At another time, perhaps, though we ac ed the essence of his being, in wanting that | cumstances than every Christian has warrant apparently insignificant part of his body. Such to expect to be, so far as his circumstances men would say, "here is a striking and perfect are similar. form-all parts are harmonious-life animates the frame-the machine plays admirably-knowledge and revere his distinguished chawhat has this little insignificant member to do with it?" And yet this is the essential and characterizing part of the man. EVERY man has a peculiar turn of mind, which gives a coloring and tinge to his thoughts. I have particularly detected this in myself, with respect to public affairs. I have such an immediate view of God acting in them, that all the great men, who make such a noise and bustle on the scene, seem to me like so many mere puppets. God is moving them all, to effect his own designs. They cannot ad- | vance a step, whither he does not lead: nor stand a moment, where he does not place them. Now this is a view of things which it is my privilege to take as a Christian. But the evil lies here. I dwell so much on the view of the matter, to which the turn of my mind leads me, that I forget sometimes the natural tendencies of things. God uses all things, but not so as to destroy their natural tendencies. They are good or evil, according to their own nature; not according to the use which he makes of them. THE mind has a constant tendency to conform itself to the sentiments and cast of thinking with which it is chiefly conversant, either among books or men. If the influence remain undetected, it grows soon into an inveterate habit of obliquity. Even if it be detected, it is the most difficult thing in the world to bring back the mind to the standard, especially if there be any thing in its constitution which assimilates itself to the error. I was once much in the habit of reading the mystical writers: a book of Dr. Owen's clearly convinced me that they erred: yet I found my mind ever inclining towards them, and winding round like the biased bowl. I saw clearly the absurdity of the notions in their view of them, and yet I was ever talking of "selfannihilation," &c., and am not even now rid of the thing. On the Character of St. Paul. I DELIGHT to contemplate St. Paul as an appointed pattern. Men might have questioned the propriety of urging on them the example of Christ-they might have said that we are necessarily in dissimilar circumstances. But St. Paul stands up in like case with ourselves -a model of ministerial virtues. We consider him, perhaps, in point of character, more the immediate subject of extraordinary inspiration than he was in reality. And this mistake affects our view of him in two different ways. We suppose, at one time, that his virtues were so much the effect of extraordinary communications, that he is no proper model for us; whereas he was no farther fitted to his cir racter, yet our view of his virtues is exalted beyond due measure. We should remember, that, as he was fitted for his circumstances, so he was, in a great degree, made by them. Many men are, doubtless, executing their appointed task in retirement and silence, who would unfold a character beyond all expectation, if Providence were to lead them into a scene where the world rose up in arms, and they were sent forth into it under a clear conviction of an especial mission. The history of the church seems to show us that the effects of grace, ordinary or extraordinary, have been the same in all ages. IN speaking of St. Paul, it has been usual to magnify his learning, among the many other great qualities which he possessed. That point seems never to have been satisfactorily made out. He was an educated Pharisee; but, farther than this, I think we cannot go. His quotations from the Greek poets are not evidences of even a schoolboy's learning in our day for we forget, when we talk of them, that he was a Roman quoting Greek. Nor do I see any thing more in his famous speech in the Areopagus, so often produced as evidence on this subject, than the line of argument to which a strong and energetic mind would lead him, If we talk of his talents, indeed, he rises almost beyond admiration: but they were talents of a certain order; and the very display which we have of them seems a strong corroborative proof, that he is not to be considered as a profoundly learned man of his day. For instance, had he studied Aristotle, it would have been almost impossible but he must have caught some influence, which we should have seen in his writings. But there is nothing like the dry, logical, metaphysical character of that school, which yet had then given the law to the seats of science and philosophy. Instead of this, we see everywhere the copious, diffusive, declaiming, discursive, but sublime, and wise, and effective mind. THERE is a true apostolicism in the character of St. Paul. It is a combination of ZEAL and LOVE. The zeal of some men is of a haughty, unbending, ferocious character. They have the letter of truth, but they mount the pulpit like prize-fighters. It is with them a perpetual scold. This spirit is a reproach to the Gospel. It is not the spirit of Jesus Christ. He seems to have labored to win men. But there is an opposite extreme. The love of some men is all milk and mildness! There is so much delicacy, and so much fastidiousness! They touch with such tenderness!and if the patient shrinks, they will touch no more! The