So bit guilty of robbery, sedition, and murder, were considered as less monstrous and less offensive than himself. terly malignant, under every species of merely human refinement, is the pretended religion of fallen man, or even a false profession of the true reli gion itself, to the mortifying principles and spirit of the grace of God! § 86. Indeed, it may be observed, that people, who have not an experimental acquaintance with the plague of the heart, (as it is styled in the Scripture,) are seldom or never under any apprehensions upon the score of selfrighteousness, such as may be attained by Formalists and Pharisees, nor upon the wicked and blasphemous opposition, which that principle bears in its spirit to the whole mediation and righteousness of the Son of God. They are aware of no sins, but the sins of the flesh or the beast. Gross immoralities, and tendencies to them, they they can see, and censure as they but sins of the devil, deserve; the natural enmity of every fallen spirit against God, the spiritual wickedness in high places, that subtle mischief brooding in every mind, which is untaught and unchanged by divine. grace; these they either do not feel, or imagine them to be peccadillos easily to be done away or forgiven. They do not truly understand, that all outward evil originates from within, and that the blood of Christ is as needful for the pardon of one guilty thought, and the Spirit of Christ for its true subjugation, as for the whole mass of sins, which have been committed from the beginning of the world. I am sensible, therefore, that these reflections, weak as they are in so great a cause, yet striking, as I hope they do, at the pride, presumption, self-righteousness, fleshly wisdom, and self-sufficiency of the unconverted heart, are not and cannot be M 6 acceptable acceptable to the natural man, or the man either forming or following religion by his own powers. And perhaps it will be found upon inquiry as true now, as in the days of old, that the more high and plausible the profession of religion may be, if unattended with the grace of the Holy Spirit; the more aversion will be discovered at whatever wounds the confidence, which all men by nature delight to have, in their own understanding and worth. They cannot naturally love that which leads, by the renunciation of these, to the free grace and unspotted righteousness of the Redeemer alone, received by faith, without conditions of previous performances on man's part, and infinitely above all his deservings. religion of the man of the earth, though the Bible may be spread before him and though he professes to believe in it, is all nature-all flesh-it cannot re The ceive the things of the kingdom of God in their life and intention; but will cloud them over, and sometimes with great perverseness, by principles drawn from his own reason; and all this must end, if left of God, not in regeneration, which such a one despises for enthusiastic; but, under specious acts of outward forms and the appearances of morality, in a spiritual. contempt of the most solemn truths and of those who enjoy them. § 87. Though it may seem a digres sion, yet it seems not altogether impertinent to our general subject, to observe in this place, that, upon the principles of grace, as they stand revealed in the Scriptures, the scheme which some have proposed, respecting God's MORAL government of the world, seems to be rather incongruous and untenable. Neither the phrase, nor the sentiment, as stated by them, appears to be scriptural. The idea is evidently raised, raised, NOT upon the present state of mankind as fallen and depraved, but upon the supposed or implied capacity of man as a free agent, standing now as in his original state, and determining himself, by himself, either to good or evil. This, if the Bible be true, is a basis fundamentally wrong; and though it may square with the opinions of heathen philosophers, both antient and modern, and with persons who form their speculations upon similar hypotheses; it appears by no means accordant with God's revealed method of salvation, or the concurrent testimony, in all ages, of his witnesses and people. That God, as a sovereign, rules, controls, superintends, and finally determines upon, all men and all things throughout his creation, is a truth manifest and indisputable. But, that the Most High now presides over this present evil world, as in its original formation, when it came good out |