Two discourses on the moral state of man: delivered in the Central church, Charleston, April 13 and 20, 1851

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TWO

DISCOURSES

MORAL STATE OF MAN.

DELIVERED IN THE

CENTRAL CHURCH, CHARLESTON.

APRIL 13 AND 20, 1851.

BY REV. W. C. DANA

PASTOR OP SAID CHURCH.

CHARLESTON :

PRINTED BY EDWARD C. COUNCELL, 119 EAST-BAY.

1851.

J3c

FIRST DISCOURSE.

Isaiah I, 2. " Hear, O Heavens ; and give ear, O earth : for the Lord
hath spoken, — I have nourished and brought up children, and they have re-
belled against me."

It is generally conceded that the Bible teaches that human
nature is depraved. This doctrine is, to a certain extent, ad-
mitted by many, who would be slow to give credence to the
strong statements which are sometimes made on the subject.
All would be willing to admit, that man is not so good a being
as we can easily conceive that he might be ; not so good a being,
as a lover of goodness, or even of happiness, might naturally
wish that he was. There is, then, no dispute as to the fact,
that a certain measure of depravity characterizes our whole
race.

But when the assertion is made, that all mankind are totally
depraved, — that entire moral corruption is the characteristic of
every human being, — this assertion is met, not only with deci-
ded unbelief, but also with strong and indignant antipathy.
" What," it is asked ; " is there nothing good, nothing virtuous,
nothing lovely, in human nature ? Is total depravity universal
among men ? Are all human beings so perfectly alike in char-
acter, that one general description answers equally to all; and
is that universal character simply utter depravity ?"

He must be a bold man, who would, without qualification
answer these questions affirmatively; who would deliberately
with the book of human nature spread out before him, and
with eyes open to read that book, assert, that all mankind are
so equally and utterly depraved, (in the current, popular sense
of that word, depravity,) that there is in native human charac-
ter, nothing lovely, nothing worthy of commendation.

We freely affirm, that we do not believe any such doctrine of
total depravity. We do not believe that human nature is in
itself, utterly destitute of lovely and amiable qualities; that it
is simply one undistinguished mass of moral putrescence. 'We

do not find any such doctrine in the word of God, We do not
find any such fact when we look abroad upon human society.
We fully sympathize with that utter want of conviction, nay,
more, with that positive repugnance and revulsion of feeling,
with which such statements of the doctrine of total depravity
are usually met by reflecting minds.

For how is it possible to deny that in character, destitute of
religious faith, there may yet subsist many worthy and attrac-
tive qualities — many traits, deserving of commendation and of
imitation — many things good in themselves, good as far as
they go? The love of justice — the feeling of generosity — the
sense of honor — are not these morally good? And yet who
will be bold enough to assert that these qualities are nowhere
found except in connection with scriptural piety — with positive
christian faith ? Have Christians a monopoly of all the virtues
of social life? Are there not even some that have not christian
faith, who yet in many things are examples to those who have,
or seem to have ; examples, I will not say to those who honor
religion, but to those who seem to have " the root of the matter"
in them, though set, indeed, in an unkindly and uncongenial
soil ? Certainly it would be hard to reconcile the general aspects
of human society, as these lie open to scrutinizing observation,
with any such doctrine of human depravity as would represent
all who are destitute of christian faith as alike and utterly desti-
tute of amiable and worthy qualities.

But is any such doctrine of human depravity taught in the
Bible ? That is the question.

Now, that there is a doctrine of human depravity taught in
the Bible, is certain, and admits of easy proof. "All have
sinned, and come short of the glory of God" — fallen short of the
Divine approval. This is language express, intelligible, inca-
pable of being explained away. "There is not a just man upon
earth, that doeth good and sinneth not." " There is no man
which sinneth not." " The whole world ljeth in wickedness."

These, and many similar passages are decisive of the fact,
that the Bible ascribes sinfulness to all. There is a human de-
pravity which is universal.

But is this depravity such as excludes the existence of any
thing worthy or amiable in him to whom it attaches ? In order

to maintain the Scripture doctrine, must we pronounce all that
seems in itself good in character not religious, to be but decep-
tive seeming, a hollow mockery ? Must we thus perplex and
confound all our native notions of right and wrong ? Does the
Bible teach that none but Christians have any filial affection, —
that only true Christians honor their father and mother, — that
only Christians have any moral principle that keeps them from
killing and stealing ?

If I read the scriptures aright, they shut us up to no such
necessity. There came once to our Saviour, a young man, of
whom the sequel shows that he was unwilling to be a Chris-
tian, in whom, nevertheless, that eye which read the heart, saw
so much that was amiable and hopeful, that, as is recorded,
"Jesus, beholding him, loved him;" loved him, though constrained
to say to him, " one thing thou lackest ;" and that was the one
thing needful. This instance, even if it stood alone, would
seem decisive that there may be qualities fitted to attract love —
worthy and amiable traits — things good in themselves, and as
far as they go — in character, which is yet wholly deficient in
Christian principle ; which has never yielded to the renovating
touch of the word and spirit of Christ, the Saviour ; which is
supremely influenced by the things which are seen and tempo-
ral ; which has no blood-bought title, and no heaven-derived
congeniality, to the abodes of everlasting bliss. Yes, there is
character here, all around us, which is not wanting in the kind
affections, and the sweet charities without which this earth
would be desolate indeed, which yetis wanting, fatally wanting,
in those high and holy sympathies that ally the soul to Heaven,
that make it capable of the joy that reigns there around the
throne of God.

What then, is that human depravity which the Bible pro-
nounces universal ? In what does it consist ? What is its es-
sence ? It is -ungodliness— ungodliness. This is the depravity
that is total and universal.

It lies in this, as our Church summary of scripture doctrine
well expresses it, that " all mankind have lost communion with
God." It consists in this, as our text sets forth, that God has
" nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled
against him."

" We live estrang'd, afar from God, ■
And love the distance well."

To prove human depravity, we do not refer to the foul and
flagrant crimes of the openly vicious ; we restrict ourselves to
the contemplation of unrenewed human nature in its fairest
development, and under all the benignant influences of Christi-
anity. There is many a heart here, that, if charged with a de-
pravity that set at nought all the claims of justice and honor
and good fellowship between man and man, would indignantly,
and with just and warrantable indignation, repel so foul an ac-
cusation. But is there one heart here, at all self-conscious, that
when charged with a depravity that involves as its primary ele-
ment, ungodliness, forge tfulness, neglect of God, ingratitude and
disobedience to Him, — is there one heart here that can pretend
to have escaped the contamination of such depravity ?

