This is hardly an exaggerated representation; and to these low views of duty is partly owing so much of that bare-weight virtue with which even Christians are so apt to content themselves; fighting for every inch of ground which may possibly be taken within the pales of permission, and stretching those pales to the utmost edge of that limitation about which the world and the Bible contend.

But while the nominal Christian is persuading himself that there can be no harm in going a little farther, the real Christian is always afraid of going too far. While the one is debating for a little more disputed ground, the other is so fearful of straying into the regions of unallowed indulgence, that he keeps at a prudent distance from the extremity of his permitted limits, and is as anxious in restricting as the other is desirous of extending them. One thing is clear, and it may be no bad indication by which to discover the state of a man's heart to himself; while he is contending for this allowance, and stipulating for the other indulgence, it will show him that, whatever change there may be in his life, there is none in his heart; the temper remains as it did; and it is by the inward frame, rather than the outward act, that he can best judge of his own state, whatever may be the rule by which he undertakes to judge of that of another.

It is less wonderful that there are not more Christians, than that Christians, as they are called, are not better men; for, if Christianity be not true, the motives to virtue are not high enough to quicken ordinary men to very extraordinary exertions. We see them do and suffer every day for popularity, for custom, for fashion, for the point of honor, not only more than good men do and suffer for religion, but a great deal more than religion requires them to do. For her reasonable service demands no sacrifices but what are sanctioned by good sense, sound policy, right reason, and uncorrupt judgment.

Many of these fashionable professors even go so far as to bring their right faith as an apology for their wrong practice. They have a commodious way of intrenching themselves within the shelter of some general position, of unquestionable truth even the great Christian hope becomes a snare to them. They apologize for a life of offence, by taking refuge in the supreme goodness they are abusing. That "God is all merciful," is the common reply to those who hint to them their danger. This is a false and fatal application of a divine and comfortable truth. Nothing can be more certain than the proposition, nor more delusive than the inference; for their deduction implies, not that he is merciful to sin repented of,

but to sin continued in. But it is a most fallacious hope to expect that God will violate his own covenant, or that he is indeed "all mercy," to the utter exclusion of his other attributes of perfect holiness, purity, and justice.

It is a dangerous folly to rest on these vague and general notions of indefinite mercy; and nothing can be more delusive than this indefinite trust in being forgiven in our own way, after God has clearly revealed to us that he will only forgive us in his way. Besides, is there not something singularly base in sinning against God because he is merciful?

But the truth is, no one does truly trust in God, who does not endeavor to obey him. For to break his laws, and yet to depend on his favor; to live in opposition to his will, and yet in expectation of his mercy; to violate his commands, and yet look for his acceptance, would not, in any other instance, be thought a reasonable ground of conduct; and yet it is by no means as uncommon as it is inconsistent.

CHAPTER VII.

View of those who acknowledge Christianity as a perfect system of morals, but deny its divine authority.-Morality not the whole of religion.

As, in the preceding chapter, notice was taken of that description of persons who profess to receive Christianity with great reverence as a matter of faith, who yet do not pretend to adopt it as a rule of conduct, I shall conclude these slight remarks with some short animadversions on another set of men, and that not a small one, among the decent and the fashionable, who profess to think it exhibits an admirable system of morals, while they deny its divine authority; though that authority alone can make the necessity of obeying its precepts binding on the consciences of men.

This is a very discreet scheme; for such persons at once save themselves from the discredit of having their understanding imposed upon by a supposed blind submission to evidences and authorities; and yet, prudently enough, secure to themselves, in no small degree, the reputation of good men. By steering this middle kind of course, they contrive to be reckoned liberal by the philosophers, and decent by the

believers.

But we are not to expect to see the pure morality of the

Gospel very carefully transfused into the lives of such objectors. And, indeed, it would be unjust to imagine that the precepts should be most scrupulously observed by those who reject the authority. The influence of divine truth must necessarily best prepare the heart for an unreserved obedience to its laws. If we do not depend on the offers of the Gospel, we shall want the best motive to the actions and performances which it enjoins. A lively belief must, therefore, precede a hearty obedience. Let those who think otherwise hear what the Savior of the world has said: "For this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I might bear witness unto the truth." Those who reject the Gospel, therefore, reject the power of performing good actions. That command, for instance, to set "our affections on things above," will operate but faintly, till that spirit from which the command proceeds touches the heart, and convinces it that no human good is worthy of the entire affection of an immortal creature. An unreserved faith in the promiser must precede our acceptable performance of any duty to which the promise is annexed.

But as to a set of duties enforced by no other motive than a bare acquiescence in their beauty, and a cold conviction of their propriety, but impelled by no obedience to His authority who imposes them; though we know not how well they might be performed by pure and impeccable beings, yet we know how they commonly are performed by frail and disorderly creatures, fallen from their innocence, and corrupt in their very natures.

