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.

and all of you look well to your own se- | the circulation of the blood. We are far from curity; for it is the very principle which refusing it the homage of our tenderness. We might be employed, to shake the thousands feel a love to it, but we will not make a lie and tens of thousands of ordinary men, out about it. We can make no more of it, than of the security in which they have en- Scripture and experience enable us to do. trenched themselves. And, if it be true, that a man's heart may IV. But to proceed in this work of trans-be the habitual seat of kind affections, while formation. Let us now conceive a still an affection for God is habitually away more exquisite softening of affection and from it, if it be true that no man can be tenderness, to be thrown over the whole of destitute of this affection, and at the same our imaginary character. We thus make time be a spiritual man,—if it be true, that another step, and another departure, from he who is not spiritual, is carnal, and that the original specimen. By the first step, the carnally-minded cannot inherit the the mind is made to feel a kind of revolting, kingdom of God;-then the necessity lies at the atrocity of a murder; and the cha-upon us: he is still in the region and racter ceases to be monstrous. By the second, the mind is made to share in all 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, V. But let us go still farther. Let us and thus rises to a more exalted place in suppose the heart to be furnished, not the scale of character. It becomes posi- merely with the finest sensibilities of our tively amiable. You look to him, who owns nature, but with its most upright and all these graceful sensibilities, even as the honourable principles. Let us conceive a Saviour looked unto the young man of the man whose palse beats high with the pride gospels, and, like the Saviour, you love him. of integrity; whose every word carries Who can, in fact, refrain from doing homage security along with it; whose faithfulness to such a lovely exhibition of all that is in the walks of business has stood the test soothing in humanity; and whether he be of many fluctuations; who, amid all the employed in mingling his tears, and his varieties of his fortune, has nobly sustained charities, with the unfortunate, or in shed- the glories of an untainted character; and ding a gentle lustre over the retirement of whom we see by the salutations of the his own family, even orthodoxy herself, market-place, to be acknowledged and restern and unrelenting as she is conceived vered by all, as the most respectable of the to be, cannot find it in her heart to frown citizens. Now, which of the two great reupon him. But, feeling is one thing, and gions of human character shall we make him truth is another; and when the question is to occupy? This question depends upon put, Do all these sensibilities, heightened another. May all this manly elevation of and adorned as they are, on the upper walks soul, and of sentiment, stand disunited in of society, constitute a spiritual man?-it the same heart, with the influence of the is not by a sigh, or an aspiration of tender-authority of God, or with that love of God ness, that we are to answer it. We are which is the keeping of his commandments? put on a cool exercise of the understand- The discerning eye of Hume saw that it ing, and we cannot close it against the fact, could; and he tells us that natural honesty that all these feelings may exist apart from of temper is a better security for the faiththe love of God, and apart from the reli- fulness of a man's doings, than all the augious principle, that the idea of a God thority of religious principle over him. We may be expunged from the heart of man, deny the assertion; but the distinction beand yet that heart be still the seat of the tween the two principles on which it prosame constitutional impulses as ever,-that ceeds, is indisputable. There is a principle in reference to the realities of the unseen of honour, apart in the human mind altoand spiritual world, the mind may be an gether, from any reference to the realities entire blank, and there, at the same time, of a spiritual world. It varies in the inbe room in it for the play of kindly and be-tensity of its operation, with different indinevolent emotions. We commit these truths viduals. It has the chance of being more to your own experience, and if carried faith-entire, when kept aloof from the temptafully to the conscience, they may chase away tions of poverty: and therefore it is, that another of the delusions which encompass we more frequently meet with it in the it. There is no fear of me, for I have a upper and middling classes of life. And feeling heart, is a plea which they put a we can conceive it so strong in its original decisive end to. This feeling heart, if un-influence, or so grateful to the possessor accompanied by any sense of God, is no from the elevating consciousness which better evidence of a spiritual man, than is goes along with it, or so nourished by the

