How far a natural man may go

Another reason why many deceive themselves is that they do not consider how far a man may go, and yet be in a natural, or at best a legal, state. A man may be of a compassionate and a benevolent temper. He may be affable, courteous, generous, friendly. He may have some degree of meekness, patience, temperance, and of many other moral virtues. He may feel many desires of shaking off all vice, and of attaining higher degrees of virtue. He may abstain from much evil, perhaps from all that is grossly contrary to justice, mercy, or truth. He may do much good, may feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and relieve the widow and fatherless. He may attend public worship, use prayer in private, and read many books of devotion. And yet for all this he may be a mere natural man, knowing neither himself nor God, equally a stranger to the Spirit of fear and to that of love, having neither repented nor believed the gospel.