Nothing but a conviction of the truth of Christianity can reconcile thinking beings to the extraordinary appearance of things in the Creator's moral government of the world. The works of God are an enigma, of which his word alone is the solution. The dark veil which is thrown over the divine dispensations in this lower world, must naturally shock those who consider only the single scene which is acting on the present stage, but is reconcilable to him who, having learnt from revelation the nature of the laws by which the great Author acts, trusts confidently that the catastrophe will set all to rights. The confusion which sin and the passions have introduced; the triumph of wickedness; the seemingly arbitrary disproportion of human conditions, accountable on no scheme but that which the Gospel has opened to us-have all a natural tendency to withdraw from the love of God the hearts of those who erect themselves into critics on the divine conduct, and yet will not study the plan, and get ac

quainted with the rules, so far as it has pleased the Supreme Disposer to reveal them.

Till, therefore, the word of God is used as "a lamp to their paths," men can neither truly discern the crookedness of their own ways, nor the perfection of that light by which they are directed to walk. And this light can only be seen by its own proper brightness: it has no other medium. Until, therefore, "the secret of the Lord" is with men, they will not truly "fear him;" until he has "enlarged their hearts" with the knowledge and belief of his word, they will not very vigorously run the "way of his commandments." Until they have acquired that "faith, without which it is impossible to please God," they will not attain that " holiness, without which no man can see Him."

And, indeed, if God has thought fit to make the Gospel an instrument of salvation, we must own the necessity of receiving it as a divine institution, before it is likely to operate very effectually on the human conduct. The great Creator, if we may judge by analogy from natural things, is so just and wise an economist, that he always adapts, with the most accurate precision, the instrument to the work; and never lavishes more means than are necessary to accomplish the proposed end. If, therefore, Christianity had been intended for nothing more than a mere system of ethics, such a system, surely, might have been produced at an infinitely less expense. The long chain of prophecy, the succession of miracles, the labors of apostles, the blood of the saints, to say nothing of the great and costly sacrifice which the Gospel records, might surely have been spared. Lessons of mere human virtue might have been delivered by some suitable instrument of human wisdom, strengthened by the visible authority of human power. A bare system of morals might have been communicated to mankind with a more reasonable prospect of advantage, by means not so repugnant to human pride. A mere scheme of conduct might have been delivered, with far greater probability of the success of its reception, by Antoninus the emperor, or Plato the philosopher, than by Paul the tent-maker, or Peter the fisherman.

Christianity, then, must be embraced entirely, if it be received at all. It must be taken, without mutilation, as a perfect scheme, in the way in which God has been pleased to reveal it. It must be accepted, not as exhibiting beautiful parts, but as presenting one consummate whole, of which the perfection arises from coherence and dependence, from relation and consistency. Its power will be weakened, and

its energy destroyed, if every caviller pulls out a pin, or obstructs a spring, with the presumptuous view of new-modelling the divine work, and making it go to his own mind. There must be no breaking this system into portions, of which we are at liberty to choose one and reject another. There is no separating the evidences from the doctrines, the doctrines from the precepts, belief from obedience, morality from piety, the love of our neighbor from the love of God. If we allow Christianity to be any thing, we must allow it to be every thing if we allow the Divine Author to be indeed unto us "wisdom and righteousness," he must be also "sanctification and redemption."

Christianity, then, is something more than a mere set of rules; and faith, though it never pretended to be the substitute for a useful life, is indispensably necessary to its acceptance with God. The Gospel never offers to make religion supersede morality, but every where clearly proves that morality is not the whole of religion. Piety is not only necessary as a means, but is itself a most important end. It is not only the best principle of moral conduct, but is an indispensable and absolute duty in itself. It is not only the highest motive to the practice of virtue, but is a prior obligation, and absolutely necessary, even when detached from its immediate influence on outward actions. Religion will survive all the virtues of which it is the source; for we shall be living in the noblest exercises of piety, when we shall have no objects on which to exercise many human virtues. When there will be no distress to be relieved, no injuries to be forgiven, no evil habits to be subdued, there will be a Creator to be blessed and adored, a Redeemer to be loved and praised.

To conclude, a Christian is not such merely by habit, profession, or education; he is not a Christian in order to acquit his sponsors of the engagements they entered into in his name; but he is one who has embraced Christianity from a conviction of its truth, and an experience of its excellence. He is not only confident in matters of faith by evidences suggested to his understanding, or reasons which correspond to his inquiries; but all these evidences of truth, all these principles of goodness, are worked into his heart, and exhibit themselves in his practice. He sees so much of the body of the great truths and fundamental points of religion, that he has a satisfactory trust in those lesser branches which ramify to infinity from the parent stock; though he may not individually and completely comprehend them all. He is so powerfully convinced of the general truth, and so deeply impressed by the