so far as to do it in jest. I do not know that I ever heard of a female child's name called Eve; probably, we are ashamed to call a child by that name, because of the guilt of our mother Eve, that brought us all into sin. Now hath God wrought in you? Hath he given this conviction to you; not a little flight now and then, or a qualm of thy conscience; the devil and natural conscience may do this; but when it is wrought in thy heart by the Spirit of God, it goes to the bottom, the arrow sticks fast, and a poor soul sometimes endeavors to pray, endeavors to pull it out, but in vain. Hath God wrought this in thy soul? When God works this change in the soul, the devil is always busy in tempting the poor convicted sinner to despond if not despair. Ignorant formalists, who are some of the worst people under heaven, when a person is under conviction, think the devil is in them, whereas the devil is in themselves; for the devil hoodwinks people, and he endeavors to persuade them, that there is no harm done to God by sinning against him. It is God wounds the soul, and it is he that heals it. Has he wrought in thee not only a deep and humbling sense of the outward acts of sin, but an humbling sense of the inward corruptions of thy heart? Has he led thee beyond the streams, through the powerful operations of his Spirit, to the fountain head? When he has done so, then are we christians indeed; and this cannot be the work of the devil, who never did, nor do I know whether he can, show a person the inward corruptions of his heart; it must be the Spirit of God. The devil may frighten a person, as to outward things, but I very much question whether it is in the power or will of the devil to show a person that he is totally depraved, that the whole fountain is corrupt; this cannot be, because this would make the devil omnipotent, of equal power with the Holy Ghost, who alone shows thee the guilt and corruption of thy heart. This I have found to be the fact, from thirty years' observation and experience of thousands and thousands with whom I have spoken about their hearts. So it was, I remember, when I went first to Georgia, when I was about twentyfive years old. I had them day after day, week after week, and night after night, saying, What shall I do to be saved? O my wicked heart, my deceitful heart, from morning to night. Hath God wrought this in any of you? Are you complain

ing of your wicked heart and corrupt nature? Have you

found out that your hearts are cages of unclean birds, only a lodging for vain thoughts to dwell in? O my friends, my dear hearers, O may you turn the question into a note of admiration, and say, what hath God wrought! He has not only convinced me of my outward sins, but powerfully convinced

me of the corruptions of my heart. Do ask yourselves this question, has God wrought in me a view of the spirituality of his holy law? Till this is done, you are as fast in the devil's arms as he can clasp you. Of all the children the devil has in the world, I believe he mostly loves his pharisaical children. I was walking with one of them some time ago, and somebody very innocently asked me where the pharisees lived, O, said Í, they live every where. Some people think that they only lived in the times of the apostles. Do you know, vipers and toads have the most eggs and most numerous progeny? If you was to see the eggs of a toad through a microscope, you would wonder at the innumerable multitude; and the pharisees are an increasing generation of vipers, which hatch and spread all over the world. If you want to know what a pharisee is, he is one who pretends to endeavor, and talks about keeping the law of God, and does not know its spirituality; they are some of them very great men in their own opinion, and always made the greatest figure in the church: one of them, a gentleman's son, because he had not broke the letter of the law, thought he was right and without sin. O, says he, if I have nothing else to do but to keep the commandments, I am safe; I have honored my father and mother; I never stole. What need he steal that had so good an estate? I never committed adultery. No, no, he loved his character too well: but our Lord opens to him the law, this one thing thou lackest, go sell all thou hast: he loved his money more than his God. Christ brought him back to the first commandment, though he catechized him first in the fifth. So Paul was a pharisee; he says, "I was alive without the law once; I was, touching the law, blameless." How can that be, can a man be without the law, and yet, touching the law, blameless? Says he, I was without the law; that is, I was not brought to see the spirituality of it; I thought myself a very good man, no man could say of Paul, black is his eye; but, saith he, when God brought the commandment with power upon my soul, then I saw my specks, and do now. Pray mind and say the commandments, if you go to church you see them, and if you go to meeting I hope you have not forgot them; "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor; thou shalt not covet;" from repeating the last commandment, we are taught that God's law is spiritual. "I should not have known sin," as the apostle said, "if the law had not said, thou shalt not covet." Now has God wrought in you these things? Hast thou really seen his law, that it is spiritual? Have you been made to see that the law of God requires perfect, sinless obedience? Have you been made to see that you are under the curse, because you have

sinned, by the inward teaching of the blessed Spirit of God? For then be assured, as sure as thou art in this place, God has wrought this in thy soul, and thou mayest turn the question to admiration, and say, what has God wrought! Has he wrought in thee a sense of unbelief, that thou canst no more believe than thou canst create a world? I mention this, because I have told you often, and I am in the same mind; yet there are very few books that talk about unbelief; there is a long catalogue of sins, but not one word about unbelief. Why? O because these good folks, that have written communion books, take it for granted, all folks that go to church are believers; I take it there are more unbelievers in the church than out of it. Why, say you, do not they assent to the gospel? So does the devil. Do not they assent to all the articles of the christian faith? So does the devil; the devil is a stronger believer than an Arian; the devil is a stronger believer than a Socinian; he believes Christ is God, for he has felt his power by his damning him to hell: "we know thee who thou art, the Holy one of God."

