he is an alien from God, rests upon him in | said, that prosperity, with some occasional all the weight of its unmitigated severity. variations, is the general accompaniment of The threat, that they who forget God shall that credit, which every man of undeviatbe turned into hell, will, on the great daying justice is sure to draw around him. But of its fell and sweeping operation, involve what reward will you tell us is due to him him among the wretched outcasts of eter- on the great day of the manifestation of nity. That God from whom, while in the God's righteousness, when, in fact, he has world, he withheld every due offering of done nothing unto God? What recompence gratitude, and remembrance, and universal can be awarded to him out of those books subordination of habit and of desire, will which are then to be opened, and in which show him to his face, how, under the delu- he stands recorded as a man overcharged sive garb of such sympathies as drew upon with the guilt of spiritual idolatry? How him the love of his acquaintances, and of shall God grant unto him the reward of a such integrities as drew upon him their re- servant, when the service of God was not the spect and their confidence, he was in fact a principle of his doings in the world; and determined rebel against the authority of when neither the justice he rendered to heaven; that not one commandment of the others, nor the sensibility that he felt for law, in the true extent of its interpretation, them, bore the slightest character of an ofwas ever fulfilled by him; that the pervad-fering to his Maker? ing principle of obedience to this law, which is love to God, never had its ascendency over him; that the beseeching voice of the Lawgiver, so offended and so insulted-but who, nevertheless, devised in love a way of reconciliation for the guilty,-never had the effect of recalling him; that, in fact, he neither had a wish for the friendship of God, nor cherished the hope of enjoying him, and that therefore, as he lived without hope, so he lived without God in the world; finding all his desire, and all his sufficiency, to be somewhere else, than in that favour which is better than life, and so, in addition to the curse of having continued not in all the words of the book of God's law to do them, entailing upon himself the mighty aggravation of having neglected all the of fers of his gospel.

But wherever the religious principle has taken possession of the mind, it animates these virtues with a new spirit; and when so animated, all such things as are pure, and lovely, and just, and true, and honest, and of good report, have a religious importance and character belonging to them. The text forms part of an epistle addressed to all the saints in Christ Jesus, which were at Philippi; and the lesson of the text is matter of direct and authoritative enforcement on all who are saints in Christ Jesus at the present day. Christianity, with the weight of its positive sanctions on the side of what is amiable and honourable in human virtue, causes such an influence to rest on the character of its genuine disciples, that, on the ground both of inflexible jus tice and ever-breathing charity, they are We say, then, of this natural virtue, what ever sure to leave the vast majority of the our Saviour said of the virtue of the Phari- world behind them. Simplicity and godly sees, many of whom were not extortioners, sincerity form essential ingredients of that as other men-that, verily, it hath its re- peculiarity by which they stand signalized ward. When disjoined from a sense of God, in the midst of an ungodly generation. The it is of no religious estimation whatever; true friends of the gospel, tremblingly alive nor will it lead to any religious blessing, to the honour of their master's cause, blush either in time or in eternity. It has, however, for the disgrace that has been brought on it its enjoyments annexed to it, just as a fine by men who keep its sabbaths, and yield an taste has its enjoyments annexed to it; and ostentatious homage to its doctrines and its in these it is abundantly rewarded. It is sacraments. They utterly disclaim all felexempted from that painfulness of inward lowship with that vile association of cant feeling which nature has annexed to every and of duplicity, which has sometimes been act of departure from honesty. It is sus- exemplified, to the triumph of the enemies tained by a conscious sense of rectitude and of religion; and they both feel the solemn elevation. It is gratified by the homage of truth, and act on the authority of the saysociety; the members of which are ever ing, that neither thieves, nor liars, nor exready to award the tribute of acknowledg-tortioners, nor unrighteous persons, have ment to those virtues that support the in- any part in the kingdom of Christ and of terests of society. And finally, it may be God.

DISCOURSE II.

