period in which law has lost its force, rank sovereign will do more to animate and unite its distinction, and order its existence; in a British public, than the eloquence of a which ancient institutions are dissolving, Demosthenes, or the songs of a Tyrtæns; and new powers, of undescribed character, and it will be as sure a pledge of eventful ́and unheard of pretension, are involving success, as either the best disciplined armies Europe in contests and convulsions of which or the most powerful navies. Who can say no human foresight can anticipate the end. how much we are indebted for our safety In what manner we may be affected by this hitherto to the blessing of a king and queen unprecedented state of things. what perils who have distinguished themselves above all we may have to face, what difficulties to the sovereigns of their day, by strictness of struggle with, or what means of final extri- moral conduct and by reverence for religion? cation may be afforded us, it is not in man to May their successors, to the latest posterity, determine. But certain it is, that even in improve upon, instead of swerving from the most threatening circumstances, the ob- their illustrious example! vious, unaffected, consistent piety of the CHRISTIAN MORALS. In moral actions, Divine law holdeth exceedingly the law of Reason to guide a man's life; but in supernatural, it alone guideth.-Hooker. AS A SLIGHT MEMORIAL OF SINCERE ESTEEM AND CORDIAL FRIENDSHIP, THIS LITTLE SKETCH OF MR. POPE, in his Essay on Criticism, has asserted, that the last and greatest art' of literary composition is the art to blot.' With a full conviction of the difficulty and the duty of this art, the Author of the following pages ventures to insist, even in contradiction to this high authority, that there is, in writing, an art still more rare, still more slowly learned, still more reluctantly adopted-the art to stop. But when shall this difficult, but valuable, art, be resorted to? At what precise moment shall we be gin to reduce so wholesome a theory to practice? It may be answered--at the period when time may reasonably be suspected to have extinguished the small particle of fire which the fond conceit of the author might tempt him to fancy he once possessed. But how is he to ascertain this critical moment of extinction? His own eyes, always dim in the discernment of his own faults, may have become quite blind. His friends are too timid, or too tender, to hazard the perilous intimation. If his enemies, always kindly ready to perform this neglected office of friendship, proclaim the unwelcome truth, they are probably not believed. The public, then, who are neither governed by the misleadings of affection, nor influenced by the hostility of hatred, would scem to be the proper arbiters, the court from whose decision there should lie no appeal. But if, through generous partiality to good intentions, or habitual kindness to long acquaintance, that public, instead of checking, continue to cherish, the efforts which they have been accustomed to indulge, and the anthor be tempted still to persist in writing, may he not be in imminent danger of wearing out the good humour of his protectors, by a successive re-production of himself—of abusing their kindness, by the vapid exhibition of an exhausted intellect? May the writer of the following pages, without incurring too heavily the imputation of vanity, be permitted to observe, that there is a sense in which the favour she has uniformly experienced is honourable to that public who have conferred it? Their indulgence has never been purchased by flattery; their support has never been in payment for softening errors that require, not to be qualified, but conbatted; has never been a reward for incense offered to the passions, for sentiments accommodated to whatever appeared to be defective in any reigning opinion, in any prevailing practice. They have received with approbation unvarnished truth, and even borne with patience bold remonstrance. In return, she is willing to hope, that she has paid them a more substantial respect, by this hazardous sincerity, than if she had endeavoured to conciliate their regard by indirect arts and unworthy adulation. Next to injuring any reader, her deepest regret would be to offend him; but when the questions agitated are of momentous concern, would not disguising truth, or palliating error, be, as to the inteution, the worst of injuries, however powerless the writer might be in making a bad intention effectively mischievous? Sincere, therefore, as would be her concern, if any stroke of her pen Should tend to make one worthy man her foe, yet the feeling of having contributed to mislead a single youthful mind, by the suppression of a right, or the establishment of a false principle, would be more painful than any censures which an imprudent honesty might draw down upon her. If the humble work now presented to the world, be of little use to the reader, the writer is willing to hope it may not be altogether unprofitable to herself. If it induce her more strenuously to cultivate the habit of rendering speculation practical, if it should dispose her to adopt more cordially what she is so prompt to recommend, she will then have turned to some little account the hours of pain and suffering under which it has been composed. She does not, however, absurdiy presume to plead pain and suffering as an apology for defects in a work which she was at liberty not to have undertaken; for, with whatever other eviis sickness may be chargeable, it imposes on no one the necessity of adding one more to the countless catalogue of indifferent books. Barley Wood, December 10th, 1812. CHAP. I. CHRISTIAN MORALS. On the writers of pious books. which he fears may be thought dry and dull, raise a sensation