embarrassed with a doubt. So far from reflecting how the difficulties which lie in the way may be removed, they do not inquire whether they exist, much less what they are; and with those who would point them out, they evade the subject to save the trouble. We need look no further for the solution of our indifference than that we do not earnestly desire the promised felicity because of our practical incredulity.

If an intelligent Chinese had been made acquainted with the high privileges and sublime hopes of a Christian—what advantages he possesses here, and what prospects he has in reversion, not contingent, but certain, provided he turned his advantages to the securing of his prospects; what promises had been made him from an authority he allowed, and by a veracity he trusted;-what a glorious people would he expect to find in a society of such highly privileged beings! Would he not look for cordial obedience to his laws in whose will they daily express a complete acquiescence ?—for unbounded love and charity among creatures who periodically confessed that their own sins could not be forgiven, if they forgave not the sins of others?-for a gratitude among creatures who recognised one common redemption, which should bear some little proportion to his love by whom such an astonishing redemption had been wrought? Would he not conclude that nothing could be wanting to their happiness but an entrance on that immortality for which they must be so well prepared-nothing wanting to their perfection, but the visible presence of Him whom they acknowledge to be its source and centre? and that in the mean time they were living the life of saints preparatory to their commencing that of angels?

But when, on a personal intercourse, he observed that the lives of so many beings, the essence of whose religion is love, was a scene of strife and emulation-that this community of Christians which he thought, like the city of Jerusalem, was at unity with itself, had rather be at unity with any thing than with each other-split into parties and torn asunder by conflicting interests!—when he saw that the professors of a religion, founded in humility and self-denial, could be proud without reproach, and voluptuous without discredit; when he saw, in so many other respects, the inconceivable distance between our lives and our patterns, our hopes and our aims, would he not believe the whole had been a misrepresentation? Would he not rejoice, like a true patriot, to find that there was less difference between the inhabitants of Pekin and London than between the professor of Christianity and the

gospel from which he took his rule? Would not this be his natural inference, either that Christianity is not true, or that its avowed disciples do not believe it? When he compared their actual indulgences with their exalted expectancies, would he not believe that their religion was founded on a proclamation for present enjoyment, and not on a promise of future blessedness? In any event, would he conceive that eternal glory was to be obtained without an effort, I had almost said without a wish?

CHAP. XXI.

Expostulation with the inconsistent Christian.

THE most valuable truths, though known, are useless, if not applied. Though men were acquainted with the magnetic power of the loadstone before the Christian era, it remained an object of idle admiration, till within a very few centuries. The practical use of the needle being at length found out, its application to its true end gave mankind access to unknown regions, and opened to them a new world. If such were the application of religious knowledge to its proper end, it would, indeed, open to us a world, in which, not only one, but every adventurer, might be rewarded, not with discovery merely, but with possession.

To this unseen world God has shown us the way by his word, has smoothed that way by his grace, has promised us the direction of his Spirit; has given us free access by his Son, revealing him to us at once as our propitiation and our pattern. Shall we not, then, thankfully embrace this propitiation, and keep this pattern before our eyes? And though our nearest approaches will be infinitely distant, let us come as near to it as we can, and let us frequently try, by the only true touchstone, whether we have more receded or approached. If we find our defiection has been greater since the last examination, let the discovery put us upon praying more fer vently, watching more vigilantly, and laboring more earnestly. If we have gained any ground, let us try to secure our advantages by pushing our progress. What a low standard, and yet it was a high one in his estimation, did he propose, who said to his friend, "If thou art not Socrates, yet live as one who would be glad to be Socrates!" To what an elevated pitch were his views raised, who, disdaining an inferior model, said, "Be ye like minded with Christ!"

Every degree of goodness is only a ray from the central perfections of God. There is no shadow of right in any of his creatures but is indicative of his immeasurable goodness. The human virtues had originally a stronger resemblance to, and more intimate correspondence with, the Being from which they emanated, but by man's apostasy the analogy was not only impaired, but nearly lost. Yet a sufficient knowledge of what is good, an ample power of judging, remains to us, to convince us, that religion is a very reasonable principle, that it is addressed to our understandings as well as to our affections. God, by the revelation of himself and his purposes, does not destroy, but strengthen, our natural notions of rectitude, our rational ideas of justice, our native feelings of truth and equity. The Scripture account of the moral perfections of God, and of the manner in which he will judge the world, is consonant to those notions which he has implanted in us. Christianity exalts, clears and purifies the light of reason, ennobles and elevates the dictates of natural conscience, but does not contradict them-does not subvert our ideas of justice, nor overturn our innate sense of right and wrong. Our nature, though full of perverseness in the will, is not so preposterous in her judgment, as to believe that a revelation from God would ever teach a law in direct opposition to natural justice; that the illumination of the gospel was meant to extinguish "the candle of the Lord" set up in every human bosom. God would be inconsistent with himself, if he gave us the light of reason, dim indeed, but still a light, and then gave us a revelation, not to clear that dimness, not to enlighten that comparative darkness, but to oppose, eclipse, extinguish it.

