mm HgHKB a i i$i mm® «*• V ^ ^ c^ ^ y * A. "* \0 - V- V i ^ A I': ; '"' o°\-; *. ''//"*=-'" O" RISE AND PROGRESS. CHAPTER IV. THE SINNER ARRAIGNED AND CONVICTED. 1. Conviction of guilt necessary. — 2. A charge of rebellion against God advanced. — 3. Where it is shown, that all men are born under God's law. — 4. That no man hath perfectly kept it. — 5. An appeal to the reader's conscience on this head, that he hath not. — 6. That to have broken it, is an evil inex- pressibly great. — 7. Illustrated by a more particular view oi the aggravations of this guilt, arising from knowledge. — 8. From divine favors received. — 9. From convictions of con- science overborne. — 10. From the strivings of God's Spirit resisted. — 11. From vows and resolutions broken. — 12. The charges summed up, and left upon the sinner's conscience. — The sinner's confession under a general conviction of guilt . 1 . As I am attempting to lead you to true religion, and not merely to some superficial form of it, I am sensible I can do it no otherwise than in the way of deep humiliation. And therefore, supposing you are persuaded, through the divine blessing on what you have before read, to take it into consideration, I would now endeavor, in the first place, with all the serious- ness I can, to make you heartily sensible of your guilt before God. For I well know, that, unless you are convinced of this, and affected with the conviction, all the provisions of gospel grace will be slighted, and your soul infallibly destroyed, in the midst of the THE SINNER CONVICTED. 57 noblest means appointed for its recovery. I am fully- persuaded that thousands live and die in a course of sin, without feeling upon their hearts any sense that they are sinners, though they cannot, for shame, hut own it in words. And therefore let me deal faith- fully with you, though I may seem to deal roughly ; for complaisance is not to give law to addresses in which the life of your soul is concerned. 2. Permit me therefore, sinner, to consider my- self at this time as an advocate for G-od, as one em- ployed in his name to plead against thee, and to charge thee with nothing less than being a rebel and a traitor against the Sovereign Majesty of heaven and earth. However thou mayest be dignified or distinguished among men ; if the noblest blood run in thy veins ; if thy seat were among princes, and thine arm were "the terror of the mighty in the land of the living," Ezek. 32 : 27, it would be necessary thou shouldst be told, and told plainly, thou hast broken the laws of the King of kings, and by the breach of them art become obnoxious to his righteous condemnation. 3. Your conscience tells you that you were born the natural subject of God, born under the indispen- sable obligations of his law. For it is most apparent that the constitution of your rational nature, which makes you capable of receiving law from God, binds you to obey it. And it is equally evident and cer- 58 RISE AND PROGRESS. tain, that you have not exactly obeyed this law, nay, that you have violated it in many aggravated in- stances. 4. Will you dare to deny this ? Will you dare to assert your innocence ? Remember, it must be a complete innocence ; yes, and a perfect righteousness too, or it can stand you in no stead, farther than to prove, that though a condemned sinner, you are not quite so criminal as some others, and will not have quite so hot a place in hell as they. And when this is considered, will you plead not guilty to the charge ? Search the records of your own conscience, for God searcheth them: ask it seriously, "Have you never in your life sinned against God?" Solomon declar- ed, that in his days "there was not a just man upon earth, who did good, and sinned not," Eccles. 7 : 20 ; and the apostle Paul, "that all had sinned, and come short of the glory of God," Rom. 3 : 23, "that both Jews and Gentiles," which, you know, comprehend the whole human race, "were all under sin." Rom. 3:9. And can you pretend any imaginable reason to believe the world is grown so much better since their days, that any should now plead their own case as an exception? Or will you, however, pre- sume to arise in the face of the omniscient Majesty of heaven, and say, I am the man? 5. Supposing, as before, you have been free from those gross acts of immorality which are so pernicious THE SINNER CONVICTED. 59 to society that they have generally been punishable by human laws ; can you pretend that you have not, in smaller instances, violated the rules of piety, of temperance, and charity ? Is there any one person, who has intimately known you, that would not be able to testify you had said or done something amiss ? Or if others could not convict you, would not your own heart do it ? Does it not prove you guilty of pride, of passion, of sensuality, of an excessive fond- ness of the world and its enjoyments ; of murmuring, or at least, of secretly repining against God, under the strokes of an afflictive providence ; of misspend- ing a great deal of your time ; abusing the gifts of God's bounty to vain, if not, in some instances, to pernicious purposes ; of mocking him when you have pretended to engage in his worship, " drawing near to him with your mouth and your lips, while your heart has been far from him?'' Isa. 29 : 13. Does not conscience condemn you of some one breach of the law at least ? And by one breach of it you are, in a sense, a scriptural sense, "become guilty of all," Jam. 2:10, and are as incapable of being justified before God, by any obedience of your own, as if you had committed ten thousand offences. But, in real- ity, there are ten thousand and more chargeable to your account. "When you come to reflect on all your sins of negligence, as well as on those of commission ; on all the instances in which you have " failed to CO RISE AND PROGRESS. do good when it was in the power of your hand to do it," Prov. 3 : 27 ; on all the instances in which acts of devotion have been omitted, especially in secret ; and on all those cases in which you have shown a stupid disregard to the honor of God, and to the temporal and eternal happiness of your fellow- creatures : when all these, I say, are reviewed, the number will swell beyond all possibility of account, and force you to cry out, "Mine iniquities are more than the hairs of my head." Psa. 40 : 12. They will appear in such a light before you, that your own heart will charge you with countless multitudes ; and how much more, then that G-od, who is greater than your heart, and knoweth all things. 1 John, 3 : 20. 6. And say, sinner, is it a little thing that you have presumed to set light by the authority of the God of heaven, and to violate his law, if it had been by mere carelessness and inattention ? How much more heinous, therefore, is the guilt, when in so many instances you have done it knowingly and wilfully. Give me leave seriously to ask you, and let me entreat you to ask your own soul, " Against whom hast thou magnified thyself? against whom hast thou exalted thy voice," 2 Kings, 19 : 22, or " lifted up thy rebellious hand ?" On whose law, sinner, hast thou presumed to trample ; and whose friendship, and whose enmity, hast thou thereby EVIL OF OFFENDING GOD. 61 dared to affront ? Is it a man like thyself that thou hast insulted ? Is it only a temporal monarch — only one " -who can kill thy body, and then hath no more that he can do ?" Luke 12 : 4. Nay, sinner, thou wouldst not have dared to treat a temporal prince as thou hast treated the " King Eternal, Immortal," and " Invisible." 