It is just so with that "plant of celestial seed," which is sown in the human heart. Meekness, humility, resignation, love, &c. are not the growth of an hour: days, and months, and years, must pass, before they will begin to appear. I well know, that the first faint manifestation of these graces in an awakened soul, hath frequently been mistaken for the whole of a sinner's conversion. It has been called the "Witness of the SPIRIT," testifying to the sinner, that the act of his justification is past, and that his pardon is sealed in the courts of Heaven. The Witness of the SPIRIT it undoubtedly is, because it results from an union of the human spirit with the Divine. And as the DIVINE SPIRIT is meekness and love supreme, so it is no wonder that such an union should produce such a spiritual sensation. But we are not to conclude from hence, that a sudden, and seemingly instantaneous sensibility of Heavenly Peace and Love, can be the whole of our conversion. It is, doubtless, a sweet token of Divine Grace; an happy earnest of the residence of the DIVINE SPIRIT, who, perhaps, for years before, had been seeking to manifest himself in our hearts, and now gives this present consolation, as the result of previous and frequent operations. Our salvation is so far from depending upon these momentary sensations, that our LORD expressly assures us, that though we are united to him by as intimate an union as "the branches are to the vine;" yet, except "we abide in him, we shall be cast as withered branches into the fire." "Let him, then, that thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall." Let us not value ourselves upon past experiences, or think that we are GOD'S children, and that our names are indelibly written in his book of life, merely because we were once under spiritual distress, and were once rescued from it by the consolations of his SPIRIT. Nothing can preserve us in a state of union with our Divine REDEEMER, but an inward, constant thirsting after those "waters of life," which he alone can give us. Whilst we stand before him in such a frame of soul, meekly and humbly waiting for such portions of his Grace, as he sees necessary and expedient to impart, we may then be assured, that "our leaf shall not wither, and that whatsoever we do shall prosper." For when the will of man coincides with the Divine Will, and is implicitly resigned thereto in every situation, circumstance, and event of life, he must necessarily prosper, because GOD wills nothing but Good, and Good Supreme is the aim and end of all his dispensations.