146

DEPRAVITY OF HUMAN NATURE.

We shall conclude this part of our subject with two observations.

accessaries; when thus reduced to a naked | pentance, and called upon the people to
exercise of spirit, can you appeal to the
longings, and the affections of that spirit, as
the essential proof of your godliness? And
And, Secondly, That you may be con-
do you never, on occasions like this, dis-
cover that which is in your hearts, and de- vinced of the utter necessity of such a bap-
tect their enmity to him who formed them? tism, let us affirm the inadequacy of all
Do you afford no ground for the complaint the fairest virtues and accomplishments of
which he uttered of old, when he said, nature. God has, for the well-being of
"Have I been a wilderness unto Israel, and society, provided man with certain feel-
a land of darkness?" and do you not per-ings and constitutional principles of action,
ceive that with this direction of your feel- which lead him to a conduct beneficial to
ings and your desires away from the living those around him; to which conduct he
God, though you be outwardly clean, as by may be carried by the impulse of these
the operation of snow water, he may plunge principles, with as little reference to the
you in the ditch, and make your own clothes will of God, as a mother, among the in-
ferior animals, when constrained by the
to abhor you.
sweet and powerful influences of natural
affection, to guard the safety, and provide
for the nourishment of her young. Take
account of these principles as they exist in
the bosom of man, and you there find com-
passion for the unfortunate; the shame of
detection in any thing mean, or disgrace-
ful; the desire of standing well in the
opinion of his fellows; the kindlier chari-
ties, which shed a mild and a quiet lustre
over the walks of domestic life; and those
wider principles of patriotism and public
usefulness which, combined with an appe-
tite for distinction, will raise a few of the
more illustrious of our race to some high
and splendid career of beneficence. Now,
these are the principles which, scattered in
various proportions among the individuals
of human kind, gave rise to the varied hues
of character among them. Some possess
them in no sensible degree; and they are
pointed at with abhorrence, as the most
monstrous and deformed of the species.
Others have an average share of them;
and they take their station amongst the
common-place characters of society. And
others go beyond the average; and are
singled out from amongst their fellows, as
the kind, the amiable, the sweet-tempered,
the upright, whose hearts swell with hon-
ourable feeling, or whose pulse beats high
in the pride of integrity.

frame their doings, he told them of one
mightier than he, who was to baptize with
the Holy Ghost and with fire.

First. The efforts of nature may, in point of inadequacy, be compared to the application of snow water. Yet there is a practical mischief here, in which the zeal of controversy, bent on its one point, and its one principle, may unconsciously involve us. We are not, in pursuit of any argument whatever, to lose sight of efforts. We are not to deny them the place, and the importance which the Bible plainly assigns to them; nor are we to forbear insisting upon their performance by men, previous to conversion, and in the very act of conversion, and in every period of the progress, however far advanced it may be, of the new creature in Jesus Christ our Lord. We speak just now of men, previous to conversion, and we call to your remembrance the example of John the Baptist. The injudicious way in which the doings of men have been spoken of, has had practically this effect on many an inquirer. Since doing is of so little consequence, let us even abstain from it. Now the forerunner of Christ spake a very different language. He unceasingly called upon the people to do; and this was the very preaching which the divine wisdom appointed as a preparation for the Saviour. "He that hath two coats, let him impart to him that hath none; and Now, conceive for a moment, that the he that hath meat, let him do likewise.""Exact no more than that which is ap-belief of a God were to be altogether expointed."-" Do violence to no man; neither punged from the world. We have no doubt accuse any falsely, and be content with that society would suffer most painfully in your wages." Was not John, then, it may its temporal interests by such an event. be said, a mere superficial reformer? Had But the machine of society might still be he stopped short at this, he would have kept up; and on the face of it you might been no better. His teaching could have still meet with the same gradations of chadone no more than is done by the mere racter, and the same varied distribution of application of snow water. But he did not praise, among the individuals who compose stop here. He told the people that there it. Suppose it possible, that the world could was a preacher and a preaching to come be broken off from the system of God's adafter him, in comparison of which he and ministration altogether; and that he were to his sermons were nothing. He pointed the consign it, with all its present accommodaeye and the expectation of his hearers full tions, and all its natural principles, to some upon one that was greater than himself; far and solitary place, beyond the limits of and, while he baptized with water unto re-his economy-we should still find ourselves