1 Tim. 1 : 17. No price could have hired thee to deal by the maj- esty of an earthly sovereign, as thou hast dealt by that God before whom the cherubim and seraphim are continually bowing. Not one opposing or com- plaining, disputing or murmuring word is heard among all the celestial legions, when the intimations of his will are published to them. And who art thou, wretched man, who art thou, that thou shouldst oppose him? That thou shouldst oppose and provoke a God of infinite power and terror, who needs but exert one single act of his sovereign will, and thou art in a moment stripped of every posses- sion ; cut off from every hope ; destroyed and rooted up from existence, if that were his pleasure ; or, what is inconceivably worse, consigned over to the severest and most lasting agonies ? Yet this is the God whom thou hast offended, whom thou hast af- fronted to his face, presuming to violate his express laws in his very presence. This is the God before whom thou standest as a convicted criminal ; con- victed not of one or two particular offences, but of 62 RISE AND PROGRESS. thousands and ten thousands ; of a course and series of rebellion and provocations, in which thou hast persisted more or less ever since thou wast born, and the particulars of which have been attended with almost every conceivable circumstance of ag- gravation. Reflect on particulars, and deny the charge if you can. 7. If knowledge be an aggravation of guilt, thy guilt, sinner, is greatly aggravated. For thou wast born in Emmanuel's land, and God hath " written to thee the great things of his law," yet " thou hast accounted them as a strange thing." Hos. 8 : 12. Thou hast " known to do good, and hast not done it," James 4 : 17 ; and therefore to thee the omis- sion of it has been sin indeed. "Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard?" Isa. 40 : 28. Wast thou not early taught the will of God ? Hast thou not since received repeated lessons, by which it has been inculcated again and again, in public and in private, by preaching and reading the word of God? Nay, hath not thy duty been in some in- stances so plain, that, even without any instruction at all, thine own reason might easily have inferred it ? And hast thou not also been warned of the con- sequences of disobedience ? Hast thou not " known the righteous judgment of God, that they who com- mit such things are worthy of death?" Yet thou hast, perhaps, " not only done the same, but hast had HEINOUSNESS OF SIN. 63 pleasure in those that do them," Rom. 1 : 32 ; hast chosen them for thy most intimate friends and com- panions ; so as hereby to strengthen, by the force of example and converse, the hands of each other in your iniquities. 8. Nay more, if divine love and mercy be any aggravation of the sins committed against it, thy crimes, sinner, are heinously aggravated. Must thou not acknowledge it, foolish creature and un- wise ? Hast thou not been " nourished and brought up by him as his child, and yet hast rebelled against him ?" Isa. 1 : 2. Did not God " take you out of the womb ?" Psalms 22 : 9. Did he not watch over you in your infant days, and guard you from a multitude of dangers which the most careful parent or nurse could not have observed or warded off? Has he not given you your rational powers ; and is it not by him you have been favored with every opportunity of improving them ? Has he not every day supplied your wants with an unwearied liberal- ity, and added, with respect to many who will read this, the delicacies of life to its necessary supports ? Has he not " heard you cry when trouble came upon you ?" Job 27 : 9 ; and frequently appeared for your deliverance, when in the distress of nature you have called upon him for help ? Has he not rescued you from ruin, when it seemed just ready to swallow you up ; and healed your diseases, when it seemed to all 64 RISE AND PROGRESS. about you, that the residue of your days was "cut off in the midst ?" Psalms 102 : 24. Or, if it has not been so, is not this long-continued and uninter- rupted health, which you have enjoyed for so many years, to be acknowledged as an equivalent obliga- tion ? Look around upon all your possessions, and say, what one thing have you in the world which his goodness did not give you, and which he hath not thus far preserved to you ? Add to all this, the kind notice of his will which he hath sent you ; the tendei expostulations which he hath used with you, to bring you to a wiser and better temper ; and the discover- ies and gracious invitations of his Gospel which you have heard, and which you have despised ; and then say, whether your rebellion has not been aggravated by the vilest ingratitude, and whether that aggra- vation can be accounted small ? 9. Again, if it be any aggravation of sin to be committed against conscience, thy crimes, sinner, have been so aggravated. Consult the records of it, and then dispute the fact if you can. " There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth him understanding," Job 32 : 8 ; and that understanding will act, and a secret conviction of being accountable to its Maker and Preserver is in- separable from the actings of it. It is easy to object to human remonstrances, and to give things false colorings before him ; but the heart often condemns, HEINOUSNESS OF SIN. 65 while the tongue excuses. Have you not often found it so ? Has not conscience remonstrated against your past conduct, and have not these remonstrances been very painful too ? I have been assured, by a gen- tleman of undoubted credit, that, when he was in the pursuit of all the gayest sensualities of life, and was reckoned one of the happiest of mankind, he has seen a dog come into the room where he was among his merry companions, and has groaned inwardly and said, " 0, that I had been that dog !" And hast thou, sinner, felt nothing like this ? Has thy con- science been so stupefied, so " seared with a hot iron," 1 Tim. 4 : 2, that it has never cried out for any of the violences winch have been done it ? Has it never warned thee of the fatal consequences of what thou hast done in opposition to it ? These warnings are, in effect, the voice of God ; they are the admonitions which he gave thee by his vice- gerent in thy breast. And when his sentence for thy evil works is executed upon thee in everlasting death, thou shalt hear that voice speaking to thee again in a louder tone and a severer accent than be- fore ; and thou shalt be tormented with its upbraid- ing through eternity, because thou wouldst not, in time, hearken to its admonitions. 