The Emptiness of Natural Virtue

* But I know ‘you, that ye have not the love of God in you.”

When it is said, in a former verse of the gospel, that Jesus knew what was in man, we feel, - that it is a tribute of acknowledgment, rendered to his superior insight, into the secrecies of our constitutiof#. It was not the mere faculty. of perceiving what lay before him, that was ascribed to. him by the Evangelist. It was the faculty of perceiving what lay disguised under a semblance, that would have imposed on the understanding of other men. It was the faculty of detecting. It.was a discerning of the spirit, and that not through the transparency of such unequivocal symptoms, as brought its character clearly home to the view of the observer. But it was a discerning of the spirit, as it lay wrapt in what, to an ordinary spectator, was a thick and impenetrable hiding place. It was a discovery there of the real posture and habitude of the soul. It was a searching of it out, through all the recesses of duplicity, winding and counter- — winding in. such a way, as to elude altogether

the eye of common acquaintanceship. It was

the assigning to it of one attribute, at the time when it wore the guise of another attribute, — ot

utter.antipathy to the nature and design of his

mission, at the very time that multitudes were

drawn around him, by the fame of his miracles, — of utter indifference about God, at, the

very time that they zealously asserted the sanctity of his sabbaths, and resented as blasphemous, whatever they felt to be an usurpation of the greatness which belonged to him only.

It was in the exercise of this faculty, that Jesus came forward with the utterance of our text. ‘The Jews, by whom he was surrounded, had charged him with the guilt of profanation, and sought even to avenge it by his death, becatise he had healed a man on the sabbath day. And their desire of vengeagce was still more inflamed, by what they understood to be an assertion, on bis part, of equality with God. And yet, under all this appearance, and even with all this reality of a zeal about God,* did he who knew what was in man, pronounce of these his enemies, that the love of God’ was not in them. I know you, says he, — as if at this instant he had put forth a stretch of penetration, in order to find his way through all the sounds of godliness which he heard, and through all the symptoms of godliness which he saw, — I know that there does not exist within you that principle, which links to God, the whole of God’s obedient creation,x —! know that you do not love him, and that, therefore, you are utterly in want of that affecention, which lies at the root of all real, and of all acceptable godliness.;

It is mortifying to the man who possesses many accomplishments of character, to be told, that the greatest and most essential accomplishment of a moral being, is that of which he has no share, — that the principle on which we expatiated in our last discourses, does not, in any of its varieties, belong to him, — that, wanting it, he wants not-merely obedience to the first and“the greatest commandment, which is the love of God, but he wants what may be called the impregnating quality of all acceptable obedience whatever, — the spirit which ought to animate the performance of every other commandment, and without which, the most laborious conformity to the law of Heaven, may do no more than impress upon his person the cold and lifeless image of loyalty, while in his mind there is not one of its essential attributes.

We know nota more useful exercise than that of carrying round this conviction, amongst all the classes and conditions of humanity. In the days of our Saviour, the pride of the Pharisees stood opposed to such a demonstration; and in our own days too, there are certain pretensions of worth, and of excellence, which must be disposted, ere we can hope to obtain admittance for the humiliating doctrine of the gospel. For this gospel, it must be observed, proceeds upon the basis, not of a partial, but of an entire and universal depravity, among the men of the world. It assimilates all the varieties of the human character into one.common condition of guilt, and need, and helplessny 1 ai Q

ness. It presumes. the existence of such a moral disease in every son and daughter of Adam, as renders the application of. the same —

moral remedy indispensable to them all. The —

formalists of. Judea did not like to be thus — grouped with publicans and harlots, under one — description of sinfulness. Nor do men of taste, and feeling, and graceful morality, in our present day, readily understand how they should

require the same kind of treatment, in the work of preparing them for immortality; with the most glaringly. profligate and unrighteous. of their neighbourhood. They look to the ostensible marks of distmction between themselves and others; — and what wider distinction, they think, can possibly be assigned, than that which obtains between the upright, or the kind-hearted, on the one hand, and the ungenerous, or dishonest, on the other? Now, what we propose, in the following discourse, is to lead them to look a little farther, — and then they will see at least one point of similarity between these two classes, the want of one common ingredient with both, and which attaches to each of them a great: moral defect, that can only be repaired by one and the same application. * |.