But remember Christ says, when he is gone, the Spirit of God shall come to reprove the world; in the margin it is convince, and not a transient conviction, but a conviction that fastens, that brings salvation with it; if conviction brings its own evidence, surely faith must bring its own evidence along with it too; now he shall convince the world, saith our Lord, of sin. What sin? The sin of unbelief, because they believe not in me. tioned by Mr. Hervey, by Mr. Marshall himself, and also by It is mensomebody else, that when complaining to a minister that he could get no ease to his soul, and having told the minister he confessed his sins every day, he put them all down, (a man must have a good memory that can do that) the minister said to him, I think your catalogue is worth nothing at all, the grand sin is not mentioned. What is that sir? said he. The sin of unbelief: a sin the poor creature thought he had never been guilty of. Has God wrought in thee a sense of thy unbelief? What blessed times have I seen in New, as well as Old England and Scotland, when thousands were awakened at Edinburgh, at Glasgow, and many other places, when I have seen them taken out of the congregation by scores, and asked what is the matter? what do you want? I can't believe! I can't believe! I can't believe! We think we can believe when we will, but the Spirit alone can convince us we have no faith; the Spirit alone can convince us of our want of faith, and can alone impart it to the poor awakened sinner; consequently, you may ask yourselves whether God has wrought in you, not only a sense of your misery, but also a sense of your remedy; 73

set you upon hungering and thirsting, such a hungering and thirsting as has never been satisfied but by an application of the blood of Christ imputed to you. I do not want to dispute upon the scriptures with any body. There are a great many good men who have been prejudiced by Antinomian principles and practices, and because some people have run to a dangerous extreme, and have not thought proper to make use of the word imputed at all. The best truth may be spoiled by bad books; but for my part, I am more than ever convinced, that the doctrine of an imputed righteousness, is a doctrine of the gospel; and that as Adam's sin is imputed to me, so the righteousness of Christ must be imputed also. I stand not only as a pardoned sinner, but as a justified sinner. I stand before God justified, and so do all whom Jesus Christ has purchased. Now has God wrought this in thee, O man; in thee, O woman? I am not going to ask, whether it was wrought in thee by hearing a sermon, or reading a book; God may make use of a minister or of a book: and I do not like to have people get above ministers and books, saying, we do not want these. God draws with the cords of a man, and generally draws us with cords by men such as ourselves. Canst thou say, there is a book, there is a minister, in reading or hearing which, Christ's blood was applied, and the Spirit of God witnessed with my spirit that I was one of his children? Now this is all God's working, indeed it is; the devil cannot do this; it is out of his power; he may attempt to persuade them that he has done it, when he has not, and cannot. The magicians turned their rods into serpents, but the rod of Jehovah swallowed them all up. Has the Lord God wrought a change of heart in thee, and a change of life as a consequence of that? I mention this, but I would have every body that stands up for Christ's imputed righteousness, especially as some good people are apt to speak of it and carry it very high, to be careful in the same discourse to speak as highly of obedience too, to Christ's commandments. I do not like only to mention the word promises, and when people tell me they hang upon the promises, I always ask them how do you hang upon them? Have you the thing promised? The promise is, that the promiser should come to my soul; the promise is, what, my brethren? The promise is, for this and that good thing; have I obtained it? How would you do if you were to take false bank notes-if you were to take false bills? The people generally ask, is the man that has given me this note worth any thing? If you have a bad note, you go to the notary and note it; you say I was to have had this note paid ten, twenty, thirty days after sight, or upon sight; where is the notary? They note it and protest. Let us be careful then to see that

God pays his notes, as we are that man does. Hast thou the thing promised? The thing promised is, all peace, and all joy -the thing promised is a new heart-the thing promised is a new nature; and therefore David goes to God for the thing promised, and says, Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Now is this the case of thy

heart? The devil can never make a new creature. I am sure nothing but an almighty power can take away the heart of stone, and give a heart of flesh. Has God wrought this in thee? If he has, though it has not come to such a height as thou would wish, yet be thankful for what he has done, and say, what has God wrought in me! Attend to the word; I do not mean lazily; there is not a thing upon the face of the earth that I abhor so much as idleness or idle people; I am so far from having a love to people that are lazy, that if I had the dealing with a number that are called christians, they should go to bed sooner, and get up sooner. There is one thing that

will make people rise sooner in the morning in London, and that is, for merchants to agree to have the 'Change opened at six, and that will make people as much alive in the morning as the markets are after people have been traveling all night to prepare for them.

Has God wrought in you a spirit of zeal and love? Has he wrought in you a love to his name, a zeal for his cause? Has he wrought in thy heart a deadness to the world, that you can live above it from morning to night, having your conversation in heaven? Has he wrought in thee a love to his people, not people that are Calvinists only-not people that hold universal redemption only-O be careful of that-O what nonsense is that, for people to hold universal redemption, and yet not love all mankind-what nonsense is it to hold election, and not as the elect of God, to put on bowels of mercy, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, and long suffering; as the woman said, I have a house that will hold a hundred, a heart ten thousand. Has he wrought in thee a love to thy enemies, so that thou dost not only love them that love thee, but them that hate thee? What say you? Must I put a snake in my bosom? No, no. I may hate the conduct, and at the same time pray to God for them. Enmity is an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Love as Archbishop Cranmer did, that it became a proverb concerning him, that if any man would make him his friend, he must do him an injury. Has he wrought in thee a desire to go to heaven? Has he wrought in thee such a love to Jesus, that you prefer him to the heaven he dwells in? We count heaven a fine place, and we may say, I am glad to see the departed saints and angels, but that