this subject, which we will do ourselves the pleasure to present in his own words:

"If God be unheeded and disowned by the creatures whom he has formed, can it be said to alleviate the deformity of their rebellion, that they, at times, experience the impulse of some amiable feeling which he hath implanted, or at times hold out some beauteousness of aspect which he hath shed over them? Shall the value or the multitude of the gifts release them from their loyalty to the Giver; and when nature puts herself into the attitude of indifference or hostility against him, how is it that the graces and the accomplishments of nature can be pled in mitigation of her antipathy to Him, who invested nature with all her graces, and upholds her in the display of all her accomplishments? The way, then, to assert the depravity of man, is to fasten on the radical element of depravity, and to show how deeply it lies incorporated with his moral constitution. It is not by an utterance of rash and sweeping totality to refuse him the possession of what is kind in sympathy, or of what is dignified in principle-for this were in the face of all observation. It is to charge him direct with his utter disloyalty to God. It is to convict him of treason against the majesty of heaven. It is to press home upon him the impiety of not caring about God. It is to tell him, that the hourly and habitual language of his heart is, I will not have the Being who made me to rule over me. It is to go to the man of honour, and, while we frankly award it to him that his pulse beats high in the pride of integrity - it is to tell him, that he who keeps it in living play, and who sustains the loftiness of its movements, and who, in one moment of time, could arrest it for ever, is not in all his thoughts. It is to go to the man of soft and gentle emotions, and, while we gaze in tenderness upon him, it is to read to him, out of his own character, how the exquisite mechanism of feeling may be in full operation, while He who framed it is forgotten; while He who poured into his constitution the milk of human kindness, may never be adverted to with one single sentiment of veneration, or one single purpose of obedience; while He who gave him his gentler nature, who clothed him in all its adornments, and in virtue of whose appointment it is, that, instead of an odious and a revolting monster, he is the much loved child of sensibility, may be utterly disowned by him. In a word, it is to go round among all that humanity has to offer in the shape of fair, and amiable, and engaging, and to prove how deeply humanity has revolted against that Being who has done so much to beautify and exalt her. It is to prove that the carnal mind, under all its varied complexions of harshness or of delicacy, is enmity against God. It is to prove that, let nature be as rich as she may in moral accomplishments, and let the most favoured of her sons realize upon his should own person, the finest and the fullest assemblage of them he, at the moment of leaving this theatre of display, and bursting

loose from the framework of mortality, stand in the presence of his Judge, and have the question put to him, What hast thou done unto me? this man of constitutional virtue, with all the salutations he got upon earth, and all the reverence that he has left behind him, may, naked and defenceless, before Him who sitteth on the throne, be left without a plea and without an argument." [pp. 20-22.]

In speaking of the degree of integrity, and the honourable regard to every social obligation, cherished amongst men who are still destitute of the motives and feelings of Christianity, there occurs in this sermon (at page 29) a passage so striking, that we regret to be forbidden by our limits from extracting it.

In the second discourse, which is founded on Rom. xiv. 18, "For he that, in these things, serveth Christ, is acceptable to God and approved of men," and relates to the influence of Christianity in aiding and augmenting the mercantile virtues, the argument already stated is assumed as leading on to a further and still more impressive disclosure of the difference between the morality of the world and the peculiar holiness required by the Gospel. The beautiful passage we are about to quote, and which occurs at the commencement of the sermon, will sufficiently explain both the nature and the value of the sentiment which it forms the author's design to illustrate.

"If the virtues and accomplishments of nature are at all to be admitted into the controversy between God and man, instead of forming any abatement upon the enormity of our guilt, they stamp upon it the reproach of a still deeper and more determined ingratitude. Let us conceive it possible, for a moment, that the beautiful personifications of Scripture were all realized; that the trees of the forest clapped their hands unto God, and that the isles were glad at his presence; that the little hills shouted on every side, and the valleys covered over with corn sent forth their notes of rejoicing; that the sun and the moon praised him, and the stars of light joined in the solemn adoration; that the voice of glory to God was heard from every mountain and from every waterfall, and that all nature, animated throughout by the consciousness of a pervading and a presiding Deity, burst into one loud and universal song of gratulation. Would not a strain of greater loftiness be heard to ascend from those regions where the allworking God had left the traces of his own immensity, than from the tamer and the humbler scenery of an ordinary landscape? Would not you look for a gladder acclamation from the fertile field, than from the arid waste, where no character of grandeur made up for the barrenness that was around you? Would not the

goodly tree, compassed about with the glories of its summer foliage, lift up an anthem of louder gratitude than the lowly shrub that grew beneath it? Would not the flower, from whose leaves every hue of loveliness was reflected, send forth a sweeter rapture than the russet weed, which never drew the eye of any admiring passenger? And, in a word, wherever you saw the towering eminences of nature, or the garniture of her more rich and beauteous adornments, would it not be there that you looked for the deepest tones of devotion, or there for the tenderest and most exquisite of its melodies?" [pp. 38-40.]