t is well when we can find out an accordancy between the actual exhibition of human-nature on the field of experience, and the representation that is given of this nature on the field of revelation. Now, the Bible every where groups the individuals of our ‘species, into two general‘and distinct classes, and assigns to each of them its appropriate designation. It tells us af the vessels of wrath, and of the vessels of mer-Sea SERMON Xil. ’ 259 cy; of the travellers on a narrow path, and on a broad way; of the children of this world, and the children of light; and, lastly, of men who are carnally minded, and men who are spiritually minded. It employs these terms in a meaning so extensive, that by each couplet of them it embraces all individuals. There is no separate number of persons, forming of themselves a neutral class, and standing without the limits of the two others. And were it possible to conceive, that human nature, as it exists at present in the world, were laid in a map before us, you would -see no intermediate ground between the two classes which are thus contrasted in the Bible, ‘ — but these thrown into two distinct regions, with one clear and vigorous line of demarcatio between them.:; We often read of this line, and we often read of the transition from the one to the other side of it. But there is no trace of any middle department to be met with in the New Testament. The alternative has only two terms, and ours must be the one or the other of them. And as surely asa day is coming, when all the men of our assembled world shall be found on. the right or on the left hand of the throne of judgment — so surely do the carnal and the spiritual regions of human nature, stand apart from each other; and all the men who are now living on the surface of the world, are to be found on the right, or on the wrong side, of the line of demarcation.

We cannot ‘conceive, then, a question of mightier interest, than the situation of this line, — a line which takes its own steady and unfaultering ‘way through the thousand varieties of character that exist in the world; and which reduces them all to two great, and awfully important -divisions. “It marks off one part of the species from the other. We are quite aware that the terms which are employed tocharacterize the two sets are extremely unfashionable; and, what’is more, are painfully offensive to many a mind, whose taste, and whose habits, have.

not yet been brought under the overpowering

controul of God’s own message, expressed in.

God’s own language. They are such terms as would be rejected with a positive sensation of disgust by many a moralist, and would be thought by many more, to impart the blemish of a most hideous. deformity, to his eloquent and philosophical pages. It is curious here to observe how much the Maker of the human mind, and the mere observer of the human mind, differ in their views and representations of the same object. But when told, on the highest of all authority, that to be carnally minded is death, and to be spiritually minded is life and peace, we are compelled to acknowledge with a feeling of earnestness, greater than mere.curiosity can inspire, that the application of these terms, is a question of all others the most deeply: affecting to the fears, and the wishes of humanity.

In the prosecution of this question, let me attempt to bring a succession of characters before you, most of which must have met your own distinct and familiar observation; and of which, while exceedingly various in their complexion, we hope to succeed in convincing you, that the love of God, at least, is not in them. — If this can be made out against them, it may be considered as experimentally fixing to which of

ss the two great divisions of humanity they belong. “All who love God, may have boldness, when they think of the day. of judgment, because, like unto God, who himself is love, they will be pronounced meet*for the enjoyment, and the fellowship of him through eternity. — And: they. who want this affection when they die shall be turned into hell. They shall be found to possess that carnal mind which is enmity against God. So that upon the single point of whether they possess this love or not, hinges the question which I have just now started, — a question surely which it were better for every man to decide at the bar of conscience now, ere it comes under the review of that dread tribunal which is to award to him his everlasting habitation. -

I. Let us first offer to your notice, a man living in the grossness of animal indulgence, — a man, the field of whose enjoyments is altogether sensual, — and who, therefore, in addition to the charge he brings down upon himself, of directly violating the law of .God, is regarded by the admirers of what is tasteful’and refined in the human character, as a loathsome object of contemplation. There is something more here than mere wickedness of character to excite the regret or detestation of the godly: There is sordidness of character to excite the disgust of the elegant.. And let us just add one feature more to this portrait of deformity. Let us suppose the man in question to have so abandoned himself to the impulses of selfishness, ’ that no feeling and no principle whatever, restrains him from yielding to its temptations, that to obtain the gratification he is in quest of, he can violate ‘all the decencies, and bid away from him all the tendernesses of our common humanity, — that he has the hardihood to set the terrors of the civil law at defiance, — and that, for the money ‘which ministers. to every earthly appetite, he can even go so far, as to steel his heart against the atrocity of a murder. When we have thus set before you, the picture of one feasting on the prey of his inhuman robberies, we have surely brought our description as far down in the scale of character, as it can well be carried. And’ we have done so, on purpose that you may be at no loss to assign the place which belongs to him. It were a monstrous supposition altogether, that either the love of gratitude, or the love of moral esteem for the Deity, were to be found in the bosom of such a man. He then, of all others, is not spiritual but carnal; nor do we anticipate a single dissenting voice when we say, that whatever be the doubts and the delusions which.may prevail about men of another aspect, the man-whose habits and pursuits have now been sketched to you, stands on the wrong side of the line of demarcation.

