of our nature, in producing those vices which darken and dishonour the history of our species. The time would fail me, or I might else attempt to show the effects of the extravagance and madness of unbridled desires. I might show how even the desire of knowledge, though in itself so innocent and useful, may occupy the breast too exclusively and become the active minister of evil as well as of good. I might show how the love of esteem first degenerates into a passion for admiration, destroys the mind's independency, and leads at length to the sacrifice of conscience and principle, to gain the vain tribute of the world's applause. I might show how the desire of power and the love of superiority, when fostered and indulged, swell the bosom with arrogance and pride, torture it with envy, and convulse it with jealousy, lead men to trample on the rights of others, and to commit deeds of atrocity, at which the world gazes with horror and fear. I might show, too, how the social principle may be abused; and in speaking of the effects of sympathy and imitation, when left undirected, might point out to you the inlet of floods of corruption among men. It is but to name the selfish principle, to remind every one of the most prolific nurse of injustice, and almost every species of crime.

So terrible are the effects of applying a constant stimulus even to our most natural desires, and placing no restraint on their wanderings, till they

rush into excesses, which we have no longer power to control. By permitting any one of them long to riot in the breast, it becomes at last the master passion of the soul, and makes all the others tributary to its lusts. Then, it is, that we see how truly it was said, that "he that hath no rule over his own spirit, is like a city that is broken down and without walls." His mind is in ruins-desolate of all that is good; and all that was originally regular and fair is defaced and marred. It resembles the once proud and flourishing Babylon, now fallen in the dust. "Wild beasts of the desert lie there; its houses are full of doleful creatures; and owls dwell there, and satyrs dance there, and the wild beasts of the islands cry in its desolate houses, and dragons in its pleasant palaces."-"Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed, lest he fall!"

SERMON XVII.

SAME SUBJECT CONTINUED.

1 CORINTHIANS, X. 12.

Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed, lest he fall.

In pursuing our inquiry into the sources of sin in human nature, having considered the appetites, the senses, and the various desires, whether original or artificial, we are next led to the examination of our affections, as the instruments of transgression. They are usually divided into benevolent and malevolent, according as their object is the communication of enjoyment or of suffering to any of our

fellow creatures.

Το prove that our benevolent affections are naturally innocent and worthy of their divine original, little need be said. Who will require any illustrations of the purity or value of the parental and filial affections; of the affections of kindred, love, friendship, patriotism, gratitude, or pity? Yet pure and celestial as are these sentiments, the general law of our being ex

tends also to them. They need, as well as our other active principles, to be put under the guidance of reason and conscience, or else they tend to excess, interfere with the exercise of other parts of our nature, degenerate into weakness, and may at last become the parents of crime. To them, more perhaps than to any other parts of our nature, the precept of the Apostle applies; since they are so lovely and innocent in themselves, that our vigilance is less apt to be extended to them.

Of the malevolent affections, resentment, revenge and hatred, I believe the first alone to be native in our breast, and that that was implanted originally for useful and even necessary ends. There is a species of resentment, which seems merely instinctive, and which operates in man exactly as in the lower animals. It was plainly intended to guard us against sudden violence on occasions when reason would come too late to our assistance; and it always subsides as soon as we are satisfied that no injury was intended. There is another species of resentment, which is excited only by intentional injury, by apparent wrong and injustice, and which is evidently connected with a sense of virtue and vice, of moral good and evil. The indignation raised by the sight of eruelty and injustice, whether exercised towards ourselves or others, and the desire of having it punished, has nothing of the nature of malice. It is not only an innocent, but a generous movement of the mind. It is resentment against

vice and wickedness. It is one of the common bonds by which society is held together; a feeling which each individual has in behalf of the whole species, as well as himself. The end for which it is implanted in our nature is to protect us from, and to remedy, injustice and cruelty; nor could we be without it, without a loss to the perfection of that nature.

This principle, however, as well as every other in our nature, is susceptible of abuse, of deep and dreadful abuse. In some persons, the instinct of resentment, by being habitually cherished and indulged, becomes a passion which differs from insanity only in its duration. Others, in exercising a deliberate resentment, either direct it against imagined or exaggerated injuries, or suffer it to swell immoderately against such as are real, or cherish it when unavailing, or are led by it to inflict pain, not for the purposes of reparation, but for the mere sake of producing misery. In this way, resentment degenerates into the dreadful passions of revenge, malice, and unforgiving hatred; and the image of God is changed into a resemblance of the character of a demon. "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take heed, lest he fall."

In the view which I have thus given of the various malignant passions, representing them as arising, not from our nature as it was formed by God, but from our own abuse of it, I am warranted by many proofs both from scripture and reason, which