said in his heart, There is no God." Is the cause of this brutal conclusion sought for? "They are corrupt; they have done abominable works. They are all gone aside; they are altogether become filthy: there is none that doeth good,-no, not one.'

A defective education must be noticed as one of the earliest occasions of Deism. To read the Bible, or to commit to memory the first principles of Christianity, is, in many of our public schools, considered as a practice puritanic and obsolete.. Socinians and Deists have warmly joined to expel the Scriptures from our juvenile seminaries, as unsuitable to the period of childhood as calculated unfairly to prepossess the unsuspicious. mind with conclusions in favour of a revelation, the evidence of which they are not able to examine. Besides (say these reasoners) by associating the tasks of school with the sacred writings, we may excite that aversion which mature reflection will not be able to overcome. Mary sincere but incautious friends of revelation have too readily fallen into the snare thus artfully laid for their offspring; and the consequences are such as fill the reflecting mind with pain and alarm. Instead of the sentiments and phraseology of Christ and his inspired servants, the minds of the young are stored with the maxims and diction of ancient philcsophers or modern novelists. The language of revelation is to them a strange dialect; nor can they recognize the venerable authority of prophets or apostles, when their writings are appealed to by the evangelical minister of God. Thus the access of saving truth to the understanding is rendered diflicult, in proportion to their want of acquaintance with the medium through which it is conveyed. Their attention to the Bible is probably first excited by the bold and blasphemous sneers of infidelity; the seed of speculative Deism is dropt into the heart, and takes deep root in a soil too awfully favourable to its future growth and maturity.

Parents and guardians of the rising age, would you wish to counteract this fatal mischief? - Begin, then, with your tender and important charge, as soon as capacity begins to dawn. Train up, catechize your children in the way they should go, that, when they are old, they may not, through the seductions of Deism, depart from it. This is a direct injunction, delivered by the highest authority; and we see the auspicious result of obedience exemplified in one of the most striking instances:The matchless Paul congratulates his son Timothy, that, from a child, he had known the holy Scriptures, and which had made him wise unto salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus.

May we not, in many instances, trace Deism to an impatience of contron!? Education, defective as it in general is, lays some restraints on the passions. The recurrence of the Christian Sabbath, sanctioned too by the laws of our land, op. poses a public and powerful barrier to licentiousness of sentiment, and profligacy of conduct. The prohibitions and alarm

ing sanctions of the revelation of God, are perpetually interfering with the favourite pursuits and criminal indulgences of the vain and the immoral. Even these characters are sometimes startled with the distant thunders of Sinai; and conscience brings them into a state of bondage through fear. Now Deism proposes a short road to emancipation: Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us," is the counsel dictated. Our lips are our own: who is Lord over us?" is the haughty challenge. Thus, in proportion as Deism attains its purpose, every moral authority is subverted: every restraint on the lawless passions is discarded; and the institutions of civil society present a tottering and short-lived security against the return of gloomy savagism and universal anarchy.

A spirit of bold speculation, unawed by the majesty of the incomprehensible God, unchecked by the conviction of human fallibility, has led numbers into the ranks of infidelity. True courage is a noble trait in the character of man, and is a constant companion of sound wisdom; but there is a disposition, miscalled Courage, whose proper appellation is Temerity. This is a blind and headlong temper, averse to sober inquiry, and unae quainted with the calculations of prudence. Under its influence, the Bible, though surrounded with claims of the most awful import, and disclosing truths of eternal moment, is treated with less respect than the dreams of heathen sages, or the reveries of the wildest theorists. Suspicion of incompetence, where the profoundest minds have paused, and bent the knee of prayer, is quite unknown to these daring souls. No doubt, they are the men of intuition, and wisdom was born and must die with them! These are the characters who become vain in their ima gination, and their foolish heart is darkened: professing themselves to be wise, they become fools, and perish in their own deceivings. Let the youth of education and science beware of this proud rock, on which thousands have struck, making shipwreck of faith and a good conscience.

Confusion of thought has proved a frequent occasion of renouncing Christianity. Numbers cannot, or will not, discern the difference between the corruptions of men and the religion of Christ. Why should the mummery of Rome be confounded with the noble simplicity of gospel-worship? What affinity have the sublime doctrines of the New Testament with the dogmas of Popes, or the decrees of councils? Why should man, in what ever station, or of whatever attainments, be identified with the book of heaven? The word of revelation must be tried by its own intrinsic character, independent of every thing adventitions or human. And how reasonable this rule of judgment! How readily acceded to in every cause, and on every other occasion! So far is the word of God from referring to its merely-nominal advocates, in proof of its own authenticity; or as excinplifying

its genuine graces, that, we are commanded to bring every sentiment, practice, and character, to the standard of Heavento the law and to the testimony; assured that, if they corre spond not with these, it is because there is no light in them. When the superstitious come before the majesty of God with their services of will-worship, the interrogation of the Bible is, "Who hath required this at your hands?" These immoralities; those angry contentions; those bitter envyings and persecutions, which have deformed the ecclesiastical page, and on account of which many have rejected the Christian name, are no more chargeable on the word of God than the robberies, for geries, and murders, committed in Great Britain, are imputable to the laws of the land. The laws of England do not more explicitly consign the perpetrators of these crimes to the punishment of death, than the declarations of the Bible solemnly assure us, that the adorable Judge will at last say to all the workers of iniquity, Depart from me, I never knew you!" Why, then, do ye not, Oye enemies of revealed truth,-why do ye not of yourselves judge righteous judgment, separating the chaff from the wheat, and the precious from the vile? An answer will be required at the bar of God.

