Page:Sermons preached in the African Protestant Episcopal Church of St. Thomas', Philadelphia.djvu/102

98 the heart man believeth unio righteousness." But we cannot thus believe the truth, unless we understand, or realize it in its personal application: nor can we thus understand it when presented to our minds unless we bestow upon it due thought and reflection. Thus you perceive how the thoughtless sinner defeats, if we may so speak, the purposes of divine grace. When the Holy Spirit presents to the impenitent mind divine truth, when he shows him his own character, his depraved and sinful state and the awful consequences that will inevitably follow, when he discovers unto him the character of God, his holiness, justice and truth, instead of his dwelling upon these truths in serious, sober and penitential thought, they are excluded from the mind to make room for subjects of a frivolous nature. So, the Heavenly Visitor is thus grieved and insulted at the cold repulse:—"go thy