Who is there among us, that can trace, from the first thought
of God that dawned upon infant years down to the present hour,
a joyous and overflowing current of warm and grateful affec-
tion to this Benefactor, supremely great, supremely good?
Whose memory supplies to its possessor, the blest assurance of
having always loved God and kept his commandments?

If a consciousness so blissful dwells not in any of our bo-
soms ; if, instead of this, stimulated memory and awakened
conscience bring to view only humiliating reminiscences; if
they roll back upon us in melancholy retrospect, long years
spent in willing ignorance and wanton neglect of God our Ma-
ker ; if they vehemently accuse us of. many and many a sin
committed in open and utter defiance of his high and sacred
command ; what have we to do but to acknowledge and mourn
over a depravity, as strongly testified to by our own awakened
consciousness, as it is by the unering oracle of God ?

But now when we are convinced — and it seems difficult to
stifle the conviction — that a depravity of which ungodliness is
the primary element, is justly chargeable upon us all, there is
the greatest danger lest this depravity — leaving, as it does, some
range for the social virtues, admitting many things good in them-
selves and beneficial to society to co-exist with it — there is, I
say, the extremest danger lest this depravity — which does not
yet obliterate all the amenities of life, should seem but a small

thing in onr eyes— should be counted as involving but light
and venial guilt.

Here it is that our moral judgment is itself perverted. Con-
science, which draws the line, to our perceptions, between good
and evil, is here itself at fault. It feels a bias from the very
depravity which it is summoned to recognize and measure.
Though we may not be able to disguise to ourselves the fact,
that we are chargeable with neglect of God and wilful violation
of his commands, we still do not feel the compunction which
such a fact would awaken, if our moral sensibilities were in a
healthful state. The holy prophet calls heaven and earth to
wonder at this unnatural revolt and apostacy. But we, instead
of " abhorring ourselves and repenting in dust and ashes," are
ready to palliate and excuse our forgetfulness of God, our in-
gratitude toward him, our transgressions of his law.

Now these palliations and excuses are so many witnesses to
the reality and extent of our estrangement from that Almighty
and ever-blessed Being, whose paternal care has been unceas-
ingly extended over us, and who has crowned our years with
his goodness — years, in which we have lived, as if we were
independent of Him, and owed Him no regard.

Could we thus forget our Maker and Benefactor, if we were
not fatally alienated from him ? Could an upright, unfallen
nature thus make itself a voluntary outcast from the great
source of all blessedness and joy? Would any star that had
not left its prescribed orbit, so wander into the blackness of
darkness? We have lost ': communion with God ;" the free and
joyous intercourse of a confiding and loyal spirit with its Crea-
tor. His glories are all around us, but we scarcely heed them,
scarcely recognize Him in them ; his voice speaks within us, in
the responses of our moral nature ; but how often do we stifle
and smother it 1 The mass of mankind, prone to the dust, ab-
sorbed in the pursuits of this transient world, yielding to its
temptations, think little of the Hand that feeds them, and in the
affluence of his gifts, which they greedily seek after, forget the
Giver.

And all this, even when brought distinctly to the conscious-
ness of men, seems to them, it may be, but a small thing. If
they had treated a human benefactor so ungratefully, they would

8

feel the keenest self-reproach. The stain, of such ingratitude
would be to them like a wound. But they do not feel the claim
that their Creator has upon their supreme regard and affection.
Because, through the same mercy which has upheld them in life,
the blessed light of Christianity shines all around them, and, as
a consequence, their moral nature has not been left without
softening and ameliorating influences ; because the moral con-
stitution which God has given them, does not permit them to
be wholly insensible to the beauty of virtue; because they cul-
tivate some traits of character, in themselves good and amiable,
but — alas ! not from love to Him, and desire to do what is
pleasing in His sight, as their great motive — because their sin-
ful alienation from God has not despoiled them of all right and
generous sensibilities toward their fellow men — they feel little
compunction ; they forget that, however commendable in them-
selves may be particular acts of justice or kindness, still there
is a radical, fatal, all-pervading wrong in that character which
is not supremely influenced by regard for the Divine will ; the
sin and the misery of this " lost communion with God," this
outcast and rebel state, take no deep hold upon their spirits ;
"repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,"
the Saviour appointed to reconcile us to God and bring our na-
ture into harmony with his holiness and blessedness — these
are things unknown to their experience, and undesired as
unknown.

Such is the alienated and estranged, the sinful and wretched
state of unrenewed man. 'So true is it that God " hath nour-
ished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against
Him."

What stronger proof could there be of the fact of this aliena-
tion, than the general insensibility of men to its turpitude ? It
has proceeded so far as even to obliterate, to some extent, the
sense of obligation, the feeling of responsibility toward the Cre-
ator. The irreligious man is so unmindful of his Maker, he
has so forgotten God that formed him, as even to have lost nearly
all sensibility to the guilt which is involved in this forgetfulness.
He thinks that if his fellow man cannot reproach him with any
flagrant violation of duty, his character of course stands fair
in the eye of Heaven. At least, he cherishes the idea that

God will visit no heavy judgment on one who has done so many
things well. And yet he knows that the idea of serving God,
the sense of allegiance to his Maker, does not lie at the founda-
tion of his virtue. He proceeds on the supposition that the
claim of the High and Holy One to the obedience and affections
of his rational offspring, is a matter of small moment — is alto-
gether a secondary and trivial claim. He forgets that, however
good in themselves, however beneficial to society, may be those
traits of character which he views in himself with complacency,
there is still no virtue really worthy the name — there is cer-
tainly no moral excellence which can bo the substratum of
heavenly happiness, save that which springs from supreme re-
gard to the Divine approval, and which is nurtured unceasingly,
in this unkindly world, by the spiritual appliances of piety and
prayer.

If, my friend, what you do justly and kindly toward your
fellow men is prompted ultimately by right affections toward the
Creator, if it flows forth from a spirit in harmony with his
laws — then, indeed, that virtue, though its immediate outgo-
ings are toward earthly objects, nevertheless takes hold on hea-
ven ; it has in it an element of permanency ; it shall survive
the mortal agony and the cold slumber of the tomb : it shall
belong to the soul's inalienable treasures through all eternity.

