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stony heart, and give you an heart of flesh."

This is done in regeneration, when convinced of sin by the Spirit of God, He brings the law in its spirituality upon the conscience, so that it rends the rocky heart, fills it with fear, trembling and astonishment, whereby all our presumption and confidence are shaken; and the heart is convinced that it has transgressed the law. It quakes, trembles, nor finds rest or peace; it is filled with bitterness and terror, and cries out with woful complaints, I am undone, I am ruined, by reason of my sin. Alas! what will become of me? What can I do to be saved? Lord, have mercy upon me! I am miserable while living, and undone when I die. This is the spirit of bondage that is brought by the law; it breaks the heart, but cannot melt it. The melting of the heart belongs to the gospel

"Law and terrors do but harden,

All the while they work alone;
But a sense of blood-bought pardon,
That will melt a heart of stone."

This hardness is removed by a revelation of the mercy of God in Christ to the soul. Thou art a rebel, and sinned against me; but I am merciful and gracious; I desire not the death of a sinner. "Whosoever believeth in me shall not perish." When such promises are applied to the soul by the Spirit of God, the soul is melted into a flood of tears, and admires the richness of God's mercy. This softness of heart is produced by gospel invitations. Christ comes by His Spirit to the contrite heart, and says, Be not afraid, come unto me. In me you shall find mercy and salvation; I can save to the uttermost,-I will not reject, but pity and help. The heart is softened through faith in Christ; the Spirit enables the sinner to receive Christ, and his atonement; to lay hold upon His righteousness, and to appropriate it to himself" In the Lord have I righteousness and strength." God melts a sinner's heart as a sovereign. Sometimes He does it by affliction-" Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I have kept thy word." Sometimes by kindness—“ Thou shalt remember thy ways, and be ashamed." "I will establish my covenant with thee, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord."

The reason why the Lord gives us a heart of flesh is that we may receive the Lord for our God, hear His voice, and obey His holy commandments. As God is willing that we should be His people, so we must be willing to have Him for our Lord. That

we may be united to Christ is another reason. This union took place before time, and in God's own time He brings us into the actual enjoyment of the same; and in order to realize this union a heart of flesh must be given. The application of the promises of God requires it. He has promised to speak peace-to give pardon, which a hard heart cannot receive. Oh what a glorious promise is this to God's people, that the Lord will take away the stony heart. It is beyond the power of men or angels. The Lord has promised that sensible sinners need not despairThis is an encouragement for faith and prayer. The Lord does not only promise to take away the heart of stone, but also to give a heart of flesh. This gracious frame is produced by the blessed Spirit; it is not a transient work but permanant. It is not like the repentance of Ahab under severe threatenings, or of Felix before Paul; or of Judas under his black despair. When this is produced, the mind is willing to be taught "Teach me thy truth, and thy will." The judgment is willing to assent; the will says, "Oh how I love thy law:" and the affection says, "I will run in the ways of God's commandments." inakes us fit to be the servants of God, and to follow Him whithersoever He goeth.

This

How blessedly does the word of God describe the character of one with a gracious heart. My dear reader, if you are such a one you will be ashamed of sin-" O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face unto thee; for mine iniquities are increased over my head.. I have sinned; What shall I do, O thou Preserver of men?" You will fear to sin. "The fear of the Lord is to depart from evil." The word of God will be your only rule-"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet." You will meditate on it, that you may understand it-“I meditate in thy precepts." You will obey it, and lay it up in your heart. "Thy word have I hid within my heart." "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel!" Yes, the preaching of the triumph of Christ on the cross, under the influence of God the Holy Ghost, will rend the rocky hearts of men as the rocks at His death were rent, and will cause the consciences of men to quake; but it will also bring comfort and joy to their immortal souls.

"How mighty thou art, O Lord, to convert

Thou only could'st conquer so stubborn a heart;
For thy love to lost man alone could constrain,
So stiffneck'd a rebel to love thee again.

'Thro' thee I embrace the ransoming grace,
Of Him who has suffered and died in my place,
Tho' I strove to withstand the force of thy hand,
Thy spirit would conquer, and I was constrained.
"In vain I withstood, and fled from my God,
For mercy would save me through Jesus's blood;
I felt it applied, and I joyfully cried,

Me-me thou hast loved, and for me thou hast died.
"For sinners like me thy mercy is free,

Who hunger and thirst for redemption by thee;
Lord, gather in more, make this the glad hour,
Compel them to yield in the day of thy power.'

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CHAPTER XXXII.

We have noticed the triumph of Christ in rending the rocks, as an emblem of His power in rending, or taking away, the stony heart, and giving a heart of flesh, through the preaching of the gospel.