in the midst of a moral variety of character; upon your compassion? and, instead of a and man, sitting in judgment over it, would desultory instinct, excited to feeling by a say of some, that they are good, and of moving picture of sensibility, and limited in others, that they are evil. Even in this effect to a humble fraction of your expendidesolate region of atheism, the eye of the ture, he call upon you to love your neighsentimentalist might expatiate among beau- bour as yourself, and to maintain this prinous and interesting spectacles,-amiable ciple at the expense of self-denial, and in mothers shedding their graceful tears over the midst of manifold provocations? You the tomb of departed infancy; high-toned love your children; still indispensably integrity maintaining itself unsullied amid right. But what if he should say, and he the allurements of corruption; benevolence has actually said it, that you may know plying its labours of usefulness; and patri- how to give good gifts unto your children, otism earning its proud reward, in the testi- and still be evil? and that if you love father, mony of an approving people. Here, then, or mother, or wife, or children, more than you have compassion, and natural affec- him, you are not worthy of him? The lustion, and justice, and public spirit but tre of your accomplishments dazzles the would it not be a glaring perversion of lan-eye of your neighbourhood, and you bask guage to say, that there was godliness in with a delighted heart in the sunshine of a world, where there was no feeling and no conviction about God.

In the midst of this busy scene, let God reveal himself, not to eradicate these principles of action-but giving his sanction to whatsoever things are just, and lovely, and honourable, and of good report, to make himself known, at the same time as the Creator and Upholder of all things, and as the Being with whom all his rational off spring had to do. Is this solemn announcement from the voice of the Eternal to make no difference upon them? Are those principles which might flourish and be sustained on a soil of atheism, to be counted enough even after the wonderful truth of a living and a reigning God has burst upon the world? You are just ;-right, indispensably right. You say you have asserted no more than your own. But this property is not your own. He gave it to you, and he may call upon you to give to him an account of your stewardship. You are compassionate;-right also. But what if he set up the measure of the sanctuary

glory. But what if he should say, that his glory, and not your own, should be the constant aim of your doings? and that if you love the praise of men more than the praise of God, you stand, in the pure and spiritual records of heaven, convicted of idolatry? You love the things of the world; and the men of the world, coming together in judgment upon you, take no offence at it. But God takes offence at it. He says,― and is he not right in saying ?-that if the gift withdraw the affections from the Giver, there is something wrong; that the love of these things is opposite to the love of the Father; and that, unless you withdraw your affections from a world that perisheth, you will perish along with it. Surely if these, and such like principles, may consist with the atheism of a world where God is unthought of and unknown,-you stand convicted of a still deeper and more determined atheism, who under the revelation of a God challenging the honour that is due unto his name, are satisfied with your holding in society, and live without him in the world.

SERMON V.

The Judgment of Men, compared with the Judgment of God.

"With me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man's judgment—he that judget me is the Lord."-1 Corinthians iv. 3, 4.

III. WHEN two parties meet together on | ferent case of man's entering into judgment the business of adjusting their respective with his God. Job seems to have been claims, or when, in the language of our text, they come together in judgment, the principles on which they proceed must depend on the relation in which they stand to each other: and we know not a more fatal or a more deep laid delusion, than that by which the principles, applicable to the case of a man entering into judgment with his fellow-men, are transferred to the far dif

aware of this difference, and at times to have been humbled by it. In reference to man, he stood on triumphant ground, and often spoke of it in a style of boastful vindication. No one could impeach his justice. No one could question his generosity. And he made his confident appeal to the remembrance of those around him, when he says of himself, that he delivered the poor that

