Spirit apply them to the necessities of those who are concerned in them. And first, I have a word to the dry bones, to the dead in sin. We are all in this state by nature-dead in trespasses and sins-dead to God and to the things of God. If you believe the scripture you cannot deny this. It describes your souls to be as incapable of performing any of the offices of spiritual life as the dry bones of a dead body are of performing the offices of animal life. If God and his word be true, this is the condition of every one of us by nature, and it is the first work of grace to convince us of it. When the holy Spirit begins to move in the sinner's heart, he convinces him of his lost and helpless state, and he sees and finds that without Christ he can do nothing. And can every one of you say from his own experience-I have had this conviction. If you had, then one step is takenmay he who hath begun, carry on the work, until he make you living members of Christ's mystical body. But if you was never yet convinced of your being by nature dead in trespasses and sins, then you are still alienated from the life of God: for you will not seek life from him, until you be convinced of your want of it. As transgressors, his holy law condemns you to death. The solemn sentence is passed. "The soul that "sinneth it shall die." Did you never read this sentence as standing out against yourself? Have you never had any sense of the exquisite misery of being eternally separated from God the fountain of life? Have you no sense of it at present, no thought, no concern about being alienated in body and soul, and to all eternity, from God and his glory? Oh almighty Saviour, if there be any persons here present in this state, speak to the dry bones. They can hear no voice but thine. O let the all-reviving sound, which Lazarus' dead body heard, now be heard in every dead heart. Now Lord Jesus prove thyself to be the resurrection and the life. Call to every unawakened soul in this congregation, and say, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead." O Almighty God and Saviour, send these words home to every dead sinner, that he may awake and be concerned for his salvation, and thereby may follow me in my second remark. While the prophet was preaching, the voice of God spake to the heart, while he spake to the outward ears, and "behold there was a great shaking." The sinner shook and trembled for fear. The Lord shewed him his former dead state, and his present danger, and at the sight of both an horrible dread overwhelmed him. He beheld the perfect purity and spirituality of the divine law-he saw the vile and lothesome nature of sin-he beheld the holiness, and truth, and justice of God, armed with almighty power and ready to destroy him. Conscience witnessed against him, and haunted him with its horrors night and day. He found that hell was his desert, and he saw no way open to escape it. However hardened and obdurate he had been before, yet all these circumstances put together set him a shaking and trembling. Had he been in an earthquake, when the ground heaved and tossed with such violent shocks, that he could not stand upon it, and had he seen it opening its mouth in many a hideous crack, and swallowing up multitudes all around him, he could not have shaked and trembled more. His soul fainted within him; and he had not a ray of hope left, unless God would be pleased to stretch out his omnipotent arm, and to save him from going down to the pit of destruction. And can every one of you, my brethren, remember when this was your case? If you were never in any distress, less or more, at the sight of your sinfuluess and misery-Oh consider I beseech you your danger. You are still secure in sin, yea dead in trespasses and sins. When the holy Spirit is come to awaken soul, his first work is to convince you of sin, and if he has not begun this work-fancy yourself to be alivereform your outward life-become civil, and moral, and honest, yet you have not taken one step in the divine your : life; if you have never been deeply convinced of sin, you have not been stirred up nor shaken from the lees -your poor soul is still dead to the grace of God, and unless you be convinced of sin it will, ere long, be dead to his glory. But if you have been awakened, and convinced of sin, then the parable is so far happily fulfilled in you. There has been a shaking among the dry bones. They have been trembling and quaking, and with great reason. Sinners while under conviction, have every thing to fear that is terrible. They have an offended God set in battle array against them, a broken law thundering out its curses upon their guilty heads, conscience owning the guilt, the devil ready to torment, and hell open to receive them and if the prospect of these things be not terrible, what is? Am I now speaking to any of you, who says, I am acquainted with these terrors-I have been made to see my sinfulness and my danger, and I find my helpless lost condition-dangers so surround me on every side, that I know not whither to turn myself. Is this the lan guage of thine heart? Art thou indeed shaken