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 Saviour of the World has said: "For this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I might bear wit

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ness 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. And unreserved faith in the promiser must precede our acceptable perforinance 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 appearances 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 dispen

sations

sation in this lower world, must naturally shock those who consider only the single scene which is acting on the present stage; but is reconcileable 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 acquainted with the rules, so far as it has pleased the Supreme Disposer to reveal them.

And

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. 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 command"ments." Until they have acquired that "faith, ❝ without which it is impossible to please God," they will not attain that "holiness, without which no man 66 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 œconomist, that he always adapts, with the most

accurate

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 expence. The long chain of prophecy; the succession of miracles, the labours 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 oi being 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,

obedience, morality from piety, the love of our neighbour 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 assuredly something more than a mere set of rules; and faith, though it never pretended to be the substitute for an useful life, is indispensibly necessary to its acceptance with God. The Gospel never offers to make religion supercede morality, but everywhere 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 indispensible 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 real 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 enquiries; but all these evi

dence

dences 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 general spirit of the Gospel, that he is not startled by every little difficulty, he is not staggered by every "hard "saying." Those depths of mystery which surpass his understanding do not shake his faith, and this, not because he is credulous, and given to take things upon trust, but because, knowing that his foundations are right, he sees how one truth of scripture supports another like the bearings of a geometrical building; because he sees the aspect one doctrine has upon another; because he sees the consistency of each with the rest, and the place, order, and relation of all. The real Christian by no means rejects reason from his religion; so far from it, he most carefully exercises it in furnishing his mind with all the evidences of its truth. But he does not stop here. Christianity furnishes him with a living principle of action, with the vital influences of the holy spirit, which, while it enlightens his faculties, rectifies his will, turns his knowledge into practice, sanctifies his heart, changes his habits, and proves, that when faithfully received, the word of truth" is life in"deed, and is spirit indeed!"