times are too flagrant for such a disposition. The Gospel is sometimes preached in this way, till all the people agree with the preacher. does no good! He gives no offence, and he But St. Paul united and blended love and zeal. He MUST win souls: but he will labor to do this by all possible lawful contrivances. I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some. Zeal, alone, may degenerate into ferociousness and brutality; and love, alone, into fastidiousness and delicacy: but the apostle combined both qualities; and, more perfectly than other men, realized the union of the fortiter in re with the suaviter in modo. Miscellanies. THE Scheme and machinery of redemption may be illustrated by the water-works at Marly. We consider a part of that complicated machinery, and we cannot calculate on the effects; but we see that they are produced. We cannot explain to a philosopher the system of redemption, and the mode of conducting and communicating its benefits to the human soul; but we know that it yields the water of lifecivilization, to a barbarian-direction, to a wanderer-support, to those that are ready to perish. IT is manifest that God designed to promote intercourse and commerce among men, by THE Moravians seem to have very nearly hit giving to each climate its appropriate producon Christianity. They appear to have found tions. It is, in itself, not only innocent, but out what sort of a thing it is—its quietness- laudable. All trade, however, which is foundmeekness-patience-spirituality-heavenli- ed in embellishment, is founded in depravity. ness-and order. But they want fire. A very superior woman among them once said to me -that there wanted another body, the character of which should be combined from the Moravians and the Methodists. The Moravians have failed, in making too little of preaching; as the Methodists have done, in making too much of it. THE grandest operations, both in nature and in grace, are the most silent and imperceptible. The shallow brook babbles in its passage, and is heard by every one: but the coming on of the seasons is silent and unseen. The storm rages and alarms; but its fury is soon exhausted, and its effects are partial and soon remedied: but the dew, though gentle and unheard, is immense in quantity, and the very life of large portions of the earth. And these are pictures of the operations of grace, in the church and in the soul. ATHEISM is a characteristic of our day. On the sentiments, manners, pursuits, amusements, and dealings of the great body of mankind, there is written in broad characterswithout God in the world! I HAVE often had occasion to observe, that a warm blundering man does more for the world than a frigid wise man. A man, who gets into a habit of inquiring about proprieties and expediencies and occasions, often spends his life without doing any thing to purpose. The state of the world is such, and so much depends on action, that every thing seems to say loudly to every man, "Do something"-" do it"-" do it." PROVIDENCE is a greater mystery than religion. The state of the world is more humiliating to our reason, than the doctrines of the Gospel. A reflecting Christian sees more to excite his astonishment and to exercise his faith, in the state of things between Temple Bar and St. Paul's, than in what he reads from Genesis to Revelation. See the description of the working of God's Providence, in the account of the cherubims in the 1st and 10th chapters of Ezekiel. So also is that spirit of trade, which pushes men on dangerous competitions. Many tradesmen, professedly religious, seem to look on their trade as a vast engine, which will be worked to no good effect, if it be not worked with the whole vigor of the soul. This is an intoxicating and ruinous mistake. So far as they live under the power of religion, they will pursue their trade for sustenance and provision; but not even that, with unseasonable attention and with eagerness: much less will religion suffer them to bury themselves in it, when its objects are something beyond these; and, least of all, will it leave them to deceive themselves with certain commercial maxims, so far removed from simplicity and integrity, that I have been often shocked beyond measure at hearing them countenanced and adopted by some religious professors. EVERY man should aim to do one thing well. If he dissipates his attention on several objects, he may have excellent talents intrusted to him, but they will be intrusted to no good end. Concentrated on his proper object, they might have a vast energy; but, dissipated on several, they will have none. Let other objects be pursued, indeed; but only so far as they may subserve the main purpose. By neglecting this rule, I have seen frivolity and futility written on minds of great power; and, by regarding it, I have seen very limited minds acting in the first rank of their profession-I have seen a large capital and a great stock dissipated, and the man reduced to beggary; and I have seen a small capital and stock improved to great riches. To effect any purpose, in study, the mind must be concentrated. If any other subject plays on the fancy, than that which ought to be exclusively before it, the mind is divided; and both are neutralized, so as to lose their effect. Just as when I learnt two systems of short-hand. I was familiar with Gurney's method, and wrote it with ease; but, when I took it into my head to learn Byrom's, they destroyed each other, and I