Christ to the soul, and enables us to apply to ourselves his precious blood. And, in fact, it is by implanting in our hearts the principle of faith, that he renews and sanctifies us after the Divine image : " He purines our hearts by faith k. " To what an extent we need his gracious influences, it is scarcely in the power of language to declare. Both " the flesh and the spirit of man" are altogether polluted and corrupt; as the Psalmist expresses it, " Our inward parts are very wicked- ness l. " Were all the thoughts and workings of our hearts as visible to men as they are to God, who is there amongst us that would not often be constrained to hide his face with shame and confusion ? The idols, too, which we set up in the secret recesses of our hearts, alas ! how numerous they are, and how fearfully have they provoked the Most High God to jealousy ! But " from all our filthiness, and from all our idols, shall we be cleansed, " through the operation of the Spirit of God upon our souls ; according as it is said by the Apostle, " Christ has loved the Church, and given himself for it ; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing ; but that it should be holy and without blemish m. " O ! hear this, all ye who are weary and heavy laden with the guilt and burthen of your sins ; and know assuredly, that if this is promised to the Jews in the Millennial age, it is no less promised to the Christian Church, and shall be fulfilled to all who will believe in Christ.]
2. To renew the heart —
[Verily, in every unregenerate man is "an heart of stone." Who does not feel this ? Who has ever addressed himself to the work of repentance, and not found how insensible his heart is of sorrow or of shame, even on a review of a whole life of sin ? With earthly concerns we are easily moved ; but not with the concerns of the soul, even though we know that the wrath of Almighty God is revealed against us, and that we are justly obnoxious to his everlasting displeasure. But God promises to " take away from us the heart of stone, and to give us an heart of flesh, " tender, contrite, abased before God in dust and ashes. Shall the Jews, on their restoration, " look on Him whom they have pierced, and mourn, and be in bitterness, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born n ? " Shall they, in the day to which my text refers, " remember their own evil ways, and their doings which were not good, and lothe themselves in their own sight for their iniquities and
k Acts xv. 9. • Ps. v. 9.
m Eph. v. 25—27. » Zech. xii. 10.