1. Observe the first character of evangelical morality, how clearly it is revealed. Let heresy attack the truth of our mysteries. If demonstrative arguments cannot be produced, probable ones may; if the doctrines cannot be expunged from the letter of scripture, at least they may be disguised; if they cannot be rendered contemptible, they may for a while be made difficult to understand: but propositions that concern moral virtue are placed in a light so clear, that, far from extinguishing it, nothing can diminish its brightness. Religion clearly requires a magistrate to be equitable and a subject obedient; a father tender and a son dutiful; a husband affectionate and a wife faithful; a master gentle and a servant diligent; a pastor vigilant and a flock teachable. Religion clearly requires us to exercise moderation in prosperity, and patience in adversity. Religion clearly requires us to be wholly attentive to the divine majesty, when we are at the foot of his throne, and never to lose sight of him after our devotions are finished. Religion clearly requires us to perform all the duties of our calling through the whole course of life, and wholly to renounce the world when we come to die. Except some extraordinary cases (and would to God, my brethren, we had arrived at such a degree of perfection as rendered it necessary for us to examine what conduct we ought to observe in some circumstances, which the law seems not to have fully explained!) I say, except such cases, all others are regulated in a manner so clear, distinct and intelligible, that we not only cannot invent any difficulties, but that, except a few idiots, nobody hath ever pretended to invent any.

2. The next character of christian morality is dignity of principle. Why did God give us laws? Because he loves us, and because he would have us love him. Why doth he require us to bear the cross? Because he loves us, because he would have us love him, and because infatuation with creatures is incompatible with this twofold love. Why doth he require us to deny ourselves? Because he loves us, and because he would have us love him, because it is impossible for him to love us and yet to permit our ill-directed self-love to hurry us blindly into a gulf of misery, because it is impossible if we love him to love ourselves in a manner so inglorious to him. How pleasant is it to submit to bonds, which the love of God imposes on us! How delightful is it to yield to obligations, when the love of God supports us under the weight of them!

3. The third character of christian morality is the justice of its dominion. All its claims are founded on reason and equity. Examine the laws of religion one by one, and you will find they all bear this character. Doth religion prescribe humility? It doth: but what is this humility? Is it a virtue that shocks reason, and degrades the dignity of human nature? By no means, the gospel proposes to elevate us to the highest dignity that we are capable of attaining. But what then doth it mean by requiring us to be humble? It means, that we should not estimate ourselves by such titles and riches, such dignities and exterior things as we have in common with men like Caligula, Nero, Heliogabalus, and other monsters of nature, scourges of society. Does religion require mortification? It doth, it even describes it by the most painful emblems. It requires us to cut off a right hand, to pluck out a right eye, to tear asunder all the ties of flesh and blood, nature and self-love. But what doth it mean by prescribing such mortification as this? Must we literally hate ourselves, and must we take as much pains hereafter to make ourselves miserable as we have taken hitherto to make ourselves happy? No, my brethren, on the contrary, no doctrine hath ever carried self-love properly explained so far. The christian doctrine of mortification means, that by a few momentary acts of self-denial we should free ourselves from eternal misery, and that by contemning temporal things which are seen we should obtain things which are not seen, but which are eternal.

4. But, say you, this perfection required by the gospel, is it within our reach? Is it not this religion, which exhorts us to be perfect as God is perfect? Is not this the religion that exhorts us to be holy as God is holy? Doth not this religion require us to be renewed after the image of him that created us? Indeed it doth, my brethren: yet this law, severe as it may seem, hath a fourth character exactly according to our just wishes, that is, it hath a character of proportion! As we see in the doctrines of religion, that although they open a vast field to the most sublime geniuses, yet they accommodate themselves to the most contracted minds, so in regard to the moral parts of religion, though the most eminent saints are required to make more progress, yet the first efforts of novices are acceptable services, provided they are sincerely disposed to persevere. Jesus Christ, our great lawgiver, knoweth our frame, and remembereth that we are dust: he will not break a bruised reed, and smoaking flax he will VOL. V. M m

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not quench: and the rule, by which he will judge us, will not be so much taken from the infinite rights acquired over us by creation and redemption as from our frailty, and the efforts we shall have made to surmount it.

5. Power of motive is another character of evangelical morality. In this life we are animated, I will not say only by gratitude, equity and reason, motives too noble to actuate most men: but by motives interesting to our passions, and proper to inflame them, if they be well and thoroughly understood.

You have ambition. But how do you mean to gratify it? By a palace, a dress, a few servants, a few horses in your carriage? False idea of grandeur, fanciful elevation! I see in a course of christian virtue an ambition well directed. To approach God, to be like God, to be made a partaker of the divine nature; this is true grandeur, this is substantial glory.

