ferings, increase, and final glory. Once more, the term kingdom is to be understood also, 3. Of heaven, and all the happiness and glory to be enjoyed there. So it is used by our Saviour in his sermon on the mount, where he assures those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, that theirs is the kingdom of heaven a; and in another place, Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom b. The splendour of this kingdom exceeds all description and imagination. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him c. In heaven, the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, means, ere long, to collect together all his faithful subjects from the most remote parts of his empire; to make one grand exhibition to their astonished sight of the riches of his glorious kingdom, and the honour of his excellent majesty; to unveil his infinite excellencies to their view, after a manner the present state will not admit of; and to entertain them with joys the most refined, satisfying, and eternal. Now the gospel is the word of this kingdom, as it has assured us upon the most certain grounds of its reality, and given us the amplest description of its glories our present imperfect faculties are capable of receiving. Life and immortality are brought to light by the gospel d. And God, of his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away e. Thus we have the sum of that doctrine which the ministers of Christ are instructed to publish to the world, and which is the seed the sower went forth to sow.-Hence we proceed, III. To consider the Ground into which the seed is cast, by which our Saviour intends the soul of man, that is, the understanding, judgment, memory, will, and affections. The ground, I mean the earth on which we tread, is now in a different state from what it was in the beginning; the curse of God having been denounced upon it f. In like manner the soul of man, in consequence of the apostacy of our first parents, is enervated, polluted, and depraved. This is true of every individual of the human race. It is a fact sufficiently attested by experience, and plainly asserted in Scripture: God made man upright; but they have sought out many inventions a. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned b. Who can bring There is none Of the nature, exdepravity, we shall a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one c. righteous, no not one; they are all gone out of the way d. The Scripture hath concluded all under sin e. tent, and dreadful effects of this miserable have frequent occasion to speak hereafter. It shall suffice at present to observe, that as there is a variety in the soil of different countries, and as the ground in some places is less favourable for cultivation than in others; so it is in regard of the soul. There is a difference in the strength, vigour, and extent of men's natural faculties; nor can it be denied that the moral powers of the soul are corrupted in some, through sinful indulgences, to a greater degree than in others. As to mental abilities, who is not struck with the prodigious disparity observable among mankind in this respect? Here we see one of a clear understanding, a lively imagination, a sound judgment, a retentive memory; and there another remarkably deficient in each of these excellencies, if not wholly destitute of them all. These are gifts distributed among mankind in various portions. But none possess them in that perfection they were enjoyed by our first ancestors in their primeval state. On the contrary, they are reduced, even in the most shining characters, to a very humiliating degree beneath the original standard. So that it is true of all mankind, that they are at best weak and fallible, especially in regard of the great concerns of religion. But it is with the moral powers of the soul we are here chiefly concerned. There is in every man, previous to his being renewed by the grace of God, a prevailing aversion to what is holy and good; and a strong propensity to what is sinful and pernicious. The carnal mind, as the apostle tells us, is enmity against God; a Eccl. vii. 29. b Rom. v. 12. e Gal. iii. 22. c Job xiv. 4. for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be a. But then this depravity, which is universal, is capable of being heightened and increased. This is too often the case. Repeated acts of sin confirm vicious habits, and render them unconquerable; and men, having a long while boldly resisted the dictates of natural conscience and the persuasions of religion, are at length given up to blindness of eyes and hardness of heart. In such cases they answer to that striking description of the apostle, where he speaks of them as ground which bearing thorns and briers, is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing, whose end is to be burned b. But there are some who, though partakers with others of the general depravity, are yet of a nature more tender and flexible; and though they have the seeds of all sin in their hearts, yet their growth having been checked by early instructions and the restraints of divine grace, the soil may be said to be more favourable for cultivation than that just described. This view of the matter receives confirmation from the different account our Saviour gives of the several kinds of ground in which the good seed was sown. That which was stony, by reason of the thin mould cast over it, was more favourable for the reception of the seed than the beaten path by the way-side; and that in the hedges, than the stony places. Yet neither of these soils, though somewhat different from each other, could bring forth fruit to perfection without cultivation. Nor do we mean to say, whatever difference there may be in the natural tempers of persons, or however they may be assisted and improved by education and the ordinary restraints of Providence, that they will any of them bring forth good fruit without the effectual influence of renewing grace. The ground must be first made good, and then it will be fruitful. So our Saviour says, Either make the tree good, and his fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and his fruit corrupt; for the tree is known by his fruit c. But of this we shall have occasion to speak more particularly hereafter.