10. Let me add farther, if it be any aggravation that sin has been committed after God has been moving by his Spirit on the mind, surely your sin 66 RISE AND PROGRESS. has been attended too with that aggravation. Under the Mosaic dispensation, dark and imperfect as it was, the Spirit strove with the Jews ; else Stephen could not have charged it upon them, that through all their generations " they had always resisted him." Acts 7 : 51. Now, surely, we may much more rea- sonably apprehend that he strives with sinners under the Gospel. And have you never experienced any thing of this kind, even when there has been no ex- ternal circumstance to awaken you, nor any pious teacher near you ? Have you never perceived some secret impulse upon your mind, leading you to think of religion, urging you to an immediate consideration of it, sweetly inviting you to make trial of it, and warning you, that you would lament this stupid neglect ? sinner, why were not these happy mo- tions attended to ? "Why did you not, as it were, spread out all the sail of your soul to catch that heavenly, that favorable breeze ? But you have carelessly neglected it : you have overborne these kind influences. How reasonably, then, might the sentence have gone forth in righteous displeasure, " My Spirit shall no more strive." G-en. 6 : 3. And indeed who can say that it is not already gone forth ? If you feel no secret agitation of mind, no remorse, no awakening while you read such a remonstrance as this, there will be room, great room to suspect it. 1 1 . There is indeed one aggravation more, which CONSCIENCE STIFLED. 67 may not attend your guilt — I mean that of being committed against solemn covenant engagements _: a circumstance which has lain heavy on the conscien- ces of many, who perhaps in the main series of their lives have served God with great integrity. But let me call you to think to what this' is owing. Is it not that you have never personally made any solemn profession of devoting yourself to God at all — have never done any tiling which has appeared to your own apprehension an act by which you have made a covenant with him, though you have heard so much of his covenant, though you have been so solemnly and so tenderly invited to it? And in this view, how monstrous must this circumstance appear, which at first was mentioned as some alleviation of guilt. Yet I must add, that you are not, perhaps, altogether so free from guilt on tins head as you may at first imagine. Has your heart been, even from your youth, hardened to so uncommon a degree that you have never cried to God in any season of danger and difficulty? And did you never mingle vows with those cries ? Did you never promise, that if God would hear and help you in that hour of extremity, you would forsake your sins, and serve him as long as you lived ? He heard and helped you, or you had not been reading these lines ; and, by such deliver- ance, did as it were bhid down your vows upon you ; and therefore your guilt, in the violation of them, 68 RISE AND PROGRESS. remains before him, though you are stupid enough to forget them. Nothing is forgotten, nothing is over- looked by him; and the day will come, when the record shall be laid before you too. 12. And now, sinner, think seriously with thy- self what defence thou wilt make to all this. Pre- pare thine apology ; call thy witnesses ; make thine appeal from him whom thou hast thus offended, to some superior judge, if such there be. Alas, those apologies are so weak and vain, that one of thy fel- low-worms may easily detect and confound them ; as I will endeavor presently to show thee. But thy foreboding conscience already knows the issue. Thou art convicted, convicted of the most aggravated of- fences. Thou "hast not humbled thine heart, but lifted up thyself against the Lord of heaven," Dan. 5 : 22, 23, and " thy sentence shall come forth from his presence." Psalms 17 : 2. Thou hast violated his known laws ; thou hast despised and abused his numberless mercies ; thou hast affronted conscience, his vicegerent in thy soul ; thou hast resisted and grieved his Spirit ; thou hast trifled with him in all thy pretended submissions; and, in one word, and that his own, " thou hast done evil things as thou couldst." Jer. 3:5. Thousands are no doubt already in hell whose guilt never equalled thine ; and it is astonishing that God hath spared thee to read this representation of thy case, or to make any CONVINCED SINNER'S CONFESSION. 69 pause upon it. waste not so precious a moment, but enter attentively, and as humbly as thou canst, into those reflections winch suit a case so lamentable and so terrible as thine. THE CONFESSION OF A SINNER CONVINCED IN GENERAL OF HIS GUILT. "0 God, thou injured Sovereign, thou all-pene- trating and Almighty Judge, what shall I say to this charge ? Shall I pretend I am wronged by it, and stand on the defence in thy presence ? I dare not do it; for 'thou knowest my foolishness, and none of my sins are hid from thee.' Psa. 69 : 5. My con- science tells me that a denial of my crimes would only increase them, and add new fuel to the fire of thy deserved wrath. ' If I justify myself, mine own mouth will condemn me ; if I say I am perfect, it will also prove me perverse,' Job 9 : 20 ; 'for innumerable evils have compassed me about : mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up : they are,' as I have been told in thy name, 'more than the hairs of my head ; therefore my heart fail- eth me.' Psa. 40 : 12. I am more guilty than it is possible for another to declare or represent. My heart speaks more than any other accuser. And thou, Lord, art much greater than my heart, and knowest all things. 1 John, 3 : 20. ""What has my life been but a course of rebellion 70 RISE AND PROGRESS. against thee ? It is not this or that particular action alone I have to lament. Nothing has been right in its principles, and views, and ends. My whole soul has been disordered. All my thoughts, my affections, my desires, my pursuits have been wretchedly alien- ated from thee. I have acted as if I had hated thee, who art infinitely the loveliest of all beings ; as if I had been contriving how I might tempt thee to the uttermost, and weary out thy patience, marvelous as it is. My actions have been evil, my words yet more evil than they ; and, blessed God, my heart, how much more corrupt than either. What an inex- hausted fountain of sin has there been in it. A foun- tain of original corruption, which mingled its bitter streams with the days of early childhood ; and which, alas, flows on even to this day, beyond what actions or words could express. I see this to have been the case with regard to what I can particularly survey. But 0, how many months and years have I forgotten, concerning which I only know this in the general, that they are much like those I can remember ; ex- cept it be, that I have been growing worse and worse, and provoking thy patience more and more, though every new exercise of it was more and more won- derful. "And how am I astonished that thy forbearance is still continued. It is because thou art ' God, and not man.' Hos. 11:9. Had I, a sinful worm, been CONVINCED SINNER'S CONFESSION. 71 thus injured, I could not have endured it. Had I been a prince, I had long since done justice on any rebel whose crimes had borne but a distant resem- blance to mine. Had I been a parent, I had long since cast off the ungrateful child who had made me such a return as I have all my life long been making to thee, thou Father of my spirit. The flame of nat- ural affection would have been extinguished, and his sight and his very name would have become hateful to me. Why then, Lord, am I not ' cast out from thy presence?' Jer. 52 : 3. Why am I not sealed up under an irreversible sentence of destruction ? That I live, I owe to thine indulgence. But 0, if there be yet any way of deliverance, if there be yet any hope for so guilty a creature, may it be opened upon me by thy Gospel and thy grace. And if any farther alarm, humiliation, or terror be necessary to my security and salvation, may I meet them and bear them all. Wound my heart, Lord, so that thou wilt but afterwards 'heal it;' and break it in pieces, if thou wilt but at length condescend to bind it up." Hos. 6:1. 