party zeal, weakens the bonds of Christian amity. Divide and conquer is the maxim of an enemy. § 7. The great importance of progressive religious knowledge may be estimated from the salutary influence it possesses on Christian duties. It is a valuable guide to profitable devotion and useful practice. Yet we should be on our guard in estimating practice, as well as in deciding upon doctrine. The Jewish Pharisees, who rejected the Prince of Life, were very expert practitioners in their way. But their obedience was not fashioned according to the divine rule; was not directed to a worthy end, did not flow from a right principle. Approved practice includes devotion, the proper exercise of the heart and affections, as well as the external part of service. As a pretended devotion which is not accompanied with the discharge of personal and relative duties, is essentially defective; so our duties without a devotional temper, are but a body without the soul. § 8. Having pointed out briefly the excellency of religious knowledge, and some advantages which it is capable of affording, I shall now presume to offer a few words of advice, especially to my younger brethren in the ministry (as the result of long experience,) respecting its attainment. And, first, seek it in the performance of known duty. In this enterprise, our divine Teacher leads the way. "If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." This is the path, "walk ye in it." Conscientiously improve your talent, and you shall add to it. "To him that hath shall be given." To attempt the depths of knowledge or the heights of speculation by any other process, is to encounter a dangerous voyage with crowded sails, while the ballast has been left behind." "Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts." This reply to the important inquiry implies, that selfish indulgences and immoderate worldly attachments, are incompatible with profitable knowledge. Until the heart and affections are withdrawn and weaned from grovelling pursuits, such as those mentioned in the context, the learner is not qualified to receive even the rudiments of saving knowledge, much less to make a desirable proficiency.‡ * 1 John vii. 17. + Isa. xxviii. 9. Propheta docet, Doctores, Sacerdotes, Proceres populi, quorum erat tueri integritatem doctrinæ et conciliorum publicorum, adeo longe discessisse à tramite veri, ut plane inepti sint ad veram doctrinam salutis, fundatam in antiqua 9. Some indeed have taught otherwise; urging, not only that indifference to all tenets leaves reason free, but also that religious practice is of little use in order to discern truth, and to guard against error. But it should be remembered that habitual practice forms the character; and therefore a defective practice forms a defective character. He who expects to succeed by defect, "sows the wind and shall reap the whirlwind." When did the ancient Jews become corrupt in doctrine, but when they degenerated in their practice? When did the church of Rome deviate from sound, scriptural principles, substituting the acts of councils and the mandates of presumptuous men, for the oracles of God, but when the clergy and laity became voluptuous, "greedy of filthy lucre," -receiving honour one from another on unauthorized grounds of distinction,—and immoral in their conduct? When men mis-improve or neglect the means of knowledge which God has doctrina Patriarchali et Mosaica, recte percipiendam et digerendam: Esse enim doctrinam Scholasticam ejus temporis, ad quod ipsc respicit, doctrinam accommodatam ad ingenia puerilia, qualis fuit Pharisaica; non masculam, solidum, bene cohærentem, qualem oportet esse doctrinam veræ religionis, quæ homini adulto et exercito satisfactura sit: Sed constare præceptis traditionum antiquarum nomine commendatis, independentibus et inter se neutiquam cohærentibus. VITRING. in loc. afforded them, he gives them up to vile affections and judicial blindness, so that they take light for darkness, and darkness for light. Their habits and characters being once formed under the guidance of lust and passion, every thing is viewed through a false medium, and the simplicity of pure truth has no attractive charms. Whatever, under the abused name of religion, administers to pride, ambition, and sensual pleasures, best accords with their acquired habits and depraved principles. § 10. As this representation is verified by every page of ecclesiastical history, in every period of the church from the apostolic age to the present time, so it answers to the testimony of scripture, and may without difficulty be accounted for. The love of honour and of pleasure, the love of power and of riches, weaken or exclude the love of God and benevolence to "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." "How can ye men. believe, who receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?" "And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved." "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." Religious knowledge and practice have a reciprocal influence. Practical diligence, in God's appointed way, leads to spiritual wealth. "The hand of the diligent maketh rich." And this wealth when acquired, incites to further exertion, and to a more extended sphere of usefulness, "He also that is slothful in his work, is brother to him that is a great waster," He that would find the precious ore of knowledge must "search" and "dig" for it; not by perplexing speculations, so much as by "doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with God:" not so much by the exertion of genius, as by scriptural self-denial; by being ready to distribute, and willing to communicate; by visiting the widow and the fatherless in their affliction; by persevering without weariness in well-doing; by always abounding in the work of the Lord; and by constantly cultivating a purity and simplicity of intention in all his actions. "If thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light." When men aim not at glorifying God, and neglect the divine Teacher, they prepare themselves for strong delusions, for embracing error instead of celestial truth, § 11. They who do evil, and live in a carnal, worldly element, cannot bear the light of holy truth, and the doctrines which are according to |