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was not suffered to go unexecuted. From that hapless hour, his soul, the most noble part, was dead to all spiritual life, and became the abode of corroding passions and depraved principles. He immediately shrank from holding intercourse with God, and tried to hide himself from the presence of his benefactor. As Adam begat a son in his own fallen likeness, all his race partake of the same corrupt nature. We are ignorant of God and his ways. We need divine teaching; we cannot naturally understand the things of God, which are spiritual, the eye of our understanding being darkened; God is not in all our thoughts; we are averse to communion with the Father of Spirits. We despise his offers of free grace--we prefer to be saved by our own rather than God's method--we see no beauty in Jesus that we should desire him--we dislike to renounce our own, and trust in his complete righteousness--we consider his commands grievous, and the language of our soul is,
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But we are here told of a sovereign antidote for these deep-seated moral disorders of the soul. Here is a gracious promise of an abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to
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He convinces the soul, into which he enters, of the exceeding sinfulness of sin--that it is the evil thing which God hates; and shows the divine law is spiritual, extending to the thoughts and intents of the heart.[111] He puts a cry for mercy into the soul, destroys the natural enmity of the mind against God's plan of salvation, and makes the object of his divine teaching willing and anxious to partake of the Lord's bounty, and be a debtor to mercy alone. The Holy Spirit teaches of righteousness by convincing that a better righteousness than our own tattered rags is absolutely necessary, ere we can see the face of God with peace. He makes the soul willing to be clothed with the wedding garment of Jesus' righteousness, which is the fine linen of the saints. It is indispensable that we be clothed with this livery of the court of Heaven, or we shall be denied admission into the mansions of the King of Glory. Would we behold the fulfilment of this prophetic promise, then let us direct our minds back to a survey of the glorious scenes exhibited on the ever memorable day of Pentecost, when the Spirit was, in so free and copious a manner, poured out from on high. Attend to the sermon Peter preached on the day of his ordination; mark its effects on the three thousand of the House of David, inhabitants of Jerusalem's much-famed city. Listen to their cry,
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Men and brethren, what must we do? Surely these were none of the stout hearts who dared even to crucify the Lord of life and glory? The same! yet how different their tone--how altered their conduct! To what cause can we attribute this astonishing change in the minds of three thousand persons in the same instant of time? Surely it was none other than the almighty work of God the Holy Ghost. It was his influence on the minds of these men which produced the Spirit of grace and supplication, and taught them to direct the anxious cry and supplicating look unto him whom they had pierced. Was not the anguish of their souls, under a sense of their sins, equal to the exquisite sorrow of those who bitterly bewail the death of their first-born? However skilfully Peter might wield the sword of the Spirit, (the word of God,) it was none other than the God of all grace, who directed and sent it home with saving power to the hearts and consciences of these Jerusalem sinners. Are not the other triumphs of the Spirit worthy of regard, when five thousand are made willing cordially to embrace Christ crucified? May we not, by the way, observe, that the reception of the Gospel by such numbers so immediately after the ascension of Jesus, proved the truth of the facts recorded by the apostles, of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ? Many, no doubt, of these early converts of Christianity, had been eye-witnesses of several of the events, and _all_ had an opportunity of discovering the deception, if there had existed any, in the apostles' narrative. But no sooner are they persuaded to compare the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah, with all the circumstances in the history of Jesus of Nazareth, than they anxiously desire to be enlisted under the banners of the cross. Unable to resist the force of truth, they join the persecuted adherents of the crucified Jesus, and cast in their lot with his despised followers, although