72 RISE AND PROGRESS, CHAPTER V. THE SINNER STRIPPED OF HIS VAIN PLEAS. I, 2. The vanity of those pleas which sinners may secretly confide in is so apparent, that they will be ashamed at last to mention them before God. — 3. Such as, that they descended from pious parents.- — 4. That they had attended to the specu- lative part of religion. — 5. That they had entertained sound notions. — 6, 7. That they had expressed a zealous regard to religion, and attended the outward forms of worship with those they apprehended the purest churches. — 8. That they had been free from gross immoralities. — 9. That they did not think the consequences of neglecting religion would have been so fatal. — 10. That they could not do otherwise than they did. — 11. Conclusion. With the meditation of a convinced sinner giving up his vain pleas before God. 1 . My last discourse left the sinner in very alarm- ing and very pitiable circumstances ; a criminal con victed at the bar of G-od, disarmed of all pretences to perfect innocence and sinless obedience, and conse- quently obnoxious to the sentence of a holy law, which can make no allowance for any transgression, no, not for the least ; but pronounces death and a curse against every act of disobedience : how much more then against those numberless and aggravated acts of rebellion, of which, sinner, thy conscience hath condemned thee before God. I would hope some of my readers will ingenuously fall under the SINNER STRIPPED OF EXCUSES. 73 conviction, and not think of making any apology; for sure I am, that, humbly to plead guilty at the divine bar, is the most decent, and, all things con- sidered, the most prudent thing that can be done in such an unhappy state. Yet I know the treachery and the self-flattery of a sinful and corrupted heart. I know what excuses it makes, and how, when it is driven from one refuge, it flies to another, to fortify itself against conviction, and to persuade, not merely another, but itself, "That if it has been in some in- stances to blame, it is not quite so criminal as was represented; that there are at least considerations that plead in its favor, which, if they cannot justify, will in some degree excuse." A secret reserve of this kind, sometimes perhaps scarcely formed into a dis- tinct reflection, breaks the force of conviction, and often prevents that deep humiliation before God which is the happiest token of approaching deliver- ance. I will therefore examine into some of these particulars; and for that purpose would seriously ask thee, sinner, what thou hast to offer in arrest of judgment? What plea thou canst urge for thy- self, why the sentence of God should not go forth against thee, and why thou shouldst not fall into the hands of his justice ? 2. But this I must premise, that the question is not, How wouldst thou answer to me, a weak sinful worm like thyself, who am shortly to stand with thee 74 RISE AND PROGRESS. at the same bar? and "the Lord grant that I may find mercy of the Lord in that day," 2 Tim. 1:18; but, What wilt thou reply to thy Judge ? "VYhat eouldst thou plead, if thou wast now actually before his tri- bunal, where, to multiply vain words, and to frame idle apologies, would be but to increase thy guilt and provocation? Surely the very thought of his pres- ence must supersede a thousand of those trifling ex- cuses which now sometimes impose on " a generation that are pure in their own eyes," though they "are not washed from their nlthiness," Prov. 30 : 12 ; or while they are conscious of their impurities, "trust in words that cannot profit," Jer. 7 : 8, and "lean upon broken reeds." Isa. 36 : 6. 3. You will not, to be sure, in such a condition, plead " that you are descended from pious parents." That was indeed your privilege ; and woe be to you that you have abused it, and "forsaken the God of your fathers." 2 Chron. 7 : 22. Ishmael was imme- diately descended from Abraham, the friend of God, and Esau was the son of Isaac, who was bom ac- cording to the promise; yet you know they were both cut off from the blessing to which they appre- hended they had a kind of hereditary claim. You may remember that our Lord does not only speak of one who would call "Abraham father," who was "tormented in flames," Luke 16 : 24, but expressly declares that many of the children of the kingdom SINNER STRIPPED OF EXCUSES. 75 shall be shut out of it ; and when others come from the most distant parts to sit down in it, shall be dis- tinguished from their companions in misery only by louder accents of lamentation, and more furious "gnashing of teeth." Matt. 8:11, 12. 4. Nor will you then presume to plead, "that you had exercised your thoughts about the speculative parts of religion." For to what end can this serve but to increase your condemnation ? Since you have broken God's lav/, since you have contradicted the most obvious and apparent obligations of religion, to have inquired into it, and argued upon it, is a cir- cumstance that proves your guilt more audacious. What, did you think religion was merely an exercise of men's wit, and the amusement of their curiosity ? If you argued about it on the principles of common sense, you must have judged and proved it to be a practical tiling ; and if it was so, why did you not practise accordingly ? You knew the particular branches of it ; and why then did you not attend to every one of them ? To have pleaded an unavoidable ignorance would have been the happiest plea that could have remained for you ; nay, an actual, though faulty ignorance, would have been some little allay of your guilt. But if, by your own confession, you have "known your Master's will, and have not done it," you bear witness against yourself, that you deserve to be "beaten with many stripes." Luke 12 : 47. 76 RISE AND PROGRESS. 5. Nor yet, again, will it suffice to say, " that you have had right notions both of the doctrines and the precepts of religion." Your advantage for practising it was therefore the greater ; but understanding and acting right can never go for the same thing, in the iudgment of God or of man. In " believing there is one God," you have done well ; but the " devils also believe and tremble." James 2 : 19. In acknow- ledging Christ to be the Son of God and the Holy One, you have done well too ; but you know the unclean spirits made this very orthodox confession, Luke 4 : 34, 41, and yet they are " reserved in ever- lasting chains, under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day." Jude, ver. 6. And will you place any secret confidence in that which might be pleaded by the infernal spirits as well as by you ? 6. But perhaps you may think of pleading that "you have actually done something in religion." Having judged what faith was the soundest, and what worship the purest, " you entered yourself into those societies where such articles of faith were pro- fessed, and such forms of worship were practised ; and among these you have signalized yourself by the exactness of your attendance, by the zeal with which you have espoused their cause, and by the earnest- ness with which you have contended for such princi- ples and practices." simier, I much fear that this zeal of thine about the circumstantials of religion, SINNER STRIPPED OF EXCUSES. 