they are capable of becoming what the Maker of them may love, and their own understandings approve. The contrivance that I speak of consists in a principle of which we have large experience in ourselves, and may with good reason suppose it to subsist in every intelligent being, except the First and Sovereign Intellect. It is a principle which it is in every man's power to turn, if he be so pleased, to his own advantage; but if he fail to do this, it is not in his power to hinder that the Deceiving Spirit turn it not to his detriment. In its own nature it is indifferent to the interests of virtue or of vice; being no propensity of the mind to one thing or to another, but simply this property, that whatever action, either good or bad, hath been done once, is done a second time with more ease and with a better liking; and a frequent repetition heightens the ease and pleasure of the performance without limit. By virtue of this property of the mind, the having done any thing once becomes a motive to the doing of it again; the having done it twice is a double motive; and so many times as the act is repeated, so many times the motive to the doing of it once more is multiplied. To this principle, habit owes its wonderful force; of which it is usual to hear men complain, as of something external that enslaves the will. But the complaint, in this as in every instance in which man presumes to arraign the ways of Providence, is rash and unreasonable. The fault is in man himself, if a principle implanted in him for his good becomes by negligence and mismanagement the instrument of his ruin. It is owing to this principle that every faculty of the understanding and every sentiment of the heart is capable of being improved by exercise. It is the leading prin

ciple in the whole system of the human constitution, modifying both the physical qualities of the body and the moral and intellectual endowments of the mind. We experience the use of it in every calling and condition of life. By this the sinews of the labourer are hardened for toil; by this the hand of the mechanic acquires its dexterity; to this we owe the amazing progress of the human mind in the politer arts and the abstruser sciences; and it is an engine which it is in our power to employ to nobler and more beneficial purposes. By the same principle, when the attention is turned to moral and religious subjects, the understanding may gradually advance beyond any limit that may be assigned in quickness of perception and truth of judgment; and the will's alacrity to conform to the dictates of conscience and the decrees of reason will be gradually heightened, to correspond in some due proportion with the growth of intellect. Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou so regardest him! Thou hast made him lower than the angels, to crown him with glory and honour!" - Destitute as he is of any original perfection, which is thy sole prerogative, who art alone in all thy qualities original, yet in the faculties of which thou hast given him the free command and use, and in the power of habit which thou hast planted in the principles of his system, thou hast given him the capacity of infinite attainments. Weak and poor in his beginnings, what is the height of any creature's virtue, to which he has not the power, by a slow and gradual ascent, to reach? The improvements which he shall make by the vigorous xertion of the powers he hath received from thee, thou permittest him to call his own, imputing to him

the merit of the acquisitions which thou hast given him the ability to make. What, then, is the consummation of man's goodness, but to co-operate with the benevolent purpose of his Maker, by forming the habit of his mind to a constant ambition of improvement, which, enlarging its appetite in proportion to the acquisitions already made, may correspond with the increase of his capacities in every stage of a progressive virtue, in every period of an endless existAnd to what purpose but to excite this noble thirst of virtuous proficiency, to what purpose but to provide that the object of the appetite may never be exhausted by gradual attainment, hast thou imparted to thy creature's mind the idea of thine own attribute of perfect uncreated goodness?

ence?

But man, alas! hath abused thy gifts; and the things that should have been for his peace are become to him an occasion of falling. Unmindful of the height of glory to which he might attain, he has set his affections upon earthly things. The first command, which was imposed that he might form himself to the useful habit of implicit obedience to his Maker's will, a slight temptation, the fair show and fragrance of the forbidden fruit,―moved him to transgress. From that fatal hour, error hath seized his understanding, appetite perverts his will, and the power of habit, intended for the infinite exaltation of his nature, operates to his ruin.

Man hath been false to himself; but his Maker's love hath not forsaken him. By early promises of mercy, by Moses and the prophets, and at last by his Son, God calls his fallen creature to repentance. He hath provided an atonement for past guilt. He promises the effectual aids of his Holy Spirit, to counter

act the power of perverted habit, to restore light to the darkened understanding, to tame the fury of inflamed appetite, to purify the soiled imagination, and to foil the grand Deceiver in every new attempt. He calls us to use our best diligence to improve under these advantages; and it is promised to the faithful and sincere, that by the perpetual operation of the Holy Spirit on their minds, and by an alteration which at the general resurrection shall take place in the constitution of the body, they shall be promoted to a degree of perfection which by the strength that naturally remains in man in his corrupted state they never could attain. They shall be raised above the power of temptation, and placed in a condition of happiness not inferior to that which by God's original appointment might have corresponded with the improvement of their moral state, had that improvement been their own attainment, by a gradual progress from the first state of innocence. That the devout and well-disposed are thus by God's power made perfect, is the free gift of God in Christ, the effect of undeserved mercy, exercised in consideration of Christ's intercession and atonement. Thus it is that fallen man is in Christ Jesus "created anew unto those good works which God had before ordained that we should walk in them." His lost capacity of improvement is restored, and the great career of virtue is again before him. What, then, is the perfection of man, in this state of redemption, but that which might have been Adam's perfection in Paradise?-a desire of moral improvement, duly proportioned to his natural capacity of improving, and, for that purpose, expanding without limit, as he rises in the knowledge of what is good, and gathers strength in the practical habits of it.

Thus, you see, the proper goodness of man consists in gradual improvement; and the desire of improvement, to be truly perfective of his character, and to keep pace with the growth of his moral capacities, must be boundless in its energies, or capable of an infinite enlargement.

Another property requisite in this desire of improvement, to give it its perfective quality, is that it should be disinterested. Virtue must be desired for its own sake, not as subservient to any farther end, or as the means of any greater good. It has been thought an objection to the morality of the Christian system, that as it teaches men to shun vice on account of impending punishments, and to cultivate virtuous habits in the hope of annexed rewards, that therefore the virtue which it affects to teach it teaches not, teaching it upon mean and selfish motives. The objection, perhaps, may claim a hearing, because it is founded on principles which the true Christian will of all men be the last to controvert, namely, that good actions, if they arise from any other motive than the pure love of doing good, or, which is the same thing, from the pure desire of pleasing God, lose all pretension to intrinsic worth and merit. God himself is good, by the complacency which his perfect nature finds in exertions of power to the purposes of goodness; and men are no otherwise good than as they delight in virtuous actions, from the bare apprehension that they are good, without any selfish views to advantageous consequences. He that denies these principles confounds the distinct ideas of the useful and the fair, and leaves nothing remaining of genuine virtue but an empty name. But our answer to the adversary is, that these are the principles of Christi