has thrown light into the understanding, and conviction into the conscience of sinners, he more effectually teaches them by operating on their heart. He has their heart in his hand, and can turn it whithersoever he pleases. When he teaches them savingly, he opens their heart to attend to and receive divine. truth, as he opened the heart of Lydia. He gives them a wise and understanding heart. He gives them a spiritual discerning of spiritual things. He gives them a heart to know him. Or, as it is expressed in another place, he gives them eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to perceive. He takes away a stony heart, and gives them a heart of flesh. He who commanded the light to shine out of darkness at first, shines in their heart, to give them the light of the knowledge of his own glory as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ. The opening of the heart is the most effectual method of teaching sinners. When their heart is opened, all their other powers will do their office, and nothing is necessary for their farther instruction, but the exhibition of divine truth from time to time. When this is done, they hear and learn of the Father all that is necessary to prepare and dispose them to come to Christ. I now proceed to show,

4

II. Why those that are taught of God do come to Christ. They always do come to him. The scripture abounds with instances of such persons coming to Christ. The penitent and divinely taught malefactor immediately cast his eye and his heart upon Christ, and sincerely embraced him as an all sufficient Saviour. The three thousand who were taught of God on the day of Pentecost, cordially embraced their crucified Redeemer. Cornelius, who had been taught of God, was ready to receive Christ as soon as he was preached to him. Paul, who had opposed and persecuted him, trusted in him for salvation as soon as he was taught of God. Those who have been taught of God have always been disposed to come to Christ for salvation. The question now is, Why do all such persons come to Christ? There are several plain and obvious reasons why they do this.

1. Because they see their need of Christ. God teaches them their guilt and danger. He makes them see that they are not only exposed to eternal destruction, but justly deserve it. And this leads them to cry, "God be merciful to us sinners." But by being taught their own characters, and the character of God, they are fully convinced that no mercy can be found, out of Christ. God cannot be merciful to them in any other way than that he has devised and revealed in the gospel, through the atonement of Christ. Those who are not taught of God, refuse to come to Christ, because they see no need of coming to

him for pardoning mercy. They trust in themselves that they are righteous, and that their righteousness is sufficient to entitle them to pardon and acceptance with God. This is the representation which Christ gives of those who have not been taught of God, nor seen the plague, of their own hearts, nor realized the sentence of condemnation which God has passed upon them. "The whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." Unrenewed and untaught sinners have neither seen God, nor his law, nor their own hearts, nor their perishing condition, in a true light. But those who are taught of God see all these things in a true light, and are fully convinced that salvation is to be found in Christ alone, and that there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby they can be saved. They feel themselves shut up to the faith. The law, which they have broken, is a schoolmaster to bring them to Christ, that they may be justified by faith. They cannot see how it is morally possible that God should be just, and yet justify any but those who come to Christ, and believe in him for salvation.

2. Those who are taught of God come to Christ, because they have become cordially reconciled to God and wish to enjoy his favor. The great obstacle in the way of merely awakened and convinced sinners' coming to Christ, is God himself. They are not willing to come to God penitently and submissively. They have strong objections against his character, his designs, his commands, and his terms of mercy. They are not willing that he should have mercy on whom he will have mercy, and require them to submit to his sovereignty, as an indispensable condition of receiving them into his favor. But those who are savingly taught of God are cordially reconciled to him, and heartily give up all their objections against his perfections, his designs, his commands, and his terms of mercy. All impediments of this kind are entirely removed. They have heard, and learned, and seen so much of the Father, as to love him supremely, and to submit to him unreservedly. They are so sensible of their sinfulness and ill desert in the sight of God, that they feel that he has a just right to save or destroy them for ever. They can adopt the prayer of the publican, "God be merciful to me a sinner." They are willing to return to God, whether he be willing to receive them, or not. They are reconciled to him, whether he be reconciled to them, or not. They feel towards God and themselves, as the prodigal son felt towards his father and himself. When he was taught of God, "he said to himself, How many hired servants of my father have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have

sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose, and came to his father." He was so fully convinced of his father's rectitude, and of his own ill desert, that he could lay no claim upon his pardoning mercy, and could not ask his father to restore him fully to his favor. So those who have been taught of God are willing to return. to him, and ardently desire his forgiving grace, while they renounce all claims to it, and acknowledge that they may be justly denied. Here the similitude fails; for the prodigal had no mediator; but those who are taught of God, and are reconciled to him, have a mediator, and therefore may submissively ask to be completely restored to the forfeited favor of their injured Sovereign, for the sake of Christ who has died for them, though not for their own sake. And being cordially reconciled to God the Father, they are willing to come to Christ, and rely upon his mediation and atonement, as the sole ground of their complete restoration to the divine favor. Besides,

