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centuries, offers two grand features or divisions— the clerical and secular; or, to speak more strictly perhaps, the monastic and the knightly. Hence Christianity, so far as it produced any sensible effect upon the lives of men, was displayed in the two corresponding types or forms: that of the secular Christian-too often no more than nominally Christian-bold, haughty, contemptuous, superstitious, but sincere, zealous, and full of honour; and the ecclesiastical or monkish, austere, studious, and devout, but unenlightened, credulous, and neglecting essentials in the observance of forms and ceremonies. This was, no doubt, a most imperfect state of things, as the fruit of Christian principles in social life; it was better, however, than paganism, even under the deceptive lustre cast upon it by a high degree of civilization : it was better in itself; it was immeasurably better, in respect to the hope it held out of the future. That Providence should permit the operation of those causes which practically subjected the divine spirit of revelation to the natural passions and earthward tendencies of mankind, there were, we may be sure, satisfactory reasons. This lazy sabbath of the moral being was to be succeeded by a period of energetic exertion, to which it was doubtless preparatory: this fallow year in God's husbandry was endured, with reference to the ensuing harvests. There is a charm in the annals of those

early times, not unlike that which endears the recollections of our youth, in spite of its weaknesses long since discovered, and its errors now deplored; and the fact, that the Almighty will call every human being to account for his transgressions, and defects of performance, is quite consistent with our believing that those periods which we call the ages of moral darkness may, nevertheless, be complacently regarded by Him whose praise is uttered by the darkness as well as by the light, whose inscrutable wisdom is at work in such cheerless seasons in preparing for a period to follow, when his Spirit will be more genially received, and his will more truly performed.

The Reformation opened such an era. Then, once more men looked earnestly into the Scriptures; that profound mirror of truth, in which, beholding God as revealed in his incarnate Son, we contemplate whatever belongs to the perfection of human nature. With enlarged intelligence came more ardent aspirations and more sustained endeavours after excellence. The principles of the gospel began to be manifestly realized in the lives of multitudes; to be influential, directly or indirectly, upon all. Civil freedom and intellectual improvement, first the children, became in turn the ministers of divine truth. It was more especially in this favoured land and under the auspices of the national church of England, that those successive steps in the ad

vancement of social happiness, which may be traced up to Christianity as their originating principle, proved, by a providential reaction, subsidiary to its diffusion and efficacy. Simultaneously with the greatest ornaments of our secular history, arose the constellation (rather than the series) of our unrivalled elder divines; and the pursuit of those sciences and forms of knowledge, which, by spiritualizing, ennoble and bless mankind, was followed by its natural consequences.

For the first hundred years which followed the unrestrained use of the Bible and vernacular Liturgy, and the preaching in every village and hamlet, (not of the logical niceties of the schoolmen, but) of the unadulterated word of God, the national morals went on improving, and the national character continued to be elevated; at the same time, we have also reason to believe, a corresponding increase took place in the number of those individuals, who, in the recesses of private life, expanded their hearts gladly and unreservedly to the beams of gospel light, and in mind, in will, and deportment, made near approaches to the Scripture model. Now it was, that the character of the Christian, in its genuine proportions, began to be truly understood and rightly appreciated. Now did the servant of God, in the midst of an evil world, stand forth in his simple and native grandeur: delivered from the bonds of superstition and slavish ignorance; fervent, with

out intolerance or fanaticism; contemplative, but not visionary; courteous, meek, gentle, forgiving, yet fearless and persevering; not shunning the tumult of secular affairs, yet unsullied or rather purified by the trial; living, under the constant influence of faith, hope, and charity, a life becoming the friend of God and man; and, by the use of that precious alchymy, which is taught by the holy Spirit, and of which the principles are unfolded in the inspired documents of salvation, converting the polluted air of camps and courts, of commercial strife, and all the Babel resorts of the followers of mammon, into wholesome elements and improving exercises of virtue. Now, in short, appeared, in the writings of the wise as well as in the practice of the holy, that" man after God's own heart," whom it is the design of the treatises placed before the reader in the following pages, at once to display and to recommend for imitation; that character which only the gospel, honestly administered and duly accepted, can form; and which their distinguished author has sketched with fewer touches, but with great beauty, in the subjoined portrait of himself, in his most favoured moods: "What a heaven do I feel in myself," writes the pious bishop, in a letter to a friend," when, after many traverses of meditation, I find in my heart a feeling possession of my God! when I can walk and converse with the God of heaven, not without an openness of heart

and familiarity; when my soul hath caught fast and sensible hold of my Saviour, and either pulls him down to itself, or rather lifts up itself to him; and can and dare secretly avouch, 'I know whom I have believed;' when I can look upon all this inferior creation with the eyes of a stranger, and am transported to my home in my thoughts, solacing myself in the view and meditation of my future glory, and that presence of the saints; when I see wherefore I was made; and my conscience tells me I have done that for which I came-done it, not so as I can boast, but so as it is accepted; while my weaknesses are pardoned, and my acts measured by my desires, and my desires by their sincerity; lastly, when I can find myself upon holy resolution, made firm and square, fit to entertain all events; the good with moderate regard, the evil with courage and patience, both with thanks; strongly settled to good purposes; constant and cheerful in devotion; and, in a word, ready for God, yea full of God."

The excellent prelate, Joseph Hall, was among those numerous examples on record, of persons memorable for religious and moral worth, who have had reason to ascribe the formation of their characters, under Providence, to the care of maternal piety. His mother, he says, was a woman of that rare sanctity, that, were it not for my interest in nature, I dare say, Epistles, Decade ii. Ep. 1.

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