77 will swell thine account, rather than be allowed in abatement of it. He that searches thine heart knows from whence it arose, and how far it extended. Perhaps he sees that it was all hypocrisy, an artful veil under which thou wast carrying on thy mean designs for this world, while the sacred name of God and religion were profaned and prostituted in the basest mamier ; and if so, thou art cursed with a distinguished curse for so daring an insult on the divine omniscience as well as justice. Or perhaps the earnestness with which you have been " con- tending for the faith and worship which was once delivered to the saints," Jude, ver. 3, or which it is possible you may have rashly concluded to be that, might be mere pride and bitterness of spirit ; and all the zeal you have expressed might possibly arise from a confidence of your own judgment, from an impatience of contradiction, or some secret malignity of spirit, which delighteth itself in condemning, and even in worrying others ; yea, which, if I may be allowed the expression, fiercely preys upon religion, as the tiger upon the lamb, to turn it into a nature most contrary to its own. And shall this screen you before the great tribunal ? Shall it not rather awa- ken the displeasure it is pleaded to avert ? 7 . But say that this zeal for notions and forms has been ever so well-intended, and so far as it has gone, ever so well-conducted too : what will that avail to- 78 RISE AND PROGRESS. wards vindicating thee in so many instances of neg- ligence and disobedience as are recorded against thee in the book of God's remembrance ? "Were the revealed doctrines of the Gospel to be earnestly main- tained, as indeed they ought, and was the great prac- tical purpose for which they were revealed to be for- got ? Was the very mint, and anise, and cummin to be tithed ; and were ' ' the weightier matters of the law to be omitted," Matt. 23 : 23, even that love to God which is its "first and great command ?" Matthew 22:38. how wilt thou be able to vindicate even the justest sentence thou hast passed on others for their infidelity, or for their disobedience, without being " con- demned out of thine own mouth?" Luke 19 : 22. 8. Will you then plead " your fair moral charac- ter, your works of righteousness and of mercy?" Had your obedience to the law of God been com- plete, the plea might be allowed as important and valid. But I have supposed, and proved above, that conscience testifies to the contrary ; and you will not now dare to contradict it. I add farther, had these works of yours, which you now urge, proceeded from a sincere love to God, and a genuine faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, you would not have thought of pleading them any otherwise than as an evidence of your interest in the gospel-covenant, and in the blessings of it, procured by the righteousness and blood of the Redeemer ; and that faith, had it been SINNER STRIPPED OF EXCUSES. 79 sincere, would have been attended with such deep humility, and with such solemn apprehensions of the divine holiness and glory, that instead of pleading any works of your own before God, you would rather have implored his pardon for the mixture of sinful imperfection attending the very best of them. Now, as you are a stranger to this humbling and sanctify- ing principle — which here in this address I suppose my reader to be — it is absolutely necessary you should be plainly and faithfully told, that neither sobriety, nor honesty, nor humanity will justify you before the tribunal of G-od, when he "lays judgment to the line, and righteousness to the plummet," Isa. 28 : 17, and examines all your actions, and all your thoughts with the strictest severity. You have not been a drunkard, an adulterer, or a robber. So far it is well. You stand before a righteous G-od, who will do you ample justice, and therefore will not condemn you for drunkenness, adultery, or robbery ; but you have forgotten him, your Parent and your Benefac- tor ; you have "cast off fear, and restrained prayer before him," Job 15:4; you have despised the blood of his Son, and all the immortal blessings that he purchased with it. For this, therefore, you are judged and condemned. And as for any thing that has looked like virtue and humanity in your temper and conduct, the exercise of it has in great measure been its own reward, if there were any thing more than 80 RISE AND PROGRESS. form and artifice in it ; and the various bounties of divine Providence to you, amidst all your numberless provocations, have been a thousand times more than an equivalent for such defective and imperfect vir- tues as these. You remain, therefore, chargeable with the guilt of a thousand offences, for which you have no excuse, though there are some other in- stances in which you did not grossly offend. And those good works in which you have been so ready to trust, will no more vindicate you in his awful presence, than a man's kindness to his poor neigh- bors would be allowed as a plea in arrest of judg- ment, when he stood convicted of high treason against his prince. 9. But you will, perhaps, be ready to say, "you did not expect all this ; you did not think the conse- quences of neglecting religion would have been so fatal." And why did you not think it? Why did you not examine more attentively and more impar- tially ? Why did you suffer the pride and folly of your vain heart to take up with such superficial ap- pearances, and trust the light suggestions of your own prejudiced mind against the express declaration of the word of God ? Had you reflected on his char- acter as the supreme Governor of the world, you would have seen the necessity of such a day of retri- bution as we are now referring to. Had you regard- ed the Scripture, the divine authority of which you SINNER STRIPPED OF EXCUSES. 81 professed to believe, every page might have taught you to expect it. " You did not think of religion !" and of what were you thinking when you forgot or neglected it ? Had you so much employment of an- other kind ? Of what kind, I beseech you ? What end could you propose, by any thing else, of equal moment ? Nay, with all your engagements, con- ' science will tell you that there have been seasons when, for want of thought, time and life have been a burden to you ; yet you guarded against thought as against an enemy, and cast up, as it were, an en- trenchment of inconsideration around you on every side, as if it had been to defend you from the most dangerous invasion. God knew you were thought- less, and therefore he sent you " line upon line, and precept upon precept," Isa. 28 : 10, in such plain language that it needed no genius or study to under- stand it. He tried you, too, with afflictions as well as with mercies, to awaken you out of your fatal lethargy ; and yet, when awakened, you would He down again upon the bed of sloth. And now, pleas- ing as your dreams might be, " you must lie down in sorrow." Isa. 50 : 11. Reflection has at last over- taken you, and must be heard as a tormentor, since it might not be heard as a friend. 