The love of property frequently degenerates into avarice, and extortion and oppression ensue; but without the love of property, what becomes of the many advantages which result from industry and economy? By destroying the principle, you make a sacrifice of all these beneficial effects of it. The evils of abundant wealth generally have their re:nedy in their consequences. The miser dies, and his accumulated heap is distributed to promote the comfort of many individuals, and to subserve the most useful purposes of society; even as accumulated waters are by small rivulets drawn off to moisten and fertilize widely-extended plains.

Lawless ambition is productive of incalculable injury to society; but the love of distinction, the nat ural affection, is the legitimate principle of the greatest enterprizes, and the noblest plans, by which the world has been benefited. In every instance, man becomes guilty when he permits his animal passions and worldly propensities to gain an ascendency over his reason and conscience, the great law of his mind.

When we leave human nature, as we view it in its constituent principles, and attend to the representation of it by Calvinistick divines, we find every beauty defaced, and a picture deformed and offensive rises to our view; but will observation on the general actions of men support the statement? Was it true that man by nature is totally depraved,. and that at the new birth a principle of holiness is implanted of habitual influence, the difference in the tempers and practices would be so great between saints and sinners, that in society they might be sep

arated with the certainty with which the shepherd divides the white from the black of his flocks. Is this practicable? The characters of men in active life, do not correspond with the description given either of the natural or the converted man. Men are neither angels nor demons; in our intercourse with the world, we every where find mixed characters, and observe the different shades of virtue and vice from the highest state of the Christian down to the lowest condition of the sinner. Our observations on every class in society will lead us to reject the doctrine of total depravity. Children, before they learn dissembling from those about them, are proverbially examples of innocence and truth. In understanding, says the Apostle, be ye men, but in malice be children; and our Saviour himself represents the purity of the child as an emblem of the disposition of the inhabitants of heaven. If all men were totally depraved, from them we could expect only malevolent actions. Does experience justify the expectation? No. By no means. We place great confidence in the truth and benevolence of men in our common communications with them. In instances without number we call even on strangers for information and assistance, and the many who inform and assist us in our need are not denominated unnatural men; but the few, who deceive, and deny this aid, are thus called. The wonder is not, that men in general are ready to help a fellowbeing, but that any should refuse to join in common offices of humanity.

The worst sinner, judged by his actions, will not be found so corrupt and depraved, as all men

are represented to be in a state of nature. No man is wholly given up to impiety and malevolence. In common cases, the doctrine of habits proves that men are not totally depraved. Sinners grow worse and worse, not as their capacity is enlarged and their means to do evil is increased; but as the habit of vice acquires strength in their minds. Can a measure be more than full ?

I conclude.

Abstract opinions have not the influence on the religious practices of men, which before experiment might be expected. Reason, conscience, the moral sense are constantly rising to counteract the influence of a false theory: the natural principles of that very moral constitution in man, which is pronounced to be totally depraved, often prove superior to the bad tendency of gross speculative errors. Yet it cannot be a matter of indifference whether the human mind be in the possession of truth or error. Error clouds the understanding, and doubtless has a tendency to corrupt the heart. The man, whose opinions are erroneous, must take his religious steps in darkness, and with uncertainty. Truth enlightens the mind, and has the best influence on the affections. The man, whose mind is enriched with truth, holds his religious course in the clearness of day, and with the satisfaction and safety of light.

Do you believe, my Christian brethren, that God has given you the power of self-government-that he has entrusted the various principles of your constitution to your management? Do you believe that endless felicity is suspended on the wise and sober

regulation of your active faculties? Sacred, then, is your duty, as the subjects of the moral government of God; and you can have no excuse for the neglect of its performance. They who hold to the moral inability of man, seem to have an apology for inattention to the ordinary means of improvement; and yet many of them are bright examples of the simplicity and godly sincerity recommended by the gospel. But to those, who believe that life and death are set before every individual of mankind, and that, under God, each is left freely to make his election between the immortal rewards promised to piety, righteousness and sobriety, and the pains and penalties of the second death, designed as the punishment of an habitual course of sensuality and vice, no vindication is left for inattention and negligence in moral life. God has in the best manner adjusted the circumstances of our probation to discipline çur passions, to establish religious principles in our hearts, and aid us in forming habits of purity and goodness. By the trials of this world, we are to acquire a moral disposition for the happiness of heav en. Let us then take to ourselves the whole armour of God, that we may resist every weight, even the sin that does the most easily beset us.

SERMON XVIII.

ON EFFECTUAL CALLING.

2 CORINTHIANS iii. 5.

Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves our sufficiency is of God.

IN our previous context, St. Paul declares to the Corinthians-"Ye are the epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in the fleshly tables of the heart." In our text, he informs them, that he and other preachers of the gospel were not of themselves sufficient, by their own wisdom, to devise the scheme of man's salvation; nor, by their own strength, to carry into execution the merciful purpose of converting Jew and Gentile to the faith and virtues of the gospel; but their sufficiency was of God, who appointed his own Son to be the saviour of men, who adopted efficient measures to establish Christianity among the nations, and who imparted to the first preachers of the gospel all the powers necessary to accomplish the high design of their commission, as the apostles of salvation.