no objection to him as a being of boundless intelligence, wisdom, and goodness, exercising these attributes in the promotion of their happiness, and leaving them to seek it where their depraved inclinations lead. They are willing he should reign, provided his dominion does not interfere with the empire of their vitiated affections, and is regulated by those fundamental principles which they are pleased to prescribe. But they are not willing he should reign, if justice and judgment are the habitation of his throne. They are not willing that he should proceed in the administration of his infinite government, according to the counsel of his own will. Their hearts rise against that distinguishing feature in his perfect economy, which causes all things throughout his boundless dominions to move onward to a most glorious result, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself. The carnal mind is always enmity against this essential feature in the divine government. There never was a man in an unrenewed state, who was cordially reconciled to that sovereign arrangement by which the God of heaven governs the moral universe. By abusing the doctrine of the divine sovereignty, and calling his determinate counsel and foreknowledge, fatality, some have affected to be thus reconciled; but the heart in such cases, remains in a state of rebellion. There is no submission of the mind and will to the infinitely holy and perfect economy. There is no heart-felt rejoicing, that the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. This is eminently true in reference to that department of Jehovah's administration, which relates to the bestowment of special spiritual favors. In appealing in this place to the experience of my impenitent hearers, for confirmation of this truth, I cannot be supposed to be influenced by a desire to give them pain or to make them sin, but rather to contribute to their escape from both. I appeal then to you, dear friends, who are evidently unrenewed in mind, if your hearts do not swell with emotions of strong aversion to God,

when you think of this truth? that he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Though the carnally minded perseveringly withhold their affections from God, and are reluctant to have him reign in their own hearts; they are still more averse to that discriminating interference of his grace, which leaves some as they choose to remain, while others are made vessels of mercy prepared unto glory. This aversion to the Most High in his character as a Sovereign Ruler, is not seldom excited in the minds of the unregenerate by those acts of his holy and righteous government, which affect their outward condition in the present world. It matters not that such acts are mercifully directed in relation to them, (and no direction could be otherwise which suffers their continuance in a world of hope.) It prevents not their dislike to the allotments of heaven, that they issue even in their greater temporal benefit. Their wishes are not answered, their schemes are frustrated, and their apparent interests for the present are left to suffer; their enmity therefore arises against him who governs the allotments. Because their own private and selfish ends are defeated, they indulge feelings, which, fully acted out, would strike at the very foundation of that throne, which sustains interests of more value than the created universe. The operation of this enmity is seen by the Searcher of hearts, and sometimes by those who cannot see the heart, when worldly losses, bereavements, and afflictions roll over rebellious man the waves of adversity. It is seen to lift him up to breast these waves with stern, but impotent resistance. The subject of this enmity, instead of throwing himself with feelings of helpless dependence on the Hand that measures out to him so adverse a destiny, throws himself into a posture of desperate effort to escape or brave the visitation of calamity. When almost melted by some stroke of severe bereavement, the actings of his heart towards God, are of a character indicative of increased measures of aversion,

When outwardly destitute, desolate, and depressed, amidst circumstances alone fitted to teach his heart to pray, He to whom such an exercise can never be unseasonably directed, perceives his heart to be rankling with feelings more nearly allied to cursing and bitterness. Nor does that part of the divine administration, which relates to the judgment of the great day and the retribution of eternity, fail to call forth the enmity of the wicked against the Ruler and Judge of the world. It does this now, and it will do it forever. No carnal mind can think of the approaching day of final developements and decisions, and of the subsequent endless ages of retribution, without feelings of dislike to Him who is to judge, and fix the everlasting destinies of men. They would not have a God so holy, so benign, just, and faithful, to rule over them.

