Christians do not believe in the religion they profess, or that there is no truth in the religion itself. For will he not naturally say, that if its influences were so predominant, its consequences must be more evident? that, if the prize held out were really so bright, those who truly believed so, would surely do something, and sacrifice something to obtain it? This effect of the careless conduct of believers on the hearts of others, will probably be a heavy aggravation of their own guilt at the final reckoning :-and there is no negligent Christian can guess where the infection of his example may stop; or how remotely `it may be pleaded as a palliation of the sins of others, who either may think themselves safe while they are only doing what Christians allow themselves to do; or who may adduce a Christian's habitual violation of the divine law, as a presumptive evidence that there is no truth in Christianity. This swells the amount of the actual mischief beyond calculation; and there is something terrible in the idea of this sort of indefinite evil, that the careless Christian can never know the extent of the contagion he spreads, nor the multiplied infection which they may communicate in their turn, whom his disorders first corrupted. And there is this farther aggravation of his offence, that he will not only be answerable for all the positive evil of which his example is the cause; but for the omission of all the probable good which might have been called forth in others, had his actions been consistent with his profession. What a strong, what an almost irresistble conviction would it carry to the hearts of unbelievers, if they beheld that characteristic difference in the manners of Christians, which their profession gives one a right to expect, if they saw that disinterestedness, that humility, sober-mind edness, edness, temperance, simplicity, and sincerity, which are the unavoidable fruits of a genuine faith! and which the Bible has taught them to expect in every Christian. But, while a man talks like a saint, and yet lives like a sinner; while he professes to believe like an apostle, and yet leads the life of a sensualist; talks of an ardent faith, and yet exhibits a cold and low practice; boasts himself the disciple of a meek Master, and yet is as much a slave to his passions as they who acknowledge no such authority; while he appears the proud professor of an humble religion, or the intemperate champion of a self-denying one, --such a man brings Christianity into disrepute, confirms those in error who might have been awakened to conviction, strengthens doubt into disbelief, and hardens indifference into contempt. Even among those of a better cast and a purer principle, the excessive restraints of timidity, caution, and that "fear of man, which bringeth a "snare," confine, and almost stifle the generous spirit of an ardent exertion in the cause of religion. Christianity may pathetically expostulate, that it is not always" an open enemy which dishonours her." but her familiar friend." And, "what dost thou "more than others?" is a question which even the good and worthy should often ask themselves, in order to quicken their zeal; to prevent the total stagnation of unexerted principles, on the one hand; or the danger, on the other, of their being driven down the gulph of rain by the unresisted and confluent tides of temptation, fashion, and example. In a very strict and mortified age, of which a scrupulous severity was the predominant character, precautions against an excessive zeal night, and doubtless would, be a wholesome and prudent mea sure. sure. But in these times of relaxed principle and frigid indifference, to see people so vigilantly on their guard against the imaginary mischiefs of enthusiasm, while they run headlong into the real opposite perils of a destructive licentiousness, reminds us of the one-eyed animal in the fable; who, living on the banks of the ocean, never fancied he could be destroyed any way but by drowning: but, while he kept that one eye constantly fixed on the sea, which side he concluded all the peril lay, he was devoured by an enemy on the dry land, from which quarter he never suspected any danger. on Are not the mischiefs of an enthusiastic piety insisted on with as much earnestness as if an extravagant devotion were the prevailing propensity? Is not the necessity of moderation as vehemently urged as if an intemperate zeal were the epidemic distemper of the great world? as if all our apparent danger and natural bias lay on the side of a too rigid austerity, which required the discreet and constant counteraction of an opposite principle? Would not a stranger be almost tempted to imagine, from the frequent invectives against extreme strictness, that abstraction from the world, and a monastic rage for retreat, were the ruling temper? that we were in some danger of seeing our places of diversion abandoned, and the enthusiastic scenes of the Holy Fathers of the desert acted over again by the frantic and uncontroulable devotion of our young persons of fashion? It is not to be denied, that enthusiasm is an evil to which the more religious of the lower class are peculiarly exposed; and this from a variety of causes, upon which this is not the place to enlarge. But who will be hardy enough to assert that the class we are now addressing, commonly fall into the same error. In order to establish, or to overthrow this assertion, assertion, let each fashionable reader confess whether, within the sphere of his own observation, the fact be realized. Let each bring this vague charge specifically home to his own acquaintance. Let him honestly declare what proportion of noble enthusiasts, what number of honourable fanatics his own personal knowledge of the great world supplies. Let him compare the list of his enthusiastic with that of his luxurious friends, of his fanatical with his irreligious acquaintance, of "the righteous over "much" with such as << care for none of these "things;" of the strict and precise with that of the loose and irregular, of those who beggar themselves by their pious alms with those who injure their fortune by extravagance; of those who are lovers "of God" with those who are lovers of pleasure. Let him declare whether he sees more of his associates swallowed up in gloomy meditation or immersed in sensuality; whether more are the slaves of superstitious observances or of ambition.-Surely 'those who address the rich and great in the way of exhortation and reproof, would do particularly well to define exactly what is indeed the prevailing character; lest, for want of such discrimination they should heighten the disease they might wish to cure, and increase the bias they would desire to counteract, by addressing to the voluptuary cautions which belong to the hermit, and thus aggravate his already inflamed appetites by invectives against an evil of which he is in little danger. If, however, superstition, where it really does exit, injures religion, and we grant that it greatly injures it, yet we insist that scepticism injures it no less; for to deride, or to omit any of the component parts of Christian faith, is surely not a less fatal evil than making uncommanded additions to it. It is seriously to be regretted in an age like the present, remarkable for indifference in religion and levity in manners, and which stands so much in need of lively patterns of firm and resolute piety, that many who really are Christians on the soberest conviction, should not appear more openly and decidedly on the side they have espoused; that they assimilate so very much with the manners of those about them (which manners they yet scruple not to disapprove); and, instead of an avowed but prudent stedfastness, which might draw over the others, appear evidently fearful of being thought precise and over-scrupulous; and actually seem to disavow their right principles, by concessions and accommodations not strictly consistent with them. They often seem cautiously afraid of doing too much, and going too far; and the dangerous plea, the necessity of living like other people, of being like the rest of the world, and the propriety of not being particular, is brought as a reasonable apology for a too yielding and indiscriminate conformity. But, at a time when almost all are sinking into the prevailing corruption, how beautiful a rare, a single integrity is, let the instances of Lot and Noah declare! And to those with whom a poem is an higher authority than the Bible, let me recommend the most animated picture of a righteous singularity that ever was delineated, in -The Seraph Abdiel, faithful found His loyalty he kept, his love and zeal: Nor NUMBERS, nor EXAMPLE with him wrought To swerve from truth, or change his constant mind, PAR. LOST. B. iv. Few |