10. But some may perhaps imagine that one im- portant apology is yet unheard, and that there may be room to say, " you were, by the necessity of your Rise and Pros- - Q 82 RISE AND PROGRESS. nature, impelled to those things which are now charged upon you as crimes ; and that it was not in your power to have avoided them, in the circum- stances in which you were placed." If this will do' any thing, it indeed promises to do much — so much that it will amount to nothing. If I were disposed to answer you upon the folly and madness of your own principles, I might say, that the same considera- tion which proves it was necessary for you to offend, proves also that it is necessary for God to punish you ; and that, indeed, he cannot but do it : and I might farther say, with an excellent writer, " that the same principles which destroy the injustice of sins, destroy the injustice of punishment too." But if you camiot admit this, if you should still reply, in spite of principle, that it must be unjust to punish you for an action utterly and absolutely unavoidable, I really think you would answer right. But in that answer you will contradict your own scheme, as I observed above ; and I leave your conscience to judge what sort of a scheme that must be which would make all kind of punishment unjust ; for the argument will on the whole be the same, whether with regard to human punishment or divine. It is a scheme full of confusion and horror. You would not, I am sure, take it from a servant who had robbed you, and then fired your house ; you would never inwardly believe that he could not have helped SINNER STRIPPED OF EXCUSES. 83 it, or think that he had fairly excused himself by such a plea ; and I am persuaded you would he so far from presuming to offer it to God at the great day, that you would not venture to tarn it into a prayer even now. Imagine that you saw a male- factor dying with such words as these in his mouth : " God, it is true I did indeed rob and murder my fellow-creatures ; but thou knowest that, as my cir- cumstances were ordered, I could not do otherwise ; my will was irresistibly determined by the motives which thou didst set before me, and I could as well have shaken the foundations of the earth, or dark- ened the sun in the firmament, as have resisted the impulse which bore me on." I put it to your con- science whether you would not look on such a speech as this with detestation, as one enormity added to another. Yet, if the excuse would have any weight hi your mouth, it would have equal weight in his ; or would be equally applicable to any — the most shock- ing occasions. But, indeed, it is so contrary to the plainest principles of common reason, that I can hardly persuade myself that any one could seriously and thoroughly believe it ; and should imagine my time very ill-employed here, if I were to set myself to com- bat those pretences to argument by which the wanton- ness of human wit has attempted to varnish it over. 1 1 . You see, then, on the whole, the vanity of all your pleas, and how easily the most plausible of them 84 RISE AND PROGRESS. might be silenced by a mortal man like yourself; how much more, then, by Him who searches all hearts, and can, in a moment, flash in upon the con- science a most powerful and irresistible conviction ? "What then can you do, while you stand convicted in the presence of God ? "What should you do, but hold your peace under an inward sense of your inexcusa- ble guilt, and prepare yourself to hear the sentence which his law pronounces against you ? You must feel the execution of it, if the Gospel does not at length deliver you ; and you must feel something of the terror of it before you can be excited to seek to that Gospel for deliverance. THE MEDITATION OF A CONVINCED SINNER GIVING UP HIS VAIN PLEAS BEFORE GOD. " Deplorable condition to which I am indeed re- duced ! I have sinned, and ' what shall I say unto thee, thou Preserver of men ?' Job 7 : 20. What shall I dare to say ? Fool that I was, to amuse myself with such trifling excuses as these, and to imagine they could have any weight in thy tremen- dous presence, or that I should be able so much as to mention them there. I cannot presume to do it. I am silent and confounded : my hopes, alas, are slain, and my soul itself is ready to die too, so far as an immortal soul can die ; and I am almost ready to say, that it could die entirely ! I am indeed a criminal in the hands of justice, quite disarmed, and MEDITATION OF A CONVINCED SINNER. 85 stripped of the weapons in which I trusted. Dis- simulation can only add provocation to provocation. I will therefore plainly and freely own it. I have acted as if I thought God was ' altogether such a one as myself:' hut he hath said, 'I will reprove thee ; I will set thy sins in order before thine eyes,' Psalms 50 : 21 ; will marshal them in battle array. And Oh, what a terrible kind of host do they ap- pear, and how do they surround me beyond any pos- sibility of an escape. my soul, they have, as it were, taken thee prisoner, and they are bearing thee away to the divine tribunal. "Thou must appear before it ; thou must see the awful, the eternal Judge, who ' tries the very reins,' Jer. 17 : 10, and who needs no other evidence, for he has ' himself been witness to all thy rebellion.' Jer. 29 : 23. Thou must see him, my soul, sitting in judgment upon thee ; and, when he is strict to 'mark iniquity,' Psalms 130 : 3, 'how wilt thou an- swer him for one of a thousand !' Job 9:3. And if thou canst not answer him, in what language will he speak to thee. Lord, as things at present stand, I can expect no other language . than that of con- demnation. And what a condemnation is it. Let me reflect upon it. Let me read my sentence before I hear it finally and irreversibly passed. I know he has recorded it in his word, and I know, in the general, that the representation is made with a gra* 86 RISE AND PROGRESS. cious design. I know that he would have us alarm- ed, that we may not be destroyed. Speak to me, therefore, God, while thou speakest not for the last time, and in circumstances when thou wilt hear me no more. Speak in the language of effectual terror, so that it he not to speak me into final despair. And let thy word, however painful in its operation, be ' quick and powerful, and sharper than any two- edged sword.' Heb. 4 : 12. Let me not vainly flatter myself, let me not be left a wretched prey to those who would ' prophesy smooth things to me,' Isa. 30 : 10, till I am sealed up under wrath, and feel thy justice piercing my soul, and ' the poison of thine arrows drinking up all my spirits.' Job 6:4. " Before I enter upon the particular view, I know, in the general, that ' it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.' Heb. 10:31. thou living God, in one sense I am already fallen into thine hands. I am become obnoxious to thy dis- pleasure, justly obnoxious to it ; and whatever thy sentence may be, when it comes forth from thy pres- ence, Psalms 17 : 2, I must condemn myself and Justify thee. Thou canst not treat me with more severity than mine iniquities have deserved ; and how bitter soever that cup of trembling may be, Isa. 51 : 17, which thou shalt appoint for me, I give judgment against myself, that I deserve 'to wring out the very dregs of it.' " Psalms 75 : 8. THE SINNER SENTENCED. 87 CHAPTER VI. THE SINNER SENTENCED. 1, 2. The sinner called upon to hear his sentence. — 3. God's law does now in general pronounce a curse. — 4. It pronounces death. — 5. And being turned into hell. — 6. The judgment-day shall come. — 7, 8. The solemnity of that grand process de- scribed according to Scriptural representations of it. — 9. With a particular illustration of the sentence, "Depart, accursed," etc. — 10. The execution will certainly and immediately fol- low. — 11. The sinner warned to prepare for enduring it. — The reflection of a sinner struck with the terror of his sentence. 