Did you ever feel and experience this, any of you—­to justify God in your damnation—­to own that you are by nature children of wrath, and that God may justly cut you off, tho you never actually had offended Him in all your life?  If you were ever truly convicted, if your hearts were ever truly cut, if self were truly taken out of you, you would be made to see and feel this.  And if you have never felt the weight of original sin, do not call yourselves Christians.  I am verily persuaded original sin is the greatest burden of a true convert; this ever grieves the regenerate soul, the sanctified soul.  The indwelling of sin in the heart is the burden of a converted person; it is the burden of a true Christian.  He continually cries out:  “Oh! who will deliver me from this body of death, this indwelling corruption in my heart?” This is that which disturbs a poor soul most.  And, therefore, if you never felt this inward corruption, if you never saw that God might justly curse you for it, indeed, my dear friends, you may speak peace to your hearts, but I fear, nay, I know, there is no true peace.

Further, before you can speak peace to your hearts you must not only be troubled for the sins of your life, the sins of your nature, but likewise for the sins of your best duties and performances.

When a poor soul is somewhat awakened by the terrors of the Lord, then the poor creature, being born under the covenant of works, flies directly to a covenant of works again.  And as Adam and Eve hid themselves among the trees of the garden and sewed fig-leaves together to cover their nakedness, so the poor sinner when awakened flies to his duties and to his performances, to hide himself from God, and goes to patch up a righteousness of his own.  Says he, I will be mighty good now—­I will reform—­I will do all I can; and then certainly Jesus Christ will have mercy on me.  But before you can speak peace to your heart you must be brought to see that God may damn you for the best prayer you ever put up; you must be brought to see that all your duties—­all your righteousness—­as the prophet elegantly expresses it—­put them all together, are so far from recommending you to God, are so far from being any motive and inducement to God to have mercy on your poor soul, that He will see them to be filthy rags, a menstruous cloth—­that God hates them, and can not away with them, if you bring them to Him in order to recommend you to His favor.

My dear friends, what is there in our performance to recommend us unto God?  Our persons are in an unjustified state by nature; we deserve to be damned ten thousand times over; and what must our performance be?  We can do no good thing by nature:  “They that are in the flesh can not please God.”

You may do things materially good, but you can not do a thing formally and rightly good; because nature can not act above itself.  It is impossible that a man who is unconverted can act for the glory of God; he can not do anything in faith, and “whatsoever is not of faith is sin.”