Gospel. Not only natural religion remained with the broad and golden zone of coalescing to be clearly comprehended, but reason it- charity, stamped with the inscription⚫ a new self remained to be carried to its highest pitch commandment give I unto you, that you love in the countries where Revelation is profess- one another.' Christianity, instead of deed. Natural Religion could not see itself by stroying the distinctions of rank, or breakits own light, Reason could not extricate it-ing in on the regulations of society, by this self from the labyrinth of error and ignorance universal precept, furnishes new fences to in which false religion had involved the its order, additional security to its repose, world. Grace has raised Nature. Revela- and fresh strength to its subordinations. tion has given a lift to Reason, and taught her to despise the follies and corruptions which obscured her brightness. If nature is now delivered from darkness, it was the helping hand of Revelation which raised her from the rubbish in which she lay buried.

Were this command, so inevitably produc tive of that peculiarly Christian injunction of doing to others as we would they should do unto us,' uniformly observed, the whole frame of society would be cemented and consolidated into one indissoluble bond of Christianity has not only given us right universal brotherhood. This divinely enconceptions of God, of his holiness, of the acted law is the seminal principle of justice, way in which he will be worshipped; it has charity, patience, forbearance, in short, of not only given us principles to promote our all social virtue. That it does not produce happiness here, and to insure it hereafter; these excellent effects, is not owing to any but it has really taught us what a proud phi-defect in the principle, but in our corrupt losophy arrogates to itself, the right use of reason It has given us those principles of examining and judging, by which we are enabled to determine on the absurdity of false religions. For to what else can it be ascribed,' says the sagacious bishop Sherlock, that in every nation that names the name of Christ, even reason and nature see and condemn the follies, to which others are still, for want of the same help, held in sub jection?'

Allowing however that Plato and Antonius seemed to have been taught of heaven, yet the object for which we contend is, that no provision was made for the vulgar. While a faint ray shone on the page of philosophy, the people were involved in darkness which might be felt. The million were left to live without knowledge, and to die without hope. For what knowledge or what hope would be acquired from the preposterous, though amusing, and in many respects elegant mythology, which they might pick up in their poets, the belief of which seemed to be confined to the populace.

But there was no common principle of hope or fear, of faith or practice; no motive of consolation, no bond of charity, no communion of everlasting interest, no reversionary equality between the wise and the ignorant, the master and the slave, the Greek and the barbarian.

A religion was wanted which should be of general application. Christianity happily accommodated itself to the common exigencs. It furnished an adequate supply to the universal want Instead of perpetual but unexpiating sacrifices to appease imaginary deities,

Gods, such as guilt makes welcome,

6

it presents one oblation once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.' It presents one consistent scheme of morals growing out of one uniform system of doctrines; one perfect rule of practice, depending on one principle of faith; it offers grace to direct the one and to assist the oth

er.

nature, which so reluctantly, so imperfectly obeys it. If it were conscientiously adopted, and substantially acted upon, received in its very spirit, and obeyed from the ground of the heart, human laws might be abroga. ted, courts of justice abolished, and treaties of morality burnt; war would be no longer an art, nor military tactics a science. We should suffer long and be kind, and so far from seeking that which is another's,' we should not even seek our own.'

But let not the soldier or the lawyer be alarmed.-Their craft is in no danger. The world does not intend to act upon the divine principle which would injure their professions; and till this only revolution which good men desire actually takes place, our fortunes will not be secure without the exertions of the one, nor our lives without the protection of the other.

All the virtues have their appropriate place and rank in Scripture. They are introdu ced as individually beautiful and as reciprocally connected, like the graces in the mythologic dance. But perhaps no Christian grace ever sat to the hand of a more consummate master than Charity. Her incomparable painter, St. Paul, has drawn her at full length in all her fair proportions. Every attitude is full of grace, every lineament of beauty. The whole delineation is perfect and entire. wanting nothing.

Who can look at this finished piece without blushing at his own want of likeness to it? Yet if this conscious dissimilitude induce a cordial desire of resemblance, the humiliation will be salutary. Perhaps a more frequent contemplation of this exquisite figure, accompanied with earnest endeavours for a growing resemblance, would gradually lead us, not barely to admire the por trait, but would at length assimilate us to the divine original.

CHAP. X.
Christian Holiness.

CHRISTIANITY then, as we have attempted

It encircles the whole sphere of duty to show in the preceding chapter, exhibits

no different standards of goodness applicable to different stations or characters. No one can be allowed to rest in a low degrec, and plead his exemption for aiming no bigher. No one can be secure in any state of piety below that state which would not have been enjoined on all, had not all been entitled to the means of attaining it.

