eternal throne, you shall be called upon to give | buted to bring hither! Think what it will be, an account of your own conduct, and, as far as to be able, amidst all the hosts of heaven, amidst ON DOMESTIC ERRORS IN OPINION, AND IN CERTAIN PRACTICAL HABITS. Conduct. On Soundness in Judgment, and Consistency in | may it be said, 'Ye did run well-what hindered you? You ran too fast; your speed exhausted your strength; you had not counted the cost. As a preliminary to the following pages, the writer begs leave to observe, that it consists rather of miscellaneous observations on a variety of topics, than in an attempt at a systematic view of religion or morals. It does not pretend to present an exhibition of Christian doctrine, or to prescribe the duties of a Christian life. It is presumed that the generality of readers who shall honour these pages with their attention, are already, in a greater or less degree, religious characters; consequently, standing in little need of such information as her humble talents could have imparted. But as religion is become a subject of increasing and more general interest, it may not be unseasonable, as we proceed, to point out some of the dangers to which the less advanced Christian may be liable, as well as some of the evils which may subsist with high outward profession. To those who are beginning to see the importance of religion; and of such persons, adored be Almighty goodness! the number is rapidly augmenting; to those interesting characters, may the writer venture to address a few words of affectionate and respectful counsel? Carefully encourage the first dawning dispositions of piety in your heart, cherish every indication of a change in your views and an improvement in your sentiments. Let not the world, nor the things of the world, stifle the new-born principle, nor make you ashamed modestly to avow it. Carefully distinguish between the feverish heat of animal fervour, and the vital warmth of Christian feeling. Mere youthful energy, ope. rating upon a newly awakened remorse for a thoughtless life, will carry the mind certain lengths; but if unaccompanied with humility, repentance, and a continual application for a better strength than your own, this slight resource will soon fail. It is not that principle which will encourage progress; it is not that Divine support which will carry you on to the end. The Christian race is not to be run at a heat: religion is a steady, progressive course; it gains speed also: progress quickens the pace; for the nearer the approach to the goal, the more ardent is the desire to reach it. And though, in your further advance, you may imagine yourself not so near as you did when you first set out, this is not really the case; you have a lower opinion of your state, because you have obtained higher views of the spirituality of the law of God, and a more humbling sense of your own unworthiness. Even the almost Christian prophet seems not to have been previously so deeply convinced of sin, as, when overwhelmed by the glory of the Divine vision, he exclaimed, Mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!' The person who addresses you has seen some promising characters sadly disappoint the hopes their early stages in religion had excited. By But while you cultivate this principle by every taking too high a tone at first, they not only possible means, avoid the danger of fancying lost all the ground they had gained, but sunk that your religion is confirmed when it is scarce. into indifference themselves, accompanied with ly begun. Do not conclude that a complete a prejudice against serious piety in others. change has been effected in your heart because They not only became deserters, but went over there is a revolution in your opinions, and a fa- to the enemy's camp. Avoid this error. The vourable alteration in your feelings. The forma- world is too much disposed to impute rashness, tion of a Christian character is not the work of presumption, and enthusiasm to the purest and a day; not only are the views to be changed, most correct religious characters. In your inbut the habits to be new moulded; not only is stance let them not be furnished with any ground the heart to be convinced of sin, but its propen- for this censure by your deserving it. If you sities are to be bent in a contrary direction. Be advance, you glorify God, and promote your own not impatient, therefore, to make a public dis- salvation; if you recede, you injure the cause closure of your sentiments. Religion is an in- you now intend to serve, and bring upon yourterior concern. Try yourselves, prove yourselves a fearful condemnation. Self-abasement, selves, examine yourselves, distrust yourselves. self-examination, and prayer, are the best preSeek counsel of wise, established, sober Chris-servatives for all who have entered on a relitians. Pray earnestly for more light and know-gious life, and are especially becoming incipient ledge, and especially for perseverance. Pray Christians. that you may be able to go on with the