they may be slow to gain the reputation of greatness, as there is nothing startling or extravagant about them, still in a good cause, and in trying emergencies, there are none whose power is more widely felt, whose ascendency is more generally acknowledged. Such was the character of our Washington; and it was this which made him the Father of his country. And if without irreverence I may go higher for an illustration-such was Jesus Christ. There was nothing in him that approached to extravagance or even to enthusiasm ; but he exhibited throughout a perfect balance of character; and this, considering the circumstances of intense excitement amid which it was preserved, must ever be regarded as a moral miracle-one which will have almost as much influence on a thinking and philosophical mind to prove that God was with him, as stilling the tempest or raising the dead.

Lastly, in further recommendation of this balance of character I may observe, that it is necessary to insure happiness. I do not deny that a person in whom any one desire or taste, say a taste for music, has been disproportionately developed, may occasionally derive from the gratification of this taste an intense delight, of which others can form no adequate idea. But consider how often this taste must be offended and pained in a world not intended for such excessive excitability, and not adapted to it, and in which it can find so little sympathy. Besides, let any one passion be developed disproportionately, and it will increase-nay it is the sole cause of that war in our members alluded to by the apostlethe origin not only of all sin, but of most of our misfortunes and disquietude. How often, indeed, do we see, and acknowledge, and deplore the infirmities and miseries of an ill balanced mind! If then we mean to act wisely-if we mean to act the part of rational beings-we shall be anxious above all things to correct the inequalities in our tempers, by resorting to such means, and subjecting ourselves to such influences, as may have the effect to bring out those dormant principles in our nature, which God never intended should remain inactive, and which alone can serve as an adequate check upon the unhappy biases our characters have taken. Pursuing this course, we may expect, even in this world, to realize in our own souls much of that moral harmony, which

it is the great object of all God's dispensations to introduce. Or, in whatever degree we may fail of this here, we may look forward with the utmost confidence to a future world, where we may hope that this war in our members will finally cease; where there will be no constraint even in the practice of duty, every part of our nature doing its proper office spontaneously, both to promote the happiness of the creature, and magnify the goodness of the Creator.

SERMON XV.

BY REV. JOSEPH TUCKERMAN, D. D. BOSTON, MASS.

RELIGION, A PRACTICAL PRINCIPLE.
COLOSS. III. 17.

WHATSOEVER ye do, in word or deed, DO ALL IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS GIVING THANKS TO GOD AND THE FATHER BY HIM.

In these words we are taught what should be the great and distinguishing peculiarity of Christians. It is, to do all things as disciples of Jesus should do them. It is in all our dispositions and all our conduct, to be determined and governed by the principles and motives of the religion of Christ, giving thanks to God, even the Father, through him. This habitual regard to God's will in Christ Jesus concerning us, and this entire devotion to Christian duty, is the immediate end of all the commands and of all the doctrines of the New Testament; and, in proportion as we approach to it, we shall obtain the purest and highest felicity of the life that now is, and be qualified for all that is taught and promised of the employments and happiness of a better world.

Whatsoever ye do, in word or deed; and, not only so, but whatsoever ye think or feel; whatsoever ye hope or fear; do all in the name of the Lord Jesus; or, in submission to his authority; in obedience to his will. This is the import of the precept in the text. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the guide whom we are constantly to follow. He is the law giver from whose precepts and whose decisions there lies no appeal. To be Christians, we must not alone believe all that Christ has taught, we must also do what our religion requires that we should do; and we must be what it will make us, if we are faithful to its principles and objects. As far as they know the will of their gods, the heathen obey it. In obedience to this will, what labors do they not perform? To what sacrifices do they not submit? When I have been reading the records of the triumphs even of the most cruel superstitions; of the zeal in the service of their gods, with which poor, deluded idolaters have not only given up their lives to poverty and to all the miseries of want; have not

only separated themselves from society, and from all opportunities and means of indulging the common passions and sympathies of men, but have voluntarily inflicted upon themselves the severest tortures ;-and, merely to prolong suffering, that they might thus secure more of the favor of their deities, and a stronger claim upon the happiness of the future life which they anticipated, have passed from torture to torture, employing all their faculties upon the invention of new modes of inflicting pain; and when I have compared those who call themselves Christians with these heathens; the power of faith in one, with the weakness of faith in the other; the zeal of one, with the coldness of the other; and as far as he knows his duty, the piety and virtue of the heathen, with the impiety and vice of the Christian: I have been ready to exclaim, How shall we confront the heathen, when we would convince him that ours, and not his, is the path to immortal blessedness; that ours, and not his, is the devotion that raises the soul to God, unites it with him, and secures his eternal favor?' Away, my friends, with the delusion of the sufficiency of a merely nominal Christianity. Away with the error, that it is a light and an easy thing to be a Christian. Our religion calls us to a devotion as entire, as is practised even by the heathen, who immolates himself to his gods; though not to a devotion which is to be expressed by mere corporal sufferings. It requires a devotion of the whole heart, and the whole life to God, in an entire and constant obedience to the commands of Christ. It rerequires a devotion, which, if it were universal among those who call themselves Christians, would secure, I believe, a more rapid extension of our faith, than all the other visible means, which are now in operation for this most interesting end. To this devotion, I wish, with the help of God to excite you; and to whatever class of Christians we belong, or by whatever distinctive name we may call ourselves, if we do not practice it, will not even the pious heathen rise in judgment against us?

Our religion requires of every individual, an obedience that is universal; an obedience extending not alone to the greatest, but to the minutest of our actions; and not to our conduct only, but to every source and spring of action in our

hearts. To do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, is, habitually, to think as Christians. It is, to think with a deep and prevailing sense of his presence, whose eye is upon all our thoughts. It is, to govern all our thoughts by the commands of Christ. It is, in passing judgment upon our thoughts, to remember and to feel, that we are to give account of them at his tribunal in heaven. To think as Christians therefore, we are not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to think, but to think soberly. We are to think of others as we would that they should think of us. We are to think of all the objects and pursuits of the world as immortal and accountable beings should think of them. To think as Christians, is to make God, and Christ, and heaven, and the conditions and means of salvation-of our own salvation--familiar to our thoughts. It is, to allow the indulgence of no thoughts which we cannot approve, in comparing them with the commands of our Lord, and with our hopes of heaven.—To do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, is to govern every passion and every appetite by his will; and, not only to bring every one under a general subjection to the laws of Christ, but in no instance to admit the gratification of an appetite or passion, which we may not hope that he will approve, when we shall stand before him in judgment. It is to maintain a constant watchfulness, that we be neither seduced nor driven by our appetites or passions, into any sin; that the smaller disappointments of life may not irritate, as well as that the greatest may not enrage us; that we be always prepared to resist, as well the first emotions of an impure desire, the first suggestion of an unjust purpose, the first excitement of pride or vanity, the first feelings of unkindness towards others, and of discontent with the appointments of God, and the first indulgence which may tempt us to excess, as the more open and obviously dangerous demands of our appetites and passions. To do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, is to maintain always, a Christian conversation. It is, to speak with an habitual remembrance, and with the feeling always strong in our hearts, that "by our words we shall be justified, and by our words we shall be condemned." It is, to converse with the conviction always strong in our minds, "thou, God, hearest me”! It is, therefore, to converse with the simplicity and purity,