backward in being the first to appear in a strange fashion, such an one as often excites wonder, and sometimes even offends against delicacy. Let not then diffidence be pleaded as an excufe only on occafions wherein courage would be virtue.

Will it be thought too harsh a question if we venture to ask thefe gentle characters who are thus entrenching themfelves in the imaginary tafety of furrounding multitudes, and who fay We only do as "others do," whether they are willing to run the tremendous risk of confequences, and to fare as others fare?

But while thefe plead the authority of Fashion as a fufficient reason for their conformity to the world, one who has fpoken with a paramount authority, has pofitively faid, "Be ye not conformed to the world." Ñay, it is urged as the very badge and diftinction by which the character oppofite to the Chriftian is to be marked, "that the friendship of the world is enmity with God."

Temptation to conform to the world was never perhaps more irrefiftible than in the days which immediately preceded the Deluge: and no man could ever have pleaded the fashion in order to justify a criminal affimilation with the reigning manners, with more propriety than the Patriarch Noah. He had the two grand and contending objects of terror to encounter which we have; the fear of ridicule, and the fear of destruction; the dread of fin, and the dread of fingularity. Our cause of alarm is at leaft equally preffing with his; for it does not appear, even while he was actually obeying the Divine command in providing the means of his future fafety, that he saw any actual symptoms of the impending ruin. So that in one fenfe be might have truly pleaded as an excufe for flackness of preparation, "that all things continued as they were from "the beginning;" while many of us, though the ftorm is actually begun, never think of providing the refuge : it is true he was "warned of God," and he provided "by faith." But are not we alfo warned of God? have we not had a fuller revelation ? have we not seen Scripture illuftrated, prophecy fulfilling, with every awful circumftance that can either quicken the most fluggish remiffuefs, or confirm the feeblest faith?

Befides, the Patriarch's plea for following the fashion was stronger than you can produce. While you muft. fee that many are going wrong, he faw that none were going right. "All fleth had corrupted his way before "God," whilft, bleffed be God! you have ftill inftances enough of piety to keep you in countenance. While you lament that the world feduces you, (for every one has a little world of his own,) your world perhaps is only a petty neighbourhood, a few streets and fquares; but the Patriarch had really the contagion of an whole united world to refift; he had literally the example of the whole face of the earth to oppose. The "fear of "man" alfo would then have been a more pardonable fault, when the lives of the fame individuals who were likely to excite refpect or fear, was prolonged many ages, than it can be in the fhort period now affigned to human life. How lamentable then that human opin ion fhould operate fo powerfully, when it is but the breath of a being so frail and so short-lived,

That he doth cease to be,

Ere one can fay he is!

You who find it fo difficult to withstand the individual allurement of one modifh acquaintance, would, if you had been in the Patriarch's cafe, have concluded the truggle to be quite ineffectual, and funk under the fuppofed fruitlefinefs of refiftance. "Myfelf," would you not have faid?" or at moft my little family of eight perfons can never hope to stop this torrent of "corruption; I lament the fruitleffness of oppofition; "I deplore the neceffity of conformity with the pre"vailing fyftem: but it would be a foolish prefump❝tion to hope that one family can effect a change in the "itate of the world." In your own cafe, however, it is not certain to how wide an extent the hearty union of even fewer perfons in fuch a cause might reach : at leaft is it nothing to do what the Patriarch did? Was it nothing to preferve himself from the general deftruc tion? Was it nothing to deliver his own foul? Was it nothing to refcue the fouls of his whole family?

A wife man will never differ from the world in trifles. It is certainly a mark of a found judgment to comply with custom whenever we fafely can; fuch compliance

trengthens our influence, by referving to ourfelves the greater weight of authority on thofe occafions, when our confcience obliges us to differ. Those who are prudent will cheerfully conform to all the innocent ufages of the world; but those who are Chriftians will be fcrupulous in defining which are really innocent previous to their conformity to them. Not what the world, but what the Gofpel calls innocent will be found at the grand fcrutiny to have been really fo. A difcreet Chriftian will take due pains to be convinced he is right before he will prefume to be fingular: but from the inftant he is perfuaded that the Gofpel is true, and the world of courfe wrong, he will no longer risk his fafety by following multitudes, or hazard his foul by ftaking it on human opinion. All our most dangerous mistakes arise from our not conftantly referring our practice to the ftandard of Scripture, instead of the mutable standard of human estimation by which it is impoffible to fix the real value of characters. For this latter ftandard in some cases determines those to be good who do not run all the lengths in which the notoriously bad allow themfelves. The Gofpel has an univerfal, the world has a local standard of goodness : in certain focieties certain vices alone are difhonourable, fuch as covetoufnefs and cowardice; while those fins of which our Saviour has faid, that they which commit them "fhall not inherit the kingdom of God," detract nothing from the respect fome perfons receive. Nay, thofe very characters whom the Almighty has exprefsly and awfully declared "He will judge," are received, are admired, are careffed, in that which calls itfelf the best company.

