poetry; of Thornton, in commerce; of Zuingle, Gustavus, and Gardner, in the field: and then answer, whether that strict and evangelical religion which you have seen controlling the weakest minds, is not fitted also to control the most brilliant, and mighty, and commanding? But go a step further, and we will stop together. I much mistake the matter if your repugnance to experimental Christianity has not been insensibly rivetted by an acquaintance with what is called polite literature-of the ancient classics, the effect, if there be any, in a moral view, is decidedly hostile to the spirit of the New Testament. The captivating imagery of Homer -the indecencies of Ovid-the licentiousness of Horace —and the illusive fictions of Virgil, have come down to us habited in so rich a livery, that we are in some sort heathenised almost before we are aware of it. I am not saying, that we ought to exile authors of such a cast into irrecoverable banishment from our reading; but this I say, that when they are read, it should be with a mind warned at all points against their fascinations, and keeping up a broad line of distinction between the virtue of Pagan philo. sophy, and the piety of Christian devotedness to God. But, after all, it is modern literature which operates the most seductively to create a distaste for spiritual religion. Who does not know, that among the publications issuing every day from the press, there is next to none which bespeaks a Christian parentage? Sometimes, it is true, they bring Christianity upon their pages for the purpose of display, and they throw around it the embellishment of all its grand, and all its majestic attributes; but there the curtain falls. To look for that great animating principle which reaches and penetrates the heart, and sends the repenting sinner to the solemn aspirations of the closet-to look for this in almost any of our works of taste, would be like searching the deserts of Arabia for a spot of verdure. I do not mean that all our literary productions, or even many of them, come forth to the world attired in the panoply of a positive opposition to the Gospels. But what then? Nei. ther do they lend the least aid, unless an occasional com. pliment be called aid, in its defence. In nearly every one of their delineations they are utterly defective; not only wrong in the coloring, but wrong in the groundwork. They make the good man every thing but a Christian, and happiness every thing but experimental piety, and human life every thing but the vestibule of eternal existence, requiring of us the business of an active and constant preparation. I have said that they carried with them no direct hostility to religion; but there are some, upon which even this praise of neutrality cannot be conferred; and sure I am, to mention no more cases, that if the moral taste of the community is not wofully corrupted, it will not be the fault of two of the most eminent poets of the age, who have inflicted, the one by the impiety of his conceptions, and the other by the licentiousness of his verse, the deepest wound in their power upon spiritual Christianity. Perhaps such men may hope, by throwing over a part of their "melodies" the plausibility of a Christian name, to atone for the depravity of the rest; but for myself, I say, and I say no more, that if God had given me such talents as they have, and if He had seen me like them, perverting the splendid endowment from one end of life to the other, I should tremble to hear the terrific summons thundering through the silence of my grave on the judgment day-" Arise, and give an account of thy stewardship." I will not, my hearers, impose a further tax upon your patience. You will see that I have made it the drift of my remarks, to obviate some of the most plausible objections commonly set up against that strict and spiritual Christi. anity, which I deem it my weekly duty to enforce. I have told you in the language of the prophet, "Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom;" and now I should like to ask, what is wisdom when applied to the attainments of the hu man mind? Go and look one moment upon the wonder. working God; wielding the vast enginery of His designs; analysing the effect of each alone, and of all together, and applying them at once to the ten thousand wants, dependen. cies, and connexions of the universe. Go and see Him pouring the comprehensions of His Omniscient Eye through the limitless ages of eternity, and setting in motion, at the same instant, all the complicated instrumentalities necessary to fill and animate His mighty dominions with the evidences of His glory! Do this, and you will sink down mortified and abashed from your own ideal elevation, and exclaim," Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him?" Now, it is just this spirit of heartfelt humility which will fit us for receiv ing in its true character the transforming influence of the Gospel. The plain matter of fact is, that all of us are sinners; and though one may excel another in the extent of literary research, or the lustre of visible accomplishments,— though the repulsive name of enthusiasm may be given to truth, or the stigma of weakness be fixed upon piety-all this time, the irrevocable declarations of the Bible are moving forward to their unassuaged and unimpeded catastrophe. About your mere belief, or your external conformities, I have no question to ask. You may credit Christianity, and tender it the homage of your respect, and uphold it as a salutary institution of society. But this is not coming to the point. To be an advocate is one thing, and to be a dis This will never carry you ciple is entirely another thing. to Heaven. I wish to know how the great business of the heart is getting along, and whether the Saviour has done any thing for you in the work of your personal preparations for the bar of God? My Bible teaches me that he who is not for Christ is against him; and when I hear such men as St. Paul and his associates talking about the difficulty of salvation-when I look on the fervor of the primitive disciples-when I see the earnest and prayerful anxieties which swell a Christian's bosom, in every age-I cannot help thinking, that something of the same spirit must be ours, if we are ever hailed by the ascended Redeemer among the future worshippers of his glory. Why, then, my brethren, stand we here all the day idle? If there be any thing to be done, do it quickly. The sand that measures our flight to the eternal world is rapidly wasting, and the shadows of the grave are deepening over our path as we pass along. Come and enter your names in the career of immortality. Come and put on the armor of experimental religion, and enlist under the banners of Jesus Christ. Come to him. Leave every pride of intellect, and every impulse of self-confidence behind you, and find in his blood and beneath his Cross, that all-renovating principle which can make you wise unto salvation. Amen. SERMON XIV. "For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” James, ii., 10. ALL of us who read the Bible, are aware that it divides mankind into two great classes, the righteous and the wicked. Between these it allows no amalgamation. Every individual who loveth God, be his standing or be his attainments never so mean, falls on the one side; and every individual, graced with no matter how many accomplishments, who loveth not God, falls on the other side of the line of separation. This, I know, is a principle which the men of this world are apt to disrelish. They are informed, that in the sight of God there are but two kinds of character. How strange, how mysterious, when, in their own sight, every day, they find one hundred kinds of character, from the very worst to the very best,-from the lowest debasement up to the most high and honorable elevation. The assassin, say they, is regarded with horror,-and the debauchee is treated with coldness, and the victim of imprudence is looked upon with pity; and then, again, the man of integrity and good feeling commands respect. Surely these different persons are not all on a level. But when we come to open the Bible, we discover but one grand distinction applied to the whole of this vast variety of character, and that is, the single distinction between the righteous and the wicked. Now, my hearers, as we have a text to-day which brings us upon the subject, it is proper, in the outset, to inquire how far the Bible teaches, and how far it does not, the doc. |