SERMON V.

ON PURITY OF THE HEART AND

AFFECTIONS.

I. JOHN. III. 2, 3,

Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

WHEN the text tells us “that every man,

that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself," it must be understood as intending to describe the natural, proper, and genuine effects of this hope, rather perhaps than the actual effects, or at least as effects, which, in point of experience, universally follow from it. As hath already been observed, the whole text relates to sincere

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sincere christians and to these alone; the word we, in the preceding part of it, comprises sincere christians and no others. Therefore the word every man must be limited to the same sort of men, of whom he was speaking before. It is not probable, that in the same sentence he would change the persons and characters concerning whom he discoursed; so that if it had been objected to St. John, that, in point of fact, every man did not purify himself who had this hope in him, he would have replied, I believe, that these were not the kind of persons he had in his view; that, throughout the whole of the text, he had in contemplation the religious condition and character of sincere christians and no other. When, in the former part of the text, he talked of we being the sons of God, of we being like Christ, he undoubtedly meant sincere christians alone: and it would be strange if he meant any other in this latter part of the text, which is in fact a continuation of the same discourse, of the same subject, nay a portion of the same sentence.

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I have said thus much in order to obviate the contrariety, which there seems to be between St. John's assertion and experience. Experience, I acknowledge, proves the inefficacy in numerous cases of religious hope and religious motives; and it must be so: for if religious motives operated certainly and necessarily: if they produced their effect by an infallible power over the mind, we should only be machines necessarily actuated; and that certainly is not the thing, which a moral agent, a religious agent, was intended to be. It was intended that we should have the power of doing right, and, consequently, of doing wrong: for he, who cannot do wrong, cannot do right by choice; he is a mere tool and instrument, or rather a machine, whichever he does. Therefore all moral motives, and all religious motives, unless they went to deprive man of his liberty entirely, which they most certainly were not meant to do, must depend for their influence and success upon the man himself.

This success, therefore, is various, but, when it fails, it is owing to some vice and corruption

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tion in the mind itself. Some men are very little

affected by religious exhortation of any kind, either by hearing or reading. That is a vice and corruption in the mind itself.

Some men,

though affected, are not affected sufficiently to influence their lives. That is a vice and corruption in the mind, or rather in the heart: and so it will always be found; but I do not so much wonder at persons being unaffected by what others tell them, be those others who they may, preachers or teachers, or friends, or parents, as I wonder at seeing men not affected by their own thoughts, their own meditations; yet it is so; and when it is so, it argues a deep corruption of mind indeed. We can think upon the most serious, the most solemn subjects without any sort of consequence upon our lives. Shall we call this seared insensibility? shall we call it a fatal inefficiency of the return of principle within us? shall we confess, that the mind has lost its government over the man?

These are observations upon the state of morals and religion, as we see them in the world, but whatever these observations be, it

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is still true, and this is St John's assertion, that the proper, natural, and genuine effect of religious hope is to cause us to strive "to purify ourselves, even as he is pure." John strongly fixes our attention, I mean as he means, such of us as are sincere christians, upon what we are to be hereafter. This, as to particulars, is veiled from us, as we have observed, by our present nature, but as to generals, as to what is of real importance and concern for us to know, (I do not mean but that it might be highly gratifying and satisfactory to know more,) but as to what is of the first importance and concern for us to know, we have a glorious assurance of, we have an assurance, that we shall undergo a change in our nature infinitely for the better; that when he shall appear glorified as he is, we shall be like him. Then the point is, what we are to do, how we are to act under this expectation, having this hope, with this prospect placed before our eyes. St John tells us, "we are to purify ourselves, even as he is pure."

Now