would as soon part with their lives as with their lusts; but now when the heart is rent from them truly, it is also rent from them everlastingly. Ezek. vii. 15—19.

4. The plough turns up and discovers such things as lay hid in the bosom of the earth before, and were covered under a fair green surface from the eyes of men. Thus, when the Lord ploughs up the heart of a sinner by conviction, then the secrets of his heart are made manifest, 2 Cor. xiv. 24, 25, the most secret and shameful sins will then out; for "the word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and secret intents of the heart." Heb. iv. 12. It makes the fire burn inwardly, so that the soul hath no rest till confession give a vent to trouble. Fain would the shuffling sinner conceal and hide his shame, but the word follows him through all his sinful shifts, and brings him at last to be his own accuser, witness and judge.

5. The work of the plough is but opus ordinabile, a preparative work in order to fruit. Should the husbandman plough his ground ever so often, yet if the seed be not cast in and quickened, in vain is the harvest expect. ed. This conviction also is but a preparative to a further work upon the soul of a sinner; if it stick there, and go no farther, it proves but an abortive or untimely birth: Many have gone thus far, and there they have stuck; they have been like a field ploughed, but not sow. ed, which is a matter of trembling consideration; for hereby their sin is greatly aggravated, and their eternal misery so much the more increased. O when a poor damned creature shall, with horror, reflect upon himself in hell-How near was I once, under such a sermon, to

conversion! My sins were set in order before me-my conscience awakened and terrified me with the guilt of them: many purposes and resolves I had then to turn to God, which, had they been perfected by answerable executions, I had never come to this place of torment: but there I stuck, and that was my eternal undoing. Many souls have I known so terrified with the guilt of sin, that they have come roaring under horrors of conscience to the preacher; so that one would think such a breach had been made betwixt them and sin, as could never be reconciled; and yet as angry as they were in that fit with sin, they have hugged and embraced it again.

6. It is best ploughing when the earth is prepared and mollified by the showers of rain; then the work goes on sweetly and easily, and never doth the heart so kindly melt, as when the gospel-clouds dissolve, and the free grace and love of Jesus Christ come sweetly showering down upon it; then it relents and mourns ingenuously. Ezekiel xvi. 63. "That thou mayest remember, and be confounded, and never open thy mouth any more, because of thy shame, when I am pacified towards thee for all that thou hast done." So it was with that poor penitent, Luke vii. 38. when the Lord Jesus had discovered to her the super-abounding riches of his grace, in the pardon of her manifold abominations, her heart melted within her she washed the feet of Christ with tears. And indeed there is as much difference betwixt the tears which are forced by the terrors of the law, and those which are extracted by the grace of the gospel, as there is betwixt those of a condemned malefactor, who weeps to consider the misery he is under, and those of a pardoned malefactor, that receives his pardon at the foot of the

ladder, and is melted by the mercy and clemency of his gracious prince towards him.

7. The plough kills those rank weeds which grow in the field, turns them up by the roots, buries and rots them. So doth saving conviction kill sin at the root, makes the soul sick of it, begets indignation in the heart against it. 2 Cor. vii. 11. The word Aganaktesin there signifies the rising of the stomach, and being angry even unto sickness; religious wrath is the fiercest wrath; now the soul cannot endure sin, it trembles at it. I find a woman more bitter than death," saith penitent Solomon, Eccl. vii. 26. Conviction, like a surfeit, makes the soul to loathe what it formerly loved and delighted in.

8. That field is not well ploughed where the plough jumps and skips over good ground and makes baulks, it must run up the whole field alike; and that heart is not savingly convicted where any lust is spared and left untouched. Saving conviction extends itself to all sins; not only to sin in general, with this cold confession-IAM A SINNER; but to the particulars of sin, yea, to the particular circumstances and aggravations of time, place, manner, occasions, thus and thus have I done; to the sin of nature as well as practice; "Behold I was shapen in iniquity." Psalm li. 5. There must be no baulking of any sin, the sparing of one sin is a sure argument thou art not truly humbled for any sin. So far is the convinced soul from a studious concealment of a beloved sin, that it weeps over that more than over any other actual sin.

9. New ground is much more easily ploughed than that which, by long lying out of tillage, is more consolidated and clung together by deep rooted thorns and brambles, which renders it difficult to the ploughman. This old ground is like an old sinner that hath lain a long time

hardening under the means of grace. O the difficulty of convincing such a person! Sin hath got such rooting in his heart-he is so habituated to the reproofs and calls of the word, that few such are wrought upon. How many young persons are called, to one obdurate, inveterate sinner? I do not say but God may call home such a soul at the eleventh hour, but I may say of these, compared with others, as Solomon speaks, Eccles. vii. 28. "One man among a thousand have I found," &c. Few that have long resisted the gospel, that come afterwards to feel the saving efficacy thereof.

REFLECTIONS.

1. O grace for ever to be admired! that

God should send forth his word and spirit The true conto plough up my hard and stony heart! yea, vert's reflecmine, when he hath left so many of more tion. tender, ingenuous, sweet and melting tempers, without any culture or means of grace. O blessed gospel-heart-dissolving voice! I have felt thine efficacy-I have experienced thy divine and irresistible power; thou art indeed sharper than any two-edged sword, and woundest to the heart; but thy wounds are the wounds of a friend: All the wounds thou hast made in my soul, were so many doors open to let in Christ; all the blows thou gavest my conscience, were but to beat off my soul from sin, which I embraced, and had retained to my everlasting ruin, hadst thou not separated them and me. wise and merciful physician! thou didst indeed bind me with cords of conviction and sorrow, but it was only to cut out that stone in my heart, which had killed me if it had continued there. O how did I struggle and oppose thee, as if thou hadst come with the sword of an enemy, rather than the lance and probe of a skilful and tender

hearted physician! Blessed be the day wherein my sin was discovered and imbittered' O happy sorrows, which prepared for such matchless joys! O blessed hand, which turned my salt waters into pleasant wine! and after many pangs and sorrows of soul didst, at length, bring forth deliverance and peace.

2. But O what a rock of adamant is this

stu

heart of mine! that never yet was wound- The stubborn ed and savingly pierced for sin by the ter- heart's reflecrors of the law, or melting voice of the gos- tion. pel! Long have I sat under the word, but when did I feel a relenting pang? O my soul! my pified soul! thou hast got thy antidote against repentance, but hast thou any against hell? Thou canst keep out the sense of sin now, but art thou able to keep out the terrors of the Lord hereafter? If thou couldst turn a deaf ear to the sentence of Christ in the day of judgment as easily as thou dost to the intreaties of Christ in the day of grace, it were somewhat; but surely there is no defence against that. Ah! fool that I am, to quench these convictions, unles I know how to quench those flames they warn me of.

3. And may not I challenge the first place among all the mourners in the world, who have all lost The miscarry- those convictions which at several times ing soul's re- came upon me under the word? I have flection. been often awakened by it, and filled with

terrors and tremblings under it; but those troubles have soon worn off again, and my heart, like water removed from the fire, returned to its native coldness. Lord! what a dismal case am I in! many convictions have I choaked and strangled, which, it may be, shall never more be revived, until thou revive them