When God condescended to give a pledge for the performance of his promise, he swears by his holiness, as if it were the distinguishing quality which was more especially binding. It seems connected and interwoven with all the divine perfections. Which of his excellences can we contemplate as separated from this? Is not his justice stamped with sanctity? It is free from any tincture of vindictiveness, and is therefore a holy justice. His mercy has none of the partial

Those who keep their pattern in their eye, though they may fail of the highest attainments, will not be satisfied with such as are low. The striking inferiority will exciteity or favouritism, or capricious fondness of compunction; compunction will stimulate them to press on, which those never do, who, losing sight of their standard, are satisfied with the height they have reached.

Pharaoh.

human kindness, but is a holy mercy. His holiness is not more the source of his mercies than of his punishments. If his holi ness in his severities to us wanted a justificaHe is not like to be the object of God's tion, there cannot be at once a more substanfavour, who takes his determined stand on tial and more splendid illustration of it than the very lowest step in the scale of perfec- the noble passage already quoted, for he is tion; who does not even aspire above it; called glorious in holiness' immediately afwhose aim seems to be, not so much to please ter he had vindicated the honour of his name, God as to escape punishment. Many how-by the miraculous destruction of the army of ever will doubtless be accepted, though their progress has been small; their difficulties Is it not then a necessary consequence may have been great, their natural capacity growing out of his perfections, that a rightweak, their temptation strong, and their in- cous God loveth righteousness,' that he will struction defective. of course require in his creatures a desire to Revelation has not only furnished injunc-imitate as well as to adore that attribute by tions but motives to holiness; not only mo- which He himself loves to be distinguished? tives, but examples and authorities. Be ye We cannot indeed, like God, be essentially therefore perfect' (according to your meas-holy. In an infinite being it is a substance, ure and degree,) as your Father which is in in a created being it is only an accident: heaven is perfect.' And what says the Old Testament? It accords with the New- Be ye holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.'

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God is the essence of holiness, but we can have no holiness, nor any other good thing, but what we derive from him-It is his prerogative, but our privilege.

This was the injunction of God himself, not given exclusively to Moses, to the leader If God loves holiness because it is his imand legislator, or to a few distinguished offi- age, he must consequently hate sin because cers, or to a selection of eminent men, but it defaces his image. If he glorifies his own to an immense body of people, even to the mercy and goodness in rewarding virtue, he whole assembled host of Israel; to men of no less vindicates the honour of his holiness all ranks, professions, capacities and charac-in the punishment of vice. A perfect God ters, to the minister of religion, and to the uninstructed, to enlightened rulers and to feeble women. God' says an excellent writer, had antecedently given to his people particular laws, suited to their several exigencies and various conditions; but the command to be holy was a general (might he not have said a universal) law.'

can no more approve of sin in his creatures than he can commit it himself. He may forgive sin on his own conditions, but there are no conditions on which he can be reconciled to it. The infinite goodness of God may delight in the beneficial purposes to which his infinite wisdom has made the sins of his creatures subservient, but sin itself will always Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among be abhorrent to his nature. His wisdom the gods? Who is like unto thee glorious in may turn it to a merciful end, but his indigholiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders nation at the offence cannot be diminished. This is perhaps the sublimest apostrophe of He loves man, for he cannot but love his praise (rendered more striking by its inter-own work; he hates sin, for that was man's rogatory form,) which the Scriptures have own invention, and no part of the work recorded. It makes a part of the first song which God had made Even in the imperof gratulation which is to be found in the fect administration of human laws impunity treasury of sacred poetry. This epithet of of crimes would be construed into approbaholy is more frequently affixed to the name tion of them.*

of God than any other. His mighty name The law of holiness then, is a law binding is less often invoked, than his holy name on all persons without distinction, not limitTo offend against this attribute is represented to the period nor to the people to whom it ed as more heinous than to oppose any other. was given. It reaches through the whole It has been remarked that the impiety of the Assyrian monarch is not described by his hostility against the great, the Almighty God. but it is made an aggravation of his crime that he had committed it against the Holy One of Israel.

* Saurin.

Jewish dispensation, and extends with wider demands and higher sanctions to every Christian, of every denomination, of every age, and every country.

A more sublime motive cannot be assigned why we should be holy, than because

* See Charnock on the Attributes.

the Lord our God is holy.' Men of the world have no objection to the terms virtue, morality, integrity, rectitude; but they associate something overacted, not to say hy pocritical, with the term holiness, and neither use it in a good sense when applied to others, nor would wish to have it applied to themselves; but make it over, with a little suspicion, and not a little derision, to puri-| tans and enthusiasts.

This suspected epithet, however, is surely rescued from every injurious association, if we consider it as the chosen attribute of the Most High. We do not presume to apply the terms virtue, probity, morality, to God; but we ascribe holiness to him because he first ascribed it to himself as the aggregate and consummation of all his perfections.