voice of an applauding world, as to throw came in upon the cause from other quarall the glories of a romantic chivalry over ters? We hold it quite consistent with the the character of him, with whom God is as truth of human nature, to aver, that in this enmuch unthought of, as he is unseen. We lightened country, other principles may have are far from refusing our admiration. But lent their aid to the cause, and, apart from we are saying, that the Being who brought Christianity altogether, may have sent a comthis noble specimen of our nature into manding influence into the hearts of some existence; who fitted his heart for all its of its ablest and most efficient supporters. high and generous 'emotions; who threw a There is nothing in the presence of Christheatre around him for the display and ex-tian principle to quell the impassioned ferercise of his fine moral accomplishments; vour of our desires after right objects; but who furnished each of his admirers with a the absence of Christian principle does not heart to appreciate his worth, and a voice to necessarily extinguish this fervour. When pour into his ear the flattering expression of we look back to the animating ferment of it;-the Being whose hand upholds and per- the British public, on the subject of Africa, petuates the whole of this illustrious exhi- we will ever contend, that a feeling of oblibition, may all the while be forgotten, and gation to a spiritual being, was the ingreunnoticed as a thing of no consequence. dient which set it a going, and which kept We are merely saying, that the man whose it a going. But who can deny the existheart is occupied with a sentiment of ence, and the powerful operation of other honour, and is at the same time unoccu- ingredients? An instinctive horror at cruelpied with a sense of Him, who is the first ty, is a separate and independent attribute and greatest of spiritual beings, is not a of the heart, and sufficient of itself to inspiritual man. But, if not spiritual, we are spire the deepest tones of that eloquence told in the Bible, that there are only two which sounded in parliament, and issued terms in the alternative, and he must be from the press, and spread an infection over carnal: and the God whom he has disre- all the provinces of the empire, and musgarded in time, will find, that in the praises tered around the cause, thousands and tens and enjoyments of time, he has gotten all of thousands of our rallying population, his reward, and that he owes him no re- and gave such an energy to the public compense in eternity. voice, that all the resisting jealousies and We appeal to the state of the public mind interests of the country were completely some years ago, on the subject of Africa, overborne ;-and hence the interesting as a living exemplification of the whole ar- spectacle, of carnal and spiritual men lendgument. Love thy neighbour as thyself," ing their respective energies to the accomsays the Bible; and this precept, coming plishment of one object, and securing, by with all the force of its religious influence their success, a higher name for Britain in upon the hearts of men, who carry their the world, than all the wisdom of her counrespects to the will of a spiritual and un-sels, and all the pride of her victories can seen God, have urged them on, and with ever achieve for her. noble effect, to the abolition of the deadliest Were it our only aim to carry the acquimischief that was ever let loose upon the escence of the understanding, there might species. And whether we look to the Qua- be a danger in affirming, and urging, and kers, who originated the cause, or to him illustrating to excess, the position, that we who pioneered the cause, or to him who want to establish among you;-and it plead the cause, or to him who has impreg- were, perhaps, better, to limit ourselves to nated with such a moral charm, the atmo-one simple delivery of the argument. But sphere of his country, that no human crea-our aim is, if possible, to affect the conture can breathe of its air without taking in science, and to accomplish this object, not the generous inspiration of liberty along with one, but with many individuals. And with it, we cannot fail to observe, that one when it is reflected, that one developement and all of them speak the language, and of the principle may come home more forevince the tastes, and are not ashamed to cibly to some man's experience than anown their most entire and decided pre-other, we must beg to be excused for one ference for the objects of spiritual men. recurrence more to a topic, so pregnant of There is an evident sense of religious duty, consequence to your everlasting interests. which gives the tone of Christianity, and There is a sadly meagre and frivolous conthrows the aspect of sacredness over the ception of human sinfulness, that is prevawhole of their doings; and the unbaffled lent amongst you, and it goes to foster perseverance of the many years they had this delusion, that when we look abroad on to struggle with difficulties, and to spend the face of society, we must be struck with in the weariness of ever recurring disap- the diversity of character which obtains pointments, bears striking proof to the un-among the individuals who compose it. quenchable energy of the Christian princi- Some there are, who, in the estimation of ple within them. But who can deny the the world, are execrable for their crimes, large and important contributions which but others, who, in the same estimation

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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.

are illustrious for their virtues. In that fer it from the admiration of a fine picture, general mass of corruption, to which we or a cultivated landscape. They are not would reduce our unfortunate species, is to be confounded. They occupy a differthere, it may be asked, no solitary example ent place, even in the classifications of phiof what is pure, and honourable, and love-losophy. We do not deny, that the admily? Do we never meet with the charity ration of what is fine in character, is a which melts at suffering; with the honesty principle of a higher order, than a taste for 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 appearance of this virtue, and much even of its inward complacency, and yet be as distinct from the religious 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 in

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, supersedes 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 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 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, 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 We shall conclude with three observasubject of the Almighty,-nor shall we tions: First, there is nothing more justly shrink from declaring the whole extent of fitted to revolt the best feelings of the human the principle. Let his path in society be heart against orthodoxy, than when any ever so illustrious, by the virtues which thing is said to its defence, which tends to adorn it; let every word, and every per-mar the credit or the lustre of a moral formance, be as honourable as a proud accomplishment so lovely as benevolence. sense of integrity can make it; let the sa- Let it be observed, then, that substantial lutations of the market-place mark him out benevolence is rarely, if ever, to be found as the most respectable of the citizens; apart from piety,--and that piety is but the and the gratitude of a thousand families hypocrisy of a name, when benevolence, in ring the praises of his beneficence to the all the unweariedness of its well doing, does

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 com

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.

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 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 sit ting on that throne, should not the ques tion, What shall I 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 is a 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 su perficial 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

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 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 you 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 in scenes 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 disgusting 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 sinners, 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 main-hand to it ;--when the obvious expedient of tain, 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 in-it. But he actually tells us, that there is no fluence 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 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

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 merciful, 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

other name given under heaven, whereby man can be saved, but the name of Jesus He tells, 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 hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,—that he might be just, while the justifier of him who be lieveth 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, afte having established the fact of human cor ruption, and recommended a simple acqui escence in the Saviour for forgiveness, What becomes of the corruption after this? Must we just be doing with it as an obstinate