could write neither. THERE should be something obvious, deter minate, and positive, in a man's reasons for taking a journey; especially if he be a minister. Such events and consequences may be connected with it in every step, that he ought in no case to be more simply dependant on the great Appointer of means and occasions. Several journeys which I have thought myself called on to take, I have since had reason to think I should not have taken. Negative, and even doubtful reasons, may justify him in choosing the safer side of staying at home; but there ought to be something more in the reasons which put him out of his way, to meet the unknown consequences of a voluntary change of station. Let there always be a "because" to meet the "why?" I SOMETIMES see, as I sit in my pew at St. John's during the service, an idle fellow saunter into the chapel. He gapes about him for a few minutes: finds nothing to interest and arrest him, seems scarcely to understand what is going forward; and, after a lounge or two, goes out again. I look at him, and think, "Thou art a wonderful creature! A perfect miracle! What a machine is that body! curiously, fearfully,-wonderfully framed. An intricate delicate-but harmonious and perfect structure! And, then, to ascend to thy soul!-its nature !-its capacities—its actual state-its designation!--its eternal condition! --I am lost in amazement !-While he seems to have no more consciousness of all this than the brutes which perish!" SIN, pursued to its tendencies, would pull God from his throne. Though I have a deep conviction of its exceeding sinfulness, I live not a week without seeing some exhibition of its malignity which draws from me-Well! who could have imagined this!" Sin would subjugate heaven, earth, and hell to itself. It would make the universe the minion of its lusts, and all beings bow down and worship. } Ir is one of the most awful points of view in which we can consider God, that, as a righteous governor of the world, concerned to vindicate his own glory, he has laid himself under a kind of holy necessity to purify the unclean, or to sink him into perdition. It is one of the curses of error, that the man who is the subject of it, if he has had the opportunity of being better informed, cannot possibly do right, so far as he is under it. He has brought himself into an utter incapacity of acting virtuously; since it is vicious to obey an ill-informed conscience, if that conscience might have been better informed; and certainly vicious to disobey conscience, whether it be well or ill informed. THE approaches of sin are like the conduct of Jael. It brings butter in a lordly dish. It bids high for the soul. But when it has fascinated and lulled the victim, the nail and the hammer are behind. I HAVE met with one case in my ministry, very frequent and very distressing. A man says to me, "I approve all you say. I see things to be just as you state them. I see a necessity, a propriety, a beauty, in the religion of Christ. I see it to be interesting and important. But I do not feel it. I cannot feel it. I have no spirit of prayer. My heart belies my head: its affections refuse to follow my convictions." If this complaint be ingenuous, it is an evidence of grace; and I say, "Wait for God, and he will appear." But, too often, it is not ingenuous: the heart is actually indisposed: some tyrant holds it in bondage. The complaint is a mockery-because there is no sincerity of endeavor to obtain the object of which it pretends to lament the want-there is no sincere desire and prayer for the quickening and breathing of God's Holy Spirit on the torpid soul. ner. THE man who labors to please his neighbor for his good to edification, has the mind that was in Christ. It is a sinner trying to help a sinHow different the face of things, if this spirit prevailed!-If Dissenters were like Henry, and Watts, and Doddridge: and churchmen like Leighton! The man who comes promifound fault with: one will call him harsh, and nently forward in any way may expect to be another a trimmer. A hard man may be re verenced, but men will like him best at a distance: he is an iron man; he is not like Jesus Christ: Christ might have driven Thomas from his presence, for his unreasonable incredulity-but not so! It is as though he had said, "I will come down to thy weakness: if thou canst not believe without thrusting thy hand into my side, then thrust in thy hand." Even a feeble, but kind and tender man, will effect more than a genius, who is rough or artificial. There is danger, doubtless, of humoring others, and, against this, we must be on our guard. It is a kind and accommodating spirit at which we must aim. When the two goats met on the bridge, which was too narrow to allow them either to pass each other, or to return, the goat which lay down that the other might walk over him was a finer gentleman than Lord Chesterfield. To expect disease wherever he goes, and to lay himself out in the application of remedies, is that habit of mind which is best suited to a Christian while he passes through the world, if he would be most effectually useful. THE Papists and Puritans erred in opposite extremes, in their treatment of mankind. The PAPISTS, almost to a man, considered the mass of men as mere animals, and to be led by the senses. Even Fenelon fell into this way of thinking. Some few fine spirits were to be found, which were capable of other treatment: but the herd they thought capable of nothing but