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who would be perfect. “Let us, as many as be perfect, be thus minded.” Perhaps you will imagine, that if this be perfection, it is an attainment easily made, or rather, that it is a quality of which none are destitute, since all men have more or less of a desire of being better than they feel themselves to be. But that desire of improve. ment in which the apostle places his own and every Christian's perfection, is not a desire terminated in the mind itself, unproductive of any real effort to improve, This is so little the perfection of a Christian, that it seems to be only a necessary part of the human character in its utmost state of depravation : it is the necessary result of that natural pero ption of right and wrong of which the worst of men are never totally divested. He that should be divested of it would from that moment cease to be a man: he would cease to be a moral agent, inasmuch as, having lost all natural sense of the moral quality of his actions, he would to all intents and purposes, with respect to moral good and evil, be irrational : he would have lost the faculty of reasoning upon that subject, and could no longer be accountable for the vio. lation of rules which he would no longer understand. These perceptions, therefore, from which our whole capacity of being good or bad arises, must be of the nature of man, if man by his nature be a moral agent: and the difference between good men and bad is not that the latter do really lose the perceptions which the other retain, but that, retaining the same original perceptions, they lose the benefit of them in the conduct of their lives, turning the attention, by a voluntary effort of the mind, to other objects. These perceptions being of the naturę of man, it is of the nature of man, even of wicked men, to approve virtue and to disapprove its opposite : and from a natural desire of being in friendship with himself, the wicked man, when he reflects upon his own character, and perceives that it is destitute of those qualities which might naturally claim his own respect and love, cannot but wish that he were the opposite of what he is,-respectable rather than contemptible-amiable rather than odious. Hence it is, that nothing is more common than for persons of the most debauched and abandoned lives, to acknowledge that they are not what they ought to be, and to express a wish that they were better,--at the same time that they speak upon a subject of such great concern with a tranquillity and coolness that shows that nothing is farther from their thoughts than the purpose of making any vigorous efforts towards their own reformation. These wishes are not insincere; but they are involuntary, resulting, by a natural necessity, from that constitution of the human mind which is indeed its per fection, considered as the work of God, but is no more a part of the moral virtue of the man, considered as a free agent, than any other of his natural endowments, the strength of his memory, for instance, or the quickness of his apprehension, or even than the exterior comeliness of his person, his muscular strength, or the agility of his limbs. In all these natural gifts and facul. ties, among which conscience is the first in worth and dignity, there is reason to admire the good and perfect work of God: but it is in the application of them, by the effort of the will, to God's service, to the good of mankind, and to self-improvement, that we are to seek the true perfection of the human character. The bare unprevailing wish that we were what we necessarily understand we ought to be, hath nothing more in it of moral merit than the involuntary assent of the mind to any other self-evident truth. In the epistle to the Romans, St. Paul, describing the condition of the mind in its most corrupt and ruined state, when reason is become the slave of appetite, and the prohibitions of God's pure and holy law serve only to irritate the passions which they ought to control,----in this ruined condition of the mind, St. Paul supposes that the natural sense of what is right remains, accompanied with an ineffectual desire of performing it: and it is not to be supposed that he speaks of that quality here as the perfection of a Christian, which there he attributes to the reprobate. That desire of improvement which makes the perfect Christian, the apostle describes in himself as an active principle, maintaining the ascendant in his heart over every other appetite, and displaying its energy in the whole tenor of his life. He describes it as derived from a conviction of the understanding that the proper business of this life is to prepare for the next. The formal nature of it he places in this,--that its immediate object is rather virtue itself than any exterior prosperity of condition with which virtue may be rewarded: for he compares his thirst of virtuous attainments to the passion that stimulated the competitors in the Grecian games; and he describes the reward which the Christian seeks under the image of the prize to be bestowed on him that should be foremost in the race. The passion which fires the competitors in any honourable contest is a laudable am. bition to excel; and the prize is no otherwise valued than as the mark and seal of victory. Of that reward which is the object of the Christian's hope, it were mad. mess to affirm that it has not an intrinsic value; for we are taught that it will consist in a state of perfect happi. ness: but that happiness is therefore perfect, because it is the condition of a nature brought to perfect holiness; and that desire of improvement in which the apostle places our perfection hath for its immediate object those virtuous attainments which insure the reward, rather than the reward itself, otherwise considered than as the honourable distinction of the approved servants of God. It is easy to perceive that this thirst for moral excellency must be in its nature what the apostle in himself expe. rienced a principle of growing energy; for, wherever

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this principle is sincere, as long as any degree of imper: fection remains, or, to speak more accurately, as long as any farther excellence is attainable, farther improvement must be the object. The true Christian, therefore, never can rest in any habits of virtue already attained: his present proficiency he values only as a capacity of better attainments; and, like the great Roman whose appetite of conquest was inflamed by every new advantage gained, he thinks nothing done while aught remains which prowess may achieve.

Such is the principle, as may be collected from the apostle's description of his own feelings and his own practice,-such is the principle in which he places the perfection of a Christian; in its origin rational, in its object disinterested, in its energies boundless : and in these three properties its perfective quality consists. And this I would endeavour more distinctly to prove: but, for this purpose, it will be necessary to explain what man's proper goodness naturally is, and to consider man both in his first state of natural innocence, and in his present state of redemption from the ruin of his fall. But this is a large subject, which we shall treat in a se. parate discourse.

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SERMON XXVIII.

PHILIPPIANS iii. 15.

Let us, therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded;

and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.

THE perfection of the Christian character, as may be collected from the apostle's description of his own feelings and his own practice, consists, it seems, in an earnest desire of perpetual progress and improvement in the practical habits of a good and holy life. When the apostle speaks of this as the highest of his own attainments, he speaks of it as the governing principle of his whole life; and the perfective quality that he ascribes to it seems to consist in these three properties,—that it is boundless in its energy, disinterested in its object, and yet rational in its origin. That these are the properties which make this desire of proficiency truly perfective of the Christian character, I shall now attempt to prove; and, for this purpose, it will be necessary to inquire what man's proper goodness is, and to take a view of man, both in his first state of natural innocence, and in his actual state of redemption from the ruin of his fall.

Absolute perfection in moral goodness, no less than in knowledge and power, belongs incommunicably to God; for this reason, that goodness in the Deity only is original: in the creature, to whatever degree it may be carried, it is derived. If man hath a just discernment of

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