conscience for this purpose. He has given you the gospel and the varied religious institutions for this purpose. He has visited you with mercies and judgments for this purpose. And in urging your repentance by such means, he has dealt with you in perfect sincerity and frankness, as well as infinite kindness. The very suspicion of God's exerting some mysterious and irresistible influence against your repentance is flagrant injustice to his nature as a God of love, and can be regarded by him only with infinite displeasure.

The difficulty is not,

3. That religion is a matter in which men have no capacity at all

to act.

They are subjects of God's moral government; and they have all the powers necessary to a perfect moral agency, and a full accountability. The manner in which they are treated by their Sovereign--the manner in which they are addressed throughout the Bible, is evidence of this. Their very consciousness affords decisive evidence of this. The fact that they do constantly act, though they act wrong, is evidence that they have the power of free moral action. You have intelligence, will, and conscience. And such faculties are the foundation of accountability; and while they exist, you can never rid yourself of the obligation to do right. It is your very nature to be active beings; and religion has made all its arrangements in perfect harmony with this feature of your character. Even the grace that brings down the loftiness of man, and breaks or melts the heart of stone, and throws into it something of the purity and peace of heaven, never interferes with any thing necessary to a perfect power of free moral action. It can surely aid your action, without suspending your activity. It can allay your prejudice and enmity, and kindle in your soul the love of God, and lodge a spirit of devoted loyalty in the heart, without prostrating for a moment one intellectual faculty, or interfering a moment with your responsibility. "Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power."

Which leads me to remark,

4. That the difficulty in question lies in the obstinate depravity of the heart.

99

In proof of this our text is directly in point: "There is no hope: no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go.' Israel was in a fearfully degenerate state. Their repentance was sought with great urgency. They were alternately invited and warned, blessed and Scourged. Prophets bewailed their obduracy. Jehovah proclaimed their "neck an iron sinew, and their brow brass." And even themselves perceived, and felt, and frankly confessed their obstinacy. They became fully aware of the great secret of their prolonged apos

tacy. And they fixed the difficulty of conversion to God just where we have said it lies, in the inveterate depravity of the heart. "I have loved strangers, and after them will I go." They felt the justice of God's claims, and the pressure of their obligations. They had resolved, over and over again, to yield to his demand and return to their duty. But they were in bondage to their lusts. They knew and acknowledged it to be a willing captivity; and yet it was so complete and firm as to drive them to utter despair. Without a single apology for their sins, they settled down to the gloomy apprehension, that they might never gain the mastery over their corruptions, and exhibit the character of true penitence at the feet of their Sovereign. They uttered not a syllable concerning any want of knowledge; they had not the most distant suspicion of there being any thing in God's arrangements to embarrass their repentance and salvation; they never dreamt of any defect or incompetency as regards the power of moral action. They frankly acknowledged the true ground of difficulty-they loved strangers; they had an inveterate aversion to the character, and law, and worship of God.

Here is a plain illustration of the ground on which men of every age have found it hard to be converted and saved. It has been hard just in proportion to the obstinacy of the will, and the strength of their depravity. They have loved themselves; they have loved the world d; and could not part with their idols for God and heaven. The young ruler loved his possessions; and when called to part with them for Christ, went away grieved. Agrippa loved the parade of royalty; and could not yield to reason and conscience, though almost persuaded to be a Christian. Felix had his sensual indulgences as well as honors, which he could not relinquish, though convictions of duty and forebodings of wrath pressed upon his mind and urged repentance. The objection with them all lay in the unyielding perverseness of the heart. And it is the precise difficulty every sinner meets when agitating the subject of conversion and eternal life; and the very difficulty under which thousands of awakened sinners adopt the despairing language of Israel, There is no hope: no.

The subject furnishes lessons of very plain practical instruction. It shows,

1. The reality and nature of the sinner's dependence in religion. Israel was in a corrupt and ruined state; and they were led to despair of recovery through their own strength. But not more forlorn was their case than that of a fallen world at large. If ever a sinner is raised from "the horrible pit" to holiness and happiness, it is "not

of man, but of God." The Bible, observation, experience, all proclaim it hard for him to be converted; too hard to admit the hope, that a single soul will ever break from the bondage of sin, and rise to purity and heaven, unless divine power interfere. The solemn reality of your dependence cannot be disguised. It is one of the very plainest truths in religion. If God's arm is not made bare for your relief, you will cleave to your sins, and sink under the curse for ever. No page of the Bible and no record of past piety points to any other source of hope.

