shall be turned unto others, with their fields and wives together: for I will stretch out my hand upon the inhabitants of the land, saith the Lord." The prophet gives a thundering message, that they might be terrified, and have some convictions and inclinations to repent: but it seems that the false prophets, the false priests, went about stifling people's convictions, and when they were hurt or a little terrified, they were for daubing over the wound, telling them, that Jeremiah was but an enthusiastic preacher; that there could be no such thing as a war among them; and bidding people "peace, peace, be still," when the prophet told them there was no peace. The words then refer primarily unto outward things; but I verily believe have also a further reference to the soul; and are to be referred to those false teachers, who, when people were under conviction of sin, when people were beginning to look towards heaven, were for stifling their convictions, and telling them they were good enough before. And indeed people generally love to have it so: our hearts are exceedingly deceitful and desperately wicked; none but the eternal God knows how treacherous they are. How many of us cry, peace, peace, to our souls, when there is no peace. How many are there that are now settled upon their lees, that now think they are christians, that now flatter themselves that they have an interest in Jesus Christ; whereas if we come to examine their experiences, we will find that their peace is but a peace of the devil's making; it is not a peace of God's giving; it is not a peace that passeth human understanding. It is matter therefore of great importance, my dear hearers, to know whether we may speak peace to our hearts. We are all desirous of peace, peace is an unspeakable blessing. How can we live without peace? And therefore people, from time to time, must be taught how far they must go, and what must be wrought in them, before they can speak peace to their hearts. This is what I design at present, that I may deliver my soul, that I may be free from the blood of all those to whom I preach, that I may not fail to declare the whole counsel of God. I shall from the words of the text, endeavor to show you what you must undergo, and what must be wrought in you, before ye can speak peace to your hearts.

But before I come directly to this, give me leave to premise a caution or two. And the first is, that I take it for granted ye believe religion to be an inward thing; ye believe it to be a work in the heart, a work wrought in the soul by the power of the Spirit of God. If you do not believe this, ye do not believe your Bible. If ye do not believe this, though ye have got your Bible in your hands, ye hate the Lord Jesus Christ in

your heart: for religion is every where represented in scripture, as the work of God in the heart; "the kingdom of God is within us," says our Lord; and, "he is not a christian that is one outwardly, but he is a christian who is one inwardly.” If any of you place religion in outward things, I shall not perhaps please you this morning; ye will understand me no more when I speak of the work of God upon a poor sinner's heart, than if I were talking in an unknown tongue. I would further premise a caution, that I would by no means confine God to one way of acting; I would by no means say, that all persons before they come to have a settled peace in their hearts, are obliged to undergo the same degrees of conviction. No; God has various ways of bringing his children home; his sacred spirit bloweth when, and where, and how, it listeth. But however, I will venture to affirm this, that before ever ye can speak peace to your hearts, whether by shorter or longer continuance of your convictions, whether in a more pungent or in a more gentle way, ye must undergo what I shall hereafter lay down in the following discourse.

First, Then, before ye can speak peace to your hearts, ye must be made to see, made to feel, made to weep over, made to bewail your actual transgressions against the law of God. According to the covenant of works, the soul that sinneth it shall die; cursed is that man, be what he will, be who he will, that continueth not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. We are not only to do some things, but we are to do all things, and we are to continue so to do; so that the least deviation from the moral law, according to the covenant of works, whether in thought, word, or deed, deserves eternal death at the hand of God. And if one evil thought, if one evil word, if one evil action, deserves eternal damnation; how many hells, my friends, do every one of us deserve, whose whole lives have been one continual rebellion against God. Before ever therefore ye can speak peace to your hearts, ye must be brought to see, brought to believe, what a dreadful thing it is to depart from the living God. And now, my dear friends, examine your hearts, for I hope ye come hither with a design to have your souls made better: give me leave to ask you, in the presence of God, whether ye know the time, and if ye do not know exactly the time, do ye know there was a time when God wrote bitter things against you, when the arrows of the Almighty were within you? Was ever the remembrance of your sins grievous to you? Was the burden of your sins intolerable to your thoughts? Did ye ever see that God's wrath might justly fall upon you, upon account of your actual transgressions against God? Were ye

for your sins?

ever in all your life sorry Could ye ever say, my sins are gone over my head as a burden too heavy for me to bear? Did ye ever experience any such thing as this? Did ever any such thing as this pass between God and your soul? If not, for Jesus Christ's sake do not call yourselves christians; ye may speak peace to your hearts, but there is no peace. May the Lord awaken you, may the Lord convert you, may the Lord give you peace, if it be his will, before you go home.

