How clearly and terribly, my hearers, does this subject discover the
ungodliness of the unrenewed heart. Those feelings of contempt and
hostility, towards what is most precious and glorious in the view of
God, constitute the summit of human guilt. That feeble worms of the
dust should thus dare to sit in judgment on the divine administration,
and pronounce that needless which God has declared indispensable, and
call that folly which God esteems the highest wisdom, is not merely
presumptuous;--it is inexpressibly _impious_.

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