ness of our meridian sun be darkened ! Or, shonld the long suffering of God still continue to us the mercies

which we so much abuse, this will only aga gravate our crime, and in the end enhance our punishment. The time of reckoning will at length arrive. And when finally summoned to the bar of God, to give an account of our stewardship, what plea can we have to urge in our defence, if we remain willinga ly and obstinately ignorant of the way which leads to life with such transcendent means of knowing it, and such urgent motives to its pursuit?

notions.

Inadequate Conceptions of the Corruption of

Human Nature. A

FTER considering the defective notions of the

importance of Christianity ing general, which prePopular vail among the higher orders of professed

Christians, the particular misconceptions which first come under our notice, respect the corruption and weakness of human nature. This is a topic on which it is possible that many into whose hands the present work shall fall, may not have bestowed much attention. If the case be so, it may be requisite to entreat them to lend a patient and a se. rious ear. The subject is of the deepest import. Nor are we afraid of going too far when we assert, that it lies at the very root of all true Religion, and is eminently the basis and ground-work of Christianity.

So far as the writer has had an opportunity of remarking, the generality of professed Christians among the higher classes, either altogether overlook or deny, or at least greatly extenuate, the corruption and weakness here in question. They acknowledge indeed that there is, and ever has been in the world,

á great portion of vice and wickedness; that mankind have been ever prone to sensuality and selfishness, in disobedience to the more refined and liberal principles of their nature; that in all ages and coun

; tries, in public and in private life, innumerable instances have been afforded of oppression, of rapacity, of cruelty, of fraud, of envy, and of malice. They own that it is too often in vain that you inform the understanding, and convince the judgment. They admit that you do not thereby reform the hearts of men. Though they know their duty, they will not practise it; no not even when you have forced them to acknowledge that the path of virtue is also that of real interest, and of solid enjoyment.

These facts are certain; they cannot be disputed; and they are at the same time so obvious, that one would have thought the celebrated apophthegm of the Grecian sage, the majority are wicked," would scarcely have established his claim to intellectual superiority.

But though these effects of human depravity are every where acknowledged and lamented, we must not expect to find them traced to their true origin.

Causa latet, vis est notissima. Prepare yourself to hear rather of frailty and infirmity, of petty transgressions, of occasional failings, of sudden surprisals, and of such other qualifying terms aš may serve to keep out of view the true source of the evil, and without shocking the understanding, may administer consolation to the pride of human nature. The bulk of professed Christians are used to speak of man as of a being, who naturally pure, and inclined to all virtue is sometimes, almost involuntarily, drawn out of the right course, or is overpowered by the violence of temptation. Vice with them is rather an accidental and temporary, than a constitutional and habitual distemper; a' noxious plant, which, though found to live and even to thrive in the human mind, is not the natural growth and production of the soil.

Far

Bar different is the humiliating language of ChrisTrue ae- tianity. From it we learn that man is an count prov. apostate creature, fallen from his high oriReason and ginal, degraded in his nature, and depraved Scripture. in his faculties : indisposed to good, and disposed to evil; prone to vice--it is natural and easy to him: disinclined to virtue it is difficult and laborious; he is tainted with sin, not slightly and superficially, but radically and to the very core. That such is the Scripture account of man, however mortifying the acknowledgment of it may be to our pride, one would think, if this very corruption itself did not warp the judgment, none would be hardy enough to attempt to controvert. I know nothing which brings home so forcibly to my own feelings the truth of this Representation; as the consideration of what still remains to us of our primitive dignity, when contrasted with our present state of moral degradation,

* Into what depth thou seest,

“ From what height fallen.” Examine first with attention the natural powers and faculties of man; invention, reason, judgment memory; a mind “of large discourse," " looking “ before and after,” reviewing the past, thence determining for the present, and anticipating the future; discerning, collecting, combining, comparing; capable, not merely of apprehending, but of admiring, the beauty of moral excellence : with fear and hope to warm and animate; with joy and sorrow to solace and soften; with love to attach, with sympathy to harmonize, with courage to attempt, with patience to endure, and with the power of conscience, that faithful monitor within the breast, to enforce the conclusions of reason, and direct and regulate the passions of the soul. Truly we must pronounce him.“ majestic though in ruin.” Happy, happy " world!" would be the exclamation of the inhabitant of some other planet, on being told of a globe like ours, peopled with such creatures as these, and abounding with situations and occasions to call forth

the

66

the multiplied excellencies of their nature..“ Happy,

happy world, with what delight must your great “ Creator and Governor witness your conduct, and "what a glorious recompense awaits you when your " term of probation shall have expired.”