3. Those who are taught of God will come to Christ, because Christ himself appears supremely amiable and precious. They have seen so much of God, and are so sincerely reconciled to him, that they are prepared to view Christ as the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person. Christ's love to his Father, to his law and government, and to perishing sinners, renders him the chiefest among ten thousand, and altogether lovely in their view. His divine and human excellences, and his mediatorial offices, all concur to unite them to him, as the branches are united to the vine. The teaching of the Father, by his effectual operations upon their understandings, their consciences and hearts, draws them to Christ, according to his own representation: "No man can come to me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him." The Father draws those whom he has taught, in the day of his power, by making them willing to come to Christ. They are drawn, not by constraint, but by the cords of love. Their understandings, their consciences, and their hearts, are opened to see the truth and feel the force of the apostle's declarations in the third of Romans, concerning the necessity and propriety of sinners' coming to Christ for pardon and salvation. "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law; that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore, by the deeds of the law, there shall no flesh be justified in his sight; for by the law is the knowledge of sin. But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested-even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all, and upon all

them that believe. - Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus; whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins-that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus." Those who are taught of God, see the truth of what the apostle here says of their just condemnation by the law, of the necessity of Christ's atonement, and of the propriety of their coming to him and believing in his atonement, in order to obtain pardon and acceptance in the sight of God. In this view of God, of Christ, and of themselves, they freely and joyfully come to Christ, being heavy laden with guilt, that they may find rest to their souls in the favor of God.

IMPROVEMENT.

1. If God teaches men in the manner which has been described, then his special grace is irresistible. It is certainly grace in God, to teach sinners what they are unwilling to know, and what they must know in order to be saved. This is teaching them what men and means cannot teach them, and what God teaches some, and not all. It is, therefore, not only grace, but special grace. And the manner in which God teaches some in distinction from others, shows that his special grace is irresistible. When he teaches by men and means only, which is his common way of teaching all without exception, sinners can and do resist his common grace. The old world resisted his grace, which led him to say, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man." Isaiah says of the impenitent Israelites in the wilderness, with whom God used the most powerful external means of instruction, "But they rebelled, and vexed his Holy Spirit." And Stephen says to unbelieving and impenitent sinners, who had been externally taught by Christ and by himself, "Ye stiff necked, and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye." Those whom God teaches only by his word and providence, universally resist his common grace. But when he teaches them by operating internally upon their understandings, hearts and consciences, they cannot resist his special grace, which takes away the sole ground and cause of resistance. This special operation slays the enmity of their hearts, and fills them with holy, benevolent affections. It makes them willing, in the day of his power, to be reconciled and submissive to his will, and to the terms of life proposed in the gospel. They are persuaded, not compelled, to come to Christ for salvation. Those who disbelieve and deny the doctrine of special grace

in the conversion of sinners, disbelieve and deny it upon the supposition that it is of the nature of compulsion, and inconsistent with the freedom and choice of the converted. But making men willing, cannot be inconsistent with their freely willing and choosing. The irresistible grace of God is irresistible, only because the subjects of it have no will, no desire, nor inclination to resist it. This irresistible grace, which makes men love and obey God, he continually exercises towards them, from the moment they are converted until they reach the kingdom of glory. Hence says the apostle, "Whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified." It is entirely owing to the special and irresistible grace of God, that some are saved, while others are lost. God does something different for those that are saved, from what he does for those that are lost. He makes some willing to come to Christ for salvation, but not others; and those whom he does not make willing to come to Christ for salvation, remain unwilling, and freely reject the counsel of God to their own destruction.

2. If men are taught of God in the manner that has been described, then repentance towards God is always previous to faith in Christ. None will come to Christ, until they are taught of God to love him and his law, and to condemn and loathe themselves for their disaffection to his character, and disobedience to his commands. Love to God and repentance of sin not only may be, but must be, before any can or will love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, and believe in him for salvation. Repentance cannot be before love, nor faith before love and repentance both. If this were not true, there would be no necessity or occasion of their being taught of the Father, in the manner that has been mentioned, in order to their coming to Christ. Our Saviour supposed that none would come to him, before they had been taught and had learned of the Father his character and their own. And it is impossible to see why any should come to Christ before they have learned, by a divine, special influence on their hearts, what God is and what they are. Before they have seen and loved God, and seen and hated their own conduct, they cannot see their need of Christ, nor the necessity of renouncing self dependence, and relying alone upon Christ for pardon and acceptance with God. Though the views and exercises of sinners before their hearts are changed, are often various; some having a greater sense of danger than of guilt, some having a greater sense of guilt than of danger, and some continuing much longer in this state of bondage than others; yet when their hearts are changed, their exercises are uniform in order, though they may not be sensible