SHOULD we admit that an unconverted person is not a proper subject of ministerial exhortation because he has no power in himself to comply, the just consequences of this position would perhaps extend too far, even to prove the impropriety of all exhortation universally. For when we invite the weary and heavy-laden to come to Jesus that they may find rest; when we call upon back-sliders to remember from whence they are fallen, “to repent and to do their first works,” yea, when we exhort believers “to walk worthy of God who hath called them to His kingdom and glory”; in each of these cases we press them to acts for which they have no inherent power of their own, and unless the Lord the Spirit is pleased to apply the Word to their hearts, we do but speak to the air, and our endeavours can have no more effect in these instances than if we were to say to a dead body, “Arise and walk,” for an exertion of Divine power is no less necessary to the healing of a wounded conscience than to the breaking of a hard heart; and only He who has begun a good work of grace is able to revive or to maintain it.
JOHN NEWTON.
“You will find that the sweet sense of Christ’s love in the heart will enable you to rejoice in suffering, and then you need not fear but it will enable you to rejoice in the sufferings of death; for who or what shall separate believers from the love of Christ?”—Rev. William Romaine.