which all the powers of his heart and of his with the recollection of our best moments. understanding will be found inadequate. It s the glory of religion to supply an object worthy of the entire consecration of every power, faculty and affection of an immaterial, immortal being.

CHAP. VIII.

Our motives to love and gratitude are not now diminished, but our spiritual frame is lower, our natural spirits are weaker. Where there is languor there will be discouragements. But we must not desist. Faint yet pursuing,' must be the Christian's motto.

There is more merit (if ever we dare apply so arrogant a word to our worthless ef

The Hand of God to be acknowledged in forts) in persevering under depression and

the daily circumstances of life.

tions.

Perseverance may bring us to the very dispositions the absence of which we are lamenting-O tarry thou the Lord's leisure, be strong and he shall comfort thy heart

discomfort, than in the happiest flow of devotion, when the tide of health and spirits If we would indeed love God, let us ac- runs high. Where there is less gratification quaint ourselves with him.' The word of there is more disinterestedness. We ought inspiration has assured us that there is no to consider it as a cheering evidence, that other way to be at peace.' As we cannot our love may be equally pure though it love an unknown God, so neither can we is not equally fervent, when we persist know him, or even approach toward that in serving our heavenly father with the knowledge, but on the terms which he him- same constancy, though it may please him self holds out to us; neither will be save us to withdraw from us the same consola but in the method which he has himself prescribed. His very perfections, the just objects of our adoration, all stand in the way of creatures so guilty. His justice is the flaming sword which excludes us from the Paradise we have forfeited. His purity is so opposed to our corruptions, his omnipotence to our infirmity, his wisdom to our folly, that had we not to plead the great propitiation, those very attributes which are now our trust, would be our terror. The most opposite images of human conception, the widest extremes of human language, are used for the purpose of showing what God is to us in our natural state, and what he is under the christian dispensation. The consuming fire' is transformed into essential love.

We are too ready to imagine that we are religious, because we know something of religion. We appropriate to ourselves the pious sentiments we read, and we talk as if the thoughts of other men's heads were really the feelings of our own hearts. But piety has not its seat in the memory, but in the af fections, for which however the memory is an excellent purveyor, though a bad substitute. Instead of an undue elation of heart when we peruse some of the psalmist's beautiful effusions, we should feel a deep selfabasement at the reflection, that however our case may sometimes resemble his, yet how inapplicable to our hearts are the ardent expressions of his repentance, the overflowing of his gratitude, the depth of his submission, the entireness of his self-dedication, the fervour of his love. But he who indeed can once say with him, Thou art my portion,' will, like him, surrender himself unreservedly to his service.

But as we cannot find out the Almighty to perfection, so we cannot love him with that pure flame, which animates glorified spirits. But there is a preliminary acquaintance with him, an initial love of him, for which he has furnished us with means by his works, by his word, and by his spirit. Even in this weak and barren soil some germs will shoot. some blossoms will open, of that celestial plant, which, watered by the dews of heaven, and ripened by the Sun of righteousness, will, It is important that we never suffer our in a more genial clime, expand into the full-faith, any more than our love, to be depressed ness of perfection, and bear immortal fruits in the Paradise of God.

or elevated, by mistaking for its own operations, the ramblings of a busy imagination. A person of a cold phlegmatic temper, who The steady principle of faith must not look laments that he wants that fervor in his love for its character to the vagaries of a mutable of the Supreme Being, which is apparent in and fantastic fancy-La folle de la Maison, more ardent characters, may take comfort, as she has been well denominated. Faith if he find the same indifference respecting which has once fixed her foot on the immutabis worldly attachments. But if his affections ble Rock of Ages, fastened her firm eye on are intense towards the perishable things of the Cross, and stretched out her triumphant earth, while they are dead to such as are spiritual, it does not prove that he is destitute of passions, but only that they are not directed to the proper object. If, however, he love God with that measure of feeling with which God has endowed him, he will not be punish ed or rewarded, because the stock is greater or smaller than that of some other of his fellow creatures.

In those intervals when our sense of divine things is weak and low, we must not give way to distrust, but warm our hearts

hand to seize the promised crown, will not suffer her stability to depend on this evershifting faculty; she will not be driven to despair by the blackest shades of its pencil, nor be betrayed into a careless security, by its most flattering and vivid colours.

