His

the work he is employed in a good one, if he might be doing a better. His having well acquitted himself of a good action, is so far from furnishing him with an excuse for avoiding the next, that it is a new reason for his embarking in it. He looks not at the work which he has accomplished; but on that which he has to do. His views are always prospective. His charities are scarcely limited by his power. His will knows no limits. His fortune may have bounds. His benevolence has none. He is, in mind and desire, the benefactor of every miserable man. heart is open to all the distressed; to the household of faith it overflows. Where the heart is large, however small the ability, a thousand ways of doing good will be invented. Christian charity is a great enlarger of means. Christian self-denial negatively accomplishes the purpose of the favorites of fortune in the Fables of the Nursery: if it cannot fill the purse by a wish, it will not empty it by a vanity. It provides for others by abridging from itself. Having carefully defined what is necessary and becoming, it allows of no encroachment on its definition. Superfluities it will lop, vanities it will cut off. The deviser of liberal things will find means of effecting them, which to the indolent appear incredible, to the covetous impossible. Christian beneficence takes a large sweep. That circumference cannot be small, of which God is the centre. Nor does religious charity in a Christian stand still because not kept in motion by the main spring of the world. Money may fail, but benevolence will be going on. If he cannot relieve want, he may mitigate sorrow. He may warn the inexperienced, he may instruct the ignorant, he may confirm the doubting. The Christian will find out the cheapest way of being good as well as of doing good. If he cannot give money, he may exercise a more difficult virtue; he may forgive injuries. Forgiveness is the economy of the heart. A Christian will find it cheaper to pardon than to resent. Forgiveness saves the expense of anger, the cost of hatred, the waste of spirits. It also puts the soul into a frame, which makes the practice of other virtues easy. The achievement of a hard duty is a great abolisher of difficulties. If great occasions do not arise, he will thankfully seize on small ones. If he cannot glorify God by serving others, he knows that he has always something to do at home; some evil temper to correct, some wrong propensity to reform, some crooked practice to straighten. He

or a misery in the world; he will never be idle, while there is a distress to be relieved in another, or a corruption to be cured in his own heart. We have employments assigned to us for every circumstance in life. When we are alone, we have our thoughts to watch; in the family, our tempers; in company, our tongues.

What an example of disinterested goodness and unbounded kindness, have we in our heavenly Father, who is merciful over all his works, who distributes common blessings without distinction, who bestows the necessary refreshments of life, the shining sun and the refreshing shower, without waiting, as we are apt to do, for personal merit, or attachment or gratitude; who does not look out for desert, but want as a qualification for his favors; who does not afflict willingly, who delights in the happiness, and desires the salvation of all his children, who dispenses his daily munificence and bears with our daily offences; who in return for our violation of his laws, supplies our necessities, who waits patiently for our repentance, and even solicits us to have mercy on our own souls!

What a model for our humble imitation, is that divine person who was clothed with our humanity; who dwelt among us, that the pattern being brought near, might be rendered more engaging, the conformity be made more practicable; whose whole life was one unbroken series of universal charity; who in his complicated bounties, never forgot that man is compounded both of soul and body; who after teaching the multitude, fed them; who repulsed none for being ignorant; was impatient with none for being dull; despised none for being contemned by the world; rejected none for being sinners; who encouraged those whose importunity others censured; who in healing sicknesses converted souls, who gave bread and forgave injuries!

It will be the endeavor of the sincere Christian to illustrate his devotions in the morning, by his actions during the day. He will try to make his conduct a practical exposition of the divine prayer which made a part of them. He will desire to hallow the name of God," to promote the enlargement and "the coming" of the "kingdom" of Christ. He will endeavor to do and to suffer his whole will; "to forgive" as he himself trusts that he is forgiven. He will resolve to avoid that "temptation " into which he had been praying 66 not to be led; "and he will labor to shun the "evil," from which he had been begging to be "delivered." He thus makes his prayers as practical as

the other parts of his religion, and labors to render his conduct as spiritual as his prayers. The commentary and the text are of reciprocal application.

If this gracious Saviour has left us a perfect model for our devotion in his prayer, he has left a model no less perfect for our practice in his sermon. This divine exposition has been sometimes misunderstood. It was not so much a supplement to a defective law, as the restoration of the purity of a perfect law from the corrupt interpretations of its blind expounders. These persons had ceased to consider it as forbidding the principle of sin, and as only forbidding the act. Christ restores it to its original meaning, spreads it out in its due extent, shows the largeness of its dimensions and the spirit of its institution. He unfolds all its motions, tendencies, and relations. Not contenting himself, as human legislators are obliged to do, to prohibit a man the act which is injurious to others, but the inward temper which is prejudicial to himself.

