were unspeakable. His state of mind seemed in some degree to resemble that of Paul, when " he was caught up into Paradise." On the succeeding morning, he told his attendants that "the good Spirit of God had given him a

AN EXPOSURE OF THE PERNICIOUS PRINCIPLES, WITH RESPECT TO PERSONAL RELI

GION, WHICH PREVAIL AMONG YOUNG PERSONS OF CULTI

VATED MINDS.

PART I.

"If then the light which is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness." Matt. vi, 23.

I

"I HAVE laboured in vain! have spent my strength for nought, and in vain! I have spread out my hands, all the day, unto a rebellious people! Who hath believed our report; and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" A serious mind cannot read these complaints of the most perspicuous, engaging, and sublime of the ancient prophets, without a very painful and melancholy feeling. Alas! it was not of the men of his own age only that they were descriptive; but they were too true a picture of future times, and of the discouraging reception which the last, the fullest, the brightest, and most engaging representation of eternal truths should meet with from this unreasonable and ungodly world. In our own eminently privileged country, and in this most enlightened and active period, the disproportion between the apparent efficacy of the Gospel and its just requirements, is a consideration which pierces the heart and weakens the hands of no small number

among the faithful ministers of that Gospel. The manifest indifference and carelessness of some; the scarcely disguised contempt of others; the dull formality of one class, and the giddy versatility of another; the readiness to be kindled into admiration and enthusiasm by adventitious circumstances, and the absolute refusal of any becoming feeling responsive to the Saviour's message of grace and authority, when it is presented in the mere and simple characters of his own word; the naked front of disbelief and irreligion in many who constantly hear the Gospel, and who would by no means be considered as infidels; the not less bold and habitual disregard shown to the most express and solemn precepts of that holy Gospel, by many who profess to love it; the rareness of sound conversion, as evinced by its proper fruits; the selfishness, carnality, and worldly-mindedness, the evil tempers and unlovely demeanour, of an awful number who rank among the converted; the busy readiness to hear for others, and the almost entire omission of selfapplication;-0, these are facts which would overwhelm us with grief, were it not that their commonness, their glaring notoriety, deadens our feeling by preventing our surprise!

But why is it so? Why are persons, not ignorant, not openly impious, not absolutely inattentive,

thus altogether or almost unmoved by the love of Jesus, the beauties of holiness, and the vileness of sin? Beneath what covering have they hid themselves, so that no ray reaches them from the Sun of heavenly Righteousness; and no reflection of his sanctifying lustre shows them to "shine as lights in the world, holding forth the word of life?" Ah! there are weighty reasons in this case. They have principles within, which set their minds at ease, steel them against the ordinary means of conviction, and endow them with a self-satisfied consistency and firmness of character. But their principles are false. "They have chosen their own ways, and their soul delighteth in their abominations. A deceived heart hath turned them aside. The light that is in them is darkness; and HOW GREAT is that darkness!"

In these words our divine Redeemer, according to his frequent and admirable manner, makes an application of natural facts to the purpose of spiritual instruction. "The light of the body is the eye." This was probably a proverbial saying among the ancient Jews; and upon it our Lord enlarges in a manner which may be thus paraphrased:-" If your eye be sound and in a healthy state, your whole body will enjoy the advantage, and will perform every action with certainty and pleasure; but if your eye be diseased, if your power of vision be defective, or make redundant or distorted images, or be partial and obscure, or be altogether extinct, then all your bodily motions will be performed with difficulty, uncertainty, and danger, and, if not assisted by others who see correctly, you will fall into serious and probably fatal injury." So IT Is in your souls, and with respect to your greatest and immortal concerns. If the light that is in you," "those principles of opinion,

belief, or expectation, which are to the mind what the organ of sight is to the body, if these be false in themselves, or be used perversely, if they be erroneously assumed, or corruptly applied, the consequence will be most ruinous : your affections will be filled with sweet and soothing but deadly poison, your understanding will be depraved, the exercises of your judgment will be erroneous in the most important respects, your conscience will become misguided or hardened, and your course will become sure to strong delusions, aggravated guilt, and unutterable perdition. If the light that is in you be darkness, HOW GREAT is that darkness!

These important words call us to the consideration of the nature and the dangerous influence of false opinions, by which men fortify and sustain themselves in their enmity against the gracious and authoritative declarations of God in his law and in his gospel.

But it may be necessary, or at least useful, to clear our way to this discussion, by showing that such false and dangerous sentiments may exist. The contrary notion is a favourite with many, who have learned to shelter loose principles, and generally loose practices also, under the authority of a great poet, but very incompetent teacher of religion, in the thread-bare couplet

"For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight:

His can't be wrong whose life is in the right."

outward actions, if minds and motives were never to be regarded, if there were no God, or if it were no part of our duty to treat HIM with respect and homage. But, once admit the existence of a Supreme and Eternal Being, infinitely glorious and amiable in the possession of every possible excellence, the Author, Supporter, and Benefactor of all other beings;-only admit this primary truth, uttered as it is by the voice of nature, and reason, and feeling, of tradition and authority, and of every species of argument, and it immediately follows that HE is to be honoured, in a manner suited to his nature and proportioned to his moral worthiness. But a spiritual being cannot be honoured by outward actions, except so far as they are demonstrations of a right state of soul towards himself, and are useful in promoting that state among social creatures. "God is a spirit;" and therefore "he must be worshipped in spirit and truth," with the inward affections of love, veneration, conformity to his will, and delight in his dominion. Now the very first, and invariably and for ever the highest, object to which religion has reference, is GOD; and, since he can be served and honoured only by mental affections, and since all affections rest upon sentiments as their previous and necessary ground, it follows that right sentiments concerning God are of infinite importance and necessity. But right sentiments concerning God is only another expression for faith in true religion. All essential doctrines of religion, such as the obligation of creatures to obey the divine law, the evil and desert of sin, the loveliness and dignity of holiness, and the salvation of sinners by a divine process of redeeming and restoring grace,-all flow from right sentiments concerning God, and are necessary to the good order and harmony, not to

say the very existence, of right AFFECTIONS towards him. On the other hand, all material error respecting sentiments, affections, or practice, in matters of religion, may be demonstrated to have its origin in impure, degrading, and false opinions concerning the nature, the attributes, or the government of the Supreme Being.