We are far from saying, that a man of such a character as this 1s of frequent occurrence in society. We merely set him up as a kind of starting-post, for the future train of our argument. It is a mighty advantage, in every discussion, to. have a clear and undisputed outset, — and we trust, that, if thus far we have kept cordially by the-side of each other, we shall not cast out by the way, in the progress of our remaining observations.

Hi. Let us now proceed, then, to detach one offensive feature from the character of. him, whom we have thus set before you, as a compound of many abominations. Let us leave entire all his dishonesty, and all his devotedness to the pleasures of sense, but soften and transform his heart to such a degree, that he would recoil from the perpetration of amurder. This is a different portrait from the one which we formerly exhibited. ‘There is in it an instinctive horror at an act of violence, which did not belong to the other; — and the question we have now to put, is, Has the man who owns this improved representation, become, on this single difference, a spiritual man? We-answer this question by another. Is the difference that we have now assigned to him, due to the love of God, or to such a principle of loyal subjection to his authority, as this love is sure to engender? You will not call him spiritual from the mere existence of a feeling which would rise spontaneously in his heart, even though the Father of spirits were never thought of. We appeal to your own consciousness, of what passes within you, if the heart do not experience the movement of many a constitutional feeling, altogether unaccompanied by any reference of the mind, to the love, or to the character, or even to the existence of God. Are you not quite sensible, that though the idea of a God lay in a state of dormancy for hours, and tor days together, many of the relentings of nature would, in the mean while, remain with you? For the preservation and the order of society,

God has been kind enough to implant in the a SERMON XII. i LS Tye SG Rae pee ST Ra ee ee TCE a a ae

~

bosom of man, many a natural predilection, and many a natural horror, — of which he feels the operation, and the people of his neighbourhood enjoy the advantage, at the very time that one and all of them, unmindful of God, are walking in the counsel of their own hearts, and after the sight of their own eyes. He has done the same thing to the inferior animals. He has

endowed them with a principle of attachment

to their offspring, in virtue of which, they, generally speaking, would recoil from the murder of their young with as determined an -ab-

-horrence, as,.you would do from the murder of

a fellow-creature. You. would not surely say of the irrational instinct, that .because amiable, or useful, or pleasing to contemplate, there is any thing spiritual in the impulse it. communicates. ‘Then do not offer a violence both to Scripture and philosophy, by confounding, in the mind of mau, principles which are distinct from each other. Do not say,. that he is. spiritual, merely because he is moving in obedience. to his constitutional tendencies. Do not say, that

- he is not carnal, while all that he has done, or

abstained from doing, may be done or abstained from, though he lived without God in the world. And go not to infer,.while the pleasures of sense are the idols of his every affection — that because he would shudder to purchase -them, at the expense of another’s blood, he, on that single account, may be looked on as a spiritual man, and as standing on the right side of the line of demareation.

