others a law to us." We do not think that experimental religion is showy and noisy, that it seeks public exhibitions, and is not satisfied till it has been registered before the world, or that it loves to blow a trumpet, or hang out a flag ; for we are accustomed to believe that quick and ostentatious effects are not generally the best effects, nor the only true indications of the progress of real Christianity, nor the only sure evidences of the blessing of Heaven upon a pastor's labors. We do not deem that sort of commotion to be very desirable, in the confusion of which the mind mistakes the glow of emotion for permanent piety, and the fervors of imagination for signs of grace; for we have seen enough to convince us that the whole soul may be smitten down in fear and despair, or lifted up with swelling raptures, without any impressions being produced, which are permanently religious. We think ourselves justified in supposing it to be spiritual pride, rather than an experience of religion, which leads men to speak of their fellow Christians as children of darkness and of wrath, to pity the whole world besides themselves, to regard and to talk of the inclosures, within which their sects have fenced themselves, as a kind of privileged Goshen, and to thank God, with a very strange sort of gratitude, that he has made them so much wiser and holier than other human beings. We do not think, that an experimental acquaintance with Christianity requires us to make boastful comparisons of ourselves with others, nor to point the finger of reproach at such of our fellow men, as do not see with our eyes on religious subjects. But we do believe, that experimental religion is a religion which is seated in the heart, and sends out thence its influences on the life; that it is a principle of internal purity and heavenly mindedness; that it is something very different from that pretended religion which enlightens perhaps, but does not warm; very different from that empty form of Christianity which floats around the heart, without ever becoming a sanctifying power, and which leaves men with a name to live, yet dead; that it brings the truths of the Gospel home to the bosoms and consciences of mankind, and thus awakens the sinner from the sleep of spiritual death and animates the saint to a still better progress in the Christian course; that its essence is in that faith which works by love, without which it is impossible to please God, and in that holy life, which to use the words of a pious writer-"is the only perfection of repentance, and the firm ground upon which we can cast the anchor of hope in the mercies of God through Jesus Christ." Such we conceive Experimental Religion to be; and our prayer, and we trust our labor is, that it 66 may have free course, and be glorified.” |