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gether criminal and inexcusable. It is true, that they are under one kind of inability to love God, to repent of sin, to believe in Christ, or to do any thing in a right and acceptable manner. This we are plainly taught in scripture. Moses told the corrupt and totally selfish Israelites, "Ye cannot serve the Lord, for he is an boly God." Christ said, "No man can come to me, except the Father who sent me draw him." And the Apostle declares, "The carnal mind is enmity against God, not subject to his law, neither indeed can be: so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." But this is a moral inability, which arises from the free, voluntary, selfish exercises of the heart, and is in its own nature entirely sinful and inexcusable. There is an essential difference between moral and natural inability. If sinners were incapable of distinguishing selfishness from benevolence,they would be under a natural inability of exercising that benevolence, to which the promise of salvation is made, and this would be a sufficient excuse for not complying with the terms of the gospel. But they know, that

selfishness and benevolence are totally different in their nature and tendency, and that the former is sinful and the latter is virtuous. "Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin." Sinners have no right to plead sin as an excuse for sin, or to plead selfishness as an excuse for not exercising that pure disinterested love to God and man, which the gospel requires as an indispensable condition of salvation. When they plead, as they almost universally do, their inability to love God and embrace the gospel, they plead no other than a moral inability,

which arises from their entire selfishness, which is the essence of all sin and criminality, and which is no better excuse than Satan has for hating God and all good, with all his heart. If they would only express their inability in plain and intelligible language, they would say they love themselves so much, that they cannot love God, that they love selfishness so much, that they cannot love benevolence, that they love the happiness of this world so much, that they cannot love the enjoyment of God and the happiness of heaven. And this inability, instead of excusing them, must condemn them in the sight of God, and their own consciences.

2. It appears from what has been said, that sinners have no ground to think God is insincere in offering them salvation upon the condition of disinterested benevolence. Sinners think and often say, that there can be no sincerity in God's offering to save them, upon unreasonable and impracticable terms. They say he knows, that they cannot and will not accept of salvation, upon the condition of disinterested love; and therefore he cannot be sincere in offering them salvation upon terms which he knows they cannot and will not comply with. We could not indeed see any sincerity in God's offering salvation to sinners on the condition, that they should ascend into heaven, (that is, to bring Christ down from above,) or that they should descend into the deep, (that is, to bring up Christ from the dead,) for it is naturally impossible for them to perform these conditions. But what saith God to every sinner? "The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth; that is the word of faith which we

preach; that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Thus God offers salvation to sinners in the gospel, on the lowest and easiest terms possible. Nothing can prevent their accepting salvation, but their freely and voluntarily rejecting it.

3. It is of importance, that God should offer salvation to sinners on the condition of disinterested benevolence, though he knows beforehand, that they will reject his offer. The condition is easy and practicable. They are able and ought to exercise disinterested benevolence, and nothing can hinder them from exercising it, but their totally depraved and selfish hearts. They are, how ever, naturally blind to their native depravity and selfishness. They are not willing to believe, that they hate God, hate Christ, bate holiness, and hate salvation itself, until they are brought to the trial. God brings them to the trial, by freely and sincerely offering them salvation, upon the kind and gracious condition of disinterested love, which he knows they hate and will absolutely refuse to exercise, though they are sensible their refusal will prove their destruction. There is no other way, by which God can demonstrate to sinners themselves and to the universe, that they are totally depraved, selfish, and opposed to all good, but by his of fering them salvation upon the condition of disinterested benevolence, and their refusing it.

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amiable young man, whom Jesus beholding loved, would always perhaps, in this world, have appeared very different, if Christ had not offered, and he had not rejected salvation, on the condition of dis

interested benevolence. He never appeared so perfectly selfish to himself, nor to others, before he rejected salvation, rather than to give up his possessions and give God the supreme affection of his heart.

4. Since disinterested benevolence is the only condition of salvation, there is no propriety in directing sinners how to embrace the gospel. They are not very often satisfied with being told, that disinterested love is the only condition, upon which they can find acceptance with God; they want to know how they shall exercise this pure, holy love. But it does not belong to the preachers of the gospel to answer this impertinent and absurd question. It is sufficient for them clearly to state the condition of salvation, and leave it to sinners to find out how they shall freely and voluntarily perform it. Christ did no more than this, in preaching the gospel to the young man. He plainly and intelligibly taught him disinterested love, and promised him salvation on condition of his exercising and expressing such a holy, virtuous affection. The young man clearly understood the condition, for it grieved him to the heart, to be required to give up all his selfish feelings and possessions in order to be saved. But though Christ saw his anxiety and distress, he did not undertake to tell him how he should become willing to sell all he had and give to the poor, and come and follow him. He knew how to love God supremely as well as he knew how to love himself and the world supremely. Sinners know how to love God supremely, as well as to hate him supremely. They know how to love God supremely, as well as to love the world supremely.