One cause of the fluctuations of our faith is, that we are too ready to judge the Almighty by our own low standard. We judge him not by his own declarations of what he is, and what he will do, but by our own feelings and practices. We ourselves are

too little disposed to forgive those who have with our Maker! Happy, if we had not rafti offended us. We therefore conclude that er be absorbed in our petty cares, and Intle God cannot pardon our offences. We sus- disturbances, provided we can contrive to pect him to be implacable, because we are make them the means of occupying cur apt to be so, and we are unwilling to believe thoughts, filling up our minds, and drawing that he can pass by injuries, because we find them away from that devout intercourse. it so hard to do it. hen we do forgive, it which demands the liveliest exercise of our is grudgingly and superficially; we there rational powers, the highest elevation of our fore infer that God cannot forgive freely and spiritual affections! Is it not to be apprehendfully. We make a hypocritical distinctioned, that the dread of being driven to this sabetween forgiving and forgetting injuries. God clears away the score when he grants the pardon. He does not only say, thy sins and thy iniquities will I forgive,' but I will remember no more.'

cred intercourse, is one grand cause of that activity and restlessness, which sets the world in such perpetual motion?

Though we are ready to express a genera sense of our confidence in Almighty good We are disposed to urge the smallness of ness, yet what definite meaning do we annes our offences, as a plea for their forgiveness; to the expression? What practical evidences whereas God to exhibit the boundlessness of have we to produce, that we really do trust his own mercy, has taught us to allege a plea him? Does this trust deliver us from worldly directly contrary-Lord, pardon my ini- anxiety? Does it exonerate us from the same quity, for it is great. To natural reason perturbation of spirits, which those endure this argument of David is most extraordina- who make no such profession? Does it rery. But while he felt that the greatness of lieve the mind from doubt and distrust? Does his own iniquity left him no resource, but it tranquillize the troubled heart, does it rein the mercy of God, he felt that God's mer-gulate its disorders, and compose its fluctuacy was greater even than his own sin. What tions? Does it sooth us under irritation? a large, what a magnificent idea does it give us of the divine power and goodness, that the believer, instead of pleading the smallness of his own offences as a motive for pardon, pleads only the abundance of the divine compassion!

Does it support us under trials? Does it for tify us against temptations? Does it lead us to repose a full confidence in that Being whom we profess to trust? Does it produce in us, that work of righteousness, which is peace,' that effect of righteousness, which is We are told that it is the duty of the Chris-quietness and assurance for ever? Do we tian to 'seek God.' We assent to the truth commit ourselves and our concerns to Gad of the proposition. Yet it would be less irk- in word, or in reality? Does this implicit reRome to corrupt nature, in pursuit of this liance simplify our desires? Does it induce knowledge, to go a pilgrimage to distant us to credit the testimony of his word and lands, than to seek him within our own hearts. the promises of his Gospel? Do we not even Our own heart is the truc terra incognitia; entertain some secret suspicions of his faitha land more foreign and unknown to us, than fulness and truth in our hearts, when we per the regions of the polar circle. Yet that suade others and try to persuade ourselves heart is the place, in which an acquaintance that we unreservedly trust him? with God must be sought. It is there we must worship him, if we would worship him in spirit and in truth.

But, alas! the heart is not the home of a worldly man, it is scarcely the home of a Christian. If business and pleasure are the natural element of the generality-a dreary vacuity, sloth and insensibility, too often worse than both, disincline, disqualify too many Christians for the pursuit.

I have observed, and I think I have heard others observe, that a common beggar had rather screen himself under the wall of a church-yard, if overtaken by a shower of rain, though the church doors stand inviting ly open, than take shelter within it, while divine service is performing. It is a less annoyance to him to be drenched with the storm, than to enjoy the convenience of a shelter and a seat, if he must enjoy them at the heavy price of listening to the sermon.

In the preceding chapter we endeavoured to illustrate our want of love to God, by our not being as forward to vindicate the divine conduct as to justify that of an acquaitance. The same illustration may express our relac tance to trust in God. If a tried friend engage to do us a kindness, though he may not think it necessary to explain the particular manner in which he intends to do it, we repose on his word. Assured of the result, we are neither very inquisitive about the mode nor the detail. But do we treat our Almighty friend with the same liberal confidence? Are we not murmuring because we cannot see all the process of his administration, and follow his movements step by step? Do we wait the development of his plan, in full assurance that the issue will be ultimately good! Do we trust that he is as abundantly willing as able, to do more for us than we can ask or think, if by our suspicions we do not offend him, if by our infidelity we do not provoke him? In short, do we not think ourselves ut. terly undone, when we have only but Provi dence to trust to?

