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AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

THE following were some of the considerations that influenced me to undertake the publication of the sermons composing this volume.

I. Garbled extracts of some of them had been given to the public by note-takers and reviewers, which had entirely misrepresented their doctrine; I therefore thought it important that the public should be disabused on those points, for two

reasons.

1st. Those that had confidence in me, and in my views, might adopt the misrepresentations of note-takers and reviewers as truth, supposing them to be my real sentiments.

2d. Many individuals might be shut out from ever coming at the truth, upon these points, by prejudices growing out of those misrepresentations.

II. I thought the truths themselves, contained in these sermons, of sufficient importance to warrant the publication of some sermons on these points; especially as I have never seen most of them, or heard them discussed, in a manner that was satisfactory to my own mind.

III. In preaching as an evangelist, I have found it especially important to discuss these and other topics, and have almost every where found many misapprehensions and misunderstandings existing in the minds of the multitude on most of these points.

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IV. As my health has been such as to render it probable that I shall never be able to labor as an evangelist again, I have thought that it might in some measure subserve the cause of Christ to publish something on several points that I have found by experience to need discussion and explanation.

Two of these sermons have been published in the form of tracts, have gone through several editions, and I suppose have been extensively read. But as some of my friends have desired to have them in a more permanent form, they have therefore wished me to give them a place in the present volume.

The present volume are only a few of the number that I have thought I should publish, could I get time from my other avocations to commit them to writing. Whether any more of them will ever appear, must depend upon the providence and grace of God. They make no pretensions to literary merit; simplicity of arrangement, and perspicuity of style, have been the two objects at which I have aimed; and whether I have made myself understood, will be known. when they are read.

They have been written in great haste, and amidst a multitude of embarrassments and pressing duties. From four to eight hours labor has been all that I have been able to bestow on any of them. They have gone to the press almost without a second reading. I should have bestowed more labor upon them, and endeavored to have rendered them more acceptable in a literary point of view, had it been possible to have spared the time from my other avocations. I have done what I could under the circumstances, and if the Lord can use this little volume to do any good, to his name be all the glory.

THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

SERMON I.

SINNERS BOUND TO CHANGE THEIR OWN HEARTS.-Ezek. 18:31.-" Make you
a new heart, and a new spirit, for why will ye die?"

SERMON II.

3

HOW TO CHANGE YOUR HEART.-Ezek. 18: 31.-" Make you a new heart,
and a new spirit, for why will ye die ?"

SERMON III.

29

TRADITIONS OF THE ELDERS.-Matthew, 15: 6.- -"Thus have ye made the
commandment of God of none effect, by your tradition."

SERMON IV.

57

TOTAL DEPRAVITY.-John, 5: 42.-" But I know you, that ye have not the
love of God in you."

SERMON V.

83

TOTAL DEPRAVITY.-Romans, 8:7.-" The carnal mind is enmity against
God, for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

SERMON VI.

113

WHY SINNERS Hate God.—John, 15 : 25.—“They have hated me without
a cause."

SERMON VII.

141

GOD CANNOT PLEASE SINNERS.-Luke, 7: 31-35.—" And the Lord said,
Whereunto, then, shall I liken the men of this generation? and to what are
they like? They are like unto children sitting in the market-place, and call-
ing one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not
danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept. For John the
Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and ye say he hath
a devil! The Son of Man is come eating and drinking, and ye say, Behold
a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber, a friend of publicans and sinners! But
wisdom is justified of all her children."

161

SERMON VIII.'

CHRISTIAN AFFINITY.-Amos, 3: 3.-" Can two walk together except they
be agreed ?"

SERMON IX.

STEWARDSHIP.-Luke, 16 : 2.—“ Give an account of thy stewardship."

SERMON X.

181

DOCTRINE OF ELECTION.-Ephesians, 1:45.-" According as he hath cho-
sen us in him, before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy,
and without blame before him in love, having predestinated us unto the
adoption of children, by Jesus Christ, to himself, according to the good
pleasure of his will.”

SERMON XI.

209

REPROBATION.-Jeremiah, 6: 30.-" Reprobate silver shall men call them,
because the Lord hath rejected them."

SERMON XII.

221

Love of the WORLD.—John, 2: 15.—“Love not the world, neither the
things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the
Father is not in him."

241

SERMON I.

SINNERS BOUND TO CHANGE THEIR OWN HEARTS.

Ezek. xviii. 31.—“ Make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why will ye die ?'

THESE words were addressed to the house of Israel, who, from their history and from the verses in connexion with the text, were evidently in a state of impenitency; and the requirement to make them a new heart and a new spirit, was enforced by the weighty penalty of death. The death mentioned in the text cannot mean natural death; for natural death is common both to those who have, and to those who have not, a new heart. Nor can it mean spiritual death, which is a state of entire sinfulness; for then it should have read, Why are ye already dead? The death here spoken of, must mean, eternal death, or that state of banishment from God and the glory of his power, into which the soul shall be cast, that dies in its iniquities.

The command here addressed to the Israelites, is binding upon every impenitent sinner, to whom the Gospel shall be addressed. He is required to perform the same duty, upon the same penalty. It becomes, therefore, a matter of infinite importance that we should well understand, and fully and immediately obey, the requirement. The questions that would naturally arise to a reflecting mind on reading this text, are the following: