left sin on his conscience. While the way in which the duty is enforced leaves him a Christian liberty that is abundantly guarded against all licentiousness. He sees the duty implied and exemplified in a thousand instances throughout the Scripture. The same principle is applicable to certain pursuits, which occupy the men of the world; the general unlawfulness of which is fully implied, though they neither are nor could have been forbidden by name.* by truth can make successful approaches to the mind. Some preachers deal much with the passions: they attack the hopes and fears of men. But this is a very different thing from the right use of the imagination, as the medium of impressing truth. Jesus Christ has left perfect patterns of this way of managing men. But it is a distinct talent, and a talent committed to very few. It is an easy thing to move the passions; a rude, blunt, illiterate attack may do this. But, to form one new figure for the conveyance of truth to the mind, is a difficult thing. The world is under no small obli NOTHING Seems important to me, but so far as it is connected with morals. The end-gation to the man who forms such a figure. the cui bono?-enters into my view of every thing. Even the highest acts of the intellect become criminal trifling, when they occupy much of the time of a moral creature, and especially of a minister. If the mind cannot feel and treat mathematics, and music, and every thing else as a trifle, it has been seduced and enslaved. Brainerd, and Grimshaw, and Fletcher, were men. Most of us are dwarfs. IN imitating examples, there are two rules to be regarded: we must not stretch ours beyond our measure; nor must we despise that in another, which is unsuitable to ourselves. A PIECE has been written to prove that the Gospel is preached to sinners only in the lowest state of misery and imbecility. Some men get hold of an opinion, and push it so far that it meets and contradicts other opinions, fairly deducible from Scripture. And it is no uncommon thing with them, to suppose that nobody else holds the same opinion; when, if they would look into the minds of other men, they would find themselves deceived. We preach the Gospel to sinners in the lowest condition; and the only reason I do not preach it to devils, is, that I find no Gospel provided for devils. As to the Roman Catholic notion of a grace of congruity, in their sense of it, I utterly disclaim it. Some of the best of them taught that God prepared the heart for himself in various unseen ways. And who can deny this? but this is far different from the notion, that some minds have a natural congruity or suitableness to the Gospel. The fallow-ground of the heart may be broken up, ploughed, and prepared by unseen and most circuitous means. I have gone from hearing a man preach incomparable nonsense, who knew spiritual religion, to hearing a man of a carnal mind and habits, who knew nothing of spiritual religion, preach incomparable sense, and I thought the carnal preacher much most likely to call men to some feeling of religion. The French strain this point so far, that the effort is continually seen. To be effective, there must be about it a naiveté, an ease, a self-evidence. The figures of the French writers vanish from the mind, like the flourish of a musical band. The figures of Jesus Christ sink into the mind, and leave there the indelible impress of the truth which they convey. THE religious world has a great momentum. Money and power, in almost any quantity, are brought forth into action when any fair object is set before it. It is a pendulum, that swings with prodigious force. But it wants a regulator. If there is no regulating force on it of sufficient power, its motions will be so violent and eccentric, that it will tear the machine to pieces. And, therefore, when I have any influence in its designs and schemes, I cannot help watching them with extreme jealousy, to throw in every directing and regulating power which can be obtained from any quarter. NOTHING can be proposed so wild or so absurd, as not to find a party-and often a very large party-ready to espouse it. It is a sad reflection on human nature, but it is too true. Every day's experience and history confirm it. It would have argued gross ignorance of mankind to expect even Swedenborgianism to be rejected at once by the common sense of men. He, who laid the snare, knew that if a few characters of some learning and respectability could be brought to espouse it, there would be soon a silly multitude ready to follow. THE religious world has many features which are distressing to a holy man. He sees in it much proposal and ostentation, covering much surface. But Christianity is deep and substantial. A man is soon enlisted, but he is not soon made a soldier. He is easily put into the ranks, to make a show there; but he is not so easily brought to do the duties of the ranks. We are too much like an army of Asiatics; they count well, and cut a good figure; but when they come into action, one has no flint, THE imagination is the grand organ where- another has no cartridge-the arms of one are * See this idea illustrated with regard to Articles of Faith in Jones's "Short view of the argument