man knoweth the things of a man. 1 Cor. 2:11. When you hear of convictions of sin, compunction of heart for sin, deep concern of the soul about its eternal state, hungering and thirsting after Christ, anxious days and nights about salvation, which others have felt, you can certainly examine whether it were ever so with you; and if not, methinks it might conduce to the prevention of your misery, to bemoan yourself, saying, "Ah, my poor soul, canst thou endure everlasting burnings? What will become of thee if Christ pass thee by, and his Spirit strive no more with thee?" Why cannot you throw yourself at the feet of God, and cry for mercy? Prayer is a part of natural worship; distress usually puts men upon it who have no grace. Jonah 1: 5.

Do this towards the opening and saving of your soul, which though it be not in itself sufficient, nor puts God under any obligation or necessity to show you mercy, yet it puts you in the way of the Spirit. And is not thy soul, sinner, worth as much as this? Have you not taken a great deal more pains for the trifles of this world? And will it not be a dreadful aggravation of sin and misery to all eternity, that you perished so easily? Do not you see many round about you striving for Christ and salvation, while you sit still with folded arms as if you had nothing to do for another world? "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." Matt. 11:12.

Why should other men's souls be dearer to them than yours to you? What discouragements have you which other men have not; or what encouragements have they which you have not?

OBJECTION. Say not, We have no assurance that our pains shall prosper, or our strivings be made effectual to conversion if there were any promise in the gospel that such endeavors should be seconded from heaven and made available to salvation, then we would strive as long as breath and life should last; but all this may be to no

purpose, we may be Christless and hopeless when all is done.

ANSWER. But yet remember, God may bless these weak endeavors, and give you his Almighty Spirit with them: nay, it is highly probable that he will do so; and is a strong probability nothing with you? Do you perform no actions about your civil callings without an assurance of success? When the merchant ventures his life or property at sea, is he sure of a good return; or does he not venture upon the mere probabilities of a gainful voyage? When the husbandman plows his land, and empties his bags and purse upon it, is he sure of a good harvest? May not a blight defeat all his hopes? Yet he ploweth and soweth in hope, and ordinarily God makes him partake of his hope; but without such industry his expectations would be in vain. Away then with vain excuses; up and be doing in the use of all appointed means, and the Lord be with you.

Before I dismiss this point, let us TRY ourselves by it, whether God has opened our hearts to Christ, broken these bars of ignorance, unbelief, custom, and prejudice-whether we are ready to receive Christ Jesus the Lord.

This is a solemn application of the subject, and the consequences of it may be great: O that our faithfulness and seriousness in the trial may be answerable. Try yourselves

by these following MARKS:

MARK 1. If your eyes be not opened to see sin in its vileness, and Christ in his glory, suitableness, and necessity, then your hearts were never yet effectually opened by the gospel. Men's eyes may be opened to see sin, and their hearts at the same time be shut up by unbelief against Christ; but no man's heart can be opened to Christ while his eyes are shut: "This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him, may have everlasting life." John 6:40. The work of

God opens

faith is always wrought in the light of conviction; the cure of the heart begins at the eye of the mind, Acts 26: 18, "to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God." men's hearts by shining into them. 2 Cor. 4: 6. If, therefore, any man's eyes be still blinded with ignorance and prejudice, so that he sees not his own guilt and misery, nor the worth and necessity of a Saviour, that man's heart is still under Satan's lock and bar, sin is shut in and Christ is shut out of his soul.

MARK 2. No heart opens to Christ by faith till it be first wounded by compunction and humiliation; this heartwounding work is always antecedent to the work of faith. I doubt not but your thoughts forerun my discourse, and are directed to that scripture where Peter, preaching to those who had crucified Christ, and bringing his discourse close to their consciences in the application of that sermon, convinces them not only what an atrocious crime the crucifying of the Son of God was in itself, but also charges it home upon them: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. When they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do?" Acts 2:23, 37. Upon this outcry three thousand souls opened in one hour to Christ. Now consider whether your hearts have been thus wounded; has sorrow for sin pierced thy soul? Vain sinner, that frothy heart of thine must bleed under compunctions for sin, or there will be no room for Christ in it. Come, soul, it is in vain to flatter yourself in your own eyes: reflect upon the frame of your heart, call back the days that are past, and say, when was the time, and where was the place when thou layedst at the foot of God, mourning on account of thy sins. Did ever God hear such a cry as this from thy soul? "Ah, Lord, my soul is dis

tressed; I roll hither and thither for ease and comfort, but find none. O the insupportable weight of guilt; O the bitterness of sin. My soul fails under it; Lord, undertake for me." I do not say the degrees of compunction and humiliation are equal in all converts, neither are their sins or their ability to bear sorrows for them equal; but this I say, thy heart must ache for sin, or it will never open to Christ: he binds up none but broken hearts. Isa. 61:1.

let

MARK 3. If Christ is come into thy heart, the love and delight of every sin is gone out of it. Christ and the love of sin cannot dwell together: what he said to the soldiers that apprehended him in the garden, he says to every soul that comes to apprehend him by faith, "If seek me, ye these go their way,” ," John 18:8; away with the sin thou most delightest in. Christ cannot come in till this be gone. "Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon." Isa. 55:6, 7. Here are the terms of your acceptance and salvation plainly laid down, forsake thy ways and thoughts: the way means the external acts of sin, and the thoughts the internal acts of contrivance and delight in sin; both these must be forsaken; and that is not all, for this makes but a negative holiness, "Let him return to the Lord, and he will have mercy." It is in vain for men to make the door of salvation wider than God has made it; we cannot bring down Christ's terms lower than he has set them: if we will not come up to them, Christ and we must part. And this makes the great struggle in the souls of converts. O it is hard to give up pleasant and profitable lusts; but away they must go, a bill of divorce must be signed for them, or you cannot be espoused to the Lord Jesus. This will be found to be much harder than to part with all external things for Christ's sake.

MARK 4. No heart can open truly to Christ, that is not made willing upon due deliberation to receive him, with his cross of sufferings and his yoke of obedience. Matt. 16:24; 11:29. Any exception against either of these is an effectual bar to union with Christ; he looks upon that soul as not worthy of him, that puts in such an exception. Matt. 10:38. If thou judgest not Christ to be worth all sufferings, all losses, all reproaches, he judges thee unworthy to bear the name of his disciple. So for the duties of obedience, called his yoke; he that will not receive Christ's yoke can never receive his person, nor any benefit by his blood.

MARK 5. Every heart that opens sincerely and evangelically to Christ, opens to him in deep humility and sense of its emptiness and unworthiness; all self-righteousness is given up as dung and dross. Phil. 38. Thus Abraham came to him as to one that justifieth the ungodly. "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Rom. 4:5. Yea, here is the true way of justification indeed; where the imputed righteousness of Christ comes, all self-righteousness vanishes before it. By "him that worketh not," understand not an idle, lazy believer, who takes no care of the duties of obedience; an idle faith can never be a saving faith. But the meaning is, he worketh not to meet the demands of the first covenant-to make up a righteousness for himself by his own working, to cover himself with a robe of righteousness of his own weaving. Thou must receive Christ into a naked, unworthy soul, or not receive him at all. Paul heartily rejected all his own righteousness, cast down that house-idol to the ground, that he might be found in the righteousness of Christ. Phil. 3: 9. Cast that idol out of

There

doors, it stands in the way of a better righteousness. are divers ways wherein sinners maintain their own righteousness to their ruin. There is a gross and a more refined self-righteousness; the one more palpable and easily liable