1. Hear, sinner, and I will speak, Job 42 : 4, yet once more, as in the name of God, of God thine Almighty Judge, who, if thou dost not attend to his servants, will, ere long, speak unto thee in a more immediate maimer, with an energy and terror which, thou shalt not be able to resist. 2. Thou hast been convicted, as in his presence. Thy pleas have been overruled, or rather they have been silenced. It appears before God, it appears to thine own conscience, that thou hast nothing more to offer in arrest of judgment ; therefore hear thy sen- tence, and summon up, if thou canst, all the powers of thy soul to bear the execution of it. "It is," in- deed, a very small thing " to be judged of man's judgment;" but "he who now judgeth thee is the 88 RISE AND PROGRESS. Lord." 1 Cor. 4 : 3, 4. Hear, therefore, and trem- ble, while I tell thee how he will speak to thee ; or rather, while I show thee, from express scripture, how he doth even now speak, and what is the au- thentic and recorded sentence of his word, even of his word who hath said, " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but not one tittle of my word shall ever pass away." Matt. 5 : 18. 3. The law of God speaks not to thee alone, sin- ner, nor to thee by any particular address ; but in a most universal language it speaks to all transgres- sors, and levels its terrors against all offences, great or small, without any exception. And this is its language : " Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them." Gal. 3 : 10. This is its voice to the whole world ; and this it speaks to thee. Its awful contents are thy personal concern, reader, and thy conscience knows it. Far from continuing in all things that are written therein to do them, thou canst not but be sensible that " innumerable evils have encompassed thee about." Psalms 40 : 12. It is then manifest thou art the man whom it con- demns : thou art even now "cursed with a curse," as God emphatically speaks, Mai. 3 : 9, with the curse of the Most High God ; yea, " all the curses which are written in the book of the law " are pointed against thee. Deut. 29 : 20. God may THE SINNER SENTENCED. 89 righteously execute any of them upon thee in a mo- ment ; and though thou at present feelest none of them, yet, if infinite mercy do not prevent, it is but a little while and they will " come into thy bowels like water," till thou art burst asunder with them, and shall penetrate " like oil into thy bones." Psalms 109 : 18. 4. Thus saith the Lord, " The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Ezek. 18:4. But thou hast sinned, and therefore thou art under a sentence of death. And 0, unhappy creature, of what a death ! What will the end of these things be ? That the agonies of dissolving nature shall seize thee, and thy soul shall be torn away from thy languishing body, and thou shalt return to the dust from which thou wast taken. Psalms 104 : 29. This is indeed one awful effect of sin. In these affecting characters has G-od, through all nations and all ages of men, written the awful register and memorial of his holy abhorrence of it, and righteous displeasure against it. But, alas, all this solemn pomp and. horror of dying is but the opening of the dreadful scene. It is a rough kind of stroke, by which the fetters are knocked off when the criminal is led out to torture and execution. 5. Thus saith the Lord, "The wicked shall be turned into hell, even all the nations that forget G-od." Psalms 9 : 17. Though there be whole nations of them, their multitudes and their power 90 RISE AND PROGRESS. shall be no defence to them. They shall be driven into hell together — into that flaming prison which divine vengeance hath prepared — into " Tophet, "which is ordained of old, even for royal sinners," as well as for others ; so little can any human distinc- tion protect. "He hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood ; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, shall kindle it," Isa. 30 : 33 ; and the flaming torrent shall flow in upon it so fast, that it shall be turned into a sea of liquid fire ; or, as the Scripture also expresses it, " a lake burning with fire and brimstone " for ever. Uev. 21 : 8. "This is the second death," and the death to which thou, sinner, by the word of God art doomed. 6. And shall this sentence stand upon record in vain ? Shall the law speak it, and the gospel speak it ; and shall it never be pronounced more audibly ; and will God never require and execute the punish- ment ? He will, sinner, require it ; and he will execute it, though he may seem for a while to delay. For well dost thou know that " he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the " whole " world in righteousness, by that Man whom he hath ordained, of which he hath given assurance in having raised him from the dead." Acts 17 : 31 . And when God iudgeth the world, reader, whoever thou art, he will judge thee. And while I remind thee of it, I JUDGMENT -DAY WILL COME. 91 would also remember that lie will judge me. And "knowing the terror of the Lord," 2 Cor. 5 : 11, that I may " deliver my own soul," Ezek. 33 : 9, I would, with all plainness and sincerity, labor to de- liver thine. 7. I therefore repeat the solemn warning : Thou, sinner, shalt " stand before the judgment-seat of Christ." 2 Cor. 5 : 10. Thou shalt see that pom- pous appearance, the description of which is grown so familiar to thee that the repetition of it makes no impression on thy mind. But surely, stupid as thou now art, the shrill trumpet of the archangel shall shake thy very soul ; and if nothing else can awaken and alarm thee, the convulsions and flames of a dis- solving world shall do it. 8 . Dost thou really think that the intent of Christ's final appearance is only to recover his people from the grave, and to raise them to glory and happiness ? Whatever assurance thou hast that there shall be " a resurrection of the just," thou hast the same that there shall also be " a resurrection of the unjust," Acts 24 : 15; that "he shall separate" the rising dead "one from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats," Matt. 25 : 32, with equal certainty, and with infinitely greater ease. Or can you imagine that he will only make an example of some flagrant and notorious sinners, when it is said that " all the dead/' both " small and great," shall 92 RISE AND PROGRESS. "stand before God," Rev. 20 : 12; and that even "lie who knew not his Master's will," and conse- quently seems of all others to have had the fairest excuse for his omission to obey it, yet even " he," for that very omission, " shall be beaten," though "with fewer stripes?" Luke 12 : 48. Or can you think that a sentence, to be delivered with so much pomp and majesty, a sentence by which the righteous judgment of God is to be revealed, and to have its most conspicuous and final triumph, will be incon- siderable, or the punishment to which it shall con- sign the sinner be slight or tolerable ? There would have been little reason to apprehend that, even if we had been left barely to our own conjectures what that sentence should be. But this is far from being the case : our Lord Jesus Christ, in his infinite con- descension and compassion, has been pleased to give us a copy of the sentence, and no doubt a most exact copy ; and the words which contain it are worthy of being inscribed on every heart. " The King," amidst all the splendor and dignity in which he shall then appear, " shall say unto those on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the king- dom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." Matt. 25 : 34. And "where the word of a king is, there is power " indeed. Eccles. 