deration. Be this however as it may, one thing is undeniable from this conversation of our Lord with Nicodemus, viz. that the first birth of a human being is an event, which involves the necessity of another birth by the Divine Spirit. Say if you will, that what our Lord asserts in the passage cited is, that what is by natural birth is simply a man-a human being, thus intending to teach that none were the better for being born of Abraham ; still our conclusion remains, viz. to be born once,-to become a human being, is to come under the necessity of being born again of the Spirit. As then we can be at no loss, concerning what it is to be born of the Spirit, it follows that to be born once, involves the certainty of sinto become a human being is to become a sinner, unless there be a second birth of the Spirit.

Fourthly. I add but one more out of many other scriptural testimonies, the express declaration of the inefficiency of all truth and motives; or of all that is called moral suasion. Saith the Apostle "I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase; so then neither is he that planteth any thing, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase." But who are the men that can preach better than Paul and Apollos ?-Who can make the arrows of conviction thrill in the conscience, and bring the terrors of guilt and of God into the soul, as did the great Apostle of the Gentiles ?Who by telling of a Savior's love, or of heavenly glories can do more to charm sin out of the human heart, than Apollos that 'eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures? And yet Paul was nothing, and Apollos nothing, without God. Let then human eloquence do its best, (and it is not to be despised unless it be put in the place of the Holy Ghost) -let the powers of oratory to persuade, to allure, to awe be exhausted; such is the nature of man, that no accents

of a Saviour's love, no lifting up of the everlasting doors, no rising smoke of torment, will save a human being from the character and the condemnation of a depraved sin

ner.

"The transformation of apostate man

From fool to wise, from earthly to divine,

Is work for Him that made him."

3. I appeal to human consciousness. In making this appeal, I am aware that some may think I am not warranted. They seem to imagine, that sin in its nature and its cause, is something quite mysterious, and hidden from human discovery or comprehension. But, is this so? God charge sin upon a world of accountable subjects, provide through the blood of his Son redemption from sin,-summon all on pain of his wrath to repent of and to forsake sin,-foretell a judgment of sin,-award to some eternal salvation from sin, and to others eternal perdition for sin—in a word, give a law by which is the knowledge of sin, and not a soul of them be able to know or tell what sin is, or why he commits it!!—God surely charges sin upon the world as an intelligible reality. He charges it, in the matter and the cause of it upon human consciousness, and human consciousness must respond to the charge in a judgment going beforehand to condemnation. And if men do not know what that is, of which, if the charge of God be true, they are conscious, I beg leave to ask what do they know? What then are they conscious of? They are conscious that in all sin, they do freely and voluntarily set their hearts, their supreme affections on the world, rather than on God; they are conscious that this supreme love of the world is the fountain and source of all their other sins.-They are also conscious, that they are led to set their hearts on the world

by those propensities for worldly good, which belong to their nature. They know this as well as they know why they eat when they are hungry, or drink when they are thirsty. A man choose the world as his chief good, fix his whole heart upon it, and pursue it as if God were unworthy of a thought, and not know why he does so? He knows he does so, for the good there is in it,-for the gratification of those natural propensities for this inferior good, which he ought to govern. He knows that it is not for want of knowledge; that it is not for want of motives to an opposite choice, that he thus makes light of God and everlasting glory. I say, he knows this, and I speak to the consciousness of all who hear me. All know, that propensities toward the good which the wealth or honour or pleasure of the world affords, that desires of happiness from this world in some form, have led them to set their heart upon it, rather than on God. Yes, yes, we all know it, and not a man of us dares deny it.

4. I appeal to facts. And here the question is, making the proper exception in respect to those whose character has been changed by grace, what is the moral history of man since the first apostasy? It begins with a brother's imbruing his hands in a brother's blood-it terminates in the character that qualifies for companionship with the devil and his angels. What (the grace of God excepted) has ever been adequate to restrain man from sin ?-We pass by pagan nations, and merely glance at the utter inefficacy of even the miraculous interpositions of God to prevent sin and reclaim to duty. What was the character of men warned thus for a hundred and twenty years by Noah, God's commissioned servant? Its guilty millions swept to perdition by a deluge of waters, tell us. What the character of those under similar warnings, whom God destroyed by a storm of fire and brimstone on the cities

of the plain? This emblem of the tempest of eternal fire, answers. On mount Sinai God descended amid thunderings and lightnings, and with his own voice promulged his law to the hosts of Israel; and yet as it were, in this very sanctuary of his awful presence, they made a molten calf and said 'these be thy Gods, O Israel.' In their future history, what a course of apostacies, rebellions, idolatries, amid the warnings of indignant prophets, and a series of miracles by which God shook heaven and earth, at almost every step of his providence? When all else was in vain, when prophets and holy men had been stoned and murdered for their faithfulness in reclaiming men to allegiance to their Maker, see God sending his own Son! Him, though speaking as never man spake, doing the works of God, and proving that in him dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead-him, they nailed to the cross. Look at the persecutions that followed. See how religion doomed to the rack and the fire, stands lifting her streaming eyes to heaven, with none but God to help,-how kings and emperors like tigers, can feast as it were only on Christian blood. See how every shrine is demolished where weakness can pray, and penitence can weep-how every thing is done, which human malice can invent, to blot out Christianity, name and memorial, from under heaven. And if you think that modern refinement and civilization have alleviated the picture, look at Paris in the French revolution-that city, the seat of art, of taste, of refinement, of every thing that can grace human nature short of religion, is converted as in a moment into a den of assassins, and her streets crowded with scaffolds raining blood on the gloomy processions of death, that pass beneath them. But we need not look to other ages or other countries. In this land on which the Sun of Righteousness sheds his clearest, brightest day-here where

the light of salvation, with all its motives, with all the love and grace of the Savior, with the glories of heaven and terrors of hell, is concentred and poured burning and blazing upon the human heart, here in this assembly, what do we find? Assassins and highwaymen, murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers? No. But we do find, despisers of the Lord that bought them. We find every one whom grace has not made to differ, an enemy of God. And when the veil of eternity shall be drawn, and the light of eternity reveal the results-when the sinner's place in hell shall be fixed and the measure of his woe be full, then shall he know what that depravity is, which now tramples under foot the Son of God and does despite unto the Spirit of grace. These are the stubborn things, called facts; facts which show how dreadful is the depravity of man under the most perfect efforts of God to prevent it; facts which show into what depths of guilt and woe, the creature man will plunge, if the arm of grace does not hold him back; facts which show that he is depraved, not for want of light or motives, but depraved by nature. Especially, what other account can be given of the depravity which prevails, amid the splendours of Gospel day?