plead for them as innocent amusements, they are all hateful to God, and destructive to man : insomuch that the man who finds his pleasure in them " can in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven." Often had the Apostle entered his protest against such carnal indulgences, so unworthy of a rational being, and so unsuited to persons standing on the brink of eternity. Can we conceive, that if man had retained his primeval innocence, he would have found delight in any such things as these ? If the ungodly themselves saw pious people seeking their happi- ness in such things as these, would they see no incongruity between their professions and their occupations? Yes; they would be the first to proclaim the hypocrisy of such professors : which is itself an acknowledgment that the things themselves are adverse to piety, and inconsistent with it.
Know then, that all these and " such like " evils, whether arising from the body, or emanating from the mind, are de- cidedly to be ranked under " the works of the flesh," " which whosoever doeth shall not inherit the kingdom of God." Unwelcome as this declaration was to the carnal man, St. Paul hesitated not to make it repeatedly, and in the strongest terms : and we also, if we will approve ourselves faithful to God and to the office committed to us, must proclaim the same awful truth, and forewarn all, that, if they continue under the power of any of the hateful dispositions before specified, or seek their happiness in the things of time and sense, they will inevitably and eternally exclude themselves from the kingdom of heaven.]
In contrast with these, the Apostle proceeds to enumerate,
II. The fruits of the Spirit —
And here he mentions,
1. Those which have their sphere of action chiefly within our own bosoms —
[The very mention of them marks at once their nature and their origin — " Love, joy, peace !" Whence come they ? Are they the offspring of our corrupt nature ? No ; nature never bare such fruits as these : these spring from that divine principle, which is imparted to us by the Spirit of God at the time of our regeneration and conversion. Then love springs up in the soul : love to God ; love to Christ ; love to man for Christ's sake. Then also does a "joy with which the stranger intermeddleth not," a "joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ," a joy in the testimony of a good conscience, a joy in the prospect of a glorious immortality, transport the soul : and its ebullitions, which, if continued, would exhaust the