buoyancy that naturally accompanies the springing of hope and longing in the human soul, he for a time seems to himself to be actually rising up from his “wallowing in the mire,” and supposes that he shall soon regain his primitive condition of temperance.  But the sin is strong; for the appetite that feeds it is in his blood.  Temptation with its witching solicitation comes before the will,—­the weak, self-enslaved will.  He aspires to resist, but will not; the spirit would soar, but the flesh will creep; the spirit has the wish, but the flesh has the will; the man longs to be sober, but actually is and remains a drunkard.  And never,—­be it noticed,—­never is he more thoroughly conscious of being a slave to himself, than when he thus ineffectually aspires and wishes to be delivered from himself.

What has been said of drunkenness, and the aspiration to be freed from it, applies with full force to all the sin and all the aspirations of the human soul.  There is no independent and self-realizing power in a mere aspiration.  No man overcomes even his vices, except as he is assisted by the common grace of God.  The self-reliant man invariably relapses into his old habits.  He who thinks he stands is sure to fall.  But when, under the influence of God’s common grace, a man aspires to be freed from the deepest of all sin, because it is the source of all particular acts of transgression,—­when he attempts to overcome and extirpate the original and inveterate depravity of his heart,—­he feels his bondage more thoroughly than ever.  If it is wretchedness for the drunkard to aspire after freedom from only a single vice, and fail of reaching it, is it not the depth of woe, when a man comes to know “the plague of his heart,” and his utter inability to cleanse and cure it?  In this case, the bondage of self-will is found to be absolute.

At first sight, it might seem as if these wishes and aspirations of the human spirit, faint though they be, are proof that man is not totally depraved, and that his will is not helplessly enslaved.  So some men argue.  But they forget, that these aspirations and wishes are never realized.  There is no evidence of power, except from its results.  And where are the results?  Who has ever realized these wishes and aspirations, in his heart and conduct?  The truth is, that every unattained aspiration that ever swelled the human soul is proof positive, and loud, that the human soul is in bondage.  These ineffectual stirrings and impulses, which disappear like the morning cloud and the early dew, are most affecting evidences that “whosoever committeth sin is the slave of sin.”  They prove that apostate man has sunk, in one respect, to a lower level than that of the irrational creation.  For, high ideas and truths cannot raise him.  Lofty impulses result in no alteration, or elevation.  Even Divine influences leave him just where they find