disappointed of the end of all his works, and be as miserable as he is benevolent. If God cannot effectually secure my holiness, and I may not hope in him and pray to him for that, I feel for one that I must despair. I know I shall never do it myself. But in every case in which we are dependant, we are so far passive. If we are acted upon we are passive. We are constantly passive in receiving life, though in many of the functions of life we are active. In receiving that influence which causes either a right temper or right feelings, we must be passive, though in the feelings themselves we are active. This therefore must be true whether we have a disposition or only exercises. It must be true unless we are independent, -unless we create our own affections,-unless we do more than God does, who never created any part of his own mind.

By regeneration the Scriptures sometimes mean the change both in the temper and in the exercises which follow; namely, that in which the man is active, as well as that in which he is passive; and perhaps I may add, conviction also. Regeneration in this larger sense is certainly brought about by the instrumentality of the word. To this I refer all such passages as these: "Born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God." "Is not my word like as a fire—and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces ?" But the old divines found it convenient to divide this change, (throwing out conviction,) into two parts. That change in the temper, antecedent to exercise, which is produced by the Spirit, they called regeneration; that change which consists in the new exercises of the moral agent, or in his actual turning to God, they called conversion. I shall use both of these words in the sense they did. Convic tion is the presentation of truth to the mind, by the Spirit, before regeneration. Sanctification is the continued work of the Spirit after regeneration.

It is admitted on all hands that light is necessary to conviction and conversion. In the first place, it is the instrument of carrying on that preparatory work in the understanding and conscience which shows the soul its ruin and need of a Saviour, and fits it to make a just estimate of things, and to exercise all the Christian graces, when new life comes to be infused: and in the second place, it presents all the objects towards which the mind acts in conversion. Without the word, we have no authority from the Bible to say, there would ever be a saving change on earth.

I admit also that truth is supernaturally conveyed to the mind in conviction. But after the most powerful convictions the enmity of the heart often rages. The question now is, Is the subsequent change in the temper produced by the power of truth thus seen and felt, or by the immediate power of God? I say it is produced by the immediate power of God.

The advocates of the opposite theory generally speak of truth's being employed in the form of motives to regenerate the soul. Now motives are for moral agents, but regeneration, in this restricted sense, is no part of the treatment of moral agents. It is an impression made upon a passive

subject, not as a reward, nor in fulfilment of any promise to the subject himself, nor in answer to his prayers, nor by his help or co-operation, but notwithstanding his strenuous opposition to the last, and in spite of his infinite guilt. Sanctification on the other hand, though an operation on a passive subject, in one respect belongs to the treatment of moral agents. It is a gracious and promised reward for preceding faith and prayer.

I. My first argument shall take up this subject of motives; and I lay down this broad proposition, that nothing can be a motive which does not meet a corresponding taste. An invitation to a feast is no motive to one that is full, or whose sickly taste nauseates the provisions. There must be a corresponding taste in the heart before truth can move it to love. But the question is about the production of this very taste. The cause of this must act and exhaust itself before the effect is produced,-before the temper ceases to be carnal,—before it can be influenced by truth.

If you say there is nothing in the soul but exercises, and no taste, temper, or disposition but the stated manner in which God calls forth those exercises, then truth can in no sense cause love or hatred, but is only the object towards which the mind, by a predisposing power, is made thus to act. Seen and felt it may be, and may produce motions of conscience and calculations of interest; but why one mind should act towards it in love, and another, equally convicted, in hatred, is not accounted for by any thing in the truth itself, but must, upon this supposition, be referred to the immediate power of God. In both cases light is equally present, and if it were a cause, ought in both cases to produce the same effect. And how is it that truth makes itself beloved by a heart that just now hated it? How can a hated object transform the hatred into love, even as an instrument? If there is nothing in the mind but exercises, all its love and hatred must be produced by the immediate power of God. There is nothing to address, nothing to work upon but mind itself,-mind without a character, without a propensity to one thing rather than another. In such a mind there is no cause of love or hatred unless you resort to the self-determining power. Observe we are accounting for the action of the mind, and must find a cause previous to the action. If there is no self-determining power and no propensity, what is there in the mind to determine it to one thing rather than another? There is no depravity,-what should make it hate the truth? there is no holy propensity,-what should make it love the truth? If God is not the immediate cause of its love and its hatred, what is? A mind with no propensity, no nature, what should make it fall in or fall out with any object, but God's immediate power? Exercise after exercise comes out without any cause in the mind for its being love rather than hatred, or hatred rather than love. If there is a cause it must be in God or in motives. But it cannot be in motives where they are neither adapted nor inadapted to the mind: but to a mind of no propensity how can they be adapted or inadapted? Consider again that we are seeking for a cause previous to the action of the mind,-a mind without propensity, a mind, of course, which neither loves the truth nor has any disposition or tendency

