ful spirits must discern. Conscience must supply the terrors that went before him; and the brightness of his coming, which the sense can no longer behold, the heart, ravished with his word, must feel.

For this solemn vocation of all her powers to do her Maker honour, and give him welcome, it is, at the very least, necessary that the soul stand absolved from every call. Every foreign influence or authority arising out of the world, or the things of the world, should be burst when about to stand before the Fountain of all authority. Every argument, every invention, every opinion of man forgot, when about to approach to the Father and oracle of all intelligence. And as subjects, when their prince honours them with invitations, are held disengaged though pre-occupied with a thousand appointments-so upon an audience fixed and about to be holden with the King of kings, it well becomes the honoured mortal to break loose from all thraldom of men and things, and be arrayed in liberty of thought and action, to drink in the rivers of his pleasure, and to perform the commissions of his lips.

Now, far otherwise it hath appeared to us that Christians, as well as worldly men, come to this most august occupation of listening to the word of God, pre-occupied and prepossessed, inclining to it a partial ear, a straitened understanding, and a disaffected will.

The Christian public are prone to pre-occupy themselves with the admiration of those opinions

by which they stand distinguished as a church or sect from other Christians; and instead of being quite unfettered to receive the whole council of the divinity, they are prepared to welcome it no farther than as it bears upon and stands with opinions which they already favour. To this prejudgment the early use of catechisms mainly contributes, which, however serviceable in their place, have the disadvantage of presenting the truth in a form altogether different from what it occupies in the Word itself. In the one it is presented to the intellect chiefly, (and in our catechism to an intellect of a very subtle order ;) in the other it is presented more frequently to the heart, to the affections, to the imitation, to the fancy, and to all the faculties of the soul. In early youth, which is so applied to with those compilations, an association takes place between religion and intellect, and a divorcement of religion from the other powers of the inner man. Which derangement, judging from observation and experience, it is exceeding difficult to put to rights in after life; and so it comes to pass that, in listening to the oracles of God the intellect is chiefly awake, and the better parts of the message-those which address the heart and its affections, those which dilate and enlarge our imaginations of the Godhead, and those which speak to the various sympathies of our nature-we are, by the injudicious use of these narrow epitomes disqualified to receive.

In the train of these comes Controversy, with

his rough voice and unmeek aspect, to disqualify the soul for a full and fair audience of her Maker's word. The points of the faith we have been called on to defend, or which are reputable with our party, assume in our esteem an importance disproportionate to their importance in the Word, which we come to relish chiefly when it goes to sustain them; and the Bible is hunted for arguments and Texts of controversy which are treasured up for future service. The solemn stillness which the soul should hold before her Maker, so favourable to meditation and rapt communion with the throne of God, is destroyed at every turn by suggestion of what is orthodox and evangelical-where all is orthodox and evangelical; the spirit of the reader becomes lean, being fed with abstract truths and formal propositions; his temper ungenial, being ever disturbed with controversial suggestions; his prayers undevout recitals of his opinions; his discourse technical announcements of his faith. Intellect, cold intellect, hath the sway over heaven-ward devotion and holy fervours. Man, contentious man, hath the attention which the unsearchable God should undivided have; and the fine full harmony of Heaven's melodious voice, which, heard apart, were sufficient to lap the soul in ecstasies unspeakable, is jarred and interfered with; and the heavenly spell is broken by the recurring conceits, sophisms, and passions of men. Now truly, an utter degradation it is of the Godhead to have: his word in league with that of any man, or any

council of men. What matter to me whether it be the Pope, or any work of the human mind that is exalted to the equality of God? If any helps are to be imposed for the understanding, or safeguarding or sustaining of the word, why not the help of statues and pictures for my devotion? Therefore, while the warm fancies of the Southerns have given their idolatry to the ideal forms of noble art-let us Northerns beware we give not our idolatry to the cold and coarse abstractions of human intellect.

For the pre-occupations of worldly minds—they are not to be reckoned up, being manifold as their favourite passions and pursuits. One thing only can be said that before coming to the oracles of God, they are not pre-occupied with the expectation and fear of Him. No chord in their heart is in unison with things unseen; no moments set apart for religious thought and meditation; no anticipations of the honoured interview; nor prayers of preparation, like that of Daniel, before Gabriel was sent to teach him; nor devoutness like that of Cornelius, before the celestial visitation; nor fasting like that of Peter, before the revelation of the glory of the Gentiles! To minds thus untuned to holiness the words of God find no entrance-striking heavy on the ear, seldom making way to the understanding—almost never to the heart. To spirits hot with conversation, perhaps heady with argument, uncomposed by solemn thought but ruffled and in uproar from the concourse of worldly interests-the sacred page being spread out, its accents are drowned in the

noise which hath not yet subsided within the breast. All the awe, and pathos, and awakened consciousness of a divine approach, impressed upon the antients by the procession of solemnities -is to worldly men without a substitute. They have not solicited themselves to be in readiness. In an usual mood and a vulgar frame they come to God's word as to any other composition-reading it without any active imaginations about Him who speaks; feeling no awe of a sovereign Lord, nor care of a tender Father, nor devotion to a merciful Saviour: Nowise depressed out of their wonted independence-nor humiliated before the King of kings-no prostrations of the soul-nor falling at his feet as dead-no exclamation, as of Isaiah, "Woe is me, for I am of unclean lips!" -nor suit, "Send me;"-nor fervent ejaculation of welcome, as of Samuel, " Lord, speak, for thy servant heareth!" They feel towards his word much as to the word of an equal. No wonder it should fail of happy influence upon spirits which have, as it were on purpose, disqualified themselves for its benefits, by removing from the regions of thought and feeling, which it accords with, into other regions, which it is of too severe dignity to affect, otherwise than with stern menace and direful foreboding! If they would have it bless them, and do them good, they must change their manner of approaching it; and endeavour to bring themselves into that prepared and collected and reverential frame which becomes an interview with the High and Holy One who inhabiteth the praises of eternity.