8:4. And these words have a power which may justly animate the heart of the humble Christian under the most JUDGMENT-DAY AWFUL. 93 overwhelming sorrow, and may fill him " with joy unspeakable and full of glory." 1 Peter, 1:8. To be pronounced the blessed of the Lord, to be called to a kingdom, to the immediate, the everlasting in- heritance of it ; and of such a kingdom, so well pre- pared, so glorious, so complete, so exquisitely fitted for the delight and entertainment of such creatures, so formed and so renewed that it shall appear wor- thy the eternal counsels of God to have contrived it, worthy his eternal love to have prepared it, and to have delighted himself with the views of bestowing it upon his people : behold a blessed hope indeed, a lively, glorious hope, to which we are "begotten again by the resurrection of Christ from the dead," 1 Pet. 1:3, and formed by the sanctifying influence of the Spirit of God upon our minds. But it is a hope from which thou, sinner, art at present excluded ; and methinks that it might be grievous to reflect, " These gracious words shall Christ speak to some, to multitudes — but not to me ; on me there is no blessedness pronounced ; for me there is no kingdom prepared." But is that all ? Alas, sinner, our Lord hath given thee a dreadful counterpart to this. He has told us what he will say to thee, if thou con- tinuest what thou art — to thee, and all the nations of the impenitent and unbelieving world, be they ever so numerous, be the rank of particular criminals ever so great. He shall say to the " kings of the 94 RISE AND PROGRESS. earth" who have "been rebels against him, to " the great and rich men, and the chief captains and the mighty men," as well as to " every bondman and every freeman" of inferior rank, Hev. 6 : 15, "De- part from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, pre- pared for the devil and his angels." Matt. 25 : 41. Oh, pause upon these weighty words, that thou mayest enter into something of the importance of them. 9. He will say, "Depart;" you shall be driven from his presence with disgrace and infamy ; " from him," the source of life and blessedness, in a near- ness to whom all the inhabitants of heaven continu- ally rejoice ; you shall "depart," accursed ; you have broken God's law, and its curse falls upon you ; and you are, and shall be under that curse, that abiding curse ; from that day forward you shall be regarded by God, and all his creatures, as an accursed and abominable thing, as the most detestable and the most miserable part of the creation. You shall go "into fire ;" and 0, consider into what fire ! Is it merely into one fierce blaze which shall consume you in a moment, though with exquisite pain? That were terrible. But 0, such terrors are not to be named with these. Thine, sinner, "is everlasting fire." It is that which our Lord hath in such awful terms described as prevailing there, " where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched ;" and ILLUSTRATION OF THE SENTENCE. 95 again, in wonderful compassion, a third time, "where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." Mark 9 : 44, 46, 48. Nor was it originally prepared or principally intended for you; it was "prepared for the devil and his angels ;" for those first grand rebels who were, immediately upon their fall, doomed to it ; and since you have taken part with them in their apostasy, you must sink with them into that naming ruin, and sink so much the deeper, as you have despised the Saviour, who was never offered to them. These must be your companions and your tormentors, with whom you must dwell for ever. And is it I that say this ; or say not the law and the gospel the same ? Does not the Lord Jesus Christ expressly say it, who is the " faithful and true wit- ness," Rev. 3 : 14, even he who himself is to pro- nounce the sentence ? 10. And when it is thus pronounced, and pro- nounced by him, shall it not also be executed ? Who could imagine the contrary? Who could imagine there should be all this pompous declaration to fill the mind only with vain terror, and that this sen- tence should vanish into smoke ? You may easily apprehend that this would be a greater reproach to the divine administration than if sentence were never to be passed. And therefore we might easily have inferred the execution of it, from the process of the preceding judgment. But lest the treacherous heart 96 RISE AND PROGRESS. of a sinner should deceive him with so vain a hope, the assurance of that execution is immediately added in very memorable terms. It shall be done — it shall immediately be done. Then, on that very day, while the sound of it is yet in their ears, " the wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment," Matt. 25:46; and thou, reader, whoever thou art, being found in their number, shalt go away with them ; shalt be driven on among all these wretched multitudes, and plunged with them into eternal ruin. The wide gates of hell shall be open to receive thee ; they shall be shut upon thee for ever, to enclose thee, and be fast barred by the Almighty hand of divine justice, to prevent all hope, all possibility of escape for ever. 11. And now "prepare" thyself "to meet the Lord thy God." Amos 4:12. Summon up all the resolution of thy mind to endure such a sentence, such an execution as this ; for "he will not meet thee as a man," Isaiah 47 : 30, whose heart may sometimes fail him when about to exert a needful act of severity, so that compassion may prevail against reason and justice. No, he will meet thee as a God, whose schemes and purposes are all im- movable as his throne. I therefore testify to thee hi Iris name this day, that if God be true, he will thus speak ; and that if he be able, he will thus act. And on supposition of thy continuance in thine impeni- REFLECTION OF THE SINNER. 97 tence and unbelief, thou art brought into this mis- rable case, that if God be not either false or weak, thou art undone — thou art eternally undone. THE REFLECTION OF A SINNER STRUCK WITH THE TERROR OF HIS SENTENCE. " Wretch that I am ! What shall I do, or whither shall I flee ? ' I am weighed in the balance, and am found wanting.' Dan. 5 : 27. This is indeed my doom ; the doom I am to expect from the mouth of Christ himself, from the mouth of him that died for the redemption and salvation of men. Dreadful sen- tence ! and so much the more dreadful when consid- ered in that view. To what shall I look to save me from it ? To whom shall I call ? Shall I say, J to the rocks, fall upon me, and to the hills, cover me ?' Luke 23 : 30. What should I gain by that ? Were I indeed overwhelmed with rocks and mountains, they could not conceal me from the notice of his eye ; and his hand could reach me with as much ease there as anywhere else. " Wretch, indeed, that I am ! that I had never been born ! that I had never known the dignity and prerogative of the rational nature ! Fatal pre- rogative, indeed, that renders me obnoxious to con- demnation and wrath ! that I had never been in- structed in the will of God at all, rather than that, being thus instructed, I should have disregarded and Rise and Prog. ^ ^ " /, o x 5 " v**' \ X * ' * ° / " ,*A ^^' ^^>v : ,/-ii \0 c> ocess Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 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