In like manner we concede that persons may be moralhj good, not merely in comparison of others, but to a certain degree really and substantially so : that is, a person may possess by nature such a mea- sure of candour, and benevolence, and integrity, as almost to put to shame those who profess to have been renewed by grace. How much, indeed of these dispositions may arise from education as well as from nature, we are not anxious to inquire : we wish to give to nature as much as can with any shew of reason be claimed for her ; and then to point out that kind and measure of goodness which she never communicated to any man, nor ever enabled any person to attain.
We say then, that no man by nature is spiritually good, or good towards God. No man by nature loves God, or delights himself in God. No man truly fears him. There may be a superstitious dread of him as an Almighty Being, but no real fear to offend him, no true desire to please and glorify him. No one by nature has, what I may call, a creature- like spirit towards him. No one feels his obligations towards him as his Creator, or places implicit con- fidence in him as his Preserver, or rejoices in him as his Benefactor, or delights to execute his will as his Governor, or labours to approve himself to him as his Judge. A spirit of independence pervades every child of Adam, and is, perhaps beyond every thing else, the great effect and evidence of our apostasy from God. Self-will, self-seeking, self-confidence, self-complacency, are but so many branches issuing from this root. The loss of that creature-like spirit which possessed the mind of Adam in Paradise, is absolutely universal. Whatever differences there may be between men as to their moral dispositions, there is none in this : self has usurped the place of God, and is to every man by nature the principle and end of all his actions.
As we have no longer by nature a creature-like spirit, so neither have we, what, if we may be allowed the expression, we would call, a sinner-hke spirit. It
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