in his mind not unlike that which a vain beauty feels in tricking out her ALL the things in this world carry in them person? May be not, by too much confidence such evident marks of imperfection, are so to all but himself; or else may he not use in his own powers, be blind to errors obvious liable to be infected with error. good is sep-the file too assiduously, and by over-labour arated from evil by such slight partitions, in smoothing the asperities of his style, diminand the deflection from what is right is so ish the force of his meaning, and polish honeasy, that even undertakings which should est vigour into unprofitable elegance? seem most exempt from danger are yet inse Some indeed have been so indulgent to aucure in their conduct, and uncertain in their thors under their many difficulties, as to alissue. Writing a soundly-religious book low them a certain mixture of inferior exmight seem to put in the claim of an exempt citement, as an under-help to assist such mocase; but does experience prove that the tives as are more pure. If they did not feel exemption is infallible? The employment is a little too full of their work, when it was ungood, the motive is likely to be pure; the der their hand, it has been said, they would work may be unexceptionable in its tenden- not devote to it the full force of their mind. cy, and useful in its consequences. But is This anxiety, or rather this absorption, it is it always beneficial to the writer in the pro- presumed, lasts no longer than till the immeportion in which he intends it to be profitable diate object is accomplished. It retreats into the reader? Even of the reader, is his deed, but waits for the author, seizes him own improvement always the leading aim? again with undiminished force on his next Does a critical spirit never diminish the ben-undertaking. If be fancied that his former efit which the book was calculated to con- subject was all in all while his mind was invey? If he is convinced by the more essen- tent upon it, that preference. like the fondtial truths it imparts, is not some trivial disa-ness of an animal for its young, which is lost greement of opinion, in a matter on which when they no longer need its fostering care, persons may differ without any charge against is transferred to the next. the piety of either, made to defeat all the As this ardour in a rightly-turned mind ends of improvement! Is not an insignifi- will not be sufficiently durable to ripen into cant, perhaps an ill founded objection, suf- vanity, but will cool as soon as the end for fered to invalidate the merit of the whole which it was exerted is answered; it will not work? Is not this eagerly detected fault materially injure the conscientious writer; triumphantly kept in the fore-ground, while for he will probably, when the impetus is all that is valuable is overlooked and its effi- taken off, as much undervalue his work, as cacy defeated; the criticism being at once he had before over-rated it. But wofully intended to give prominence to the error of deficient in humility is that author, whose enthe writer and the sagacity of the critic? thusiasm does not subside, when it is no Another reader is probably searching for brilliancy when he should be looking for truth, or he is only seeking a confirmation of his own opinions, when he should have been looking for their correction. longer necessary to keep alive the spirit of his undertaking! Convicted indeed will he be of vanity, who persists in thinking his work as glowing, as when, with a judgment dazzled by his ardour, he viewed it hot, and fresh-drawn from the furnace! As to the writer, is he not in danger of being absorbed in the mechanical part of his But perhaps when a man engages in any work, till religious composition dwindles into little service, if he did not in some degree a mere secular operation? May he not be exaggerate its value, in his hope of its utility, diverted from his main object by an over-at- he would want one motive for attempting it. tention to elegance, to correctness, to orna- Is it not therefore a smaller evil that he ment ;-all which indeed are necessary for should a little magnify its importance to his if he would benefit he must be read, if he imagination, than that complete hopelesswould be read he must please, if he would ness should totally deter him from all enterplease he must endeavour to excel ;-but prize? Natural indolence is in many, too may be not, in taking some, take too much powerful a subduer even of religious exerpains to please, and so become less solicitous tion, to allow them to work without hope. If to benefit, to the injury both of his reader hope flatters, she at least supports; thus and himself? May not the very lopping and something is achieved which else would not pruning his work, the flowers which he is have been done at all. Again, the timid anxiously sticking into it, the little decora- writer foresees that many objections may be tions with which he is setting off those parts raised to his work. This would amount to a disqualifying dejection, did he not take comfort in the chance that his censors may possibly disagree among themselves as to the points deserving criticism, and that one may even commend what another condemns. Thus his mind is kept in a just equilibrium; without the expectation of censure, he would be vain; without some hope of approbation, even the purity of his intention might not always secure him from despondency. But though no mixed motives or human feelings in the author ought to interfere with those of the reader, who has only to do with the book, and not with the man, it is of no small moment to himself, that both feelings and motives be pure. It is of the last importance that he do not impose on himself the belief, that he has only the