same There is one thing we would more particularly zeal with which you set out. Of how many press on the important class we are now taking the latter merely for that reason. Judgment is, in short, that quality of the mind which requires to be kept in ever wakeful activity, and the advantages it procures us, will be more apparent, the more it is kept in exercise. the liberty to address ;—it is the cultivation of a sound judgment. Of all persons religious persons are most bound to cultivate this precious faculty. We see how highly the great Apostle of the Gentiles valued it. In directing the spiritual labours of his beloved young friend, in Religious charity more especially demands stirring him up to every good word and work, the full exercise of the judgment. A judicious he does not forget this exhortation:- The Lord Christian will double the good done, by his segive thee a right understanding in all things!lection of the object, and his manner of relieving Again, he prays for his beloved Philippians, it. All things that are good are not equally that their love may abound more and more in good. A sound judgment discriminates between knowledge and in all judgment.' And in his the value of the claimants which present themEpistle to the youthful Bishop of Crete, he re-selves, and bestows on them more or less attenpeats the admonition to young persons of both tion, according to their respective claims. sexes to be sober minded. These admonitions acquire great additional force when it is considered, that he who gave them was a man of exceeding ardency of temper, and of zeal without a parallel. This experienced saint must have frequently seen the danger of imprudent piety, of self-confidence, of a zeal not regulated by knowledge; and therefore presses the great importance of a sound judgment. Judgment is to the faculties of the mind, what charity is to the virtues of the heart; as without charity the latter are of little worth, so without judgment talents are of little comparative use. Judgment, with the aid of God's Spirit, and the instructions of his word, is the balance in which qualities are weighed, by which the proportions of our duties, and the harmony of our virtues, are preserved; for it keeps not only the talents in just subordination, but the principles in due equipoise. When exercised in subservience to the Divine rule, the faculty becomes a virtue, and a virtue of a higher order. It restrains irregularity, it subdues vanity, it corrects impetuosity, it checks enthusiasm, and it checks it without diminishing zeal. One of the most powerful defenders, not only of our church polity, but of our church doctrines, has had the renown of all his great qualities so absorbed in the quality we are recommending; or, rather, this was so much the faculty which maintained his great talents and qualities in their due order, that we never read the name of Hooker without the previous application of this weighty epithet-THE JUDICIOUS. Judgment is so far from being a cooler of zeal, as some suppose, that it increases its effect by directing its movements; and a warm heart will always produce more extensive, because more lasting good, when conducted by a cool head. Above all, an enlightened judgment will enable you to attain and to preserve CONSISTENCY, that infallible criterion of a highly finished Christian character, the want of which makes some really religious persons not a little vulnerable. It was this want in some of his people, which led an eminent divine, at once a man of deep piety and lively wit to say, that there were some good persons, with whom it would be time enough to be acquainted in heaven.' So much to be regretted is it, that goodness of intention is not always attended by propriety in the execution. In another class, the want of consistency makes not a few appear over scrupulous as to some minor points, and lax in others of more importance. These incongruities not only bring the individual into discredit, but religion into disgrace. When the world sees persons, whose views are far from high, act more consistently with their avowed views, and frequently more above them, than some whose religion professes to be of a loftier standard, they will prefer the lower, as exhibiting fewer discrepancies, and less obvious contradictions. Consistency presents Christianity in her fairest attitude, in all her lovely proportion of figure, and correct symmetry of feature.-Consistency is the beautiful result of all the qualities and graces of a truly religious mind united and brought into action, each individually right, all relatively associated.