While we condemn the beggar, let us look into our own hearts; happy if we cannot there detect somewhat of the same indolence, indisposedness, and distaste to serious things! Happy, if we do not find, that we prefer not We are perhaps ready enough to acknow only our pleasures and enjoyments, but, I ledge God in our mercies, nay, we cons had almost said, our very pains, and vexa-him in the ordinary enjoyments of life. In tions, and inconveniences, to communing some of these common mercies, as in a bright

day, a refreshing shower, a delightful scene. ry, a kind of sensitive pleasure, an hilarity of spirits, a sort of animal enjoyment, though of a refined nature, mixes itsel with our devo tional feelings; and though we confess and adore the bountiful Giver, we do it with a little mixture of self-complacency, and of human gratification, which he pardons and accepts.

But we must look for him in scenes less animating, we must acknowledge him on Occasions less exhilarating, less sensibly gratifying. It is not only in his promises that God manifests his mercy. His threatenings are proofs of the same compassionate love. He threatens, not to punish, but by the warning, to snatch from the punishment.

Instead then of going in search of great mortifications, as a certain class of pious writers recommend, let us cheerfully bear, and diligently improve these inferior trials which God prepares for us. Submission to a cross which he inflicts, to a disappointment which he sends, to a contradiction of our self-love, which he appoints, is a far better exercise than great penances of our own choosing Perpetual conquests over impatience, ill-temper, and self-will, indicate a better spirit than any self-imposed mortifications. We may traverse oceans, and scale mountains on uncommanded pilgrimages, without pleasing God; we may please him without any other exertion than by crossing our own will.

We may also trace marks of his hand, not Perhaps you had been busying your imaonly in the awful visitations of life, not only gination with some projected scheme, not in the severer dispensations of his providence, only lawful, but laudable. The design was but in vexations so trivial that we should he- radically good, but the supposed value of sitate to suspect that they are providential your own agency, might too much interfere, appointments, did we not know that our daily might a little taint the purity of your best life is made up of unimportant circumstan- intentions. The motives were so mixed that ces rather than of great events. As they are, however, of sufficient importance to exercise the Christian tempers and affections, we may trace the hand of our heavenly Father in those daily little disappointments and hourly vexations, which occur even in the most prosperous state, and which are inseparable from the condition of humanity.We must trace that same beneficent hand, secretly at work for our purification, our correction, our weaning from life; in the imperfections and disagreeableness of those who may be about us; in the perverseness of those with whom we transact business, and in those interruptions which break in on our favourite engagements.

it was difficult to separate them. Sudden sickness obstructed the design. You naturally lament the failure, not perceiving that, however good the work might be for others, the sickness was better for yourself. An act of charity was in your intention, but God saw that your soul required the exercise of a more difficult virtue; that humility and resignation, that the patience, acquiescence, and contrition of a sick bed, were more ne cessary for you. He accepts the meditated work as far as it was designed for his glory, but he calls his servant to other duties, which were more salutary for him, and of which the master was the better judge. He sets aside his work, and orders him to wait; the more difficult part of his task. As far as your motive was pure, you will receive the reward of your unperformed charity, though not the gratification of the performance. If it was not pure, you are rescued from the danger attending a right action performed on a worldly principle. You may be the better Christian though one good deed is subtracted from your catalogue.

We are perhaps too much addicted to our innocent delights, or we are too fond of our leisure, of our learned, even of our religious leisure. But while we say it is good for us to be here, the divine vision is withdrawn, and we are compelled to come down from the mount. Or, perhaps, we do not improve our retirement to the purposes for which it was granted, and to which we had resolved to devote it, and our time is broken in upon By a life of activity and usefulness, you to make us more sensible of its value. Or had perhaps attracted the public esteem.we feel a complacency in our leisure, a pride An animal activity had partly stimulated in our books; perhaps we feel proud of the your exertions. The love of reputation begood things we are intending to say, or medi-gins to mix itself with your better motives. tating to write, or preparing to do. A check You do not, it is presumed, act entirely or is necessary, yet it is given in a way almost chiefly for human applause; but you are too imperceptible. The hand that gives it is sensible to it. It is a delicious poison which unseen, is unsuspected, yet it is the same begins to infuse itself into your purest cup. gracious hand which directs the more impor- You acknowledge indeed the sublimity of tant events of life An importunate appli- higher motives, but do you never feel that, cation, a disqualifying, though not severe in- separated from this accompaniment of self, disposition, a family avocation, a letter im- they would be too abstracted, too speculaportant to the writer, but unseasonable to tive, and might become too little productive us, breaks in on our projected privacy; both of activity and of sensible gratification? calls us to a sacrifice of our inclination, to a You begin to feel the human incentive nerenunciation of our own will. These inces-cessary, and your spirits would flag if it were sant trials of temper, if well improved, may withdrawn. be more salutary to the mind, than the finest This sensibility to praise would gradually passage we had intended to read, or the sub-tarnish the purity of your best actions. He limest sentiment we had fancied we should who sees your heart, as well as your works, write. mercifully snatches you from the perils of

VOL. I.

