Such virtue as this has its reward in its na- | world: If the actor in this splendid exhitural consequences, in the admiration of bition, carry in his mind no reference to others, or in the delights of conscious satis- the authority of God, we do not hesitate to faction. But we cannot see why God will pronounce him unworthy,-nor shall all reward it in the capacity of your master, the execrations of generous, but mistaken when his service was not the principle of principle, deter us from putting forth our it, and you were therefore not acting at all hand to strip him of his honours. What! the part of a servant to him,-nor do we is the world to gaze in admiration on this see how he can reward it in the capacity fine spectacle of virtue; and are we to be of your judge, when, in the whole process told that the Being, who gave such faculof virtuous feeling, and virtuous sentiment, ties to one of his children, and provides and virtuous conduct, you carried in your the theatre for their exercise,-that the Beheart no reference whatever, for a single ing, who called this moral scene into exmoment, to him as your lawgiver. We do istence, and gave it all its beauties,-that not deny that there are many such exam- he is to be forgotten, and neglected as of ples of virtue in the world; but then we in- no consequence? Shall we give a deceitsist upon it, that they cannot be put down ful lustre to the virtues of him who is unto the account of religion. They often mindful of his God,-and with all the may, and actually do, exist in a state of grandeur of eternity before us, can we entire separation from the religious princi- turn to admire those short-lived exertions, ple; and in that case, they go no farther which only shed a fleeting brilliancy over than to prove that your taste is unvitiated, a paltry and perishable scene? It is true, that your temper is amiable, that your so- that he who is counted faithful in little cial dispositions promote the peace and will also be counted faithful in much; and welfare of society; and they will be re- when God is the principle of his fidelity, warded with its approbation. Now, it is the very humblest wishes of benevolence well that you act your part as a member of will be rewarded. But its most splendid society; and religion, by making this one exertions without this principle, have no of its injunctions, gives us the very best inheritance in heaven. Human praise, and security, that wherever its influence pre- human eloquence, may acknowledge it; vails, it will be done in the most perfect but the Discerner of the heart never will. manner. But the point we labour to im- The heart may be the seat of every amiapress is, that a man may be what we all ble feeling, and every claim which comes understand by a good member of society, to it in the shape of human misery may without the authority of God, as his legis- find a welcome; but if the love of God be lator, being either recognized or acted upon. not there, it is not right with God,-and he We do not say that his error lies in being who owns it, will die in his sins: he is in a a good member of society. This, though state of impenitency. only a circumstance at present, is a very Having thus disposed of those virtues fortunate one. The error lies in his having which exist in a state of independence on discarded the authority of God, or rather, the religious principle, we must be forced in his never having admitted the influence to recur to the doctrine of human depravity, of that authority over his heart, or his in all its original aggravation. Man is corpractice. We want to guard him against rupt, and the estrangement of his heart from the delusion, that the principle which he God, is the decisive evidence of it. Every has, can ever be accepted as a substitute day of his life the first commandment of for the principle he has not,-or, that the the law is trampled on, and it is that comvery highest sense of duty, which his situ-mandment on which the authority of the ation as a member of society, impresses upon his feelings, will ever be received as an atonement for wanting that sense of duty to God, which he ought to feel in the far more exalted capacity of his servant, and candidate for his approbation. We stand on the high ground, that he is the subject of the Almighty,-nor shall we shrink from declaring the whole extent of the principle. Let his path in society be ever so illustrious, by the virtues which adorn it; let every word, and every performance, be as honourable as a proud sense of integrity can make it; let the salutations of the market-place mark him out as the most respectable of the ciuzens; and the gratitude of a thousand families ring the praises of his beneficence to the

whole is suspended. His best exertions are unsound in their very principle; and as the love of God reigns not within him, all that has usurped the name of virtue, and deceived us by its semblance, must be a mockery and a delusion.

