It has been suggested in the beginning of this head of the discourse, that to turn the heart of a sinner is the work of God. And most certainly, whatever conversion is, the scriptures authorize us to believe, that it is not the work of man; and indeed cannot be, since the extreme depravity and helplessness of his nature render him altogether insufficient to any good word or work. If conversion consisted in nothing more than the breaking off some outwardly vicious courses, or the mere adopting a line of regular attendance on the external forms of devotion; if it implied no more than decency of manners, and an exemption from gross indulgencies, or the relinquishing of former excesses; in those cases, perhaps, man might exert his power with considerable success, and, in part at least, claim the honor of being instrumental to his own salvation. But as conversion hath, for its subject, the immortal soul, with all its strong propensities, intemperate desires, irregular passions, impetuous appetites, and depraved principles; as it comprehends a work that gets at the very root of sin, and cleanses the fountain of corruption, that renovates the very constituent faculties of the human mind, and forms a radical cure in the very centre and seat of the malady; it is evident, that the change necessary to produce this effect must be the result of a divine agency; or, in plainer terms, that HE who made the heart, and HE alone, can change it. A truth this, confirmed by the express authority of the word of God. “Without me,” says Christ, “ye can do nothing.” John, xv. 5. And he says again, “No man _can_ come unto me, except the Father which hath sent me, _draw_ him.” John, vi. 44. In that solemn prayer uttered by the church in her distress, and recorded in the lamentations of Jeremiah, she acknowledges the same truth, when she cries, “Turn THOU us unto thee O Lord, and we _shall_ be turned.” Lam. v. 21. And this is the language of Ephraim bemoaning himself in Jer. xxxi. 18. Where, after having bewailed the refractoriness of his heart, that made him feel, under the discipline of Jehovah’s rod, like “a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke,” he cries out, “Turn THOU me and I shall be turned.” And when the great change was effected, in retrospect, as before in prospect, he attributes the accomplishment of it to the power of God, saying, “Surely, after that I WAS TURNED, I repented,” &c. verse 19. And, indeed, the passive form of the words of the text fully implies the truth I am contending for, especially when compared with similar language in Acts, iii. 19. Psal. li. 13. As for those passages of scripture, which seem to make the power of turning to be the sinner’s sole act, or to rest in the efforts of the ministers of the gospel, as Ezek. xiv. 6. and Mal. iv. 6. Acts, xxvi. 18. they are to be interpreted, in consistency with the general maxim already laid down, as only declarative in one case, of the _instrumentality_, which divine wisdom