between the Church of England and Dissenters," in the "Scholar Armed." Vol. ii, p. 59. J. P. rusty, and another has not learnt to handle We such ragamuffins that he was ashamed to mus- grace of God, in the whole tenor of our dister them. What is the consequence? Peo-pensation, is directed against it. ple groan under their connexions. Respectable persons tell me such stories of their servants who profess religion, as to shame and distress me. High pretensions to spirituality! Warm zeal for certain sentiments! Priding themselves in Mr. Such-a-one's ministry! But what becomes of their duties? Oh these are "beggarly elements" indeed! Such persons are alive to religious TALK; but, if you speak to them on religious TEMPERS, the subject grows irksome. ADMIRATION and feeling are very distinct from each other. Some music and oratory enchant and astonish, but they speak not to the heart. I have been overwhelmed by Handel's music: the Dettingen Te Deum is, perhaps, the greatest composition in the world yet I never, in my life, heard Handel, but I could think of something else at the same time. There is a kind of music that will not allow this. Dr. Worgan has so touched the organ at St. John's, that I have been turning backward and forward over the Prayer Book for the first lesson in Isaiah, and wondered that I could not find Isaiah there! The musician and the orator fall short of the full power of their science, if the hearer is left in possession of himself. THE Church of England is not fitted, in its present state, for a general church. Its secularity must be purged away. We shall hasten that day when Christians shall be of one heart and one mind, if we inculcate the spirit of charity in our respective circles. I have aimed much at this point, and shall push it farther. The rest must be left to Providence. He only can, by unknown means, heal the schisms of the church, and unite it together as one external body and that this will be done as some think, by persecution, appears highly probable. I see no other means adequate to the end. I EXTEND the circle of real religion very widely. Many men fear God, and love God, and have a sincere desire to serve him, whose views of religious truth are very imperfect, and in some points perhaps utterly false. But I doubt not that many such persons have a state of heart acceptable before God. MAN is a creature of extremes. The middle path is generally the wise path; but there are few wise enough to find it. Because Papists have made too much of some things, Protestants have made too little of them. The Papists treat man as all sense; and, therefore, some Protestants would treat him as all spirit. Because one party has exalted the Virgin Mary to a divinity, the other can scarcely think of that most highly favored among women with common respect. The Papist puts the Apocrypha into his canon-the Protestant will scarcely regard it as an ancient record. The Popish heresy of human merit in justification, drove Luther on the other side into most unwarrantable and unscriptural statements of that doctrine. The Papists consider grace as inseparable from the participation of the sacraments-the Protestants too often lose sight of them as instituted means of conveying grace. THE language of irreligion in the heart, is, "give-give-now-now-whatever the flesh and the eye lust after, and whatever gratifies the pride of life. Give it now-for, as to any reversion, I will not sacrifice a single lust for it; or, if I must have a religion, it shall be any thing rather than that demeaning system which makes every thing a mere boon." INSTEAD of attempting any logical and metaphysical explanation of JUSTIFICATION by the imputed righteousness of Christ, all which attempts have human infirmity stamped upon HYPOCRISY is folly. It is much easier, safer, them, I would look at the subject in the great and pleasanter, to be the thing which a man and impressive light in which Scripture places aims to appear, than to keep up the appear- it before me. It teaches me to regard the inance of being what he is not. When a Chris-tervention of Christ for me as the sole ground tian is truly such, he acts from a nature-a new nature-and all the actings of that nature have the ease and pleasantness of nature in them. of all expectation toward God. In consideration of his sufferings, my guilt is remitted, and I am restored to that which I had lost by sin. Let us add to this, that the sufferings of Christ were in our stead, and we shall see the point HUMILIATION is the spirit of our dispensation of view in which Scripture sets him forth as -not a creeping, servile, canting humility, but the deserver and procurer to us of all pardon an entire self-renunciation. The Mystics often and grace. The thing is declared-not extalk admirably on the subject. Pride is the plained. Let us not, therefore, darken a submost universal and inveterate of all vices.ject which is held forth in a prominent light, Every man is a proud man, though all are not by our idle endeavors to make it better underequally proud. No sin harasses the Christian stood. so much, nor accompanies him so unweariedly. Its forms of exhibiting itself are infinitely varied, and none are more common than the affectation of humility. The assumption of the garb of humility, in all its shades, is generally but an expression of a proud mind. Pride is the master-sin of the spirit; and the REGENERATION and CONVERSION may be distinguished from each other, though they cannot be separated. They may be distinguished; as a man's being disposed to go in a certain road, and his actually going in that road, may be distinguished: for regeneration is God's dispos ing the heart to himself, but conversion is the consistencies: there may be strange and unactual turning of the heart to God. THERE is an immeasurable distance between the genuine and the spurious Christian. The genuine Christian may be weak, wild, eccentric, fanatical, faulty; but he is right-hearted: you find the root of the matter in him. The spurious Christian is the most dangerous of men, and one of the most difficult to deal with. You see what he is, but you find it almost impossible to keep clear of him. He will seek your acquaintance, in order to authenticate his own character-to indorse his own reputation. But avoid him. His errors and vices will be assigned to the church by an indiscriminating world. There is less danger in associating with worldly people by profession, and more tenderness to be exercised toward them. St. Paul teaches us the distinction; 1 Cor. v, 9-11. I FEEL disposed to treat carnal men and carnal ministers with tenderness, not to show them that I am a spiritually proud man. Let them see that you have some secret in possession which keeps you quiet, humble, patient, holy, meek, and affectionate, in a turbulent and passionate world. accountable turns-but I have put that character on the shelf: difficulties will all be cleared up: every thing will come round again. I should be much chagrined, indeed, to be obliged to take a character down which I had once put up, but that has never been the case with me yet; and the best guard against it is, not to be too hasty in putting them there. INFLUENCE, whether derived from money, talents, or connexions, is power: there is no person so insignificant but he has much of this power: the little Israelite maid, in Naaman's family, is an instance. Some, indeed, suppose that they have more power than they really have; but we generally think we have less than we in reality have. Whoever neglects or misapplies this power, is an unprofitable servant; unbelief, timidity, and delicacy, often cramp its exertion; but it is our duty to call ourselves out to the exertion of this power, as Mordecai called out Esther, (chap. iv): it is our duty to watch against every thing that might hinder or pervert our influence: for mere regard to reputation will often carry many into error: who would not follow Aaron in worshipping the golden calf? Even men of feeble public talents may acquire much influence by kindness and consistency of character: ministers are defective in resting their personal influence too much on their public ministry time will give weight to a man's character; and it is one advantage to a man to be cast early into his situation, that he may earn character. THE character of Balaam is not uncommon in the church. I have been amazed to see religious professors, whose ungodly character has been known and read of all men, who have nevertheless entertained a good opinion of themselves. I have accounted for it by supposing that they build entirely on the distinc-a tion of their views of truth from those of other men. They "know the points: they see the distinctions: and, moreover, they approve what they know, and desire to die the death of the righteous and be where they are-and, certainly, they must be the men of God's council, and the men who stand on his side against the world!" I HAVE long adopted an expedient, which I have found of singular service. I have a shelf in my study for tried authors, and one in my mind for tried principles and characters. When an AUTHOR has stood a thorough examination, and will bear to be taken as a guide, I put him on the shelf! THE instances of ARTIFICE which occur in Scripture, are not to be imitated, but avoided : if Abraham, or Isaac, or Jacob equivocate, in order to obtain their ends, this is no warrant to me to do so. David's falsehood concerning Goliath's sword argued distrust of God. If any part of the truth which I am bound to communicate be concealed, this is sinful artifice: the Jesuits in China, in order to remove the offence of the cross, declared that it was a falsehood invented by the Jews that Christ was crucified; but they were expelled from the empire: and this was designed, perhaps, to be held up as a warning to all missionaries, that no good end is to be carried by artifice. But ADDRESS is of a different nature. There When I have more fully made up my mind on a PRINCIPLE, I put it on the shelf! A hun-is no falsehood, deception, or equivocation in dred subtle objections may be brought against this principle: I may meet with some of them, perhaps; but my principle is on the shelf! Generally, I may be able to recall the reasons which weighed with me to put it there: but if not, I am not to be sent out to sea again. Time was, when I saw through and detected all the subtleties that could be brought against it. I have past evidence of having been fully convinced, and there on the shelf it shall lie! When I have turned a CHARACTER Over and over on all sides, and seen it through and through in all situations, I put it on the shelf. There may be conduct in the person which may stumble others: there may be great in address. St. Paul, for instance, employed lawful address, and not artifice, when he set the Sadducees and Pharisees at variance: he employed a lawful argument to interest the Pharisees in his favor: this was great address, but it had nothing of criminal artifice. In Joshua's ambushes for the men of Ai, there was nothing sinful: it was a lawful stratagem of war: it would have been unlawful to tell the men of Ai there was no ambush but they knew that they came out of their city liable to such ambushes. Christ's conduct at Emmaus, and that of the angels of Sodom, were meant as trials of the regard of those with whom they were conversing. PRECIPITATION is acting without sufficient grounds of action. Youth is the peculiar season of precipitation: the young man's motto is "onward!" There is no such effectual cure of this evil as experience: when a man is made to feel the effects of his precipitation, both in body and mind: and God alone can thus bring a man acquainted with himself. There is a self-blindness in precipitation: a precipitate man is, at the time, a blind man: That be far from thee! said St. Peter: this shall not happen to thee. As the Lord liveth, said David, the man that hath done this thing shall surely die! There is great criminality in precipitation. A man under its influence is continually tempted to take God's work out of his hands. It is not a state of dependance. It betrays want of patience with respect to God: and want of faith: I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul. It discovers a want of charity: in a rash moment, we may do an injury to our neighbor which we can never repair. There are few who do not feel that they are suffering through life the effects of their own precipitation. He, then, that trusteth his own heart, is a fool. In precipitate moments, we should learn to say, "I am not now the man to give an opinion, or to take a single step!" METHOD, as Mrs. More says, is the very hinge of business and there is no method without PUNCTUALITY. Punctuality is important, because it subserves the peace and good temper of a family the want of it not only infringes on necessary duty, but sometimes excludes this duty. Punctuality is important, as it gains time: it is like packing things in a box: a good packer will get in half as much more as a bad one. The calmness of mind which it produces is another advantage of punctuality: a disorderly man is always in a hurry: he has no time to speak with you, because he is going elsewhere; and when he gets there, he is too late for his business, or he must hurry away to another before he can finish it. It was a wise maxim of the Duke of Newcastle-"I do one thing at a time." Punctuality gives weight to character. Such a man has made an appointment then I know he will keep it. And this generates punctuality in you: for, like other virtues, it propagates itself: servants and children must be punctual, where their leader is so. Appointments, indeed, become debts: I owe you punctuality, if I have made an appointment with you; and have no right to throw away your time, if I do my own. IT is a difficult question in casuistry-How FAR A MAN IS BOUND TO BETRAY CONFIDENCE FOR GENERAL GOOD. Let it be considered what consequences would follow from a man's disclosing all the evil he knows. The world would become a nest of scorpions. He must often mistake, and of course calumniate. Such is his incapacity to determine what is really evil in his neighbor, and such are the mischiefs frequently arising from the disclosure of even what should be in truth evil, that he seems rather called on to be silent, till circumstances render it a case of duty to remain silent no longer. But if this be his GENERAL rule, it will be his duty to observe silence much oftener in cases of coNFIDENCE. Professional men-a minister-a lawyer-a medical man-have an official secrecy imposed on them. If this were not the case, a distressed conscience could never unburden itself to its confessor. Incalculable injuries to health and property must be sustained for want of proper advisers. This applies in a very high sense to a minister, considered as a confessor-a director of the conscience. An alarmed conscience will unfold its most interior recesses before him. It is said Dr. Owen advised a man, who, under religious convictions, confessed to him a murder which he had perpetrated some years before, to surrender himself up to justice. The man did so, and was executed. I think Dr. Owen erred in his advice. I thought myself right, in urging on persons, who have opened their hearts to me, deep humiliation before God for crimes committed in an unconverted state: but, as it had pleased Him to give a thorough hatred of those crimes to the mind, and a consequent self-loathing and humiliation, and yet to allow in his providence that they should have remained undiscovered, I judged that the matter might be