Universal alienation from God. Dead in trespasses and sins. a deep and settled and universal disagreement. They would be willing that God should rule over them, if he would leave them pretty much to themselves. But this he will not do. His very first and most emphatic command is, "THOU SHALT LOVE THE LORD THY GOD WITH ALL THY HEART, AND THY NEIGHBOR AS THYSELF;" and this they will not do. It is their fixed, their settled, their unchanging determination that they will not do it. Perhaps I ought not to call it a determination; for it is rather a feeling than a determination, a disrelish for holiness and the spiritual enjoyment of loving and serving God. The heart, sensitive as it is in regard to its own rights and interests, is cold and torpid in regard to its Maker's claims. Motive will not act upon it. Persuasion has no effect, for there is no feeling for persuasion to take hold of. Argument does no good, for though you may convince the understanding without much difficulty, the heart remains insensible and cold; — dead, as the Bible terribly expresses it,- dead in trespasess and sins. This coldness and insensibility of the heart towards God, lead to all sorts of sinfulness in conduct. It takes off restraint, gives up the soul to unholy feelings, increases the power of temptation, and thus leaves the soul the habitual slave of sin. These overt acts are the effects, not the cause, and he who, hopes to be morally renewed, must not look directly and mainly to his moral conduct, and endeavor to rectify that; but he must look deeper; he must examine his heart, and expect no real success which does not proceed from the warmth of spiritual life springing up there. I presume that a large portion of the readers of this chapter, will be persons who feel, in some degree, the value and the necessity of piety, and they are perhaps actually reading this book with a vague sort of wish to meet with something in it, which will help them to find salvation The book can do this only by showing you The real difficulty. Spiritual blindness. The ungrateful child. the real difficulty;— which is that you do not sincerely I wish for salvation. "Cease to do evil, ask forgiveness in the name of Christ for the evil you have done, and henceforth openly serve God." These are certainly directions which it is easy for you to understand, and easy to practise. The difficulty is, a heart which will not comply. There is a moral obligation to comply, which the understanding admits, but which the heart does not feel; and a moral beauty in complying, which it does not perceive. This is spiritual blindness. And yet, simple as it seems, a large portion, even of those who call themselves religious inquirers, have very little conception of what spiritual blindness is. It is insensibility to spiritual things, a dulness of moral perception, such that sin, though it is intellectually perceived, makes no impression, and holiness, though the word is understood, awakens no feeling of its excellence and beauty in the heart. I can best illustrate it by a simple case, such as parents often have occasion to observe. A noisy boy, three or four years old, was once running about the house, disturbing very much, by his rattling playthings and his loud outcries, a sick mother, in a chamber above stairs. I called him to me, and something like the following dialogue ensued.* "Where is your mother?" "She is sick up stairs." "Is she? I am sorry she is sick.” A pause. * As the reader proceeds through the dialogue, we wish he would recollect that the case is not brought forward to illustrate the general character of children. That is not our present subject. The story is told merely to illustrate the nature of blindness to spiritual things; and though true, it would have answered our purpose just as well, if it had been entirely imaginary. Children generally, or at least often, have a very keen sensibility to the guilt of ingratitude. The dialogue. Ingratitude. Moral insensibility. "Were you ever sick?" "Yes. I was sick once," said he, and he began to rattle his little feet upon the chair, and to move about in a restless manner, as if he wished to get down. "Oh you must sit still a moment," said I, "I want to talk with you a little more. When were you sick?" "What did your mother do for you, when you was sick?" "Oh she rocked me in the cradle." "Did she?— did she rock you? I am glad she was so kind. I suppose you liked to be rocked. Did she give you anything to drink?" "Did she make a noise to trouble you?" "No sir, she did not make any noise." 66 Well, she was very kind to you. to be kind to her, now she is sick. her in the cradle, because she is too I think you ought You cannot rock old to be rocked, but you can be gentle and still, and that she will like very much." "Oh but, "said the boy in a tone of confidence, as if what he was saying was perfectly conclusive and satisfactory, I want to ride my horse a little more." So saying, he struggled to get free, that he might resume his noisy sport. Probably nearly all the parents who read this dialogue, will remember, as they read it, many similar attempts which they have made, to lead a little child to perceive the moral beauty of gratitude, and to yield their hearts to its influence. But the child will not see or feel. It understands the terms;-it remembers its own sickness and its mother's kindness;— it knows that its mother is now sick, and that its noisy plays produce inconvenience and suffering; but every attempt to lead it to look at all these things in connexion, and to perceive and feel its own ingratitude, are vain. Spiritual blindness. The horse and his rider. Insensibility It has no perception of it, no sensibility to it. "I want to ride my horse a little more," is the idea that fills its whole soul; and duty, gratitude, obligation are unfelt and unseen. Your It is thus with you, my irreligious reader. heart has no spiritual perception of the guilt of ingratitude towards God, and the moral beauty and excellence of obedience to his law. You can look at the law, at God's character, at your own sins, at all the declarations of the Bible, but you do not feel their moral weight. The carnal, that is, the worldly mind, does not know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Objects of natural beauty may be seen in the same manner, and yet not appreciated. A traveller on horseback, emerges from the wood, on the declivity of a mountain, and there suddenly bursts upon his view, a widely extended prospect of fertile valleys, and winding streams, and fields waving with corn; farmhouses and smiling villages giving life to the scene. He stops to gaze at it with delight. His horse looks at it too, and sees it all as distinctly as his rider does. The fields look as green, and the groves as shady, and the streams glisten with as bright a reflection to one as to the other. But while the man gazes upon it with emotions of delight, the animal looks idly on, pleased with nothing but his moment's rest. All that is visible comes equally to both; but beauty is felt, not seen. Though the eye may bring in those combinations of form and color, which are calculated to awaken the emotion, there must be a heart to feel, within, or all will be mere vision;- cold, lifeless, stupid, vision. It is so with spiritual perception. You, my reader, may understand the gospel most thoroughly,- you may have studied the Bible with diligence and care, and may see clearly and distinctly all its truths; but there is a moral and spiritual meaning and power in them, to which The common case. Scene at evening. Feelings. the heart, while it remains worldly, remains utterly insensible. It does not see, it does not feel them. I know of nothing which more forcibly illustrates the cold insensibility of men to all that relates to God and holiness, and the salvation of the soul, than the trains of reflection which the unsanctified heart falls into, in its languid efforts to bring itself under religious influence. Let us take one case as a specimen of tens of thousands. The subject is a moral, upright young man, with an honest respect for religon, and a distinct understanding of its truths. He has been taught his duty from early infancy, and has at length left his father's roof, to come out into the world; and as he has not espoused his Savior's cause, his conscience keeps up a perpetual murmur, which makes him restless and dissatisfied, and destroys his peace. He has, all the time, a resolution carefully laid up in his mind, that he will become a Christian before long. This makes him feel as though he was keeping salvation within his reach, and helps a little to quiet conscience. He has lately resumed the habit, which he was early taught to establish, of reading a portion of scripture before he retires to rest. This duty he generally performs, though in a cold. and heartless manner, so that it does not in the least interfere with his leading, day after day, a life of irreligíon and sin. In fact he would be ashamed to have it known that he reads the Bible every day. He has just finished his chapter, and is sitting in his armed chair before the dying embers of his evening fire. He is alone, and it is near midnight. He walks to the window and looks for a few moments into the clear, cold sky, and a slight emotion swells in his heart, as he thinks of the boundless distance, and inconceivable magnitude of the stars he sees there. The feeling is mingled with a sort of poetic wish that he had a friend in the mighty Maker of them He soon gets into a contemplative |