The Influence of Christianity in aiding and augmenting the mercantile Virtues.

not you look for a gladder acclamation from the fertile field, than from the arid waste, where no character of grandeur made up for the barrenness that was around you? Would not the goodly tree, compassed about with the glories of its summer foliage, lift up an anthem of louder gratitude than the lowly shrub that grew beneath it? Would not the flower, from whose leaves every hue of loveliness was reflected, send forth a sweeter rapture than the russet weed, which never drew the eye of any admiring passenger? And in a word, wherever you saw the towering eminences of nature, or the garniture of her more rich and beauteous adornments, would it not be there that you looked for the deepest tones of devotion, or there for the tenderest and most exquisite of its melodies?

"For he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men."-Romans xiv. 18. WE have already asserted the natural ex- | scenery of an ordinary landscape? Would istence of such principles in the heart of man, as lead him to many graceful and to many honourable exhibitions of character. We have further asserted, that this formed no deduction whatever from that article of orthodoxy which affirms the utter depravity of our nature; that the essence of this depravity lies in man having broken loose from the authority of God, and delivered himself wholly up to the guidance of his own inclinations; that though some of these inclinations are in themselves amiable features of human character, and point in their effects to what is most useful to human society, yet devoid as they all are of any reference to the will and to the rightful sovereignty of the Supreme Being, they could not avert, or even so much as alleviate that charge of ungodliness, which may be fully carried round amongst all the sons and daughters of the species; that they furnish not the materials of any valid or satisfactory answer to the question, "What hast thou done unto God"?" and that whether they are the desires of a native rectitude, or the desires of an instinctive benevolence, they go not to purge away the guilt of having no love, and no care for the Being who formed and who sustains them.

But what is more. If the virtues and accomplishments of nature are at all to be admitted into the controversy between God and man, instead of forming any abatement upon the enormity of our guilt, they stamp upon it the reproach of a still deeper and more determined ingratitude. Let us conceive it possible, for a moment, that the beautiful personifications of scripture, were all realized; that the trees of the forest clapped their hands unto God, and that the isles were glad at his presence; that the little hills shouted on every side, and that the vallies covered over with corn sent forth their notes of rejoicing; that the sun and the moon praised him, and the stars of light joined in the solemn adoration; that the voice of glory to God was heard from every mountain and from every water-fall; and that all nature, animated throughout by the consciousness of a pervading and presiding Deity, burst into one loud and universal song of gratulation. Would not a strain of greater loftiness be heard to ascend from those regions where the all-working God had left the traces of his own immensity, than from the tamer and the humbler

There is both the, sublime of character, and the beauteous of character exemplified upon man. We have the one in that high sense of honour which no interest and no terror can seduce from any of its obligations. We have the other in that kindliness of feeling, which one look, or one sigh of imploring distress can touch into liveliest sympathy. Only grant that we have nothing either in the constitution of our spirits, or in the structure of our bodies, which we did not receive; and that mind, with all its varieties, is as much the product of a creating hand, as matter in all its modifications; and then, on the face of human society, do we witness all the gradations of a moral scenery, which may be directly referred to the operation of him who worketh all in all. It is our belief, that, as to any effectual sense of God, there is as deep a slumber throughout the whole of this world's living and rational generations, as there is throughout all the diversities of its mute and unconscious materialism; and that to make our alienated spirits again alive unto the Father of them, calls for as distinct and as miraculous an exertion of the Divinity, as would need to be put forth in the act of turning stones into the children of Abraham. Conceive this to be done then-and that a quickening and a realizing sense of the Deity pervaded all the men of our species-and that each knew how to refer his own endowments, with an adequate expression of gratitude to the unseen author of them-from whom we ask of all these various individuals, would you look for the halleluiahs of devoutest ecstacy?

above all control, and that refuses all rivalship.

