SECTION III.

ALL SIN IS SELFISHNESS.

ACCORDINGLY, selfishness, as we have already intimated, is the universal form of human depravity; every sin that can be named is only a modification of it. What is avarice, but selfishness grasping and hoarding? What is prodigality, but selfishness decorating and indulging itself—a man sacrificing to himself as his own god? What is sloth, but that god asleep, and refusing to attend to the loud calls of duty? And what is idolatry, but that god enshrined-man worshipping the reflection of his own image? Sensuality, and, indeed, all the sins of the flesh, are only selfishness setting itself above law, and gratifying itself at the expense of all restraint. And all the sins of the spirit, are only the same principle impatient of

contradiction, and refusing to acknowledge superiority, or to bend to any will but its own. What is egotism, but selfishness speaking? Or crime, but selfishness, without its mask, in earnest, and acting? Or offensive war, but selfishness confederated, armed, and bent on aggrandizing itself by violence and blood? An offensive army is the selfishness of a nation embodied, and moving to the attainment of its object over the wrecks of human happiness and life. "From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts?" And what are all these irregular and passionate desires, but that inordinate self-love which acknowledges no law, and will be confined by no rules-that selfishness which is the heart of depravity?—and what but this has set the world at variance, and filled it with strife? The first presumed sin of the angels that kept not their first estate, as well as the first sin of man,-what was it but selfishness insane? an irrational and mad attempt to pass the limits proper to the creature, to invade the throne, and to seize the rights, of the Deity? And were we to analyze the very last sin of which we ourselves are conscious, we should discover that selfishness, in one or other of its thousand forms, was its

parent. Thus, if love was the pervading principle of the unfallen creation, it is equally certain that selfishness is the reigning law of the world ravaged and disorganized by sin.

It must be obvious, then, that the great want of fallen humanity, is, a specific against selfishness, the epidemic disease of our nature. The expedient which should profess to remedy our condition, and yet leave this want unprovided for, whatever its other recommendations might be, would be leaving the seat and core of our disease untouched. And it would be easy to show that in this radical defect consists the impotence of every system of false religion, and of every heterodox modification of the true religion, to restore our disordered nature to happiness and God. And equally easy is it to show that the gospel, evangelically interpreted, not only takes cognizance of this peculiar feature of our malady, but actually treats it as the very root of our depravity, and addresses itself directly to the task of its destruction, that, as the first effect of sin was to produce selfishness, so the first effect of the gospel remedy is to destroy that evil, and to replace it with benevolence.

SECTION IV.

THE GOSPEL, AS A SYSTEM OF BENEVOLENCE,
OPPOSED TO SELFISHNESS.

It is the glory of the gospel that it was calculated and arranged on the principle of restoring to the world the lost spirit of benevolence. To realize this enterprise of boundless mercy, Jehovah resolved on first presenting to mankind an unparalleled exhibition of grace-an exhibition which, if it failed to rekindle the extinguished love of man, should, at least, have the effect of converting his angels into seraphs, and his seraphs into flames of fire. The ocean of the divine love was stirred to its utmost depths. The entire Godhead was-if with profound reverence it may be saidput into activity. The three glorious subsistencies in the Divine Essence moved towards our

C

earth. Every attribute and distinction of the Divine Nature was displayed: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, embarked their infinite treasures in the cause of human happiness.

"God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." He could not give us more; and the vast propensions of his grace could not be satisfied by bestowing less. He would not leave it possible to be said that he could give us more: he resolved to pour out the whole treasury of heaven, to give us his all at once. “Herein is love !"-love defying all computation; the very mention of which should surcharge our hearts with gratitude, give us an idea of infinity, and replace our selfishness with a sentiment of generous and diffusive benevolence.

Jesus Christ came into the world as the embodied love of God. He came and stood before the world with the hoarded love of eternity in his heart, offering to make us the heirs of all its wealth. He so unveiled and presented the character of God, that every human being should feel it to be looking on himself, casting an aspect of benignity on himself. "He pleased not himself."