prescribed by creeds and bounded by formularies, he expected nothing, and turns from them without disappointment. He joins the multitude who are gathered together to undergo a revival — a revival of tumultuous and unholy passions. He feels pity and disgust at the tears and groans of the sufferers, knows that all this is not religion, and strongly suspects that it is not Christianity. He enters meetinghouses where creeds are abjured and superstition reprobated. He hears assertions of the right of private judgment, and arguments in favor of unlimited freedom of thought and speech in matters of religion. These assertions he believes to be just, these arguments sound, because he maintains them himself: but these are not Christianity. Again, he listens to an exposure of some monstrous popular errors, and a condemnation of various doctrines which prevail in the Christian world. From these he learns what Christianity is not; but is as far as ever from ascertaining what it is. Again, he hears instructions which he knows to be sound, and exhortations which he feels to be forcible, on subjects of eternal importance, on purity of life, and the strict discharge of the moral law. Something very like this he has met with before in Epictetus, Marcus Antoninus, Seneca, and especially in the Old Testament. This is not Christianity. Where shall he seek it next? There are places, a very few - so few that it is well if he can find his way to them, where the teacher has not only discovered the fine affinities which subsist between the spirit of Christianity and the soul of man, but has had the courage to fling away the caput mortuum, which is commonly mistaken for the essence. That the Unbeliever has hitherto been unable to institute this process on the materials with which his wanderings have furnished him, is at once a proof and a consequence of his having fallen into the same error with the preachers who have only taught him what Christianity

is not. Now is his time to rectify his deficiencies. If he will act upon the religious suggestions of the preacher as readily as the preacher reasons from the principia of his philosophy, he may at length obtain an answer to his question, "What is Christianity?"

This answer he must obtain from his own mind; for it is one which no man can advance for another. The preacher himself can only determine for himself. He may teach the principles on which the investigation is to be pursued; he may remove obstructions, clear up obscurities, declare his own convictions, and, above all, describe the invariable effects, the inseparable attributes of Christianity, and thus lead his flock to the apprehension of the truth; but he cannot apprehend it for them. He may strip the essential facts of the gospel from their accessory circumstances, so that the reasoning faculty may be undisturbed in its operation, and the result be predicted with moral certainty; but over the act of assent he has no control. The power of drawing an inference is not transferable. If the Unbeliever, startled by finding his philosophic principles acted upon, should set about examining the facts of the revelation, and drawing the necessary inferences, it is well. If not, at least it is well to have learned that all Christian teachers do not believe that the vitality of the gospel resides in the apparel with which it is clothed, or even in the body which it temporarily inhabits.

The duty of the Christian teacher is to declare what he apprehends to be "the whole counsel of God; " not bit by bit, at random ; now a portion of doctrine, and now a piece of practical instruction, separated from the fundamental principles on which all sound doctrine and good practice are founded; but in the first place to ascertain those principles, then to announce them, and afterwards to assist his hearers in applying them to the rectification of their errors,

to the reformation of their souls, to the guidance of their external, and the invigoration of their internal life. Let no man say that this is philosophizing too much on sacred matters, and mixing human wisdom too presumptuously with divine. Let him observe how divine wisdom stands forth bright and clear when developed by these means. Let him estimate the difference of profit derived from the public reading of the Scriptures according to the different methods pursued. One preacher reads regularly a chapter from the Old Testament and a chapter from the New. They must be such as will stand alone; and they must be, on the face of them, practical. His choice is necessarily very limited. His flock hear what they have heard a hundred times before, in the same manner, and with a view to no ulterior purpose; and the familiar words pass over the ear and are forgotten. A teacher with different views, does not confine himself to chapters, or to one or two portions. He brings together passages from various départments of the sacred volume: passages whose connexion has never before perhaps been apparent to his hearers. New relations are discovered between various facts: many minor truths are combined in the support of a great one: light breaks in on the mind of the intelligent hearer, and a glimpse is obtained of the grand principle which it is the object of the subsequent discourse to set forth in completeness and beauty. That, by this process, the intellect is exercised and the taste gratified, is a recommendation rather than an objection to its adoption and there is no fear but that those hearers whose intellects are sluggish, and whose tastes are uncultivated, will listen to as much purpose as to a moral essay, or a piece of textual criticism. Their little urns are full, and are more likely to be kept brimming than if exposed

to the evaporating heats of controversy, or the dry winds of antiquated ethics.

It is a delightful privilege, and one of modern date, to be enabled to describe what preaching ought to be from the observation of what it is. To own the truth, we might not have formed so clear a conception of what it ought to be, if we had not had the experience of what, in a few instances, it is. This conception will probably be originated in many minds; in many more, exalted and enlarged, by the sermon before us, which, while it amply fulfils the avowed design of its author in the scope and power of its reasonings, answers also the unintentional purpose of a perfect illustration.

The inseparable attributes of Christianity having been described, those features which preserve an immortal youth and beauty amidst the revolutions of ages, the institutions of the primitive Christians are shown to have been adapted to the circumstances of their times, but in no degree to have involved the essence of truth. The mistake of regarding the Scriptures, which are only the records of revelation, as the revelation itself, having been exposed, the two causes from which the Christian dispensation appears to have suffered most in its influence on mankind are declared to be, the concealment of the Scriptures during the ascendancy of the Church of Rome, and the misconception and injudicious application of them subsequent to the period of the Reformation.

"In the first of these crises we see the spirit of the dispensation buried under the weight of its secular institutions; in the second, extinguished by a minute and scrupulous interpretation of its historical records: and in both, we perceive Christianity identified with what is really distinct from itself, and is but a mode or a means of its existence,"

Into the first of these errors there is little fear of our relapsing; but we are far from having outgrown the other

Whatever we may have owed to the prevalence of a rigid and literal principle of scriptural interpretation, the possibility of its producing any advantageous result is over, while it is still regarded by many with respect. The time for it is past; and nothing but evil can arise from the habit of looking to the Bible for rules for the regulation of every thought, word, and action, and for precedents for the decis ion of minute points of faith and conscience. It is not enough to declare the Bible to afford the rule of faith and practice; it is now time to discover what is the essence of that faith and the principle of that practice; to infer, and not to quote, that rule.

A distinct conception of what Christianity really is, is the first requisite for the work of developing its two preëminent proofs: namely, the one derived from its miraculous origin, and the other from its adaptation to our moral wants, and its striking coincidence with all the more prominent indications and analogies of our moral being. In order to obtain this conception, the freest investigation of the historical sources of the revelation, and the fullest participation in its spirit, are necessary.

The labors of the biblical critic, which are too often made to supersede those of the preacher, ought always to be considered subsidiary to them. The second of the grand proofs of the truth of Christianity resides in the heart of every man, and needs none of the resources of biblical learning to bring it to light, though such aid may confirm and extend the evidence in a very important degree. The office of the student is to uncover the springs of truth: it is for the religious teacher to open the sluices, and shed abroad the streams of living waters. Let them but be pure, and no thirsty soul will long refuse to drink.