Should he conceive the vain hope, or make the vainer attempt, I would now address him as Jehoash formerly answered Amaziah. Amaziah king of Judah, elated with the little victories he had obtained over the Edomites, began to fancy himself invincible. Prompted by this foolish imagination, he challenges Jehoash king of Israel to meet him in a pitched battle, and receives this ironical apologue by way of reply; which for galJantry of spirit and delicacy of wit, for poignancy of satire and propriety of application, has seldom been equalled, perhaps never exceeded: The thistle that was in Lebanon sent to the cedar that was in Lebanon, saying, Give thy daughter to my son to wife: and there passed by a wild beast that was in Lebanon, and trod down the thistle.'* What are we, when we offer to establish our own righteousness, or presume to justify ourselves before the most high God, but despicable thistles, that fancy themselves stately cedars? And is not every temptation, is not each corruption, a wild beast of the desert, which will trample on the impotent boaster, and tread his haughty pretensions in the dust? DIALOGUE XIV. Theron alone in the Fields-His Soliloquy on the Charms of Rural Nature-His Reflections on the past Conferences-Aspasio reinforces his Arguments for the imputation of Christ's Righteousness-Recommends Self-examination, the keeping of a Diary, and Prayer for the enlightening Spirit-Departs under an engagement to correspond by Letter. ASPASIO was employed in preparing for his journey. Theron, free from business, and disengaged from company, had the greatest part of the day to himself, which he spent in reviewing the substance of their late confer. ences, not without intermingled aspirations to God for the guidance of his divine Spirit. At evening he went, like the patriarch of old, into the field to meditate,'+ amidst the calm of nature, to meditate on the grace of the gospel. The sky was 2 Kings xiv. 9. + Gen. xxiv. 63. peculiarly beautiful and perfectly clear, only where the fine indigo received an agreeable heightening by a few thin and scattered clouds, which imbibed the solar rays, and looked like pensile fleeces of purest wool: all things appeared with so mild, so majestic, so charming an aspect, that, intent as he was upon a different subject, he could not but indulge the following soliloquy : 'How delightful are the scenes of rural nature, especially to the philosophic eye and contemplative mind! I cannot wonder that persons in high life are so fond of retiring from a conspicuous and exalted station to the covert of a shady grove, or the margin of a cooling stream; are so desirous of quitting the smoky town and noisy street, in order to breathe purer air, and survey the wonders of creation in the silent, the serene, the peaceful villa. "Tis true, in the country there are none of the modish, I had almost said meretricious, ornaments of that false politeness which refines people out of their veracity, but an easy simplicity of manners, with an unaffected sincerity of mind. Here the solemn farce of ceremony is seldom brought into play, and the pleasing delusions of compliment have no place: but the brow is the real index of the temper, and speech the genuine interpreter of the heart. In the country, I acknowledge, we are seldom invited to see the mimic attempts of human art; but we every were behold the grand and masterly exertions of divine power. No theatre erects its narrow stage, surrounds it with puny rows of ascending seats, or adorns it with a shifting series of gorgeous scenery; but fields extend their ample area, at first lightly clad with a scarf of springing green, then deeply planted with an arrangement of spindling stalks; as a few more weeks advance, covered with a profusion of bearded or husky grain; at last richly laden with a harvest of yellow plenty. 'Meadows disclose their beautiful bosom, yield a soft and fertile lap for the luxuriant herbage, and suckle myriads of the fairest, gayest flowers; which, without any vain ostentation, or expensive finery, outvie each other in all the elegance of dress. Groves of various leaf, arrayed in freshest verdure, and liberal of their reviving shade, rise in amiable, in noble prospect, all around. Droves of sturdy oxen, strong for labour, or fat for the shambles; herds of sleeky kine, with milk in their udders, and violets in their nostrils; flocks of well-fleeced sheep, with their snowy lambkins frisking at their side; these compose the living machinery. Boundless tracts of bending azure, varnished with inimitable delicacy, and hung with starry lamps, or irradiated with solar lustre, form the stately cieling; while the early breezes, and the evening gales, charged with no unwholesome vapours, breeding no pestilential taint, but fanning the humid buds, and waving their odoriferous wings, dispense a thousand sweets, mingled with the most sovereign supports of health. And is not this school of industry, this magazine of plenty, incomparably more delightful, as well as infinitely less dangerous, than those gaudy temples of profuseness and debauchery, where sin and ruin wear the mask of pleasure, where Belial is daily or nightly worshipped with what his votaries call modish recreation and genteel amusement? 