cried, and the fatherless, and him that had | if there be any emphasis in the consideranone to help him; that the blessing of him tion, that he is God, and not man; or any that was ready to perish came upon him, delusion in conceiving of him, that he is and he caused the widow's heart to sing altogether like unto ourselves,-may not for joy; that he put on righteousness, and it all that ready circulation of praise, and of clothed him, and his judgment was as a acknowledgement, which obtains in society, robe and a diadem; that he was eyes to the carry a most ruinous, and a most bewitching blind, and feet was he to the lame; that he influence along with it? Is it not possible was a father to the poor, and the cause that that on the applause of man there may be he knew not, he searched out. On these reared a most treacherous self-complacency? grounds did he challenge the judgment Might not we build a confidence before of man, and actually obtained it. For we God, on this sandy foundation? Think are told, because he did all this, that when you not, that it is just this ill-supported conthe ear heard him, then it blessed him, and fidence which shuts out from many a heart when the eye saw him, it gave witness unto the humiliating doctrine of the gospel? Is him. there no such imagination as that because There is not a more frequent exercise of we are so well able to stand our ground mind in society, than that by which the before the judgment of the world, we shall members of it form and declare their judg- be equally well able to stand our ground bement of each other-and the work of thus fore the judgment-seat of the great day? Are deciding is a work which they all share in, there not many who, upon this very prinand on which, perhaps, there is not a day ciple, count themselves rich and to have of their lives wherein they are not called need of nothing? And have you never upon to expend some measure of attention met with men of character, and estimation in and understanding-and we know not if society, who, surrounded by the gratulations there be a single topic that more readily of their neighbourhood, find the debasing engages the conversation of human beings- views of humanity, which are set before us and often do we utter our own testimony, in the New Testament, to be beyond their and hear the testimony of others to the comprehension; who are utterly in the dark, virtues and vices of the absent-and out of as to the truth and the justness of such reall this has arisen a standard of estimation- presentations, and with whom the voice of and it is such a standard as many may God is therefore deafened by the voice and actually reach, and some have actually ex- the testimony of men? They see not themceeded and thus it is, that it appears to re-selves in that character of vileness and of quire a very extended scale of reputation guilt which he ascribes to them. They are to take in all the varieties of human charac-blind to the principle of the text, that he is ter-and while the lower extremity of it not a man; and that they may not be able is occupied by the dishonest, and the per- to answer him, though they may be able fidious, and the glaringly selfish, who are to meet the every reproach, and to hold out outcasts from general respect; on the higher the lofty vindication against every charge, extremity of it, do we behold men, to whom which any one of their fellows may prefer. are awarded, by the universal voice, all the And thus it is, that many live in the habitual honours of a proud and unsullied excel-neglect of a salvation which they cannot lence and their walk in the world is digni- see that they require; and spend their days fied by the reverence of many salutations in an insidious security, from which nothing -and as we hear of their truth and their but the voice of the last messenger, or the uprightness, and their princely liberalities, call of the last trumpet, shall awaken them. and of a heart alive to every impulse of sympathy, and of a manner sweetened by all the delicacies of genuine kindness; who does not see that, in this assemblage of moral graces and accomplishments, there is enough to satisfy man, and to carry the admiration of man? and can we wonder if, while we gaze on so fine a specimen of our nature, we should not merely pronounce upon him an honourable sentence at the tribunal of human judgment, but we should conceive of him that he looks as bright and faultless in the eye of God, and that he is in every way meet for his presence and his friendship in eternity.

Now, if there be any truth in the distinction of our text; if a man may have the judgment of his fellows, and yet be utterly unfit for contending in judgment with God;

To do away this delusion, we shall advert to two leading points of distinction between the judgment of men and that of God. There is a distinction founded upor the claims which God has a right to prefer against us, when compared with the claims which our fellow-men have a right to prefer against us;-and there is a distinction founded upon that clearer and more elevated sense which God has of that holiness without which no man shall see his face, of that moral worth without which we are utterly unfit for the society of heaven.

