unintelligible talk. It is neither money, nor meat, nor drink, nor clothes, nor company ; and as they sit under the sound of it, they are taken up with thinking of other things. It matters nothing whether it is Law or Gospel. It produces no more effect on them than water on a stone. And at the end they go away, knowing no more than when they came in.
There are myriads of professing Christians in this state of soul. There is hardly a church or chapel, where scores of them are not to be found. Sunday after Sun- day they allow the devil to catch away the good seed that is sown on the face of their hearts. Week after week they live on, without faith, or fear, or knowledge, or grace — feeling nothing, caring nothing, taking no more interest in religion, than if Christ had never died on the cross at. all. And in this state they often die and are buried, and are lost for ever in hell. This is a mourn- ful picture, but only too true.
We are taught, in the second place, that there are some hearers of the Gospel whose hearts are like the stony ground in a field.
These are they on whom preaching produces tem- porary impressions, but no deep, lasting, and abiding effect. They take pleasure in hearing sermons in which the truth is faithfully set forth. They can speak with apparent joy and enthusiasm about the sweetness of the Gospel, and the happiness which they experience in lis- tening to it. They can be moved to tears by the appeals of preachers, and talk with apparent earnestness of their own inward conflicts, hopes, struggles, desires, and fears. But unhappily there is no stability about their religion. u They have no root in themselves, and so endure but for
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a, time." There is no real work of the Holy Ghost with- in their hearts. Their impressions are like Jonah's gourd, which came up in a night and perished in a night. They fade as rapidly as they grow. No sooner does " affliction and persecution arise for the word's sake/' than they fall away. Their goodness proves as " the morning cloud, and the early dew." (Hosea vi. 4.) Their religion has no more life in it than the cut flower. It has no root, and soon withers away.
There are many in every congregation which hears the Gospel, who are just in this state of soul. They are not careless and inattentive hearers, like many around them, and are therefore tempted to think well of their own con- dition. They feel a pleasure in the preaching to which they listen, and therefore flatter themselves they must have grace in their hearts. And yet they are thoroughly deceived. Old things have not yet passed away. There is no real work of conversion in their inward man. With all their feelings, affections, joys, hopes, and desires, they are actually on the high road to destruction.*"*
We are taught, in the third place, that there are some hearers of the Gospel, whose hearts are like the thorny ground in afield.
These are they who attend to the preaching of Christ's truth, and to a certain extent obey it. Their under- standing assents to it. Their judgment approves of it.
* All who wish to understand the character of the " stony ground hearers," should study the treatise of Jonathan Edwards, on the Re- ligious Affections. Few Christians, who have not looked into the subject, have any idea of the lengths to which a person may go in religious feelings, while he is at the same time utterly destitute of the grace of God.