be clean. Did that the outside of them may be clean. not he that made that which is without, make that which is within also*. Defective, in like manner, on this subject, will be the sentiments of those, who, while they admit the heart to be the seat of the disease, yet entertain false conceptions of the degree and extent of the disorder. If the heart be only partially corrupt, only a partial change can be required." Let the evil propensities "be weakened and subdued. Let the inherent "good dispositions be strengthened and en"couraged. Let the noxious weeds, the tares, " and thorns, be cleared away: and the seeds "of virtue, thus freed from every impediment "which can obstruct their growth, will na"turally vegetate and thrive." But this is not a remedy adapted to the disease. It does not reach the extent of the disorder. The Corruption is total; total must be the change. Where are those inherent good dispositions? Where are those seeds of virtue to be found? In the natural heart they have no place. In that soil holiness meets nothing congenial. Sin is the only plant which vegetates and thrives therein. Here then must the change be made. In the soil must the melioration first commence. The heart must undergo a renovation. Some * Jer. iv. 14. James, iv. 8. Mat. xxiii. 26. Luke, xi. 40. new leaven must be inserted, which may gradually diffuse its potent influence throughout the lump, until the whole be leavened. Some new principle must be applied, which may communicate a new direction to every power and faculty of the soul, until old things are passed away, and all things are become new. Such is the change which the Scriptures throughout inculcate. Make you a new heart, and a new spirit. Be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of the mind. Be ye renewed in the spirit of your minds. Put ye on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness*. A third ground of misconception on the point before us, respects the objects on whom this change is to be wrought. If, while it be conceded on the one hand, that the Corruption described in the text is radical and total, it be asserted on the other, that there is a large proportion of mankind to whom this description is not applicable, the concession will avail but little. Those who restrict to the Antediluvian and Gentile worlds the Scriptural statements of Natural Corruption, cannot extend to the professors of Christianitythe necessity of aRenewal of the Heart to Holiness. "Man," they cry, "no longer involved in heathen darkness, is * Ezek. xviii. 31. Rom. xii. 2. Ephes. iv. 23, 24. 66 66 "not now utterly depraved. Wherever the light of the Gospel has been diffused, his "nature has been gradually improved. What 66 necessity can now exist for a renovation of "his heart? All those expressions in the sacred. writings, which seem to intimate such a ne"cessity, are to be regarded by us as passages " in which we have no concern, or to be interpreted in some modified and milder sense." May the Scriptural views, which have been exhibited of the nature and extent of Human Corruption, contribute to explode such false and dangerous notions! If the heart of the sons of men be full of evil, the heart of the sons of men must be renewed to holiness. If that which is born of the flesh be flesh, every child of Adam must be born again, or be for ever excluded from the mansions of the blessed. Such is the express assertion of our Lord, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God*. No distinction is stated. No limitation is intimated. No individual then of the human race can plead an exemption from this comprehensive declaration. If every man naturally engendered of the offspring of Adam be carnal, marvel not that ye must be born again. Such are some of the prevailing misconceptions, which I proposed to obviate. That * John, iii. 3. they result from a criminal inattention to the truths revealed, from a presumptuous substitution of man's natural reasoning in the room of the plain and positive declarations of the word of God, has been fully shewn. Humiliating indeed, and highly repugnant to our pride and self-complacency is the picture, which the sacred mirror discloses, of the radical, the total, the universal depravity of the human heart. But it is a picture delineated by the hand of Him, who vindicates to himself the prerogative of searching the hearts and of trying the reins of the children of men. Far, then, from taking offence at the representation exhibited; far from endeavouring to disavow its resemblance, or to palliate its deformity, let us thankfully receive, let us profitably use the information thus vouchsafed. 1. Let us thankfully receive the information vouchsafed. The Corruption of Human Nature and the consequent necessity of a Renewal of the Heart to Holiness, are truths for the clear knowledge of which we are indebted to revelation. They are truths indeed, which, when once revealed, are capable of being proved by facts and experience; and which therefore, in this respect, differ from many of the higher mysteries of revelation, which are proposed to us as objects of faith alone: but they are truths, which, without the imparted light of revelation, would for ever have remained in impenetrable darkness. The unassisted powers of natural reason might possibly have discovered that the soul of man was in a disordered state. And at such a discovery some few of the wisest among the heathens actually arrived. But the nature, the seat, the extent of the disorder, the necessity, the magnitude, the means of a recovery, were points beyond the reach of human penetration; points, to the knowledge of which we should never have attained, had not God, who was rich in mercy, of his great love, wherewith he loved us, disclosed them to us in his word. Nor can the importance of such a disclosure be sufficiently appreciated. Unaccompanied by such a disclosure, all the stupendous blessings of the Gospel would have been offered to us in vain. Ignorant of the lost and ruined condition of our soul; ignorant of that entire renovation, which the heart must undergo, we should never have embraced, we should utterly have despised the remedy provided. Let us then praise the Lord for his goodness in having fully revealed to us our real state. Let us with gratitude receive the Scriptural details of our natural depravity, as so many proofs of the paternal love and of the tender solicitude of Him, who desireth not the death of a |