The people around me have no right to complain, if I give to every man his own; or, in other words, if I am true to all my promises, and faithful to all my bargains; and if what I claim as justice to myself, Í most scrupulously render to others, when

they are in like circumstances with myself. We cannot bring forward any rigid comNow, let me do all this, and I earn amongst putation of this matter. But we appeal to my fellows the character of a man of the experience of your own history, and to honour and of equity. Did I live with such your observation of others, if a man might a character in an unfallen world, these vir- not, without any painful, or any sensible tues would not at all signalize me, though surrender of enjoyment at all, stand out to the opposite vices would mark me out for the eye of others in a blaze of moral reuniversal surprise and indignation. But putation-if the substantial citizen might it so happens that I live in a world full of not, on the convivialities of friendship, be corruption, where deceit and dishonesty are indulging his own taste, and at the very common; where, though the higher de-time be securing from his pleased and sagrees of them are spoken of with abhor- tisfied guests, the attestations of their corrence, the lower degrees of them are looked diality-if the man of business might not at with a very general connivance ;-where be nobly generous to his friends in adverthe inflexibility of a truth that knows not sity, and at the same time be running one one art of concealment, and the delicacy of unvaried career of accumulation-if the an honour that was never tainted, would man of society might not be charming greatly signalize me;-and thus it is, that every acquaintance by the truth and the though I went not beyond the strict require- tenderness of his expressions, and at the ments of integrity, yet by my nice and un- same time, instead of impairing, be heightvarying fulfilment of them, should I rise ening his share of that felicity, which the above the ordinary level of human reputa-Author of our being has annexed to human tion, and be rewarded by the most flatter- intercourse-if a thousand little acts of acing distinctions of human applause. commodation from one neighbour to anBut again, I may in fact give to others other, might not swell the tide of praise and more than their own; and in so doing I may of popularity, and yet, as ample a remainearn the credit of other virtues. I may der of pleasurable feeling be left to each as gather an additional lustre around my cha- before. And even when the sacrifice is racter, and collect from those around me more painful, and the generosity more rothe tribute of a still louder and more rap-mantic, and man can appeal to some mighty turous approbation. I may have a heart reduction of wealth as the measure of his constitutionally framed to the feeling and beneficence to others, might it not be said the exercise of compassion. I may scatter on every side of me the treasures of beneficence. I may have an eye for pity, and a hand open as day for melting charity. I may lay aside a large proportion of my wealth to the service of others, and what with a bosom open to every impulse of pity, and with an eye ever lighted up by the smile of courteousness, and with a ready ear to all that is offered in the shape of complaint or supplication, I may not go beyond the demands of others, but I may go greatly beyond all that they have a right to demand, and if I signalize myself by rendering faithfully to every man his due, -still more shall I signalize myself by a kindness that is never weary, by a liberality that never is exhausted.

of him, if the life be more than meat, and the body than raiment, that still there is left to him more than he can possibly surrender? that, though he strip himself of all his goods to feed the poor, there remains to him that, without which all is nothingness,-that a breathing and a conscious man, he still treads on the face of our world, and bears his part in that universe of life, where the unfailing compassion of God still continues to uphold him, that instead of lying wrapt in the insensibility of an eternal grave, he has all the images of a waking existence around him, and all the glories of immortality before him, that instead of being withered to a thing of nought, and gone to that dark and hidden land, where all is silence and deep annihilation, a thouNow, we need not offer to assign the pre-sand avenues of enjoyment are still open to cise degree to which a man must carry the exercise of these gratuitous virtues, ere he can obtain for them the good will, and the good opinion of society. We need not say by how small a fraction of his income, he may thus purchase the homage of his ac- Thus it appears that after I have fulfilled quaintances, at how easy a rate he may all the claims of men, and men are satissend away one person delighted by his af- fied,-that after having gone, in the exerfability; or another by the hospitality of cise of liberality, beyond these claims, and his reception; or a third by the rendering men are filled with delight and admiration, of a personal service; or a fourth by the-that after, on the footing of equal and indirect conveyance of a present,-or, finally, for what expense he may surround himself by the gratitude of many poor, and the blessings and the prayers of many cottages.

him, and the promise of a daily provision is still made sure, and he is free to all the common blessings of nature, and he is freer still to all the consolations, and to all the privileges of the gospel.

dependent rights, I have come into judgment with my fellows, and they have awarded to me the tribute of their most honourable testimony, the footing on which