from all trust and confidence in self; Then turn thee to the blessed Jesus. He is a Saviour for thee. Such as thou art he came to save-such poor, lost and ruined sinners. Wait on him. Be found in the ways of his ordinances, and he will supply all thy wants. He will give thee freely out of his fulness, grace for grace, and glory to crown all his graces. But, methinks I hear some afflicted soul reply-I have been waiting upon the Lord Jesus long, but have found no comfort. It may be so. But who is to blame? May you not have sought comfort in a wrong manner, by placing religion in the form instead of the power, according to what is described in the third part of the parable, where we have all the parts of an human body, but for want of breath there was no life in them, and this was written to shew, that you are not to stop short of Christ and his comforts by resting in externals. You are not to be content with the form and the out side of religion, without the life and spirit of it. And herein the parable condemns those persons, who upon their being first brought under some concern about their souls, are apt to trust in duties, instead of going to Christ. They set about reforming their outward behaviour, go to church, say their prayers-read the scriptures-give alms-attend constantly at the sacrament, supposing that these outward things can give life to the soul: they rest in them, as of themselves sufficient and meritorious, which is setting them up against our Saviour, and resting in them as saviours, whereas Christ alone has life to give to the dead in sin. "I "am the life," says he. Whosoever is not united to him by faith, has no true spiritual life in him, as he found, who had more duties to depend upon than any of us have, and yet he counted them but dross and dung that he might win Christ. "The life which I now live "in the flesh, says the blessed apostle, I live by "the faith of the Son of God;" it is a spiritual life derived from the Son of God, and received from him by faith, which is the breath of life in the justified soul, inspired into it by the holy Spirit, as the last part of the parable proves. The dry bones had come together, the sinews and flesh had grown up upon them, the skin was spread over all-here were all the parts of an human body, but there was no life, until the Spirit of the Lord put breath into them, and they lived, and stood up. It is the very same case with the sinful soul. Nothing can give it life but the Spirit of God. He is to the soul what breath is to the body. He is so much the breath of life, that in the Old Testament and the New the same word which stands for the breath that supports the life of the body, stands for the holy Spirit, who supports the life of the soul. The air that we breathe, and the holy Spirit, have but one name in scripture. And therefore as the body is not alive, until it breathes, so neither is the soul alive to God, until the holy Spirit infuse into it the breath of life. And as the body is alive only so long as it breathes, in like manner the soul lives to God only so long as the holy Spirit breathes in it. Let his influence stop, and the life of grace is at an end, as the life of the body is at an end, so soon as its breathing is stopt. My brethren, this is one of the most important truths in the Christian religion. It is the holy Spirit and his work upon the heart that makes us Christians; "For if any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is "none of his"-He is no Christian. So say the oracles of truth. If any man-be he ever so moral and honest -a strict observer of outward duties, a good church man—a charitable man, yet if he has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his-he is none of Christ's family. He is not a living member of Christ's body. He may have a name that he liveth, but he is dead. And what good would it do you to have the name of a living man, if your body was dead? If you could neither stir nor move, if your breath was stopt, would it be of any service to you, that men said you was alive? Could their saying so raise you to life? Infinitely more useless is it to have a name, that your soul liveth, while it is dead to God. Hear this, ye formal professors, who are destitute of the life and power of religion. You are but so many dry bones. And what vast numbers have we of them in all our congregations! Oh that the almighty Spirit may put the breath of life into you, and quicken you together with Christ, and make you sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus! Perhaps you think you don't stand in need of his grace. Then, if God be true, you have no more life in your soul than these dry bones had, when they lay loose and scattered up and down in the valley. Until he put his life-giving Spirit into you, you are as dead as they were. Or perhaps you think you may have his grace, and not know it. That cannot be. The holy Spirit is the convincer of sin. When he awakens your conscience, fills it with conviction, and there is a shaking in every part and faculty, what a strange shaking would it be, if you should neither know it, nor feel |