ask, Can I not love an earthly parent some while I love myself more? No,-if that parent unchangeably declares, I will treat you as an enemy forever unless you love me supremely,-do this or die ;if he follows you wherever you go, and fills your ears with this sound from morning to night, and from month to month,-if every gift which he puts into your hand is accompanied with this declaration, and especially if his character is all of a piece. Your deaf and forgetful brother, who is unconscious of his father's law and character, may love his gifts, and feel some gratitude to the giver; but you, as certainly as you love yourself supremely, can never love such a parent, but must feel the strongest enmity against him. But you say, I

could exercise some love towards him if I was convinced that his law was just. What, love justice against yourself, and yet be supremely selfish! If your own interest is paramount in your affections to all other considerations, what can induce you to love that justice which destroys your interest? That you might love the justice if it were not against you, I do not deny. I have admitted that sinners would not hate God if His law were not against them. It of course happens that they who have expunged from their creed all intimations of punishment, find no difficulty in loving the god which their fancies have formed. The enmity of sinners is not disinterested but selfish, as it must necessarily be if it arises from inordinate self-love. But did you ever know a selfish man who loved the

law that condemned him? or who loved the lawgiver, whose whole character was transfused into the law, and who was himself the executioner ?

Love the justice which condemns you! Do you consider where you stand? You have now taken the ground of disinterested and holy love. And what is there to prevent that affection from fixing supremely on God? There is more in Him to please and gratify such an affection than in the universe besides. Do you say, That affection will indeed love God more than the same affection will love any thing else; but it is weak, and self-love is strong, and has predominating influence? The question then comes to this, Whether an affection which delights in God above all things, can exist in a soul that is under the governing influence of selfishness, and of course under the governing influence of enmity to God. Now did you ever find a mind balanced after this sort? Did you ever find a mind governed by enmity against a man, of a uniform and consistent character, and at the same time possessed of an affection which loved his whole character more than any other object, more than even self? Such a phenomenon has never yet appeared in the moral or social world, and the fancy which created it is only a dream. It is apparent, then, that there cannot be a particle of disinterested and holy love which does not fix supremely on God, (whenever the mind has a distinct view of Him,) nor a particle of love to God, which, (under the same circumstances,) does not govern the soul; and that where

self-love predominates, (in a fair view of all the objects which solicit regard,) enmity to God must exist, must prevail, and exclude every better affection towards Him. No affection but universal love will truly fix on God; but how can universal love exist in a heart that would sacrifice the universe to serve a private end?

I have one more question on this subject. If supreme selfishness is not sufficient to produce enmity to God, pray what ever did produce it in any mind? What greater cause ever produced it in wicked men or devils? Nothing worse existed in Cain or Judas, nothing worse can be found in hell. IV. It follows from these principles that all men by nature are the enemies of God.

If there is any such thing in the world as "the fleshly mind" that "is enmity against God," it must belong to every one that is "born of the flesh;" for "that which is born of the flesh is flesh" in every instance. If there is any such thing in the world as "the natural man" who regards "the things of the Spirit of God" as "foolishness," it must be every man as he is formed by nature.*

But I have heard it said, that though mankind were thus depraved as they stood connected with the first Adam, they were in some degree restored by Christ, and in this restored state are born into the world. Now if what has been said under the preceding heads is true, this question is fairly laid

* John iii. 6. Rom. viii. 7. 1 Cor. ii. 14.

to rest. None are in fact raised above the character of enemies of God but they who are restored to supreme love. After all that Christ has done, the world are still divided into two classes, they who hate God, and they who love Him supremely. All who are not restored to the temper of real Christians and martyrs, are settled in enmity against Him, without one solitary emotion of love. And what were they ever worse than this? What worse character does any evangelical minister ascribe to "the fleshly mind," as it now is, or as it ever was? Until therefore you prove, in opposition to the whole tenour of revelation and experience, that all the world are supremely attached to the true God, you must admit that some are not raised a whit above their original pollution.

Again I have heard it said that "the natural man" is a heathen, and that the Regeneration which our Saviour pronounced so necessary for admission to His kingdom,* is only a turning from paganism. This by the way would fairly exclude every heathen on earth from salvation; an inference not very acceptable to the generality of those who would fritter down Regeneration to this. It may also be a matter of wonder to some that a Jewish ruler should have heard with so much astonishment that pagans must be converted to the revealed faith. But let that pass. I ask whether there are none in Christian countries who are under

* John iii. 3, 5,

the supreme dominion of self-love? none with an historick faith who serve "the creature more than the Creator?" none that belong to the Church who love the praise of men more than the praise of God"? none who even with canonicals cover a heart supremely attached to the world? If these you find, you find all the attributes of "the fleshly mind" within the pale of the Christian Church. Why then go to pagan countries to seek "the natural man"? The whole population of Christendom are enemies of God, with the exception of those who love Him supremely. And if, of all that population, none love Him better than life till "the love of God is shed abroad in [their] hearts by the Holy Ghost," then none of the inhabitants of Christendom, as they are born into the world, possess any other temper than that of God's enemies.

Thus I have finished what was proposed. And now may we not all find from this exposition sufficient reason to lay our hands on our hearts? We may have seen sin in ourselves without knowing it, and may have promoted the deception by calling it by another name; and while restrained from actual crimes, may have wondered at the strong charges of the divine Word against us. But if every undue bias in favour of our own interest contains in itself the grand principle of all rebellion against God, we need only watch our hearts for a single hour to find reason enough to ex

Rom. v. 5.