ferred from one object to another, the latter must be made the subject of consideration, and also of comparison with the former, as the means of good; and this must be done with the design of choosing anew one or the other as the supreme good. But so long as the selfish principle continues active in the mind, the only possible voluntary acts, are those which are designed and fitted to subserve and gratify this principle. To this end all the thoughts, so far as they are voluntarily employed, are exclusively directed. The purpose being taken, the grand question in regard to the superior desirableness of its object is decided, and the decision supersedes all further inquiry or consideration, in respect to the comparative worth of any other object. Of course the acts of consideration and comparison requisite to a new choice, are in the present state of the heart or affections, eflectually excluded from the mind. Indeed the least fluctuation of purpose, or hesitation of the mind in regard to the object of supreme regard, instead of being occasioned by the love of that object, is traced by human consciousness to a cause entirely diverse. For who does not know that the supreme love of an object has no tendency to produce hesitation in the pursuit of it. Indeed to suppose the acts of consideration and comparison in respect to two objects to exist in the mind when in fact the choice of one is already made, and the full purpose of heart to obtain it is in active operation, is to suppose the mind to be in a state of decision and of indecision respecting those objects at the same time. A transition therefore from the supreme love of the world to the supreme love of God without intervening mental acts which involve the suspension of the former and of all acts dictated by it, is impossible..

Again; to the mind in the state now supposed, the object of its preference is the greatest apparent good, and cannot but be so regarded. This estimate of the object led to the existing preference, and must remain while the preference remains as an active principle. To suppose the contrary, is to suppose either, that a man may prefer or choose an object as the means of his highest happiness without esteeming it as such, whichimplies a choice without a reason, and is contradicted by human consciousness; or that he may esteem the object not chosen as the means of his highest happiness against which the same objections lie; or that he may esteem each of two objects as the means of his highest happiness at the same time, which is absurd. It being then impossible that the mind, in the state supposed, should esteem any other object as the means of its highest happiness except that on which its supreme affections are fixed, it becomes impossible, without the cessation of this state of the affections, and without some intervening mental acts, that the heart should ever be changed.

The same fatal tendency may be traced in all the specific acts of the sinner, which are dictated by the selfish principle. It will be conceded that when the sinner is actively engaged in worldly pursuits to secure worldly good, either in the form of wealth, of pleasure, or of reputation, and with his thoughts and affections exclusively fixed on his object, there is no hope of his regeneration. What acts of the sinner then, in that state of his affections now supposed, have not the same fatal tendency? True it is, the sinner may employ his thoughts on divine truth; he may read the word of God,-he may hear the gospel preached, he may even speculate on its doctrines as a professed and zealous advocate. But never are these things done by him, while under the active influence of the selfish principle, without proposing some selfish end. To see that it must be so, we have only to ask, what is his motive? He surely does not act voluntarily without some motive. What then is his motive? It is, perhaps, reputation, since he would not be ignorant where knowledge is commendable,—or it is intellectual entertainment, in circumstances in which time cannot be passed more pleasantly, or it is to provide a quietus for the conscience, that the world may be better enjoyed, -or it is to secure in some other form, his selfish gratification. For what other end can he act, while under the influence of the selfish principle? But are not acts which respect divine truth done from such a principle, and for such a purpose, as truly adapted to prevent the sanctifying influence of truth, as any other acts? Is there not a palpable perversion of truth, a gross abuse of it, which must, while persevered in, defeat the end for which the truth is revealed? Nor is this the only light in which the subject ought to be viewed. Never does the sinner, under the influence of the selfish principle, direct his thoughts in such a manner to divine truth, that it can reach and break down that principle. Never does he direct his thoughts, or even suffer them to be directed to truth, without devising and adopting some expedient for the very purpose of resisting and preventing its proper influence on the mind; never without voluntarily forming, either by perversions, or false connexions, or direct denials, such views of truth, of his relations to it, and its relations to him, as tend to protect his supreme affection for worldly good; never, without freely, deliberately, and with fixed purpose of heart, resolving not to come under the full practical power of the truth. How can it be otherwise? How can a man while regarding the world as his chief good, and resolutely resolved to secure this kind of happiness as all that he values, voluntarily consent to place himself under an influence which he knows would defeat his object, and render him, according to his present estimate of

things, completely miserable? How can he consent thus to have his all, his very gods, taken from him?

What human consciousness shows to be true on this point, he who knew what was in man most explicitly declares. "Every one," says he, "that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." The sentiment is no other than that the sinner under the active influence of the selfish principle, never does and never will by his own act, place himself under the cloudless light of divine truth. He knows that it would make discoveries too painful to be endured. It would show him to himself. It would show him to himself under God's condemnation. It would scatter to the winds all his false hopes of salvation, impart to the object of present affection as its inseparable appendage, the terrors of coming wrath, and shed gloom and midnight over all the bright prospects of his present career in iniquity. To look with a steady eye upon himself in such a condition, and upon the world under such an aspect,-how forbidding, how wretched! To consent to this, while he regards the world as his supreme and only good, would be choosing misery for its own sake.

