ential words, or a reverential demeanour, may be but a specious irreverence and hypocrisy, this sacred reserve seems a better designation. Every step in this irreverence, every indication of it, is so far a state of progress towards the sin against the HOLY SPIRIT. And as this latter is unpardonable, so we may perceive that a state of irreverence, where it has thoroughly affected the character, is irremediable. For if men have lost all reverence for GOD, how can they pray to Him? and if they cannot, nor have any sense of reverence for His power, who can help them? Under any other circumstances men may be guilty of the worst sins, and when greater light is manifested to them, even at the last hour, they may repent and be forgiven: but when that light has been habitually rejected, the case becomes very different, the SPIRIT is quenched, the light within is darkened. When the power of acknowledging God's presence, which is the eye of the soul, is lost, what else can restore it? None can approach Him without His help, and His help cannot be attained without a reverential acknowledgment of His presence. It would appear, therefore, that under the dispensation of grace in which we live, in the light of these full revelations of GOD, as the highest privileges are to be derived from a due acknowledgment of GOD, so there is the greatest conceivable danger from an absence of that fear and reverence. A danger incalculably increased, and infinitely beyond that of former generations, if our knowledge be so much greater. And this irreverence is more especially to be guarded against in all our approaches to God, and our imperfect modes of serving Him. We must remember that one of the Ten commandments refers to it, which is expressed in more awful terms than any other, viz., that we take not that awful Name in vain, the meaning of which is not to be limited to open profaneness, but must be as extensive in its intentions as all the other commandments. It is to be observed, again, that the first petition in the LORD's prayer seems to be for this reverence of mind, as the first thing to be obtained in all acts of devotion, a prayer that God's Name may be hallowed: the efficacy of our prayers depending on the reverential regard we have for that dreadful Name: And the last clause in the same prayer is an act or expression of reverence. And one of our SAVIOUR's first rules with regard to prayer, is, that we do not use "vain repetitions," i. e. use idle words, without a sense of Whom we are speaking to. Indeed, the first words of that prayer,- "Our FATHER which art in Heaven,"-may teach us the same, for that GOD is in Heaven and we on earth, is given as a reason why our words should be few. And in religious worship our SAVIOUR's charges are chiefly directed against, what is called in Scripture, "hypocrisy." Of course, we cannot confine this most subtle and pervading habit to those circumstances in which it was developed in the religion of that day; but of all other vices it is that which most changes its complexion with the aspects of the age, being in itself equally applicable to human nature in all times; and surely there is none which more thoroughly destroys in the heart all love of truth. Such formalism may of course be found in a strict observance of the external duties of religious worship; in a shape no less dangerous and subtle will it be developed in adopting modes of expression; and what is perhaps of all the worst, in taking hold of the most touching and sacred doctrines of Religion, entering as it were into the Holiest of Holies. In all things it consists in a want of reverence and fear, in having the form of godliness while the power of it is lost, the peculiar danger we are warned of in the last days. 10. Want of reverence now prevailing. Let it be again considered, what this principle suggests respecting this knowledge which is now abroad, and how greatly our position is altered on account of that knowledge. For if the ALMIGHTY (according to His providential dealings with mankind) does withhold religious truth in a remarkable manner, the reason is because such truth is dangerous to us. It is dangerous to us to know it. Therefore, because we have these truths revealed to us, we are in a peculiar danger,-danger of neglecting them. There is no reserve in holding back that which is fully known; but there is reverence necessary because it is known. And therefore, the very fact of the Atonement, and other great doctrines being known, is an occasion for reverence respecting them of the very highest degree. It will be seen by a little consideration, how the circumstance of a Divine Revelation, greater spiritual light, i. e. a knowledge of God's presence, immediately alters the character of all actions, in the same manner as an action in Church, or near the Altar, is perfectly different from a similar action out of Church. So much is this the case as to render things, which on common ground would be indifferent, to be profane and sacrilegious in holy places. And this seems to explain how it is that Capernaum was worse than Sodom, Pharisees worse than heathens. In that walking in the nearer light of God's presence, if we may so speak, from the knowledge vouchsafed them, the complexion of their actions was thus altered. And, indeed, were we to look to the accounts of other writers, and human narrators, we should, perhaps, neither suppose those Jews, nor those places to be so far worse than others, as our LORD has pronounced them to be. It is in like manner that a habit of irreverence in a Church is more injurious to the character than thoughtlessness without. We have said, therefore, that God's present dealings with mankind