We shall conclude with three observations: First, there is nothing more justly fitted to revolt the best feelings of the human heart against orthodoxy, than when any thing is said to its defence, which tends to mar the credit or the lustre of a moral accomplishment so lovely as benevolence. Let it be observed, then, that substantial benevolence is rarely, if ever, to be found apart from piety,-and that piety is but the hypocrisy of a name, when benevolence, in all the unweariedness of its well doing, does

not go along with it. Benevolence may away the palm of superiority and of trimake some brilliant exhibitions of herself umph. without the instigation of the religious prin- But, Secondly, If all Scripture and all ciple. But in these cases you seldom have observation, are on the side of our text, the touchstone of a painful sacrifice,-and should not this be turned by each of us into you never have a spiritual aim, after the a personal concern? Should it not be taken good of our imperishable nature. It is easy up, and pursued, as a topic in which we all to indulge a constitutional feeling. It is have a deep individual interest? Should it easy to make a pecuniary surrender. It is not have a more permanent hold of us, than easy to move gently along, amid the visits a mere amusing general speculation? Are and the attentions of kindness, when every not prudence, and anticipation, and a sense eye smiles welcome, and the soft whispers of danger, all linked with the conclusion we of gratitude minister their pleasing reward, have attempted to press upon you? In one and flatter you into the delusion that you word, if there be such a thing as a moral are an angel of mercy. But give us the government on the part of God,-if there benevolence of him, who can ply his faithful be such a thing as the authority of a high task in the face of every discouragement, and divine legislature,-if there be such a who can labour in scenes where there is no thing as a throne in heaven, and a judge sitbrilliancy whatever to reward him,-whose ting on that throne,-should not the ques kindness is that sturdy and abiding princi- tion, What shall I do to be saved? come ple which can weather all the murmurs of with all its big and deeply, felt significancy ingratitude, and all the provocations of dis- into the heart and conscience of every one honesty, who can find his way through of us? We know that there is a very loose poverty's putrid lanes, and depravity's most and general security upon this subject,—that nauseous and disgusting receptacles,-who the question, if it ever be suggested at all, can maintain the uniform and placid tem- is disposed of in an easy, indolent, and super, within the secrecy of his own home, perficial way, by some such presumption, and amid the irksome annoyances of his as that God is merciful, and that should be own family, who can endure hardships enough to pacify us. But why recur to any as a good soldier of Christ Jesus,-whose hu- presumption, for the purpose of bringing manity acts with as much vigour amid the the question to a settlement, when, upon reproach, and the calumny, and the con- this very topic, we are favoured with an tradiction of sinners, as when soothed and authoritative message from God,-when an softened by the poetic accompaniment of actual embassy has come from him, and weeping orphans and interesting cottages, that on the express errand of reconciliaand, above all, who labours to convert sin- tion?-when the records of this embassy ners, to subdue their resistance of the gos- have been collected into a volume, within pel, and to spiritualize them into a meetness the reach of all who will stretch forth their for the inheritance of the saints. We main-hand to it ;--when the obvious expedient of tain, that no such benevolence, realizing all consulting this record is before us? And these features, exists, without a deeply seated surely, if what God says of himself, is of principle of piety lying at the bottom of it. higher signification than what we think Walk from Dan to Beersheba, and, away him to be, and if he tell us not merely that from christianity, and beyond the circle of he is merciful, but that there is a particular its influences, there is positively no such way in which he chooses to be so ;-nothing benevolence to be found. The patience, the remains for us but submissively to learn meekness, the difficulties of such a benevo- that way, and obediently to go along with lence, cannot be sustained without the in- it. But he actually tells us, that there is no fluence of a heavenly principle,--and when other name given under heaven, whereby all that decks the theatre of this world is man can be saved, but the name of Jesus. withdrawn, what else is there but the mag-He tells, that it is only in Christ, that he nificence of eternity, to pour a glory over its path, and to minister encouragement in the midst of labours unnoticed by human eye, and unrewarded by human testimony? Even the most splendid enterprizes of benevolence, which the world ever witnessed, can be traced to the operation of what the world laughs at, as a quakerish and methodistical piety. And we appeal to the abolition of the slave trade, and the still nobler abolition of vice and ignorance, which is now accomplishing amongst the uncivilized countries of the earth, for the proof, that in good will to men, as well as glory to God, they are the men of piety who bear

has reconciled the world unto himself. He tells us, that our alone redemption is in him whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,-that he might be just, while the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus;-and surely, we must either give up the certainty of the record, or count these to be faithful sayings, and worthy of all acceptation.

