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ings of the Spirit seconding the admonitions of conscience, and urging us to flee from the wrath to come, and to lay hold of eternal life. As I live, saith the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the sinner, but rather that he turn from his wickedness and live. Turn ye, turn ye; why will ye die?

Such is the condescending goodness and patience of our Lord and Saviour towards sinners of mankind! He knocks at the door of their hearts by his Word, by his Providence, and by his Spirit. But this is not all for this declaration of our Lord implies,

2. That he uses the most persevering endeavours to accomplish the end in view.

He stands at the door and knocks. He does not depart on the first refusal of admission. He waits to be gracious. On many he waits for a long series of years. Of most it may be said, All day long have I stretched out my hands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people. Men, when injured and offended, find it a difficult matter to pass by the injury and offence: when overtures of reconciliation are rejected, they are seldom disposed to renew them, especially if the person to whom they were made were most, or altogether, to blame. But it is otherwise with our meek and compassionate Saviour. He beseeches and intreats us to be reconciled to him, and continues to do so, notwithstanding our repeated refusals of his offered mercy.

Let me appeal to yourselves. How often has he knocked at the door of your hearts? As often as the promises of the gospel have seemed to allure, or its threatenings have actually alarmed you: as

often as conscience has checked you in the commission of sin, or prompted you to the practice of duty as often as the Spirit of God has moved upon your hearts, and excited some serious thought, some apprehension of danger, some desire of living the life, that you may die the death, of the righteous; as often as Providence has made your way prosperous, or hedged up your path, when you were bent upon your own destruction. On each, and on all of these occasions, has he knocked at the door of your hearts, and waited for admission. And all the while he has been addressing you, as he did Ephraim and Israel of old: How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within me: my repentings are kindled together. Thus does our Lord claim, and wait for, admission into our hearts, before he finally depart.

Of this awful alternative we are also reminded. Our Saviour does not say, I shall, or I will, stand, but only I stand. This evidently implies that his patience with the impenitent will at length be exhausted, and that the day of their merciful visitation will come to an end. A standing posture is that of a person who is ready to depart. And when our Saviour represents himself as standing and knocking at the door of our hearts, he thereby intimates, that if we refuse to hear and to open our hearts to receive him, he will depart to return no more. To-day, therefore, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts. Behold, now is the accepted

time, now is the day of salvation. I come, therefore, to the second thing proposed:

II. To consider the duty of those to whom the words of our text are addressed-to hear the voice of Christ, and to open the door of their hearts to him.

If any man hear my voice-How gentle, how Soothing the expression! how transcendent the grace and mercy which it unfolds! If any manwhatever his character may have been; though he has no merit to recommend him, no excuse to plead in vindication of his rebellious and ungrateful conduct towards me; though he may have hitherto lent a deaf ear to the threatenings as well as to the invitations of my gospel; yet if he shall now hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

Much is said in scripture of the voice of the Lord, and of its powerful effects; and there are various ways in which he addresses us.

He speaks to us in his Works around us.-The heavens declare his glory, and the firmament sheweth forth his handy-work. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.

Conscience also has a voice, which, when rightly informed, upbraids us for our misconduct, and persuades us to walk in the ways of wisdom, as the only ways of pleasantness and peace.

The dispensations of Providence have likewise a

voice, especially those that are of an adverse nature. The Lord's voice crieth unto the city, and the man of wisdom shall see thy name: hear ye the rod, and who hath appointed it.

But, though the works of creation, the voice of conscience, and the dispensations of Providence, call loudly upon us to turn unto the Lord, they are not of themselves effectual for this end. The only effectual means are the Word and Spirit of God. It is by the Spirit of God shining on his word, and shining into our hearts, as the scriptures express it, that the call of the gospel is rendered effectual. Our minds are thereby enlightened in the knowledge of Christ, our wills renewed, and we are persuaded and enabled to embrace Jesus Christ, freely offered to us in the gospel. The call to which we allude is internal. It is addressed to the understanding, will, and affections-the leading faculties of the soul-and, therefore, in a way perfectly agreeable to the constitution of our nature as rational and moral agents. Though supernatural it is not unnatural; that is, it does not imply a reversing of the established law of our nature, but merely gives its powers and faculties a new and proper direction. Thus, when men turn a river into a new channel, (as the army of Cyrus, when besieging Babylon, did the Euphrates) they are said to have changed its natural course; and yet its stream, after that change, flows on in a manner as agreeable to the laws of nature as before. In like manner, He who hath the hearts of all men in his hands, and turneth them whithersoever he will, as

the rivers of water, without altering the natural faculties of the mind, or changing their substance, gives them a different direction. Instead of running in a sensual and polluted channel, and terminating in self, the powers and faculties of the soul, and consequently its enjoyments and its hopes, are directed to pure, spiritual, and heavenly objects, and terminate in God, the chief good, our only and all-sufficient portion and happiness. And from the time of this happy change it is that the Christian dates his progress in the divine life, and walks worthy of the high and holy vocation wherewith he is called. Christ no longer knocks at the door of his heart in vain. His language now is, Lift up your heads, Oye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in. He has come in. He sits enthroned in his soul, and reigns unrivalled in his affections.-But we hasten to the third and last thing proposed:

III. To consider more particularly what is implied in this gracious promise, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

This promise is similar to that which we have in John, xiv. 23. If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. Agreeably to this promise, the apostle Paul prayed for his Ephesian converts, that Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith. And he elsewhere reminds Christians in general, that their bodies are the temples of God, by his Spirit which dwelleth in them.

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