*

But to weigh our actions by one standard now, when we know they will be judged by another hereafter, would be reckoned the height of abfurdity in any tranfactions but those which involve the interests of eternity. "How readeft thou?" is a more fpecific direction than any comparative view of our own habits with the habits of others and at the final bar it will be of little avail that our actions have risen above those

* Hebrews, xiii.

of bad men, if our views and principles fhall be found to have been in oppofition to the Gofpel of Christ.

Nor is their practice more commendable, who are ever on the watch to pick out the worst actions of good men, by way of justifying their own conduct on the comparison. The faults of the best men, "for there "is not a juft man upon earth who finneth not," can in no wife juftify the errors of the worst: and it is not, invariably, the example of even good men that we muft take for our unerring rule of conduct: nor is it by a single action that either they or we fhall be judged; for in that cafe who could be faved? but it is by the general prevalence of right principles and good habits, and Chriftian tempers; by the predominance of holiness, and righteoufnefs, and temperance in the life, and by the power of humility, faith, and love in. the heart.

CHAP. XX.

On the leading Doctrines of Christianity.-The Corruption of Human Nature. The Doctrine of Redemption The Neceffity of a Change of Heart, and of the Divine Influences to produce that Change. With a Sketch of the Chriftian Character. THE author having in this little work taken a view

of the falfe notions often imbibed in early life from a bad education, and of their pernicious effects; and have ing attempted to point out the refpective remedies to thefe; fhe would now draw all that has been said to a point, and declare plainly what the humbly conceives to be the fource whence all these falfe notions and this wrong conduct really proceed the prophet Jeremiah fhall answer: "It is because they have forfaken the "fountain of living waters, and have hewn out to "themselves cifterns, broken cifterns that can hold no "water." It is an ignorance paft belief of what true Christianity really is the remedy, therefore, and the only remedy that can be applied with any profpect of fuccefs, is RELIGION, and by Religion the would be. understood to mean the Gospel of Jefus Chrift..

It has been before hinted, that Religion fhould be caught at an early period of life; that children fhould De brought up" in the nurture and admonition of the "Lord." The manner in which they fhould be taught has likewife with great plainnefs been fuggefted; that it fhould be done in fo lively and familiar a manner as to make Religion amiable, and her ways to appear, what they really are, "ways of pleafantnefs." And a flight sketch has been given of the genius of Chriftianity, by which her amiableness would more clearly appear. But this, being a fubject of i. .h vaft impor tance compared with which every other fubject links into nothing; it seems not fufficient to speak on the doctrines and duties of Christianity in detached parts, but it is of importance to point out, though in a brief and imperfect manner, the mutual dependance of one doctrine upon another, and the influence which these doctrines have upon the heart and life, fo that the duties of Christianity may be seen to grow out of its doctrines: by which it will appear that Chriftian virtue differs effentially from Pagan it is of a quite different kind: the plant itself is different, it comes from a different root, and grows in a different foil.

It will be feen how the humbling doctrine of the corruption of human nature, which has followed from the corruption of our first parents, makes way for the bright difplay of redeeming love. How from the abafing thought that "we are all as sheep going aftray, 66 every one in his own way :" that none can return to the fhepherd of our fouls," except the Father draw "him" that "the natural man cannot receive the "things of the Spirit, because they are fpiritually dif "cerned:" how from this humiliating view of the helplessness, as well as the corruption of human nature, we are to turn to that animating doctrine, the offer of divine afiftance. So that though human nature will appear from this view in a deeply degraded ftate, and confequently all have caufe for humility, yet not one has caufe for defpair: the disease indeed is dreadful, but a phyfician is at hand, both able and willing to fave us though we are naturally without "ftrength, "our help is laid upon One that is mighty." If the