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form you into his own image and adopt you into his family, that he may place you before the throne of God as an everlasting monument and bright illustration of his wisdom and love, his truth and mercy.

What black ingratitude is involved in such resistance! He comes to make you happy; to deliver you from the power of sin, the most cruel of all tyrants; to bring you into reconciliation with God; to give you the peace of an approving conscience, the joy of forgiveness, the assurance of Divine favour, and the hope of everlasting life. He comes to enrich you for eternity; to make you an "heir of God, and joint heir with Christ;" to bestow upon you glory, honour, and immortality happiness which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man, to last throughout unceasing ages.

In resisting the Holy Ghost you would rob God of his glory, and defeat the purposes of his infinite love in the gift of his Son. You show a most inveterate hatred of holiness, and love of sin. You set an example of rebellion, which, if followed universally, would spread anarchy, darkness, and woe over the universe.

And will such guilt go unpunished? "Who hath hardened himself against God, and hath prospered?" Job ix. 4. "Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker!" Isa. xlv. 9. As sins against the Holy Ghost are of a peculiarly deep dye, so their punishment will be certain and dreadful. "He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost," says Christ, "hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation," Mark iii. 29. Resistance, it is true, is not blasphemy, but is it not a kindred sin? Does it not make a near approach to it in guilt and danger?

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God may visit you with overwhelming vengeance, according to his threatening: "He that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy," Prov. xxix. 1. Or, which will be equally fatal, he may utterly withdraw the Spirit from you: My Spirit shall not always strive with man," Gen. vi. 3. This solemn declaration he has often fulfilled. The Israelites in the wilderness" rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit,” Isa. lxiii. 10, and he "sware in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest," Psa. xcv. 11. "Ephraim is joined to idols: let him alone,” Hos. iv. 17. And how did the Saviour weep over Jerusalem! "If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong

unto thy peace! but now they are hid from thine eyes," Luke xix. 42.

How often in later years has the Spirit-striven conscience been awakened, and the sinner trembled and cried, "What must I do to be saved?" but his heart rose in opposition to the terms of the gospel; he was unwilling to give up the world, could not part with his sinful pleasures and embrace a life of self-denial and godliness. He resisted the Spirit, and the Spirit left him. Like the blasted fig-tree, he has stood the remnant of his days without fruit, leaf, or flower; seared, withered, dead! and prepared in no common degree for the flames that never can be quenched.

Oh, how wretched, how hopeless is the condition of him from whom God has utterly withdrawn his Spirit! Nothing will ever effectually awaken him, nothing melt his obdurate heart, or bow his stubborn will. Nothing awaits him but the blackness of darkness for ever. "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God," John iii. 5. Mercies, means, privileges, warnings, and judgments, only harden his heart, and prepare him for a deeper damnation.

Such, reader, will be your case, if you continue to resist the Holy Ghost. And, in the world of woe, oh how agonizing will be the thought that your own folly and rashness brought you there! The Spirit strove with you, urged you with infinite tenderness to repent, pointed you to a Saviour's blood, held out the promise of life, warned you of coming wrath; but you would not hear. You resisted all his gracious influences. He was willing, but you would not. While eternal ages roll, this dreadful thought will still ring in your ears and pierce the soul, that you destroyed yourself.

Oh, if you do not wish to be " tormented day and night for ever and ever" with such reflections, no longer resist the Holy Ghost.

MICHAEL CHRISTIAN BOS,

A DUTCH MINISTER.

MICHAEL CHRISTIAN BOS, a native of Cape Town, in South Africa, lived to preach in different parts of Holland, Asia, and Africa, and had much experience as to the wonderful ways in which God deals with his people. In his letters to a friend he has given full particulars of the varied and truly blessed course of his life. These letters have been translated

into German by J. G. Veyhinger, and contain a considerable mass of interesting information. His first charge was the village of Wendenberg, in the province of Utrecht, where he laboured for four years. He thus speaks of his taking leave of his congregation in that place:

"I gave my farewell sermon on September 27th, 1789, from Acts xi. 23. It pleased God, among the hearers, to pluck one as a brand from the burning. He was the son of a pious mother, but a self-willed youth, who neglected the preaching of the word, and scarcely attended the meetings for the instruction of the young. Curiosity only led him to hear my last sermon, and to mix with the crowd on that occasion. But the Lord's own time was come for hearing the prayers of his righteous mother, and restoring this prodigal son from his wanderings, and I was directed to say a few words to persons of his class. I set before them, that all my preaching in this place, which they had unnecessarily neglected, would have to be accounted for by them, and that they would shortly be called to give this account, and to answer before God why they had slighted them, and refused to lay these things to heart. These words struck the young man, as he afterwards told me, like a two-edged sword in his breast; he was, at the time, deeply affected, and, in the course of twelve months, he had become a living monument of the mercy of God.