Would it not be from him whom God had arrayed in the splendour of nature's brightest accomplishments? Would it not be from Now, we want to point your attention to him, with whose constitutional feelings the a distinction which obtains between one set movements of honour and benevolence were and another set of his requirements. By in fullest harmony? Would it not be from the former, we are enjoined to practise cerhim whom his Maker had cast into the hap-tain virtues, which separately from his inpiest mould, and attempered into sweetest junction altogether, are in great demand, and unison with all that was kind, and generous, in great reverence, amongst the members of and lovely, and ennobled by the loftiest emo-society--such as compassion, and generosity, tions, and raised above his fellows into the and justice, and truth; which, independently finest spectacle of all that was graceful and of the religious sanction they obtain from all that was manly? Surely, if the posses- the law of the Saviour, are in themselves so sion of these moralities be just another lovely, and so honourable, and of such good theme of acknowledgment to the Lord of report, that they are ever sure to carry the spirits of all flesh, then, if the acknow- general applause along with them, and thus ledgment be withheld, and these moralities to combine both the characteristics of our have taken up their residence in the bosom text-that he who in these things serveth of him who is utterly devoid of piety, they Christ, is both acceptable to God, and apgo to aggravate the reproach of his ingrati- proved of men. tude; and to prove, that of all the men upon earth who are far from God, he stands at the widest distance, he remains proof against the weightiest claims, and he, of the dead in trespasses and sins, is the most profoundly asleep to the call of religion, and to the supremacy of its righteous obligations.

It is by argument such as this, that we would attempt to convince of sin, those who have a righteousness that is without godliness; and to prove, that, with the possession of such things as are pure, and lovely, and honest, and of good report, they in fact can only be admitted to reconciliation with God, on the same footing with the most worthless and profligate of the species; and to demonstrate, that they are in the very same state of need and of nakedness, and are therefore children of wrath, even as others; that it is only through faith in the preaching of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ that they can be saved; and that unless brought down from the delusive eminency of their own conscious attainments, they take their forgiveness through the blood of the Redeemer, and their sanctification through the spirit which is at his giving, they shall obtain no part in that inheritance which is incorruptible and undefiled, and which fadeth not away.

But the gospel of Jesus Christ does something more than hold out a refuge to the guilty. It takes all those who accept of its overtures under its supreme and exclusive direction. It keeps by them in the way of counsel and exhortation, and constant superintendence. The grace which it reveals, is a grace which not merely saves all men, but which teaches all men. He who is the proposed Saviour, also claims to be the alone master of those who put their trust in him. His cognizance extends itself over the whole line of their history; and there is not an affection of their heart, or a deed of their visible conduct, over which he does not assert the right of an authority that is

But there is another set of requirements, where the will of God, instead of being seconded by the applause of men, is utterly at variance with it. There are some who can admire the generous sacrifices that are made to truth or to friendship, but who, without one opposing scruple, abandon themselves to all the excesses of riot and festivity, and are therefore the last to admire the puritanic sobriety of him whom they cannot tempt to put his chastity or his temperance away from him; though the same God, who bids us lie not one to another, also bids us keep the body under subjection, and to abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul. Again, there are some in whose eye an unvitiated delicacy looks a beautiful and an interesting spectacle, and an undeviating self-control looks a manly and respectable accomplishment; but who have no taste in themselves, and no admiration in others, for the more direct exercises of religion; and who positively hate the strict and unbending preciseness of those who join in every ordinance, and on every returning night celebrate the praises of God in their family; and that, though the heavenly Lawgiver, who tells us to live righteously and soberly, tells us also to live godly in the present evil world. And lastly, there are some who have not merely a toleration, but a liking for all the decencies of an established observation ; but who, with the homage they pay to sabbaths and to sacraments, nauseate the Christian principle in the supreme and regenerating vitality of its influences; who, under a general religiousness of aspect, are still in fact the children of the world-and therefore hate the children of light in all that is peculiar and essentially characteristic of that high designation; who understand not what is meant by having our conversation in heaven; and utter strangers to the separated walk, and the spiritual exercises, and the humble devotedness, and the

3

AUGMENTING THE MARCANTILE VIRTUES.

consecrated affections, of the new creature miration-virtues in which there is a meetin Jesus Christ, shrink from them alto-ing and a combining of both the properties gether as from the extravagancies of a fa- of our text; so that he who in these things naticism in which they have no share, and serveth Christ, is both approved of God, with which they can have no sympathy- and acceptable unto men. and all this, though the same scripture which prescribes the exercises of household and of public religion, lays claim to an undivided authority over all the desires and affections of the soul; and will admit of no compromise between God and the world; and insist upon an utter deadness to the one, and a most vehement sensibility to the other; and elevates the standard of loyalty to the Father of our Spirits, to the lofty pitch of loving him with all our strength, and of doing all things to his glory.