III. All this may be looked upon, as too indisputable for argument. And yet. it is the very principle which, if carried to its fair ex-

tent, and brought faithfully home to the conscience, would serve to convince of ungodliness, the vast majority of this world’s generations. If a natural recoil from murder, may be experienced by the bosom, in which there exists no love to God, — why may not this natural recoil be carried still farther, and yet the love of God be just as absent from the bosom as before? There are other dishonesties, of a far less outrageous character, than that by which you would commit an act of depredation; and other cruelties far less enormous, than that by which you would embrue your hand in another’s blood, — which still the generality of men would revolt from constitutionally, and that too, without the movement of any affection for their God, or even so much as any thought of him. We have only to conceive the softening of a further transformation, to take place on the man, with whom we set out at the beginning of our argument; and he may thus become, like the man we read of in the parable, who took comfort to himself in the security, that he had goods laid up for many years, and at the same time is not charged, either. with violence, or dishonesty in the acquirement of them. He is charged with, nothing, but a devoted attachment to wealth; and to the pleasures which that wealth can purchase. And yet, what an awful reckoning did he come under! He seems to have just been such a man, as we can be at-no loss to meet with every day in the range of our familiar acquaintances, — enjoying themselves in easy and comfortabie abundance; but at an obvious and. unquestionable distance ‘from any thing that

can be called atrocity of character. ‘There is a x not one of them perhaps, who would not recoil from an act of barbarity; and who would not ‘be moved with honest indignation, at the tale of perfidy or of violence. They live in a placid course of luxury, and good humour; and we are far from charging them with any thing which the world calls monstrous, — when we say, that the Father of spirits is unminded, and unregarded by them, and that the good things of the world are their gods. If it be a vain superfluity of argument to prove, that a man may not be spiritual, and yet be endowed with such a degree of natural tenderness, as to recoil from the perpetration of a murder, — then it is equally indisputable, that a man may not be spiritual, ° - though endowed with such a degree of natural tenderness, as to recoil from many lesser acts of cruelty, or injustice. In other words, he may be a very fair every day character; and if it be so sure a principle, that a man may not be a murderer, and yet be carnal, then let one and all of you look well to your own security; for it is the very principle which might be employed, to shake the thousands, and tens of thousands of ordinary men, out of the security in which they have entrenched themselves. 1V. But to proceed in this work of transformation. Let us now conceive a still more exquisite softening of affection and tenderness, to be thrown over the whole of our imaginary — character. We thus make another step, and another departure, from the original specimen. By the first step, the mind is made to feel a kind of revolting, at the atrocity of a murder; and the character ceases to be monstrous. .By the second, the mind is made to share in all ee Ee ‘the common antipathies of our nature, to what is cruel and unfeeling; and it is thus. wrought up to the average of character which obtains in society. By the third step, the mind is endowed with the warmer and more delicate sympathies of our nature, and thus rises to a more exalted place in the scale of character: It becomes positively amiable. You look to him, who owns all these graceful sensibilities, even as the Saviour looked unto the young man of the gespels, and, like the Saviour, you Jove him. Who can, in fact, refrain from doing homage to such a lovely exhibition of all that is soothing in humanity? and whether he be employed, in mingling his tears, and his charities, with the unfortunate, or in shedding a gentle lustre over the retirement of his own family, even orthodoxy herself, stern and unrelenting as she is conceived to be, cannot find it in her heart to frown upon him. But, feeling is one thing, and truth is another; and when the question is put, Do all these sensibilities, heightened and adorned as they are, on the upper walks of society, constitute a spiritual man? — it is not by a sigh, or an aspiration of tenderness, that we are to answer it. We are put on a cool exercise of the understanding; and we cannot close it against the fact, that all these feelings may exist apart from the love of God, and apart from the religious principle, — that the idea of a God may be expunged from the héart of man, and yet that heart be still the seat of the same constitutional impulses as ever, — that, in reference to the realities of the unseen and spiritual world, the mind may be an entire blank, and there, at the same time, be room in it, for the play of kindly and benevolent emotions. We commit these truths to your own experience, and if carried faithfully to the conscience, they may chase away another of the delusions which encompass it. There is no fear of me, for I have a feeling heart, is a plea which they put a decisive end to. This feeling heart, if unaccompanied by any sense of God, is no better evidence of a spiritual man, than is the

circulation of the blood. We are far from refusing it the homage of our tenderness. We feel a love to it, but we will not make a lie about it. We can make no more of it, than Scripture and experience enable us to do. And, if it be true, that a man’s heart may be the habitual seat of kind affections, while an affection for God is habitually away from it, — if it be true, that no man can be destitute of this affection, and at ine same time be a spiritual man, — if it be true,. that he who is not spiritual, is carnal, and that the carnally-minded cannot inherit the kingdom of God; — then the necessity lies upon us: he is still in the region and shadow of death; and if he refuse the arguments and invitations of the gospel, calling him over to another region than that which he now occupies, he must just be numbered among those more beauteous wrecks of our fallen nature, which are destined to perish and be forgotten.

