aside the blindness of prejudice, and subduing the turbulence of passion, been the zealous and consistent supporter of the protestant cause; the virtuous husband of one virtuous wife, and the parent of children all educated in the sound principles of the Reformation! Again, had the popes effectually reformed themselves, how might the unity of the church have been promoted; and even the schisms, which have arisen in protestant communities been diminished! It would be superfluous to recapitulate other instances; these, it is presumed, being abundantly sufficient to obviate any charge of the most distant approach towards the fatal doctrine of necessity.

CHAPTER XV.

On the distinguishing characters of Christianity.

THE great leading truths of scripture are few in number, though the spirit of them is diffused through every page. The being and attributes of the Almighty; the spiritual worship which he requires; the introduction of natural and moral evil into the world; the restoration of man; the life, death, character, and offices of the Redeemer; the holy example he has given us; the divine system of ethics which he has bequeathed us; the awful sanctions with which they are enforced; the spiritual nature of the eternal world; the necessity of repentance; the pardon of sin through faith in a Redeemer; the offer of divine assistance; and the promise of eternal life. The scripture describes a multitude of persons who exemplify its truths; whose lives bear testimony to the perfection of the divine law; and whose cha

racters, however clouded with infirmity and subject to temptation, yet, acting under its authority and influence, evince, by the general tenor of their conduct, that they really embraced religion as a governing principle of the heart, and as the motive to all virtue in the life.

In forming the mind of the royal pupil, an early introduction to these scriptures, the depository of such important truths, will doubtless be considered as a matter of prime concern. And, as her mind opens, it will be thought necessary to point out to her, how one great event led to another still greater; till at length we see a series accomplished, and an immoveable foundation laid for our faith and hope, which includes every essential principle of moral virtue and genuine happiness.

To have given rules for moral conduct might appear, to mere human wisdom, the aptest method of improving our nature. And, accordingly, we find such a course generally pursued by the ancient moralists, both of Greece and Asia. Of this, it is not the least inconvenient result, that rules must be multiplied to a degree the most burdensome and perplexing. And there would be, after all, a necessity for incessant alteration, as the rules of one age could not be expected to correspond with the manners of another. This inconvenience might, perhaps, in some degree be avoided, by entailing on a people an undeviating sameness of manners. But, even when this has been effected, how oppressively minute, and how disgustingly trivial, are the authorized codes of instruction! Of this, every fresh translation from the moral writings of the East is an exemplification; as if the mind could be made pure by overloading the memory !

It is one of the perfections of revealed religion, that, instead of multiplying rules, it establishes principles. It traces up right conduct into a few radical dispo

sitions, which, when once fully formed, are the natural sources of correspondent temper and action. To implant these dispositions, then, is the leading object of what we may venture to call the scripture philosophy. And as the heart must be the seat of that which is to influence the whole man, so it is chiefly to the heart that the holy scriptures address themselves. Their object is to make us love what is right, rather than to occupy our understandings with its theory. "Knowledge puffeth up," says one of our divine instructors, but it is love that edifieth. And the principle which is here assumed, will be found most strictly true, that if a love of goodness be once thoroughly implanted, we shall not need many rules; but we shall act aright from what we may almost call a noble kind of instinct. "If thine eye be single," says our Saviour, "thy whole body shall be full of light." Our religion, as taught in the scripture, does, in this very instance, evince its heavenly origin. St. Paul, whose peculiar province it seems to have been, to explain, as it were, scientifically, the great doctrines of his Master, gives us a definition of Christianity, which outdoes at once in brevity, in fulness, and even in systematic exactness, all which has been achieved in the art of epitomizing, by the greatest masters of human science-" Faith which worketh by love."

It is not too much to affirm, that this expression substantially contains the whole scope and tenor of both Testaments; the substance of all morality, and the very life and soul of human virtue and happiness. A want of attention to what St. Paul means by faith, too generally makes the sense of the passage be overlooked. But the well-directed student will discern, that St. Paul assumes exactly what has been intimated above, that God's object in revelation is not merely to convey his will, but also to manifest himself; not merely to promulgate

laws for restraining or regulating conduct, but to display his own nature and attributes, so as to bring back to himself the hearts and affections of fallen man; and that, accordingly, he means by faith, the effectual and impressive apprehension of God, thus manifested. In his language, it is not a notion of the intellect, nor a tradition coldly residing in the recollection, which the scriptures exhibit, but an actual persuasion of the divine realities. It is, in short, such a conviction of what is revealed, as gives it an efficacy equal, for every practical purpose, to that which is derived through the evidence of our

senses.

Faith, then, in St. Paul's language, is religion in its simplest, inward principle. It is the deep and efficacious impression, which the manifestation of God, made to us in scripture, ought in all reason to produce in our hearts; but which it does not produce until, in answer to our earnest prayer, his Holy Spirit opens, as it were, our hearts," to receive the things which are thus presented to our minds. When the unseen realities of religion are able to do more with us than the tempting objects of this visible world, then, and not before, is the divine grace of faith really formed within us.

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That this is the scriptural idea of faith, will appear at once, from a perusal of that most interesting portion of scripture, the eleventh chapter to the Hebrews. The definition, with which the chapter commences, states this precise notion, "Faith is the substantiation of things hoped for, the demonstration of things not seen.' And the instances adduced are most satisfactory exemplifications. "By faith, Noah, being warned of God of things

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* I thus venture to strengthen the expressions in the authorized translation, in order to convey some clearer idea of the original terms, which, as the best critics allow, have, perhaps, a force to which no English words can do justice.

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not seen as yet, being moved with fear, prepared an ark," &c. By faith, Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing him who is invisible." "With the heart," says St. Paul," man believeth unto righteousness;" that is, when the infinitely awful and inexpressibly engaging views of God, manifesting himself in the scripture as our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier, really and effectually impress themselves on our hearts, so as to become the paramount principle of inward and outward conduct; then, and not before, we are, in the scripture sense, believers. And this faith, if real, must produce love; for, when our minds and hearts are thus impressed, our affections must of necessity yield to that impression. If virtue, said a heathen, could be seen with human eyes, what astonishing love would it excite in us! St. Paul's divine faith realizes this very idea. If Moses "endured as seeing him who is invisible," it could only be, because, in seeing God, he beheld what filled up his whole soul, and so engaged his hopes and fears, but, above all, his love, as to raise him above the low allurements of the world, and the puny menaces of mortals. It is said of him, that "he accounted even the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt;" a preference which implies the strongest affection, as well as the deepest conviction. His case, then, clearly illustrates what St. Paul says of faith working by love his apprehension of God being so deep and lively, as to fix his supreme love on that supreme excellence, which was thus, as it were, visible to his mind; the current of his temper, and the course of his actions, followed this paramount direction of his heart.

The scripture then, in reality, does not so much teach us how to be virtuous, as, if we comply with its intention, actually makes us so. It is St. Paul's