Let a steady hold be kept of this distinction, and it will be found capable of being turned to very useful application, both to the object of illustrating principle, and to the important object of detecting character. For this purpose, let us carry the distinction along with us, and make it subservient to the establishment of two or three successive observations.

First. A man may possess, to a considerable extent, the second class of virtues, and not possess so much as one iota of the religious principle; and that among other reasons, because à man may feel a value for one of the attributes which belongs to this class of virtues, and have no value whatever for the other attribute. If justice be both approved by God, and acceptable to men, he may on the latter property alone,

Let these examples serve to impress a real and experimental distinction which obtains between two sets of virtues; between those which possess the single ingredient of being approved by God, while they want the ingredient of being also acceptable unto men-and those which possess both these ingredients, and to the observ-be induced to the strictest maintenance of ance of which, therefore, we may be carried this virtue-and that without suffering its by a regard to the will of God, without any former property to have any practical inreference to the opinion of men-or by a fluence whatever on any of his habits, or regard to the opinion of men, without any any of his determinations, and the same reference to the will of God. Among the with every other virtue belonging to this first class of virtues we would assign a second class. As residing in his character, foremost place to all those inward and there may not be the ingredient of godlispiritual graces which enter into the obe-ness in any one of them. He may be well dience of the affections-highly approved of God, but not at all acceptable to the general taste, or carrying along with them the And general congeniality of the world. then, though they do not possess the ingredient of God's approbation in a way so separate and unmixed, we would say that abstinence from profane language, and attendance upon church, and a strict keeping of the sabbath, and the exercises of family worship, and the more rigid decrees of sobriety, and a fearful avoidance of every encroachment on temperance or chastity, rank more appropriately with the first than with the second class of virtues; for though there be many in society who have no religion, and yet to whom several of these virtues are acceptable, yet you will allow, that they do not convey such a universal popularity along with them, as certain other virtues which belong indisputably to the second class. These are the virtues which have a more obvious and immediate bearing on the interest of society-such as the truth which is punctual to all its engagements, and the honour which never disappoints the confidence it has inspired, and the compassion which cannot look unmoved at any of the symptoms of human wretchedness, and the generosity which scatters unsparingly around it. These are virtues which God has enjoined, and in behalf of which man lifts the testimony of a loud and ready ad

reported on account of them by men; but with God he may lie under as fearful a severity of reckoning, as if he wanted them altogether. Surely, it does not go to alleviate the withdrawment of your homage from God, that you have such an homage to the opinion of men, as influences you to do things, to the doing of which the law of God is not able to influence you. It cannot be said to palliate the revolting of your inclinations from the Creator, that you have transferred them all to the creature; and given an ascendency to the voice of human reputation, which you have refused to the voice and authority of your Lawgiver in heaven. Your want of subordination to him, is surely not made up by the respectful subordination that you render to the taste or the judgment, of society. And in addition to this, we would have you to remember, that though other constitutional principles, besides a regard to the opinion of others, helped to form the virtues of the second class upon your character; though compassion and generosity, and truth, would have broken out into full and flourishing display upon you, and that, just because you had a native sensibility, or a native love of rectitude; yet, if the first ingredient be wanting, if a regard to the approbation of God have no share in the production of the moral accomplishmentthen all the morality you can pretend to, is

of as little religious estimation, and is as utterly disconnected with the rewards of religion, as all the elegance of taste you can pretend to, or all the raptured love of music you can pretend to, or all the vigour and dexterity of bodily exercise you can pretend to. All these, in reference to the great question of immortality, profit but little; and it is godliness alone that is profitable unto all things. It is upon this consideration that we would have you to open your eyes to the nakedness of your condition in the sight of God; to look to the full weight of the charge that he may prefer against you; to estimate the fearful extent of the deficiency under which you labour; to resist the delusive whispering of peace, when there is no peace; and to understand, that the wrath of God abideth on every child of nature, however rich he may be in the virtues and accomplishments of nature.

