How resistless is the evidence, hence arising, of the necessity of an entire change of heart—an entire change of feeling—to prepare men to dwell with God. No wonder then, that our Lord should declare with such emphasis, Ye must be born again, or ye cannot see the kingdom of God.
I beseech you, fellow sinners, lay these things seriously to heart. Do any of you habitually hear the preaching of the cross with heartless indifference—with a light and trifling temper? Beware, lest your heart become fatally hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.
Are any of you conscious of disgust and aversion, produced by such doctrines? O, beware, lest that come upon you which is spoken in the prophets, Behold, ye dispisers, and wonder, and perish: Beware lest you convert the bread of life into the poison of death!
Have any of you already attained such a degree of blindness and perversity, as to persuade yourselves that the doctrines of the cross are really irrational and absurd, and that you are doing right in opposing and deriding them? Recollect, I pray you, with whose word you are contending;—whose wisdom you are despising! Let the chaff contend with the tempest, and the stubble with the devouring flame; let the glow-worm despise all the lamps of heaven;—but Oh, let not a worm contend with Omnipotence; let not dim reason reject all the splendours of the Sun of righteousness. The redemption of the soul is precious—Its rescue from perdition, and elevation to God's right hand, are objects too momentous, to be sacrificed to the pride of intellect, or to the fashion of a world which passeth away. Receive, then, with meekness the ingrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.