of men, instead of the favour of God; to go on dragging through the mere exercises of piety, without deriving from them real strength or solid peace; to live in the dread of being called an enthusiast, by outwardly exceeding in religion, and in secret consciousness of falling short of it; to be conformed to the world's view of Christianity, rather than to aspire to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, is a state, not of pleasure but of penalty, not of conquest but of hopeless conflict, not of ingenuous love but of tormenting fear. It is knowing reli gion only as the captive in a foreign land knows the country in which he is a prisoner He hears from the cheerful natives of its beauties, but is himself ignorant of every thing beyond his own gloomy limits. He hears of others as free and happy, yet feels nothing himself but the rigours of incarceration.

The Christian character is little understood by the votaries of the world; if it were, they would be struck with its grandeur. It is the very reverse of that meanness and pusillanimity, that abject spirit and those narrow views, which those who know it not ascribe to it.

will be unforgiving. He who ventures not to break the letter of the seventh commandment in act, will violate it in the spirit. He who has not courage to forfeit heaven by profligacy, will scale it by pride, or forfeit it by unprofitableness.

It is not any vain hope, built on some external privilege or performance on the oce hand, nor a presumptuous confidence that our names are written in the book of life, on the other, which can afford a reasonable ground of safety, but it is endeavouring to keep all the commandments of God; it is living to him who died for us; it is being conformed to his image, as well as redeemed by his blood. This is Christian virtue; this is the holiness of a believer. A lower motive will produce a lower morality, but such an unsanctified morality God will not accept.

For it will little avail us that Christ has died for us, that he has conquered sin, triumphed over the powers of darkness, and overcome the world, while any sin retains its unresisted dominion in our hearts, while the world is our idol, while our fostered corruptions cause us to prefer darkness to light. We must not persuade ourselves that we are reconciled to God while our rebellious hearts are not reconciled to goodness.

A Christian lives at the height of his being; not only at the top of his spiritual, but It is not casting a set of opinions into a of his intellectual life. He alone lives in mould, and a set of duties into a system, the full exercise of his rational powers Re- which constitutes the christian religion. ligion ennobles his reason while it enlarges it The circumference must have a centre, the Let, then, your soul act up to its high des-body must have a soul, the performances tination; let not that which was made to soar to heaven, grovel in the dust. Let it not live so much below itself. You wonder it is not more fixed, when it is perpetually resting on things which are not fixed themselves. In the rest of a Christian there is stability. Nothing can shake his confidence but sin. Outward attack and troubles rather fix than unsettle him, as tempests from without only serve to root the oak faster, while an inward canker will gradually rot and decay it.

These are only a few of the mistakes among the multitude which might have been pointed out; but these are noticed as being of common and every day occurrence. The ineffectiveness of such a religion will be ob

vious.

must have a principle. Outward observan ces were wisely constituted to rouse our for getfulness, to awaken our secular spirits, to call back our negligent hearts; but it was never intended that we should stop short in the use of them. They were designed to excite holy thoughts, to quicken us to holy deeds, but not to be used as equivalents for either But we find it cheaper to serve God in a multitude of exterior acts, than to starve on interior corruption

Nothing short of that uniform stable principle, that fixedness in religion which directs a man in all his actions, aims, and pursuits, to God as his ultimate end, can give consis tency to his conduct or tranquility to his soul. This state once attained, he will not waste That religion which sinks Christianity all his thoughts and designs upon the world; into a mere conformity to religious usa- he will not lavish all his affections on so poor ges, must always fail of substantial effects. a thing as his own advancement He will If sin be seated in the heart, if that be its desire to devote all to the only object worthy home, that is the place in which it must be of them, to God. Our Saviour has taken combatted. It is in vain to attack it in the care to provide that our ideas of glorifying suburbs, when it is lodged in the centre. him, may not run out into fanciful chimeras Mere forms can never expel that enemy or subtle inventions, by simply statingwhich they can never reach. By a religion HEREIN IS MY FATHER GLORIFIED, THAT of decencies, our corruptions may perhaps YE BEAR MUCH FRUIT.' This, he goes on to be driven out of sight, but they will never inform us, is the true evidence of our being be driven out of possession. If they are ex- of the number of his people, by adding—' so pelled from their outworks, they will retreat shall ye be my disciples." to their citadel. If they do not appear in grosser forms, prohibited by the decalogue, still they will exist. The shape may be altered, but the principle will remain. They will exist in the spiritual modification of the same sins, equally forbidden by the divine

CHAP. IV.

Periodical Religion.