But if, on the other hand, all that in you is good and amiable
in your relations to your fellow men, stands far apart from any
feeling of love and reverence to the. Creator, and wish to meet
His approving eye, then is yours at best but an earth-born and
perishable virtue ; it claims no kindred with the skies ; it can-
not outlast those human sympathies from which it drew its life ;
it will not accompany the unclothed spirit to its eternal abode ;
fair and beautiful though it be, like many other things of earth,
it is yet but a transient flower,

" Which springs to fall, and blossoms but to die."

It yields here, indeed, a grateful fragrance ; it is well suited
to the soil and atmosphere of earth ; but it cannot be transplanted
to the Paradise above.

When these present scenes shall have given place to the
things which are eternal, all vestige of that virtue which "lived
2

10

and moved and had its being " only in the circle of human sym-
pathies and regards, which had no link of connection with the
throne and government of God — all vestige of that virtue will
have vanished away forever.

Would you lay up enduring treasures in heaven ? Would
you go into the eternity that awaits you, with a spirit already'
attuned to the heavenly blessedness — capable of unutterable
joy ? Then must you cultivate and cherish a virtue which
derives its nutriment from the soul's relations to its Creator — a
virtue which consists in not only doing justly, and loving mercy,
but also in "walking humbly with God." "Acquaint now thy-
self with Him, and be at peace ; thereby good shall come unto
thee." All true happiness here, all hope of a happy hereafter,
must begin with drawing nigh unto God, through Jesus Christ
his Son. " Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you."
Draw nigh to Him, by meditating on his revealed truth — by
supplicating his grace — by yielding yourself at once to his
commands.

And if this great change in your affections toward your Cre-
ator, seem too deep and radical to be effected by your own un-
aided efforts — as I deny not — as I know full well, that it is — ,
yet you have the assurance that His Holy Spirit is freely offered,
for Christ's sake, to all who will seek the heavenly influence.
" Ask, and it shall be given you." You may have a new moral
nature, if you will wait on God for it. The " carnal mind,
which is death," may in you be made to give place to the
spiritual mind, which is "life and peace," if you will seek the
blessed transformation. The dark cloud which overhangs your
future, may be henceforth rolled away forever, if you will lay
hold of the hope set before you. For the call and the promise
of God is, this day, to you, " Turn at my reproof; Behold, I will
pour out my Spirit unto you."

SECOND DISCOURSE,

Rom. viii, 6-8. " For to be carnally minded is death ; but to be spiritually
minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God ;
for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they
that are in the fiesh cannot please God."

In a former discourse, we maintained that the Scripture doc-
trine of human depravity should be carefully distinguished from
certain extravagant and indiscriminating statements, which,- by
doing violence to the testimony of intelligent conviction, tend
only to obscure the truth, and break its hold on the consciences
of men. We endeavored to show that this doctrine did not
charge all mankind with being totally, (and hence, of course,
equally) vicious and immoral — with being totally depraved,
in the popular sense of the expression, total depravity, that is,
utter destitution of all amiable and pleasing qualities. " The love
of justice, the feeling of generosity, the sense of honor," are
qualities which all must admit to be good, and not evil, and as
to which it is utterly useless to deny that they are often found
in character which is not influenced by true Christian faith.

Having established this position, it then devolved on us to
show what that depravity is, which is universal, — which, de-
rived from our first father, extends to all his posterity, — which
inheres in human nature — which the Bible charges upon all our
race, equally and without exception, placing them here on the
same level, showing them alike in this respect, however unlike
in others ; declaring that " all have sinned," and that " the whole
world lieth in wickedness." We affirmed that the primal ele-
ment of this depravity is ungodliness. "This is the depravity
that is total and universal." All have gone astray from God,
and are so alienated from Him, that a radical, fatal, all-pervad-
ing wrong attaches itself to their very virtues. This doctrine
we proceed now further to establish and unfold.

That the elementary principle of human depravity, is ungod-
liness,— that this is the true Scriptural view of the matter, is

12

perhaps sufficiently evinced by the single declaration of our
Saviour, that the command to love God with all the heart and
soul, is " the first and great command." If this be so, then the
opposite to this supreme love, that is, total estrangement from
God, is surely the great primal element of human apostacy
and degeneracy. It is this state of heart which makes every
man, Without exception, a transgressor of God's law.

This, too, is precisely the view taken in our church standards
of doctrine.' In the Confession of faith, chap, vi, section 2d, it
is said of the transgression of our first parents, " By this sin
they fell from their original righteousness, and communion with
God, and so became dead in sin," &c. It is to this " lost com-
munion with God," — a most expressive phrase in its application
both to the sin and to the misery of man's outcast and rebel
state, — (and we find this two-fold application of the phrase made
in different passages of our doctrinal standards,) — it is to this
"lost communion with God," involving God's exiling man
from His holy and happy conversance, and man's exiling God
from his sinful and hostile thoughts, that all human wicked-
ness is to be traced. Estrangement from God is the elemental
principle of human depravity — the fountain-source of all actual
transgressions, whether committed against the first or second
table of the law : since it was impossible that the sin which
separates man from his God, should not also, to a great extent,
sunder the blessed tie of love between man and his fellow man.

This view of the case, carefully followed out, will clear up
the perplexity which exists in many minds as to the subject of
total depravity, and will at the same time vindicate our Presby-
terian creed from the charge of contravening the common sense,
the intelligent, conscientious convictions of men in respect to
the actual moral state of our race. To perceive the complete
accordance of the Scripture doctrine with the testimony of ob-
servation and consciousness, it is only needful that the subject
be studied in the exercise of a sound, discriminating judgment.
God's truth needs no supplementing by human intensives ; it
seeks not to be reinforced by any doubtful auxiliaries.

There is, in fact, a theological sense of the term total depra-
vity, and kindred expressions, which is quite distinct from the
popular sense ; and it is from failing to apprehend this distinc-

13

tion, that a perplexity has arisen, from which it is important that
so essential a doctrine should be disembarrassed.

When a man has gone to the extremest length of outrageous
crime, when every virtuous sensibility seems in him. to be quite
obliterated and effaced, when he has sunk to the lowest depth
of wickedness, not only far beneath the ordinary level of this
world's moralities, but also beneath all common development of
its crimes — then we say of him, in popular language, ' that man
is totally depraved.' But does any thinking person really sup-
pose that when standard theological treatises represent all man-
kind as " totally depraved," they mean that, outside of the
Christian Church, there are no naturally amiable dispositions —
that only Christians are honest and friendly — that all the men
and women that we meet with in the world are just in that state
of extreme, exceptionable, abnormal wickedness, which in popu-
lar language is termed total depravity ? Such a notion carries
absurdity on the face of it; for it makes the exception identical
with the rule. Total depravity, in the theological sense, we
affirm of all men ; total depravity in the popular sense, we do
not affirm of all men, nor do we know any one that does.

