open. Plead that gracious nature, implore that divine intercessor, invoke that blessed spirit. Say not it is too late. Early and late are relative, not positive terms. While the door is yet open there is no hour of marked exclusion. So may an inheritance among the saints in light still be yours.

CHAP. XXII.

Reflections of an inconsistent Christian after a serious Perusal of the Bible.

I PROFESS to believe that Christianity is true. Its promises are high; but what have been its profits. It is time to inquire into its truth and its advantages. It never, indeed, pledged itself to confer honors or emoluments; but it engaged to bestow benefits of another kind. If the Christian is deceived in these, he has nothing to console him. Now what am I the better for Christianity? It speaks of changing the heart from darkness to light. What illumination has my mind experienced from it ?-But here a doubt begins to arise. Am I indeed a Christian? What claims have I to the character?

Is there any material difference, whether I depend on heaven as a thing of course, to those who have been baptized, though they possess no corresponding temper and conduct; or whether I never reflect that there is a heaven, or whether I absolutely disbelieve that there is any such place? Is the distinction so decisive between speculative unbelief, practical infidelity, and total negligence, as that either of them can afford an assurance of eternal happiness in preference to the other? Yet while the thought of heaven never enters my mind, should I not hotly resent it as an injury, if any one disputed my title to it? Should I not treat him who advised me to a more serious life as an enemy, and him who suspected I required it, as a calumniator? Is it not, however, worth the inquiry, whether my confidence of obtaining it is well founded; and whether my danger arises from my ignorance or my unfitness?

If the Scriptures be authentic-if, as I have always professed to believe, they indicate a state of eternal happiness, together with the means of attaining to it-then surely not to direct my thoughts to that state, not to apply my attention to those means, is to neglect the state and the things for

which I was sent into the world. Providence, doubtless, intended that every species of being should reach the perfec tion for which it was created. Shall his only rational creature be the only one which falls short of the end for which he was made? the only one who refuses to reach the top of his nature, who refuses to comply with his original destination?

If I were quite certain that I was not created for such a great and noble end as Christianity has revealed, I should then be justified in acting as a being would naturally act, who has no higher guide than sense, no nobler incentive than appetite, no larger scope than time, no ampler range than this world. And though I might then regret that my powers and faculties, my capacities and desires, were formed for so low a purpose, and their exercise limited to so brief a space, yet it would not, in that case, be acting inconsistently, to turn my fugitive possessions, and my contracted span, to the best account of present enjoyment.

But if I have indeed, as I profess to have, any faith however low, any hope however feeble, any prospect however faint, is it rational to act in such open opposition to my profession? Is it right or reasonable, to believe and to neglect, to avow and to disregard, to profess and to oppose, the same thing? Do I raise my character for that understanding on which I value myself, if, while I make confession of a faith which has been adopted by the wisest men in different ages, my temper is not, like theirs, conformed to it, my will is not, like theirs, subdued to it, my life is not, like theirs, governed by it.

I think this world more certain than the next, because I have the evidence of my senses to its reality; and because its enjoyments are present, visible, tangible. But the same being who gave my senses, gives also reason and faith; and do not these afford to the sincere inquirer other evidence of no less power? Even in many natural things, we receive the evidence of reason as confidently as the testimony of sense. Our reason informs us, that the things we see could not have been produced without a cause which we do not see; we might as well say they have no being, as that they had no cause; and yet the cause lies as completely out of our reach as the things of another world. The unseen things, then, may be as satisfactorily proved by other arguments, as the things we know are proved by our senses. But the highest evidence of things not seen is faith. Even this principle we admit in worldly things, but reject in spiritual. We should know very little of this earth, if we knew only what we have

seen.

Now we believe that a multitude of things exist which we never saw, and which few, comparatively, have seen. This is the evidence of faith in the testimony of the relater.

I see persons in the ordinary affairs of life act upon the mere report of authentic information; conduct concerns analogous to those whose success is made known to them by impartial evidence, and act confidently on the relation of credible witnesses; and they would be thought perverse and unreasonable, were not their conduct influenced by such competent testimony. Is it, then, only in the momentous concern of religion, where these appropriate evidences are allowed to be incontestable, where a revelation from heaven, where the attestation of undeniable witnesses, has established the truth in the minds of inquiring men beyond a doubt—is it only where the testimony is the most unquestionable, and the object the most transcendently important, that neglect is pardonable, that delay is prudent, that indifference is safe?

It is time to arrive at some decision on a question which, if it be any thing, is every thing; which, if it be indeed founded in infallible truth, involves consequences so vast, effects so lasting, that all the other concerns of the whole world shrink into nothing, when weighed against my individual concern in this single business.