'WE deceive ourselves not a little when we

expositor. He who dares not be revengeful. fancy that what is emphatically called the

world, is only to be found in this or that sit uation. The world is every where. It is a Dature as well as a place; a principle as well as a 'local habitation and a name.' Though the principle and the nature flourish most in those haunts which are their congenial soil, yet we are too ready, when we withdraw from the world abroad, to bring it home, to fodge it in our own bosom. The natural heart is both its temple and its worshipper.

by their lives, and inventing a scheme to avert it by their creed. Religion never interferes with their pleasures except by the compliment of a short and occasional suspension. Having got through these periodical acts of devotion, they return to the same scenes of vanity and idleness which they had quitted for the temporary duty: forgetting that it was the very end of those acts of devotion to cure the vanity and to correct the idleness.. Had the periodical observance answered its true design, it would have disinclined them to the pleasure instead of giving them a dispensation for its indulgence. Had they used the devout exercise in a right spirit, and improved it to its true end, it would have set the heart and life at work on all those pursuits which it was calculated to promote. But their project has more ingenuity By the stated minutes they give to religion, they cheaply purchase a protection for the misemployment of the rest of their time. They make these periodical devotions a kind of spiritual insur

But the most devoted idolater of the world, with all the capacity and industry which he may have applied to the subject, has never yet been able to accomplish the grand design of uniting the interests of heaven and earth. This experiment, which has been more assiduously and more frequently tried than that of the philosopher for the grand hermetic secret, has been tried with about the same degree of success. The most laborious process of the spiritual chemist to reconcile religion with the world, has never yet been competent to make the contending principles coalesce. But to drop metaphor.-Religion was nev-ance office, which is to make up to the ader yet thoroughly relinquished by a heart full of the world. The world in return cannot be completely enjoyed where there is just religion enough to disturb its false peace. In such minds heaven and earth ruin each other's enjoyments.

venturers in pleasure, any loss or damage which they may sustain in its voyage.

have our new moons and our sacrifices' under other names and other shapes; of which sacrifices, that is, of the spirit in which they are offered, the Almighty has said, I can not away with them, they are iniquity.'

It is of these shallow devotions, these presumed equivalents for a new heart and a new life, that God declares by the prophet, that he is weary.' Though of his own express There is a religion which is too sincere for appointment, they become an abomination' hypocrisy, but too transient to be profitable; to him, as soon as the sign comes to be rested too superficial to reach the heart, too unpro-in for the thing signified. We Christians ductive to proceed from it. It is slight, but not false. It has discernment enough to distinguish sin, but not firmness enough to oppose it; compunction sufficient to soften the heart, but not vigour sufficient to reform it. It laments when it does wrong, and performs all the functions of repentance of sin except forsaking it. It has every thing of devotion except the stability, and gives every thing to religion except the heart. This is a religion of times, events, and circumstances; it is brought into play by accidents, and dwindles away with the occasion which called it out. Festivals and fasts which occur but seldom, are much observed, and it is to be feared because they occur but seldom; while the great festival which comes every week, comes too often to be so respectfully treated. The piety of these people comes out much in sickness, but is apt to retreat again as recovery approaches. If they die, they are placed by their admirers in the Saints' cal endar; if they recover, they go back into the world they had renounced, and again suspend their amendment as often as Death suspends his blow.

There is another class whose views are still lower, who yet cannot so far shake off religion as to be easy without retaining its brief and stated forms, and who contrive to mix up these forms with a faith of a piece with their practice. They blend their inconsistent works with a vague and unwarranted reliance on what the Saviour has done for them, and thus patch up a merit, and a propitiation of their own-running the hazard of incurring the danger of punishment VOL. I.

57

Now is this superficial devotion that 'giv ing up ourselves not with our lips only, but with our lives,' to our Maker, to which we solemnly pledge ourselves, at least once a week? Is consecrating an hour or two to public worship on the Sunday morning, making the Sabbath a delight?' Is desecrating the rest of the day, by doing our own ways, finding our own pleasure, speaking our own words,' making it honourable ??

