the utmost care upon their children and dependents, and upon all who were within the reach of their influence. The errours, into which Jews or heathens had unhappily fallen, they would labour to correct by pointing out their mistakes. From the. temples of idols and the synagogues of Jews they would withdraw themselves, thus bearing a silent but public testimony against the errours of those who assembled there; and employ every other innocent method to discountenance mistaken notions or a false worship.

As they had been solemnly warned, that an everlasting existence of happiness depended upon their steady adherence to the Gospel of Christ, they would be ready to profess it at all hazards, although threatened with the loss of property, liberty, and even life, looking for the recompense of their sacrifices in Heaven.

While they weré conscious that they had violated any of the rules of morality laid down in the Gospel, they would be careful to express their sorrow for the offence, and to alter their conduct, knowing that one vicious indulgence wilfully persisted in would expose them to final condemnation. Where they observed those rules to be violated by others, they would not fail to express their disapprobation, either by admonishing the offender of his fault, or by withdrawing from his company, or by doing both where they were likely to produce a good

effect.

Such may we suppose would be the natural effect of a practical faith in the Gospel. And is it conceivable that a number of men, who believed these principles and acted in this manner, and professed to do so by the authority of God, should produce no change in the world? should do nothing to correct the errours and restrain the vices of mankind? Can it be supposed, that the foolish superstitions and abominable practices of the idolaters could be compared with the pure worship of the Gospel, or the affected piety and pharisaic pride of the Jew with the honest and humble character of the Christian, without suffering on the comparison? or that truth, justice, benevolence, and fidelity, had nothing in them which could excite respect and lead to imitation? To suppose this would be to suppose, that truth has no advantage in contending with errour; that virtue has no charms; that conscience. has lost it's power, example it's influence; and that shame and remorse are banished from the world. Happily for mankind, we know the contrary to have been the fact; and with the same certainty we therefore know, that the belief of Christianity by great numbers must have produced a good effect upon the morals of mankind.

Such appears to be it's natural tendency; and this we know, both from sacred and profane history, to have been the effect actually produced by the Christian religion in the first ages of the church. The acts of the apostles, and their letters or epistles,

addressed principally to different churches which they established, bear ample testimony to their courage in professing the Gospel, their zeal in propagating it in the face of the most violent opposition, and to the happy fruits of their labours, not only in making many proselytes, but likewise in producing important changes in their conduct. Some indeed only tremble for a season, like the Roman governor, when they heard them reason of justice, temperance, and a judgment to come, and afterward returned again to their evil practices; but upon others the preaching of the apostles produced a more permanent effect, occasioning genuine repentance for their past sins, and universal reformation of character. The great mass of the Jewish people was every where so far advanced in depravity, as to be incapable of being corrected by the powerful discipline of the Gospel, and was at length devoted to that destruction which it had justly merited by it's sins. Many thousands of Jews, however, believed, and became thereby virtuous and excellent characters. But in the heathen world the Christian religion found a more favourable and produced a more extensive effect, leading gentiles to abandon the worship of their idols, and to live soberly, righteously, and piously, and hereby saving them. from those calamities to which as idolaters they were doomed. Their enemies themselves bore testimony to the innocence of the lives of Christian converts, in consequence of their profession of Christianity, as

well as to the general desertion of the heathen temples. These were the salutary fruits produced by Christians in the first ages, while their faith retained. it's original purity. But the religion of Jesus, like the religion of nature and the law of Moses, soon began to be corrupted, and hereby lost it's efficacy. Instead of restraining vice, and checking the tendency of mankind toward a corruption of morals, it hastened their progress therein; instead of exalting, it degraded the divine Being in the ideas of men, bringing them back to the worship of idols, and of frail men and women under the character of saints, and leading them to substitute innumerable ceremonies in the place of substantial virtue.

Of such Christians Christ would not say, 66 ye are the salt of the earth, ye are the instruments employed by Providence for correcting the moral disorders of the world, and for saving it from destruction;" but, on the contrary, he would rather be inclined to say,

ye are the corrupters of the world, the bane of true religion, the tares among the wheat. Let all beware how they admit you; for you carry with you the seeds of mischief whithersoever you go."

Those only would now deserve, in his estimation, to be called the salt of the earth, who had thrown off the errours of popery, discovered the sense of Scripture, and recovered the genuine doctrine of the new covenant; for such only would appear to him to be qualified to restore strict purity of morals, and hereby to reclaim and reform the world. This doc

trine has no doubt the same tendency now, which it had originally; for human nature is still the same, and will produce the same fruits, when cultivated by the same means.

If any should ask, in what manner Christians must act to become the salt of the earth; I answer, by acting as the first Christians acted in like circumstances; not by standing aloof from the world, and burying themselves in caves and cloisters, as many have done in later times. As well might we expect salt to preserve the putrifying body, although kept at a distance, as look for the reformation of the world from such men. To produce this object, they must have some intercourse, and come into contact with the body they are to preserve, in those useful and active employments of life to which they may be called. Nor is this change to be accomplished by those whose maxim it is to do as the world does, and who swim with the stream; for such men, instead of reforming the world, cannot fail to be corrupted by it; they assimilate themselves to those manners which they ought to oppose.

It is to be effected by professing the truth on all occasions with fearless integrity; by taking every opportunity of communicating it to others, and of exposing errour; by condemning the vices of the age, by whomsoever practised; by reproving and admonishing those who are guilty of them, and, where they appear incorrigible, withdrawing from their society; by being particularly attentive to the