V. But let us go still farther. Let us suppose the heart to be furnished, not merely with the finest sensibilities of our nature, but with its most upright and honourable’ principles. Let us conceive a man whose pulse beats high with the pride of integrity; whose every word carries security along with it; whose faithfulness in’ the walks of business has stood the test of many fluctuations; who, amid all the varieties of his fortune, has nobly sustained the glories of an untainted character; and whom we see by the salutations of the market-place, to be acknowledged and revered by all, as the most respectable of the citizens. Now, which of the two great regions of human character shall we make him to occupy? This question depends upon another. May all this manly elevation of soul, and of sentiment, stand disunited in the same heart, with the influence of the authority of God, or with that love of God which is the keeping of his commandments? The discerning eye of Hume saw that it could; and he tells us that natural honesty of temper is a better security for the faithfulness of a man’s doings, than all the authority of religious principle over him. We deny the assertion; but the distinction between the two principies on which it proceeds, is indisputable. There is a principle of honour, apart in the human mind altogether, from any reference to the realities of a spiritual world. It varies in the intensity of: its operation, with different individuals. It has the chance of being more entire, when kept aloof from the temptations of poverty; and therefore it is, that we more frequently meet with it in the upper and middling classes of life. And we can conceive it so strong in its original influence, or so grateful. to the possessor from the elevating consciousness which goes along with it, or so nourished by the voice of an applauding world, as to throw all the glories of a romantic chivalry over the character of him, with whom

God is as much unthought of, as he is unseeen gare

We are far from refusing our admiration. But we are saying, that the Being who brought this noble specimen of our nature into existence; who fitted his heart for all its high and generous emotions; who threw a theatre around him, for the display and exercise of his fine moral accomplishments; who furnished each of his admirers with a heart to appreciate his worth, and a voice to pour into his ear the flattering expression of it; — the Being whose hand upholds and perpetuates the whole of this illustrious exhibition, may all the while be forgotten, and unnoticed as a thing of no consequence. We are merely saying, that the man whose heart is occupied with a sentiment of honour, and is at the same time unoccupied with a sense of Him, who is the first and greatest of spiritual beings, is not a spiritual man. But, if not spiritual, we are told in the Bible, that there are only two terms in the alternative, and he must be carnal. — And the God whom he has disregarded in time, will find, that in the praises and enjoyments of time, he has gotten all his reward, and that he owes him no recompense in eternity. We appeal to the state of the public mind some years ago, on the subject of Africa, asa living exemplification of the whole argument. “Love thy neighbour as thyself,” says the Bible; and this precept, coming with all the force of its religious influence upon the hearts of men, who carry their respects to the will of a spiritual and unseen God, have urged them on, and ‘with noble effect, to the abolition of the deadliest mischief that was ever let loose upon the Species. And whether we look to the Quakers, who originated the cause, or to him who pioneered the cause, or to him who plead the cause, or to him who has impregnated with such a moral charm, the atmosphere of his country, that not a human creature can breathe of its air without taking in the generous inspiration of liberty along with it, — we cannot fail to observe, that one and all of them speak the language, and evince the tastes, ‘and are not ashamed to own their most entire and decided preference for the objects of spiritual men. There is an evident sense of religious duty, which gives the tone of Christianity, and throws the aspect of sacredness ‘over the whole of their domgs; and the unbaffled perseverance of the many years they had to struggle with difficulties, and to spend in the weariness of ever recurring disappointments, bears striking proof to the unquenchable energy of the Christian principle within them. But who can deny the large and important contributions which came in upon the cause from other quarters? We hold it quite consistent with the truth of human nature, to aver, that in this enlightened country, other principles may have lent their aid to the cause, and, apart from Christianity altogether, may have sent a commanding influence into the hearts of some of its ablest and most efficient supporters. ‘There is nothing in the presence of Christian principle to quell the impassioned fervour of our desires after right objects; but the absence of Christian principle does not necessarily extinguish this fervour. When we look back to the animating ferment of the British public, on the subject of Africa, we will ever contend, that a feeling of obligation to a spiritual being, was the ingredient which set it agoing, and which kept it agoing. But who can deny the existence and the powerful operation of other ingredients? An instinctive horror at cruelty, is a separate and independent attribute of the heart, and sufficient of itself to inspire the deepest tones of that eloquence. which sounded in Parliament, and issued from the press, and spread an infection over all the provinces of the empire, and mustered around the cause, thousands and tens of thousands of our