I stand with God still remains to be attended to, and his claims still remain to be adjusted,—and the mighty account still lies uncancelled between the creature and the Creator,-between the man who, in reference to his neighbours, can say, I give every one his own, and out of my own I expatiate in acts of tenderness and generosity amongst them, and the God who can say, You have nothing that you did not receive, and all you ever gave is out of the ability which I have conferred upon you, and this wealth is not your own, but his who bestowed it, and who now calls upon you to render an account of your stewardship,between the man who has purchased, by a fraction of his property, the good will of his acquaintances, and the God who asserts his right to have every fraction of it turned into an expression of gratitude, and devoted to his glory,-between the man who holds up his head in society, because his justice, and the ministrations of his liberality, have distinguished him, and the God who demands the returns of duty and of acknowledgement, for giving him the fund of these ministrations, and for giving what no money can purchase,-for putting the principle of life into his bosom,-for furnishing him with all his senses, and, through these inlets of communication, giving him a part, and a property, in all that is around him, for sustaining him in all the elements of his being, and conferring upon him all his capacities, and all his joys.

what is due to him, by what is due to our fellows in society. He made us, and he upholds us, and at his will the life which is in us, will, like the expiring vapour, pass away; and the tabernacle of the body, that curious frame-work which man thinks he can move at his own pleasure, when it is only in God that he moves, as well as lives, and has his being, will, when abandoned by its spirit, mix with the dust out of which it was formed, and enter again into the unconscious glebe from which it was taken. It was, indeed, a wondrous preferment for unshapen clay to be wrought into so fine an organic structure, but not more wondrous surely than that the soul which animates it should have been created out of nothing; and what shall we say, if the compound being so originated, and so sustained, and depending on the will of another for every moment of his continuance, is found to spurn the thought of God, in distaste and disaffection away from him? When the spirit returns to him who sitteth on the throne; when the question is put, Amid all the multitude of your doings in the world, what have you done unto me? When the rightful ascendency of his claims over every movement of the creature is made manifest by him who judgeth righteously; when the high but just pretensions of all things being done to his glory; of the entire heart being consecrated in every one of its regards to his person and character; of the whole man being set apart to his service, Now, what we wish you to feel is, that and every compromise being done away, the judgment of men may be upon your between the world on the one hand, and side, and the judgment of God be most that Being on the other, who is jealous of righteously against you-that while from his honour-when these high pretensions the one nothing is heard but admiration and are set up and brought into comparison gratitude, from the other, there may be such with the character and the conduct of any a charge of sinfulness, as, when set in or- one of us, and it be inquired in how far we der before your eye, will convince you, that have rendered unto God the ever-breathing he by whom you consist, is defrauded of gratitude that is due to him, and that obeall his offerings,-that, while all the com-dience which we should feel at all times to mon honesties and humanities of social life, be our task and our obligation; how shall are acquitted to the entire satisfaction of we fare in that great day of examination, others, and to the entire purity of your if it be found that this has not been the own reputation in the world, your whole heart and conduct may be utterly pervaded by the habit of ungodliness,-that, while not one claim which your neighbours can prefer, is not met most readily, and dis- Amid all the praise we give and receiv charged most honourably, the great claims from each other, we may have no claims of the Creator, over those whom he has to that substantial praise which cometh formed, may lie altogether unheeded; and from God only. Men may be satisfied, but he, your constant benefactor, be not loved, it followeth not that God is satisfied. Un-and he, your constant preserver, be not depended on, and he, your most legitimate sovereign, be not obeyed, and he, the unseen Spirit, who pervades all, and upholds all, be neither worshipped in spirit and in truth, nor vested with the hold of a rightful supremacy over your rebellious

tendency of our nature at all? and when he who is not a man shall thus enter into judgment with us, how shall we be able to stand?

der a ruinous delusion upon this subject, we may fancy ourselves to be rich, and have need of nothing, while, in fact, we are naked, and destitute, and blind, and miserable. And thus it is, that there is a morality of this world, which stands in direct opposition to the humbling representations of the Gospel; which cannot comprehend God is not man; nor can we measure what it means by the utter worthlessness

affections.