6

Sometimes in an awakening sermon, these periodical religionists hear, with awe and terror, of the hour of death and the day of judgment. Their hearts are penetrated with the solemn sounds. They confess the awful realities by the impression they make on their own feelings. The sermon ends, and with it the serious reflections it excited. While they listen to these things, especially if the preacher be alarming, they are all in all to them. They return to the world-and these things are as if they were not; as if they had never been; as if their reality lasted only while they were preached; as if their existence depended only on their being heard; as if truth were no longer truth than while it solicited their notice; as if there were as littie stability in religion itself as in their attention to it. As soon as their minds are disengaged from the question, one would think that death and judgment were an invention, that heaven and hell were blotted

neficial. Few so thoughtless as not to ap proach it with resolutions of amendment; few comparatively who carry those resolations into effect. Fear operates in the previous instance. Why should not love ope. rate in that which is subsequent ?

from existence, that eternity ceased to be eternity, in the long intervals in which they ccase to be the object of their consideration. This is the natural effect of what we venture to denominate periodical religion. It is a transient homage kept totally distinct and separate from the rest of our lives, instead of A periodical religion is accompanied with its being made the prelude and the principle a periodical repentance. This species of reof a course of pious practice; instead of our pentance is adopted with no small mental reweaving our devotions and our actions into servation. It is partial and disconnected. one uniform tissue by doing all in one spirit These fragments of contrition, these broken and to one end When worshippers of this parcels of penitence-while a succession of description pray for a clean heart and a worldly pursuits is not only resorted to, right spirit; when they beg of God to turn but is intended to be resorted to, during away their eyes from beholding vanity,' is the whole of the intervening spaces, it not to be feared that they pray to be made what they resolve never to become, that they would be very unwilling to become as good as they pray to be made, and would be sorry to be as penitent as they profess to desire? But alas they are, in little danger of being taken at their word; there is too much reason to fear their petitions will not be heard or answered, for prayer for the pardon of sin will obtain no pardon, while we retain the sin in hope that the prayer will be accepted without the renunciation.

not that sorrow which the Almighty has premised to accept. To render it pleasing to God and efficacious to ourselves, there must be an agreement in the parts, an entireness in the whole web of life. There must be an integral repentance. A quarterly contrition in the four weeks preceding the sacred seasons will not wipe out the daily offences, the hourly negligences of the whole sinful year. Sins half forsaken through fear, and half retained through partially resisted temptation and partially adopted resolution, make up but an unprofitable piety.

The most solemn office of our Religion, the sacred memorial of the death of its Author, In the bosom of these professors there is a the blessed injunction and tender testimony perpetual conflict between fear and inclinaof his dying love, the consolation of the bum- tion. In conversation you will generally ble believer, the gracious appointment for find them very warm in the cause of religion; strengthening his faith, quickening his re- but it is religion as opposed to infidelity, not pentance, awakening his gratitude and kin- as opposed to worldly mindedness. They dling his charity, is too often resorted to on defend the worship of God but desire to be the same erroneous principle. He who ven- excused from his service. Their heart is the tures to live without the use of this holy in- slave of the world, but their blindness hides stitution, lives in a state of disobedience to from them the turpitude of that world. They the last appointment of his Redeemer. He commend piety but dread its requisitions. who rests in it as a means for supplying the They allow that repentance is necessary, but place of habitual piety, totally mistakes its then how easy is it to find reasons for defer. design, and is fatally deceiving his own soul. ring a necessary evil? Who will hastily adopt This awful solemnity is, it is to be hoped, a painful measure which he can find a creditrarely frequented even by this class of Chris- able pretence for evading? They censure tians without a desire of approaching it with whatever is ostensibly wrong, but avoiding the pious feelings above described. But if only part of it, the part they retain robs them they carry them to the altar, are they equally of the benefits of their partial renunciation. anxious to carry them away from it; are We cannot sufficiently admire the wisdom they anxious to maintain them after it? Does of the church, in enjoining extraordinary the rite so seriously approached commonly acts of devotion at the return of those festileave any vestige of seriousness behind it? vals so happily calculated to excite devotionAre they careful to perpetuate the feelings al feelings. Extraordinary repentance of they were so desirous to excite? Do they sin is peculiarly suitable to the seasons that strive to make them produce solid and sub-record those grand events which sin ocstantial effects? Would that this inconstancy casioned. But the church never intended of mind were to be found only in the class of that these more stated and strict self-examincharacters under consideration! Let the ations should preclude our habitual self-inreader, however sincere in his desires, let spection. It never intended its holy offices the writer, however ready to lament the le-to supply the place of general holiness, but vity of others, seriously ask their own hearts if they can entirely acquit themselves of the inconsistency they are so forward to blame. If they do not find the charge brought against others but too applicable to themselves.