honour of religion at heart, when literary renown, or victory over an adversary, may be the predominating principle. He will also be careful that his best endowments be not converted into implements of injury; he will be cautious that his learning, which is so useful to arm his zeal, do not help to encumbr it; that his prudence, which is so necessary to moderate, do not extinguish it. But if he come off clear from these temptations, other and greater lurk behind. He should bear in mind, that in composing a religious work for the public, he is producing the best part of himself: that he is probably exhibiting himself to others as much better than he is; for whatever be the faults of his own character, it is his bounden duty to conduct his reader to the highest approach to excellence. Independent of his general defects, he is at least carefully keeping out of sight every vain thought which may have stolen upon him while writing, every evil temper which may have assailed him, every temptation to indulge too ardent a wish that his book may procure praise for himself, as well as benefit to his readers. To flatter himself inordinately on this head, as well as in over-anticipating the great effects it will produce, is not, perhaps, the smallest of his dangers. That very self knowledge which he has perhaps been inculcating on others, would preserve him from an undue estimation both of himself and his book It was the sneer of a witty, but discouraging satyrist, that, 'To mend the world's a vast design. It is, indeed, a design from which the purity of his motive may not al ways secure the humility of the author. Yet modestly to aim at ameliorating that little portion of it which lies within his immediate sphere, is a duty out of which he should not be laughed by wits and epigrammatists. Instead of undulging unfounded hopes of improbable effects, the Christian writer will be humbled at the mortifying reflection, what great and extensive evil the most insignificant bad men may effect, while so little comparative good can be accomplished by the best. But it is to be regretted, that even religion is no sure protection against the intrusion of vanity, that it does not always secure its possessor from overrating his own agency, from fondly calcula ting on the unknown benefits which, by his projected work, he is preparing for mankind. A pious Welch minister, many years ago, being about to publish a sermon, previously consulted the writer of these pages how many thousand copies he ought to print. He felt not a little shocked at her advising him to reduce his thousands to hundreds, scores she did not dare advise. As she had foreseen, not half a dozen were sold, except a few, charitably taken off his hands by his friends. At her return soon after, from the metropolis, he hastened to her with all the ardour of impatience, and seriously inquired, whether she had observed any material reformation at the court end of the town, since the publication of his discourse. Among the many unsuspected but salutary checks to the vanity of a pious writer, it will not be the least, that his very popularity may make the intrinsic value of his work questionable; that he may be indebted for its favourable reception, not to its excellencies, but its defects, not to the deep, but to the superficial views he has taken of religion; that it may be more acceptable only because it is less searching; that if he has pleased, it may be owing to his having been more cautious than faithful. If there is reason to suspect that success arises from his baving skimmed the surface of truth, when he ought to have penetrated its depths, that he has reconciled the reader to Christianity and to himself by a disengenious discretion, by trimming between God and the world, by concealing truths he ought to have brought forward, or by palliating those he durst not disavow: popularity thus obtained will afford ground of humiliation rather than of triumph. In avoiding these, and all similar errors, he will also not fail to bear in mind, that He who gave the talents, gave also the right bent to the use of them, and that, therefore, he has no more ground for boasting of the application than of the possession. When he is called upon by the nature of his subject to expatiate strongly on this vice, or to point out the danger of that error, does he never feel a sort of conscious superiority to certain individuals of his acquaintance, who may be infected with either, and, for a moment, be tempted to sit rather in the seat of the scorner. than in that of the counsellor ? On such occasions, there is nothing which he will more carefully watch, than the temper of his own mind. When duty compels him to be severe against any false opinion, or wrong practice, he will be cautious not to mix with his just censure, any feeling of disdain, any sentiment of indignation, against any individual whom he may bear in mind; nor will he indulge the unworthy wonder how such or such a person will be mortified at the exposure of a fault to which he is addicted. Nor will be harbour in his bosom an uncharitable vehemence against those whom the reproof may suit, nor a secret selfcomplacent certainty, that if any thing can do them good, this must do it; that though they hear not Moses and the Prophets, they cannot bat listen to his pointed admonitions --that they can never stand out against such tation presses him, some infirmity cleaves to persuasions as he has to offer-never resist him. These unsubdued frailties prove that such arguments as he has prepared for their conviction. But what is still a more serious danger, has he never been tempted to overlook his own faults while he has been exposed to those of others; and this, though the failing he is condemning, may be peculiarly his own? With just