to love it. To such a mind the truth no more agrees than to a mind with an opposing temper. How then can it cause love? "Can two walk together except they be agreed?" How is it in the widely extended and well known empire of taste? Why do one set of objects please rather than another? Every body will tell you, because they are adapted to the tastes of men. But here is no taste, and therefore nothing to which truth is adapted, and therefore truth can be no cause of love; and for the same reason it can be no cause of hatred. Now as there is no cause of love or hatred in the mind before the exercise, nor yet in the truth, nor in any outward object, the cause of both, whatever be their objects, must be found in the immediate power of God.

There is a stated

But there is a taste or temper distinct from exercise. propensity to feel and act thus and thus, which does not lie merely in the stated mode of God's operation, but belongs to the man and makes a part of his character, even when the temper is not in exercise. In the provision made in our constitution for those passions which depend on the body, you see a preparation to influence the future action of the heart. As moral agency and obligation are concerned, I know not that any difference is made if the predisposing cause is lodged in the body. In the case of habit there is a predisposition contracted, founded on the law of association by which our ideas are made to succeed each other in a certain order, carrying in their train all the operations of the mind. I know not that any difference is made if the origin of this order lies in the head. Why are we pleased with one object rather than another? The answer from every tongue is, because it is adapted to our taste. Who can doubt that every man has a great variety of tastes, fitted to relish a still greater variety of objects in nature, in art, in science, in literature, in business, in amusements, in society? The long disputed question about a standard of taste turn on this, whether in the race at large there is such a similarity of constitution as fits them to relish the same objects and to be disgusted with the same. These tastes, which exist anterior to the pleasure or disgust, are certainly in the mind, and are so connected with desire, love, hatred, and other affections as their cause, that they must be referred to the heart. Allow one of this family of tastes to stand related to divine objects, and I have found what I sought. But it is hard, you say, to suppose a disposition which must be removed by the Spirit before a man can love God: it looks like a chain which binds him hand and foot and destroys obligation. But the basis of obligation, which is none other than natural ability, lies in the faculties of a rational soul, and is not impaired by an opposing temper. And as to the necessity of having the disposition changed, that only makes the man dependant of God for regeneration, the same that he is if he has nothing but exercises. It is no harder to be dependant for a disposition than for affections. Fix in your mind the entire consistency between dependance and obligation, and this difficulty will vanish. You say you cannot conceive what that temper is. But you can conceive of an appetite of the mind antecedent to desire, as easily as you can conceive of an appetite of the body antecedent to hunger. You can conceive of a tendency of

the heart to a certain kind of exercise, as easily as you can conceive of a heart prepared to exercise at all,-as easily as you can conceive of an intellect adapted to the acquisition of knowledge,-as easily as you can conceive of any faculty of the mind, or of the mind itself, distinct from exercise. And certainly you can conceive of this moral temper as easily as you can conceive of those tastes which predispose men to relish the beauties of nature and art. You cannot comprehend any of the operations of matter or of mind; and if you deny whatever you cannot comprehend, you will be a skeptic indeed. You cannot conceive what that temper is? What then is talent antecedent to the action of intellect? Tell me this and I will tell you that. And then, by the same reasoning, there is nothing in intellect but action; and that one acts more strongly than another, is not to be ascribed to any thing in the mind which we call talent, but to the immediate power of God acting in a stated way. And what is there in any faculty of the mind distinct from exercise? in imagination, memory, perception, judgment, taste? What is there in reason? What is there in mind itself? And where are we now? Like Hume we have annihilated mind, and left nothing, as Stewart says, "but impressions and ideas,”— that worst extreme in which Berkleianism exploded.