Lastly, The question may occur, after having established the fact of human corruption, and recommended a simple acquiescence in the Saviour for forgiveness, What becomes of the corruption after this? Must we just be doing with it as an obstinate,

sound strange, and mysterious, and foreign to the general style of your conceptions? Then be alarmed for your safety. The things you thus profess to be strange to you, are not the peculiar notions of one man, or the still more peculiar phraseology of another. They are the very notions and the very phraseology of the Bible, and you, by your antipathy or disregard to them, bring yourselves under precisely the same reckoning with God, that you do with a distant acquaintance, whom you insult by returning his letter unopened, or despise, by suffering it to lie beside you unread and unattended to. In this indelible word of God, you will meet with the free offer of forgiveness for the past, and a provision laid before you, by which all who make use of it, are carried forward to amendment, and pro

peculiarity of our nature, bearing down all our powers of resistance, and making every struggle with it hopeless and unavailing? For the answer to this question, we commit you, as before, to the record. He who is in Christ Jesus is a new creature. Sin has no longer dominion over him. That very want which constituted the main violence of the disease, is made up to him. He wanted the love of God; and this love is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost. He wanted the love of his neighbour; but God enters into a covenant with him, by which he puts this law in his heart, and writes it in his mind. The spirit is given to them who ask it in faith, and the habitual prayer, of, Support me in the performance of this duty, or, Carry me in safety through this trial of my heart and of my principles,-is heard with acceptance, and answered with power.gressive virtue for the future. They are The power of Christ is made to rest on those who look to him; and they will find to be their experience what Paul found to be his, they will be able to do all things through Christ strengthening them. Now, the question we have to put is,-Tell us, if all this

open to all, and at the taking of all; but in proportion to the frankness, and freeness, and universality of the offer, will be the severity of that awful threatening to them who despise it. How shall they escape, if they neglect so great a salvation?

SERMON XIII.

The natural Enmity of the Mind against God.

"The carnal mind is enmity against God."-Romans viii. 7.

quisite beauty to most revolting deformity, do not exclude from any, the one and universal attribute of decay, so neither may all the constitutional varieties in the former, from the most sordid to the most naturally upright and amiable, exclude the possession of some one and universal attribute; and it may be the very attribute assigned to nature in the text-even hostility against God.

Let us first offer some remarks on the affirmation of the text, that the carnal mind is enmity against God, and then shortly consider how it is that the gospel of Jesus Christ suits its applications to this great moral disease.

WE should be blinding ourselves against | But as all the varieties in the latter, from exthe light of experience, did we deny of many of our acquaintances, that they have either brought into the world, or have acquired, by a natural process of education, such a gentleness of temper, such a docility, such a taste for the amiable and the kind, such an honourable sense of integrity, such a feeling sympathy for the wants, and misfortunes of others, that it would not be easy, and what is more, we may venture to say, from the example of our Saviour, who, when he looked to the young man, loved him, that it would positively not be right, to withhold from them our admiration and our tenderness. Still it were a violation of all scriptural propriety in language, to say of them that they were not carnal, or not car- I. It appears a very presumptuous atnally minded. All, by the very signification tempt, on the part of a human interpreter, of the term, are carnal, whose minds either when the object which he proposes, and retain their original constitution, or have un- which he erects into a separate head of dergone no other transforming process than discussion, is to prove the assertion of the a mere process of natural education. Some text. Should not the very circumstance of minds are in these circumstances, more its being the assertion of the text, be proof agreeable to look upon than others, just as enough for you? On what better foundasome faces are more agreeable than others, tion can your belief be laid than on the to the eye. Each mind has its own pecu- testimony of God? and when we come to liar character, just as each face has its own understand the meaning of the thing testiset of features, and its own complexion. Ified, is not the bare fact of God being the

