the heart and affections from God, how vain will all those arguments necessarily be rendered, which are urged by the advocates for certain amusements, on the ground of their harmlessness; if those amusements serve (not to mention any positive evil which may belong to them) in like man ner to draw away the thoughts and affections from all spiritual objects!

To conclude; when this topic happens to become the subject of conversation, instead of addressing severe and pointed attacks to young ladies on the sin of attending places of diversion, would it not be better first to endeav our to excite in them that principle of Christianity, with which such diversions seem not quite compatible; as the physician, who visits a patient in an eruptive fever, pays little attention to those spots which to the ignorant appear to be the disease, except indeed so far as they serve as indications to let him into its nature, but goes straight to the root of the malady? He attacks the fever, he lowers the pulse, he changes the system, he corrects the general habit; well knowing that if he can but restore the vital principle of health, the spots, which were nothing but symptoms, will die away of themselves.

In instructing others we should imitate our Lord and his apostles, and not always aim our blow at each particular corruption; but making it our business to convince our pupil that what brings forth the evil fruit she exhibits, cannot be a branch of the true vine; we should thus avail ourselves of individual corruptions, for impressing her with a sense of the necessity of purifying the common source from which they flow-a corrupt nature. Thus making it our grand business to rectify the heart, we pursue the true, the compendious, the only method of universal holiness.

I would, however, take leave of those amiable and not ill-disposed young persons, who complain of the rigour of human prohibitions, and declare "they meet with no such strictness in the Gospel," by asking them, with the most affectionate earnestness, if they can conscientiously reconcile their nightly attendance at every public place which they frequent, with such precepts as the following: "Redeem"ing the time:""Watch and pray :""Watch, for ye know not at what time your Lord cometh :”—“Ab"stain from all appearance of evil:"-"Set your affections

"on things above:"-"Be ye spiritually minded:"-“Cru"cify the flesh, with its affections and lusts?" And I would venture to offer one criterion, by which the persons in ques tion may be enabled to decide on the positive innocence and safety of such diversions; I mean, provided they are sincere in their scrutiny, and honest in their avowal. If, on their return at night from those places, they find they can retire, and "commune with their own hearts ;" if they find the love of God operating with undiminished force on their minds; if they can "bring every thought into subjection," and concentrate every wandering imagination; if they can soberly ex amine into their own state of mind: I do not say, if they can do all this perfectly and without distraction; (for who can do this at any time?) but if they can do it with the same degree of seriousness, pray with the same degree of fervour, and renounce the world in as great a measure as at other times; and if they can lie down with a peaceful consciousmess 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 speaking false peace to their hearts.*

If I might presume to recommend a book, which of all others expos-es the insignificance, vanity, littleness, and emptiness of the world, I should not hesitate to name Mr. Law's "Serious call to a devout and ho. ly Life." Few writers, except Paschal, have directed so much acuteness of reasoning, and so much pointed wit, to this object. He not only makes the reader afraid of a worldly life on account of its sinfulness, but ashamed of it on account of its folly. Few men perhaps have had a deeper insight into the human heart, or have more skilfully probed its corruptions: yet on points of doctrine his views do not seem to be just; and his disquisitions are often unsound and fauciful; so that a general perusal of his works would neither be profitable or intelligible. To a fashionable woman immersed in the vanities of life, or to a busy man overwhelmed with its cares, I know no book so applicable, or likely to exhibit with equal force the vanity of the shadows they are pursuing. But even in this. work he is not a safe guide to evangelical light; and in many of his oth-ers he is highly visionary and whimsical: and I have known. some excellent persons, who were first led by this admirable genius to see the wants. of their own hearts, and the utter insufficiency of the world to fill up the oraving void, who, though they became eminent for piety and self-denial have had their usefulness abridged, and whose minds have contracted something of a monastic severity by an unqualified perusal of Mr. Law True Christianity does not call on us to starve our bodies, but our corrup tions. As the mortified apostle of the holy and self-denying Baptist, preaching repentance because the kingdom of Heaven is at hand, Mr. Law has no superior. As a preacher of salvation, on scriptural grounds, would follow other guides.

VOL. II.

12

CHAPTER XVIII.

Aworldly spirit incompatible with the spirit of Christianity.

