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nature, art, or mere human industry can do; and yet if the saving graces of the same Spirit be not added, he will be left far short of heaven. Mere oratory in some pathetical preachers, when they speak of matters doleful and terrible, will move the affections, and draw tears from some hearers. Likewise a plain, powerful conviction of the certainty of God's wrath denounced, and sense of some just judgment of God, may bring forth some tears, some humiliation, yea some kind of reformation. Did not Felix tremble, when Paul reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come? Acts xxiv. 25. Did not Ahab humble himself, when the prophet denounced God's judgments against him and against his house? 1 Kings xxi. 21, 27, 29. Did not the Israelites oft, when they were in distress, and when God did not only warn them with his word, but smote them with his rod, return and seek early after God? Psa. lxxviii. 34.

And whereas they say, they have tasted of the heavenly gift, and of the good word of God, and of the powers of the world to come; they may know, that such is the sweetness of God's promises, and such is the evidence and goodness of God's truth in the glad tidings of salvation, that, the common gift of the Spirit going with it, all the fore-mentioned feelings may be wrought in men altogether destitute of saving grace. For did not the seed sown in stony and thorny ground go thus far? Matt. xiii. 20 - 22. Did not those mentioned in the Hebrews, who notwithstanding all this might fall away irrecoverably, attain to thus much? Heb. vi. 4 - 6.

Now if men not in a state of grace may go so far, as has been proved, then it must not be marvelled that even such, with Herod, may also reform many things, Mark vi. 20.

Besides, they mistake, when they say, they are changed and reformed, if still they retain any bosom and beloved sin, as Herod did. To change sins, one sin into another, is no change of the man, for he changes the prodigality of his youth into covetousness in old age, remaining a notorious sinner before God