sciousness of having avoided in the evening, "that temptation" which they had prayed not to be "led into" in the morn ing, they may then more reasonably hope that all is well, and that they are not fpeaking falfe peace to their hearts.-Again, if we cannot beg the bleffing of our Maker on whatever we are going to do or to enjoy, is it not an unequivocal proof that the thing ought not to be done or enjoyed? On all the rational enjoyments of society, on all healthful and temperate exercise, on the delights of friendship, arts, and polished letters, on the exquifite pleasures refulting from the enjoyment of rural scenery, and the beauties of nature; on the innocent participation of these we may afk the divine favour-for the fober enjoyment of thefe we may thank the divine beneficence: but do we feel equally difpofed to invoke bleffings or return praises for gratifications found, (to fay no worse,) in levity, in vanity, and wafte of time?-If thefe tefts were fairly used; if thefe experiments.

were

were honestly tried; if thefe examinations were confcientioufly made, may we not, without offence, prefume to afk-Could our numerous places of public refort, could our ever-multiplying fcenes of more felect but not lefs dangerous diverfion, nightly overflow with an excess hitherto unparallelled in the annals of pleasure * ?

* If I might prefume to recommend a book which of all others expofes the infignificance, vanity, littlenefs, and emptinefs of the world, I fhould not hefitate to name Mr. Law's "Serious Call to a devout and holy Life." Few writers, except Pafcal have directed fo much acuteness of reasoning and fo much pointed wit to this object. He not only makes the reader afraid of a worldly life on account of its finfulness, but ashamed of it on account of its folly. Few men perhaps have had a deeper infight into the human heart, or have more fkilfully probed its corruptions: yet on points of doctrine his views do not seem to be juft; and his difquifitions are often unfound and fanciful, fo that a general perufal of his works would neither be profitable or intelligible. To a fashionable woman immersed in the vanities of life, or to a bufy man overwhelmed with its cares, I know no book so applicable, or likely to exhibit with equal force the

vanity of the fhadows they are pursuing. But, even in this work, Law is not a fafe guide to evangelical light; and, in many of his others, he is highly vifionary and whimfical: and I have known fome excellent perfons who were firft led by this admirable genius to fee the wants of their own hearts, and the utter infufficiency of the world to fill up the craving void, who, though they became eminent for piety and felf-denial, have had their usefulness abridged, and whofe minds have contracted fomething of a monaftic severity by an unqualified perufal of Mr. Law. True Chriftianity does not call on us to starve our bodies, but our corruptions. As the mortified Apofle of the holy and felf-denying Baptift, preaching repentance because the kingdom of Heaven is at hand, Mr. Law has no fuperior. As a preacher of falvation on fcriptural grounds, I would follow other guides.

CHAP. XIX.

A worldly Spirit incompatible with the fpirit of Christianity.

Is it not whimfical to hear fuch complaints against the ftrictnefs of religion as we are frequently hearing, from beings who are voluntarily pursuing, as has been fhewn in the preceding Chapters, a course of life which fashion makes infinitely more fevere.

How really burdenfome would Christianity be if fhe enjoined fuch fedulous application, fuch unremitting labours, fuch a fucceffion of fatigues! If religion commanded fuch hardships and felf-denial, fuch days of hurry, fuch evenings of exertion, fuch nights of broken rest, fuch perpetual facrifices of quiet, fuch exile from family delights, as Fashion imposes, then indeed the fervice of Christianity would

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would no longer merit its prefent appellation of being a "reasonable fervice;" then the name of perfect flavery might be justly applied to that which we are told in the beautiful language of our church, is "a fervice of perfect freedom:" a fervice, the great object of which is "to "deliver us from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the "children of God."

...

A worldly temper, by which I mean a difpofition to prefer worldly pleafures, worldly fatisfactions, and worldly advan tages, to the immortal intérefts of the foul and to let worldly confiderations actuate us instead of the dictates of religion in the concerns of ordinary life; a worldly tem. per, I fay, is not, like almoft any other fault, the effect of paffion or the cofifequence of furprife, when the heart is off its guard. It is not excited incidentally by the operation of external circumftances on the infirmity of nature; but it is the vital fpirit, the effential foul, the living principle

of