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This discourse shall close with a brief application. And how can it be more usefully applied, than by calling upon you, my hearers, to examine into your respective states and characters, and try the same by the things you have heard. It is a subject of the last importance, and in which we are all most intimately concerned. If any have carefully attended to it, and with understanding considered and applied the same to themselves, they must by this time come to some conclusion, whether they are regenerated persons, or yet strangers to experimental religion.Allow me, with all meekness and humiliation, to ask you whether ever you have found those exercises and motions of affections, which are the effects of the regenerating principle, and always, in a greater or less degree, arise from a new heart. Did you ever so behold the glories and excellencies of the divine perfections, as they shine forth in the scriptures, in creation, providence and redemption, especially in the designs of grace, mercy and love, as excited in you astonishing wonder, and overwhelmed you with admiration? Have you felt the determination and bias of your wills, the tendency and bearing of your inclinations towards God, and the remembrance of his name forever? Are the longing desires of your souls prevailingly after communion with him, and conformity to him? Are your sorrows for sin, both in yourselves and others, causing you often to weep before your heavenly Father? At seasons do your spiritual joys shed a sweet pleasure through your souls, and in experiences something like raptures, do they cry out, with regard to God, "Whom "have we in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth we "desire besides thee?" I trust, my beloved brethren, that exercises and affections similar to these, have been experienced by numbers of you. My soul congratulates you, upon your blessings, graces, comforts and happiness. O christians, rejoice in the Lord, and evermore rejoice. And let your holy affections always appear in holy living.

But, alas! as to many, is not your case much the reverse? You never felt or experienced any of these things. Instead of

any inclination of heart towards God and divine things, you are strangers to it, and have strong propensities to a thousand other inferior and worldly objects. You never saw any thing in God, in Christ, or the glorious gospel, to awaken your wonder, or arouse your thoughts to divine admiration. All your contempla tions of these things were cold, spiritless, and indifferent. If you turn your eyes inward, you can easily perceive a preference of the creature to the Creator. Do not your own hearts condemn you? And do not your consciences at times raise convictions in your bosoms, that you are in an undone, forlorn, and dangerous condition? Are not your souls reproaching you under this dis course, that you are still in a state of unregeneracy, graceless and unconverted-and thus continuing, you must perish, eternal ly perish? Is not the heart of 'many now whispering to them, "O my soul, thou art an utter stranger to all these shings.”

Therefore, give me leave, in all tenderness and compassion, to leave these few words of exhortation with you. As you fear the reproofs of your own minds, dread the consuming wrath of Almighty God, and wish for the happiness of your immortal souls, no longer indulge this awful and fatal security. Suffer me to address you, as the angel did lingering Lot. Though the sun had just arisen fair, yet it was instantly obscured with lowering clouds, impregnated with fire and brimstone, impending the storm of destruction over the fatal city; in this tremendous moment, his voice sounds, "Escape for your life, look not behind you, stop not in all the plain, flee to the mountain." Had I an angelic voice to reach your hearts, thus would I say, O sin◄ ners, flee to the mountain of deliverance, tarry not in the plains of death, look not behind you on the valley of destruction, escape to Jesus Christ, the Zoar of safety, and the refuge of protection, from all the tempests of divine vengeance. Behold his spreading and extending wings of salvation, ready to cover you, and brood you in eternal and ineffable felicity.

J.

SERMON XXIV.

CONVERSION CONSIDERED.

PSALMS XIx. 7.

The law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul.

THERE are two grand volumes, which display the transcendant glory of God, have been published for the instruction and edification of the children of men; to wit, the volume of creation, and the volume of divine revelation. Both these are beautifully considered in this Psalm, and strongly recommended to our attention and study. The sweet Singer of Israel, finely il Justrates the perfections of God, directing our contemplations to the heavenly luminaries. The sun, moon, and stars demonstrate the power, the wisdom, and goodness of the glorious Creator. The heavens declare the glory of God; the rotation of day and night sheweth infinite knowledge; the circuit of the sun, coming forth from his morning tent, till his retirement to his evening chamber, illuminating and warming universal nature, speak with a loud voice, and in language easy to be understood, the wonderful works of the most High.

The Psalmist then proceeds, in the words of our text, to another illustration of the attributes of Jehovah, more excellent than the former, which he stiles the perfect law. He does this, partly to prevent an excessive admiration of the splendor of the

visible heavens, which became the occasion of much idolatry among the heathen, an evil from which the Israelites were not always free; and partly to make the latter sensible of their obligations of love and duty to God, who, besides the common light of the celestial bodies, had given them the more necessary and beneficial light of divine revelation. This latter volume, was to be for the advantage of the whole world, as well as the former. For the direction and instruction of the Gentiles, as well as the Jews. Hence, as it was designed to be of superior use, he pours forth superior encomiums upon it. We should be all attention to this important and grand assertion, "The law of the Lord is "perfect converting the soul."

By the law of God, various things are understood in the sacred oracles. Sometimes it signifies the sacrifices, rites and ceremories of the Jewish worship; sometimes the Pentiteuch or five books of Moses, as distinguished from the rest of the old Testament, called the prophets. At times, it means the whole of the old Testament, in distinction from the new, frequently termed the gospel. It is used to express the compend of morals in the teu commandinents-and for a still briefer summary, comprehended by our Saviour, in love to God and our neighbour. Sometimes the term law, is employed to express the written word of God; and this appears evidently to be the meaning of it in this place. Thus, by an easy and natural extension, it may be applied to the whole scriptures. And this law of the Lord is per

With the utmost propriety this epithet is predicated of all the scriptures, of the law and prophets, of the old Testament and the new. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God," is full and perfect, without blemish or defect; discovering the nature, will, and perfections of God; as also the nature and whole duty of man, in his various relations to God and his neighbour; whatsoever he is, to believe and practi se, in order to glorify his Maker, and to obtain compleat felicity in the eternal fruition of him. The exceeding great excellency of the law, is its virtue in converting the soul,

This fully indicates that the soul of man, stands in absolute need of conversion. This was one leading end in the gift of a revelation from heaven, to the sinful and lost children of men. Conversion signifies precisely the same thing with the word turn ing. And to express the idea, the latter term is most frequently used in the old Testament, as "Turn ye at my rebukes, turn "from all your iniquities; turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die," &c, with a multitude of other places. It is a melancholy truth, that the whole human race hath departed from God, forsaken the fountain of all happiness and goodness, sunk down into sin, and are in a state of the utmost wretchedness and guilt, exposed to the wrath of God and eternal destruction. But the glorious Jehovah, in the wonders of his wisdom, and riches of his incon ceivable and ineffable grace, has devised and executed a plan, whereby unhappy man may be converted from the error of his ways, recovered from sin and guilt, restored to the divine favor, and reinstated in blessedness. This scheme he hath revealed in his holy word, which is here called the law. This is the great mean or instrument used by the Holy Ghost, in effecting this great and important change. And without the conversion of the soul, salvation is absolutely inattainable. Wherefore, in our attention to this subject, we shall endeavour briefly to show,

First, What the conversion of the soul is.

Secondly, The absolute necessity of it in order to eternal

life.

Third, How the word of God is instrumental in this change.

And then close the subject, with a few arguments to induce us to become converted.

First, We are to show what the conversion of the soul is.

It consists in certain motions or exercises of the heart, influ enced by the holy Spirit, under the light, guidance and direction

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