rallying. population, and gave such an energy to the public voice, that all the resisting jealousies, and interests of the country were completely overborne; — and hence the interesting spectacle, of carnal and spiritual men lending their respective energies to the accomplishment of one object, and securing, by their success, a higher name. for Britain in the world, than all the wisdom of her counsels, and all the pride of her victories, can ever achieve for her.

Were it our only aim to carry the acquiescence of the understanding, there might be a danger in affirming, and urging, and illustrating to excess, the position, that we want to establish among you ; — and it were perhaps better, to limit ourselves to one simple delivery of the argument. But our aim is, if possible, to affect the conscience, and to accomplish this object, not with one, but with many individuals. And when it is reflected, that.one development of the principle may come home more forcibly to some man’s experience than another, we must beg to be excused for one recurrence more to a topic, so pregnant of consequence to your everlasting interests. ‘There is a sadly meagre and frivolous conception of human. sinfulness,

wig that is prevalent amongst you, — and it goes to foster this delusion, that when we look abroad on the face of society, we must be struck with the diversity of character, which obtains among the individuals who compose it. Some there are who, in the estimation of the world, are execrable for their crimes, but others who, in the same estimation, ‘are illustrious for their virtues. In that general mass of corruption, to which we would reduce our unfortunate species, is there, it may be asked, no solitary example of what is pure, and honourable, and lovely? Do we never meet with the charity which melts at suffering; with the honesty which disdains, and is proudly superior to falsehood; with the active beneficence which gives to others its time and its labour; with the modesty which shrinks from notice, and gives all its sweetness to retirement; with the gentleness which breathes peace to all, and throws a beautiful lustre over the walks of domestic society? If we find these virtues to be sometimes exhibited, is not this an argument against the doctrine of such an entire, and unmitigated depravity, as we have been contending for? Will it not serve to redeem humanity from that sweeping indiscriminate charge of corruption, which is so often advanced against it, in all the pride and intolerance of orthodoxy? What better evidence can be given of our love to God, than our adherence to his law? And are not the virtues which we have just now specified part of that law? Are not they the very virtues which his authority requires of us, and which imparts such a charm to the morality of the New Testament? Now, it carries us at once to the bottom of this delusion, to observe, that though the religious principle can never exist, without the amiable and virtuous conduct of the New Testament; yet, that conduct may, in some measure, be maintained, without the religious principle. A man may be led to precisely the same conduct, on the impulse of many different principles. He may be gentle, because it is a prescription of the divine law; — or, he may be gentle, because he is naturally of a peaceful, or indolent constitution; — or, he may be gentle, - because he sees it to be an amiable gracefulness, with which he wishes to adorn his own character; — or, he may be gentle, because it is the ready way of perpetuating the friendship of those around him; — or, he may be gentle, because taught to observe it, as a part of courtly and fashionable deportment, — and what was implanted by education, may come in time to be confirmed, by habit and experience. Now, it is only under the first of these principles, that there is any religion in gentleness, ‘The. other principles may produce all the outward appear-. ance of this virtue, and much even of its inward complacency, and yet be as distinct from the religions principle, as they are distinct from one another. ‘To infer the strength of the religious principle, from the taste of the human mind, for what is graceful and lovely in character, would just be as preposterous, as to. infer it from the admiration of a fine picture, or a cultivated landscape.. ‘They are not to. be confounded. They occupy a-different place, even in the classifications of philosophy. We do. not deny, that the admiration of what is fine in character, is a principle of a higher order, than the admiration of what is fine In external scenery. So is a taste for what is beautiful in the prospect before us, a principle of a higher order, than a taste for the sensualities of the epicure. But they, one and all of them, stand at a wide distance from the religious principle: and whether it be taste, or temper, or the love of popularity, or the high impulse of honourable feeling, or even the love of truth, and a natural principle of integrity, — the

virtues in question may be so unconnected with religion, as to flourish in the world, and be rewarded by its admiration, even though God were expunged from the belief, and immortality from the prospects, of the species.

