CHAP. XVI,

CHRISTIAN WATCHFULNESS.

Of all the motives to vigilance and self-discipline which Christianity presents, there is not one more powerful than the danger, from which even religious persons are not exempt, of slackening in zeal and declining in piety. Would we could affirm, that coldness in religion is confined to the irreligious! If it be melancholy to observe an absence of Christianity where no great profession of it was ever made, it is far more grievous to mark its declension where it once appeared not only to exist, but to flourish. We feel on the comparison, the same distinct sort of compassion with which we contemplate the pecuniary distresses of those who have been always indigent, and of those who have fallen into want from a state of opulence. Our concern differs not only in degree but in kind.

This declension is one of the most awakening calls to watchfulness, to humility and selfinspection which religion can make to bim "who thinketh he standeth"-which it can make to him who, sensible of his own weakness, ought to feel the necessity" of strengthening the things which remain that are ready to die."

If there is not any one circumstance which ought more to alarm and quicken the Christian, than that of finding himself grow languid and indifferent, after having made not only a profession, but a progress, so there is not a more reasonable motive of triumph to the profane, not one cause which excites in him a more plausible ground of suspicion, either that there never was any truth in the profession of the person in question, or which is a more fatal, and, to such a mind, a more natural conclusion, that there is no truth in religion itself. At best, he will be persuaded that this can only be a faint and feeble principle, the impulse of which is so soon exhausted, and which is by no means found sufficiently powerful to carry on its votary throughout his course. He is assured that piety is only an outer garment, put on for shew or convenience, and that when it cea ses to be wanted for either, it is laid aside. In these unhappy instances the evil seldom ceases with him who causes it. The inference be

comes general, that all religious men are equally unsound or equally deluded, only that some are more prudent, or more fortunate, or greater hypocrites than others. After the falling away of one promising character, the old suspicion recurs and is confirmed, and the defec tion of others pronounced to be infallible.

There seems to be this marked distinction in the different opinions which religious and worldly men entertain respecting human corruption. The candid Christian is contented to believe it, as an indisputable general truth, while he is backward to suspect the wickedness of the individual, nor does he allow himself to give full credit to particular instances without proof. The man of the world on the contrary, who denies the general principle, is extremely prone to suspect the individual. Thus his knowledge of mankind not only furnishes a proof, but outstrips the truth, of the doctrine; though he denies it as a proposition of scripture, he is cager to establish it as a fact of experiment.

But the probability is, that the man, who by his departure from the principles with which he appeared to set out, so much gratifies the thoughtless, and grieves the serious mind, never was a sound and genuine Christian. His religion was perhaps taken up on some accidental circumstance, built on some false ground, pro

duced by some evanescent cause; and though it cannot be fairly pronounced that he intended by his forward profession, and prominent zeal, to deceive others, it is probable that he himself was deceived. Perhaps he had made too sure of himself. His early profession was probably rather bold and ostentatious; he had imprudently fixed his stand on ground so high as to be not easily tenable, and from which a descent would be but too observable. While he thought he never could be too secure of his own strength, he allowed himself to be too censorious on the infirmities of others, especially of those whom he had apparently outstripped, and who, though they had started together, he had left behind him in the race.

Might it not be a safer course, if in the outset of the christian life, a modest and self-dis. trusting humility were to impose a temporary restraint on the forwardness of outward profession. A little knowledge of the human heart, a little suspicion of the deceitfulness of his own, would not only moderate the intemperance of an ill-understood zeal, should the warm convert become an established christian, but would save the credit of religion, which will receive a fresh wound, in the possible cvent of his desertion from her standard,

Some of the most distinguished Christians in this country began their religious career with

this graceful humility. They would not suffer their change of character and their adoption of new principles, and a new course, to be blazoned abroad, as the affectionate zeal of their confidential friends would have advised, till the principles they had adopted were established, and worked into habits of piety; till time and experience had evinced that the grace of God had not been bestowed on them in vain. Their progress proved to be such as might have been inferred from the modesty of their outset. They have gone on with a perseverance which difficulties have only contributed to strengthen, and experience to confirm; and will, through divine aid, doubtless, go on, shining more and more unto the perfect day.

But to return to the less steady convert. Perhaps religion was only, as we have hinted elsewhere, one pursuit among many which he had taken up when other pursuits failed, and which he now lays down, because his faith not being rooted and grounded, fails also ;—or the temptations arising from without might concur with the failure within. If vanity be his infirmity, he will shrink from the pointed disapprobation of his superiors. If the love of novelty be his besetting weakness, the very peculiarity and strictness of religion, the very marked departure from the "gay and primrose