as this that prompted the Archbishop Leighton, when he breathed out his desires for the lodge of a wayfaring man in the wilderness; and that haunted the whole public life of Luther, who, though dragged forth to the combats and the exposures of a very wide arena, yet felt all along how uncongenial they were to the right condition and well-being of the human spirit; and so did he unceasingly aspire after a tranquillity which he was never permitted to enjoy a nursling of that storm which he had enough of softness most utterly to hate, and enough of intrepidity most manfully to brave-by nature a lover of quietness, yet by Providence had he his discipline and his doom amongst life's most boisterous agitations.

There is nought in the character of the spiritually-minded, that exempts them from the outward disturbance, which has its source in the hatred and hostility of other men; but there is so much in this character that gives an inward stability, and sustains the patience and the hope of our souls even under the most outrageous ebullitions of human malignity, as most nobly to accredit the declaration of our text-that to be spirituallyminded is not only life but peace. For there is the sense of a present God, in the feeling of whose love there is a sunshine which the world knoweth not, and which even the lowr of a hostile world in arms cannot utterly darken; and there is the prospect of a future heaven, in whose sheltering bosom it is known that the toil and the turbulence of this weary pilgrimage will soon be over; and there is even a charity, that mellows our present

sensation of painfulness, and makes the revolt that is awakened by the coarse and vulgar exhibition of human asperity to be somewhat more tolerablefor we cannot fail to perceive, how much of delusion at all times mingles with the impetuosity of irritated feelings; and that were there more of mutual knowledge among the individuals of our species, there would be vastly more of mutual candour and amenity and love; and that the Saviour's plea in behalf of His enemies, is in some sense applicable to all the enemies that we have in the world-" They know not what they do." The menace and the fury and the fell vindictiveness that look all so formidable, are as much due to an infirmity of the understanding as to a diabolical propensity of the heart; and it does alleviate the offence that is given to our moral taste by the spectacle of malevolence, when one reflects that malice is not its only ingredient—that it often hangs as much by an error of judgment, as by a perversity of the moral nature—that it needs only to be enlightened in order to be rectified; and that therefore there may be hope of deliverance from the ferocity of one's antagonists even in this world, as well as a sure and everlasting escape from it in those regions of beauty and of bliss, around which there is an impassable barrier of protection against all that offendeth-where, after having crossed the stormy passage of this world, the spirit will have to repose itself in peace and charity for ever.

In one word, and for the full vindication of our text, let it be observed, that, though in the character of being spiritually-minded there is no im

munity from the tribulations that are in the world, yet there is a hiding-place and a refuge where the spiritual alone can find entry-so that though in the world they do have tribulations, yet well may they be of good cheer, for in Christ they do have peace.

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LECTURE XLIX.

ROMANS, viii, 7, 8.

"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God."

BUT it might appear from the 7th verse, that the peace spoken of in the last verse is peace with God -for the enmity which is here ascribed to the opposite state of being carnally-minded, is enmity against God. Where there is enmity between two parties, each is displeased with the other; and the enmity of the carnal mind thus involves in it two distinct particulars. First, it implies a feeling on the part of him who is its owner of hostility against God, and this necessarily comes out of the very definition of the carnal mind. It were a contradiction in terms, to say otherwise of the carnal mind than that it was enmity against God-for how, if all its preferences be toward the creature, can it be otherwise affected toward that Creator, who looks with a jealous eye on all such preference, and fastens upon it the guilt of idolatry-how, if its regards are wholly directed to sense and time, can it be otherwise than in a state of disregard to Him who is a spirit and invisible? If the law of God be a law of supreme love toward Himself, how is it possible for that mind to be in subjection to such a law, whose affections are wholly set on the things and the interests of a passing world? It not only is not sub

ject to this law, but it cannot be so-else it were no longer carnal. It would instantly be stripped of this epithet, and become a different thing from what it was before, did it undergo a transference in its likings from the things that are made to Him who is the Maker of them all. It has all the certainty in it of an identical proposition, when it is said of the carnal mind that it neither is nor can be subject to God's law. Ere it become subject, it must resign its present nature and be carnal no longer. The epithet then will not apply to it; and though a mind before carnal should now have gathered upon it the character of heaven, and become a devoted and willing and most affectionate subject under the government of God-still it holds true of the carnal mind that it is not so subject, neither indeed can be.

But it is not only logically true, that the carnal mind cannot be subject to God's law-the same thing is also true physically and experimentally. There is no power in the mind by which it can change itself. It has a natural sovereignty, we admit, which extends a certain way over the doings of the outer man; but it has no such sovereignty over the desires of the inner man. It can, for example, constrain the man in whom it resides to eat a sour apple rather than a sweet. But it cannot rather than a

constrain him to like a sour apple sweet. There are many things which it finds to be practicable, which it does not find to be palatable; and it has just as little power over the taste and affections of the mind toward God, as it has over the bodily organ of taste, or the law of its va