The truth is, that, in theological treatises, total depravity
means total absence of love, total opposition of the heart, to a
holy God. This is the elementary principle of original sin, and
of all actual transgressions that proceed from it.

Theology weighs all things in the balance of the sanctuary.
It adjusts every thing to a celestial standard. It calls nothing
good which is not spiritually good — good in the sense of flowing
forth from a good fountain in the heart, from a right state of
heart toward God. Applying to the moral state of man this
searching test, it declares of all, without exception, who are
controlled by the principles of unregenerate nature — " there is
none that doeth good, no, not one."

Is theology wrong in this? Not at all. It follows precisely
in the track of the Bible. Nothing could be more pertinent
to this theological representation of human depravity, than
the passage selected as our text. The state of unregenerate
human nature is therein declared to be a state of enmity against
God — of irreconcilable opposition to the law of God; so that.
as long as this moral state continues, there can proceed from

14

human character no works acceptable to God. "They that are
in the flesh cannot please God." How can they " please God,"
as long as, not loving God, they are continually disobeying the
first and greatest of His commandments 7

We can now appreciate the true and consistent theological
sense of all those statements of the Presbyterian and other kin-
dred doctrinal standards, which represent man in his natural
state as "wholly defiled" — which affirm the "corruption of his
whole nature," which describe him as " utterly indisposed and
opposite to all good, $*c." These expressions are but the ren-
dering in other terms of the Scripture language ; " The carnal
mind is enmity against God;" " They that are in the flesh can-
not please God." Theology and the Bible count nothing good,
but that which is spiritually good — which is religiously good —
which is prompted by, and flows from that right state of heart
toward God, without which, there can be no genuine, heavenly
virtue or happiness, and which right state of heart, the Bible,
and theology drawn from the Bible, plainly and strenuously de-
clare is not au attribute of fallen human nature.

Our Presbyterian creed itself furnishes the key to the true
meaning of its language in respect to human depravity ; for
whilst, in the Confession of faith, (chap. vi. section 4,) it is said,
" By this original corruption we are utterly indisposed, disabled
and made opposite to all good" — in the parallel passage in the
larger catechism, (Ans. 25,) the same truth is thus expressed —
" The corruption of man's nature, whereby he is utterly indis-
posed, disabled, and made opposite to all that is spiritually
good ;" here the "good" which the unrenewed man is in the
first passage declared opposite to, is in the second passage ex-
pressly defined as that which is " spiritually good."

There need be no perplexity as to this matter. The distinc-
tion between " terrestrial and celestial ethics" may be made
sufficiently palpable. Were the question put — " Is there any
good thing in unregenerate human nature ?" — we answer, noth-
ing " spiritually good'"' — nothing " acceptable to God," as flow-
ing from a right state of heart toward Him ; but again, in per-
fect consistency with this, we say that there may be in human
character, especially under moral and Christian culture, much
that is good in the sense of earthly goodness — dispositions nat-

15

urally amiable — morality, not rooted in love toward God. The
two answers are perfectly consistent with each other, and will
appear so to every one who is skilled to distinguish things that
differ.

At the same time, it should be considered that the extent to
which these natural virtues are found in a community — the de-
gree in which they characterise modern civilization — is largely
due to the genial influences of that Christianity, which produces
a certain rectitude of moral sentiment in many a mind that still
refuses to subject itself to its spiritual and Divine power. It is
the prerogative of Christian truth to nourish all goodness ; let
then every Christian disciple remember that it is his holy vo-
cation, and should ever be his high and honorable ambition, to
glorify God, to illustrate and adorn religion, by cultivating every
good trait of character from religious motives, by developing
from the best principles the best practice ; that, as Heaven's
sunshine and rain clothe the fields with verdure, and make
them "blossom as the rose," so in him all things lovely — the
most refined sense of honor, love of justice, kindly and gene-
rous feeling, and every kindred excellence, may be seen, spring-
ing from a heavenly root, nurtured by heavenly influences, and
spreading over- the whole life, the beautiful and brilliant efflo-
rescence of Christian virtue.

In this happy land, something of the pure vital air of Chris-
tianity we all inhale, mingled with the grosser atmosphere of
earth ; and hence there goes forth a certain good influence, in
Christian communities, under Christian instruction, to hearts in
which there is no depth of religious feeling, no genuine Chris-
tian faith, nothing " spiritually good." For let moral culture,
without piety toward God, rise to its highest possible point, still
there must ever be a broad and ineffaceable line of demarcation
between the virtues of the merely earthly, and the virtues ef the
heavenly citizenship. As we believe, so we speak. We firmly
believe, and therefore frankly say, that, though we look to the
Christian Church as the nursery of all that is amiable and lovely}
as well as religious and godly, in human character, still there
are some who are not Christians, who possess, by nature, dispo-
sitions more genial and kindly, who have more native jiobleness
of soul, than some who are Christians— true Christians, but in

16

whom Christianity has to struggle against many adverse influ-
ences, many ill conditions, physical and moral, many infirmi-
ties of the flesh and of the spirit. At the same time, in re-
spect to these naturally amiable but still irreligious ones, we
know that their earthly virtues, wanting the soul of virtue, love
to God, constitute no fitness for Heaven ; we know that, unless
they humble themselves before God and come to Christ for sal-
vation, all their good qualities will avail them nothing at the
last day ; nay, more, a most weighty condemnation will de-
scend upon them, if they abuse Heaven's choicest gifts to pal-
liate and sanctify utter alienation and apostacy from God.