The fact, also, of an existing divine revelation proves the evil of false opinions in the concerns of religion, and the duty of receiving and obeying the truth. Has the wisdom and benevolence of the adorable Jehovah condescended to construct so magnificent a temple of inspiration and evidence in which to make known his will to men? and can it be thought a matter of indifference whether this message from heaven be received according to its proper character and intention, or be admitted in such a way as nullifies, or at least greatly perverts, that intention, or be rejected altogether?

The inference, which reason draws from the fact of revelation, is decisively maintained by the declarations of that revelation itself. We find, in this sacred volume, many earnest cautions against erroneous doctrines; and many commands to take heed lest we be deceived, to beware of false prophets, men who pervert the right ways of the Lord, gain sayers, subverters of souls, liers in wait to deceive, men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, liars, deceivers, antichrists, resisters of the truth, reprobate concerning the faith, evil men and seducers, deceiving and being deceived, false teachers who privily bring in dammable heresies, unlearned (by refusing to submit their minds to the teachings of the word and Spirit of God), unstable, wresting the Scriptures, causing the way of truth to be evil spoken of, and bringing upon themselves and their followers swift destruc

tion. The same gracious Spirit who has given us these awakening warnings, has also dictated such precepts and admonitions as the following: "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy; for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve, through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. But there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.—And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words. As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.

Be

ware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.-Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having

their conscience seared with a hot iron. For that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

These testimonies may suffice to show with what frequency and solemnity the Lord Jesus and the apostles, whom he inspired to record his will for the use of all future ages, taught the possibility, the actual occurrence, and the melancholy prevalency, of errors in religion, highly pernicious in their present effect on the spiritual state of the soul, and in their final consequences most dangerous and even fatal to our hopes of salvation. Surely this is abundant evidence to satisfy us that the dangers against which the Bible warns us are not imaginary or trivial; that, while some are ruined by careless and scornful ignorance,

darkening their understandings, and thus alienating them from the life of God," others are beguiled by enticing words, profane and vain babblings which corrode like a deadly cancer, and are dashed down to the bottomless gulf of perdition by false knowledge, flattering and deceptive opinions, misapplied science, perverted philosophy, that of which they are so proud as "the light which is in them," and which is of their own kindling, but which is, indeed, "darkness" of the most awful kind, the darkness of fell delusion now, and, in the invisible world which is just about to open before them, the darkness of despair and everlasting woe. O God, the infinitely merciful Sovereign! grant

us to be preserved from all deceivableness of unrighteousness, and to receive the love of the truth that we may be saved!

Hoping for this heavenly guidance and efficacious blessing, I proceed to lay before your serious consideration some remarks upon what I conceive to be, in the present circumstances of the Christian church, the most prevalent and dangerous delusions of religious opinion. They are,-a secret disbelief of the truth and authority of Christianity;-a supposition of being able, at some future time, that may be convenient to carnal passions and worldly pursuits, to lay hold of the securities and comforts of religion; an expectation, in the case of dying in an impenitent and unpardoned state, of an eventual restitution to virtue and happiness;-making the doctrines of sovereign and efficacious grace a reason for continuing in a state of sin;-viewing religion as a system of outward performances;-looking upon religion as a kind of necessary evil, unwelcome on its own account, and only desirable as a resourse from something still worse; and confidence of a safe state without the proportionate evidences of sanctification. The first only of these ways of dark ness can we now treat upon. The others will remain for future consideration.

I. The dark principle which is cherished in the hearts of some, is a secret, ardent wish, sometimes a strong hope, and, in some instances, a fond persuasion, that the declations and authority of revealed religion have no foundation in truth.

concealed infidels, or wishing to be such.

These are commonly young persons of better education, and possessing some degree of religious knowledge superior to that of the other class, though even this knowledge is extremely poor and defective. They are, probably, under the influence of parents, or other superiors, whom veneration, fear, or interest, makes them unwilling to offend and distress; and they have often some remaining convictions, some occasional heavings, and, as it were, convulsive throes of conscience, which further operate to prevent their walking openly in the way of sinners, and sitting down, with bold defiance, in the seat of the scorner. But they are, in a very awful manner, living "without God in the world.” Their hearts are filled with thoughts and contrivances of wickedness, their imagination delights in framing scenes and acts of criminality, their mind and conscience are defiled, and so far as they can and dare, they live in practical sin. Seldom, or perhaps never, do they bow the knee in even the empty formality of secret prayer; and they are not a little glad, if any circumstance occurs to relieve them from the irksome attendance on religious duties in the family, or in the public services of the Lord's day. This constrained connexion with the outward forms of religion is the burden of their lives; and they look with envy on the bold blasphemer, the avowed libertine, the public debauchee. Licentious, obscene, and sceptical books or pamphlets, especially if clothed in fascinating poetry, or recommended by names which the world admires, they eagerly obtain, and privately they devour the poisoned food. Their object is to get some principle on which they may justify their conduct to their consciences, and be at ease within, while they are adding sin to sin, and rolling