But what is the nature of the dependence? In the case of Israel, it was occasioned by a perverse heart. "I have loved strangers, and after them will I go." In the case of every sinner, it springs from precisely the same cause. There is a stubborn will opposed to the authority of the Most High. There is a heart desperately at variance with the character and arrangements and claims of Him who is upon the throne. There is a loftiness that will not stoop so low as to be saved upon the terms of the gospel. You have intelligence enough; you encounter no embarrassments from any mysterious arrangements of God; you have capacity for moral action; but, alas! you are wedded to the world and to sin. "Inclined to evil-and that continually." “You will not come to Christ that you may have life." Mistake not, then, the true nature and ground of your dependence; but think of it, as the Bible contemplates it, originating in a "heart desperately wicked." The subject shows,

2. The propriety of pressing upon sinners their obligation and responsibility. They are subjects of God's government. The relation involves duties:-duties to be promptly met. We know they have trampled divine authority in the dust. But has their apostacy annihilated their duty? Has their disobedience repealed the statute, and set them loose from all accountability? We know it is hard for them to return. But is the difficulty of a nature to impair at all their obligation? Is it any thing but stubborn rebellion ?—a proud reluctance to seek mercy upon gospel terms? Is the conflict between the sinner and God any other than that of mind against mind? And if God be right, is not the creature wrong? And must not the Sovereign hold him responsible for the wrong? Must not the world be frankly told, that all the obligations and responsibilities of subjects of the eternal government rest upon them every hour? Because you find it hard to repent, does God excuse you from the duty? Because you find it hard to confess guilt, and seek pardon at his footstool, does he consent that you prolong the controversy? "God now commandeth all men everywhere to re

pent." And he bids his ministers echo the command in every dwellingplace of man. And there is wo to him who proclaims license for a single hour's continuance in sin. God is upon the throne, announcing his unchangeable law; and the announcement defines the obligations of every intelligent creature. They must be felt. They must be promptly and cheerfully met. "It is not a vain thing for you; because it is your life."

3. The subject suggests a serious doubt of the genuineness of his experience who cherishes the idea that religion is an easy matter.

We have found abundant evidence that it is hard for men to be converted and saved. This sentiment is sustained by the Bible, by the nature of the gospel provisions, by observation, by the experience of the world, both saints and sinners. Something you may do in religion with but little sacrifice, and little sense of difficulty. But the work will be superficial, and the goodness like the morning cloud and the early dew. The change of character that prepares for heaven is a "great change." Appetite and passion do not yield their supremacy at a single nod. Principles of sin, that have been gathering strength from infancy up to this hour, are not to be displaced by a single word. The human heart never renounces the vain world, and rises to God, and puts on the "image of the heavenly," by any common effort. No; the great change is of God; and it is purposely wrought in such a manner as to teach the creature his utter ruin, and to draw from his humbled spirit a gushing tide of gratitude to Heaven.

Have you the hope that you have passed from death unto life? If it be genuine, you have found religion pleasant indeed; but you know, too, that you have encountered difficulty. You can perhaps recur to a period when, with all your anxieties and doings to gain eternal life, you felt that you were steadily receding from hope and heaven-" nothing bettered, but rather growing worse." You can perhaps remember, that, in view of the deformity and obduracy of the heart, you sunk down in utter despair of relief from yourself, from friends, from the world, and rested your last hope only on the grace and power of the Holy One. Is there something like this in your experience? It accords with the experience of others, and among them some whose religious influence has been felt by thousands, by millions. Look at the case of Paul, of the jailer, and every Scripture example of conversion in which the first awakened feelings are described. Read the Conversion of Edwards, of Bunyan, of Brainerd, of Payson, of Mills, of Eleanor Emerson, and others who shine as stars in the firmament. These all speak a language much less flattering to human

pride and false security, than that it is an easy matter to be converted and saved. They say with David-and the sentiment is reiterated by millions in both worlds--" He brought me up also out of the horrible pit and miry clay, and hath put a new song into my mouth, even praise to the living God."

Finally; our subject solemnly urges sinners at once to make God their refuge and help.

Perhaps you have often felt the necessity of something being done more effectually for your salvation. You have been aware that your spirit and that of God were not in harmony. After all you have done, you have seen the necessity of some better training, as a preparation to mingle with the saved in heaven. You have perhaps cherished anxiety, and tried to repent, and tried to embrace Christ, and struggled to rise from the miry clay to a standing on the rock, and sought the aid of others, supposed to be acquainted with true piety, and to have power at the altar of mercy. And, possibly, after all, you are sensible of having labored without effect. And you have stopped and stood just where Israel stood, when pouring out the piteous lament, "There is no hope : no; for I have loved strangers, and after them will I go."

Derive from your experience, then, a lesson of instruction. Cease from the vain dependence upon yourself, upon your fellow-men. Cherish the impression of your lost condition, your utter unworthiness; and now look to the everlasting God, with the spirit of the publican in the temple, the leper at the feet of Jesus, the prodigal returning home, the thief on the cross, and Peter crying from the waves, Lord save me. God has the ability to save. He delighteth not in the death of the wicked. Judgment is his strange work. His very nature is love. He can rend the veil that hides his glory from your eye; and dislodge the power of sin and Satan in your heart; and give you spiritual liberty, and life, and joy. Make him your refuge. Look to him as your only help. Say that you are guilty—say that you are lost. And let the conviction be lodged deep and immoveable in your heart, that you must be saved only through infinite grace in Christ Jesus.

Come from the four winds, O Breath, breathe upon the slain that they may live. Be thine the victory, and thine the glory, Amen.