There cannot be a more striking instance, how emphatically every doctrine of the Gospel has a reference to practical goodness, than is exhibited by St. Paul, in that magnificent picture of the resurrection, in his Epistle to the Corinthians, which our church has happily selected, for the consolation of survivers at the last closing scene of mortality. After an inference as triumphant, as it is logical, that because "Christ is risen, we shall rise also;" after the most philosophical illustration of the raising of the body from the dust, by the process of grain sown in the earth, and springing up into a new mode of existence; after describing the subjugation of all things to the Redeemer, and his laying down the mediatorial kingdom; after sketching with a seraph's pencil, the relative glories of the celestial and terrestrial bodies; after exhausting the grandest images of created nature, and the dissolution of nature itself; after such a display of the solemnities of the great day, as makes this world, and all its concerns shrink into nothing: In such a moment, when, if ever, the rapt spirit might be supposed too highly wrought for precept and admonition the apostle, wound up as he was, by the energies of inspiration, to the immediate view of the glorified state the last trumpet sounding· the change from mortal to immortality effected in the twinkling of an eye — the sting of death drawn out—victory snatched from the grave -then, by a turn, as surprising as it is beautiful, he draws a conclusion as unexpectedly practical as his premises

A PRACTICAL PRINCIPLE.

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were grand and awful: Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord." Then at once, by another quick transition, resorting from the duty to the reward, and winding up the whole with an argument as powerful, as his rhetoric had been sublime, he adds- "forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

CHAP. III,

Mistakes in Religion.

To point out, with precision, all the mistakes which exist in the present day, on the awful subject of religion, would far exceed the limits of this small work. No mention, therefore, is intended to be made of the opinions, or the practice of any particular body of people; nor will any notice be taken of any of the peculiarities of the numerous sects and parties which have risen up among us. It will be sufficient for the present purpose, to hazard some slight remarks on a few of those common classes of characters which belong, more or less, to most general bodies.

There are, among many others, three different sorts of religious professors. The religion of one consists in a sturdy defence of what they themselves call orthodoxy, an attendance on public worship, and a general decency of behavior. In their views of religion, they are not a little apprehensive of excess, not perceiving that their danger lies on the other side. They are far from rejecting faith, or morals, but are somewhat afraid of believing too much, and a little scrupulous about doing too much, lest the former be suspected of fanaticism, and the latter of singularity. These Christians consider religion as a point, which they, by their regular observances, having attained, there is nothing further required but to maintain the point they have reached, by a repetition of the same observances. They are therefore satisfied to remain stationary, considering that whoever has obtained his end, is of course saved the labor of pursuit; he is to keep his ground, without troubling himself in searching after an imaginary

These frugal Christians are afraid of nothing so much as superfluity in their love, and supererogation in their obedience. This kind of fear, however, is always superfluous, but most especially in those who are troubled with the apprehension. They are apt to weigh in the nicely poised scales of scrupulous exactness, the duties which must of hard necessity be done, and those which without much risk may be left undone; compounding for a larger indulgence by the relinquishment of a smaller; giving up, through fear, a trivial gratification to which they are less inclined, and snatching doubtingly, as an equivalent, at one they like better. The gratification in both cases being perhaps such as a manly mind would hardly think worth contending for, even were religion out of the question. Nothing but love to God can conquer love of the world. One grain of that divine principle would make the scale of self-indulgence kick the beam.

These persons dread nothing so much as enthusiasm. Yet if to look for effects without their predisposing causes; to depend for heaven on that to which heaven was never promised, be features of enthusiasm, then are they themselves enthusiasts.

The religion of a second class, we have already described in the two preceding chapters. It consists in a heart devoted to its Maker; inwardly changed in its temper and disposition, yet deeply sensible of its remaining infirmities; continually aspiring, however, to higher improvements in faith, hope and charity, and thinking that “the greatest of these is charity." These, by the former class, are reckoned enthusiasts, but they are, in fact, if Christianity be true, acting on the only rational principles. If the doctrines of the Gospel have any solidity, if its promises have any meaning, these Christians are building on no false ground. They hope that submission to the power of God, obedience to his laws, compliance with his will, trust in his word, are, through the efficacy of the Eternal Spirit, real evidences, because they are vital acts of genuine faith in Jesus Christ. If they profess not to place their reliance on works, they are however more zealous in performing them than the others, who, professing to depend on their good deeds for salvation, are not always diligent in securing it by the very means which they themselves establish to be alone effectual.

There is a third class-the high-flown professor, who