'

Watch, for ye know not at what time 46 your Lord cometh

from all appearance of evil

Set

Abftain! "Seti

its

your affections on things -"Be ye fpiritually minded: cify the flesh with

affections i

and lufts?" And I would venture to co offer one criterion, by which the per-v fons in queftion may be enabled to de cide on the pofitive innocence and safety.n of fuch diverfions;, I mean, provided dis they are fincere in their fcrutiny and honeft in their avowal... If, on their return at night from thofe places, they find theyard. can retire, and "commune with their

own hearts;" if they find the love of God. operating with undiminished forces on their minds; if they can bring every thought into fubjection," and } › concentrate every wandering imagination; if they can foberly examine into their own ftate of mind:-I do not fay if they can do all this perfectly and without distraction;

(for

(for who can do this at any time?) but if they can do it with the fame degree of

*

ferioufnefs, pray with the fame degree of fervour,dand renounce the world in as great a measure as at other times; and if they can lie down with a peaceful confcioufnefs of having avoided in the evening, that temptation" which they had prayed not to be led into" in the morning, they may then more reafonably hope that all is well, and that they are not speaking falfe peace to their hearts. If this teft were fairly used; if this experiment were honeftly tried; if this examination were confcientiously made, may we not without offence prefume to afk-Could our numerous places of public refort, could our ever-multiplying scenes of more felect but not lefs dangerous di verfion, nightly overflow with an excefs hitherto unparalleled in the annals of pleafure*?

* If I might prefume to recommend a book which of all others exposes the infignificance, vanity, little

nefs,

nefs, and emptinefs of the world, I should not hesitate to name Mr. Law's "Serious Call to a devout and holy Life." Few writers, except Pafcal, have directed fo much acutenefs of reafoning and fo much pointed wit to this object. He not only makes the reader afraid of a worldly life on account of its finfulness, but afhamed 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 feem to be juft; and his difquifitions are often unfound and fanciful, fo that a general perufal of his works would neither be profitable or intelligible. To a fashionable woman immerfed in the vanities of life, or to a bufy man overwhelmed with its cares, I know no book fo applicable, or likely to exhibit with equal force the vanity of the fhadows they are purfing. But, even in this work, he is not a fafe guide to evangelical light; and, in many of his others, he is highly visionary and whimsical and I have known fome excellent perfous who were firft led by this admirable genius to fee the warts of their own hearts, and the utter infufficiency of the world to fill up the craving void, who, though they became eminent for piety and felf-denial, have had their usefulness abridged, and whofe minds have contracted fomething of a monaftic feverity by an unqualified perufal of Mr. Law. True Chriftianity does not call on us to ftarve our

:

bodies,

bodies, but our corruptions. As the mortified Apostle of the holy and felf-denying Baptift, preaching repentance because the kingdom of Heaven is at hand, Mr Law has no fuperior. As a preacher of falvation on fcriptural grounds, I would follow other guides.

CHAP. XVIII.

A worldly Spirit incompatible with the Spirit of Christianity.

Is it not whimfical to hear fuch complaints against the strictness of religion as we are frequently hearing, from beings who are voluntarily pursuing, as has been fhewn in the preceding Chapters, a course of life which fashion makes infinitely more severe. How really burdenfome would Christianity be if the enjoined fuch fedulous application, fuch unre fuchunre. mitting labours, fuch a fucceffon of fatigues! If religion commanded fuch hardships and felf-denial, fuch days of hurry, fuch evenings of exertion, fuch nights of broken reft, fuch perpetual facrifices of quiet, fuch exile from family delights, as fashion impofes, then indeed

the