-Where the character is consistent, prejudice cannot ridicule, nor infidelity sneer. It may, indeed, be censured, as holding up a standard above the attainment of the careless. The world may dislike, but it cannot despise it. In the more advanced Christian, religion may seem to be less prominent in parts of the cha racter, because it is infused into the whole. Like the life blood, its vital power pervades the entire system: not an action of the life that is We speak of this attribute the more positive. ly, because it is one, which, more than many others, depends on ourselves. A sound judg-not governed by it; not a quality of the mind ment, indeed, is equally bestowed with other blessings by Him from whom cometh every good gift; yet it is not, like the other faculties of the mind, so much born with us, as improved by us. By teaching us to discern the faults of others, it warns us to avoid them; by detecting our own, it leads to their cure. The deepest humility is generally connected with the soundest judgment. The judicious Christian is watchful against speculative errors, as well as against errors in conduct. He never adopts any opinion because it is new, nor any practice because it is fashionable; neither does he, if it be innocent, reject which does not partake of its spirit. It is dif fused through the whole conduct, and sheds its benign influence, not only on the things done, but on the temper of the doer in performing them. The affections now have other objects, the time other duties, the thoughts other employments.-There will be more exertion, but with less display; less show, because the principle is become more interior: it will be less obtrusive, because it is more rooted and grounded. There will be more humility, because the heart will have found out its own corruptions. By the continual exercise of the judgment, and an habitual aim at consistency, the Christian, though animated, will be orderly. He will be less subject to the ebullitions of zeal, as well as to the languors of its decay. Thus, through the joint operation of judgment in the intellect, and principle in the heart, the religion is become equable, regular, consistent. There never was but one visible exhibition of infallible judgment and complete consistency. In that Divine person who vouchsafed to pitch his tent among us, and to dwell with men on earth, that He might give us a perfect example in his life, before He obtained salvation for us by his death-in HIM alone was judgment without any shadow of error, consistency without any speck of imperfection. His divine perfections none can approach; but all may humbly imitate those which come within the compass of his humanity. On Novel Opinions in Religion. AMONG the numerous innovations of this innovating age, it is deeply to be lamented, that religion should come in for so large a portion. Of this we have a melancholy instance in the system of the new secession.-Many are distorting the sacred doctrines, and slighting the practical ethics of the New Testament. The religion of the Gospel is employed to furnish arms against itself. The truth as it is in Jesus, is fearlessly controverted: its sanctity is no curity; its Divine authority is no protection. In the new system-strange to say! the hardihood of the sceptic is adopted for the professed purpose of purifying Christianity. The dogmatism of the unbeliever is employed for improv. ing our faith in the religion which the unbeliever denies! But to do these malecontents justice, they do not resemble those reformers who are contented to expose the defects of an existing system, without providing a remedy. This restoration, this purifying, this repairing, this expunging, this lopping, this grafting, this perfecting, they have actually and gratuitously taken into their own hands, with a view either to improve the old religion, or, as their progress rather threatens, to produce a new one; while the champions of the antiquated system all agree that the old is better.' Some Christians of the primitive ages were not then, perhaps many of the present age are not now, aware, that he who overleaps the truth, errs as widely as he who falls short of it; nay, the danger is even greater, as it is more difficult to recede than to advance. It was the vain desire of overturning established truths, of being wiser than the wisdom of God, of being more perfect than the perfection of the Gospel, of giving new glosses to old opinions, and rejecting all opinions which did not hit their own distempered fancies; together with the temptation of being considered as the founders of a new school,-which gave rise to the Ebionites, the Cerinthians, the Marcionites, and various other sects; and which has continued to this day, to introduce successive heresies into the church of Christ. Of the two classes above mentioned-those who think true religion a novelty, and those who are endeavouring to introduce a novel rese-ligion, though they are the very antipodes of each other, yet it is difficult to determine which has wandered most widely from the truth. Scylla has it wrecks as well as Charybdis. Though each thinks that the only way to safety is to recede as far as possible from the other, yet, by this increasing desire of mutual recession, they are in more danger of gradually ap proaching to each other, if not of finally meeting, than either intended or believed at first setting out. This heterogeneous system composed of dif. ferent elements, made up of conflicting