Finally, Deism is often the offspring af a graceless profession of the gospel. Some of the most decided, zealous, and embittered infidels in our native land, once appeared among the folJowers of a crucified Saviour. Like the stony-ground hearers, they received the word with joy; or were strongly wrought upon by the terrors of the Lord; but having no root of genuine conversion in themselves; they only endured for a while, and, in a time of temptation, fell away. When the charm of novelty, and the fervour of passion subsided, the love of the world and sin (suspended in its sensible exercise, but never radically subverted) began to resume its influence: conscience remonstrated, and tormenting fears were engendered. For a time, inclination and conscience maintained a doubtful contest; but who can bear such a continued martyrdom? The truth of the Bible is the source of agony, and the seal of final ruin to the soul that is not upright with God. Here, then, is the dilemma. If they admit divine revelation to be true, then they are inevitably miserable for both workds; but if they deny its authenticity, and shake off its authority, they are promised the gratifications of sin without present remorse, or the forebodings of a future reckcuing. Under circumstances so urgent, can we wonder that the wretched asylum of Deism is resorted to as the only system. adapted to the exigence, or that its gloomy cause should be so strenuously advocated by persons whose interests require that revelation should not be true?

Sheffield

FIGLINUS.

SIR,

THE HYPOCRISY OF COVETOUSNESS.

To the Editor.

Having been much pleased in reading Dr. C. Mather's Essays to do Good, and fearing that the zeal of many good men is damped by the want of co-operation in those who have the means, the insertion of the follow ing Extract from the late Mr. Robinson's Morning Exercises on Covetousness, will oblige yours sincerely, REASIF.

"MARK his hypocrisy! He weeps over the profligacy of the poor, and says, It is a sad thing that they are brought up without being educated in the fear of God. He laments every time the bell tolls the miserable condition of widows and orphans. He celebrates the praise of learning, and wishes public speakers had all the powers of a learned criticism, and all the graces of elocution. He prays for the downpouring of the Spirit, and the outgoings of God in his sanctuary, and then how his soul would be refreshed! What a comfortable Christian would he be then! Tell this son of the morning that there are schoolmasters waiting to educate the poor, tutors longing to instruct youth, and young men burning with a vehement passion for learning and oratory; tell him that the gratitude of widows, the hymns of orphans, and the blessings of numbers ready to perish, are the presence of God in his church. Tell him, All these wait to pour themselves like a tide into his congregation, and wait only for a little of his money to pay for cutting a canal. See how thunderstruck he is! His solemn face becomes lank and black; he suspects he has been too liberal already, his generosity has been often abused; why should he be taxed and others spared? the Lord will save his own elect; God is never at a loss for means; no exertions will do without the divine presence and blessing; and, beside, his property is all locked up. Behold, it is hid in the earth in the midst of my tent!

"Let us respect truth even in the mouth of a miser. His ignoble soul tells you, that he would not give a wedge of gold, to save you all from eternal ruin; but, he says, God is not like him; God loves you, and will save you freely. This is strictly and literally true. There have been thousands of poor people beside you, who have been instructed and animated, converted and saved, without having paid a penny for the whole; but this, instead of freezing, should melt the hearts of all who are able, and set them a running into acts of generosity."

It is now about twelve months since I sent the following Query to be inserted in the Evangelical Magazine. As it ap pears to have been overlooked, and as the subject is of great im

portance, I shall offer no apology for troubling you with it a second time.

The practice alluded to is become so general, that a candid enquiry in regard to its propriety, is deemed absolutely essential to the due observance of the Sabbath. If vending books on that day be unscriptural, of which, I think, there can be no doubt, the evils resulting from it cannot be exposed too soon, that the practice may be discouraged and abandoned. But, if allowable, then our pastors and teachers, if they choose, may profit by the sale of religious books, and our churches may be made the general depositories of them, for their more easy circulation among assembled professors on the Christian Sabbath.

"Is not the selling of Sermons, Hymn Books, or any other kind of religious books, at places of worship, on the SabbathDay, a violation of the Fourth Commandment, and a turning the house of God into a house of merchandize ? Can any one be justified in receiving the profits arising from it * ?"

LEX ET EVANGELIUM.

Another Correspondent complains of the custom of selling Tickets at Chapels on the Lord's Day; and says, he has heard the money chinking while the minister was engaged in prayer to God!

Ir a Christian is placed, in providence, in the house of an irreligious master, who frequently requests him (when, for particular reasons, he wishes to be alone) to deny him to any occasional enquirers, is it his duty to comply with the request?

Evangelicana.

A Testimony to the Holy Bible, by the late Rev. and learned Abp. Secker. THE Bible is not indeed a plan of religion delineated with minute accuracy to instruct men, as in something altogether new, or to excite a vain admiration and applause; but it is somewhat unspeakably more great and noble, comprehending, in the grandest and most magnificent order, along with every essential of that plan, the various dispensations of God to mankind, from the formation of this earth to the consummation of all things. Other books may afford us much entertainment and instruction; may gratify our curiosity, may delight our imagination,- may improve our understanding, may calin our passions, may exalt our sentiments, may even improve our hearts; - but they have not, they cannot have, that authority in what they affirm, in what they promise and threaten, that the Scriptures have. There is a peculiar weight and energy in them, which is not to be found in any other writings. Their denunciations are more awful, their convictions stronger, their consolations more powerful, their counsels more authentic, their warnings more alarming, their expostulations more penetrating. There are passages in them throughout so sublime, so pathetic, full of such energy and force upon the heart and conscience, yet without the least appearance of labour and study for that purpose. Indeed, the design of the whole is so noble, so well suited to the sad