They know how to exercise be nevolence, as well as to exercise selfishness. If the young man had asked Christ how he should become willing to give up all and follow him, and become truly benevolent, he would not have told him, any more than he could have told him how to go away grieved. All that the ministers of the gospel have to tell sinners, is, the condition upon which they may be saved, and not how to be willing to perform that condition. All who pretend to do this, undertake to do what they have no right, nor power to do.

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5. Since disinterested benevolence is the only condition of salvation, ministers have right to substitute any other or lower conditions of salvation. This is what many preachers of the gospel presume to do. After they have stated the only condition of salvation, and told sinners they must do what Christ required the young man to do in order to be saved, sinners generally complain that thay cannot perform that condition. Their hearts, they say, are totally depraved, and they cannot exercise disinterested benevolence, and love God supremely; of course they ask what they must do to get disinterested benevolence, or a heart to love God supremely? Many ministers see no other way to relieve sinners in this deplorable situation, than to alter and lower the terms of salvation, and direct and advise them to do something which their depraved hearts are willing to do in order to get a good heart, and exercise true benevolence.

6. Since disinterested love is the only condition of salvation, we may see why this doctrine is more disagreeable to all sinners, than any other doctrine of the

gospel All the doctrines of the gospet clearly understood are disagreeable to sinners, because they are all founded on disinterested benevolence. But as they do not generally see, that the doctrine of decrees, the doctrine of election, the doctrine of divine agency, the doctrine of unccaditional submission, and various ether doc. trines, are founded ca disinterested benevolence, so they do not dislike those doctrines so much as the doctrine on which they are founded. This comes directly and sensibly across all their selfish desires, exertions, and hopes. They cannot love God, because he is a hely God. They cannot serve God because he is a holy God. They cannot please God, because he is a holy God. They cannot go backward, nor forward, nor stand still, without offending God. They find that every imagination of the thoughts of their hearts is evil, and only evil continuaily, and a transgres sion of that hely law, which requires pure disinterested love. All sinners of all descriptions are equally and totally opposed to that disinterested benevolence, which is the condition of salvation. Not only publicans and sinners, but scribes and Pharisees, who were externally righteous and apparently religious, were all opposed to the doctrine of disinterested benevolence, as it was plainly taught and inculcated by Christ. They were all ready to exclaim, "Who then can be saved?" All sinners now have the same opposition to this doctrine, that others have felt and expressed; for it strikes at the root of every false scheme of religion, and every false hope of salvation. All sinners whether Calvinists or Arminians, whether Unitarians or Universalists, wheth

er externally religious or irreligious, whether awakened or unawakened are equally opposed to disinterested benevolence.They can explain away all other doctrines on selfish principles so as to suit them; but they cannot explain away the doctrine of disinterested benevolence, upon any selfish principle, and therefore Arminians, moderate Calvinists, Methodists, Unitarians, and Universalists unitedly deny it, and exclaim, "Who then can be saved?" They virtually acknowledge, if disinterested benevolence be true, their different schemes of religion are false, and their hopes built upon them are false and fatal. And to give up a favourite scheme or a false hope, is like giving up the ghost. It carries death and despair in it to the best and worst of sinners. Let any doctrine of the gospel be clearly traced to its foundation, that is, disinterested benevolence, and every sinner in the world, will hate and oppose it.

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Christ's precept, requiring us, "to do to others as we would, that others should do to us" be justly explained and understood, and it would be as generally hated and opposed, as the doctrine of total depravity, or the doctrine of election, or the doctrine of unconditional submission, for it is as plainly founded in disinterested benevolence as those doctrines are. In a word, all the reason, why sinners dislike and oppose any doctrines and duties of the gospel, is because they see or ink they see, that they require that disinterested love, of which they are conscious they are destitute.

7. Since disinterested love is the only condition of salvation, it is vain and dangerous for secure sinners to wait for a more

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venient season to embrace the gospel and secure the salvation of their souls. There are many sinners in this waiting posture. They intend to do what the gospel requires them to do in order to be saved, and have no doubt that they shall be able and willing to do whatever is necessary to be done to obtain eternal life when a favourable season presents. But if they would only consider that the condition of salvation is disinterested love, and that their own hearts are totally selfish, they would renounce the hope of a more convenient season of complying with that condition. Neither pros

perity nor adversity, neither health nor sickness, nor the nearest prospect of death, would have the least tendency to change their hearts from selfishness to love. A season of trouble, affliction, and bereavement may come; or a season of awakenings and convictions may come; and these seasons may throw them into great anxiety and distress, and constrain them to cry, "What must we do to be saved?" But no other proper answer can be given them but that which requires them to love God supremely, or exercise disinterested benevolence. This their depraved, selfish hearts will tell them in a moment, it is morally impossible for them to do. They will therefore, either sink in sadness, grief, and despondence, or rise in vigorous enmity and opposition to God and the condition of salvation, quenching the spirit and stifling conviction. And in this deplorable situation, God may leave them to pine away and perish in their sins forever, as he has left thousands of other incorrigible sinners. No impenitent sinners have any ground to hope

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