When the true doctrine of human depravity, as entire and
universal, is perceived to be, that all have gone astray from
God; that God has "nourished and brought up children, and
they have rebelled against him ;" that the carnal mind is so an-
tagonistic to God and God's law, that they who are under its
controlling influence, " cannot please God" — cannot please Him
whom they do not love, whose first and great commandment
they are hence continually breaking — who does not see that,
whilst theology and the Bible are in perfect accord in charging
upon all without exception a native depravity alienating them
from all that is " spiritually good" it is still left by this doc-
trine an open question, how much of earth's moralities, how
much of earth-born, perishable virtue — perishable, because not
rooted in loyalty to Heaven's eternal King — may yet survive, in
humanity, the ruins of the fall; may make our earth, desolated as
it is indeed by sin, still, through God's mercy, to differ, most
widely to differ, from that world, where no sweet ties of nature,
no gentle influences of human affection, no kindly restraints of
Christian instruction, shall mitigate and assuage the ferocious
malignity of sin ; where the weight of Divine wrath, the hour of
mercy having gone by, shall bring out in full intensity all those
elements of sin and woe which inhere in a soul, alienated from
all true blessedness, rebellious against its God, and sinking for-
ever beneath his frown !

The Scripture doctrine of human depravity, as a state of en-
mity against God, which in this world is comparatively latent —
God in his holiness being so little thought of, that the heart's
direful opposition to Him is but little recognised — this doctrine,

17

thoroughly understood, deeply felt, will leave no serious, earnest
thinker, self-complacent in view of any righteousness of his
own. Far otherwise. Let him count the number and estimate
the value of all those virtues of his which go to make him, so
far as they extend, a good citizen of earth — and then let him
think whether there be in them all so much as one spiritual, re-
ligious element, to qualify him to be a citizen of Heaven — so
much as one virtue, that shall attend him to the spiritual world,
and plead for him, and gain his acquittal in Heaven's high chan-
cery— so much as one grace of character, that can bear the in-
sufferable brightness of God's presence, and the soul-piercing
scrutiny of the omniscient Eye. Let him think, too, and try to
think justly and scripturally, of the awful magnitude, the over-
shadowing blackness, of that guilt, which consists in a heart at
enmity with God. Let him think of his continual, total aber-
ration from the true, the celestial standard of virtue ; let him
think of the multitude, and the heinousness of his open and se-
cret sins against the great and holy Being, in whose hand his
breath is, and whose goodness has crowned his life. Let him
think of these things, as an awakened conscience would prompt
him to think, and he will find no one passage in the whole
Bible, expressive of human guiltiness in the sight of God, which
shall appear to him at all too strong. " Unclean " — " God be
merciful to me a sinner " — will be the language of his soul.
" The carnal mind is enmity against God." There are those
whose consciences might be so far aroused, as to convict them
of the sin of living without God, who yet would be very slow
and reluctant to admit that there is in their hearts any thing
like positive enmity against God. But can there be alienation
.in such a case, without there being also enmity ? If our Maker
would consent always to let us alone — if our relations to him
as a moral governor, could be utterly sundered and broken oft' —
if we were never to be summoned to his tribunal — then aliena-
tion might assume no more positive character than simple indif-
ference. But He is the Great Being with whom we have to do;
our eternal destiny hangs on his arbitrament ; he has placed us
under law to Himself; let but that law come home to the heart,
and sinful man will soon find himself in open controversy with
God. At first, convinced of sin, he may perhaps betake him-
3

18

self to prayers and vows of amendment, hoping thus to recon-
stitute his broken relations with his Maker. But when, further
enlightened, he feels the pressure of the Divine law but exas-
perating the malignity of sin within him ; when he finds that
pollution still inheres in his good works and prayers and vigils —
that supreme love to God being wanting, which is the soul of
obedience, without which there can be nothing spiritually good;
when he comes to perceive that, in the very purpose and process
of thus by his own good works propitiating his Sovereign, he
has brought an offering which was not required and could not
be accepted, has followed his own choice, not God's command,
has obeyed himself, not God, and that all this great and insup-
portable burden of self-expiation and self-purification has been
borne in vain, that there is the same portentous chasm as ever
between himself and Heaven — then will there waken within
him a most bitter controversy with God, and ' why hast thou
made me thus V will be the rebellious cry of the heart that feels
itself still guilty and polluted, and finds that by all its self-pre-
scribed washings it can never make itself clean.

Can there be any "peace with God," — can there be anything
but hostility toward Him — whilst such a controversy remains
unadjusted ? So long as we live without God, or without thought
of God, it is not strange that we should be insensible to any
feeling of positive enmity against Him. But let Him come near
to us in judgment — what will then be our feeling toward Him?

If it be indeed true, that every unrenewed heart is not only
icilhoiit God, but against God — how utterly wanting, when
brought to the test of the Divine law, appear all those earthly vir-
tues and moralities which may co-exist with such a state of heart!
In the words of another, " let us then hear no longer of one
man being better than another because of his natural virtues ;
or that, because a good citizen of the world, he is therefore fitted
for the citizenship of Heaven. This is saying no more than
that the summit of a mountain on earth is nearer than its base
to the sun in the firmament — while to all sense equal, because
of the insignificance of all terrestrial distances when brought
to the high standard of astronomy ; and thus it is that, on the
high moral standard of the upper sanctuary, all men will be
found to have fallen immeasurably beneath the perfection of the

19

Divine law ; and that, having lived their whole lives long at a
distance from the Father of their spirits, and been all the while
breakers of the first and greatest commandment, they are all of
them the children of deepest guilt, because one and all the chil-
dren of ungodliness."

Whoever wishes to know what is his own moral state, let
him come to the Bible. He will find there that the law under
which he is placed requires him to love God supremely, and his
neighbor as himself. Has he kept this law ? He knows that
he has not. Was it right in God to impose on him such a law?
Let him ponder that question, and see whether he is reconciled
to God, or in controversy with Him.

If compelled to admit, that the Divine law is the only true
standard of rectitude, and that perfect conformity to it is the
only true happiness of a created spirit — in other words, that that
law is both most righteous and most benevolent — he will then,
perhaps, wish to satisfy himself that he has at least done many
things which it requires. But is this true 7 Grant that he has
done many things which it is set down in the commandments
that he should do, has he done them in the spirit that the law
requires — from the motive which alone characterizes real obe-
dience to God ? Has he in fact obeyed God ? Has he done these
things because God requires them ? If he does not love the
true God — then all his life long he has been a violator of the
first and greatest of the commandments ; he has never rendered
any true obedience to his Creator. How stands he then in the
eye of Heaven 1 A transgressor — a rebel — at enmity with God.
What becomes of all his good deeds — of those things which he
has done, which were good in themselves, commendable, praise-
worthy, in accordance with the letter of the commandment — as
when he has honored parents — when, in utter abhorrence of
theft and murder, he has acted justly and honorably in his pe-
cuniary transactions, and done many good and noble acts of
kindness and benevolence toward his fellow men — when, more-
over, he has paid a decent respect to the Lord's day, and has
scrupulously refrained from tlie vulgar vice and impiety of pro-
faning God's name — what becomes of all these things, confess-
edly good in themselves, most worthy of commendation and im-
itation ' >v ill they go iui nothing m God's judgment ?

