whole law." To love God with all our faculties and powers, is the first and great commandment. And the second, which is like it, is to love our neighbour as ourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. What is done in obedience or conformity to these two commandments, is good. And when we depart from them; when the love of God is not with us a ruling motive, and we do not love our neighbour as ourselves, all our deeds, however splendid or popular with men, in God's sight have in them the nature of sin.

And well may we teach, without fear of contradiction, that this principle of true love no man has from nature. Without the grace of God, we do not love him, nor live to his glory. We have not from nature any desire to commune with God, nor to be conformed to his will. Pride and vanity, self-love and self-will, are natural to all the human race. Who can deny that in our flesh dwelleth an aversion to spiritual things? Or, as the apostle elsewhere expresses it, that "the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God?" Who does not know and daily see that the hearts of men must be changed before they can relish, or with satisfaction converse, on such momentous and most interesting subjects, as God, and Christ, and the doctrines of his cross? The grace of God, and the aid and operation of his Holy Spirit and the salvation of our own souls by faith in Christ, are subjects which we naturally dislike. And what is the cause of this aversion to things which ought of all things most to interest our hearts? We have not the like antipathy to any other subjects; not even to things the most fanciful and absurd; not even to

things the most horrid and vile. We are naturally pleased with improbable, inconsistent and romantic tales: we delight to read and to hear of battles and murder, and the most abominable arts of human wickedness. It is only to spiritual things revealed from God, that we have this strange distaste. And is not this evident fact, a clear proof, that "the carnal mind is enmity against God?"

This natural enmity is, we know, more evident in some than in others. Some people are possessed of such liberal sentiments, and such amiable dispositions, as gain our admiration, and merit praise. But such, however much by men admired, cannot "receive the things of God" without his grace. The seeds of pride and enmity lie buried in our fallen nature. In different people, the growth is different, depending on a thousand circumstances; but the same radical nature is common to all, and the most amiable infidel needs a change of heart, no less than the notorious sinner. When a man, who has lived what we call a good moral life, is converted to the Christian faith, the change, to worldly people may be scarcely visible; yet to himself and to all experienced Christians, it is very obvious. He now perceives that he has been blind and sinful, and that his best deeds need forgiveness. He is now sensible that "the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh." Motives and deeds, in which he once gloried, he now views with shame. He feels a change: his motives, his views, his hopes, are different: "Old things are done away: behold all things are become new."

The sanctification of the heart is, however, a progressive, and too often a very slow work. It sometimes

dawns for a season, and then seems almost to expire: at others it is wavering and scarce discernible. Some Christians are too ignorant of the doctrines of Christ, and others too neglectful of their duty. The lives of some worldly people will rise in judgment, and condemn many "who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come." There may, however, be the root of a right faith, when the fruits are shamefully deficient. Many who do not wholly fall away from their steadfastness, by their careless living, "give occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme.

Some we know have attempted to show, that the natural propensity of mankind is not, as the scriptures teach, to evil, but to good. But the attempt is not more opposed to God's word than to common sense, and to what we continually feel and see. The time will not admit of our entering into this part of the subject; but nothing is easier than to show, that the most abundant and deplorable proofs of human depravity are continually, and by all to be seen. Though we begin with earliest infancy, and use all manner of arts and means and powers to restrain men from evil, and to force or persuade, or some way induce them to do justly and live well, they are all but very imperfectly sufficient to control even the outward conduct of men. What are all our censures and reproofs, our penal statutes and other laws and governments, our courts and prisons and executions, and ten times more which might be added, but so many proofs that "the heart of man is only evil continually?" The wisest of

men have been sensible of this depravity: they have felt it themselves, and seen and condemned it in others. The ancient philosophers and the best among the heathen, have attempted to account for it, some by the doctrine of transmigration, supposing that we are placed in such a state, as a punishment for sins committed in some previous existence, which we have before passed through. Others have taught that there are two gods, or two ruling principles, the one good and the other evil, which they thought best accounted for the wickedness and folly so prevalent in the world. But what has been said is enough, and more than enough, to convince those whose hearts the Lord has opened to receive the doctrines of the cross. Nothing but the grace of God is sufficient to give men a realizing sense, that their carnal or natural mind is enmity against God. The remaining time which we now have, will be most profitably employed in making improvement from the view already taken.

And first it follows, that salvation is from the grace of God, through faith in Christ, who is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." Though we are to maintain good works, we cannot trust in what we do, as meriting salvation. While our works have in them the nature of sin, they cannot answer the demands of God's law. What is required of us, that we may be saved in Christ, is to feel that we are sinners, justly condemned by the laws of God; to repent of our sins, or in other words, to abhor and forsake what his word condemns; to receive with thankfulness the Saviour who he has mercifully given us; to trust for salvation in Christ alone; to become his disciples; to obey all his precepts; submit to his

righteousness; follow his example; or, expressing all in few words, "to live a life of faith in the Son of God."

But this we cannot truly do, till our hearts are changed or renovated; till our natural "enmity against God" is so subdued, that we love what he commands, and desire, above all things, what he has promised in Jesus Christ. Of this we must feel assured, that they who are in the flesh, cannot please God." While supremely we love the world, the love of the Father is not in us: and while the love of the Father is not in us, we cannot be truly Christians. "Ye must be born again." Indeed it is the natural effect of a faith in Christ, to renew the heart, and to produce both the love of God, and obedience to his laws: we are born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God." Faith comes by hearing that word, "and by the Holy Spirit grafting it inwardly in the heart;" and it produces good works, as naturally as a tree does its proper fruit. Indeed, the one great duty of a Christian, is to live to God: and the chief doctrine is, that the just live by faith. It is evident to our own reason, that we must believe what Christ has taught and done to save us, before we can, in the nature of the thing, do what he requires of those who would be saved.

As the heart is renewed by faith, the change of course will be more or less visible, according to a man's former course of life, and the strength and soundness of his faith. Where faith is unsound or weak, the fruits will be less perfect, or less abundant. We may not in every case, be able to distinguish the