Shall so imperfect a being as man then, ridicule the application of this term to others, or be ashamed of it himself? There is a cause indeed which should make him ashamed of the appropriation; that of not deserving it. This comprehensive appellation includes all the christian graces; all the virtues in their just proportion, order and harimony; in all their bearings, relations, and dependencies. And as in God glory and holiness are united, so the apostle combines ⚫ sanctification and honour' as the glory of

inan.

the perfections of God, and a command to imitate him. This command is given to creatures, fallen indeed, but to whom God graciously promises strength for the unitation. If in God holiness implies an aggregate of perfections; in man, even in his low degree, it is an incorporation of the Christian graces.

The holiness of God indeed is confined by no limitation; ours is bounded, finite, in perfect. Yet let us be sedulous to extend our little sphere. Let our desires be large, though our capacities are contracted. Let our aims be lofty, though our attainmens are low. Let us be solicitous that no day pass without some augmentation of our houness, some added height in our aspirations, some wider expansion in the compass of our virtues. Let us strive every day for some superiority to the preceding day; something that shall distinctly mark the passing scene with progress; something that shall inspire an humble hope that we are rather less unit for heaven to-day than we were yesterday.

The celebrated artist who has recorded that he passed no day without drawing a line, drew it, not for repetition, but for progress: not to produce a given number of strokes, but to forward his work, to complete his design. The Christian, like the painter, does not draw his lines at random; he has a model to imitate, as well as an outline to fill. Every touch conforms him more and more to the great original. He who has transfused most of the life of God into his soul, has copied it most successfully.

Traces more or less of the holiness of God may be found in his works, to those who view them with the eye of faith. They are more plainly visible in his providences; but it is in his word that we must chiefly look for the manifestations of his holiness. He is To seek happiness,' says one of the faevery where described as perfectly holy in thers, is to desire God, and to find him is himself, as a model to be imitated by his that happiness.' Our very happiness therecreatures, and, though with an interval im- fore is not our independent property; it measurable, as imitable by them. flows from that eternal mind which is the The great doctrine of redemption is insep-source and sum of happiness. In vain we arably connected with the doctrine of sancti- look for felicity in all around us. It can onfication. As an admirable writer has ob- ly be found in that original fountain, whence served, If the blood of Christ reconcile us we, and all we are and have, are derived.— to the justice of God, the spirit of Christ is Where then is the imaginary wise man of the to reconcile us to the holiness of God.-school of Zeno? what is the perfection of When we are told therefore that Christ is virtue supposed by Aristotle? They have made unto us righteousness,' we are in the no existence but in the romance of philoso same place taught that he is made unto us sanctification; that is, he is both justifier and sanctifier. In vain shall we deceive ourselves by resting on his sacrifice, while we neglect to imitate his example.

6

phy. Happiness must be imperfect in an
imperfect state. Religion, it is true, is in-
tial happiness, and points to its perfection:
but as the best men possess it but imperfect-
ly, they cannot be perfectly happy. Nothing
can confer completeness which
complete. With Thee, O Lord, is the
fountain of life, and in Thy light' only we
shall see light."

itself in

The glorious spirits which surrounded the throne of God are not represented as singing hallelujahs to his omnipotence, nor even to his mercy, but to that attribute which, as with a glory, encircles all the rest. They Whatever shall still remain wanting in our perpetually cry, holy, holy, holy, Lord God attainments, and much will still remain, let of Hosts; and it is observable, that the an- this last, greatest, highest consideration stimgels which adore him for his holiness are the ulate our languid exertions, that God has ministers of his justice. Those pure intelli- negatively promised the beatific vision, the gences perceive, no doubt, that this union of enjoyinent of his presence, to this attainattributes constitutes the divine perfection.ment, by specifically proclaiming, that with This infinitely blessed Being then, to whom out holiness no man shall see his face. To angels and archangels, and all the hosts of know God is the rudiments of that eternal heaven are continually ascribing holiness, life which will hereafter be perfected by see has commanded us to be holy. To be holy ing him. As there is no stronger reason because God is holy, is both an argument! and a command. An argument founded on

*See Leighton on Happiness.

why we must not look for perfect happiness in this life, than because there is no perfect holiness, so the nearer advances we make to the one, the greater progress we shall make towards the other; we must cultivate here those tendencies and tempers which must be carried to perfection in a happier clime.But as holiness is the concomitant of happiness, so must it be its precursor. As sin has destroyed our happiness, so sin must be destroyed before our happiness can be restored. Our nature must be renovated before our felicity can be established. This is according to the nature of things, as well as agreeable to the law and will of God Let us then carefully look to the subduing in our inmost hearts all those dispositions that are unlike God; all those actions, thoughts and tendencies that are contrary to God.

