subject to the law of God neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." If you would know without a doubt who they are that are in the flesh, or possess the fleshly mind, our Saviour will tell you at once: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." This he said to Nicodemus to show him from the defect of the first birth the necessity of being born again. All that is born by natural generation then is flesh, is carnal, is enmity against God, until it is born again. *

And now let me repeat the question, can there be a particle of universal benevolence in those who hate the being that comprehends in himself infinitely the greatest portion of existence? Or a particle of love for moral excellence in those who hate the being that contains infinitely the greatest portion of moral excellence in himself, and hate him for that very reason?

III. By the same standard let us now test the natural principles which have been mentioned.

Enough has been said to show that these principles must be essentially different from holiness, because they are found in the great mass of those who have been proved to be destitute of holiness. But it may be profitable to pursue this subject a little further.

I begin by remarking that these principles may easily be conceived to have been implanted in men to fit them to live together in this world, without being at all designed to qualify them for subjects of the universal kingdom of God. Domestic affections were lodged in their nature to render them good members of a family. But these cannot constitute them useful members of the state without patriotism. By analogy patriotism and all the other limited affections cannot render them good citizens of the universe without universal love or holiness. And to cherish

* Mat. x, 21, 22, 25, 34-36. John iii. 6. and v. 40. and xv. 18, 23, 24. Rom. i. 28, 30. and viii. 7, 8. 1 John iii. 13.

the hope of being qualified for heaven by these, is like expecting by mere domestic affections to be fitted to subserve and even to manage the interests of a nation without a spark of patriotism.

Some of these principles, (particularly the moral sense,) appear to be essential to a moral agent.— Others, which are of the nature of disinterested affections, were doubtless intended to act as restraints on selfishness, to enable men to live in society; as without them it is manifest the world would be a hell and wholly unfit for the purposes of probation. But they may all be traced to sources entirely distinct from universal love. Of these the principal appear to be three.

(1.) Self-love. A great part of natural gratitude, the sense of honour, and the love of country may be traced to this source; the other parts, to sources yet to be named. Now I suppose it will be readily acknowledged by most of my hearers that the mere streams of self-love cannot be holy.

(2.) The love of natural fitness, or of beautiful proportions and relations, both in things material and immaterial. From this principle men are pleased with the proper proportions of a building, the good order of a family, the relations established in a well regulated state, the beautiful proportions of justice, of gratitude, of the virtues generally, and the exact fitness of one thing to another in the government of God. There is certainly much natural beauty in all these things. (independent of their simple subserviency to the glory of God and the happiness of his creation,) which therefore can please a mind that is a stranger to universal love. Can you not see a wide difference between delighting in proper proportions and delighting in the happiness of general being? Yet to a law of our nature as distinct from benevolence as this, (a law aided indeed by many associations of ideas,) may be traced the operations of con

science or the moral sense, the approbation of justice, of gratitude, of virtue generally, the principle which we call taste,—and a part of those which are denominated honour and patriotism.

Are these principles holy? Try the question in relation to conscience, which perhaps has the fairest pretension to this rank. If the approbation which conscience yields to the character and government of God were holy love, remorse of conscience would be true repentance, and then there would be true repentance in the world where the worm never dies.

(3.) Instincts. Under this head may be ranked a class of affections really disinterested, (because they terminate in the happiness of others,) amounting to a sort of limited benevolence. Of this class are the domestic affections. Of this class is humanity, comprehending compassion, and whatever else is pleasant in the social dispositions not included under the former names.

*

These affections are all amiable and useful in their place, and when duly subordinated materially aid the local operations of holy love. And being not destructible but by an uncommon domination of selfishness, their extinction becomes a mark of the last stages of degeneracy. But their grand defect is that they are limited in their very nature to a contracted circle. They do not go up to God, and breathe through him good wishes to the whole intellectual system. They brood exclusively over a private interest, and unless bound by a better principle, are ready to fly in the face of the whole universe that comes to disturb that. In their greatest enlargement they still exclude the Creator. They stop at the threshold of being. They fix on a drop of the ocean. Should they love a world as tenderly as a parent loves his child, and stop there, they would still be hostility to infinitely the greatest portion of exisA limited affection, (limited I mean, not by *Rom. 1. 31. 2 Tim. iii, 3.

tence.

the contracted view or capacity of the subject, but by its own nature,) necessarily includes, as it stands alone, a principle of hostility to the universe. The parent rises against God for taking away his child.* The patriot sets his country in array against all the rest of the world. The most extended of all these private affections regards but an infinitely small part of universal being, and is prone to set up the interest of that portion in opposition to the rest. Till they are subdued and bound and subjected by religion, they are all as really hostile to the universe as the most contracted selfishness.

Of all these instincts that which most resembles holy love is humanity. Yet even here the difference is easily traced. In those operations of humanity which we call compassion, men are generally satisfied with relieving the object from misery, with little concern for his positive happiness. In some cases, (as where an enemy suffers,) they do not desire the positive happiness of the object, nor even his complete relief, but only some alleviation of his sufferings. In no case do they wish him the highest degree even of earthly prosperity, and during the greatest commotion of their pity would be grieved to know that he was destined one day to outshine themselves. holy love knows no such limits: it wishes its object the greatest measure of happiness that his capacity will admit.

But

In cases where humanity desires the positive happiness of a wide extent of society, it then makes, of all the natural affections, the nearest approaches to universal benevolence. This is the hardest case of all.

*If you ascribe this effect to self-love, it does not weaken the argument. As far as the parent feels a personal calamity, it is because he loved his child. Now if you are disposed to put the love of his child on a level with the love of wealth, and call it a mere personal taste which selfishness loves to gratify, it renders the affection no less hostile. But where the parent fears for the happiness of the dead, he certainly mourns for another as well as for himself. I admit that if self-love were subjected he would not murmur; for then his parental love would be subjected also. But the two still appear to be distinct grounds of unsubmission.

But even here the difference may be plainly perceived. For, first, if in this shape humanity were -holy love, it would in all its subjects stand connected with the love of God and Christ and the Gospel.But some of its highest actings I have seen in a sweet tempered infidel, who never betrayed any malice except against the Gospel of Christ. Secondly, if humanity were holy love it would in all cases wish its object the best kind of happiness, that of communion with God. And thirdly, it would. take the highest complacency in that benevolence which makes God its centre, and would long to see such a temper universal. But in these three important respects it fails. It acts vigorously in many an infidel without exciting one solitary wish to see men enjoy communion with God, without producing the least complacency in religion or any desire for its advancement, without checking a violent opposition to the religion of Christ in every form.

This decisive proof of unholiness lies against all these natural principles. You will find them all in violent opposers of God and the Gospel. You might have found them all in the Jews, of whom our Saviour said that they had both seen and hated both him and his Father. You might have found them all in Adam immediately after the fall, before he began to be restored by grace, when it will be acknowledged that he was totally depraved. Indeed in a slavish subjection to these and other limited affections, which had raised their objects to the place of God, his whole depravity consisted.

Further, if these principles were holy we should expect to see the love of God and real godliness prevail exactly in proportion to their strength. But so far from this you find most of them stronger in infidels and libertines of mild and generous dispositions, than in some Christians whose tempers are naturally contracted and sour.