indignation against the of fences he is reproving, has he never once forgotten to mingle tender compassion for the offender, remembering, that he himself is sinful dust and ashes; that he also stands in need of infinite mercy, and has been only rescued by that mercy from being on a level with the worst objects of his just disapproba tion. he is a man, but they do not prove that he is a hypocrite. The truth is, the religious writer is sometimes thought worse than other men, because his book was considered as a pledge that he should be better. It was expected that the faults he described he would avoid; the passions he had blamed he would suppress; the tempers he had exposed he would have subdued. Perhaps it will commonly be found that the reader had expected too much and the writer had done too little. The writer on religious topics is however the person who of all others ought to watch himself most narrowly. He has given a public pledge of his principles. He has held out a rule, to which, as others will be looking with a critical eye to discover how far his conduct falls short of it, so he should himself constantly bear in mind the elevation of his own standard; and he will be more circumspect from the persuasion, that not only his own character but that of religion itself will suffer by his departure from it. The consciousness of the inferiority of his practice to his principles, if those principles are truly scriptural, will furnish him with new motives to humility. The solemn dread lest this inconsistency should be produced against him at the last day, is a fresh incentive to higher exertions, stirs him up to augment It would, notwithstanding, be the highest degree of unfairness, to prefer a charge of injustice, hypocrisy, or even inconsistency, against an author, because his life, in some respects, falls short of the strictness of his writings. It is a disparity almost inseparable from this state of frail mortality. He may have fallen into errors, and yet deserve to have no heavier charge brought against him than he has brought against others Infirmity of temper, inequality of mind, a heart though fearing to offend God, yet not sufficiently dead to the world;-these are the lingering effects of sin imperfectly subdued, in a heart which yet longs, prays, and laed vigilance, quickens him to more intense bours for a complete deliverance from all its corruptions. prayer. He experiences at once the contradictory feeling of dreading to appear better than he really is, by the high tone of piety in his compositions, or of making others worse by lowering that tone in order to bring his professions nearer to the level of his life. Perhaps the most humiliating moment he can ever experience is, when by an accidental glance at some former work he is reminded how little he himself has profited by the very arguments with which he may have successfully combatted some error of the reader; when he feels how much his own heart is still under the dominion of that wrong temper of which he has forcibly exposed the turpitude to the conviction of others. When a pious writer treats on any awful topic, he writes under a solemn conviction of its vast importance; he trembles at the idea of not being entirely faithful, of not being valiant for the truth, of not being honestly explicit, of not declaring the whole counsel of God. His own heart is deeply impressed with the dignity of his subject, and he deprecates the thought of shrinking from the boldest avowal of every truth, or of withholding the most powerful enforcement to the practice of every virtue. He is apprehensive lest, on the one hand, when he assails vice or error, he should appear to indulge a violent or vindictive spirit, and be magiste- There is, however, no personal reason rially lifting his fallible self into the chair of which could ever justify his holding out an authority; lest his attack on the vice might interior standard. If there is any point in be construed into uncharitableness to the which he eminently excels, he has the best man. On the other hand, he is fearful lest of all possible reasons for pressing it upon by being more forbearing he should be less others his own experience of its excellence. upright; lest if he tried to soften he should If there be any in which he unhappily fails, deceive; lest, by indulging too much a spirit he is clearly justified in recommending it of conciliation, he should compromise truth for human favour.-Honest though imperfect, sincere though fallible, he endeavours to bring his principles, his faith and his convictions, into full operation; he warmly declares what he cordially feels, and faithfully testifies what he firmly believes. from the humbling sense of his own deficiency in it. Thus he will in either case inforce truth with equal energy, from causes diametrically opposite. Is it not then obvious that as there is no vanity in insisting on a virtue because the writer possesses it, so there is no hypocrisy in recommending a quality because he himself is destitute of it? But when he comes to act, he is sometimes brought to be too keenly sensible of the very But if, through the so frequently alleged fault in himself, against which he has been imperfection attached to humanity, chriscautioning others; deeply does he lament tian writers do not always attain to the exthat he feels strong remains in himself of cellence they suggest, let us not therefore that corruption of which it was not the less infer that their principles are defective, their his duty to direct his attacks. Some temp-aims low, or their practical attainments mean. Let us not suspect that it is not the may be tempted to thiuk too well of his unendeavour of their life, as much as the de- derstanding, the mischief will be counteractsire of their heart, to