Is it said, that by the preaching of the word and by other methods, truth may be so forced upon the mind that the selfish principle itself, will prompt earnest desires to avoid the punishment of sin? We reply that such desires, considered as voluntary states of the mind, under just views of truth, are impossible. "God tempteth no man." Least of all, does God in presenting the motives to holiness, furnish even a possible temptation to the selfish principle to act in a selfish manner. On the contrary, he has rendered it impossible, that the sinner with just views of truth, should either desire or seek deliverance from punishment as the dictate of the selfish principle, by rendering it a known impossibility, that the principle should subserve itself in this way. In this respect, both in the present and a future world, the truth of God excludes all hope, extinguishes all desire, and paralyzes all effort, in an eternal night of despair. True it is, that involuntary desires to avoid punishment, may be excited by exhibiting to the sinner his exposure to it. But such desires, as we have shown, are sure to be strenuously resisted, and if possible to be wholly excluded from the mind, and can therefore prompt to no voluntary action. Urge home then upon the selfish heart of the sinner, the solemn consideration of future punishment. You will indeed awaken the involuntary desire to avoid the evil; but along with it you will awaken aversion or even enmity toward the God who threatens such a doom. And while the hopelessness of deliverance will prevent all effort to accomplish it, the selfish principle will infallibly assume

the decisive form of malignant emotion. So that in proportion to the clearness and power in which you press on the sinner, while under the active influence of this principle, the alternative of repentance or perdition, he will abhor that alternative, and the God who creates it. When was it known or heard, that God or any other being arrayed himself in open and determined opposition to the governing purpose of a human heart, and was not hated? To urge upon the selfish heart, therefore, the painful necessity of submission to God, is, as one has said, 'but using oil to extinguish fire.'

Is it then said, that the sinner may certainly be induced to look at the necessity of renouncing the world to escape future punishment, and that he may thus be led soberly to consider his ways, and to ponder the wisdom of his present choice, and to bethink himself whether he will not resort to the only source of true happiness? This we readily admit. But the question is, what can prompt to such acts of consideration? Not surely the selfish principle. This never prompted a sinner to such meditations for such a purpose. The selfish principle never put a sinner upon a course of sober contemplation to frustrate his main object. When was it known that one's governing purpose, employed the mind in devising ways and means of defeating itself? The acts of consideration now supposed, therefore, instead of being dictated by the selfish principle, are to be traced to a very different origin. The truths presented to the mind have touched some other sensibility of the man. Instead of being induced to ponder thus soberly, the things of eternity in order to subserve the selfish principle, this principle, for the time being, has lost its controlling power, and his sober contemplations are prompted by that first and essential principle of our nature, the desire of happiness. The man is not thinking and acting to accomplish any worldly, selfish purpose whatsoever; but, as a being capable of happiness and desiring it, is considering whether he will not, for the purpose of obtaining the highest degree of it, renounce every inferior object of affection, for the supreme good. The case therefore now stated, shows that the only supposable acts of a sinner with which his regeneration can be connected, involve the suspended influence of the selfish principle; and how impossible it is, that without such a suspension, the heart should be changed. So entirely does this principle, while active in the mind, control and direct the thoughts, and modify and check all the constitutional emotions and feelings in subserviency to itself; so entirely does it employ them on the things of earth and of time; so absolutely does it enlist the whole man to secure its own gratification, protection, and perpetuity, that it shuts every avenue of the mind against the

sanctifying approach of truth. No dungeon was ever more firmly barred, or more deeply dark, than all the inner chambers of the soul, when under the active tryranny of this principle. How profoundly conscience sleeps! How is every sensibility to the excellence and worth of divine realities hushed! How relentless too in its dominion, and how desperate and triumphant in its resistance of truth and of the God of truth! Were there no other access to the inner man, except through this principle of the heart; were there nothing to which the motives of the gospel could be addressed but the hardihood of this fell spirit-no way to overcome this strong man' except by direct assault, then for aught we can see, the moral transformation of the soul were hopeless, even to Omnipotence.

6

We have thus attempted to show, that no acts of the sinner, done while the selfish principle remains active in the heart, constitute using the means of regeneration; first, as they have no tendency to produce the change; secondly, as they have no necessary or real connexion with it; and thirdly, as they have a direct and fatal influence to prevent it.

We have dwelt the longer on this part of the subject, not merely to expose doctrinal error, but chiefly on account of the dangerous practical tendency of inculcating it upon sinners. The position appears to us incontrovertible, that so long as the sinner believes, that any acts done while the selfish principle remains active in the heart, are necessary to his regeneration, he will never be regenerated. The whole tendency of such a belief is to lead him on in this mode of using, or rather abusing the means of regeneration; and of course to prevent every effort to detach the affections of the heart from the world, and to fix them on God. While he regards the course proposed, as that which furnishes the only hope of his regeneration, why should he, or rather how can he, adopt any other? We are aware that exhortations to this course have been pronounced important and even indispensable, in order that the sinner may learn in his own experience its utter uselessness, and thus be led to despair of all efforts of his own. Despair of all efforts of his own, when life and death depend, under God, on effort! This would either sink him at once into sullen devotedness to sin, or awaken the frenzy of 'a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation.' Despair of all efforts of his own, even of all efforts to love God, or to think of him! This were death. That he may learn, in his own experience, the uselessness of the course proposed? But why not let him know its uselessness at the outset? Cannot such truth be communicated by instruction; and must a sinner continue in sin, to discover how vain it is to perpetrate iniquity as the means of holiness? Why not then, instead of