Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/100

96 being on earth at the door of whose heart he has not repeatedly knocked for entrance; yet we find only here and there a few, comparatively, who have cordially submitted to the empire of his grace. The generality of men oppose him at every avenue through which he is wont to gain the ascendancy in the soul, and thus cause him, so to speak, to turn away grieved at the obduracy and impenitency of their hearts. I am sure that I now speak the experience of many of our hearers. In order that you may through the divine blessing be brought to a due sense of the awful guilt you are incurring, and of the danger to which you are thus exposing yourselves, we shall endeavor to point out some of the ways in which men  'grieve the Holy Spirit of God.'

This is done,

1. By inconsideration. The want of calm, sober thought, is one of the greatest hinderances to a sinner's conversion to God.