principles, unhappily is not brought forward by the avowed opposers, but by the professed and zealous friends of Christianity;-by religionists placing themselves much above the standard of their former pious associates, with whom they once went to the house of God as friends; by Christians so critically scrupulous, that they can no longer go to that house at all. In one quarter we hear the most consoling of all doctrines-the doctrine on which the great hinge of Christianity turns,-rejected as false, and its defenders derided, as if they were adopting it to be a substitute for virtuous practice. We hear one community spoken of by its professors as triumphantly bearing away from all Novelties in the sciences and in the arts may others the proud distinction of rationality. It is be, and generally are, beneficial. Every inven- a monopoly not to be allowed. If by rational tion may be an improvement; but in religion religion is meant a religion singularly adapted they are delusions. Genuine Christianity is not, to rational beings, no church on earth has a as one class of men seem to suppose, a modern fairer claim to the appellation than the Church invention; serious piety is no fresh innovation. of England. It is rational to exercise our rea'That which was from the beginning declared son in examining and weighing the evidences we unto you,' are the words of inspiration; the of Christianity; and, having clearly proved the new and living way, therefore, now so much de-authority on which they are grounded, it is then preciated, is only a continuation in the good old way so long ago recommended by the prophet. Nor is Christianity, as the recent party seem to suppose, a superannuated thing, which wants repairing; nor is it an incomplete thing, which wants filling up; nor is it a redundant thing, whose excrescences want lopping; nor a defective thing, whose deficiencies must be supplied; nor an erroneous thing, whose errors must be expunged. rational to submit our reason to its doctrines. It is rational to believe that we are apostates from our original brightness; not only because we perceive it to be a scriptural doctrine, but because we see it in all around us, and feel it in all within us. It is rational for a being conscious of its weak. ness, to desire to lean upon something that is strong; we therefore lean upon a rock, and that rock is Christ. Our church is a rational church; for it is sober without coldness, and animated | adopted principles. The pale which encircles without enthusiasm. Its service unites the af. our church, and the formularies which belong to fections of the heart with the faculties of the it, do not leave it open to the experiments of mind; it teaches to pray with the spirit and with new projectors, to the incursions of fresh innothe understanding also. Though it lays hold vators. Above all it is enriched by a great mass with a firmly grasping hand on the blessed doc-of the Divine treasures of Scripture; the spirit trine of the atonement, yet it is so far from of which is also expanded in our collects and using this doctrine as a pretence for neglecting prayers, so that, as we have observed in another virtuous practice, that it draws from thence new place, if the pulpit should in any instance unmotives, new sanctions, new encouragements. happily degenerate in doctrine, the desk will It teaches that without shedding of blood there still furnish a perpetual antidote. It may inis no remission for sin, while it declares that deed deserve the name of the establishment not without repentance, and without holiness, there only as being the rational religion, but as being is no salvation for sinners. built on the foundation of the everlasting Gospel, on the doctrines taught by prophets and evangelists, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone. In another of the quarters alluded to, the more novel system, we hear much of opinions but little of practice; much of doctrines, but little of holiness; much of faith-a disproportioned and unproductive faith-but little of repentance. coupled together, make up the sum and substance of Christianity,-these joint essentials, which Saint Paul preached invariably, and which by never separating, he preached effectually, are now considered as separate interests, and severed from each other as having no necessary connection. The sound members of this church acknowledge that there are mysteries in our religion; but the same reason which employed its best energies in proving the Divine authority of Scripture, has convinced them that the secret things which belong to God must be adored now, and will be fully understood hereafter. The legitimate members of the church, for she has, it is to be feared, some spurious ones, are not sur-These grand ingredients, which, when severally prised that in a revelation from heaven there should be mysteries, but they believe that these sacred mysteries are meant as exercises of faith to the probationers for Heaven; are meant to promote humility; which they consider, whatever