quite an upright being, has committed a few errors only, and these all venial, not sufficient to condemn him; that he needs no atonement, nor Saviour but to teach him, and be his pattern, and this Saviour not divine :— -When I hear of sentiments like these from the pulpit, I fear there is a controversy with the law of God, and that it is meant to be understood, that he has relinquished his demand upon the sinner, of a stricter obedience, than he is disposed to yield.

Thus by putting aside the law, as we suppose is done in the outset, and hewing down the whole system to accommodate it to this fatal error, the whole, though somewhat consistent with itself, is rotten and deceptive. Thus the sinner is lulled, and soothed, and when asleep, is kept slumbering till he is lost. He never has any proper sense of his sins, nor respect for the violated law, regard for the holiness, and justice, and truth of God. He never becomes humble, nor fears God, nor embraces the Saviour, nor quits his sins. The gospel he hears is like the Siren's song, that lures but to destroy. It keeps men stupid till it is too late to be anxious to any profit.

nor

O, ye lost and ruined congregations! if my voice might reach you, I would tell you to look well to the ministry you attend. While it pretends to offer you life, it may destroy you. If you find it aiming to lessen the number, and diminish the aggravations of your sins, you ought to suspect it. You never will betake yourself to the Lord Jesus Christ, as your precious and only Saviour, till the commandment come home to your bosom, high and imperious in its claims; holy, and just, and good, in all it requires, and in all it threatens. In the sense of the apostle, sin must revive and we die, else there can be no hope that we shall be made alive in Christ Jesus. The multitudes who have gone to heaven, and the whole

army of believers who are bound thither, know the period when they felt themselves justly exposed to eternal death. The gospel that pretends to find you quite whole and happy, needing only a little instruction, and perhaps some reformation, and aims not to alarm and distress you, you may rest assured is a lie, and not the truth; it comes from hell, and not from heaven; and if embraced, will conduct you back with it to the recesses of perdition

SERMON XLVIII.

IMPENITENT MEN DESTITUTE OF HOLINESS.

Romans iii. 18.

There is no fear of God before their eyes.

THE text gives us man's native character. Such he is till the Spirit of God has sanctified him. The criticism that would apply this whole passage to the people only who lived before the flood, or to a very few of the baser sort of sinners, is a contrivance of infidelity, and is extensively employed, in the present day, to betray and ruin souls. The man who is willing to shape his creed by the divine record, is entirely satisfied, when he reads the passages in the Old Testament which are here quot ed; but when he finds them referred to by an inspired apostle, and by him applied to the whole human family, Jews and Gentiles, no shadow of doubt remains. He is now content to lie down under the humiliating charge they bring, and is ashamed and confounded before the great Searcher of hearts. He who has become a new creature will consent that "God be true, though every man a liar."

The fear of the Lord is a gracious affection, belonging not to the slave but to the son, and is the genuine fruit of a new heart, the beginning of wisdom. Hence where this affection is not, there are no gracious affections. And if this be true, and the text applies to all men in

their unsanctified state, then it plainly teaches us, that In unregenerate men there is no moral excellence.

My object at this time will be, not so much to prove the doctrine, as to account for its having been controverted, and offer some reasons for esteeming it a highly important doctrine.

I. Many have mistaken the native character of man, from having seen him capable of affections and deeds that are praiseworthy. It is not man's prerogative to judge the heart; hence, if the tendency of an action is to that which is good, it is imputed to the very motive that ought to have produced it. If the deed has a fair exterior, it is considered ungenerous not to impute it to correct principle. Men judge, however, on the maxim, that what is highly esteemed among men, cannot be abomination in the sight of God. Hence they dress up human nature in garbs of innocence; and conceive it impossible that there should be, under so much that is fair and good in conduct, an evil heart of unbelief.

They find men capable of kind, and generous, and honourable sentiments. They can be true, and trusty, and faithful, and affectionate; and they triumphantly ask, How can all this be when there is no love of God in the heart! They see discharged, and sometimes quite honourably, the offices of parent, husband, brother and child, and all the other domestic and social relations, and impute it all, though to be accounted for on other principles, to native moral excellence. Hence they are precipitated into a controversy with that plain and humbling testimony of heaven, that "The carnal mind is enmity against God, is not subject to his law, nor indeed can be."

Why will not men believe, what the scriptures so plainly teach, that the heart is deceitful above all things

and desperately wicked; and from this truth infer, that very different motives may lead to the same deeds. We often see that an amiable disposition, à tameness and mildness, such as distinguish the lamb from the wolf, and the vulture from the dove; and that results in the exercise of many an amiable affection, and the doing of many a kind action; may consist with the practice of sin, the habit of a daily violation of the divine law, a prompt rejection of all the overtures of the gospel, and an inveterate disgust for the duties of a cordial and secret piety. We have recognized, where there was all the instinctive amiableness that is ever claimed, the existence of a polished and fashionable infidelity; have marked offence taken, at the distinguishing doctrines of revelation, at the scruples of a well disciplined conscience, at the frequency and fervency of devotional exercises, and the elevated views and affections of the revived and happy believers. Still there were high pretensions to kindness, rectitude, generosity, and even piety. There was not a consciousness of the deep-rooted enmity of the heart to whatever is holy and heavenly. Men have wept under the sound of the gospel, and seemed the veriest converts to the truths under discussion, the affections enforced, and the duties urged, and ere they have passed the threshold of the sanctuary, have vented their spleen against the man, who reached their sensibilities, and drew from them, in an unguarded hour, their reluctant testimony to the gospel he announced.

We do not deny, that there has been seen in men, not sanctified, much that it would be disgraceful not to adinire, and envious not to praise, and evil not to imitate; and still we may have had indubitable evidence, that in the very same bosom there beat a heart hostile to God, and holiness, and heaven, Not certainly will God, who