'Here indeed is no tuneful voice to melt in strains of amorous anguish, and transfuse the sickening fondness to the hearer's breast: no skilful artist to inform the lute with musical enchantment; to strike infectious melody from the viol, and soothe away the resolution and activity of virtue, in wanton desires, or voluptuous indolence. But the plains bleat, the mountains low, and the hollow circling rocks echo with the universal song. Every valley remurmurs to the fall of silver fountains, or the liquid lapse of gurgling rills. Birds, musicians ever beauteous, ever gay, perched on thousand boughs, play a thousand sprightly and harmonious airs. Charmed therefore with the finest views, lulled with the softest sounds, and treated with the richest odours, what can be wanting to complete the delight? Here is every entertainment for the eye, the most re fined gratifications for the ear, and a perpetual banquet for the smell, without any insidious decoy for the integrity of our conduct, or even for the purity of our fancy. "O ye blooming walks and flowery lawns, surrounded with dewy landscapes! how often have patriots and heroes laid aside the burden of power, and stole away from the glare of grandeur to enjoy themselves in your composed retreats! Ye mossy couches and fragrant bowers, skirted with cooling cascades! how many illustrious personages, after all their glorious toil for the public good, have sought an honourable and welcome repose in your downy lap!+ Ye venerable oaks, and solemn groves; woods that whisper to the quivering gale; cliffs that overhang the darkened flood; who can number the sages and saints, that have devoted the day to study, or resigned a vacant hour to healthy exercise beneath your silvan porticoes and waving arches? that, far from the dull impertinence of man, have listened to the instructive voice of God, and contemplated the works of his adorable hand, amidst your moss-grown cells and rocky shades. How inelegant, or how insensible is the mind, which has no awakened lively relish for these sweet recesses, and their exquisite beauties!' But whither am I carried? Is not this rural enthusiasm? I find myself talking to trees, and forget the momentous question which waits for our decision. Here then let my rhapsody cease, and my inquiry proceed. Does it betray a want of true delicacy to be insensible of nature's charms? My Aspasio thinks it argues as wrong a taste in practical divinity, not to acquiesce in the imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ. To this doctrine I have been always extremely averse. I set myself to oppose it with objections drawn from the reason of things, and from various passages of Scripture, to all which my friend replied; and though I was scarcely convinced, yet I was silenced by his answers. * -Mihi me reddentis agelli, says Horace of his little country seat. Virgil was so smitten with the amiableness of these scenes, that he assigns them as a habitation for happy spirits in the regions of Elysium: -Lucis habitamus opacis, I pleaded for the sufficiency of our sincere obedience, especially when accompanied with repentance, and recommended by the merits of Christ; neither was this attempt successful. His arguments, somewhat like the flaming sword planted at the entrance of paradise, ' turned every way," and precluded all access to life on the foot of our own duty. At length Aspasio quitted the defensive, and, attacked me in his turn. He explained the precepts, and enforced the threatenings of the divine law. So exact its tenor, that it demands a perfect and persevering conformity to every injunction ;-so extensive its authority, that it reaches the inmost thoughts, and requires obe dience, not barely in the actions of the life, but the very intentions of the heart;-so inexorable its severity, that it condemns every the smallest offence, and curses every the least offender. This remonstrance had some of the terror, and almost all the effect of a masked battery. It was quite unexpected, and alarmed me considerably. To push his advantage, he enlarged upon the infinite purity of God; a God glorious in holiness, who cannot look upon evil' with any connivance, or without the utmost abhorrence; before whom the very heavens are unclean, and who will in nowise clear the guilty. To complete his victory, he played off the doctrine of original guilt, and original depravity; that, besides the imputation of Adam's apostacy; besides the commission of numberless iniquities, we were born in sin; are by nature enmity against God; in all our faculties corrupt; in every imagination evil; and, even when renewed by grace, are still, still tainted with some base remains of the old leprosy. Gen. ill. 24. +Even when renewed.' For a display of this important truth, and a remedy against this stubborn evil, let me refer the reader to a little treatise published by Dr. Owen, and entitled "The Nature, Power, Deceit, and Prevalency of the Remainders of Indwelling Sin in Believers.' The author's pen is indeed a dissecting knife, goes deep into his subject, and lays open this plague of the heart. Like a workman that need not be ashamed, he demonstrates his point from the unerring word of God, and the acknowledged experience of Christians. Like a compassionate as well as able physician, he all along prescribes the proper antidote; nay, he |