III. The enmity of the carnal mind exists against God as the Saviour of sinners. Of this truth there is evidence as clear, as the enmity is unreasonable, causeless, and criminal. The Saviour Jesus Christ, God manifest in the flesh, is the sole medium of the Divine communications to man. In him God is seeking to reconcile this world of sinners to himself. He came into the world to save sinners. He is the only name given under heaven through which salvation can ever reach a transgressor of the divine law. In him the revelation of the ineffable Jehovah, is so lovely, so full of grace and truth, so clothed with the mild and intelligible glories of purity, innocence, meekness, and mercy, that it could hardly have entered into the conjecture of an angel's mind, how he has been regarded by the race of man. Reason could not have inferred, fallen and polluted as is our species, that He whose character includes every element of moral beauty and excellence, and whose errand was so astonishingly kind and gracious, would be the object of the enmity of every human mind that is made acquainted with that character, and learns the story of his incarnation and sufferings. And yet, it

must be said, such is the truth. Nor let it be supposed, that I infer this truth solely from the undeniable fact, that persons under the light of revelation, begin in their natural state, with one consent, to neglect the Saviour. They treat him with an indifference with which they never treat an earthly friend and benefactor. They comply with none of his requests. They neglect to attend to his communications. They place no confidence in his truth. They treat the most affecting expressions of his love with no corresponding emotions of love to him. They feel no gratitude for the innumerable undeserved favors he bestows upon them-no, nor for an eternal weight of glory, which he has purchased for, and is waiting to give to them, the moment they are willing to receive it. Surely, they "treat no other friend so ill." But not to insist on the evidence of the carnal mind's enmity against the Saviour, derived from these facts, we have greater witnesses than these, in the express declarations of the Saviour himself, in the history of the unregenerate, in the humble acknowledgement of all who have become new creatures in Jesus Christ, and in the reluctant confessions of not a few, while in the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. Ye have both seen and hated, both me and my Father. If ye were of God, ye would love me ; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. Let us alone, is the language of the carnal mind, Let us alone, what have we to do with thee, thou holy One of God. Away with him, away with him, crucify him-crucify him. On this subject, were the whole company of the redeemed to utter their views of their temper of mind towards the Redeemer, while they were unrenewed, we should hear a humble unanimous acknowledgement, that they were enemies to him in their mind. They would speak of their aversion to his person, of their resistance of his grace, of their opposition to the way of salvation through him, and of their frequent determination of heart to make war against his cause and king

dom. You would hear the acknowledgement of many mingled throughout the mighty throng, that their opposition to Immanuel, often led them to deny his Godhead, to strip him of his divine attributes, and to count his blood a vain oblation. But it cannot be necessary to accumulate evidence of the painful truth. I am persuaded, there are those present conscious of an aversion of heart to the Saviour. Why else do so many reject him? When he is proposed to them-when he offers himself to them in the character of a Redeemer, Mediator, a mighty Deliverer from sin, and guilt, and woe, wherefore is he despised and rejected? Why is this so universally the treatment, he receives from those, whom he came to seek and to save? It is not through ignorance. It is not because they are impelled to this by a blind and relentless fatality. No! the only reason is, they dislike his character-they disrelish his doctrines, they are dissatisfied with the conditions on which he offers to save them. They are averse to bear his yoke. They cannot think of engaging in the spiritual services of his religion. They feel determined at present not to cherish his spirit-a spirit of meekness, gentleness, humility, patience, and forbearance-an indifference to the interests, pomps, and vanities of the world, and a relish for holy society, spiritual conversation, and heavenly employments. O, the predominant temper of the natural heart, is enmity against God, as a Lawgiver, a Sovereign, and a Saviour.

From this view of the subject, we may be able to learn something of the nature and extent of human depravity. It is not barely a destitution of holiness. Many beings have no holiness, who yet have no sin. It denotes the inherent vitiation of the moral faculties of the mind, and the strong tendency and incessant action of these faculties in opposition to God and holiness. It is not a state of slumbering depravation, adapted to a perverse action, but of sleepless, restless, and untiring sinful working of the heart. The carnal mind or human de