If there be any consolation in Christ, if any comfort in love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if

any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, and of one mind.'1

Let us consider how the hard-hearted, uncon

owing to the corruption and blindness of human nature in the worst, as well as the remains of that corruption and blindness in the best. The evidence of this truth, whence arises so full an agreement among believers, and such complete satisfaction in their own minds, is far greater than what can arise from any argumentation, in which mankind are apt to deceive both themselves and others. It is the evidence of internal experience. I feel myself lost and miserable. I experience such a healthful change in my whole moral system: so that, upon the whole, Christianity is the true cure of scepticism; and to the seriously disposed, who submit to the teaching of the Spirit, it gives the highest internal evidence of its own truth. A man finds him. self naturally averse to all good, ignorant of God, and without either love or gratitude towards him, selfish and hard-hearted with respect to his fellow-creatures. By putting his trust in Christ, he has attained peace of conscience, love, and new views of the glory of God. He has experienced a real change in his affections and tempers. Surely he must be allowed to be a competent judge of what he has felt; he may preach too, by his life, the truth and the power of the gospel to others; and as he will find his evidences increase more and more, he may be more and more happy, from the consciousness of God within him now, (Col. i. 27; 2 Cor. xiii. 5,) and the prospect of bliss hereafter.

"If it be asked, where are such persons to be found? it is confessed their number is but rare. We may thank for this, the contempt of the operations of the Holy Ghost, which prevails in our days. A serious desire of knowing the real truth, and a spirit of submission to this divine teaching, are things which the truth requires of all who seek it if you refuse this, you unreasonably refuse to Christianity her own mode and order of things; you strip her of her arms, and then complain of her feebleness and impotency. But if you submit to be the scholar of Jesus indeed, you will find, by experience, whether he will not give you to know the truth, and whether the truth will not make you free."-Milner.

Phil. ii. 1, 2.

verted, depraved, and worthless part of mankind exult, while Christians, agreeing in essentials, quarrel and revile each other, not on the substance of religion, but on the mere shades of difference in opinion in matters of indifference. Let not the Philistians triumph. Let the olive-bearing army of peace-makers be combined under the banners of benevolence. Theirs is an unbloody crusade; theirs is the contest of love. The victories in their warfare are over sin, misery, and death; and their crown, immortality. Let them march on to the soft harmony of Hosannahs and Hallelujahs, uninterrupted by the discordant din of angry contention. Are you a sincere believer? a lover of God and man? I salute you from my heart as my brother in Christ, whether, in consequence of your birth and education, you formed the creed you utter, at Rome, at Geneva, or in your closet at home. The Holy Ghost is the centre of our union; and all who are joined to him, must be associated in love.

Under the illustrious champions of Christianity, who flourished, in England, during the last century, great were the triumphs of grace over human obduracy. The word of God was mighty, and cast down imaginations." The sword of the Spirit, a figurative sword, the only one approved by Christianity, wielded by men who, like these, fought the good fight of faith, has been irresistible. But many, since their time, have let it rust in its scabbard, and used, as a substitute for it, the wooden baton of heathen ethics and modern philosophy, in a kind of mock fight, beating the air, to the

12 Cor. ix. v. διαλογισμους, which we render imaginations, certainly signifies reasonings.

amusement of the indifferent or unbelieving spectator. The men of the world, who laugh at religion, and the pretended philosophers who reason against it, observing that the sword of the Spirit was no longer used, came forth with the renewed and increased audacity of those who love to display their prowess, when there is but a feeble opposition. They sang the song of victory, and ventured to suggest that Christianity, conscious of the badness of her cause, had surrendered in fact, though she still kept up the appearance of defence, for the sake of decency, lucre, and political deception. Infidelity plumed herself on her fancied conquest, and has long been endeavouring to sway her sceptre over the most polished countries of Christendom. In France, at last, she flatters herself she has gained a complete victory, and silenced her opponent for

ever.

Let us mark and deplore the consequence to mortals and society. Extreme selfishness, pride, vanity, envy, malice, hardness of heart, fraud, cunning, and the false varnish of external decorum, hiding internal deformity, have remarkably prevailed in recent times, in the most polished regions, rendering man, as an individual, wretched and contemptible, and society comfortless and inThe human race has degenerated, in proportion as faith has diminished. The true spirit of Christianity, which can alone dignify human nature, and soften and liberalize the obdurate, contracted, selfish bosom of the mere natural, animal'

secure.

6

I hope the present time is not that of which the apostle speaks: The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.'-2 Tim. iv. 13.

Men who preach against divine grace, may be said to be those

man, has not been sufficiently diffused, since it has been fashionable to extol natural religion, by depreciating grace; and the result has been, a deplorable profligacy both in principle and practice.

How devoutly then is it to be wished, that this true spirit may revive; that the divine influence of the genuine gospel' may again prevail, and melt the heart of steel, and bow the stubborn knees of the men of the world, and the wise men whom the world admires? Behold them pursuing their own petty, selfish, sordid purposes, regardless of all others, but as they serve their own interest or pleasure; neither loving God nor man, and depraved to a nature almost diabolical, by habits of fashionable voluptuousness, selfishness, and cruelty, authorized by the most illustrious examples in high life. Behold this diabolical character transforming itself to an angel of light, by studied embellishments and polished manners, in which truth, honour, and benevolence are assumed as a cloak to cover the basest treachery, and the vilest arts of dissimulation. Behold this character recommended, with all the charms of language, by one of the first noblemen, wits, and writers of the times, as the mark of the most solid wisdom; behold it, in consequence of recommendation so powerful, spreading among the youth of the nation, and diffusing a polished, splendid misery, like the shining appear

whom Christ addresses in these words: Ye shut up the king. dom of heaven against men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.'—Matt. xxiii. 13.

But while God's eternal truth is its foundation, and God's Holy Spirit its guard, neither violence nor treachery can subvert the kingdom of heaven.

1 ψυχικός.

ance which is seen on masses of corruption and putrescence. Ye are the salt of the earth,' says our Saviour; evidently meaning the salt that is to preserve the world from a corrupt state, by becoming the means of grace to those who hear you preach and teach the true doctrine. How is he then the friend of man, or of his country, who obstructs the prevalence of such doctrine? Yet men, apparently good and learned, have united with the unprincipled, in placing every obstacle in the way of its diffusion among the people.

6

The grace of God is favourable to the tranquillity and security of the state; to the community, as well as to individuals, by teaching virtue of the most beneficial kind under the strongest sanction. 'The grace of God,' says the apostle, teaches us to deny all ungodliness and worldly lusts, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in the world.' Yet against the prevalence of this grace of God, many pens and tongues have been employed during the last fourscore years; the pens and tongues, not of profligate infidels only, but of divines, teaching, for Christianity, a moral system of philosophy, well known' long before the nativity of Christ; and

Yet the heathens themselves, mere moralists as they are often considered, had an idea of the divine energy. Remarkable are the words of Maximus Tyrius.

"Do you wonder that God was present with Socrates, friendly, and prophetic of futurity,—an inmate of his mind ?—A man, he was, pure in his body, good in his soul, exact in the conduct of his life, masterly in thinking, eloquent in speaking, pious towards God, and holy towards men."

The doctrine of divine assistance, or of the immediate operation of the heavenly Spirit on the mind of man, is so far from unreasonable, that it was maintained by some of the greatest masters of reason, before the appearance of Christianity.

The heathens did not affirm that the knowledge they possessed of theology was derived to them from reason; for Plato ex