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Now we will notice the opening of the graves, and see what may be gathered from it. "And the graves were opened, and many bodies of the saints that slept arose.' Matt. xxvii. 52. This was a proof of Christ's power over death and the grave by dying. "He through death destroyed him that had the power of it, that is, the devil, and abolished death itself," and became the plague of death, and the destruction of the grave, taking into His hands the keys of hell and death, that He might deliver His children "who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage;" thus the apostle speaks, Heb. ii. 14, 15. Christ by His death destroyed the devil, that had the power of death, i.e., of eternal death. Satan bringing in sin, gave him the power of death which was threatened by God as a punishment thereof. Sin and death having thus entered into the world, and all men being guilty of the one, and obnoxious untò the other, Satan came thereby to be their prince, as the author of that state, therefore he is called "the prince of this world;" (John xii. 31,) and the god of it. 2 Cor. iv. 4. All sinners

out of Christ are under his power; the whole world lieth in wickedness, or in the power of the wicked one: but his power is limited by the will of God, the Judge of all. The means whereby Satan's power was destroyed, was by the death of Christ. He

removed the condemnation of the sinner, which was on account of sin, the cause of death. Christ removed it, virtually in His death, actually in the application of it unto the sinner by the Spirit of God. Sin He has removed by the sacrifice of Himself, and taken away the dominion of Satan over death. John i. 29 ; xii. 31. Now Satan can no longer make use of death as penal, threatened in the curse of the law, to terrify the consciences of believers; for being justified by faith in the death of Christ, they have peace with God. Thus the fear or bondage of death is removed. The death of Christ, through the wise and righteous disposal of God, is victorious, all-conquering, and prevalent.

The aim of the world, and of Satan, was to bring Christ to death, and thus to render Him powerless; and they thought they had done it: His disciples thought so too-" We trusted," said they, "that it had been He which should have redeemed Israel." Luke xxiv. 21. But He is dead, and their hopes, as it were, were buried with Him in the grave. What can we expect from one that is taken, slain and crucified? Can He save others who it seems could not save Himself? Is it not a folly to look for life by the death of another? This was the reproach which the Pagans cast upon the Christians believing in one who was crucified. What could they expect from Him? And the apostle tells us that Christ's death on the cross was a stumblingblock to the Jew, and foolishness to the Greeks. 1 Cor. i. 23. And so it would remain had not the will, counsel, wisdom, and grace of God been in it-" to do whatsoever His hand and counsel determined before to be done." Things were so ordered, that by the death of Christ, sin and Satan should be destroyed. Like Sampson, He should in His death pull down the palace of Satan; and in dying, He should conquer and subdue all things unto Himself. All the angels of heaven stood looking on to see what would be the end of this great trial. Men and devils were ignorant of the great work which God had in hand; and while they thought they were destroying Him, God was in and by Him destroying them and their power! While His heel was bruised, He brake their head; and this is to teach us to leave all God's work unto Himself. He can bring light out of darkness, and meat out of the eater. He can disappoint His adversaries of their greatest hopes, and fairest possibilities, and raise the hopes of His own children from the grave," He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform anything. He taketh the wise in their own crafti

ness, and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong; but He saveth the poor from the sword, from their mouth, and from the hand of the mighty; so the poor hath hope." "To set up on high those that be low, that those which mourn may be exalted to safety." "He shall deliver thee in six troubles, yea, in seven there shall no evil touch thee." He can make suffering to be saving, death victorious, and heal us by the stripes of His Son! Christ in opening the graves destroyed the destroyer, and him that had the power of death. He took the keys of death in His own possession. He opens, and none can shut; He shuts, and none can open. The opening of the graves may also be an emblem of a soul quickened by the Spirit of God; brought out as it were from the grave of nature, wherein men lie buried in sin and corruption, bound with the napkins of enmity and ignorance. Christ calls such sepulchres, full of dead men's bones, aud all uncleanness within, that is, of hypocrisy and iniquity, (Matt. xxiii. 27, 28); strengthless and helpless, like Lazarus in the grave. Hence, divine regeneration is called by Christ a resurreotion-"Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live." As Lazarus was raised from the grave by the voice of Christ, so are we spiritually. The apostle says, "You hath He quickened who were dead in trespasses and sins." In a moral sense, dead as to spiritual things, in all the powers and faculties of their souls. But in regeneration a principle of spiritual life is infused. Christ is the resurrection and life unto His redeemed: He raises them from a death of sin to a life of grace, in consequence of which a man breathes in prayer to God, pants after Him; after more knowledge of Him in Christ; after communion with Him, discoveries of His love, and pardoning grace and mercy.

We will add but one thing more in connection with the "Triumph of Christ on the Cross as God-man," the testimony of the Centurion. "And when the Centurion which stood over against Him, saw that He so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, truly this Man was the Son of God." He concluded from the effects of Divine power that this Man was a Divine person. Here we have a heathen testimony to the Divinity of Christ, that He was the Son of God, and that by eternal generation, co-equal with His Father in all attributes and perfections; as the Creator, Sustainer, and Provider of all creatures in heaven and earth, and the great Redeemer of sinners. From

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