picted in Scripture, the language used respecting them will convey a fair account of us, and no further.

It is truly astonishing that people do not see this, and that so many feel obliged to take to themselves a description of guilt of which they are not conscious, because the description is in the Bible. What a stumbling block does it throw in the way of simple minds, thus to bind them down to acknowledge, as their own, a character, the original of which lived some thousand years ago! No less than this is done by those who make the account in the first chapters of Romans, a description of the human race, or who, from such passages, infer the doctrine that all men are entirely depraved.. Those portions of Scripture, which, like this, describe in glowing language the prevalent corruptions of present or past times, are not to be made the basis of any doctrine respecting human nature itself, or the human character universally, and in all periods; we must interpret them accordingly; the nature of the case requires and justifies it. When we have collected into one horrid group, all the sick, maimed, blind, deaf, decrepid, who crowd the hospitals or streets of a great city, we have, surely, not gained materials for a description of its inhabitants. A traveller, passing through a fine fertile country, would be deemed mad, if he filled his journal with accounts of the barren spots which were scattered here and there in his way, or gave us a grave narrative of the beggars, thieves, and knaves, whom it was his fortune to encounter, as an index to the morals of the people. A historian who should collect a long catalogue of bad princes; with descriptions of public calamities, and political mistakes, not

noticing at all the blessings which followed from the government of good princes, or the numerous prosperous events of their several reigns, would hardly be respected as authority. But the history of mankind, their moral history, demands no less fidelity than this; and we ought not to take it from those who have studied men only in their vices.

But regard the general character of the race as bad as you may, it is not a beneficial habit to dwell chiefly on what is evil in it. The individual who does so, injures himself, and society shares the injury. Whence has proceeded that chilling scepticism which confounds all moral distinctions, laughs at virtue and vice as mere names, and at the goodness apparent in society, as the silly efforts of fools to cheat each other? In many cases, I believe, from this very practice of which I now complain. Begin by allowing yourself to put the worst colouring on human actions, habitually to see things in their evil aspects, and to ascribe what seems good to doubtful motives, you may soon come to make no important difference in your opinion, between the best men and the worst; and you may end, at last, by disowning all moral distinctions, that you may sneer alike at all mankind.—It is worthy of remark, that the most notorious sceptics, the bitterest enemies to Christianity, are the very men who have laboured most zealously in the base work of degrading the species. In their writings, every good affection is derided; every pretence to virtue mocked; and the noblest actions and sentiments, resolved into some vile principle. No such lessons on depravity as they teach; none so thorough, and none so

appalling; but they are consistent. Having reduced man to a level with the brutes, they give him brutal pleasures as his proper good, and a brute's death as his proper end.

Besides the danger of causing scepticism, there are others in the habit of magnifying what is bad in human character, which ought to put us equally on our guard. These may be made apparent to any one who has observed the tendency of excessive feelings, to disease the mind in all its powers. It cannot be denied that very serious mischief is occasioned by allowing the sense of shame and remorse to be too strongly and too long operative in cases where there is a natural proneness to despondence. But there are no instances where a habit of self-disparagement will not, at length, produce evils nearly, or quite, as great. And these are sometimes fatal to the character, where they are not to the present enjoyment of the individual. Let the constant feeling in a man's mind, respecting himself, be such as degrades him in his own eyes, and you will discover in him that moral apathy which refuses all exertion, under the plea that it is useless; and which has ceased, at once, to hope and to desire improvement, from an idea that it is not possible. To strive after moral excellence, one must retain the consciousness that he is capable of it; when that is gone, all is lost. Now the morbid habit of exaggerating one's own sins, takes away this feeling; and a similar effect, in a wider extent, may be produced by unduly magnifying what is faulty in the character of mankind generally. Confine a young man of warm heart, with all that confidence in the professions of oth

ers, usual at his age, to the society of persons, professedly religious, but from whom he shall daily hear the language of self-abuse, mingled with unsparing censures of their neighbours,-who shall question sarcastically the soundness of every apparent virtue, and colour every fault in the deepest dye,-who, in fine, shall habitually inveigh against human depravity, and set mankind before him in their worst possible lights,-and what may you expect? If he rely on their statements, or from ignorance be unable to refute them, how must they affect his mind? Will they not inspire him with unwonted jealousy, not only of his own emotions, but of the motives of others? Will they not supplant his generous confidence by base suspicion; his disposition to admire, esteem, and love, by the malignant feelings of abhorrence and resentment; his desire of excellence, by doubts of the reality of all virtue ?

However it may seem to us now, we may be assured that the habit of looking only at the bad qualities of men, has a tendency like a constant association with wicked people. As he who should dwell in the midst of assassins, knaves, and sharpers, would insensibly acquire a temper, quite averse to the friendly sympathies, so will the man whose mind seeks the dark images of guilt for its common company. He will have their hues reflected on himself. His respect for others will necessarily be impaired by contemplating them most often in the light of depraved beings, adversaries to God and goodness. His self-respect can hardly be retained with the belief that he is no better than they. And it would not be surprising if his permanent disposition should settle into

something resembling the moral apathy, which we have. before traced from a kindred cause.

I have said that society shares the evils of too exclusive a regard to what is bad in human character; and it is easily shewn. If the doctrine of depravity produced its full, natural effects, we should be, indeed, “hateful, and hating one another;" social intercouse would be more like the herding of animals of prey, than the associating of Christians. And even its most modified influence has some such consequences as this supposes. Two men, who look upon each other as totally corrupt, cannot feel mutual confidence or affection; and the pious people, who, with still stronger emotions, must approach those, whom they believe the enemies of all they ought to love most, will not cherish a sentiment kinder than pity, even if they do not allow themselves in abhorrence towards them. If a temporary check of benevolent affections will weaken them; how can brotherly love exist, with much strength, in the heart which is daily filled with new bitterness, by the faith, that nearly all, who might be the objects of its sympathy, are thoroughly wicked, and so, unworthy of affection?

An attentive observer, will, perhaps, see cause to trace that spirit of exclusion, which erects its high walls in the vineyard of Christ, and repels, with such cruelty, the hand offered from without, and answers the voice of charity with the rebuke of bigotry, to this origin. To shut out from your fellowship those, who are believed to be excluded from God's mercy, is not strange; to hate a being who is utterly odious, is no more so. And thus, in learning the lesson of total depravity, we learn how to indulge our bad feelings with a good excuse.