3. But the admission of unchanged sinners to the kingdom of God is an utter impossibility, because they want that conformity of heart to the exercise of heaven, which is necessary to make them willing to stay there, even if they were admitted. And it was upon this ground, that our Lord told Nicodemus, that “except a man be born again, he could not see the kingdom of God.” John, iii. 3. By regeneration, the aversion of the heart to spiritual exercises is taken away, and a delight in them substituted in its stead. But in a carnal mind this aversion is deeply rooted. And could a sinner, under the influence of it, be suffered to enter the kingdom of heaven, all the bliss of paradise would be no heaven to him. Carrying with him an indisposedness of heart to the employ of heaven, and having his eyes previously blinded by carnal lusts, he would not see any beauty in the palace of the great King, or enjoy any satisfaction in the beatific presence of the King himself. Having been accustomed on earth to frequent the company of the dissolute and the gay, he would feel awkward and unhappy in the society of saints and angels. All the harps of heaven would communicate no melody to his ears; and the exercise of praise and adoration would appear, as it did on earth, an intolerable burden. He would derive no enjoyment even from that river of the water of life, that floweth in a pure and perennial stream of happiness from the throne of God, and of the Lamb: for, having left the world with his heart full of carnal delights, the recollected pleasures of the sensuality and dissipation below, would crowd in upon his mind to mar all the felicity of heaven, and to make him prefer a Mahometan paradise to the exalted fruition of the blessed God, and all the refined pleasures which they taste, who contemplate his perfections, and bask in the beams of his love. Besides the want of a disposition to the employ of heaven, there is in the hearts of the unregenerate a positive enmity against God, and the laws of his kingdom, which makes them rebels and enemies. And it cannot be supposed that such could find a place in that harmonious society, where perfect love to God is the bond of eternal concord and happiness among the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem. As soon might the devil and his angels expect to be translated to glory, as sinners, with hearts fraught with enmity against God, hope for a place in his kingdom. Rev. xxii. 11, 15. From what has been said, it is evident, 1. That, as conversion is the work of God, to prescribe “rules” for the sinner’s own accomplishment of it, as some legal authors have done, is palpably as absurd as to furnish a man with a set of rules for making a world. For the old and the new creation have one and the same agent; and he is the Almighty Creator of the universe. Isa. xlv. 17, 18.