virtue of his moral constitution, some correct apprehensions of ethics
and natural religion, it would follow that there is some native goodness
in him. But light in the intellect is very different from life in the
heart. It is one thing to know the law of God, and quite another thing to
be conformed to it. Even if we should concede to the degraded pagan, or
the degraded dweller in the haunts of vice in Christian lands, all the
intellectual knowledge of God and the moral law that is possessed by the
ruined archangel himself, we should not be adding a particle to his moral
character or his moral excellence. There is nothing of a holy quality in
the mere intellectual perception that there is one Supreme Deity, and
that He has issued a pure and holy law for the guidance of all rational
beings. The mere doctrine of the Divine Unity will save no man. "Thou
believest," says St. James, "that there is one God; thou doest well, the
devils also believe and tremble." Satan himself is a monotheist, and
knows very clearly all the commandments of God; but his heart and will
are in demoniacal antagonism with them. And so it is, only in a lower
degree, in the instance of the pagan, and of the natural man, in every
age, and in every clime. He knows more than he practises. This
intellectual perception therefore, this inborn constitutional
apprehension, instead of lifting up man into a higher and more favorable
position before the eternal bar, casts him down to perdition. If he knew
nothing at all of his Maker and his duty, he could not be held
responsible, and could, not be summoned to judgment. As St. Paul affirms:
"Where there is no law there is no transgression." But if, when he knew
God in some degree, he glorified him not as God to that degree; and if,
when the moral law was written upon the heart he went counter to its
requirements, and heard the accusing voice of his own conscience; then
his mouth must be stopped, and he must become guilty before his Judge,
like any and every other disobedient creature.

It is this serious and damning fact in the history of man upon the globe,
that St. Paul brings to view, in the passage which we have selected as
the foundation of this discourse. He accounts for all the idolatry and
sensuality, all the darkness and vain imaginations of paganism, by
referring to _the aversion of the natural heart_ towards the one only
holy God. "Men," he says,--these pagan men--"did not _like to retain_ God
in their