59

prosperity.

Malice is awakened. Your Ephesians, Galatians, nor Phillippians, they inost meritorious actions are ascribed to the have of course little or nothing to do with most corrupt motives. You are attacked the reproofs, expostulations, or threatnings just where your character is least vulnera which were originally directed to the conble. The enemies whom your success rais- verts among those people. They console ed up, are raised up by God, less to punish themselves with the belief that it was only than to save you. We are far from meaning these pagans who walked according to the that he can ever be the author of evil; he course of this world' -- who were strangers does not excite or approve the calumny, but from the covenants of promise-and who he uses your calumniators as instruments of were without God in the world.' your purification. Your fame was too dear But these self-satisfied critics would do to you. It is a costly sacrifice, but God re- well to learn that not only circumcision or quires it It must be offered up. You uncircumcision,'-but baptism or no bapwould gladly compound for any, for every tism availeth nothing,' (I mean as a mere other offering, but this is the offering he form) but a new creature.' An irreligions chooses and while he graciously continues professor of christianity is as much a stran to employ you for his glory, he thus teaches ger and foreigner, as a heathen; he is no you to renounce your own. He sends this trial as a test, by which you are to try yourself. He thus instructs you not to abandon your Christian exertions, but to elevate the principle which inspired them, to defecate it from all impure admixtures.

:

more a fellow citizen of the saints,' and of the household of God than a Colosian or Galatian was, before the christian dispensation had reached them.

But the persons to whom the Apostles preached had, before their conversion, Do By thus stripping the most engaging em- vices to which we are not liable, they had ployments of this dangerous delight, by in certainly difficulties afterwards from which fusing some drops of salutary bitterness into we are happily exempt. There were indeed our sweetest draught, by some of these ill-differences between them and us in external tasted but wholesome mercies, he graciously compels us to return to himself. By taking away the stays by which we are perpetually propping up our frail delights, they fall to the ground. We are as it were driven back to Him, who condescends to receive us, after we have tried every thing else, and after every thing else has failed us, and though he knows we should not have returned to him if every thing else had not failed us. He makes us feel our weakness, that we may have recourse to his strength; he makes us sensible of our hitherto unperceived sins, that we may take refuge in his everlasting compas

sion.

CHAP. IX.

Christianity Universal in its Requisitions. It is not unusual to see people get rid of some of the most awful injunctions, and emancipate themselves from some of the most solemn requisitions of Scripture, by affecting to believe that they do not apply to them. They consider them as belonging exclusively to the first age of the Gospel, and to the individuals to whom they were immediately addressed; consequently the necessity to observe them does not extend to persons under an established christianity, to hereditary Chritians.

situation, in local circumstances, references which we ought certainly to take into the account in perusing the episties. We allow that they were immediately, but we do not allow that they were exclusively, applicable to them. It would have been too limited an object for inspiration to have confined its instructions to any one period, when its purpose was the conversion and instruction of the whole unborn world That these converts were miraculously called out of darkness into the marvellous light of the gospelthat they were changed from gross blindness to a rapid illumination-that the embracing the new faith exposed them to perescution, reproach and ignominy-that the few had to struggle against the world-that laws, principalities and powers which support our faith opposed theirs-these are distinctions of which we ought not to lose sight: nor should we forget that not only all the disadvanta ges lay on their side in this antecedent condition, but that also all the superiority lies on ours in that which is subsequent.

But however the condition of the external state of the Church might differ, there can be no necessity for any difference in the interior state of the individual Christian. On whatever high principles of devotedness to God and love to man they were called to act, we are called to act on precisely the same. If their faith was called to more painful exThese exceptions are particularly applied ertions, if their self-denial to harder sacrito some of the leading doctrines, so forcibly fices, if their renunciation of earthly things and repeatedly pressed in the Epistles. The to severer trials, let us thankfully remember reasoners endeavour to persuade themselves this would naturally be the case at the first that it was only the Ephesians who are dead introduction of a religion which had to comin trespasses and sins'-that it was only the bat with the pride, prejudices and enmity of Galatians who are enjoined not to fulfil the corrupt nature, invested with temporal powlusts of the flesh'-that it was only the Phillip- er :-That the hostile party would not fail to pians who were enemies to the cross of perceive how much the new religion oppoChrist. They shelter themselves under the sed itself to their corruptions, and that it was comfortable assurances of a geographical se-introducing a spirit which was in direct and curity. As they know that they are neither avowed hostility to the spirit of the world.