maintain a conducted by the advantage which such a close view which shall not discredit their profession. may bring to his heart. The faults he repreAbove all, let us be cautious of concluding hends in general, will bring his own faults that they do not believe what they teach, be- more forcibly before him, and it will be a cause they have passions like other men; humbling consideration which be will not provided we observe them struggling with fail to press home on himself, to reflect, that those passions, and making a progress in he is better able to penetrate into the recesstheir conquest over them, though that proes of the erring hearts of others, from the gress be impeded by natural infirmity, though sympathies of his own. Repeated and sucit be obstructed by occasional irritation. cessful pains have been taken by some popThe triumphant detector of the discordance ular wits,* in whom levity has answered the between the author and his book knows not end of malice, to lower the value of pious inthe secret regrets, hears not the fervent struction, by exposing the discrepancy beprayers, witnesses not the penitential sor- tween the exhortation and the exhorter. rows, which a deep sense of this disagreement They have ingeniously invented cases and produces in the self-abasing heart To in- situations in which the clergyman is preach. stance in a familiar case-In the heat of ing powerfully and efficaciously on the duty conversation with the author, he has proba of submission to the divine will; immediatebly marked an impatient word, a hasty ex-ly after which, they contrive to betray him pression, a rash judgment; these he treas ures up, and produces against him; but he does not hear, in the writer's nightly review of the errors of that day, his self rebuke for this unsubdued impetuosity, his resolutions against it, the earnest prayer which perhaps at this moment is carrying forward the grad-not very honourably raised, and the insignifiual subjugation of his temper. into a paroxysm of overwhelming impatience at some great domestic calamity of his own. This, as it tends to make the infirmity of sincere Christians a matter of triumph, could only have been done with a view to make them ridiculous; a laugh is cheaply though cance or hollowness of religious instruction perhaps indelibly stamped on the mind of the young reader. But supposing the circumstances to have been real, ought the frail affections, ought the conscious infirmity of these good men to have let them to withhold from their audiences the necessity of christian resignation? Such instances of natural feeling in certain stages of a progressive piety, neither prove religion to be powerless, nor its professor deceitful. Was the fervent, but fallible apostle, who in a moment of infirmity denied his master, a hypocrite, when he said, though all the world should be offended, yet will not I?' · Yet his reputation might suffer in another way; for if the critic could hear these humbling confessions of the writers in question, he would be ready to conclude that they were Sinners above all the Galileans Whereas the truth most probably is, that they are so alive to the perception of the evil of their own hearts, that things which would be slight faults in the estimation of the accuser, to them appear grave offences. Things which they lament as evils of magnitude, would to the less tender conscience be impalpable, imperceptible. For instance,-While the caviller would call even the omission of prayer a venial fault; they would call a heartless prayer a sin; where the one would think all was well if the literal performance had not been neglected, the other would be uneasy under the exterior observance, if he felt that the spirit had not accompanied the form. The reprover might even accuse the serious Christian of absurdity, should he have overbeard him humbling himself for something which was obviously a virtue. He was not, however, so preposterously humble, as to make the virtue the ground of his regret-he was abasing himself for some vanity, which like an excrescence had grown out of it, some inattention which like a poison had mix-inexhaustible mind of intellectual wealth ed with it. When a humble man meditates on his vices, and an irreligious man on his virtues, the vices of the one might be sometimes deemed as unsubstantial as the virtues of the other actually are. The writer of good books, in common with other authors, is exposed to one danger from which other men are exempt, that of being so immediately the object of his own attention. This may lead him to be too full of himself. His intellect is even more constantly before his eyes than the form and face of the beauty are before her's. But if in this exercise he Yet is this captious spirit an additional reason why the pious writer should guard against excesses in feeling, which, if the reader could witness, he would exultingly reiterate the vulgar but melancholy truism: How much easier it is to preach than to practise! How gladly would he have brought the conduct to confront the counsel, and have missed all the benefit of the discourse, by the disclosure of the failing! But allowing the worst-granting that the writer is not in all points exemplary; if we resolve never to read a work of instruction because the author had faults, Lord Bacon's might have still lain unexplored. Luther, the man to whom the protestant world owes more than to any other uninspired being, might remain unread, because he is said to have wanted the meekness of Melancthon. Even the divine instructions conveyed in the book of Ecclesiastes would have been written in vain. It is not necessary that the writer under consideration should, like the sacred penman, criminate himself. Their ingenuous self-a * Goldsmith, Fielding, &c. &c. |