Irreverence antecedent to, or during this sacred solemnity, is far more rare than durable improvement after it. If there are, as we are willing to believe, none so profane as to violate the act, except those who impiously use it only as a pick-lock to a place,' there are too few who make it lastingly be

to promote it. It intended that these solemn occasions should animate the flame of piety, but it never meant to furnish a reason for neglecting to keep the flame alive till the next return should again kindle the dying embers. It meant that every such season should gladden the heart of the Christian at its approach, and not discharge him from duty at its departure. It meant to lighten his conscience of the burden of sin, not to encourage him to begin a new score, again to be wiped off at the succeeding festival. It

intended to quicken the vigilance of the believer, and not to dismiss the sentinel from his post. If we are not the better for these divinely appointed helps, we are the worse. If we use them as a discharge from that diligence which they were intended to promote, we convert our blessings into snares.

This abuse of our advantages arises from our not incorporating our devotions into the general habit of our lives Till our religion become an inward principle and not an external act, we shall not receive that benefit from her forms, however excellent, which they are calculated to convey. It is to those who possess the spirit of Christianity that her forms are so valuable. To them, the form excites the spirit, as the spirit animates the form. Till religion become the desire of our hearts, it will not become the business of our lives. We are far from meaning that it is to be its actual occupation; but that every portion, every habit, every act of life is to be animated by its spirit, influenced by its principle, governed by its power.

actions alone which require watching, for they seldom occur, They do not form the habit of life in ourselves, nor the chief importance of our example to others. It is to our ordinary behaviour; it is to our deportment in common life; it is to our prevailing turn of mind in general intercourse, by which we shall profit or corrupt those with whom we associate. It is our conduct in social life which will help to diffuse a spirit of piety or a distaste to it. If we have mud influence, this is the place in which partic larly to exert it. If we have little, we have still enough to infect the temper and lower the tone of our narrow society.

If we really believe that it is the design of Christianity to raise us to a participation of the divine nature, the slightest reflection on this elevation of our character would lead us to maintain its dignity in the ordinary intercourse of life. We should not so much inquire whether we are transgressing any actual prohibition; whether any standing law is pointed against us; as whether we are supporting the dignity of the Christian character; whether we are acting suitably to our profession; whether more exactness in the common occurrences of the day, more correctness in our conversation, would not be such evidences of our religion, as by being obvious and intelligible, might not almost insensibly produce important effects.

The very mark of our nature, and our necessary commerce with the world, naturally fill our hearts and minds with thoughts and ideas, over which we have unhappily too little control. We find this to be the case when in our better hours we attempt to give ourselves up to serious reflection. How many intrusions of worldly thoughts, how many impertinent imaginations, not only ir. The most insignificant people must not relevant, but uncalled and unwelcome, through indolence and selfishness undervalue crowd in upon the mind so forcibly as scarce- their own influence. Most persons have a ly to be repelled by our sincerest efforts. little circle of which they are a sort of cenHow impotent then to repel such images must that mind be, which is devoted to worldly pursuits, which yields itself up to them, whose opinions, habits, and conduct are under their allowed influence!

If, as we have before observed, religion consists in a new heart and a new spirit, it will become not our occasional act, but our abiding disposition, proving its settled existence in the mind by its habitually disposing our thoughts and actions, our devotions and our practice to a conformity to each other and to itself.

tre. Its smallness may lessen their quantity of good, but does not diminish the duty of using that little influence wisely. Where is the human being so inconsiderable but that he may in some shape benefit others, either by calling their virtues into exercise, or by setting them an example of virtue himself? But we are humble just in the wrong place. When the exhibition of our talents or splendid qualities is in question, we are not backward in the display When a little self-denial is to be exercised, when a little good might be effected by our example, by our discreet management in company, by giving a better turn to conversation, then at once we grow wickedly modest-

Let us not consider a spirit of worldliness as a little infirmity, as a natural, and therefore a pardonable weakness; as a trifling error which will be overlooked for the sake Such an insignificant creature as I am can of our many good qualities. It is in fact the do no good, Had I higher rank or brightessence of our other faults; the temper that er talents, then indeed my influence might stands between us and our salvation; the be exerted to some purpose.'-Thus under spirit which is in direct opposition to the the mask of diffidence, we justify our indospirit of God. Individual sins may more lence; and let slip those lesser occasions of easily be cured, but this is the principle of promoting religion which if we all improved, all spiritual disease. A worldly spirit where how much might the condition of society be it is rooted and cherished, runs through the raised. whole character, insinuates itself in all we The hackneyed interrogation, 'Whatsay and think and do. It is this which makes must we be always talking about religion? us so dead in religion, so averse from spiritual must have the hackneyed answer-Far from things, so forgetful of God, so unmindful of it. Talking about religion is not being reeternity, so satisfied with ourselves, so im- ligious. But we may bring the spirit of repatient of serious discourse, and so alive to ligion into company, and keep it in perpetua! that vain and frivolous intercourse which ex-operation when we do not professedly make cludes intellect almost as much as piety from it our subject. We may be constantly adour general conversation. vancing its interests, we may without effort It is not therefore our more considerable or affectation be giving an example of can

dour, of moderation, of humility, of forbearer as the gospel enjoins would not have ance. We may employ our influence by correcting falsehood, by checking levity, by discouraging calumny, by vindicating misrepresented merit, by countenancing every thing which has a good tendency-in short, by throwing our whole weight, be it great or small, into the right scale.