others do, as a grand fundamental in religion. They do not pretend to know in what manner the Holy Spirit operates on the human heart; but they know that it does operate, being those who propagate doctrines which are cause it produces that change of heart which they are not ashamed to call the renewing of the Holy Ghost, and which distinguishes the vital from the nominal Christian. They leave to those who have sufficient natural resources in their own minds, if such there be, to reject assistance which they fervently implore; assist ance without which they, who think they stand, may finally fall. We are very far from the injustice of accus evidently unscriptural, of being themselves unholy. In some of the leading characters we fully believe the contrary to be the case; but the obvious effect of such doctrines on those who hear them, is not only to lessen their value for practical preaching, but to lead them to consider personal holiness as making no part of the things which accompany salvation. Those who are at all acquainted with eccleThese humble dependants on Divine grace siastical history, must know that in the most come at length to attain, in addition to the ex-flourishing ages of the church, even when Christernal evidences of Christianity, an internal evi. dence in their own bosom, which, so far from giving them any elation of heart, any eccentricity of doctrine, any irregularity of conduct, preserves them from each while it affords them all joy and peace in believing.' But while we put in the fair claim of our church to rational religion, we do not make an exclusive pretension to this, or any other excellence. Every human institution bears on it some marks, greater or less, that it is human, of course imperfect; and it is sufficient to guard us against the folly of such a pompous assump. tion to know, that an erroneous church not only assumes the appellation of infallible itself, but gives it also to its infirm, mutable, human head, to a being certain of death, and liable to sin. But if we do not claim soundness as well as rationality, for our exclusive possession, we are more likely to perpetuate both, than the best societies of separatists. All that is good in our church is likely to be secured to it by the fence of an establishment. An enclosure is not so likely to be broken in upon from without, as a society planted in the waste. We are likely, I say, to be secured from the introduction of new dogmas, as well as to be preserved in our long VOL. II. 39 tianity was best understood and most successfully practised, errors of opinion most readily started up, the ephemeral fungus of a luxuriant soil; they were frequently the suggestion of fanciful and mistaken, rather than of immoral men. Our great spiritual adversary, who successfully employs the vicious as the corruptors of morals, knows it to be a stale and fruitless device to make them his agents for misleading the judgment and bewildering the imagination; and therefore, by a refinement of ingenuity, prompts the more virtuous to the accomplishment of spiritual mischiefs. Moral men are his selected instruments for broaching novel, enticing, and dangerous opinions. These moral but wayward persons seem to have overlooked the fine supplication of the Apostle, that God would "establish, strengthen, settle them." These terms, which indeed are not synonymes, but shades:-these terms, a noble climax, implying not equality, but gradation, are now inverted. Every move in the new machine seems to shake, weaken, unsettle. One pin in the old system is pulled out after another, till the whole magnificent fabric, if its security depended on them, would fall to the ground. The patriarch Jacob has shown us in the character of his vacillating 3 M THE WORKS OF HANNAH MORE. son Reuben, how destructive instability is of ex- | established physician, is sure to be attracted by cellence. We are assured that the change in these ever varying theories are so frequent, that to confute them would be as difficult as unnecessary; for that which by some of the party is insisted on in one week, gives way in the next to some wider deviation; so that he who might wish to animadvert on some existing evil must be as rapid as its inventor, he must 'Catch ere it fall the Cynthia of the minute.' irregular prescriber: he is resorted to with more any new nostrum from the laboratory of the confidence in proportion to the reputed violence of his catholicon; and he who despised the sober practitioner, swallows without scruple the most pernicious drug of the advertising professor. the personal character of our new empirics in Without the slightest desire to detract from divinity, we may be allowed to suspect that their education, and early habits of life, had not taking of new modelling a church. It is true, altogether qualified them for the arduous underthat the erudition of a (common) Christian man' is not required to be very profound, but surely that of a Christian reformer should be something more than moderate. If in religious contemplation or