witness of it, sufficient ground for its cre- ing of the matter shall agree with God's dibility to rest upon? Shall man's reason-saying about it, it may make the truth of ing carry a greater authority along with it the text tell with energy upon your conthan God's declaration? Is your faith to sciences;—and it were well for one and all depend on the success or the failure of his of us, that we obtained a more overwhelmargument? Whether he succeed in esta- ing sense of our necessities than we have blishing the truth of the assertion or not, ever yet gotten; that we saw ourselves in upon independent reasonings of his own,- those true colours of deformity which reremember that by reading it out in his text, ally belong to us; that the inveteracy of he has already come forward with an ar- our disease as sinners were more known gument more conclusive than any which and more felt by us; that we could lift up his ingenuity can devise. And yet, how the mantle of delusion, which the accomoften do your convictions lie suspended on plishments of nature throw over the carnal the ability of the preacher, and on the mind, and by which they spread a most soundness of his demonstrations? You re- bewildering gloss over all the rebelliousness fuse to believe truth, plainly set before you and ingratitude of the inner man. Could in the Bible, because the minister has failed we but make you feel your need and your in making out his point. Now, the truth helplessness as sinners,-could we chase of the point in question may have already away from you the pride and the security received its decisive settlement, from the of your fancied attainments; could we lead text delivered in your hearing. We may you to mourn and be in heaviness, under a try, and take our own way of bringing the sense of your alienations and idolatries, truth of your enmity against God, close and risings of hatred against the God who and home upon your consciences. But, if created and who sustains you ;—then might there be truth in all the sayings of the we look for the overtures of the gospel being Bible, enough has been already said to un-more thankfully listened to, more cordially dermine the security of your fancied attainments. It is said, that in our nature there is a rooted and an embodied character of hostility to our Maker. This should make the wisest and most sufficient among you feel that you are poor indeed,—and let other expedients, to press home the melancholy truth fail, or be effectual as they may, this is surely enough to convince and to alarm you.

embraced, more rejoiced in as the alone suitable remedy to the wants and the sorenesses of your fallen nature, then might we look for the attitude of self-dependence being broken down, and for all trust, and all glorying, being transferred from ourselves, and laid upon Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

It is no proof of love to God that we do many things, and that too with the willing But, though we cannot add to the truth consent of the mind, the performance of of God, there is such a thing as what the which is agreeable to his law. If the same Apostle calls making that truth manifest to thing might be done upon either of two your consciences. Your own observation principles, then the doing of it may only may attest the very same truth, which God prove the existence of one of these princiannounces to you in his word. And if it ples, while the other has no presence or be a truth, respecting the state of your own operation in the mind whatever. I do not heart, this agreement between what God steal, and the reason of it may be either says you are, and what you find yourselves that I love God, and so keep his commandto be, is often most powerfully instrumental ments, or it may be that I have honourable in reclaiming men to the acknowledgment feelings, and would spurn at the disgraceof the truth, and bringing their heart under fulness of such an action. This is only one its influence. This is the very argument example, but the bare statement of it serves which compelled the faith of the woman for a thousand more. It lets us in at once of Samaria. "Come and see the man which to the decisive fact that there are many told me all the things that ever I did; is principles of action applauded, and held not this the Christ ?" It is the very argu-in reverence, and most useful to society, ment by which many an unbeliever was convinced in the Apostle's days. The secrets of his heart were made manifest, and so falling down on his face, he worshipped God, and reported that God was in them, of a truth. We cannot make the assertion in the text stronger than God has made it already; but we may be able to guide your observations to that which is the subject of it-even to your own mind. We may lead you to attend more closely, and to view more distinctly, the state of your minds, than you have ever yet done. If your find

and withal urging us to the performance of what, in the matter of it, is agreeable to the law of God, which may have a practical ascendency over a man whose heart is alienated from the love of God. Propose the question to yourself, Would not Î do this good thing, or abstain from this evil thing, though God had no will in this matter? If you would, then, put not down what is altogether due to other principles to the principle of love to God, or a desire of pleasing him. The principle upon which you have acted may be respectable, and