But while we are deeply thankful for the The universality of its requisitions is one diminished difficulties of an established faith, of its most distinguishing characteristics. In let us never forget that Christianity allows of the pagan world it seemed sufficient that a no diminution in the temper, of no abate- few exalted spirits, a few fine geniuses should meat in the Spirit, which constituted a Chris- soar to a vast superiority above the mass; tian in the first ages of the church. but it was never expected that the mob of Rome or Athens, should aspire to any religious sentiments or feelings in common with Socrates or Epictetus. I say religious sentiments, because in matters of taste the distinctions were less striking, for the mob of Athens were compe ent critics in the dramatic art, while they were sunk in the most stupid and degrading idolatry. As to those of a higher class, while no subject in science, arts or learning was too lofty or too abstruse for their acquisition, no object in nature was too low, no conception of a depraved imagination was too impure for their worship. While the civil and political wisdom of the Romans was carried to such perfection that their code of laws has still a place in the most enlightened countries, their deplorably gross superstitions, rank them in point of religion with the savages of Africa. It shows how little a way that reason, which manifested itself with such unrivalled vigour in their poets, orators and historians, as to make them still models to ours, could go in what related to religion, when these polished people, in the objects of their worship, are only on a par with the inhabitants of Otaheite."

Christianity is precisely the same religion now as it was when our Saviour was upon earth. The spirit of the world is exactly the same now as it was then. And if the most eminent of the apostles, under the immediate guidance of inspiration were driven to lament their conflicts with their own corrupt nature, the power of temptation, combining with their natural propensities to evil, how can we expect that a lower faith, a slackened zeal, an abated diligence, and an inferior holiness will be accepted in us? Believers then were not called to higher degrees of purity, to a more elevated devotion to a deeper humility, to greater rectitude, patience and sincerity than they are called to in the age in which we live. The promises are not limited to the period in which they were made, the aid of the Spirit is not confined to those on whom it was first poured out. It was expressly declared by St. Peter on its first effusion, to be promised not only to them and their children, but to all who were afar off, even to as many as the Lord their God should call '

If then the same salvation be now offered as was offered at first, is it not obvious that it | It furnishes the most incontrovertible proof must be worked out in the same way? And that the world by wisdom knew not God, as the same Gospel retains the same authori- that it was at the very time, and in the very ty in all ages, so does it maintain the same country, in which knowledge and taste has universality among all ranks. Christianity attained their utmost perfection, when the has no by-laws, no particular exemptions, porch and the academy had given laws to huno individual immunities. That there is no man intellect, that atheism first assumed a appropriate way of attaining salvation for a shape, and established itself into a school of prince or a philosopher, is probably one philosophy. It was at the moment when the reason why greatness and wisdom have so of mental powers were carried to the highest ten rejected it. But if rank cannot plead its pitch in Greece, that it was settled as an inprivileges, genius cannot claim its distinc- fallible truth in this philosophy, that the sentions. That Christianity does not owe its ses were the highest natural light of mankind. success to the arts of rhetoric or the sophis-It was in the most enlightened age of Rome try of the schools, but that God intended by it to make foolish the wisdom of this world,' actually explains why the disputers of this world' have always been its enemies.

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that this atheistical philosophy was transplanted thither, and that one of her most elegant poets adopted it, and rendered popular by the bewitching graces of his verse.

It would have been unworthy of the infi- It seems as if the most accomplished nanite God to have imparted a partial religion tions stood in the most pressing need of the There is but one gate,' and that a strait' light of Revelation; for it was not to the dark one; but one way," and that a narrow' one; and stupid corners of the earth that the aposthere is but one salvation, and that a common tles had their earliest missions. One of St. one. The Gospel enjoins the same princi-Paul's first and noblest expositions of Chrisples of love and obedience on all of every tian truth was made before the most august condition; offers the same aids under the deliberative assembly in the world, though, same exigencies; the same supports under by the way, it does not appear that more than all trials; the same pardon to all penitents; the same Saviour to all believers; the same rewards to all who endure to the end.' The temptations of one condition and the trials of another may call for the exercise of different qualities, for the performance of different duties, but the same personal holiness is enjoined on all. External acts of virtue may be promoted by some circumstances, and impeded by others, but the graces of inward piety are of universal force, are of eternal obligation

one member of the areopagus was converted. In Rome, some of the apostle's earliest converts belonged to the imperial palace. It was to the metropolis of cultivated Italy, it was to the regions of Achaia,' to the opulent and luxurious city of Corinth, in preference to the barbarous countries of the uncivilized world, that some of his first epistles were addressed.

Even natural religion was little understood by those who professed it; it was full of ob scurity till viewed by the clear light of the