". I bone, quo virtus tua te vocat, i pede fausto,

“. Grandia laturus meritorum præmia.” But we have indulged too long in these delightful speculations ; a sad reverse presents itself on our survey of the actual state of man; when, from viewing his natural powers, we follow him into practice, and see the uses to which he applies them. Take in the whole of the prospect, view him in every age, and climate, and nation, in every condition and period of society. Where now do you discover the eharacters of his exalted nature? "How is the gold

become dim; and the fine gold changed?”. How is his reason clouded, his affections perverted, his conscience stupified ! How do anger and envy, and hatred, and revenge, spring up in his wretched bosom! How is he a slave to the meanest of his appetites! What fatal propensities does he discover to evil! What inaptitude to good!

Dwell awhile on the state of the ancient world ; not merely on that benighted part of it where all lay buried in brutish ignorance and barbarism, but on the seats of civilized and polished nations, on the empire of taste, and learning, and philosophy: yet in these chosen regions, with whatever lustre the sun of science poured forth its rays, the moral darkness was so thick “ that it might be felt.” Behold their sottish idolatries, their absurd superstitions, their want of natural affection, their brutal excesses, their unfeeling oppression, their savage cruelty! Look not to the illiterate and the vulgar, but to the learned and refined. Form not your ideas from the conduct of the less restrained and more licentious; you will turn away with disgust and shame from the allowed and familiar habits of the decent and the moral. St, Paul best states the facts, and furnishes the expla

nation; “ because they did not like to retain God " in their knowledge, he gave them over to a re" probate mind*.”

Now direct your view to another quarter, to the inhabitants of a new hemisphere, where the baneful practices and contagious example of the old world had never travelled. Surely, among these children of nature we may expect to find those virtuous tendencies, for which we have hitherto looked in vain! Alas! our search will still be fruitless! They are represented by the historian of America, whose account is more favourable than those of some other great authorities, as being a compound of pride, indolence, selfishness, cunning, and crueltyt; full of a revenge which nothing could satiate, of a ferocity which nothing could

soften; strangers to the most amiable sensibilities of nature. They appeared incapable

1 of conjugal affection, or parental fondness, or filial reverence, or social attachments ; uniting too with their state of barbarism, many of the vices and weaknesses of polished society. Their horrid treatment of captives taken in war, on whose bodies they feasted,

Exempla duo, quæ pravitatis humanæ vim animo meo luculentur exhibent, non proferre non possum. Alterum, decens ille Virgilius, alterum Cicero, probus idem verique studiosus, suppeditat. Virgilius, innocnam certe pastorum vitam depicturas, ita incipit,

“ Formosum pastor Corydon ardebat Alexim." Cicero in libro de Officiis primo, ubi de actionibus prout inter se : apte & convenientes sint, loci temporis, et agentis ratione habita, dis-, serit, argumentum sic illustrat: “ Turpe est enim, valdeque vitiosum, in re severa, convivio dignum, aut delicatum, aliquem inferre sermonem. Bene Pericles, quum haberet collegam in prætura Sophoclem poëtam, hique de communi officio convenissent, & casu formosus puer præteriret, dixissetque Sophocles, O puerum pulchrom Pericle! At enim, inquit l'ericles, prætorem Sophoclem decet non solum manus, sed etiam oculos abstinentes habere. Atquî hoc idem Sophocles, si in athletarum probatione dixisset, justa reprehensione caruisset, tanta vis est, & loci of tempores."