20

Let us ask another question. Will they excuse and justify
total alienation of the heart's affections from God 1 Will they
stand in the place of that supreme love to Him, which the law
requires, and without which all that earthly virtue hath no root
and will wither away, when the soul is taken out of the circle
of earthly companionships and regards 1

He alone who sees all the workings of the human heart, and
knows all the influences that concur to the formation of human
character, can decide on the comparative guiltiness of those,
who, living amid the clearest light of Christianity, and formed
by its genial ministrations to much that is attractive in charac-
ter, much that is most useful to society, yet refuse to become
disciples of Christ — and those on the other hand, who, breath-
ing always an atmosphere of vice, have lived and died, wretched
outcasts from all humanizing influences of earth, as well as all
redeeming ones of Heaven. We leave that high judgment to
God. The thing which it concerns us to consider is, whether
that goodness of God which keeps a man from vice — which
puts restraint on the evil propensities of his nature, and surrounds
him with circumstances most favorable to moral culture, — does
not lay upon him weightier obligations to gratitude and love to
God, than even the most lavish bestowment of the goods of for-
tune? And if so, what, and how great, will be his condemna-
tion, if, in that day that shall reveal the secrets of all hearts, he,
whom Heaven has endowed with its best gifts, as if to allure
him by every sweet attraction, and bind him by the golden chain
of love, to the eternal throne, shall be found without loyalty to
his Maker — without love to God — at enmity with that holiness,
which is the essential glory and beatitude of the Divine nature,
and the pure ethereal element of Heaven's eternal bliss ?

When we have conceded all that can, with truth, be conceded,
as to the existence of things, praiseworthy in themselves, in
character which is nevertheless fatally alienated from God,
there is yet an impassable gulf between that character, and
the virtue and felicity of Heaven. The secrets of the heart,
the different degrees of human guilt, are known only to God ;
but it is a solemn thought, that not only is the moral man in
some peculiar danger of losing his soul by trusting in his moral-
ity, but, compared with others, on him, if he reject Christ, there

21

may rest at the last day, a locightier wrath — as having sinned
against clearer light, greater obligations, more accumulated
Heavenly influences — as having abused that very mercy which
caused him to differ from the flagrantly vicious, to his hardening
himself the more against both the law and the gospel of God.
His natural virtues, let them rise as high as they may, still make
no appreciable diminution of the distance between his character
and the requirements of God's law ; yet, vainly trusting in
them, he has despised the riches of God's goodness, manifested in
that gospel, which proffers pardon to the guilty, which reveals a
religion for sinners, which alone opens the door of Heaven to
any of our race. " All have sinned ;" at God's tribunal, there
will be no question between guilt and innocence ; the only
question there will be between guilt unforgiven, and guilt
forgiven— between sins retained as a heritage of wo forever, and
sins washed away by the precious, atoning blood of Christ — be-
tween the sinner who, refusing to become a Christian, rejecting
Christ, has " died in his sins," — and the sinner, who, fleeing
to Christ for refuge, has been saved from his sins, saved from
wrath through Him.

There is one way of salvation alike for all; all stand on the
same footing, in respect to utter guilt before God, and absolute
need of salvation by Christ. God grant that each one of us may
be found walking in that path of Christian discipleship, which
.alone conducts to Heaven !

APPENDIX

The intelligent reader of these Discourses, will have no difficulty in per-
ceiving that their doctrinal drift is not to deny the total depravity that theo-
logy affirms, but to explain wherein it consists. On this topic, it may be in-
teresting to note the entire harmony of sentiment among divines of the first
rank, as evinced in the annexed extracts. The first is from John Howe,
whom Robert Hall pronounces — " unquestionably the greatest of the Puri-
tan Divines." Those which follow, with the exception of that from Hall,
are from Presbyterian works, each of rare excellence in its kind.

" A settled aversion from God hath fastened its roots in the very spirits
of their minds. This change [of heart] must chiefly stand in its becoming
holy or godly — in the alteration of its dispositions as to God. To rest in any
other good dispositions or endowments of mind, is beside the business. There
are certain homiletical virtues that much adorn and polish the nature of
man, urbanity, fidelity, justice, patience of injuries, compassion towards the
miserable, &c, and, indeed, without these, the world would break up, and all
civil societies disband ; if it at least, they did not in some degree obtain.
But in the mean time, men are at the greatest distance imaginable from any
disposition to society with God. They have some love for one another, but
none for Him. And yet it must be remembered, that love to our neighbor,
and all the exertions of it, ought to grow from the stock and root of love to
God. They are otherwise but spurious virtues ; whatever semblance they
may have of the true, they want their constituent form, their life and soul."
" Blessedness of the Righteous," first published A. D. 1668. Howe's Works,
p. 230.

" There are no degrees in death. All who are dead in sins are equally
dead. They may possess many very estimable and amiable qualities, such as
naturally engage the love of their fellow-creatures ; but every unsanctified
person is totally "alienated from the life of God," is totally devoid of love to
Him. In this alienation, lies the very core and essence of sin. This aver-
sion to God is the seminal principle of all wickedness." — Hall's works, vol.
Hi. pp. 73-98.

" Enmity against God is the elementary principle of all depravity, and love
to God the elementary principle of all holiness." — Broivn's Commentary on
1 Peter, p. 117.

" In every country, and under every form of society, man's heart has
glowed with the feelings of private affection and tenderness ; and the history
of his exploits has been ennobled by many disinterested and heroic exer-
tions. But, without any invidious detraction from those amiable disposition*,

24

and those splendid actions, it will occur to you that they do not in reality
contradict that system, which places the corruption of human nature in an
estrangement from tlie true God. . Amidst all the offices of private kindness or
of public spirit, men were without God in the world ; without that communion
with God, and that image of God, which are essential to the rectitude of
[human] nature.'' — Hill's Divinity, p. 404.