honourable, and amiable. We are not disputing all this. We are only saying, that it is not the love of God; and should we hear any one of you assert, that I have nothing to reproach myself with, and that I give every body their own, and that I possess a fair character in society, and have done nothing to forfeit it, and that I have my share of generosity, and honour, and tenderness, and civility, our only reply is, that this may be very true. You may have a very large share of these and of other estimable principles, but along with the possession of these many things, you may lack one thing, and that one thing may be the love of God. An enlightened discerner of the heart may look into you, and say, with our Saviour in the text, "I know you that you have not the love of God in you." It is no test whatever of your love to God, that you tolerate him, when he calls upon you to do the things which your natural principles incline you to do, and which you would have done at any rate. But when he claims that place in your affections which you give to many of the objects of the world,-when he puts in for that share of your heart which you give to wealth, or pleasure, or reputation among men,--then is not God a weariness? and does not the inner man feel impatience and dislike at these grievous exactions; and when the will of God thwarts the natural current of your tastes and employments, is not God, at the moment of urging that will, with all the natural authority which belongs to him, a positive offence to you?

they are now fastened, if his presence were at all times attended to, and he was regarded with that affection which he at all times demands of us!

This may explain a fact, which we fear must come near to the conscience of many a respectable man, and that is, the recoil which he has often experienced, as if from some object of severe and unconquerable aversion, when the preacher urges upon his thoughts some scriptural representation either of the will or the character of God. Or take this fact in another way, and in which it presents itself, if not more strikingly, at least more habitually; and that is, the undeniable circumstance of God being shut out of his thoughts for the great majority of his time, and him feeling the same kind of ease at the exclusion, as when he shuts the door on the most unwelcome of his visitors. The reason is, that the inner man, busied with other objects, would positively be offended at the intrusion of the thought of God. It is because, to admit him, with all his high claims and spiritual requirements into your mind, would be to disturb you in the enjoyment of objects which are better loved and more sought after than he. It is because your heart is occupied with idols that God is shut out of it. It is because your heart is after another treasure. It is because your heart is set upon other things. Whether it be wealth, or amusement, or distinction, or the ease and the pleasures of life, we pretend not to know; but there is a something which is your god, to the exclusion of the great God of heaven How would you like the visit of a man and earth. The Being who is upholding whose presence broke up some arrangement you all the time, and in virtue of whose that you had set your heart upon; or mar-preserving hand, you live, and think, and red the enjoyment of some favourite scheme enjoy, is all the while unminded and unrethat you were going to put into execution? garded by you. You look upon him as an Would not you hate the visit? and if it were interruption. It is of no consequence to the often repeated,—if the disappointments you argument what the occupation of your heart received from this cause were frequent and be, if it is such an occupation as excludes perpetual,-if you saw a systematic design God from it. It may be what the world of thwarting you by these galling and nu- calls a vicious occupation,-the pursuits of merous interruptions, would not you also a dishonest, or the debaucheries of a proflicordially hate the visitor, and give the most gate life, and, in this case, the world has substantial evidence of your hatred, too, by no objection to stigmatize you with enmity shunning him, or shutting him out? Now, against God. Or it may be what the world is not God just such a visitor? O how many calls an innocent occupation-amusement favourite schemes of enjoyment would the to make you happy, work to earn a subsistthought of him, and of his will, if faithfully ence, business to establish a liberal proviadmitted to the inner chambers of the mind, sion for your families. But your heart may put to flight! How many fond calculations be so given to it that God is robbed of his be given up about the world, the love of portion of your heart altogether. Or it may which is opposite to the love of the Father. be what the world calls an honourable ocHow many trifling amusements behooved cupation,--the pursuit of eminence in the to be painfully surrendered, if a sense of walks of science or of patriotism; and still God's will were to tell upon the conscience there may be an exclusion, or a hatred of with all the energy that is due to it. How the God who puts in for all things being many darling habits abandoned, if the whole done to his glory. Or it may be what the man were brought under the dominion of this imperious visitor,-how many affections torn away from the objects on which

world calls an elegant occupation,-even that of a mind enamoured with the tastefulness of literature; but it may be so ena