Is it not

whimsical to hear such complaints against the strictness of religion as we are frequently hearing, from beings who are voluntarily pursuing, as has been shewn in the preceding chapters, a course of life which fashion makes infinitely more laborious? How really burdensome would Christianity be, if she enjoined such sedulous application, such unremitting labours, such a succession of fatigues !sif religion commanded such hardships and self-denial, such days of hurry, such evenings of exertion, such nights of broken rest, such perpetual sacrifices of quiet, such exile from family delights, as fashion imposes, then indeed the service of Christianity would no longer merit its present appellation of being a "reasonable service:" then the name of perfect slavery might be justly applied to that which we are told in the beautiful language of our church, is “a ser"vice of perfect freedom:" a service, 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 disposition to prefer worldly pleasures, worldly satisfactions, and worldly advantages to the immortal interests of the soul; and to let worldly considerations actuate us instead of the dictates of religion in the concerns of ordinary life; a worldly temper, I say, is not, like almost any other fault, the effect of passion or the consequence of surprise, when the heart is off its guard. It is not excited incidentally by the operation of external circumstances on the infirmity of nature; but it is the vital spirit, the essential soul, the living principle of evil. It is not so much an act, as a state of being; not so much an occasional complaint, as a tainted constitution of mind. If it do not always show itself in extraordinary excesses, it has no perfect intermission. Even when it is not immediately tempted to break out into o and specific acts, it is at work within, stirring up the b to disaffection against holiness, and infusing a kind of men. disability to whatever is intrinsically good. It infects and depraves all the powers and faculties of the soul; for it

operates on the understanding by blinding it to whatever is spiritually good; on the will by making it averse from God; on the affections, by disordering and sensualizing them; so that one may almost say to those who are under the supreme dominion of this spirit, what was said to the hosts of Joshua, "Ye cannot serve the Lord."

This worldliness of mind is not at all commonly understood, and for the following reason:-People suppose that in this world our chief business is with the things of this world, and that to conduct the business of this world well, that is, conformably to moral principles, is the chief substance of moral and true goodness. Religion, if introduced at all into the system, only makes its occasional, and if I may so speak, its holiday appearance. To bring religion into every thing, is thought incompatible with the due ats'tention to the things of this life. And so it would be, if by religion were meant talking about religion. The phrase, therefore, is: "One cannot always be praying; we must "mind our business and social duties as well as our devotion." Worldly business being thus subjected to worldly, though in some degree moral, maxims, the mind during the conToduct of business grows worldly; and a continually increasing worldly spirit dims the sight and relaxes the moral principle on which the affairs of the world are conducted, as well as indisposes the mind for all the exercises of devvotion.

But this temper, as far as relates to business, assumes the a semblance of goodness; so that those who have not right views are apt to mistake the carrying on the affairs of life 1 on a tolerably moral principle, for religion. They do 1. not see that the evil lies not in their so carrying on business, but in their not carrying on the things of this life in subserviency to those of eternity; in their not carrying them on with the unintermitting idea of responsibility. The evil does not lie in their not being always on their knees, but in their not bringing their religion from the closet into the world in their not bringing the spirit of the Sunday's devotions into the transactions of the week in not transforming their religion from a dry, and speculative, and inoperative system, into a lively, and influential, and unceas ing principle of action.

:

Though there are, blessed be God! in the most exalted stations, women who adorn their Christian profession

by a consistent conduct; yet are there not others who are labouring hard to unite the irreconcilable interests of earth and heaven? who, while they will not relinquish one jot of what this world has to bestow, yet by no means renounce their hopes of a better? who do not think it unreasonable that their indulging in the fullest possession of present pleasure should interfere with the most certain reversion of fu. ture glory? who, after living in the most unbounded gratification of ease, vanity, and luxury, fancy that heaven must be attached of course to a life of which Christianity is the outward profession, and which has not been stained by any flagrant or dishonourable act of guilt?

Are there not many who, while they entertain a respect for religion, (for I address not the unbelieving or the li centions,) while they believe its truths, observe its forms, and would be shocked not to be thought religious, are yet immersed in this life of disqualifying worldliness? who, though they make a conscience of going to the public wor. ship once on a Sunday, and are scrupulously observant of the other rites of the church, yet hesitate not to give up all the rest of their time to the very same pursuits and pleas. ures which occupy the hearts and lives of those looser characters, whose enjoyment is not obstructed by any dread of a future account? and who are acting on the wise principle of "the children of this world" in making the most of the present state of being, from the conviction that there is no other to be expected?

It must be owned, indeed, that faith in unseen things is at times sadly weak and defective even in the truly pious; and that it is so, is the subject of their grief and humiliation. O! how does the real Christian take shame in the cold. ness of his belief, in the lowness of his attainments! How deeply does he lament that "when he would do good, evil is present with him ?"—"that the life he now lives in the esh, is" not, in the degree it ought to be," by faith in

Son of God!" Yet one thing is clear; however weak his belief may seem to be, it is evident that his actions are mainly governed by it; he evinces his sincerity to others by a life in some good degree analagous to the doctrines he professes: while to himself he has this conviction, that faint as his confidence may be at times, yet at the worst of times he would not exchange that faint measure of trust and hope for all the actual pleasures and possessions of his