withhold without meanness; to rejoice with moderation, and to suffer with patience. And nothing, I may add, was more remarkable in the character of our Saviour than this perfect sobriety, consistency, self-control.

This, therefore, is the perfection of character. This will always be found, I believe, to be a late stage in the progress of religious worth from its first beginnings. It is comparatively easy to be one thing and that alone; to be all zeal, or all reasoning; all faith, or all action; all rapture, or all chilling and captious fault-finding. Here novices begin. Thus far they may easily go. Thus far men may go, whose character is the result of temperament, and not of culture; of headlong propensity, and not of careful and conscientious discipline. It is easy for the bruised reed to be broken. It is easy for the smoking flax to be quenched. It is easy to deal rashly and rudely with the matters of religious and virtuous experience—to make a hasty effort, to have a paroxysm of emotion, to give way to a feverish and transient feeling, and then to smother and quench all the rising purposes of a better life. But true religion comes to us with a wiser and more considerate adaptation, to sustain and strengthen the bruised reed of human weakness; to fan the rising flame of virtuous and holy purposes: it comes to revive our failing courage, to restrain our wayward passions. It will not suffer us to go on with our fluctuations and our fancies; with our transient excitements and momentary struggles. It will exert a more abiding, a more rational influence. It will make us more faithful and persevering. It will lay its hand on the very energies of our nature, and will take the lead and control the forming and perfecting of them. May we find its real and

gracious power! May it lead us in the true, the firm, the brightening path of the just, till it brings us to the perfect day!

Oh! my brethren, we sin against our own peace, we have no mercy upon ourselves, when we neglect such a religion as this. It is the only wisdom, the only soundness, the only consistency and harmony of character, the only peace and blessedness of mind. We should not have our distressing doubts and fears, we should not be so subject as we are to the distracting influences of passion or of the world without us, if we had yielded our hearts wholly to the spirit and religion of Jesus. It is a religion adapted to us all. To every affection, to every state of mind, troubled or joyous, to every period of life, it would impart the very influence that we need. How surely would it guide our youth, and how would it temper, and soften, and sanctify all the fervours of youthful affection! How well would it support our age, making it youthful again with the fervent hope of immortality! How would it lead us, too, in all the paths of earthly care, and business, and labour, turning the brief and weary courses of worldly toil into the ways that are everlasting! How faithfully and how calmly would it conduct us to the everlasting abodes! And how well, in fine, does he, of whom it was prophesied that he should not break the bruised reed nor quench the smoking flax--how well does he meet that gracious character, when he says shall we not listen to him?" Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest: take my yoke, which is easy, and my burden, which is light; learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls."

D

74

DISCOURSE V.

THE APPEAL OF RELIGION TO HUMAN NATURE.

PROVERBS VIII. 4. Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of men.

THE appeal of religion to human nature, the deep wisdom of its instructions to the human heart, the language of power and of cheering with which it is fitted to address the inmost soul of man, is never to be understood, perhaps, till our nature is exalted far beyond its present measure. When the voice of wisdom and purity shall find an inward wisdom and purity to which it can speak, it will be received with a welcome and gladness, with a joy beyond all other joy, such as no tongue of eloquence has ever expressed, nor the heart of worldly sensibility ever yet conceived. It is, therefore, with the most unfeigned diffidence, with the most distinct consciousness that my present labour must be incipient and imperfect, that I enter upon this great theme-the appeal of religion to human nature,

What ought it to be? What has it been? These are the inquiries which I shall pursue. Nor shall I attempt to keep them altogether separate in the discussion; since both the defects and the duties of religious instruction may often be best exhibited under the same head of discourse. Neither shall I labour to

speak of religion under that abstract and figurative character with which wisdom is personified in the context, though that may be occasionally convenient : but whether it be the language of individual reason or conscience; whether it be the voice of the parent or of the preacher; whether it be the language of forms or of institutions, I would consider how religion has appealed, and how it ought to have appealed, to human nature.

The topics of discourse under which I shall pursue these inquiries, are the following:-In what character should religion address us?-to what in us should it speak?—and how should it deliver its message? That is to say-the substance, the subject, and the spirit of the appeal, are the topics of our inquiry. I cannot, of course, pursue these inquiries beyond the point to which the immediate object of my discourse will carry them; and I am willing to designate that point at once, by saying that the questions are, whether the character in which religion is to appeal to us be moral or not; whether that in us to which it chiefly appeals should be the noblest or the basest part of our nature; and finally, whether the manner and spirit of its appeal should be that of confidence or distrust, of friendship or hatred.

I. And with regard to the first question, the answer, of course, is, that the character in which religion should address us is purely moral. As a moral principle, as a principle of rectitude, it must speak to us. Institutions, rites, commands, threatenings, promises-all forms of appeal must contain this essence; they must be moral; they must be holy.

It may be thought strange that I should insist upon

a point so obvious, but let me crave your patience. What is the centre, the first principle, the essence, of all that is moral, of all that is holy? I answer, it is goodness. This is the primary element of all virtue. Excellence, rectitude, righteousness, every virtue, every grace, is but a modification of the one essential, all-embracing principle of love. This is strictly, metaphysically true it is the result of the most severe philosophical analysis. It is also the truth of scripture. The character of supreme perfection is summed up in this one attribute, "God is love." This is the very glory of God. For when an ancient servant desired to 66 see his glory," the answer to the prayer was, that he caused all his goodness to pass before him."

The character, then, in which religion should appeal to human nature, is that of simple and essential goodness. This, the moral nature of man is made to understand and to feel; and nothing else but this. This character, doubtless, has various expressions. Sometimes it takes the forms of command and threatening; but still these must speak in the name of goodness. If command and threatening stand up to speak for themselves-alone-dissociated from that love which gives them all their moral character-then, I say that the moral nature of man cannot receive their message. A brute can receive that; a dog or a horse can yield to mere command or menace. But the moral nature can yield to nothing which is not moral; and that which gives morality to every precept and warning is the goodness which is breathed into them. Divest them of this, and they are not even religious. Nor are those persons religious who pay obedience to