1. I need not stop here, brethren, to make many remarks on the fruitful subject of the depravity of the heart. It lays at the foundation of all our preaching. I should be at a loss how to frame a discourse which should exclude it; and I desire always to speak of the depravity of the heart, not in a loose and general way, which may mean any thing or nothing, but as most eminently personal. The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked; and the heart of every unconverted man is enmity against God, and naturally is shut against Christ. This the language of the text very decidedly implies: for it were both unnecessary and absurd to speak of Christ standing and knocking, if the door were not closed against him. We stand not on the necessity of knocking, where we have free ingress; the same truth is otherwise made evident. If it were not truth, preaching would be superfluous, and the influence of divine grace unnecessary: for it is the purpose of preaching to bring truth to the heart, through the medium of oral expression; and it is the prerogative of the Saviour to fix that truth in the heart with power and demonstration. Ignorance and sin, and unbelief, have shut the heart against Christ, for, saith Scripture, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither doth he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. And again: Light has come into the world, but men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. And again: If our Gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost, in whom the God of this world has blinded the eyes of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine into them. And to settle this matter on Scripture ground, our Saviour says

distinctly, where he lays the whole blame of the sinner's perdition on himself "Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life." But, brethren, this truth may be made evident, by your personal experience for after all, general observations, however true, do but a very limited measure of good. A few statements which come more home to the heart, and a few interrogatories of a more searching character, give the matter of religion a far more weighty and serious impression. What is the reason that there are any of you who are not really and truly religious? Is it because Christ has never been at your hearts, or is it because you have determinately shut your hearts against him? I speak plainly, my dear friends, because I desire, by God's grace, to make some impression upon your minds. If you are not religious, the blame lies evidently somewhere. It is either with Christ, or with yourselves. That it is not with him, I intend clearly to show you, under our next division, because we have his own declaration to that effect. It must, therefore, be with yourselves. Some, I know, have been sufficiently profane to lay the blame on God, and say, that God can make them religious if he pleases, and therefore, that when God sees fit, they will be religious. True, brethren, God can make men religious; there is no proposition more absolutely true; and it is as well established in evangelical truth, that whenever they are religious, it is because they are made so by him: but then it is because they are made so in a very different way from that which this objection would appear. Our Saviour says "I stand at the door and knock." This is the language of solicitation, and, it would seem, of very earnest entreaty. He does not say, I

sure."

come to the door, and violently burst it open. In the matter of religion, there cannot be violence done to the will of any man: for a forced service is absolutely good for nothing. The people of the Lord are invariably represented as a willing people, and the whole of human accountability depends upon the freedom of choice between good and evil. It is not in the power of man to tell how the influence of divine grace is perfectly reconcileable with the freedom of the will; but the fact is a fact of Scripture, written as with a sunbeam. In one place I hear the solemn question put to sinners, "why will ye die?" And in another, the solemn asseveration, "O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself." In another, "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling: for it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of his good pleaAnd in the close of the sacred Canon, "The Spirit and the bride say come, and let him that heareth, say come, and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely." On this subject then, brethren, I have only to say, that the carelessness, and impenitence, and unconcern, and irreligion of any among you, is with you, or with Christ. Blasphemy will place it on your Saviour; indifference may possibly make you willing to take it to yourselves; for many individuals, in the height of their presumption, may say, we care not with whom lies the fault. I ask you, however, to consider this subject, not as one to which you may be indifferent, for eternity is connected with it. I beseech you to act rationally in your consideration of it: for you invariably act upon correct and judicious principles in your worldly concerns. You come before the Lord and say, God can make

me religious if he pleases, and then your conscience is at ease to wait in carelessness and unconcern. Suppose I were to retort this matter, and should come to any one of you and say, God can make you rich if he pleases, therefore you had better leave the matter with him, and live in ease and idleness; if you are to be rich you will be rich, and if you are to be poor, no effort can make you rich. Now, brethren, do you suppose that I would persuade any of you to keep from your stores and counting-houses, and calmly wait for such an issue as this? No, "the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light," and the man who would take such preposterous advice, would be likely to be a beggar about the streets, or a wretched dependent upon the cold-hearted charity of those who had exercised more worldly wisdom. There is no danger, however, brethren, that I should mislead you on this subject; the instinct of gain would countervail all my arguments, and I should still find you, what I ever hope to find you, even in worldly matters, industrious and persevering. Now, let me ask, are not riches just as much in the power of God as grace? Can he not give the one with just as much facility as he can give the other? And when you get the one, is it not just as much a free gift as is the other? I would that men would reason a little with themselves on subjects of this kind, and I pray you, brethren, lay this matter to heart. "I will be inquired of by the house of Israel," says God. "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling," with this impressive encouragement, "because it is God that worketh in you to will and to do of his own good pleasure." "If any man lack wisdom, let him

ask of God that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." "Ask and ye shall receive." "In every thing by prayer and supplication let your request be made known to God." It is an irresistible conclusion, then, that if any are not really and vitally religious, it is because they have shut their hearts against the truth, and this will be found the melancholy, the soul-destroying reason in the day of judgment. Thus then, not only from the plain and unequivocal declarations of the Scripture, but from a direct appeal to personal experience, I am persuaded that my proposition is fully justified, that the heart is naturally shut against the Lord Jesus Christ. And this proposition being thus established, we consider

2. The fact, that Christ does stand at the door and knock.

In my last division, brethren, I said the blame of a sinner's condemnation could not be chargeable to Christ, for he says himself-I stand at the door, this shut door, and knock. Here is an asserted fact, on the authority of Christ. It must then pass as indisputable, and I might probably leave it on the same high authority by which it was spoken, urging nothing either in justification or explanation. But it is a declaration susceptible of so much confirmation, and so replete with considerations involving the most interesting and important practical results, that I must, in the discharge of the high duty resting on me, make it the theme of much enlargement. You may grant, as a general remark, that Christ does knock at the heart; but how does he do this? He makes no personal appearance before the sinner, he comes not to him either in the cool or the heat of the