cannot bring
forth good fruit; a sinful love and inclination cannot convert itself
into a holy love and inclination; Satan cannot cast out Satan.

There is need therefore of a Divine operation to renew, to radically
change, the heart and will. If they cannot renew themselves, they must
_be_ renewed; and there is no power that can reach them but that
mysterious energy of the Holy Spirit which like the wind bloweth where it
listeth, and we hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh
or whither it goeth. The condition of the human heart is utterly
hopeless, were it not for the promised influences of the Holy Ghost to
regenerate it.

There are many reflections suggested by this subject; for it has a wide
reach, and would carry us over vast theological spaces, should we attempt
to exhaust it. We close with the single remark, that it should be man's
first and great aim _to obtain the new heart_. Let him seek this first of
all, and all things else will be added unto him. It matters not how
active your conscience may be, how clear and accurate your intellectual
convictions of truth may be, how elevated may be your moral sentiments
and your admiration of virtue, if you are destitute of an _evangelical
experience_. Of what value will all these be in the day of judgment,
if you have never sorrowed for sin, never appropriated the atonement for
sin, and never been inwardly sanctified? Our Lord says to every man:
"Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or else make the tree
corrupt, and its fruit corrupt." The _tree itself_ must be made good.
The heart and will themselves must be renewed. These are the root and
stock into which everything else is grafted; and so long as they remain
in their apostate natural condition, the man is sinful and lost, do
what else he may. It is indeed true, that such a change as this is beyond
your power to accomplish. With man it is impossible; but with God
it is a possibility, and a reality. It has actually been wrought in
thousands of wills, as stubborn as yours; in millions of hearts, as
worldly and selfish as yours. We commend you, therefore, to the Person
and Work of the Holy Spirit. We remind you, that He is able to renovate
and sweetly incline the obstinate will, to soften and spiritualize the
flinty heart. He saith: "I will put a new spirit within you; and I will
take the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you an heart of
flesh; that ye may walk in my statutes, and