are a subject for awful apprehension; surely, all manifestations which God is pleased to make of Himself ought to be so to sinful creatures, as they ever were to good men in Scripture. And far more so when it is considered with what little awe and apprehension these manifestations of God are being now received how little reverential fear accompanies this knowledge; the disunion that prevails, and spirit of disobedience. When we add to this, that it was Israel that rejected CHRIST, that it was Jerusalem that put him to death; that it was the place of His continual abode, which He declared worse than the cities of destruction; the dwelling place of His parents that thrust Him out. That it was more than once declared, as if proverbially and prophetically, and with a mysterious significancy, that CHRIST was to bear witness, that in his own country a prophet is not received. When we consider these things, then, I say, that the knowledge of GOD is an occasion for fear; and the more so because not now considered so. "Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased," but yet, notwithstanding, "the unholy shall be unholy still, and the unclean unclean ;""the wicked shall do wickedly, and none of them shall understand." The awful extent to which this want of reverence in religion has gone, is, it is to be feared, very little considered or calculated upon. The degree to which all sense of the holiness of Churches is lost, is too evident; the efficacy of the Sacraments, the presence of God in them, and in His appointed ministerial Ordinances is, it will be allowed, by no means duly acknowledged, and, indeed, less and less. Men's eyes being not opened, they do not see with the patriarch, "how dreadful is this place," "the LORD was in this place, and I knew it not." There is also another point in which all due fear of God's awful presence is lost, very far beyond what many are aware of, and that is in regard for the Holy Scripture. Some indeed, who profess to uphold and value them, in order to do so, depreciate the Apocryphal books, and all others of less plenary inspiration; as if by so doing they were exalting the Scriptures. But in fact, they do but lower their own standard of what is holy; and then lower the Scriptures also to meet it. The effect also of setting aside the Catholic Church as the interpreter of Holy Scripture, as if it needed none, is of the same kind; it incalculably lowers the reverence for Scripture, by making it subject to the individual judgment. From these things it follows, that although the Holy Scriptures are pronounced Divine (for no evil is done, but under a good name) they are treated as if they were not; as if human thought could grasp their systems, could limit their meanings, and say to that boundless ocean in which the Almighty walks, "Hitherto shalt Thou come, and no further." If Holy Scripture contains within it the living Word, has a letter that killeth, and a Spirit that giveth life, with far different a temper ought we to regard it: by prayer, as the Fathers say, we should knock at the door, waiting till He that is within open to us; it should be approached as that which has a sort of Sacramental efficacy about it, and therefore a savour of life, and also unto death; in short, as our SAVIOUR was of old, by them who would acknowledge Him as GOD, and receive His highest gifts. As the Centurion who sent the elders of the the Holy Scriptures Jews unto Him, not venturing himself to approach; thus, humble faith from the dark corner of these latter days would rather seek to interpret through the Antient Church than herself to presume. Far otherwise are the Sacred Scriptures now treated in evidences, in sermons, in controversial writings, in religious discourse. Divine words are brought down to the rule, and measure, and level of each man's earthly comprehension. And hence arise our Theological disputings, founded on words of Scripture, first brought down to some low, limited sense, and then thought to clash with and exclude each other. The Antients, on the contrary, considered like the heavens which were marked out by the lituus of the heathen soothsayer, wherein every thing that was found was considered full of Divine import and speaking from GOD to man. They took Scriptural words as Divine words, replete with pregnant and extensive meaning. Thus when believing in CHRIST, or confessing CHRIST, is spoken of as Salvation, St. Augustine remarks that such words are not to be taken after a low and human interpretation, but imply believing and confessing after a real and substantial manner according to the import of Divine words: and that to believe and confess this, according to truth and the vastness of Scripture, is indeed entering into the greatness of the Christian inheritance, which is signified by believing in CHRIST as GOD, with that corresponding awe and obedience which such a belief requires. With like reverential regard St. Chrysostom, when commencing his commentary on St. Matthew, likens it to approaching the gates of the heavenly city, and adds, "Let us not then with noise, or tumult enter in, but with a mystical silence. In this city must all be quiet and stand with soul and ear erect. For the letters not of an earthly king, but of the LORD of angels are on the point of being read." How many thousands of modern books had been unwritten; how much jealous controversy spared, had this sense of Holy Scripture been among us! : It is, of course, from the want of a saving knowledge of GOD that there exists such a want of religious fear for fear cannot but increase with an increasing knowledge of His presence, and, therefore, with all holiness of life. The subtle and predominant |