But reason as we may, the fact is before all men, that one set of motives must be addressed to one man and another to another, according to the existing temper, which is calculated upon before the exercises are excited. You say the calculation is, that a man will act as he has acted, and will be influenced by such motives as have influenced him before: that is all. No, the calculation looks beyond action or feeling to a causal propensity evinced by action, and which is conceived to belong to the man and to constitute his susceptibility of the impression desired. This is the common sense of mankind. You look upon a man as avaricious even when he is not thinking of his gains, as overbearing even when dissolved in grief; and would you manage him, you adapt your motives to his habitual temper, which you ascribe to him both when he sleeps and when he wakes. In matters of business and the arts and in the selection of society, we ascribe to men diversities of tastes altogether distinct from acts of judging and choosing, and which we regard as the causes of those acts and inherent in the chaYou ascribe to the sleeping lion the nature of a lion and not of a lamb. It was the old way of thinking that every animal had a nature and acted it out; that the horse acted thus because it had the nature of a horse and not of a serpent; that the different natures of birds, fish, and worms were the causes of their different actions. But now it seems there is no cause of any distinctive animal action in the animal itself, except the mere organization of brute matter. Sin has no root in the human soul. The heart acts so because it acts so. To make depravity the reason would only be to make a thing the cause of itself. There is nothing in the fountain which causes it to send forth bitter waters rather than sweet. If you say, the task will be as great to find a cause for the depraved temper, I answer: the well known process of induction is the inferring of a general law from particular facts. That law, which is regarded as the cause of the

racter.

facts arranged under it, may be resolved into another still more general, until you come to the most general that can be discovered. And for that you can assign no other reason than that such is the will of our Creator. Now the question is, whether, when you have found that the exercises of the heart are sinful, you have come to the most general conclusion possible, or whether, from the universal and continued exercise of sin, we may not infer a sinful nature or disposition in the race, just as we infer the law of gravitation from the frequent fall of heavy bodies. And if we may, and can go back no farther, we are not to be reproached with presenting a fact without assigning a cause. If we know of no cause beyond but the First Cause of all, it is exactly what occurs in every branch of physical science. From repeatedly seeing steel filings drawn towards a magnet, we infer the general law of magnetical attraction. But if we are required to tell the cause of magnetical attraction, we can only say, Such is the will of our Creator. It is an original law of our nature to ascribe every change to a cause. The exercises of our minds involve a change, and therefore we instinctively seek for a cause; and when we have traced them to nature, which does not change, we look no farther, we can go no farther. This is more than common sense, it is instinct, it is an ultimate law of the human understanding.

That the belief of mankind is what I have represented it, is proved decisively from their language. How came such words in every tongue as temper and disposition, if nothing answering to them was supposed to exist? And it is still more certain from the language of Scripture, which accommodates itself to the common apprehensions of mankind. That language constantly refers to something in the mind, good or bad, which is anterior to exercise, and which gives rise to all our feelings and passions. I scarcely know how to make a selection,-it is found on every page. "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin." "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." "A new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh." "The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy." "Then goeth he and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there." Indeed every case of demoniacal possession, indicated a diseased state of the mind which was the cause of diseased action. May I not strengthen my argument by analogies drawn from the body? That has appetites distinct from the desires they occasion. The quenched eye has impediments to seeing distinct from not seeing, and unremovable by light.

And now what have you to oppose to these analogies, to the language of the Bible, and to the language and common sense of mankind? Nothing but a bare hypothesis, namely, that the mind has no properties, and of course no powers, but exercise ;-an unsupported hypothesis, for which not a particle of proof can be adduced,-which is not a thing that admits of proof;-a mere assumption which, logically or illogically, is employed to sweep away some