law of God perfect for converting the soul. Love does not act unbecomingly; and who is so ignorant, if he would but consult his conscience, as not to know what would be thought by others unbecoming in himself?

CHAPTER XI.

THE DISINTERESTEDNESS OF LOVE.

"Charity seeketh not her own."

If it were required to give a brief and summary description of man's original apostacy, we might say, that it was his departure from God,—the fountain of his happiness, and the end of his existence, and retiring into himself as the ultimate end of all his actions: and if it were also asked, what is the essence of his sin, the sum of his moral depravity, we might say, to love himself supremely, to seek himself finally and exclusively, to make self, in one shape or another, the centre to which all his busy thoughts, anxious cares, and diligent pursuits constantly tend. Self-love is the most active and reigning principle in fallen nature; self is the great idol which mankind are naturally disposed to worship; and selfishness the grand interest to which they are devotedly attached. But the grace of God, when it renews the heart, so corrects and subdues this disposition, that it is no longer the ascendant of the mind; and plants in the human bosom the principle of benevolence-a principle which as it leads us to love God supremely, and our neighbour as ourselves, is the direct contrary of selfishness.

Believing that the perfection of virtue lies in disinterested love, it follows, that the nearer we approach to this state of mind, the nearer we come to sinless moral excellence. This is the temper of the innumerable company of angels-of the spirits of just men made perfect. It has been argued, that we take delight in the happiness of others, because their happiness increases our own but the circumstance of our happiness being increased by promoting theirs, is itself a convincing proof of the existence and exercise of an antecedent good will towards them. Our felicity is raised by theirs. Why?-because we love them. Why am I made unhappy, by the sight of another's wo?-because I have good will to the subject of distress. It is true I am gratified by relieving him, and my comfort would be disturbed if I did not; but what is the origin of these feelings?-certainly a previous good will towards them. It is not affirmed, that all pity proceeds from holy love; but that where love does exist, and in the proportion in which it exists, it is disinterested and is distinguished from selfishness. It may be proper here to distinguish between self-love and selfishness; not that they are essentially different, but only in the use of the terms as they are employed in common discourse.

By selfishness; we mean such a regard to our own things, as is inconsistent with, and destructive of, a right regard to the things of others: whereas by selflove, we mean nothing more than that attention to our own affairs which we owe to ourselves as part of universal being. Selfishness means the neglect or injury of others, in order to concentrate our views, and desires, and pursuits in ourselves; while self-love means only that proper and due regard to our own interests which we may pay, without the neglect or injury of our neighbour.

Self-love, when exercised in connexion with, and subordinate to, good will to mankind, as it may be, is not only consistent with virtue, but is a part of it; but when not thus connected, it degenerates into selfishness.

Selfishness leads men to seek their own interests in opposition to the interests of others. Multitudes care not whom they oppress, so as they can establish their own power; whom they vilify and degrade so as they can increase their own fame; whom they impoverish, so as they can accumulate their own wealth; whom they distress, so as they can augment their own comforts. This is the worst and most cruel operation of selfishness. It is the same propensity, only sharpened; and guided, and rendered the more mischievous, by the aid of reason, as that which exists in the vulture and the tiger, and which gorges itself to repletion, deaf to the piercing cries of the helpless victim which struggles in its talons.

Intent only on gratification, it riots amidst misery, if by this means it can aggrandize itself. Looking on the possessions of those around only with an envious eye, it is solicitous that they may be appropriated in some way to itself. This is a horrible and truly infernal disposition; for it would reign with a kind of universal despotism, would subdue all into vassalage, and suffer nothing to exist, but what was tributary to its own comfort.

Selfishness sometimes causes its subjects only to neglect the things of others. They do not oppress, or injure, or despoil; they are neither robbers nor calumniators; but they are so engrossed by self-interest, and so absorbed in self-gratification, as to be utterly regardless of the miseries or comfort of which they cannot but be the spectators. They have no sympathies, no benevolent sensibilities; they have cut themselves off from their species, and care nothing for the happiness of any of their neighbours. Their highest boast and attainment in virtue is, to wrong none: their idea of excellence is purely of a negative kind; to dispel sorrow, to relieve want, to diffuse gladness, especially to make sacrifices; to do this, is an effort which they have never tried, and which they have no inclination to try. The world might perish, if the desolation did not reach

them. Miserable and guilty creatures, they forget that they will be punished for not doing good, as well as for doing evil. The unprofitable servant was condemned; and the wicked are represented, at the last day, as doomed to hell, not for inflicting sorrow, but for not relieving it.

A man is guilty of selfishness, if he seeks his own things out of all proportion to the regard he pays to the things of others.

If, from a regard to our reputation, we cannot live in the total neglect of those around us, and, in deference either to public opinion, or to the remonstrances of our consciences, we are compelled to yield something to the claims of the public; yet, at the same time, our concessions may be so measured in quantity, and made with such reluctance and ill will, that our predominant selfishness may be as clearly manifested by what we give, as by what we withhold. That which we call our liberality, manifests, in this case, our avarice; that which. we denominate generosity, demonstrates our sinful selflove.

Selfishness sometimes seeks its own, under the pre-tence and profession of promoting the happiness of others. Where the ruling passion of the heart is the love of applause, large sacrifices of wealth, and time, and ease, and feeling, will be readily made for fame; and where men have objects to gain, which require kindness, conciliation, and attention, nothing in this way is too much to be done, to accomplish their purpose. This is a disgusting operation of this very disgusting temper, when all its seeming good will is but an efflux of kindness, which is to flow back again, in full tide, into the receptacle of self. Many are the detestable traders, whose generosity is only a barter for something in return. How much of the seeming goodness of human nature, of the sympathy with human wo, of the pity for want, of the anxiety for the comfort of wretchedness, which passes current for virtue among mankind, is nothing better than a counterfeit imitation of benevolence,-is