To this capacity of judging, to this power of determining, and to your profession of faith, we venture to appeal. We are not arguing with you as with persons who deny the truth of Christianity, but addressing you as avowed believers, who neglect the application of that truth which the infidel denies. We do not propose any disallowed scheme, we do not offer any rejected doctrine, any disputed opinions; we do not invite your submission to any authority which you do not acknowledge. We suggest nothing but what your understandings assent to, nothing but what you profess to believe. Yet these truths you virtually disavow, this authority you actually renounce, this creed you practically subvert, if they do not furnish the ground of your conduct. You acknowledge all the verities of the Bible, but your lives are unaltered. Your hearts are impressible by all the tender human affections;

awake to all "the charities of father, son, and brother ;"—why are they untouched just where they ought to be most sensible, languid where they should be vigorous, dead where they should show most vital energy ?

There is in this conduct a double incongruity. The persons in question not only forbear to exhibit in their own lives those admirable effects which Christianity is so calculated to produce, but they do not like to see them produced to any great extent in others. They are not backward in branding those who exhibit, in their fair proportions, the practical effects of the doctrines they themselves profess to admire, with the suspicion of hypocrisy, or the reproach of extravagance. In the common course of affairs, nothing is more censured than inconsistency. In religion it is quite otherwise. It is thought criminal to make no religious profession; yet, to act consistently with that profession, to make the practice square with the principle, in short, to live as we believe, exposes a person to be suspected of a deficiency of sense, or of sincerity; subjects him to a doubt, either of the integrity of his heart, or the sanity of his mind.

Christianity lays down plain rules for the conduct of those who profess it. The Bible is in the hands of this class of professors; but when a portion of it has been carelessly perused, it is considered as having done its office. It is laid down, and the reader, instead of applying to his conduct the law he has been studying, immediately applies to the law of custom, of fashionable acquaintance, of caprice, of appetite, for that rule which in conversation he would acknowledge was only to be found in the book he had been reading. In matters of faith, an indefinite assent is yielded; he only desires to be excused from the consequences they involve. He would, indeed, like to cavil at some points, but an unexamined approbation costs less trouble: so he believes in the gross, occasionally, however, indulging a little levity to show his wit, and a few doubts, to show his discrimination.

We do not act thus on other occasions. The arts we learn we turn to the purpose for which we learned them. The science we acquire we apply. The study of geometry is made applicable to practical purposes. The knowledge of mechanics is not studied for its own sake, but for the benefit of those to whom the application brings so many conveniences. The fairest hand-writing would be of little value, if the use did not follow the acquisition. Yet if religion is not only of more allowed importance, but of more universal application, than all human knowledge put together, why is it

not, like that, brought to bear on the purpose for which it was sent, the rectification of the heart and life? If we acknowledge the Bible to be the only unerring road-book te that land to which we are travelling, why, after consulting it in the closet, do we forget it on the journey, not only neglecting the direction it affords, but pursuing contrary paths of our own devising.

It is a spectacle to excite the tenderest commiseration when we observe the excellent gifts of God to some of his most favored creatures-when we see the brightest natural faculties improved by high cultivation, together with that degree of acquaintance with religion which not only expels infidelity, but leads to a certain vague adoption of the Christian creedwhen we see men, not only rich in mental endowments, but possessed of hearts glowing with generosity and kindness— when we see such beings as much absorbed in the pursuits of time and sense, as dead to the highest ends of their being, limiting their plans to the present life as completely as if they did not believe in that immortality which yet makes part of their system!-to see them overlooking the excellences which may be attained in this state preparatory to their perfection in a better; unobservant of that deep basis which God has laid in our very nature for the condition of future blessedness-forgetting how he has not only graciously put us in the way to attain it, but has exhorted, but has invited us, only to consent, only to submit to be eternally happy! When we hear the Savior of sinners condescending to express this tender regret at their reluctance, "Ye will not come to me, that ye might have life," who can, without sorrow, contemplate such a discrepancy between the practice and the destination, the pursuits and the interests, the low desires and the high possibilities, the unspeakable offers and the incorrigible blindness?

But in our lapsed humanity, sense, in opposition to faith, is too frequently the dictator. If we see through a glass, and that darkly, it is because the medium is clouded by the breath of sensuality. Appetite is the arbitrary power which renders every appeal to reason and religion fruitless. The pleasures of the present life have matter and substance, and we act as if those of heaven were dreams and visions. Selflove errs only in mistaking its objects, in putting the brief discipline which we are called to exercise here on a level with eternal suffering; it mistakes in fastening itself on the lower part of our nature, and forgetting that our souls are ourselves.