seeing and hearing. The PURITANS, on the contrary, treated man as though he had nothing of the animal about him. There was among them a total excision of all amuse ment and recreation. Every thing was effort. Christian perfection, in the sense in which it Every thing was severe. I have heard a man has been insisted on by some persons, either of this school preach on the distinction be- deceives himself, by calling sin, infirmity—or tween justifying and saving faith. He tried Satan leaves him undisturbed in false security to make his hearers enter into these niceties; —or the demon of pride overcomes the demon whereas faith, in its bold and leading features, of lust. should have been presented to them, if any effect was expected. The bulk of mankind are capable of much more than the Papist allows, but are incapable of that which the Puritan supposes. They should be treated, in opposition to both, as rational and feeling creatures, but upon a bold and palpable ground. THE trials of the tempted Christian are often sent for the use of others, and are made the riches of all around him. IF I were not penetrated with a conviction of the truth of the Bible, and the reality of my own experience, I should be confounded on all sides-from within, and from without-in the world, and in the church. I HAVE seen such sin in the church, that I have been often brought by it to a sickly state of mind. But, when I have turned to the world, I have seen sin working there in such Ir a good man cannot prevent evil, he will measures and forms, that I have turned back hang heavy on its wings, and retard its proagain to the church, with more wisdom of gress. mind and more affection to it-tainted as it is. I see sin, however, nowhere put on such an We are too much disposed to look at the odious appearance as in the church. It mixes outside of things. The face of every affair itself with the most holy things, and debases chiefly affects us. Were God to draw aside them, and turns them to its own purposes. It the veil, and to show us but a little of the builds its nest in the very pinnacles of the reality, and the relations of the most appatemple. The history of the primitive ages of rently mysterious and complicated dispensathe church has also checked the disgust which tions, we should acquiesce with reverence would arise from seeing the impure state of and admiration. A minister, for example, may things before our eyes. Folly and wicked-be taken away in the beginning of a promising ness sported themselves even then in almost career, or in the midst of great usefulness. If all possible forms. I turn, in such states of we cannot perceive any direct reason for this mind, to two portraits in my study-John Bradford and Aph. Leighton. These never fail, in such cases, to speak forcibly to my heart, that, in the midst of all, there is pure religion, and to tell me what that religion is. THE joy of religion is an exorcist to the mind. It expels the demons of carnal mirth and madness. THE union of Christians to Christ, their common head, and, by means of the influence which they derive from him, one to another, may be illustrated by the loadstone. It not only attracts the particles of iron to itself, by the magnetic virtue; but, by this virtue, it unites them one among another. Providence, we stand amazed. But, if we could look forward into the farther life of such men, we should probably see that they were taken away in mercy to themselves-to the church-or to the world. I HAVE seen too much of life, to have any thing to do in the troubled waters of my friends, by way of giving advice; unless they will allow me to remain in secret. This especially applies to some Christians of more sincerity than prudence. An opinion given on difficult and controverted cases, in confidence of its being used only as a private principle of action, has been quoted as authority in defence of the conduct founded on it. MANY duties are involved on the very naSOME Considerable defect is always visible, ture of religion, concerning which there is, in the greatest men, to a discerning eye. We perhaps, not one express precept to be found idolize the best characters, because we see in the Scriptures. Private, family, or public them partially. Let us acknowledge excel-devotions, are nowhere enjoined, as to the lence, and ascribe the glory where it is due, time, or frequency, or manner of performing while we honor the possessor: but let us re- them. Yet they are so strongly implied in member that God has, by leaving his greatest the very nature of religion, and they are supservants to the natural operation of human posed so necessarily to flow from the divine frailty, in some point or other of their cha-principle of spiritual life in the soul, that those racter, written on the face of the Christian men greatly err, who think themselves not Church, Cease ye from man! He does by perfection in character, as he did by the body of Moses-he hides it, that it may not be idolized. Our affections, our prejudices, or our ignorance, cover the creature with a dazzling veil but he lifts it up; and seems to say, "see the creature you admire !" obliged by their religion to the most diligent use of them that circumstances will allow. And, surely, we may trace here the footsteps of divine wisdom. If it had been said, "Thou shalt do this or that, at such and such times." this would have brought a yoke on the neck of the Christian; and, even when absolutely unavoidable circumstances