0 To nations, 2 Chron. vii. 14 ; and to individuals, Isai. lv. 7. P Nineveh, the dying thief, &c.
i Ps. cxix. 136. Ezra ix. 3. and x. 6. 2 Pet. ii. 8. Rom. ix. 1, 2 ; above all, Luke xix. 41.
r 1 Kings viii. 46. Jam. hi. 2. s Gal. hi. 10.
your lusts, and by your great adversary, the devil * ! O think, it is but a little time and your captivity will be complete ; and, lost beyond a possibility of redemption, you will be bound in chains of everlasting darkness u. And is not here a cause for sorrow on your account ? " O that mine head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night " for your unhappy state x !
We will not, however, conclude, without once more entreat- ing you to " give glory to the Lord your God ;" that so " your light may rise in obscurity, and your darkness may be as the noon-day y."]
4 2 Tim. ii. 26. u Jude, ver. 6.
s
Jer. ix. 1. y Isai. lxviii. 8, 10.
Jer. xiii. 23. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots ? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil.
OF any particular acts which we have done amiss, we have been conscious : they have, as it were, ob- truded themselves upon our notice, and we could not turn our eyes from them : but of an evil principle operating within us, we have been strangely insen- sible ; though, if we had been at all observant of our daily habits, we could not but have both seen and felt it. It is owing to this that we have, for the most part, so high a conceit of our own sufficiency for what is good. We imagine that we have but to make a resolution, and any change which we propose will take place of course : but experience shews, that our habits of sin are not so easily broken, nor our resolu- tions respecting holiness so easily carried into effect. The truth is, that " the Ethiopian may as soon change his skin, or the leopard his spots, as we, by any power of our own, get into a course of what is good, after having been so long and so habitually accustomed to do evil."
From the words before us, I will take occasion to point out,