șider, I pray you, that there can be no stronger proof of your having no interest in the blessed hopes which they hold forth to all whose delight is in the law of the Lord. Consider, that if you finally perish, this Book, which God, in his wise providence, has denied to so many of your fellowmen; this Book, which you possess in your own language, and which, nevertheless, you treat with careless indifference, nay, with contemptuous neglect; this Book will testify against you at that dreadful day, "when God shall judge the secrets of men, by Jesus Christ," according to the Gospel which this very Book contains; and you will receive the aggravated condemnation of that servant "who knew his Master's will, and did not obey it." From such a doom may we all be delivered by the mercy of God! May his grace so incline us to search the Scriptures, and his Spirit so enlighten our minds in the perusal of them, that their solemn truths may be received into good and honest hearts, and bring forth fruit unto eternal life! Amen.

DISCOURSE XI.

No

JOHN VI. 44.

man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him.

PERHAPS there is scarcely any doctrine of Scrip ture more repugnant to the feelings of sinful man, than the necessity of a Divine influence in whatever relates to the salvation of the soul. And yet there is none, which, when rightly understood and duly appreciated, is more full of encouragement and consolation. How it happens, that we, worms of the dust, ignorant, weak, and wicked, are unwilling to be enlightened by that Being whose understanding is infinite; to be "strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man ;" and to have him "work in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure;" how this happens, is surely to be accounted for in no other way, than that sin, the most deep and dreadful, hath "darkened our foolish hearts," rendered us blind to our own trué

interest, and urged us to rush onward to perdition; refusing to be rescued by that arm which alone is mighty to save. This opposition to the doctrine of Divine influence is as various, as the different shapes of sin and diversities of human character. Indeed, it often changes its form in the same breast; and, when driven from one "refuge of lies," finds a hold in some other.

1. Unbelief doubts the possibility of Divine influence." I can trace," says one, "within my own mind no symptoms of foreign guidance or aid. I discover there nothing but the regular and uninterrupted flow of my own thoughts, emotions, and purposes no supernatural suggestions- nothing that is not connected with something precedingI always act from motives, and as reason dictates, without any sudden and unaccountable starts of aversion to vice or love of virtue. it not so, I should cease to be free. Divine influence with regard to moral objects of thought or action, and you make me a mere machine; you destroy my responsibility to God."

Indeed, were Place me under

2. Pride disdains this influence." Am I not,' is its language," the absolute sovereign of my own thoughts, affections, and conduct, and capable, as a free agent, of controlling and directing them as I please? Must I be still influenced and guided by God in the exercise of that very power which he

has given me, of choosing the good and refusing the evil?"

3. Self-righteousness does not want this influence." All the commandments of God have I kept from my youth up," it exclaims: "what lack I yet?" Why need I be drawn by God to a reliance upon the merits of his Son-I who am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing?"

my

4. Slothfulness is waiting for this influence.-Its language is :-"I have nothing to do in the affair of salvation. God alone can change the heart. He alone works in us both to will and to do. I will therefore live in hope that I shall be compelled to enter into the kingdom of heaven; and in the mean while, surely but little blame can attach itself to one who is thus absolutely dependent for all holiness upon the efficacy of Divine influence."

5. Guilt, awakened by conscience, imagines that it truly longs for this influence, and murmurs because it has not received it." How long," it says, "will God withhold from me the energy of his grace? My ardent wish is to be made holy and happy. I see the extreme wickedness of my own heart. I feel that I am unable to change its polluted affections. How often have I sought carefully the interposition of Divine assistance, and yet have not found it? What else can I do that I have not done?"

Such, my hearers, are some of the repugnancies which the sinner feels against the doctrine of Divine influence, and some of the perversions which he makes of it. I propose to consider them in their order, and to shew, that although some of them may, in a few instances, originate from misapprehension and mistake, yet that most of them always, and all of them often, are to be traced to the depravity of the human heart.

I. In the first place, then, Unbelief doubts the possibility of Divine influence-and why? Because it can discover no traces of this influence in its own mind, and because it deems it to be inconsistent with the freedom of human agency.

Let us attend to these two particulars.

Unbelief can discover no traces of a Divine influence in its own mind.-But surely this is a very unsatisfactory argument to prove that it has not affected the minds of others. Shall the sickly invalid, who has from his very birth, laboured under the constant pressure of lassitude and disease, be justified in concluding that no one feels the benign influence of health, because he has never been conscious of it? Strong and unequivocal is the testimony of thousands, whose clearness of apprehension, sobriety of judgment, and veracity of assertion, in all other cases, are never called in question-that they discover within themselves