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DISCOURSE IX.

ON RELIGIOUS SENSIBILITY.

EZEKIEL, 36, 26. AND I WILL GIVE YOU A HEART OF FLESH.

My object in the present discourse, is to offer some remarks upon the remedies, for the want of religious insensibility; or upon the means and principles of its culture.

And in entering upon this subject, I would say, that much is to be done by a correction of those mistakes which have been already mentioned. Let then something, I would venture to say, of this vehement demand for feeling be abated. Let not the feelings of religion be subjected to perpetual importunity, any more than the feelings of friendship, or of family affection. Let not feeling be made to occupy a place in religion that does not belong to it, as if it were the only thing and every thing-thus drawing away attention from the principles that are necessary to give it permanency, from the soil that must nourish, and the basis that must support it. Let not religious feeling be appealed to in a way to impair its simplicity, disinterestedness, and purity.

In the next place, let the common mistakes about the nature and signs of religious sensibility be corrected. Let all excess and extravagance be checked as much as possible; and especially let those who would cultivate a

fervent piety, make the necessary discriminations between religion and fanaticism. Let them not conclude that abuses are the only forms, under which the religious principle can appear; that, in order to be zealous Christians, it is necessary to part with their modesty, or their taste. In fine, let religion become so familiar that it shall cease to be, in their minds, or in their thoughts of it, any thing extraordinary; and then let its manifestations be, like the expressions of all other high and pure feeling, unforced, natural, manly, strong, graceful, beautiful, and winning. Thus let our light shine before men, not as the glaring meteor, but as the common light of day, attractive and cheering and constant.

And once more, let an honest and persevering endeavour be made, to correct those mistakes that prevail about the Supreme Object, to which religious sensibility is chiefly directed. Let not God be regarded as some unintelligible abstraction, or inaccessible majesty. Let the Christian teaching be welcomed; which instructs us to believe and to feel that He is our Father. Let an effort be made by every mind to break through the clouds of superstition and sin, and to perceive what the divine perfection is. Let not God's command that we should love him be mistaken for any thing more arbitrary or importunate or personal, than is the claim of disinterested human excellence to be loved. Let not the divine demand for our love, be so construed, as to chill or repel our love. In fine, let no thought be suffered to enter our minds that shall detract from the infinite generosity, the infinite dignity, the infinite beauty, of the divine perfection. How shall God be truly loved, if he is not

rightly known! Let him be rightly known; and love will as certainly follow, as it will follow the knowledge of any other of any human or angelic excellence. I do not say that it will certainly follow, but as certainly. Nay, why, if we rightly understood the subject, should it not be easier to love God, than to love man? For man is full of imperfection that offends us, and with him too we are liable to have questions and competitions. But God is all-perfect; and with him, our affections have nothing to do-but to love him.

Let me now proceed to offer a few suggestions more directly, upon the remedy for religious insensibility. And here let me say, at once, that I have no specific to offer in the shape of a remedy; no new, and before unheard of method to propose. I have no set of rules to lay down, a mere formal observance of which will certainly bring about the desired result. Religious sensibility is to be cultivated like all other sensibility-i. e. rationally. And since it is impossible within my present limits to discuss the subject in all its parts and bearings, I shall confine myself to the defence and application of the rational method. And the rational method is the method of attention, in the forms of meditation, reading, hearing, prayer; the method of association, which pays regard to the indirect influences of places, times, and moods of mind; and finally it is the method of consistency, by which no feeling is expected to be strong and satisfactory, but as the result of the whole character.

My remedy, then, for religious insensibility, under the blessing of heaven-it might sound strangely in the ears of some-but I boldly say that my remedy is reason. It is thought; it is reflection; it is attention;

it is exercise of reason in every legitimate way. The true method, I say, is purely and strictly rational. And I say, moreover, that it is not that Christians have used their reason so much, but so little, that they have been so deficient in real feeling.

Reason and feeling if they be not the same thing in different degrees of strength, are yet so intimately connected, that no man may ever expect, on any subject, to feel deeply and habitually, who does not feel rationally. The slight sometimes thrown upon reason in religion, is an invasion of the first law of the mind, the first law of heaven. This law is "elder scripture," and no more designed to be abrogated by the written word, than the law of gravitation is designed to be abrogated by the written word. The word proceeds upon the assumption, that the intellect is to be addressed it actually, and every where, addresses it. The whole theory of human affections proceeds upon it. The grandest theoretical mistake of all in religion, is that by which feeling is separated from the intellect.

Nor am I at all sure, my brethren, little liable as it may be thought we are to the mistake, that we have altogether escaped it. When it is said, as it sometimes is said, that certain preaching is too intellectual for a plain congregation, or too rational for an humble congregation, I must think, either that the meaning is false; or that the terms are used in a false sense. There never was too much intellect-there never was too much reason, yet put into a sermon. There may have been too little feeling; but it does not fol low, that there was too much reason. There may have been too much barren and useless speculation.

but not too much intellect. Some of the most practical and devotional books in the world-such as Law's Serious Call, Baxter's Saints' Rest, the Sermons of Bishop Butler, and of Dr. Paley, and the Works of Leighton,-are specimens of the closest reasoning. A genuine, just, and powerful moral discourse, has need to be one of the keenest, closest, and most discriminating compositions in the world. Such were the discourses of our Saviour. Nothing could be farther from loose, rambling, common-place exhortations. Nothing could be farther from that style, which says, "Oh! my hearers, you must be good; you must be pious men; and you must feel on this great subject." No, the hearers, by close, cogent, home-put argument, were made to feel; and they said, never man spake like this man."

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I may be thought singular, but I verily believe, that in most moral discourses at this day, the grand defect is not so much a defect of feeling, as it is a defect of close and discriminating argument; and that higher powers of argumentation are precisely what are wanted, in such sermons, to make them more weighty, practical, and impressive. And it is not the intellectual hearer, who can perhaps supply the deficiency, that most needs this; but the plain hearer who is mystified, mislead, and stupified, by the want of clear and piercing discrimination. I have that respect for human nature in its humblest forms, as to think that the highest powers of man or angel, would not be thrown away upon it and I cannot believe that nothing but truisms and common-places, vague generalities and unstudied exhortations, are required in teaching religion to such a nature.