That thinking mind which enables me to frame these reflections, that sentient spirit which suggests these apprehensions, those irrepressible feelings which drive out my thoughts, and force my speculations beyond the present scene, prove, that I have something within me which was made for immortality. If, then, I am once convinced of these truths, can I any longer hesitate to devote my best thoughts to my highest good, my chiefest care to my nearest concern, my most intense solicitude to my everlasting interests?

Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief! Convert my dead faith into an operative principle! Let my sluggish will be quickened, let my reluctant desires give some signs of life. Let it be an evidence of the real existence of my faith, that it is not inert.

We talk of the glory of heaven as coolly, and hear of it with as much indifference, as if it were the unalienable birthright of every nominal Christian, and that our security left no room for our solicitude. But I now find, on examining it more closely, that the Bible speaks of a thing which Christians of my class neglect to take into the account; a fitness for that glory, a spirit prepared for that state, which God has prepared for them that love him. It not only promises them

heaven, but quickens their desires after it, qualifies them for the enjoyment of it. Now, can I conscientiously declare that I possess, that I have ever endeavored to possess, those desires, without which heaven is unattainable; those dispositions, without which, if it could be attained, it would not be a place of happiness? Is it, then, probable, arguing upon merely rational grounds, that God will receive me to his presence there, if I continue to live without him in the world? Will he accept me when I come to die, alienated from him in heart and thought as I have lived?

After all, uncertainty is no comfortable state. It is safer to seek a satisfactory solution to my doubts by serious inquiry; to seek tranquillity to my heart by earnest prayer. It is better to implore the promised aid, to strengthen my vacillating mind, even though I renounce a little present ease, a little temporary pleasure. If, indeed, avoiding to think of the evil would remove it, if averting my eyes from the danger would annihilate it, all would be well. But if, on the contrary, fearing it now may avert it forever, common sense, reasonable self-love, mere human prudence, compel me to make the com putation of the relative value of time and eternity. I may, indeed, as I have frequently done, postpone my purpose to some future time. But then I am not so skilled in the doctrine of chances as to be quite certain that time may ever arrive. He that intends to reform to-morrow does not repent to-day. When delay is danger, is it not foolish to delay? When it may be destruction, is it not something worse than folly? I will arise, and go to my Father, &c. &c. &c.

CHAP. XXIII.

The Christian in the World.

"THE only doctrinal truth," says bishop Sanderson," which Solomon insisted on, when he took the whole world for his large but barren text, was, that all is vanity." This was not the verdict of a hermit railing from his cell at pleasures untasted, or at grandeur unenjoyed. Among the sons of men, not one had sought with more unremitted diligence, or had wider avenues to the search, for whatever good either skill or power could extract out of the world, than Solomon. No one could judge of the sweets which can be drawn from this grand alembic with higher natural abilities, or with deeper

experimental wisdom. He did not descant on the vanity of the world so eloquently till he had considered it accurately, and examined it practically. He was not contented, like a learned theorist, to collect his notions from philosophy or history, or hearsay; he well knew what he said, "and whereof he affirmed." All upon which he so pathetically preached he had seen with his eyes, heard with his ears, and, in his widely-roving search, had experienced in his own disappointed mind, and felt in his own aching heart. He goes on to prove, by an induction of particulars, the grand truth propounded in his thesis, the vanity of the world. He shows, in a regular series of experiments, how he had ransacked its treasures, exhausted its enjoyments, and, even to satiety, revelled in its honors, riches, and delights. He had been an intellectual as well as sensual voluptuary, and had emptied the resources of knowledge as well as of pleasure. Then reverting in the close of his discourse to the point from which he had set out, he again pronounces, that all is vanity.

"The conclusion of the whole matter" which he draws from this melancholy argument, as finely exhibited as pensively conceived, is a solemn injunction to others to remember, what it is to be feared the preacher himself had sometimes forgotten, that the whole duty of man is to fear God, and keep his commandments: winding up his fine peroration with a motive in which every child of Adam is equally, is awfully concerned, "because God shall bring every work into judgment."

May not every real Christian, while his heart is touched with the affecting truth of the text, be admonished by this solemn valedictory declaration? May he not learn the lesson inculcated at less expense than it was acquired by this great practical master of the science of wisdom? If another sovereign was told there was no royal way to geometry, the King of Israel has opened a royal way to a more divine philosophy. By the benefit to be derived from contemplating this illustrious instance of "how little are the great," the Christian may set out where Solomon ended. He may be convinced of the vanity of the world at a price far cheaper than Solomon paid for it, by a way far safer than his own experience. He may convert the experiment made by the royal preacher to his own personal account. He may find in the doctrines of the gospel a confirmation of its truth, in its precepts a counteraction to its perils, in its promises a consolation for its disappointments.

In this world, such as Solomon has vividly painted it, the