domestic repose. The other, on the contrary, is born with an insatiable thirst of glory, to which nothing can be arduous: he has by nature, that noble courage, shall I call it, or that happy temerity; that amid the greatest danger, he sees no danger; victory is ever before his eyes; and every step that leads to conquest is regarded as a victory already obtained.

These examples are more than sufficient to confirm your ideas, and make you perceive the vast distinction we make between a speculative and an experimental piety, and to enable you in some sort to trace the sentiments of our prophet, My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise thee with joyful lips; when I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate upon thee in the night watches. He who has a rational and a speculative piety, and he who has a piety of taste and sentiment, are both sincere in their efforts; both devoted to their duty; both pure in purpose; and both alike engaged in studying his precepts, and in reducing them to practice; but O, how different is their state!

The one prays because he is awed by his wants, and because prayer is the resource of the wretched, The other prays because the exercise of prayer transports him to another world; because it vanishes the objects which obstruct his divine reflections; and because it strengthens those ties which unite him to that God, whose love constitutes all his consolation, and all his treasure.

The one reads the word of God because his heart would reproach him for neglecting a duty so strongly enjoined, and because without the Bible he would

be embarrassed at every step. The other reads because his heart burns whenever the scriptures are opened; and because this word composes his mind, assuages his anguish, and beguiles his care.

The one gives alms, because the doors of heaven shall be shut against the impitiable; because without alms there is no religion; because Jesus Christ shall one day say to those who have been insensible to the wants of others, Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, for I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat; and because the rust of the gold and silver of the covetous shall be a witness against them, and shall eat their flesh as a fire. Matt. xxv. 41. James v. 3. The other gives because there is a kind of instinct and mechanical impulse, if you will excuse the phrase, which excite in his breast the most delicious sensations in the distribution of alms: he gives because his soul is formed on the model of that God, whose character is love, who left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and whose happiness consists in the power of imparting that felicity to others.

The one approaches the Lord's table, because the supreme wisdom has enjoined it; he subdues his passions because the sacrifice is required; in resuming his heart from the objects of vice, he seems to abscind his own flesh; it would seem requisite always to repeat in his ears this text, He that eateth this bread, and drinketh this cup unworthily, eateth and drinketh his own condemnation. The other comes to the Lord's table as to a feast; he brings a heart hungering and thirsting for righteousness; he inwardly hears the gentle voice of God, saying, Seek ye my face: he

replies, Thy face, Lord, 1 will seek. As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God, My soul thristeth for God, yea for the living God. Psa. xxvii. 8. xlii. 1. The delicious sentiment he finds in the communion of Jesus Christ, prompts him to forget all the sacrifices he has made for a participation therein.

In a word, not to multiply cases, the one dies because he must die: he yields to that irrevocable sentence, Return, ye children of men. Psa. xc. 3. Submission, resignation, and patience are the pillars which sustain him in his agony. The other, on the contrary, meets death as one would go to a triumph. He anticipates the happy moment with aspirations, which shall give flight to his soul, he cries, he incessantly cries, Come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Patience, resignation, submission seem to him virtues out of season: he exercised them while condemned to live; not when he is called to die. Henceforth his soul abandons itself wholly to joy, to gratitude, and to transports.

II. Let us inquire in the second article what judgment we should pass upon ourselves when destitute of the heartfelt piety, we have just described.

There are few subjects in the code of holiness, which require greater precision, and in which we should be more cautious to avoid visionary notions. Some persons regard piety of taste and sentiment so essential to salvation, as to reprobate all those who have not attained it. Certain passages of scripture misconstrued serve as the basis of this opinion. Because the Spirit of God sheds a profusion of consola

tions on the souls of some believers, it would seem that he must shed it on all. They presume that a man must judge of the state of his mind, less by the uprightness of his heart, and the purity of his motives than by the enjoyment, or the privation of certain spiritual comforts. A man shall powerfully wrestle with his passions, be always at war with himself, and make to God the severest sacrifices, yet if he do not feel certain transports, he must be regarded as a reprobate. A man, on the contrary, who shall be less attentive to the conditions of salvation, and less severe towards himself, must, according to the casuists I attack, banish all sorts of doubt and scruple of his salvation, provided he attain to certain transports of ecstacy and joy.

Whatever basis of solidity there may be in espousing the principles which constitute the foundation of this system, there are few that are more dangerous. It often gives occasion to certain ebullitions of passion, of which we have too many examples. It is much easier to heat the imagination than to reform the heart. How often have we seen persons who thought themselves superior to all our instructions, because they flattered themselves with having the Spirit of God for a guide, which inwardly assured them of their pardon and eternal salvation? How often have we seen persons of this description take offence because we doubted of what they presumed was already decided in their breast, by a divine and supernatural voice? How often have we seen rejected with high disdain and revolt, the strictures of which they were but too worthy? Let us not give

place to enthusiasm. Let us ever preserve our judgment. The Spirit of God guides indeed, but he does not blind. I prefer a humility destitute of transports to transports destitute of humility. The piety of taste and sentiment is certainly the privilege of some regenerate people it is a disposition of mind to which all the regenerate should aspire; but we must not exclude those that are weak from.regeneration.*

* Saurin, in twenty places of his sermons, attacks a class of opponents, whom he calls casuists, or guides and directors of the soul. These were supralapsarians. That class of men, I have little doubt, were very clear in the doctrine of the Spirit. And Saurin is not only clear, but sublimely so, as will appear from this sermon. But he errs in too much restricting it to the more highly favoured class of saints. Perhaps this arose from early prejudice; perhaps for want of seeing the work of conversion on an extended scale; perhaps the opposition he received urged his replies beyond the feelings of his heart, and so far as to drive him to apparent contradictions of himself. We must never console the well-disposed with the doctrine of inconscious salvation, but urge them to seek it, as the scriptures do, and as our author fully does in the latter part of this discourse. The extensions are in favour of men of a nervous and dejected mind, who mostly die more happy than they lived. Now, I would ask, is a man to attain the whole Christian temper and character without the influences of the Spirit? Can the harvest and the fruits ripen without the solar influence ? Can we be satisfied with our imperfect marks of conversion till assured that we consciously love God from a re-action of his love shed abroad in our heart? Rom. v. 5. Did not the primitive churches walk in the comforts of the Holy Ghost? Acts ix. 31. And is there any intimation that the witness-the seal—the unction-and the comforts of the Holy Spirit were confined to Christians of the first age? How are we to attain the Divine image without a divine and conscious influence? And if God testify his frowns against all crimes by secret terrors of conscience, why may he not testify his approbation of the penitent, when he believes with the heart unto righteousness? Why should the most gracious of all beings keep us through the fear of death all our lives subject to bondage? Is heaven a feast of which we can have no foretaste? Are there no consolations in Christ Jesus, exclusive of a future hope, to which our infirmities afford but a very defective title? Hence, 1 cannot but lament the ignorance, or bewail the error, of ministers who ridicule the doctrine of the Spirit. Assurance, comfort, and the witness of adoption, are subjects of prayer rather than of dispute. This part of religion, according to Bp. Bull, is better understood by the heart than by the head. The reader who would wish to be adequately acquainted with the doctrine of the Spir