Your heart, dear young Christian, is by nature a garden full of thorns and thistles, and all the culture of all the gardeners of divinity could not make it bring forth the smallest fruit for God. But the good seed, the incorruptible seed, the Word of God, which came from heaven, was sown in the garden, and by the Spirit’s gracious power, it took root and sent up its tender shoots.
Ah! but you say, alas! my garden grows so many thorns and thistles still, that I question whether the good seed be there at all.
Beloved friend, you cannot now root up the weeds, for the nature of the soil is to bring them forth, but you can keep them down by the sickle—“Reckon yourself dead,” and as you keep them down, so will the good seed—which shall hereafter fill every portion of your garden—flourish and be fruitful.