Independently therefore of all the other motives to holiness which religion suggests, independently of the fear of punishment; independently even of the hope of glory, let us be holy from this ennobling, elevating motive, because the Lord our God is holy.And when our virtue flags, let it be renovated by this imperative injunction, backed by this irresistible argument. The motive for imitation, and the Being to be imitated, seem almost to identify us with infinity. It is a connexion which endears, an assimilation which dignifies, a resemblance which elevates. The apostle has added to the prophet an assurance which makes the crown and consummation of the promise, that though On the comparatively small faulls and vir

enlightened conscience if kept tenderly alive earth to heaven, perhaps the beauty of the by a continual attention to its admonitions, lesser virtues may be still better illustrated would especially preserve us from those by that long and luminous track made up of smaller sins, and stimulate us to those lesser minute and almost imperceptible stars, which duties which we are falsely apt to think are though separately too inconsiderable to altoo insignificant to be brought to the bar of tract attention, yet from their number and religion, too trivial to be weighed by the standard of Scripture.

confluence, form that soft and shining stream of light every where discernible, and which By cherishing this quick feeling of recti- always corresponds to the same fixed stars, tude, light and sudden as the flash from as the smaller virtues do to their concomitant heaven, and which is in fact the motion of great ones.-Without pursuing the metaphor the spirit, we intuitively reject what is to the classic fiction that the Galaxy was the wrong before we have time to examine why road through which the ancient heroes went it is wrong, and seize on what is right before to heaven, may we not venture to say that we have time to examine why it is right. Christians will make their way thither more Should we not then be careful how we ex-pleasant by the consistent practice of the tinguish this sacred spark? Will any thing minuter virtues?

be more likely to extinguish it than to neg- Every Christian should consider religion lect its hourly momentos to perform the as a fort which he is called to defend. The smaller duties, and to avoid the lesser faults, meanest soldier in the army if he add patriotwhich, as they in a good measure make up ism to valour, will fight as earnestly as if the the sum of human life, will naturally fix and glory of the contest depended on his single determine our character, that creature of arm. But he brings his watchfulness as well habits? Will not our neglect or observance as his courage into action. He strenuously of it, incline or indispose us for those more defends every pass he is appointed to guard, important duties of which these smaller ones without inquiring whether it be great or are connecting links?

small. There is not any defect in religion or morals so little as to be of no consequence. Worldly things may be little because their aim and end may be little. Things are great or small, not according to their ostensible importance, but according to the magnitude of their object, and the importance of their consequences.

The acquisition of even the smallest virtue being, as has been before observed, an actu al conquest over the opposite vice, doubles our moral strength. The spiritual enemy has one object less, and the conqueror one virtue more.

The vices derive their existence from wildness, confusion, disorganization. The discord of the passions is owing to their having different views, conflicting aims, and opposite ends. The rebellious vices have no common head; each is all to itself. They promote their own operations by disturbing those of others, but in disturbing they do not destroy them. Though they are all of one family, they live on no friendly terms. Profligacy hates covetousness as much as if it were a virtue. The life of every sin is a life of conflict, which occasions the torment, but not the death of its opposite. Like the By allowed negligence in small things, we fabled brood of the serpent, the passions are not aware how much we injure religion spring up, armed against each other, but in the eye of the world. How can we exthey fail to complete the resemblance for pect people to believe that we are in earnthey do not effect their mutual destruction. est in great points, when they see that we But without union the Christian graces cannot withstand a trivial temptation, acould not be perfected, and the smaller vir- gainst which resistance would have beea tues are the threads and filaments which comparatively easy? At a distance they hear gently but firmly tie them together. There with respect our general characters. They is an attractive power in goodness which become domesticated with us, and discover draws each part to the other This concord the same failings, littleness, and bad tempers, of the virtues is derived from their having as they have been accustomed to meet with one common centre in which all meet. In in the most ordinary persons. vice there is a strong repulsion. Though If Milton, in one of his letters to a learned bad men seek each other, they do not love foreigner who had visited him, could coneach other. Each seeks the other in order gratulate himself on the consciousness that to promote his own purposes, while he hates him by whom his purposes are promoted.

in that visit he had been found equal to his reputation, and had supported in private conversation his high character as an author; shall not the Christian be equally anxious to support the credit of holy profession, by not betraying in familiar life any temper inconsistent with religion?

The lesser qualities of the human character are like the lower people in a country: they are numerically, if not individually important. If well regulated they become valuable from that very circumstance of numbers, which, under a negligent adminis- It is not difficult to attract respect on great tration, renders them formidable. The occasions, where we are kept in order by peace of the individual mind and of the na- knowing that the public eye is fixed upon us. tion, is materially affected by the discipline It is easy to maintain a regard to our dignity in which these inferior orders are maintained. in a Symposiack, or an academical dinner? Laxity and neglect in both cases are subver- but to labour to maintain it in the recesses sive of all good government. of domestic privacy requires more watchfulness, and is no less the duty, than it will

But if we may be allowed to glance from