The virtues, then, to which the enemies of our doctrine make such a confident appeal,.may have no force whatever in the argument, — because, properly speaking, they may not be exemplifications of the religious principle. If you do what is virtuous, because God tells. you so, then, and then only, do you give us a fair example of the authority of religion over your practice. But, if you do it merely because it is lovely, because it is honourable, or because it is a fine moral accomplishment, — we will not refuse the testimony of our admiration, but we cannot submit to. such an error, either of conception, or of language, as to allow that there is any religion in all this. These qualities have our utmost friendship; and we give the most substantial evidence of this, when, instead of leaving them to their own solitary claims upon the human heart, we call in the aid of religion, and support them by its authority: “« Whatsoever things are pure, or lovely, or honest, or of good report; if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think of these things.” But we will not admit, that the mere circumstance of their being lovely, supercedes the authority of religion; nor can we endure such an injustice to the Author of all that is graceful, both in nature and morality, as that the native charms of virtue should usurp, in our admiration, the place of God — of him who gave to virtue all its charms, and formed the heart of man to love and to admire them.

Be not deceived, then, into a rejection of that doctrine which forms the great basis of a sinner’s religion, by the specimens of moral excellence which are to be met with in society; or by the praise which your own virtues extort from an applauding neighbourhood. Virtue may exist, and in such a degree too, as to constitute it a lovely object in the eyes of the world, but if there be in it no reference of the mind to the will of God, there is no religion in it. Such virtue as this has its reward in its natural consequences, in the admiration of others, or in the delights of conscious satisfac-~ tion. But we cannot see why God will reward it in the capacity of your master, when his service was not the principle of it, and you were therefore not acting at all the part of a servant to him, — nor do we see how he can reward it in the capacity of your judge, when, in the whole process of virtuous feeling, and virtuous sentiment, and virtuous conduct, you carried in your heart no reference whatever, for a single moment, to him as to your lawgiver. We do not deny that there are many such examples of virtue in the world; but then we insist upon. it, that they cannot be put down to the account of religion.

‘They often may, and actually do, exist in a state: of entire separation from the religious prnciple; and: in that case, they go no farther than to prove that your taste is unvitiated, that ‘your temper is amiable, that your social dispositions: promote the. peace and welfare of society; and they will be rewarded with its approbation. Now, it is well that you act your part as a member of society; and religion, by making this, one of its injunctions, gives us the very best security, that’ wherever its influence prevails, it will be done in the most perfect manner. But the point we labour to impress is, that a man may be what we all understand by a good member of society, without the authority of God as his legislator, being either recognised or acted upon. We do not say that his error lies in being a good member of society. This, though only a circumstance at present, is a very fortunate one. The error lies in his having discarded the authority of God, or rather, in his never having admitted the influence of that authority over his heart, or his practice. We want to guard him against the delusion, that the principle which he has, can ever be accepted as a substitute for the principle he has not, — or, that the very highest sense of duty, whcih his situation 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 citizens; and the gratitude of a thousand families ring the praises of his beneficence to the world: — If the actor in this splendid exhibition, carry in his mind no reference to the authority of God, we do not hesitate to pronounce him unworthy, — nor shall all the execrations of generous, but mistaken principle, deter us from putting forth our hand to strip him of his honours. What! is the world to gaze in admiration on this fine spectacle of virtue; and are we to be told that the Being, who gave such falculties to one of his children, and provides the threatre for their exercise, — that the Being, who called this moral scene into existence, and gave it all its beauties, — that he is to be forgotten, and neglected as of no consequence? Shall we give a deceitful lustre to the virtues of him who is unmindful of his God, — and with all the grandeur of eternity before us, can we turn to admire those short-lived exertions, which only shed a fleeting brilliancy over a paltry and perishable scene? -It is true that he who is counted faithful in little will also be counted faithful in much; and when God is the principle of this fidelity, the very humblest wishes of benevolence will be rewarded. But its most splendid exertions without this principle, have no inheritance in heaven. Human praise, and human eloquence, may acknowledge it; but the Discerner of the heart never will. The heart may be the seat of every amiable feeling, and every claim which comes to it in the shape of human misery may find a welcome; but if the love of God be not there, it is not right with God, — and he who owns it, will die in his sins: he is in a state of impenitency. Test Having thus disposed of those virtues which exist in a state of independence on the religious