You are avaricious, hence perpetual care, hence anxious fears, hence never ending movements, But how can your avarice bear to think of all the vicissitudes that may affect your fortune. In a course of christian virtue I see an avarice well directed. The gospel promiseth a fortune beyond vicissitude, and directs us to a faithful correspondent, who will return us for one grain thirty, for another sixty, for another a hundred fold.

You are voluptuous, and you refine sensual enjoyments, tickle your appetite, and sleep in a bed of down! I see in a course of virtue a joy unspeakable and full of glory, a peace that paffeth all understanding, pleasures boundless in prospect, and delicious in enjoyment, pleasures greater than the liveliest imagination can conceive, and more beautiful than the most eloquent lips can describe.

Such is religion, my brethren, What a fund of stupidity, negligence, and corruption must a man have to resist it? Is this the religion we must oppose in order to be damned! ( Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself.

III. Well, well, we grant, say you, we are stupid not to avail ourselves of such advantages as religion sets before us, we are negligent, we are depraved; but all this depravity, negligence, and stupidity are natural to us, we bring these dispositions into the world with us, we did not make them ourselves, in a word, we are naturally inclined to evil, and

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incapable of doing good. This religion teaches, of this we are convinced by our own feelings, and the experience of all mankind confirms it.

This is the third difficulty concerning the proposition in the text, and it is taken from the condition of human nature. In answer to this I say, that the objection implies four vague notions of human depravity, each erroneous, and all removable by a clear explication of the subject.

1. When we speak of our natural impotence to practise virtue, we confound it with an insurmountable necessity to commit the greatest crimes. We may be in the first case without being in the second. We may be sick, and incapable of procuring medicines to restore health, without being invincibly impelled to aggravate our condition by taking poison for food, and a dagger for physic. A man may be in a pit without ability to get out, and yet not be invincibly compelled to throw himself into a chasm beneath him, deeper and darker, and more terrible still. In like manner, we may be so enslaved by depravity as not to be able to part with any thing to relieve the poor, and yet not so as to be absolutely compelled to rob them of the alms bestowed on them by others, and so of the rest.

It seems to me, my brethren, that this distinction hath not been attended to in discourses of human depravity. Let people allege this impotence to exculpate themselves for not practising virtue, with all my heart: but to allege it in excuse of odious crimes practised every day freely, willingly, and of set purpose, is to form such an idea of natural depravity as no divine hath ever given, and such as can never be given with the least appearance of truth. No sermon, no body of divinity, no council, no synod ever said that human depravity was so great as absolutely to force a man to become an assassin, a murderer, a slanderer, a plunderer of the fortune, and a destroyer of the life of his neighbour, or, what is worse than either, a murderer of his reputation and honour. Had such a proposition been advanced, it would not be the more probable for that, and nothing ought to induce us to spare it. Monsters of nature! Who, after you have taken pains to eradicate from your hearts such fibres of virtue as sin seems to have left, would you attempt to exculpate yourselves; you who, after you have rendered yourselves in every instance unlike God, would carry your madness so far as to render God like yourselves by accusing him of creating you with dispositions, which oblige you to dip your hands M m 2

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in innocent blood, to build your houses with the spoils of widows and orphans, and to commit crimes subversive of society? Cease to affirm, these are natural dispositions. No, they are acquired dispositions. That part of religion, which prohibits your excesses, is practicable by you without the supernatural aid necessary to a thorough conversion.

2. When we speak of natural depravity, we confound the pure virtue that religion inspires with other virtues, which constitution, education, and motives of worldly honour are sufficient to enable us to practise. I grant, you cannot practise such virtues as have the love of God for their principle, order for their motives and perfection for their end: but you may at least acknowledge your natural depravity, and exclaim, O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death! You may at least exclaim with the magician mentioned. by a poet, I see and approve of the best things, though I practise the worst. You may do more, you may practise some superficial virtues, which the very heathens, not in covenant with God, exemplified. You may be cautious like Ulysses, temperate like Scipio, chaste like Polemon, wise like Socrates. If then you neg. lect this sort of virtue, and if your negligence ruin you, your destruction is of yourselves.

3. When we speak of natural depravity, we confound that of a man born a pagan with only the light of reason with that of a christian, born and educated among christians, and amidst all the advantages of revelation. This vague way of talking is a consequence of the miserable custom of taking detached passages of scripture, considering them only in themselves without any regard to connection of time, place or circumstance, and applying them indiscriminately to their own imaginations and systems. The inspired writers give us dreadful descriptions of the state of believers before their being called to christianity: they call this state a night, a death, a nothing, in regard to the practise of virtue, and certainly the state of a man now living without religion under the gospel economy may be properly described in the same manner: but yet I affirm, that these expressions must be taken in a very different sense. This night, this death, this nothing, if I may be allowed to speak so, have different degrees. The degrees in regard to a native pagan are greater than those in regard to a native christian. What then, my brethren, do you reckon for nothing all the care taken of you in your infancy, all the instructions given you