bus character with so many virtues, that it is impossible not to love him; yet tinctured with so many absurdities, that it is equally impossible not to laugh at him. The reader's memory will furnish him with too many instances of what is here meant. The slightest touches of a witty malice can make the best character ridiculous. It is effected by any little aukwardness, absence of mind, an obsolete phrase, a formal pronunciation, peculiarity of gesture. Or if such a character be brought by unsuspecting ho nesty, and credulous goodness, into some foolish scrape, it will stamp on him an impression of ridicule so indelible, that all his worth shall not be able to efface it: and the young, who do not always separate their ideas very carefully, shall ever after, by this early and false association, conceive of piety as having something essentially ridiculous in itself.

"

But one of the most infallible arts by which the inexperienced are engaged on the side of irreligion, is that popular air of candour, good-nature, and toleration, which it so invariably puts on. While sincere piety is often accused of moroseness and severity, because it cannot hear the doctrines on which it founds its eternal hopes derided without emotion; indifference and unbelief purchase the praise of candour at an easy price, because they neither suffer grief nor express indignation at hearing the most awful truths ridiculed, or the most solemn obligations set at nought. They do not engage on equal terms. The infidel appears good humoured from his very levity; but the Christian cannot jest on subjects which involve his everlasting salvation.

The scoffers whom young people hear talk, and the books they hear quoted, falsely charge their own injurious opinions on Christianity, and then unjustly A a 2

accuse

accuse her of being the monster they have made. They dress her up with the sword of persecution in one hand, and the flames of intolerance in the other; and then ridicule the sober-minded for worshipping an idol which their misrepresentation has rendered as malignant as Moloch. In the mean time they affect to seize on benevolence with exclusive appropriation as their own cardinal virtue, and to accuse of a bigotted cruelty that narrow spirit which points out the perils of licentiousness, and the terrors of a future account. And yet this benevolence, with all its tender mercies, is not afraid nor ashamed to endeavour at snatching away from humble piety the comfort of a present hope, and the bright prospect of a felicity that shall have no end. It does not however seem a very probable means of increasing the stock of human happiness, to plunder mankind of that principle, by the destruction of which friendship is robbed of its bond, society of its security, patience of its motive, morality of its foundation, integrity of its reward, sorrow of its consolation, life of its balm, and death of its support.*

It will not perhaps be one of the meanest advantages of a better state that, as the will shall be reformed, so the judgment shall be rectified; that "evil shall no more be called good,” nor the" churl "liberal;" nor the plunderer of our best possession,

* Young persons too are liable to be misled by that extreme disingenuousness of the new philosophers, when writing on every thing and person connected with revealed religion. These authors often quote satirical poets as grave historical authorities; for instance, because Juvenal has said that the Jews were so narrow-minded that they refused to show a spring of water or the right road to an inquiring traveller who was not of their religion, I make little doubt but many an ignorant free thinker has actually gone away with the belief, that such good-natured acts of information were actually forbidden by the law of Moses.

our

our principles, benevolent. Then it will be evident that greater injury could not be done to truth, nor greater violence to language, than by attempting to wrest from Christianity that benevolence which is in fact her most appropriate and peculiar attribute."A new commandment give I unto you, that ye "love one another." If benevolence be " "good "will to men," it was that which angelic messengers were not thought too high to announce, nor a much higher being than Angels too great to teach by his example, and to illustrate by his death. It was the citerion, the very watch word as it were, by which he intended his religion and his followers should be distinguished. "By this shall all men "know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love

one to another." Besides, it is the very genius of Christianity to extirpate all selfishness, on whose vacated ground benevolence naturally and necessa rily plants itself,

But not to run through all the particulars which obstruct the growth of piety in young persons, I shall only name one more. They hear much declamation from the fashionable reasoners against the contracted and selfish spirit of Christianity-that it is of a sordid temper, works for pay, and looks for reward.

This Jargon of French philosophy, which prates of pure disinterested goodness acting for its own sake, and equally despising punishment and disdaining recompence, indicates as little knowledge of human nature as of Christian revelation, when it addresses man as a being made up of pure intellect, without any mixture of passions, and who can be made happy without hope, and virtuous without fear. These Philosophers affect to be more independent than Moses, more disinterested than Christ

himself;

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himself; for "Moses had respect to the recompence "of reward;" and Cbrist " endured the cross and "despised the shame, for the joy that was set be. "fore him."

A creature hurried away by the impulse of some impetuous inclination, is not likely to be restrained (if he be restrained at all) by a cold reflection on the beauty of virtue. If the dread of offending God, and incurring his everlasting displeasure, cannot stop him, how shall a weaker motive do it? When we see that the powerful sanctions which religion holds out are too often an ineffectual curb; to think of attaining the same end by feebler means, is as if one should expect to make a watch go the better by breaking the main spring; nay, as absurd as if the philosopher who inculcates the doctrine should undertake, with one of his fingers, to lift an immense weight which had resisted the powers of the crane and the lever.

On calm and temperate spirits indeed, in the hour of retirement, in the repose of the passions, in the absence of temptation, virtue does seem to be her own adequate reward; and very lovely are the fruits she bears in preserving health, credit, and fortune. But on how few will this principle act! and even on them how often will its operation be suspended! And though virtue for her own sake might have captivated a few hearts, which almost seem cast in a natural mould of goodness, yet no motive could, at all times, be so likely to restrain even these, (especially under the pressure of temptation,) as this simple assertionFor all this, God will bring thee into judgment.

It is the beauty of our religion, that it is not held out exclusively to a few select spirits; that it is not an object of speculation, or an exercise of ingenuity, but a rule of life, suited to every condition, capacity, and temper. It is the glory of the Christian religion

to

to be, what it was the glory of every ancient philosophic system not to be, the religion of the people; and that which constitutes its characteristic value, is its suitableness to the genius, condition, and necessities of all mankind.

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For with whatsoever obscurities it has pleased God to shadow some parts of his written word, yet he has graciously ordered, that whatever is necessary should be perspicuous also: and though, as to his adorable essence, "clouds and darkness are round about him;" yet these are not the medium through which he has left us to discover our duty. In this, as in all other points, revealed religion has a decided superiority over all the ancient systems of philosophy, which were always in many respects impracticable and extravagant, because not framed from observations drawn from a perfect knowledge of what was in man." Whereas the whole scheme of the Gospel is accommodated to real human nature; laying open its mortal disease, presenting its only remedy; exhibiting, rules of conduct, often difficult, indeed, but never impossible; and where the rule was so high that the practicability seemed desperate, holding out a living pattern, to elucidate the doctrine and to illustriate the precept; offering every where the clearest notions of what we have to hope, and what we have to fear; the strongest injunctions of what we are to believe, and the most explicit directions of what we are to do: with the most encouraging offers of Divine assistance for strengthening our faith and quickening our obedience.

In short, whoever examines the wants of his own heart, and the appropriate assistance which the Gospel furnishes, will find them to be two tallies which exactly correspond-an internal evidence, stronger perhaps than any other, of the truth of revelation.

This