There is need therefore of a Divine operation to renew, to radically change, the heart and will.  If they cannot renew themselves, they must be renewed; and there is no power that can reach them but that mysterious energy of the Holy Spirit which like the wind bloweth where it listeth, and we hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth.  The condition of the human heart is utterly hopeless, were it not for the promised influences of the Holy Ghost to regenerate it.

There are many reflections suggested by this subject; for it has a wide reach, and would carry us over vast theological spaces, should we attempt to exhaust it.  We close with the single remark, that it should be man’s first and great aim to obtain the new heart.  Let him seek this first of all, and all things else will be added unto him.  It matters not how active your conscience may be, how clear and accurate your intellectual convictions of truth may be, how elevated may be your moral sentiments and your admiration of virtue, if you are destitute of an evangelical experience.  Of what value will all these be in the day of judgment, if you have never sorrowed for sin, never appropriated the atonement for sin, and never been inwardly sanctified?  Our Lord says to every man:  “Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or else make the tree corrupt, and its fruit corrupt.”  The tree itself must be made good.  The heart and will themselves must be renewed.  These are the root and stock into which everything else is grafted; and so long as they remain in their apostate natural condition, the man is sinful and lost, do what else he may.  It is indeed true, that such a change as this is beyond your power to accomplish.  With man it is impossible; but with God it is a possibility, and a reality.  It has actually been wrought in thousands of wills, as stubborn as yours; in millions of hearts, as worldly and selfish as yours.  We commend you, therefore, to the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit.  We remind you, that He is able to renovate and sweetly incline the obstinate will, to soften and spiritualize the flinty heart.  He saith:  “I will put a new spirit within you; and I will take the stony heart out of your flesh, and will give you an heart of flesh; that ye may walk in my statutes, and keep mine ordinances, and do them; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.”  Do not listen to these declarations and promises of God supinely; but arise and earnestly plead them.  Take words upon your lips, and go before God.  Say unto Him:  “I am the clay, be thou the potter.  Behold thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden parts thou shalt make me to know wisdom.  I will run in the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.  Create within me a clean heart, O God, and renew within me a right spirit.” Seek for the new heart. Ask for the new heart. Knock for the new heart.  “For, if ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him.”  And in giving the Holy Spirit, He gives the new heart, with all that is included in it, and all that issues from it.