safely left with him. Yet there may be cases in which general consequences require that confidence should be betrayed. Such cases usually relate to EVIL IN PROGRESS. To prevent or counteract such evil, it may be necessary to disclose what has been intrusted in confidence. Yet the party should be honestly warned, if its purposes are not changed, what duty your conscience will require. I HAVE felt twice in my life very extraordinary impressions after sermons, and that from men least calculated to affect me. A man of great powers, but so dissipated on every thing that he knew nothing-a frivolous, futile babbler, whom I was ready almost to despisesurprised and chained me so, in my own church at Lewes, that I was thunderstruck: I think it was concerning the dove not finding rest for the sole of her foot: he felt the subject strongly himself; and in spite of all my prejudices against him and my real knowledge of his character, he made me feel it as I have scarcely ever done before or since. In the other instance, I had to do with a very different character: he was a simple, but weak man it pleased God, however, to shoot an arrow by his hand into my heart: I had been some time in a dry, fruitless frame, and was persuading myself that all was going on well: he said one day, at Lewes, with an indescribable simplicity, that "men might cheer themselves in the morning, and they might pass on tolerably well perhaps without God at noon; but the cool of the day was coming, when God would come down to talk with them." It was a message from God to me: I felt as though God had descended into the church, and was about to call me to my account! In the former instance, I was more surprised and as tonished than affected religiously; but, in this, has nobler ideas than Alexander had." Men I was unspeakably moved. of the world know nothing of true glory: they know nothing of the grandeur of that sentiment You may, perhaps, find this sentiment in the corner of some monastery, where a poor ignorant creature is mumbling over his prayers: or, it may even be found to exist with the nonsense and fanaticism of a Swedenborgian; but, wherever it is, it is true dignity. CONSTITUTIONAL bias is a suspicious inter-Thou, O God, art the thing that I long for! preter of PROVIDENTIAL LEADINGS. A man's besetting sin lies in that to which his nature is most inclined; and, therefore, to walk wisely and holily, he should be very jealous of such supposed leadings in Providence as draw with his constitutional propensity. He is never safe, unless he is in the act of collaring his Look at the bravery of the world! Go into nature as a rebel, and forcing it into submis- the Park. Who is the object of admiration sion. A sanguine man sees a sign and token there? The captain swelling and strutting at in every thing: in every ordinary occurrence, the head of his corps! And what is there at his imagination hears a call: his pious fancy the court?" Make way! Make way!" And is the source and food of an eager, disquieted, who is this? A bit of clay, with a riband tied and restless habit of mind. An enterprising round it! Now it makes nothing against the man has great facility in finding God in what- comparative emptiness and littleness of these ever seems to open to honor, or influence, or things, that I or any man should be ensnared power. But he has lost the right estimate of by them, and play the fool with the rest of the things: if God seem to draw with an enter- species. Truth is truth, and dignity is dignity, prising mind, the man should stand and trem-in spite of the errors and folly of any man ble. Providence may really lead some retired living. and humble men into situations which the am But this is the outside. What are the greatest minds, and the noblest projects of the world, compared with a Christian! Take Mr. Pitt for an instance and contrast him with the most insignificant old woman in the church of Christ! If the Bible be not true, you have no standard: all your reasonings, and science, and philosophy, and metaphysics, are gross absurdity and folly. But if the Bible be true; sidered as a mere politician, even Mr. Pitt has Mr. Pitt, great and noble as he is, yet, conlittle, contracted, mean mind!—a driveller! -an earth-worm! Compared with his projects and schemes, the old woman, who rises at two o'clock in the morning, lights her farthing candle, stands all day over her wash-tub, at night puts on her red cloak, steals out to some place of worship, hears the truths of the Gospel mangled perhaps with ignorant, yet honest zeal, but draws in good into an honest and prepared heart-why, this woman is a heroine-a noble mind-compared with the greatest of men, considered as a mere man of bitious man would covet: but, even in that a man should bless himself in his SNARES! ADAM well observes:-" A poor country parson, fighting against the devil in his parish, this world! Bishop Wilkins has said admirably, That nothing in man is great, but so far as it is con nected with God. The only wise thing recorded of Xerxes, is his reflection on the sight of his army-That not one of that immense multitude would survive a hundred years: it seems to have been a momentary gleam of true light and feeling. |