CHAP. V.

Prayer.

PRAYER is the application of want to him who only can relieve it; the voice of sin to him who alone can pardon it. It is the urgency of poverty, the prostration of humility, the fervency of penitence, the confidence of trust. It is not eloquence, but earnestness not the definition of helplessness, but the feeling of it; not figures of speech, but compunction of soul. It is the Lord save us or we perish' of drowning Peter; the cry of faith to the ear of mercy

Adoration is the noblest employment of created beings; confession the natural language of guilty creatures; gratitude the spontaneous expression of pardoned sinners. Prayer is desire. It is not a conception of the mind nor a mere effort of the intellect, nor an act of the memory; but an elevation of the soul towards its maker; a pressing sense of our own ignorance and infirmity, a consciousness of the perfections of God, of his readiness to bear, of his power to help, of his willingness to save.

It is not an emotion produced in the sen ses; nor an effect wrought by the imagination; but a determination of the will, an effusion of the heart.

Prayer is the guide to self-knowledge by prompting us to look after our sins in order to pray against them; a motive to vigilance, by teaching us to guard against those sins which, through self-examination, we have been enabled to detect.

been necessary. Had not prayer been in important means for curing those corruptions, a God of perfect wisdom would ut have ordered it. He would not have prohibited every thing which tends to inflace and promote them, had they not existed, r would he have commanded every thing that has a tendency to diminish and remove them, had not their existence been fatal. Prayer, therefore, is an indispensable part of his economy and of our obedience.

It is a hackneyed objection to the use of prayer that it is offending the omniscience of God to suppose he requires information af our wants. But no objection can be more futile. We do not pray to inform God of our wants, but to express our sense of the wants which he already knows. As he has not so much made his promise to our necessities, as to our requests, it is reasonable that our requests should be made before we can hope that our necessities will be relieved. God does not promise to those who want that they shall have,' but to those who ask nor to those who need that they shall find,' but to those who seek. So far therefore from his previous knowledge of our wants being a ground of objection to prayer, it is in fact the true ground for our application. Were he not knowledge itself, our informa tion would be of as little use, as our applica tion would be, were he not goodness itself.

We cannot attain to a just notion of prayer while we remain ignorant of our own nature, of the nature of God as revealed in Scripture, of our relation to him and dependence on him. If therefore we do not live in the daily study of the holy scriptures, we shall want the highest motives to this duty and the best helps for performing it; if we do, the cogency of these motives, and the inestimable value of these helps, will render argument unnecessary and exhortation superfluous.

One cause therefore of the dulness of many Christians in prayer, is, their slight acquaintPrayer is an act both of the understanding ance with the sacred volume. They hear it and of the heart. The understanding must periodically, they read it occasionally, they apply itself to the knowledge of the divine are contented to know it historically, to conperfections, or the heart will not be led to sider it superficially, but they do not endeav the adoration of them. It would not be a our to get their minds imbued with its spirit. reasonable service, if the mind was excluded. If they store their memory with its facts, It must be rational worship, or the human they do not impress their hearts with its worshipper would not bring to the service truths. They do not regard it as the nutrithe distinguished faculty of his nature, ment on which their spiritual life and growth which is reason. It must be spiritual wor- depend. They do not pray over it; they do ship; or it would want the distinctive quali- not consider all its doctrines as of practical ty to make it acceptable to Him, who has application; they do not cultivate that spirdeclared that He will be worshipped in itual discernment which alone can enable spirit and in truth.' them judiciously to appropriate its promises and its denunciations to their own actual They do not apply it as an unerring line to ascertain their own rectitude or obli

Prayer is right in itself as the most powerful means of resisting sin and advancing case. in holiness. It is above all right, as every thing is, which has the authority of quity. Scripture, the command of God, and the example of Christ.

In our retirements, we too often fritter away our precious moments, moments resThere is a perfect consistency in all the cued from the world, in trivial, sometimes it ordinations of God; a perfect congruity in is to be feared, in corrupt thoughts. But if the whole scheme of his dispensations. If we must give the reins to our imagination, man were not a corrupt creature, such pray-let us send this excursive faculty to range