controul which

ye

would not learn from the great

fountains of wisdom above!

Well indeed did the apostle say of those who knew not God, that they were "past feeling" when they "gave themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.' With good reason did he describe them, in another place, as "without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful, disobedient to parents ;" and, in nearly the same terms, enumerate amongst the characteristics of the "evil men" who should come in after times, that they should be "lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false swearers, incontinent." The sinner's heart is truly and beautifully described in scripture to be "dead in trespasses and sin."§ God designed it to be sensitive and alive to all the best and purest emotions; but man has turned it into that diseased and withered receptacle of all impure and malignant passions which we see it now. God made it to be a healthy and vigorous plant whereon all fair flowers and precious fruits might luxuriantly flourish;-but man has changed it

Eph. iv. 19.

+ Rom. i. 31.

§ Eph. ii. 1.

+ 2 Tim. iii. 2.

into a dead and distorted and barren trunk which is meet only to be cut down and burned. un szer: But it has been stated above, that, besides the general insensibility to proper feeling which is spoken of in the words of our text, our Lord referred also to a certain perversity of moral taste in the persons whom he condemned, as forming another prominent feature in the constitution of sin. And this we shall find in truth

to be one of its most alarming and universal characteristics. Those who have "chosen their portion in this life" are grievously mistaken, when they charge to the fault of religion herself that gloom and repulsiveness of aspect which, to their minds, all its exercises and all its obligations may seem to wear. And, on the same principle, they who have abandoned themselves to the unrestrained pursuit of pleasure, are equally wrong, when they suppose, amidst the jaded indifference of their palled and sated appetites, that God had no higher satisfactions to bestow on man than the miserable and licentious enjoyments from which they have derived so little permanent delight. In both cases the fault is in themselves;

in a misdirected choice which has fixed itself on objects that were not meant for preference in a perverted taste which, like the senses or the palate when they are suffering from the influence

U

of disease, "takes bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter," and "the light for darkness and the darkness for light"-a taste which must therefore, of necessity, bring upon itself all that wretchedness of disappointed hope and unsatisfied desire which unavoidably attends on a neglect of the provisions of nature, and. a departure from her destined course. Let us not, therefore, imagine, as we are all too much accustomed to do, that religion has no joy to yield, because we take no delight in its duties that there is no 66 pleasantness in the ways of wisdom," because we have failed to find it; that there is no comfort in the outpourings of prayer, and the answer of heaven to our heart, because we have tasted no sweetness in the formal routine of our dull devotions. The fault is in ourselves alone, and implies no deficiency in the wisdom or benevolence of God. It is because we view spiritual things with a jaundiced eye. It is because our vitiated taste can perceive "no form nor comeliness, no beauty that we should desire it," in the perfections of the gospel scheme. It is because, like one who gazes with indifference on the wonders of this lower world, our contracted and dull perceptions cannot grasp the excellent magnificence of its stately and sublime proportions, or expatiate on the grandeur of those prospects of glory which to the telescopic eye of

faith alone reveal themselves in all their real beauty and greatness, and seem to stretch away in the distance far through the regions of interminable space.

And Oh! how little do we know of the joys which even this world was designed to yield, while we lock up, by sin, the avenues to our hearts, and paralyse the strength of their best affections! How little and miserable a world do we make for ourselves, by confining the sphere of our sensibilities to that narrow compass beyond which a carnal mind, that binds us down to the earth, will not suffer them to range! How many chords of feeling, which might have been tuned to the most delightful harmonies, remain still silent and unstrung within us! What rich mines of pure enjoyment yet lie unopened and undiscovered! How manifold are the messages and appeals from God which knock, as it were, at the door of our hearts, but receive no answer! And how perseveringly-though the full glories of heaven look down upon us from above, and would fain impress their image on the surface of man's soul, and write the outlines of their beauty on the transparency of its inmost depths-how perseveringly, in the dull opakeness which sin has generated there, do we refuse to return any reflection of their brightness, and even strive to erase that sweet and gorgeous picture which, but

for the agitations of these lower elements that have ruffled it now, might have still been mirrored on its peaceful bosom !

"But," it will be objected, "all this is human infirmity. Man is a weak and failing creature who can do nothing by himself, and it is useless, to say the least, to lay these deficiencies to the charge of our helpless and imperfect nature." It is true indeed that man is weak and insufficient; but are you sure that he is so weak as this? Are you sure that his heart cannot kindle into a livelier glow-that his soul cannot be roused into a mightier energy, and expatiate over a more expanded field than this? Nay, turn from the tame picture of man's cold and apathetic devotions to the busy spectacle of active life that surrounds you, and ask, Is it so in the pursuit of his worldly business or his worldly pleasure? Is it thus that he wins the prize of earthly gain or honour from the countless competitors with whom he strives? Is it thus that he hopes to attain the proud eminence of human greatness, or the triumphs of human applause? Ask if he dares to approach an earthly superior with that reckless indifference with which he draws near the presence of the King of kings. Or if he turns to the most trifling enjoyment of this life with that dull unmoved obduracy of heart with which