"Conceive that a quickening and a realizing sense of the Deity pervaded all the men of our species—and that each knew how to refer his own endowments, with an adequate expression of gratitude to the unseen Author of them-from whom, we ask, of all these various individuals, would you look for the hallelujahs of devoutest ecstasy? Would it not be from him whom God had arrayed in the splendour of nature's brightest accomplishments? Would it not be from him, with whose constitutional feelings the movements of honour and benevolence were in fullest harmony? Would it not be from him whom his Maker had cast into the happiest mould, and attempered into sweetest unison with all that was kind, and generous, and lovely, and ennobled by the loftiest emotions, and raised above his fellows into the finest spectacle of all that was graceful, and all that was manly? Surely, if the possession of these moralities be another just theme of acknowledgment to the Lord of the spirits of all flesh, then, if the acknowledgment be withheld, and these moralities have taken up their residence in the bosom of him who is utterly devoid of piety, they go to aggravate the reproach of his ingratitude; and to prove, that, of all the men upon earth who are far from God, he stands at the widest distance, he remains proof against the waightiest claims, and he, of the dead in trespasses and sins, is the most profoundly asleep to the call of religion, and to the supremacy of its righteous obligations. It is by argument such as this, that we would attempt to convince of sin those who have a righteousness that is without godliness; and to prove, that, with the possession of such things as are pure, and lovely, and honest, and of good report, they in fact can only be admitted to reconciliation with God, on the same footing with the most worthless and profligate of the species; and to demonstrate, that they are in the very same state of need and of nakedness, and are therefore children of wrath, even as others; that it is only through faith in the preaching of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that they can be saved; and that unless, brought down from the delusive eminency of their own conscious attainments, they take their forgiveness through the blood of the Redeemer, and their sanctification through the Spirit which is at his giving, they shall obtain no part in that inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, and which fadeth not away." [pp. 41-43.]

Our attention is next pointed to a distinction which obtains between two sets of the requirements of Christ as our Master. By the former, we are enjoined to practise certain virtues, which, separately from his injunction altogether, are in great demand and in great reverence amongst the members of society, such as compassion, and generosity, and justice, and truth; while there is another set of requirements, where the will of God, instead of being seconded by the applause of man, is utterly at variance with it,-those, for example, which demand the cultivation of chastity, temperance, and the direct exercises of religion-and especially the separated walk, the humble devotedness, and the consecrated will, of the new creature in Jesus Christ. Thus a real and experimental distinction exists between two sets of virtues; between those which possess the single ingredient of being approved of God, while they want the ingredient of being also acceptable to men; and those which possess both these ingredients, and to the observance of which, therefore, we may be carried by a regard to the will of God, without any reference to the opinion of men, or by the opinion of men, without any reference to the will of God. It is then shown, first, that a man may possess, to a considerable extent, the second class of virtues, and not possess so much as one iota of the religious principle: next, that in the act of turning to God, the former class of virtues appear to gather more conspicuously upon the front of the renewed character, and wear a more unequivocal aspect of religiousness, than the latter; so that frequently, when a man comes under the power of religion, the most characteristic transformation which takes place in him, is from thoughtlessness, and licentious gaiety, and festive indulgence, of which the apostle says, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God: thirdly, that this distinction serves to explain the antipathy that is felt by a certain class of religionists against the preaching of good works, (an antipathy well and warrantably grounded, when it is such a preaching as goes to reduce the importance, or to infringe the simplicity of the great doctrine of justification by faith,) and yet how the same persons will listen with toleration to a discourse upon one set of good works, such as the observance of the sabbath, or of family worship, or of prayer, or of the sacrament, or of sober-mindedness, or any of those performances which bear a direct and exclusive reference to God, while they manifest an evident coldness and dislike when they listen on another set of them, such as the avoid

ance of theft or of evil speaking, or the virtues of the shop or the market place, or some merely social and humane accomplishment: and lastly, that the first class of virtues bear the character of religiousness more strongly, because they bear that character more singly; for though every real Christian possesses the virtues of the second class also, yet they do not belong to him peculiarly and exclusively; and, therefore, because the social accomplishments do not form the specific, neither do they form the most prominent and distinguishing mark of Christianity. After some further remarks of a practical tendency, the sermon, speaking of those who signalize themselves by a Christian profession, concludes in the following manner:—

"We know, that even of such there are a few, who, if Paul were alive, would move him to weep for the reproach they bring upon his Master. But we also know, that the blind and impetuous world exaggerates the few into the many; inverts the process of atonement altogether, by laying the sins of one man upon the multitude; looks at their general aspect of sanctity, and is so engrossed with this single expression of character, as to be insensible to the noble uprightness, and the tender humanity, with which this sanctity is associated. And therefore it is, that we offer the assertion, and challenge all to its most thorough and searching investigation, that the Christianity of these people, which many think does nothing but cant, and profess, and run after ordinances, has augmented their honesties and their liberalities, and that tenfold beyond the average character of society; that these are the men we oftenest meet with in the mansions of poverty and who look with the most wakeful eye over all the sufferings and necessities of our species-and who open their hand most widely in behalf of the imploring and the friendless and to whom, in spite of all their mockery, the men of the world are sure, in the negotiations of business, to award the readiest confidence and who sustain the most splendid part in all those great movements of philanthropy which bear on the general interests of mankindand who, with their eye full upon eternity, scatter the most abundant blessings over the fleeting pilgrimage of time-and who, while they hold their conversation in heaven, do most enrich the earth we tread upon, with all those virtues which secure enjoyment to families, and uphold the order and prosperity of the commonwealth." [pp. 65, 66.]

The third sermon is devoted to the ample illustration and enforcement of this principle,-that much of the apparent benevolence of nature is resolvable into the real selfishness of nature; and further, that the very integrity of the world is, in the greater portion, capable of being traced to no more