Suffer me to entreat you, in conclusion, that whenever you are seriously impressed with a conviction of evil, or the neglect of any christian duty, you will carry home the impression, to have its full effect upon the heart. For want of this care and this habit, many a salutary lesson, that strikes for the moment, is afterwards thrown away, unheeded and forgotten: and thus the very means of grace, which are ordained to recover us from sin, and enable us to “work out our salvation,” become the instruments of confirming us in error and guilt. The mind, which is continually accustomed to receive and to neglect religious instruction, may be thereby brought into a heedless and torpid state, from which it is well nigh impossible to be roused. Not that any thing “is impossible with God:” but I appeal to experience, and ask, whether it is not a notorious matter of fact, that many amongst us have for years uniformly persevered, in the same neglect of christian duties, the same worldly principles, the same evil courses, the same habits of intemperance and licentiousness and profaneness; and it will not be denied, that they have, in these years, frequently heard the voice of expostulation, and perceived the justice, the force, and the importance of it. Then why are they still unreclaimed?—because they have never followed up the conviction of “Thou art the man.” God grant, that this admonition may have its full effect upon us; that we may go and meditate, and pray; pray daily for the blessing of an humble and a teachable heart; pray for God’s grace, to correct all our sinful follies, and supply all our deficiencies. Probably, my brethren, we have been “leaning too little upon the hope of this heavenly grace;” we have been relying upon our own perception of right and wrong, our own choice and decision, our own feeble resolutions; if so, no wonder that we have failed, in our work of repentance and spiritual change. “Turn Thou us unto Thee, O Lord, and we shall be turned:” {188} here lies our hope and our strength, in the renewing influence of the Spirit of God. As we do desire, so let us fervently pray, that we may, in our course of penitence, imitate the example of the royal psalmist, and let contrition “have its perfect work;” that we may, here below, with heart and soul, join in the pious and repentant strains of David’s harp, and thus may be admitted to sing to other harps hereafter, in the chorus of the Redeemed above. SERMON XI. THE WAY OF THE LORD EQUAL. EZEK. xviii. 25. _Ye say_, _the way of the Lord is not equal_. _Hear now_, _O house of Israel_; _is not my way equal_? _are not your ways unequal_?