But further, ye may be convinced of your actual sins, so as to be made to tremble, and yet ye may be strangers to Jesus Christ, ye may have no true work of grace upon your heart. Before ever, therefore, ye can speak peace to your hearts, conviction must go deeper; ye must not only be convinced of your actual transgressions against the law of God, but likewise of the foundation of all your transgressions; and what is that? I mean original sin; that original corruption each of us brings into the world with us, which renders us liable to God's wrath and damnation. There are many poor souls that think themselves fine reasoners, yet they pretend to say there is no such thing as original sin; they will charge God with injustice in imputing Adam's sin to us; although we have got the mark of the beast, and of the devil upon us, yet they tell us, we are not born in sin. Let them look abroad in the world, and see the disorders in it, and think if they can, if this is the paradise in which God did put man? No, every thing in the world is out of order. I have often thought, when I was abroad, that if there were no other argument to prove original sin, but the rising of wolves and tigers against man, nay, the barking of a dog against us, is a proof of original sin. Tigers and lions durst not rise against us, if it were not for Adam's first sin: for when the creatures rise up against us, it is as much as to say, ye have sinned against God, and we take up our master's quarrel. If we look inward, we will see enough of lusts, and man's temper contrary to the temper of God; there is pride, malice, and revenge in all our hearts, and this temper cannot come from God; it comes from our first parent, Adam, who, after he fell from God, fell out of God into the devil. However, therefore, some people may deny this, yet when conviction comes, all carnal reasonings are battered down immediately, and the poor soul begins to feel and see the fountain from which all the polluted streams do flow. When the sinner is first awakened, he begins to wonder how he came to be so wicked: the Spirit of God then strikes in, and shows that he has no good thing in him by nature; then he sees that he is altogether gone out of the way; that he is altogether become abominable; and the poor creature is made to lie down

at the foot of the throne of God, and to acknowledge that God would be just to damn him, just to cut him off, though he never had committed one actual sin in his life. Did ye ever feel and experience this any of you, to justify God in your damnation; to own that ye are by nature children of wrath, and that God may justly cut you off though ye never actually had offended him in all your life. If ye were ever truly convicted-if your hearts were ever truly cut-if self were truly taken out of you, ye will be made to see and feel this. And if ye have never felt the weight of original sin, do not call yourselves christians. I am verily persuaded original sin is the greatest burden of a true convert; this even grieves the regenerate soul-the sanctified soul. The indwelling of sin in the heart is the burden of a converted person; it is the burden of a true christian; he continually cries out, O "Who will deliver me from this body of death," this indwelling corruption of my heart; this is that which disturbs a poor soul most. And, therefore, if ye never felt this inward corruptionif ye never saw that God might justly curse you for it; indeed, my dear friends, ye may speak peace to your heart, but I fear, nay, I know, there is no true peace.

Further, before we can speak peace to your hearts, ye must not only be troubled for the sins of your life, the sins of your nature, but likewise for the sins of your best duties and performances. When a poor soul is somewhat awakened by the terrors of the Lord, then the poor creature, being born under the covenant of works flies directly to a covenant of works again. And as Adam and Eve hid themselves among the trees of the garden, and sewed fig-leaves together to cover their nakedness; so the poor sinner when awakened, flies to his duties, and to his performances, to hide himself from God; and goes to patch up a righteousness of his own; says he, I will be mighty good now; I will reform, I will do all I can, and then certainly Jesus Christ will have mercy on me. But before ye can speak peace to your heart, ye must be brought to see that God may justly damn you for the best prayer ye ever put up in all your life; ye must be brought to see all your duties, all your righteousness, as the prophet elegantly expresses it, put them altogether, are so far from recommending you to God, are so far from being any motive and inducement to God to have mercy on your poor souls, that ye will see them to be filthy rags, a menstruous cloth; that God hates them, and cannot away with them, if ye bring them to him in order to recommend you to his favor. My dear friends, what is there in our performances to recommend us unto God; our persons are in an unsanctified state by nature, we deserve to be damned

ten thousand times over; and what must our performances be? We can do no good thing by nature; "they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Ye may do things materially good, but ye cannot do a thing formally and rightly good; because nature cannot act above itself. It is impossible that a man that is unconverted can act for the glory of God; he cannot do any thing in faith, for "whatsoever is not of faith is sin." After we are renewed, yet we are renewed but in part; indwelling sin continues in us; there is a mixture of corruption in every one of our duties; so that after we are converted, were Jesus Christ only to accept us according to our works, our works would damn us; for we cannot put up a prayer but it is far from that perfection which the moral law requireth. I do not know what ye may think; but I can say that I cannot pray but I sin; I cannot preach to you or any others but I sin; I can do nothing without sin: and, as one expresseth it, my repentance wants to be repented of, and my tears to be washed in the precious blood of my dear Redeemer; our best duties are as so many splendid sins. Before ye can speak peace to your hearts, ye must not only be sick of your original and actual sins; but ye must be made sick of your righteousness, of all your duties and performances. There must be a deep conviction before ye can be brought out of your self-righteousness; it is the last idol that is taken out of our heart, the pride of our heart will not let us submit to the righteousness of Jesus Christ. But if ye never felt that ye had no righteousness of your own; if ye never felt the deficiency of your own righteousness ye can never come to Jesus Christ. There are a great many now that may say, well, we believe all this; but there is a great difference betwixt talking and feeling. Did ye ever feel the want of a dear Redeemer? Did ye ever feel the want of Jesus Christ upon the account of the deficiency of your own righteousness? And can ye now say from your heart, "Lord, thou mayest justly damn me for the best duties that ever I did perform;" if ye are not thus brought out of self, ye may speak peace to yourselves, but yet there is no peace.

But then before ye can speak peace to your souls there is one particular sin ye must be greatly troubled for; and yet I fear there are few of you think what it is; it is the reigning, the damning sin of the christian world; and yet the christian world seldom or never think of it; and pray what is that? It is what most of you think ye are not guilty of, and that is the sin of unbelief; before we can speak peace to your heart, ye must be troubled for the unbelief of your heart; but can it be supposed that any of you are unbelievers here in this churchyard, that are born in Scotland, in a reformed country,