—It remains that we now, IV. Consider the general Process of this business, as it is either expressly described, or plainly intimated in the parable. a Rom. viii. 7. b Heb. vi. 8. c Matt. xii. 33. The ground, first manured and made good, is laid open by the plough; the seed is cast into it; the earth is thrown over it; in the bosom of the earth it remains a while; at length mingling with it, it gradually expands, shoots up through the clods, rises into the stalk, and then the ear; so ripens, and at the appointed time brings forth fruit. Such is the wonderful process of vegetation. Nor can we advert thus generally to these particulars, without taking into view at once the exertions of the husbandman, the mutual operation of the seed and the earth on each other, and the seasonable influence of the sun and the rain under the direction and benediction of divine Providence. So in regard of the great business of religion: the hearts of men are first disposed to listen to the instructions of God's word; these instructions are then, like the seed, received into the understanding, will, and affections; and after a while, having had their due operation there, bring forth in various degrees the acceptable fruits of love and obedience. And how natural in this case, as in the former, while we are considering the rise and progress of religion in the soul, to advert, agreeable to the figure in the parable, to the happy concurrence of a divine influence with the great truths of the gospel dispensed by ministers, and with the reasonings of the mind and heart about them. To shut out all idea here of such influence would be as absurd as to exclude the influence of the atmosphere and sun from any concern in culture and vegetation. Let the husbandman lay what manure he will on barren ground, it can produce no change in the temperature of it, unless it thoroughly penetrates it, and kindly mingles with it; and this it cannot do without the assistance of the falling dew and rain, and the genial heat of the sun. In like manner, all attempts, however proper in themselves, to change the hearts of men, and to dispose them to a cordial reception of divine truths, will be vain without the concurrence of almighty grace. Of Lydia it is said, the Lord opened her heart, that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul a. And it is God, the apostle tells us, that worketh in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure b. Nor can the seed, though cast into the most favourable soil, expand, shoot up, and ripen into fruit, without a concurrence of the same influence which a Acts xvi. 14. b Phil. ii. 13. Suppose the rendered cultivation in the first instance effectual. sun no more to rise, and the dews no more to fall, there would be a total end to vegetation, the seed would perish in the clods, and the earth cease to bring forth her fruits. And so it would be in the religious world, were the influences of divine grace totally suspended. And now, upon this view of the matter, how great the absurdity, as well as impiety of excluding the operations of the Holy Spirit from all concern in the renovation of the heart! If we may reason by analogy from the works of nature to those of grace, this reflection must strike us in the most forcible manner. It is true our Saviour does not, in his explanation of the parable, say any thing expressly of the influences of the Spirit. But the doctrine itself, which he elsewhere asserts in the clearest terms, is founded in the principle of the parable; and so interwoven with its very frame and contexture, that to deny the former, is in effect to destroy the latter. What man in his senses can suppose, that in the account our Lord here gives of sowing, he meant to affirm that the sun and the weather have no concern in the success of this business? How absurd then to imagine that in a discourse, wherein he represents by this figure of husbandry the effect of his gospel on the minds of his hearers, he had no regard at all to the exertion of a divine influence in order to render it effectual! Could he who every where taught that all nature is full of God, and that there is not a spire of grass that does not owe its vegetation to an almighty energy; could he, I say, be indifferent to so sublime and reasonable a doctrine as that of the sovereign control and influence of the Deity on the hearts of men? To object the difficulty of conceiving how this influence is exerted to the existence of the fact itself, is to plunge ourselves into a greater and still more inextricable difficulty; I mean that of shutting out God both from the natural and moral world, and placing blind chance and the will of a mere creature on the throne of supreme omnipotence. But the Scriptures every where assert in plain words what our Saviour in this parable takes for granted. He himself tells us, that except a man is born of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven: and at the same time replies to Nicodemus's objection, How can |