' Are there not amiabilities, and sympathies, and tendernesses, constantly
shown by mankind towards each other'? Is there a man who has never re-
ceived such kindness from a fellow creature 1 — it is most assuredly because,
by his rudeness or selfishness, he has repelled it. The person who would
maintain of all and each of mankind, that they are utterly selfish, that they
possess no other quality but a cold and calculating self-love, such a man is
shutting his eyes to human characteristics which fall under our view every
day in our intercourse with our fellow-men. But we maintain that the mere
possession, or the lavishing of these affections, does not constitute the race
morally good. To determine what is the character of man, we must bring
the law of God to bear upon it. Now take this law, as requiring supreme
love to God. Herein it is, that we are enabled to convince every man of
sin. We charge every man with the sin of ungodliness. The circumstance
has often been dwelt on by Divines, that ungodliness is the great leading sin
ot humanity." — Mc Cosh on the Divine Government, ppt 364-365.

" We have never had that love which is our first and highest duty. It is
in this sense that men are said to be totally depraved ; they are entirely desti-
tute of supreme love to God, They may be affectionate fathers, or kind mas-
ters, or dutiful sons and daughters ; but they are not obedient children of God.
The man who is a rebel against his righteous sovereign, and whose heart is
full of enmity to his person and government, may be faithful to his associates
and kind to his dependents, but he is always and increasingly guilty as it
regards his Ruler." — "Way of Life" by Prof Hodge, of Princeton Semi-
nary, p. 73.

"But there are certain stern theologians who speak of this degeneracy, —
not only as universal, that is, extending to one and all of the human family,
but as total or complete; insomuch that not one virtue or grace of character
is to be found among the sons and daughters of our race. Now we are
bound to confess, not that the dogmata of our theological system, but that at
least the sayings of certain of our theological writers on the subject of hu-
man depravity are not at one with the findings of observation. And we
make this admission with all the less fear, that we believe the correction of
the lanouage which we deem to be exceptionable, does not weaken, but
rather serves to confirm and strengthen the foundations of orthodoxy.
Surely then it is rash, and fitted to mislead into a hurtful and wrong impres-
Bjori) — as if theology and observation were not at one, — when told in a style
of sweeping invective, by certain defenders of the faith, that humanity out
and out is one mass of moral putrefaction, and that naught of the just or the
pure, or the lovely, or the virtuous, is anywhere to be found in it. Surely,
apart from Christianity, anterior to and distinct from its influence upon men,
there are, we do not say in all, but in some, nay, in many, a native integrity

25

and honor, a generous sensibility to the wants and the wretchedness of
others, a delight in the courtesies of benevolent and agreeable fellowship,
an utter detestation of falsehood and cruelty, a heartfelt admiration of what
is right, a noble and high-toned indignancy at all which is fraudulent or base ;
these are undoubted phenomena of human character in the world, and that
notwithstanding ihe evasion attempted by those who would fain ascribe them
to hypocrisy, or the love of popularity and applause."

"There is a natural virtue upon earlh, without which states and com-
monwealths would go into dissolution — a social morality without which soci-
ety would soon fall to pieces — a scale of character along which the good and
the belter and the best ascend in upward progression, till on its loftiest sum-
mit where Socrates and Scipio and Epaminondasand Cyrus stand forth to the
admiration of the world, we behold the bright examples of unfeigned worth
and honor and palriotism.

"Now all this might be admitted, and without prejudice to the cause of
orthodoxy. To refuse it were a violence done to experimental truth, and so
as to revolt alike the judgments as well as the tastes of men. It is thus
that theology, or rather some of its rash and precipitate defenders, have
created an unjust and most unnecessary offence against its own articles.
They have set doctrine and observation in hostile array against each other ;
and instead of making truth manifest to the conscience, they have reversed
this process by placing conscience or intelligent conviction, on the one hand,
and their own strenuous representation of our nature, upon the other, at
irreconcilable variance."

" It is not, however, the inconsistency of human writers, but the consist-
ency of the Bible with the findings of experience, that we are most con-
cerned about. Nothing can exceed the terms of degradation in which its
inspired authors speak of our fallen humanity, telling us at one time of the
filthy rags of our own righteousness ; at another, of man being conceived
in sin and shapen in iniquity ; at a third, of the heart being deceitful above
all things, and desperately wicked; and, finally, instead of a world bright-
ened or at all beautified even by occasional or but transient gleams of the
morally fair and upright and honorable, instead of making any allowance for
the amiable instincts and sensibilities of our nature, they tell, without qual-
ification and without softening, of man having gone altogether aside, and of
the whole world lying in wickedness.

" There is a patent way of clearing up this perplexity. We need only
advert to two distinct moral standards,- — each of undoubted reality and truth
of application to the conduct and the characters of men. There is a social
and there is a divine standard of morality. There is a terrestrial as well as
a celestial ethics. There is a duty which man owes to his fellows, which
apart from the consideration of Deity, is both recognized and to a great ex-
tent observed and proceeded on in society. And, distinct from this, there is
a duly which man owes to his God. It is a possible, nay an actual and fre-
quent thing, for one to be decently, even conscientiously and scrupulously
observant of the one, and yet wholly unobservant and wholly unmindful of
the other. To our view there are no two things more palpably different than
the virtues which belong to the citizenship of earth, and the virtues which
belong to the citizenship of heaven ; and which every aspirant for that bliss-
ful and glorious inheritance should be ever practicing as the chief and proper

4

26

education for a child of immortality. And what we affirm is, that, on the
strength of the former virtues, there be many who are good citizens and
good members of society, who yet, in utter destitution of the latter virtues,
have no practical sense whatever of the authority of God, and live without
Him in the world.''

" While we maintain, then, in the theological sense, which is the most
important of all, the entire and universal corruption of human nature, we
concede to the adversaries of this doctrine that there is virtue in the world,
and that apart from Christianity, and beyond the circle of its influences on
the character of men. There is a reality, a substantive reality and truth, in
the recorded virtues of antiquity. There was virtue in the continence of
Scipio; there was virtue in the self-devotion of Regulus ; there was virtue,
we have no doubt — what a philosophical observer of character could not but
have marked and named as virtue, in the understood sense of the term — in
the minds of Socrates and Plato. It is opposite to all experience and nature
to affirm, that apart from religion, and therefore apart from Christianity,
there is really no such thing as social or relative or patriotic virtue in the
world. There is a native sense of integrity and honor in many a human
bosom. There is a felt obligation in truth, and there would be the utmost
moral discomfort attendant on the violation of it. It is neither wisdom nor
truth to disallow these things, — they are forced upon our daily observation.
We meet with them in the amenities of kind and hospitable intercourse, —
we meet with them in the transactions of honorable business, — we meet
with them both in the generosities of the public walk, and in the thousand
nameless offices of affection which take place in the bosom of families. Hu-
man nature, in some of her goodliest specimens, even anterior to the touch
of any influence from Christianity, gives forth most pleasing and pictur-
esque exhibitions of virtuousness ; and it is not in the power of a relentless
dogmatism either to do away their reality, or to do away our admiration of
them.