discussion, we once give the reins to fancy, if we cherish every seducing thought, merely because it is new, if we set up for complete independence of opinion, if we assume individual release from all the ties that hold Christian society together, if we permit ourselves to plunge into the unfathom-clearness to the lucid exposition of Christian The lapse of three centuries has added little able ocean of discovery, without compass or rud-truth as exhibited in the writings of those reder, there is no saying where we may land; it formers by whom the doctrines of the Church may be on the shore we now dread. Many of of England were modelled. Whatever defects these leaders differ in opinion, but each seems might have escaped the notice of those eagleto lay as exclusive a claim to truth as the Pope eyed sifters and examiners of Christian truth, himself; but as the latter was equally infallible when they rescued it from the rubbish under when there was one Pope at Avignon and an- which it lay almost buried, would not these deother at Rome, so the infallibility here seems to fects have been detected, pointed out, rectified, be lodged by each in himself, only with this by the penetrating mind of Bishop Jewel in his variation, that these last begin by differing from renowned challenge at Paul's Cross, or in his each other, till in their more advanced progress celebrated Apology for the Church of England? they come to differ from themselves. by the judicious Hooker, that bulwark of the Would they not have been expunged or purified establishment, in his immortal writings on ecclesiastical polity, and on justification? Would they have eluded the observation and correction of Archbishop Usher, that prodigy of erudition? Is not the recent secession founded on a kind of spiritual democracy, an overturning system; an aversion to whatever is established; a contempt of authority; an impatience of subordination, a thirst for dictatorship; with this difference, that these religious dissidents loose the rein of their self-government, instead of those of their country. We know to what a degree the love of novelty, the longing to see any thing they have not seen before, though the object be ever so disgusting, is carried by our countrymen. The poet who best knew human nature, who best painted the characters of Englishmen, said, 'In England any monster will make (be the making of) a man.' This is so true, that a dwarf, a giant, an unnatural birth in an animal, will afford delight; the greater the distortion the higher the pleasure. We have seen to what excess this passion for what is novel and monstrous may be carried, in the instance of a late preposterous prophetess, a creature born and bred among the dregs of the people, with nothing to recommend her but ignorance, presumption, extravagance and blasphemy; yet did this woman not only make numberless proselytes among her vulgar equals, but obtained advocates among those from whom better things might have been expected. But it is the very absurdity which is the attraction. Such preposterous pretences being obviously out of the power of human means to accomplish, the extravagance is believed to be supernatural. It is the impossibility which makes the assumed certainty. The epilepsy of Mahomet confirmed his claims to inspiration. Extravagance in religion is a kind of spiritual empiricism, which is sure for a time to lay hold on the vulgar. The ignorant patient in both cases, who frequently pays little attention to the fact, that there may be abundant learning where We need not be again told the well-known glorious champions of the faith of Christ, and there is little enlightened piety; but in these of the Protestant church, learning was only a secondary excellence. Various and profound as were their acquirements, they were conscientiously devoted to the purpose of advancing and confirming the scarcely established church Can we believe that Ridley, Hooper, Cranmer and a long list of such distinguished men, would have made the sacrifices they actually made, without scrupulously examining into the mo mentous truths they professed to believe; that they would have suffered the most cruel tortures, rather than renounce the doctrines of a church to which they were first ornaments and then martyrs ?-There were giants in those days:' but to say no more of them, nor of the succession of profound divines and eminent scholars who succeed them, men of stature also'-would it not be casting a severe reflection on these bright luminaries of our country and church, to believe that the great truths of the gospel which were hid from these skilful and acute indagators, were reserved to be brought to light by half a dozen persons in the nineteenth century; that to men, most of them bred to secular pursuits, and living antecedently in secudetecting, not trifling faults, not imperfections lar habits, should be reserved the honour of from which perhaps no human institution is exempt, but radical errors, but fundamenta mischiefs, affecting the very vitals of our rel |