"At Pynacke, I was consecrated, on October 11th, 1789, by the excellent Koot, a minister in the town of Delft, and on the same afternoon, I preached my first sermon from the words of Christ, Luke xiv. 22, 23. Here I had, as it were, to begin to speak to the world, and I met with opposition. A farmer, in comfortable circumstances, who had many servants, was on this occasion at church, though he did not often appear there, and being much displeased at what he heard, he said to one of his neighbours, as he was going out, 'Has this man come half the way from the East Indies, (from the Cape of Good Hope,) and what does he think that we want of him? Great R. (the former pastor, who was tall of stature,) could not force us to come to him, and yet this little man thinks he can? I shall take care that he does not force me.' His eldest daughter, who was about nineteen, was quite of the same mind, and was quite certain that I should not prevail with her.

"But, let all praise be given to the ever-blessed Saviour, these two persons were among the very first whom I was the

means of drawing to the Lord in my new congregation. The daughter was first, who was touched by a sermon that she heard, and her vanity and perverseness, her idle songs, (of which she and her father were both extremely fond,) and all her worldly-mindedness, at once gave way, and she was more ready to weep than to laugh. This brought upon her the ill-will of her father, who now began to treat her harshly, and to seek to compel her to return to her former vanities. Jesus had sent strife between them, Matt. x. 35. When the Holy Spirit had striven for some months with this favoured daughter, and she had more than once come home from church weeping, her father became so angry, that he reproached her in the most bitter terms, and declared, 'If you do not, in three days, get out of your head the fancies that make you so sad and dismal, and become as cheerful as you used to be, you may make up your mind that I shall turn you out of my house. My dear father,' replied the daughter, 'I hope never again to be as once I was. If, for this reason, you drive me from your house, I have nothing to say against that. I trust in God, whom from my heart I desire to serve, that he will raise up some one who will receive me into his house.'

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"Three days afterwards the opposing parent also went to church. He was, as it were, constrained to come. And, in the evening, instead of treating his daughter as he had threatened to do, he began himself to mourn over the state of his soul. Dear child!' he said, 'what wretched creatures we both are, and what will become of us both, unless God have mercy upon us?' 'How glad I am, dear father,' she answered, that God has been pleased to open your eyes. We will both pray for mercy, and God has promised that he will freely forgive our sins for the sake of Jesus.'

"How comes it then,' he asked, 'that we never before were aware of our wretched state? We had a good minister before, whom we sometimes used to hear at church.' Though they had lived hitherto in ignorance, they now became excellent Christians, and proved their faith by their works. The father used to come to church in his wagon quite filled with people, and frequently he gave seats in it to his neighbours. The conversion of these two persons made a great impression on the farmer's wife, her children, and servants, who were all evidently much improved. My visits to this family were oftentimes very refreshing to my spirit."

When Bos had remained in this situation for a year he was

called to Worden. His first sermon there was followed by the following incident: “A servant maid, who had come to church, to see a native of Africa, looked at me eagerly when I got into the pulpit, and said to her aunt, with whom she was, Is that he? he looks just like any other man.' She rose, and was going out of church, as she cared for nothing more, but her aunt would have her to stay. She sat down, though somewhat unwillingly, for she knew not that the time was come when God would draw her to himself as a brand plucked from the fire. She became so deeply sensible of her own sinful state by nature, and so earnest in seeking after the salvation of her never dying soul, that in a few weeks she came forward to profess her faith, in a manner that plainly showed she knew in whom she had believed. Formerly she had been active and eager in the pursuit of vanity and sin, now she was no less lively and diligent in the service of the Lord her God. She had an unusually fearless manner in defending the cause of Christ, and confessing his name before men, in which her talent was quite her own. She had earnestly wished to be a servant in my household, but she had not told her wish to any human being. She had made it a matter of prayer, and her prayer was heard. A very pious servant, who had lived with us for seven years, being too weak for her duties, my wife resolved to engage a second maid. She soon applied, and filled the place. Soon after, she heard that I had wished to return to the Cape, as soon as God should point out the way for me to go thither. She prayed, that in that case she might go too, as she afterwards told us, and it was so. Neither did my wife and I ever regret having taken her out with us.

"She did more work, in our house, than three of the best slaves would have done, and she was also a servant to my Master, in teaching the heathen, a work of which she was very fond, particularly singing, in which she was very useful. She was afterwards married to a missionary, named Voster, and with her husband, set a good example for many years, both to Christians and heathens, and has now, for some months, been asleep in Jesus.' Her last letter, which I received from her not long before her death, I sent to her family at Worden. The remembrance of her righteous spirit will long be precious to me. But I must now, my friend, again return to Worden, to relate, perhaps, the most remarkable event connected with the delivery of my message, as a minister, imperfect as my efforts have been.

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