any care or attention in selecting and arranging them. These supine professors derive their religious tenets, not from the word of God, but from the authority of some great name, which they deem almost oracular. Forgetting the deference which they owe to Divine truth, they yield implicitly to the dictates of a favourite master, and exhibit the impressions which they receive from his instructions as the characters of inspiration.

There is a third class, whose principles are formed with the most rigid and systematical nicety, but who have not derived them from a comprehensive and connected view of the scriptures. They fix their attention, almost exclusively, on some one doctrine, give it a prominent place on all occasions, and make it the standard to which they bring every article of their creed. The impropriety of this practice must be apparent to the slightest observation; since, to insulate any doctrine from the great body of truth, is to remove it from its only legitimate position; and, therefore, to destroy the connexion and harmony which constitute one of the chief beauties of Divine Revelation.

With how many instances, illustrative of this remark, does the history of the church supply us! Some persons, having formed defective notions of Divine benevolence, (defective

because they contemplate it abstractedly, and apart from that regard which it behoves the Supreme Being to maintain for the honour of his government,) endeavour to make every question accord with their views of that attribute. Imagine them, for example, to have established this proposition, 'That God is infinitely benevolent;'-from this they deduce an opinion which is evidently hostile to the united testimony of all the New Testament writers,That Jesus Christ did not suffer the death of the cross to atone for sin,' because the requisition of such a sacrifice, they say, is incompatible with Divine goodness. A Being who is infinitely benevolent, they add, cannot want any motive besides benevolence to pardon the offences of mankind; and, therefore, to attribute to him any other motive, a motive, for instance, arising from the sufferings of an innocent person, is to reflect dishonour on his glorious character. This mode of objecting to the doctrine of atonement is highly disingenuous; for every consistent believer in that doctrine maintains, that the whole system of redemption originated in infinite benevolence, and that the mediation of Christ, so far from being a motive with the Deity to extend his regards to transgressors, was itself the richest expression of that amiable perfection. It was

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designed to be the medium of conveying to a guilty world, every spiritual and eternal blessing;-a channel by which the Deity could, in perfect consistency, with all the glorious properties of his nature, communicate to the ruined children of Adam, the riches of his benevolence throughout an interminable existence.

A mistaken view of this attribute has given rise, also, to many dangerous presumptions respecting future punishment. If God is benevolent, it is inferred that he cannot, hereafter, consign even disobedient creatures to "the worm that dieth not, and to the fire that is not quenched." Much of the reasoning employed on this subject, would suggest that those severe afflictions which befall mankind in the present world, are inconsistent with Divine benevolence; which position would involve one or other of these consequences; either, that this afflicted world lies beyond the precincts of the Divine government, or, that benevolence is not a perfection of the Divine character.

Suppose a disputant to proceed on similar principles of reasoning with reference to Divine justice. Suppose he were to detach it from all the other perfections of Jehovah, and attempt to form a system which should be illustrative of that perfection only; he would

be brought to the conclusion, (though the inference would be opposed to the experience of all mankind,) that no traces of Divine goodness can exist in an apostate world; and that the salvation of sinners is impossible.

This partial and unconnected view of sacred truth has produced very mischievous consequences on another class of religious professors. I allude to those who seem to regard the decrees of God as the rule of their conduct. Were there any evidence that these deluded men possess a more than ordinary acquaintance with the Divine counsels, we might be disposed to hesitate in our decisions with respect to them, whether, in consequence of this exalted privilege, they were not placed under regulations specifically different from those which require the obedience of all mankind to the revealed will of God; but since they are as ignorant of those counsels as the unconscious infant, and are, in common with all other human beings, subject to the moral government of Jehovah, their affected superiority to the written law is a tissue of presumption and folly. Considering the decrees of God, (of which they talk so familiarly,) alone, and unconnected with all just ideas of his legislative authority, they are disposed to lavish on the use of means, and all rational and scrip

tural views of human obligation, opprobrium,

and contempt.

Now, if we would hallow the name of God in our principles, we must be careful to form them agreeably to the whole of his character, as it is revealed in the sacred scriptures.

God is perfectly holy. That this is an essential property of the Deity, is obvious, from the unequivocal declarations of his word; from the original purity of all created intelligences; from the commands and prohibitions of the Divine law; and from all the dispensations of justice and mercy which have been revealed to the human race.

Every man who is deeply impressed with this perfection of the Divine character, will readily perceive the importance of admitting such principles only as are perfectly conformable to it and indeed, if we collect our principles from the plain and unsophisticated statements of holy writ, we shall be happily secured from all erroneous views on this point. Contemplating the holiness of God in connexion with his inspired word, we shall be convinced of the reasonableness of that law which demands universal purity, and of the beauty and surpassing glory of the gospel, which, in all its doctrines and promises, is evidently designed to promote that desirable