tory, than to abandon the iniquities of his past conduct; that the most characteristic transformation which takes place at such a time, is a transformation from thoughtlessness, and from licentious gaiety, and from the festive indulgencies of those with whom he is wont to run to all those excesses of riot, of which the Apostle says, that they which do these things shall not inherit the kingdom of God; for even then, and in the very midst of all his impiety, he may have been kindhearted, and there might be no room upon his person for a visible transformation from inhumanity of character; even then, he may have been honourable, and there might be as little room for a visible transformation from fraudulency of character.

Thirdly. Nothing is more obvious than the antipathy that is felt by a certain class of religionists against the preaching of good But again. This view of the distinction works; and the antipathy is assuredly well between the two sets of virtues, will serve and warrantably grounded, when it is such to explain how it is, that, in the act of turn-a preaching as goes to reduce the importing unto God, the one class of them appears ance, or to infringe upon the simplicity, of to gather more copiously, and more con- the great doctrine of justification by faith, spicuously, upon the front of a renewed but along with this, may there not be recharacter, than the other class; how it is marked the toleration with which they will that the former wear a more unequivocal listen to a discourse upon one set of good aspect of religiousness than the latter; how works, and the evident coldness and disit is, that an air of gravity, and decency, like with which they listen to a discourse on and seriousness, looks to be more in alliance another set of them; how a pointed remonwith sanctity, than the air either of open strance against Sabbath breaking sounds in integrity, or of smiling benevolence; how their ears as if more in character from the it is, that the most ostensible change in the pulpit, than a pointed remonstrance against habit of a converted profligate, is that the commission of theft, or the speaking of change in virtue of which he withdraws evil; how an eulogium on the observance himself from the companions of his licen- of family worship, feels, in their taste, to be tiousness; and that to renounce the dissi-more impregnated with the spirit of sacredpations of his former life stands far more ness, than an eulogium on the virtues of frequently, or, at least, far more visibly, as- the shop, or of the market-place; and that sociated with the act of putting on Chris- while the one is approved of as having tianity, than to renounce the dishonesties of about it the solemn and the suitable chahis former life. It is true, that, by the law of racteristics of godliness, the other is stigthe gospel he is laid as strictly under the matized as a piece of barren, heartless, heaauthority of the commandment to live righ-thenish, and philosophic morality? Now, teously, as of the commandment to live this antipathy to the preaching of the latter soberly. But there is a compound cha- species of good works, has something peracter in those virtues which are merely culiar in it. It is not enough to say, that social; and the presence of the one ingre- it arises from a sensitive alarm about the dient serves to throw into the shade, or to stability of the doctrine of justification; for disguise altogether, the presence of the other let it be observed, that this doctrine stands ingredient. There is a greater number of opposed to the merit not of one particular irreligious men, who are at the same time class of performances, but to the merit of just in their dealings, than there is of irre- all performances whatsoever. It is just as ligious men, who are at the same time pure unscriptural a detraction from the great and temperate in their habits; and there- truth of salvation by faith, to rest our acfore it is that justice, even the most scrupu- ceptance with God on the duties of prayer, lous, is not so specifical, and of course not or of rigid Sabbath keeping, or of strict and so satisfying a mark of religion, as is a so- untainted sobriety, as to rest it on the punebriety that is rigid and unviolable. And tual fulfilment of all your bargains, and on all this helps to explain how it is, that when the extent of your manifold liberalities. It a man comes under the power of religion, is not, then, a mere zeal about the great to abandon the levities of his past conduct article of justification which lies at the botis an event which stands far more notice-tom of that peculiar aversion that is felt ably out upon him, at this stage of his his- towards a sermon on some social or hu