further vindication of a inatter of mere classification, I proceed.

I. The moral transformations which the gospel, in all ages, has notoriously wrought, and by unquestionable proofs, exhibited to the world, in the characters of those who have become its genuine disciples, cannot be accounted for, but on the supposition of a divine power accompanying its operation.

To illustrate my meaning, let me describe what has been witnessed under the ministry of christianity so repeatedly, that hardly any who have been in the way of such things can have failed to become acquainted with apposite examples. Persons of all grades of society and of intellect, and of all degrees of enmity to the religion of Jesus; in circumstances the most unpropitious to its influence on their hearts; even while they were filled with the spirit of malice and persecution against its truth and disciples; have had their minds suddenly arrested by some simple expression of the Bible, or some unpretending statement of christian doctrine or experience; perhaps it dropped from the lins of a minister against

whom, at that very time, they were nerved with anger; or was read in a Bible, or a little despised tract, that seemed accidentally to lie in their way, and at which, as if by accident they condescended to look. It told them nothing new; nothing but what they had often heard or read before without the smallest effect. And yet, without any argument to shake their ungodly principles, or special application, by any human being, of the word, thus heard or read, to their particular condition; they felt their minds seized upon by an influence from which no effort of infidel argument, nor struggle of pride, nor drowning of thought, nor exertion of courage, nor devices of company and amusement, could enable them to escape. A hand seemed to be upon them which all their efforts to shake it off only fastened with more painful power. They could get no peace of mind till they submitted to its arrest. They were induced to listen to the gospel of Christ, even while deeply conscious of a cordial opposition to its requirements. A conviction of sin and condemnation, such as they had ever derided, soon brought them to a posture of body and a spirit of supplication before God, in which, a short time before, they would not have been seen for the world. Soon they submitted to the claims of the gospel; became believers in Jesus; confessed him before men, and appeared, to all that had known them before,-in what aspect? As new creatures! Only a few days have elapsed since they were notorious scoffers, bold blasphemers, angry persecutors; of profligate habits, impure conversation, and hardened hearts, armed at all points against religion; immoveable, in their own estimation, by any thing christians could say, and regarded by almost all that knew them as utterly beyond conversion.

Now behold the change! It is a change not merely of belief, but of heart. Their whole moral nature has been recast; affections, desires, pleasures, tempers, conduct, have all become new. What each hated, a few days since, he now affectionately loves. What then he was devotedly fond of,

he now sincerely detests. Prayer is his delight. Holiness he thirsts for. His old companions he pities and loves for their souls' sake; but their tastes, conversation, and habits, are loathsome to his heart. Feelings, recently obdurate, have become tender. A temper, long habituated to anger, and violence, and resentment, is now gentle, peaceful, and forgiving. Christians whose company and intercourse he lately could not abide, are now his dear and chosen companions, with whom he loves to think of dwelling for ever. The proud unbeliever is an humble disciple. The selfish profligate has become self-denied and exemplary, animated with a benevolent desire to do good. All these changes are so conspicuous to others; he has become, and continues to be, so manifestly a new man, in life and heart, that the ungodly are struck with the suddenness and extent of the transformation.

This is a drawing from life. That such cases have frequently occurred, and have been followed by all the permanent blessings of a holy life, in thousands of places, and before witnesses of all descriptions, it were a mockery of human testimony and of the faith of history to question. There is scarcely a faithful preacher of the gospel, whose ministry has not been blessed with such fruits. There is scarcely a village in this country, whose inhabitants cannot tell of many such examples. They began when christianity began. They have been repeated as pure christianity has been promoted and extended. Such a case was that of Saul of Tarsus. One moment he was a furious enemy of Jesus; learned, talented, proud; of high reputation; of brilliant prospects; the champion of Judea against the gospel of Christ; bearing the commission, and full of the spirit of a persecutor. The next, he was on his face on the ground, calling upon Jesus in the spirit of entire submission and deep repentance. In a few days, he was preaching Christ in the synagogues, at the risk of life, having made a total sacrifice of all earthly prospects and possessions, and given himself up to reproach, poverty and universal hatred, for the

sake of the gospel. All his dispositions, affections, and ha bits, had in that short space undergone so complete a change, without any human agency, that he had become, and continued to be, directly the opposite of his former character. Many similar examples must have been included in those three thousand converts of the day of Pentecost, who although when the morning rose upon them they were filled with all the enmity of Jews and of crucifiers of Jesus, before the day was over, were bowed at the feet of the same Jesus, as his baptized disciples. So changed were they in every worldly disposition, that they "sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men as every man had need ;' and all this under no human influence, but that of the preach ing of men whom they began to hear with contempt, and of a doctrine to which they began to listen with the most rancorous aversion. How many thousand cases of the same kind would the domestic history of the first century of the gospel furnish! What volumes might be filled with similar examples, which the annals of christianity in the nineteenth century, and especially in this country, would exhibit! Who has attended to the blessed effects with which the distribution of tracts and bibles has been accompanied, and cannot call to mind instances in which the wonderful changes that were wrought in the Earl of Rochester, in Col. Gardiner, and in the once degraded, and afterwards excellent John Newton, have in all important respects been equalled? Since I commenced the preparation of this lecture, a case in point has come to my view. Called from my study, to see a man who had come on business, I found in the parlour, a well dressed person, of respectable appearance, good manners, and sensible conversation—a stranger. After a little while, he looked at me earnestly, and said: "I think, sir, I have seen your face before."—" Probably," said I, supposing he had seen me in the pulpit. "Did you not once preach, in the receiving ship, at the navy-yard, on the prodigal son, sir?" "Yes." "Did you not afterwards go to a sailor sitting on his chest,

and take his hand, and say, 'friend, do you love to read your Bible?" "Yes." "I, sir, was that sailor; but then I knew nothing about the Bible or about God: I was a poor, ignorant, degraded sinner." I learned his history, in substance, as follows. He had been twenty-five years a sailor, and nearly all that time in the service of the British navy, indulging in all the extremes of a sailor's vices. Drunkenness, debauchery, profaneness made up his character. The fear of death, or hell, or God, had not entered his mind. Such was he, a sink of depravity, when an humble preacher of the Methodist denomination, one day, assembled a little congregation of sailors in the ship to which he was attached, and spoke on the text: "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." He listened, merely because the preacher was once a sailor. Soon it appeared to him that the latter saw and knew him, though he was sitting where he supposed himself concealed. Every word seemed to be meant for a description of him. To avoid being seen and marked, he several times changed his place, carefully getting behind the others. But wherever he went, the preacher seemed to follow him, and to describe his course of life, as if he knew it all. At length the discourse was ended; and the poor sailor, assured that he had been the single object of the speaker's labours, went up and seized his hand, and said: 66 Sir, I am the very man. That's just the life I have led. I am a poor miserable man; but I feel a desire to be good, and will thank you for some of your advice upon the subject." The preacher bade him pray. He answered, "I have never prayed in my life, but that I might be damned, as when I was swearing; and I don't know how to pray." He was instructed. It was a day or two after this, while his mind was anxious but unenlightened, that Providence led me to him, sitting on his chest. He said I showed him a verse of the Bible, as one that would guide him. I asked if he remembered which it was. "Yes, it was, will in no wise cast out. "

'Him that cometh unto me I Soon after this, his mind was