Two dissertations, I. Concerning the end for which God created the world. II. The…

The mind being long involved in, and engrossed by sensitive objects, becomes sensual in all its operations, and excludes all views and impressions of spiritual objects, and is unfit for their contemplation. Thus the conscience and general benevolence are entirely different principles, & sense of conscience differs from the holy complacence of a benevolent and truly virtuous heart. Yet wickedness may by long habitual exercise greatly diminish a sense of conscience. So that there may be negative moral goodness, in sensibility of conscience, as it may be an argument of the absence of that higher degree of wickedness, which causeth stupidity of conscience.

The mind being long involved in, and engross'd by sensitive objects, becomes sensual in all its operations, and excludes all views and impressions of spiritual objects, and is unfit for their contemplation. Thus the conscience and general benevolence are entirely different principles, & sense of conscience differs from the holy complacence of a benevolent and truly virtuous heart. Yet wickedness may by long habitual exercise greatly diminish a sense of conscience. So that there may be negative moral goodness, in sensibility of conscience, as it may be an argument of the absence of that higher degree of wickedness, which causeth stupidity of conscience.

So with respect to natural gratitude, tho' there may be no virtue merely in loving them that love us, yet the contrary may be an evidence of a great degree of depravity, as it may argue a higher degree of selfishness, so that a man is come to look upon himself as all, and others as nothing, and so their respect and kindness as nothing. Thus an increase of pride diminishes gratitude.—So does sensuality, or the increase of sensual appetites, & coming more and more under the power and impression of sensible objects, tends by degrees to make the mind insensible to any thing else; and those appetites take up the whole soul; and through' habit and custom the water is all drawn out of other channels, in which it naturally flows, and is all carried as it were into one channel.

So with respect to natural gratitude, tho' there may be no virtue meerly in loving them that love us, yet the contrary may be an evidence of a great degree of depravity, as it may argue a higher degree of selfishness, so that a man is come to look upon himself as all, and others as nothing, and so their respect and kindness as nothing. Thus an increase of pride diminishes gratitude.—So does sensuality, or the increase of sensual appetites, & coming more and more under the power and impression of sensible objects, tends by degrees to make the mind insensible to any thing else; and those appetites take up the whole soul; and thro' habit and custom the water is all drawn out of other channels, in which it naturally flows, and is all carried as it were into one channel.