lief that sinners are passive in regeneration, and cannot make them a new heart. Let ministers, therefore, only renounce the false notion of passivity in regeneration, and they will find no more difficulty in exhorting sinners, than in exhorting saints, to do their duty. They will see the same propriety in exhorting sinners to make them a new heart, or to repent and believe immediately, as in exhorting saints to grow in grace, and perfect holiness in the fear of God. And such preaching will approve itself to the consciences of both saints and sinners. 4. Since it is the duty of sinners to make them a new heart, they have no excuse for the neglect of any other duty. When they are urged to love God, repent of sin, believe the gospel, make a publick profession of religion, or to do any thing in a holy and acceptable manner, they are always ready to excuse themselves for their negligence, by pleading their inability to change their hearts. This they say is the work of God; and until he pleases to appear for them, and takes away their stony hearts and gives them hearts of flesh, they cannot internally obey any of his commands, and therefore must be excused for all their delays, neglects, and deficiences in duty. But if it be their duty, in the first instance, to make them a new heart, then, according to their own plea, they have no excuse for neglecting any other act of obedience to the divine commands. If it were their duty to begin, they acknowledge, it would be their duty to persevere in* obedience; and by acknowledging this, they virtually give up every excuse, and become self-condemned for all their internal as well as external transgressions of the divine law. The moment, they feel the propriety and force of the precept in the text, "to make them a new heart and a new spirit," their mouths are stop ped, and they stand guilty and inexcusable before God. As soon as this commandment comes, sin revives, and they die. They find, that they cannot love God, merely because they hate him, and that they hate him without a cause, which is their criminality, not excuse. 5. If sinners ought to make them a new heart, then it must be their own fault, if they finally perish. They will have no right to plead, that God did not do enough for them; but must forever own and feel, that they did not do enough for themselves. They cannot be lost, if they only do their duty, and make them a new heart. But if they finally neglect this duty, they will justly expose themselves to eternal death. Hence God solemnly reminds them, that their future happiness or misery depends upon their choice; and if they perish, it must be wholly owing to their own folly and guilt. "Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God. Wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye.” SERMON XI. THE TREASURES OF A GOOD AND EVIL HEART. MATTHEW Xii, 35. A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things. IT was never our Saviour's intention to preach against Moses and the prophets, but only to explain their writings, and take off the false glosses, which were put upon them by false teachers. Though these men adopted the language of the inspired writers, and acknowledged the distinction between saints and sinners; yet they had no idea of what constituted this distinction. They ignorantly supposed, that the precepts and prohibitions of the divine law had no respect to the heart, but only to external actions. And hence they denominated men either good or bad, saints or sinners, according to their outward appearance, rather than according to their internal views and feelings. But our Saviour represented this notion as a great and essential error. He said to his hearers, "Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of God." And after this, he told the Scribes and Pharisees themselves, that their righteousness was no better than hypocrisy, because it wholly consisted in mere external obedience. "Wo unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint, and anise, and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." But as Christ meant to instruct the ignorant, as well as refute the erroneous, he clearly I. To describe the good treasure of the heart. III. To make it appear, that it is the treasure of the heart, which justly denominates men cither good or or evil. I. I am to describe the good treasure of the heart. The whole of this good treasure summarily consists in general benevolence. Our Saviour comprises all true virtue, holiness, or moral goodness in love to God and man. When he was asked, which is the great commandment in the law? he said, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." According to this infallible exposition of the law, it requires nothing morally good but what partakes of the nature of pure, disinterested benevolence, The question now is, Why does Christ call this be nevolence, which comprises all moral goodness, a good treasure? Treasure is a general name for abundance; and Christ uses the term in this sense, in the verse immediately preceding the text, where he says, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." But what abundance, or what treasure can there be in a good heart, which consists in love? Is not love pere fectly pure, simple, and uncompounded? How then can there be any propriety in calling it a treasure, which generally comprises both a variety and a multiplicity of things? It is easy, however, to discover the propriety of this expression. Though true love be of a simple, uncompounded nature; yet it is capable of spreading into a variety of branches, which taken all together, form a rich treasure of moral goodness. I will now lay open, as clearly and distinctly as I can, all the parts or parcels of the good treasure of the good heart. 1. A good heart contains good affections. It always is more or less affected, by every object presented to it. If a proper object of benevolence be presented, it feels benevolence. If a proper of object compla cence be presented it feels complacence. Ifa proper object of gratitude be presented, it feels gratitude. If a vile and odious object be presented, it feels a proper dis pleasure, hatred, or aversion. These inward motions or exercises of the good heart, which are excited by the bare perception of objects, and which do not produce any external actions, are properly called affec tions, in distinction from all other emotions and exercises, of the heart,which influence to action. And these immanent affections of the good heart are extremely numerous, because they are perpetually arising in the mind, whether the person be sitting, or walking, or speaking, or reading, or barely thinking. The good |