holiness will not descend into a heart full of all uncleanness. If we would invite this guest, we must sweep the house and make it clean. But this too is of God; for he only can make a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within us. But he has promised to give this wisdom to those who ask it, and lead a godly life. Therefore, ask, and you shall have; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. But do it ardently and incessantly, as he that striveth for his soul. For God is gracious and merciful, long-suffering, and of great goodness: and those who come to him in sincerity, he will in nowise cast out. Therefore, pray in faith, nothing doubting; and what you pray for, (according to his will,) believe that you receive it, and you shall receive it. To his To his grace I commend you. And, with the fulness of the Gentiles, O! that it would please God to take the veil off the heart of the Jews, and let them see that they have been deceived by many false Messiahs, since Christ came; so none whom they expect hereafter, can answer the prophecies of the Messiah, (some of which I have named) and therefore no such can be the Messiah who is prophesied of in their own Scriptures. And let them see and consider how that fatal curse they imprecated upon themselves, "his blood be upon us and on our children," has cleaved to them, beyond all their former sins, and even repeated idolatry, from which (to show that is not the cause of their present dispersion) they have kept themselves free ever since; and for which their longest captivity was but 70 years, and then prophets were sent to them to comfort them, and assure them of a restoration: but now they have been about 1700 years dispersed over all the earth, without any prophet, or prospect of their deliverance: that the whole world might take notice of this before unparalleled judgment, not known to any nation that ever yet was upon the face of the earth! So punished, and so preserved for judgment, and I hope, at last, for a more wonderful mercy! "For, if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? For God hath concluded all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things. To whom be glory for ever. Amen." ΤΟ GILBERT WEST, Esq. SIR, IN a late conversation we had together, upon the subject of the Christian Religion, I told you, that, besides all the proofs of it which may be drawn from the prophecies of the Old Testament, from the necessary connection it has with the whole system of the Jewish religion, from the miracles of Christ, and from the evidence given of his resurrection by all the other apostles, I thought the conversion and the apostleship of St. Paul alone, duly considered, was of itself a demonstration sufficient to prove Christianity to be a Divine Revelation. As you seemed to think, that so compendious a proof might be of use to convince those unbelievers that will not attend to a longer series of arguments, I have thrown together the reasons upon which I support that proposition. ON THE CONVERSION AND APOSTLESHIP OF ST. PAUL. IN the 26th chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, written by a contemporary author, and a companion of St. Paul in preaching the Gospel, as appears by the book itself, chap. xx. ver. 6, 13, 14. chap. xxvii. ver. 1, &c. St. Paul is said to have himself given this account of his conversion and preaching to King Agrippa, and Festus the Roman governor: "My manner of life from my youth, which was at the first among mine own nation at Jerusalem, know all the Jews; which knew me from the beginning, (if they would testify,) that after the most straitest sect of our religion, I lived a Pharisee. And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come: for which hope's sake, King Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead? I verily thought with myself, that I ought to do many things contrary to the |