prevented him from A MAN, who thinks himself to have attained complying with the injunction, would have left sin on his conscience. While the way in which the duty is enforced leaves him a Christian liberty that is abundantly guarded against all licentiousness. He sees the duty implied and exemplified in a thousand in- | stances throughout the Scripture. The same principle is applicable to certain pursuits, which occupy the men of the world; the general unlawfulness of which is fully implied, though they neither are nor could have been forbidden by name.' by truth can make successful approaches to the mind. Some preachers deal much with the passions: they attack the hopes and fears of men. But this is a very different thing from the right use of the imagination, as the medium of impressing truth. Jesus Christ has left perfect patterns of this way of managing men. But it is a distinct talent, and a talent committed to very few. It is an easy thing to move the passions; a rude, blunt, illiterate attack may do this. But, to form one new figure for the conveyance of truth to the mind, is a difficult thing. The world is under no small obli NOTHING Seems important to me, but so far as it is connected with morals. The end-gation to the man who forms such a figure. the cui bono?-enters into my view of every thing. Even the highest acts of the intellect become criminal trifling, when they occupy much of the time of a moral creature, and especially of a minister. If the mind cannot feel and treat mathematics, and music, and every thing else as a trifle, it has been seduced and enslaved. Brainerd, and Grimshaw, and Fletcher, were men. Most of us are dwarfs. IN imitating examples, there are two rules to be regarded: we must not stretch ours beyond our measure; nor must we despise that in another, which is unsuitable to ourselves. A PIECE has been written to prove that the Gospel is preached to sinners only in the lowest state of misery and imbecility. Some men get hold of an opinion, and push it so far that it meets and contradicts other opinions, fairly deducible from Scripture. And it is no uncommon thing with them, to suppose that nobody else holds the same opinion; when, if they would look into the minds of other men, they would find themselves deceived. We preach the Gospel to sinners in the lowest condition; and the only reason I do not preach it to devils, is, that I find no Gospel provided for devils. As to the Roman Catholic notion of a grace of congruity, in their sense of it, I utterly disclaim it. Some of the best of them taught that God prepared the heart for himself in various unseen ways. And who can deny this? but this is far different from the notion, that some minds have a natural congruity or suitableness to the Gospel. The fallow-ground of the heart may be broken up, ploughed, and prepared by unseen and most circuitous means. I have gone from hearing a man preach incomparable nonsense, who knew spiritual religion, to hearing a man of a carnal mind and habits, who knew nothing of spiritual religion, preach incomparable sense, and I thought the carnal preacher much most likely to call men to some feeling of religion. The French strain this point so far, that the effort is continually seen. To be effective, there must be about it a naiveté, an ease, a self-evidence. The figures of the French writers vanish from the mind, like the flourish of a musical band. The figures of Jesus Christ sink into the mind, and leave there the indelible impress of the truth which they convey. THE religious world has a great momentum. Money and power, in almost any quantity, are brought forth into action when any fair object is set before it. It is a pendulum, that swings with prodigious force. But it wants a regulator. If there is no regulating force on it of sufficient power, its motions will be so violent and eccentric, that it will tear the machine to pieces. And, therefore, when I have any influence in its designs and schemes, I cannot help watching them with extreme jealousy, to throw in every directing and regulating power which can be obtained from any quarter. NOTHING can be proposed so wild or so absurd, as not to find a party-and often a very large party-ready to espouse it. It is a sad reflection on human nature, but it is too true. Every day's experience and history confirm it. It would have argued gross ignorance of mankind to expect even Swedenborgianism to be rejected at once by the common sense of men. He, who laid the snare, knew that if a few characters of some learning and respectability could be brought to espouse it, there would be soon a silly multitude ready to follow. THE religious world has many features which are distressing to a holy man. He sees in it much proposal and ostentation, covering much surface. But Christianity is deep and substantial. A man is soon enlisted, but he is not soon made a soldier. He is easily put into the ranks, to make a show there; but he is not so easily brought to do the duties of the ranks. We are too much like an army of Asiatics; they count well, and cut a good figure; but when they come into action, one has no flint, THE imagination is the grand organ where- another has no cartridge-the arms of one are * See this idea illustrated with regard to Articles of Faith in Jones's "Short view of the argument between the Church of England and Dissenters," in the "Schoiar Armed." Vol. ii, p. 59. J. P. rusty, and another has not learnt to idle We |