suaded of it, we shall never go to heaven unless God works powerfully on our souls: supposing you and I now were to forget all created beings, supposing we were to forget our neighbours tonight, and to hear only for ourselves, as the shades of the evening, are coming on, and as we are going shortly to rest, may be to rise no more in this lower world, what if we should steal a little time from our shop, a little time from our worldly business, as we know not but we may be called to judgment to-morrow, and ask and say, O my soul, what hath God wrought in thy heart? 1 am glad to hear you are so inquisitive. Observe, what hath God wrought; now whatever is done in us, is all done by God; it is all done by an Almighty power: and it is all the effect of infinite wisdom; supposing then you and I are new creatures, hath God, O my soul, wrought in thee a deep, a penitent, a humbling sense of thy transgressions against his holy law; this is a most important question, this is the very beginning of religion, this is the very first letter of the Christian's alphabet, the first line in his book; with this Christ himself began to teach fallen man. Adam where art thou, was the first question that the Son of God put to his fallen creatures, what condition art thou in? how art thou fallen, thou son of the morning! and when he came to the woman, he took the same way, he preached, and ministers should preach conviction first; what is this, saith God, thou hast done? to break thy husband, and bring all thy posterity unto ruin? and it seems to me that there was a consciousness in this; and I wonder sometimes, the Deists have not ran so far as to do it in jest. I don't know that I ever heard of a female child's name called

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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 even 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 endeavours to pray, endeavours to pull it out, but in vain. Hath God wrought this in thy soul? now 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 got into them, whereas, the devil is in themselves; for the devil hoodwinks people, and he endeavours 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 a 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, thousands, thousands with whom I have spoken about their hearts. So it was, I remember, when I went first to Georgia, when I was about twenty-five 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 complaining 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 I, 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 in

creasing 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 endeavour, 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 hothing else to do but to keep the commandments, I am safe: I have honoured 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 neighbour, 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 mayst 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 wrote 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