principle, — we must be forced to recur’to the

doctrine of human depravity, in all its original aggravation. Man is corrupt, and the estrangement of his heart from God, is the decisive evidence of it. Every day of his life the first commandment of the law is trampled on, — and it is that commandment on which the authority of 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 bea 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 in 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 make some brilliant exhibitions of herself, without the instigation of ‘the religious principle. -But in these cases you seldom have the touchstone of a painful sacrifice, — and you never have a spiritual aim, after the good of our imperishable nature. It is easy to indulge-a constitutional feeling.. It is easy to make a pecuniary surrender. “It is easy to move gently along, amid the visits and ‘the attentions of kindness, when every eye smiles welcome, and the soft whispers of gratitude minister their pleasing reward, and flatter Pax into the delusion that you are an angel of mercy. But give us the benevolence of him, who can ply his faithful task in the face of every discouragement, — who can labour inscenes where there is no brilliancy whatever to reward him, — whose kindness is that sturdy and abiding principle which can weather all the murmurs of ingratitude, and all the provocations of dishonesty, — who can find his way through poverty’s putrid lanes, and depravity’s most nauseous and disgust- ing receptacles, — who can maintain the uniform and placid temper, within the secrecy of his own home, and amid the irksome annoyances of his own family, — who can endure hardships, as a good soldier of Christ Jesus, — whose humanity acts with as much vigour amid the reproach, and the calumny, and the contradiction of simners, as when soothed and softened by the poetic accompaniment of weeping orphans, and interesting cottages, — and, above all, who labours to convert sinners, to subdue their resistance of the gospel, and to spiritualize them into a meetness for the inheritance of the saints. We maintain, that no such benevolence, realizing all these features, exists, without a deeply seated principle of piety lying at the bottom of it. Walk from Dan to Beersheba, and, away from christianity, and beyond the circle of its influences, there is positively no such benevolence to be found. The patience, the meekness, the difficulties of such a benevolence, cannot be sustained without the influence of a heavenly principle, — and when all that decks the theatre of this world is withdrawn, what else is there but the magnificence of eternity, to poura 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 enterprises 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 away the palm of superiority and of triumph. But, Secondly, If all Scripture and all observation, are on the side of our text, should not this be turned by each of us into a personal concern? Should it not be taken up, and pursued, as a topic in which we all have a deep individual interest? Should it not have a more permanent hold of us, than a mere amusing general speculation? Are not prudence, and anticipation, and a sense of danger, all linked with the conclusion we have attempted to press upon you? In one word, if there be such a thing as a moral government on the part of God, — if there 24%

NS

be such a thing as the authority of a high and divine legislature, — if there be such a thing as a throne in heaven, and a judge sitting on that — throne, — should not the question, What shall [ do to be saved? come with all its big and deeply felt significancy into the heart and conscience of every one of us? We know that there isa very loose and general security upon this subject, — that the question, if it ever be suggested at all, is disposed of in an easy, indolent, and superficial way, by some such presumption, as that God is merciful, and that should be enough to pacify us. But why recur to any presumption, for the purpose of bringing the question to a settlement, when, upon this very topic, we are favoured with an authoritative message from God? — when an actual embassy has come from him, and that on the express errand of reconciliation — when the records of this embassy have been collected into a volume, within the reach of all. who will stretch forth their hand to it — when the obvious expedient of consulting this record is before us? And surely, if what God says of himself, is of higher signification than what-we think him to be, and if he tell us not merely that he is mercifal, but that there is a particular way in which he chooses to be so; — nothing remains for us but submissively to learn that way, and obediently to go along with it. But he actually tells us, that there is no other name given under heaven, whereby man can be saved, but the name of Jesus. He tells us, that it is only in Christ, that he has reconciled the world unto himself. He tells us, that our alone redemption is in him whom God has 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 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 anew creature. Sin has no Jonger 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. 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 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 progressive virtue, for the future. They are 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?