"We should be glad to admit all this, and the more that it can be done
with all safety to the theological position, that man by nature is in a state of
utter distance and disruption from God. This is the original righteousness
from which he has so immeasurably fallen. The moralities which recipro-
cate between man and man upon earth have not made entire departure from
the world. They are the moralities which connect earth with heaven that
have wholly disappeared, and cannot be recalled but in virtue of a singular
expedient unfolded in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and brought, through the
overtures of that gospel, to bear upon the species. When man is charged
with guilt in Scripture, — enormous, inexpiable, and infinite guilt, — we rest
the truth of that charge upon his ungodliness. It is here that the essence,
that the elemental or constituent principle of his depravity lies. What we
affirm is, — examine the mental constitution of the best man upon earth who
has not been christianized, you will find the honesties and humanities of vir-
tue there, — you will find the magnanimous principle of truth and equity
there, — you will find family affection there, and withal find the active princi-
ple of benevolence there ; but you will not find there either a duteous or an
affectionate sense of loyalty to the Lawgiver in heaven. You will not accre-
dit him with godliness because he does many things which God commands,
or because he refrains from many things which God forbids, if it is not be-

27

cause God commands that lie does the former, or because God forbids that
he refrains from the latter. You will not ascribe to the religious principle
what is only due to the social, or the moral, or the constitutional principle.
Be on your guard only against this delusion ; and you will at once perceive
how man, in possession of many decencies and many virtuous accomplish-
ments, may yet be in a state of entire spiritual nakedness. The Being who
made him is disowned by him — the God from whom he sprung, and who
upholds him continually, is to him an unknown and a forgotten thing. The
creature has broken loose from the Creator. He has assumed the sovereign
guidance of himself; and in so doing he has usurped the rightful sovereignty
of his Maker. He has made a divinity of his own will ; and the will of
God hath no practical, no overruling influence over this self-regulating, this
self-directed creature. In this deep revolt of the inclinations from God ; in
this lethargy of all sense and all principle toward Him ; in this profound
slumber that is upon all eyes, so that the Being who gives us every breath,
and upholds us in all the functions and faculties of our existence, is wholly
unregarded ; — in this, there is nothing to move the moral indignancy of our
own spirits, for the same death-like insensibility which prevents their being
alive to the sense of God, prevents their being alive to the guilt of their
ungodliness. Bui in the jurisprudence of the upper sanctuary, this guilt is
enormous, and there brands us with the character, even as it has placed us in
the condition, of accursed outcasts from heaven's family. In this world of
sunken apathy toward God, there is no recognized standard by which to esti-
mate the atrocity of our moral indifference to Him in whom we live and
move and have our being. But the pure intelligences of heaven are all
awake to it j and in that place where love to God is the reigning affection,
and loyalty to His government the reigning principle of every spirit, nothing
can exceed the sense of delinquency wherewith they look on the ingratitude
and rebellion of our fallen world. When eyeing this territory of practical
atheism, they cannot but regard it as a monstrous anomaly in creation, — a
nuisance which, if not transformed, must at length be swept away. As con-
trasted with the pure services and the lofty adorations of paradise, they
must look on our earth, burdened with a graceless and godless progeny, as a
spectacle of moral abomination. This unnatural enmity, or even unconcern,
of man to his Maker, must be to them an object of utter loathsomeness ;
and when they look down upon a world that has exiled God from its affec-
tions, they will hold it a righteous thing that such a world should be exiled
from its God." — Chalmers'' Institutes of Theology, vol. 1, pp. 397-399, and
523-526.

These views will be more profoundly impressive to reflecting minds, than
the most lavish indiscriminate vituperation of human character that leaves
the hearer (if not the speaker) in serious doubt, whether the thing affirmed
be exactly true; which must be the case, if the assertion be, that all are, in
the popular sense, totally, and hence equally depraved. To those who lean
on authority, the name of Chalmers should suffice 'o guaranty the consist-
ency of these views with the Presbyterian creed. To feel any appiehensions

28

as to the orthodoxy of this most emment teacher of theology in the always
orthodox church of Scotland, were a thing most superfluous*

It is much to be deprecated, that the mind should be turned away from the
deep feeling of religious truth, to view it chiefly in connectiou with party
badges and watchwords, — things that degrade and desecrate whatever they
touch. The difference between Dr. Chalmers, and some other expounders
of our creed, is, that he excels in developing its doctrines in their Scrip-
tural simplicity, free from those human additions by which they have been
sometimes overlaid and well nigh smothered ; that he never either ignores,
or contracts, or dilutes, one statement of the Bible, with a view to give pro-
minence or effect to another, but does equal justice to all, unfettered by arti-
cial systems ; and that, bringing to the intense study of the oracles of God,
not only a mind saturated with true philosophy, but also a heart warm and
glowing with love to Divine truth, he has, more than others, exhibited Theo-
logy in her true character, — not as a piece of human handiwork, a creation
of human ingenuity, a congeries of tenuous speculations, cold, soulless, scho-
lastic,— not like a bundle of dry bones in an anatomical museum, — but in-
stinct with life, bearing the impress of Divinity, a true emanation from God.

Unless the greatest Divines are in ignorance as to the subjects which they
have most intently studied, the truth respecting the moral state of man
is to be made manifest to the conscience, — not by universally denying the
existence, in unconverted humanity, of those " homiletical virtues that
much adorn and polish the nature of man, urbanity, fidelity, justice, <J-c." —
but by demonstrating their fatal deficiency, when they have no root in the love
of God, and hence no adaptation to the atmosphere of Heaven.

* For this remark, otherwise itself " most superfluous," and for so copious citation,
the reader will infer the existence of special reasons, connected with the writer's vici-
nage. For similar reasons, in the first of these Discourses, the doctrine is set forth pre-
cisely as preached. To the second, several paragraphs have been added, being needful
to replace quotations here transferred to the Appendix.