But may not a man be reclaimed ? Oh no, for he hath a heart of stone : Ezek. xxxvi. 26, ' I will take away the heart of stone.' Every man that comes to be converted hath a heart of stone ; and what is that ? insensible, inflexible. Insensible, he hath no feeling of his condition ; inflexible, he will not be moved and wrought upon by the word, and the Spirit, and providence. How many means are wasted upon him, and to no purpose ! And Jer. xvii. 9, ' The heart is deceit- ful above all things, and desperately wicked : who can know it ? ' It invents all kinds of shifts and excuses to elude God, or rather to cheat itself When God comes to work upon man, it slides away from • under his hand, as if salvation itself should not save them. Yea, but is not the New Testament more favoui-able to man than the Old ? Or, is not man grown better now there is so much of God's grace dis- covered ? I answer, there is a perfect harmony between. the Testa- ments: there he is styled ' a child of wrath by nature,' Eph. ii. 3; the elect as well as others were so. There you will find him to be a ' servant of sin,' Kom. vi. 17. Never such an imperious master as sin is, never such a willing servant as man is. Sin never leaves com- manding, and we love to work, and therefore are at its beck. There you will find him to be represented as a man that hath a ' blind un- derstanding,' and a ' hard heart,' and one that is ' averse from the life of God"' Eph. iv. 18. There you will find him to be one that is an ' enemy to the law of God,' * enmity' itself, Rom. viii. 7; one that neither will nor ' can please God.' One that is blind, and knows not what to do : 2 Pet. i. 9, ' He that lacketh these things is blind,' and with such a blindness as is far worse than bodily. A man that is blind in his bodily eyes, would think it to be a great happiness to have a fit guide : as in Acts xiii. 11, when Elymas was smitten blind, ' he sought about for somebody to lead him by the hand.' But he that is spiritually blind, cannot endure to have a guide ; or if one would lead him, and direct him in the right way, he is angry. And as the scripture represents him as blind, so without strength :• Eora. V. 9, ' Dead in trespasses and sins;' Eph. ii. 5, yea, worse than dead; a dead man doth no more hurt, his evil dieth witli him ; but there is a life of resistance and rebellion against God that goeth along. I have spoken but little, yet put all together, and then it shows what a miser- able wretched creature man is.
The scripture doth not speak this by chance, it is not an hi/perbole used once or twice, but everywhere, where it speaks of this matter, it sets out man to be blind, hard, dead, obstinate, and averse from God.
Mat. YI. 10.] the lord's prayer. 141
Certainly man contributes little to his own conversion, if the word of God sets him out everywhere to be such a one; he cannot hunger and thirst after Christ, that drinks in iniquity like water. Nothing in his nature to carry him to grace, who is altogether sinful.
If the scripture had only said that man had accustomed himself to sin, and was not born in sin : if it had said that man is very prone, and not greedy and thirsty in iniquity : if it had only said that man did often think evil, but not continually: if the scripture had said that man was somewhat obstinate, but not a stone, an adamant, and like the nether mill-stone : that he had been indiffei-ent to God and the world, God and the flesh, and not a professed enemy : that he had been a captive of sin, and not a servant of sin : that man had been weak and not dead : only a neuter and not a rebel : then there might have been something in man ; and the work of conversion and reducing to God had not been so great. But the scripture saith the quite contrary, that man is all this and much more, therefore this clears it up, that his conversion is not in himself, but it is God must work this good work upon him, or else he can never be renewed.
(2.) Secondly, Let us consider the terms how the cure is wrought. Cer- tainly to remedy so great an evil, requiretli an omnipotent, an almighty power. Therefore see how conversion is described in scripture, sometimes by enlightening the mind : E[)h. i. 18, ' The eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that ye may know what is the hope of his calling,' &c. Man, the best creature on this side heaven, is stark blind in the things of God. If he should go to see with the light of nature, how would he grope at noon-day ! If he should put on the spectacles of art he will but be little better. Nay, let him take further the glass of the word, yet how blind in a spiritual sense. Something there must be done upon the faculty ; the object must not only be revealed, but the eye must be enlightened. There are thick scales upon his eye, as Paul had in his blindness, that must be taken off, before he can see into the things of God.