And, then,
this is our present life of probation and opportunity, that all our
passions are placed within us and are committed and entrusted to us as so
many first elements and so much unformed material out of which we are
summoned to build up our life and to shape and complete our character.
The springs of all our actions are in our passions. All our activities
in life, trace them all up to their source, and they will all be found to
run up into the wellhead of our passions. All our virtues are cut as
with a chisel out of our passions, and all our vices are just the
disorders and rebellions of our passions. Our several passions, as they
lie still asleep in our hearts, have as yet no moral character; they are
only the raw material so to speak, of moral character. Our passions are
the life and the riches and the ornaments of human nature, and it is only
because human nature in its present estate is so corrupt and disordered
and degraded, that the otherwise so honourable name of passion has such a
sinister sound to us. And the full regeneration and restitution of human
nature will be accomplished when every several passion is in its right
place, and when reason and conscience and the Spirit of God shall inspire
and rule and regulate all that is within us.
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