very much correct the hurtful tendency of particular doctrines, and, in some instances, even neutralize their noxious qualities, yet it too evidently begets a notion that the renewal of our fallen nature is absolutely the effect of a divine influence on the mind, and, consequently, that the attainment of a "new heart," a "right spirit," is a result which, if it take place at all, will do so, independently of ourselves; or which it is without our power to retard or promote :-a notion which is fraught with more error, and productive of more mischief, than we can now even glance at.

That opinion, moreover, is often the source of groundless disquietude to persons who have never been the subjects of such a change as that of which we have spoken-groundless disquietude, because the word of God instructs us to ascertain our spiritual state from the present bent of our affections, the immediate tenor of our lives. It particularizes those dispositions which are the "fruit of the Spirit."* It assures us that it is infallibly and perpetually true, that "he that doeth righteousness is born of God." The manifestations of the "new creation," then, are as distinguishable as the attributes and deeds of *Gal. v. 22. † 1 John ii. 29.

righteousness. But these, surely, require not the aid of powerful contrast to render them discernible. We need not the recollection of a dangerous and lingering sickness to assure us of the presence of health; nor the recollection of a total loss of appetite to acquaint us with the sensations of hunger; nor of a blunted or vitiated palate to communicate the relish of a discriminating taste. But still less

is it necessary, in order to convince us of our present faithfulness in the service of God, to be reminiscent of a period when we were wholly swayed by the love of pleasure, or the fear of man. Holiness, like light and truth, is manifest in its own lustre: else unfallen beings and the Deity himself were strangers to its evidence. And if the opinion under consideration be, on the one hand, a cause of needless disquietude, it is, on the other, no less productive of a dangerous presumption. of spiritual security :-but we must bring this discourse to a conclusion.

Our aim has been to set forth the original design of the Gospel, and its inherent adaptation and sufficiency, at all times, as the instrument of our spiritual renovation. We cannot then conclude the subject without observing, that the prevalence of the opinion

which we have combated suggests a topic of the deepest humiliation and concern. An opinion that a conversion similar to that of the first Christians is generally and permanently necessary a literal application to ourselves of the language which they used concerning their own spiritual renovation could never have obtained, had not the design of the Gospel been extensively defeated in the lives of its professors. It could never have been imagined, far less assumed and maintained as a dogma, that an entire change of heart and conduct was universally necessary among a Christian people, had not many of them closed their eyes to the light poured upon them from heaven, and repeated those excesses which stained the life of Pagans; perpetrating, with remorseless obduracy, those offences which the blood of Christ had been shed to expiate-in the appalling words of the Apostle, "crucifying to themselves the Son of God afresh, and putting him to an open shame”* or had not many of them, like the pharisaical and worldly-minded Jews, been satisfied with a merely speculative belief of the Gospel, and the outward observances of religion. It is, we repeat, a most humi*Heb. vi. 6.

liating reflection, that our religious privileges should have been so greatly underrated and foregone, the injunctions and promises of the Gospel so frequently unheeded, as

have given colour and plausibility to a notion that the formation of the Christian character is denoted by a change of which the mind is distinctly conscious, and to which the conduct bears immediate and obvious testimony. The opinion, it is true, may have been suggested, and is doubtless promoted, by a superficial, undistinguishing construction of the language of the sacred writers; but it must have sunk by the weight of its own improbability, had there not been a palpable opposition, a grievous contrast, between the laws of our Redeemer's kingdom, and the conduct of a large portion of professing Christians.

Are we ourselves, brethren, supplying argument to such an opinion by our unchristian dispositions and practices? Are we chargeable with the vices and immorality of the nations that knew not God?-wholly intent upon our worldly aggrandizement and pleasure, and careless of the eternal life made known and proffered to us in the Gospel? Are we unmoved by gratitude to the Son of God, who

became man, and endured the cross to enable us to obtain it-strangers to that constraining love of Christ which, we are assured by St. Paul, is a commanding principle of the "new creature," the "man in Christ?" If so-we do, indeed, stand in need of a change of mind. We must, indeed, be conscious, if not of new knowledge or convictions, yet of new desires, new aims, new hopes-new principles of action. We must "put off the old man with his deeds, and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness."* But we deceive ourselves in presuming that we stand in the same relation to God, as the objects of his mercy, as did the heathen, when the "true light" first shone upon them, and the treasures of divine goodness were laid open to their view. For we have persisted in those sins which many of them abandoned with penitential shame: "What fruit had ye," wrote the Apostle to them," what fruit had ye in those things whereof ye are now ashamed?"+ They surrendered themselves to the dominion of the passions under the depraving influence of idolatry, and with little help from the received morality;- but under what teaching what precepts what examples have we

* Ephes. iv. 24.

† Rom. vi. 21.