• DEAR SIR, 155 LETTER XII. 1824. WHILST men are willing to assent to the truth, that both Jews and Gentiles were desperately wicked; they evince a backwardness to apply the cause of that wickedness to themselves. They will even acknowledge the grounds of a general imputation of sin, but are ever averse from its personal application. They plead their motives; their comparative goodness; nay, they will advance their absolute virtue. But these pleas are irrelative to the question. The standard of virtue which men thus advance, is fixed by another's vice; and their motive to virtue is generally the negative intention of not doing harm. To the operation of moral philosophy we are to look for this cold and heartless test of goodness. Compare it with religion. Religion demands a positive desire to do good in all cases; to return good for evil; to love our enemies; and refers the virtue of the heart (godliness), as well as of the action (righteousness) to the law of God (the Gospel) for both their motive and character. I here use the word virtue in its generic sense, to imply the highest feelings and actions of which the heart is capable: but so frittered away is its loftier meaning, or rather so incapable is the word to bear the sense religion would place upon it, that the expression falls short in its power to denote the motive and character of a religious action. The same moral system has wrought a similar change in the meaning of the word sin, by confining it to open acts, both personal and public; whilst the secret motions of the heart, which give life, impulse, and direction to our desires and affections, are overlooked, and left wild and uncultivated. The habit of life, and the opinion of the world, thus lead men to regard only the outward conduct, and thence to measure the guilt of sin by its appearance. But sin, unlike morality, cannot be measured or defined by either the tacit or conventionary laws of society. Sin is in the heart, and is shown not only by the negative intention of not doing harm, but also by the absence of the positive intention of doing good. We are not only not to hate, but are actually to love. But moral philosophy cannot teach us to love an enemy. It may, indeed, teach high-minded men to rise above the petty feelings of malice and revenge, but it has no power over the affections. The Scriptures abound with demands upon those affections; and not to give them to both God, and man, is sin. The outward acts of men are relative; and take their colour from their relation to time, place, and circumstance; but sin is fixed, and is independent of all relations, save that which we hold with our Creator. To love Him is godliness; to obey Him is holiness; but every affection, and every action which does not recognise this love and obedience, as its moving principle, is sin. "Whatsoever is not of faith," saith St. Paul," is sin." * And, again, he writes, "Unto the pure all things are pure; but unto them that are defiled, and unbelieving, is nothing pure, but even their mind and conscience is defiled." + And this doctrine of the nature of sin, the Apostles gathered from the teaching of their divine Master. "Cleanse," He said, "first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.”‡ The words, godliness, holiness, and righteousness, are usually understood in their proper sense; but why are they not admitted into common conversation? Why does the man of the world resign them to religious professors, with the same indifference that he does to the professors of some specific art, the technical terms of that art, in which he is not interested beyond the satisfying of his curiosity? Because the language of morals has supplied their place with * Rom. xiv. 23. + Tit. i. 15. Matt. xxiii. 26. |