apt to consider themselves as too bad, or too good, to consort with their fellow-men. Their peculiar notions tend to engender a disposition either to gloom and melancholy, or to rapturous but unnatural devotion. Hence the austerities and seclusion of some of the monastic institutions of former times, the legitimate offspring of superstition: and which may well be contrasted with those cheerful and salutary establishments to which I have before alluded, whose undoubted parents are pure morality and enlightened religion."Enthusiasm (says an excellent man, whom I have already quoted,) is unfavourable to benevolence: not but that the enthusiast sometimes loves man as well as God; but that his affection is not pleasing and attractive; he is either affectionate to excess, and so disgusts; or he is very morose. He is also too overbearing, too deficient in candour, for any durable connexion: all such are maintained by delicate respect and mutual attentions.— But if even his brother differ from him in religion, he is ready to treat him as his enemy, because he is the enemy of God; and to consider him as a proper object of persecution'.'

'Hey's Lectures, vol. ii. p. 184.

Hence the propensity which persons of this turn of mind have to run into sects, to range themselves under the banner of a favourite leader, and to adopt his name as a descriptive appellation. But surely if they were to be blamed, who of old declared themselves to be of Paul, of Apollos, or of Cephas, much more must they be censured, who can profess themselves to belong to a Calvin, a Wesley, or a Whitfield. Christianity knows nothing of any such distinctions. Its object is to unite mankind, and not to divide them. The sectary in the fervor of his zeal, may flatter himself that he is doing all to the glory of God—but I fear that he frequently deceives himself; and that his own glory is the real, though concealed motive of his conduct.

The picture which our Lord has drawn of the Scribes and Pharisees, is in some points not inapplicable to such persons at the present day. All their works (says he) they do to be seen of men-and for a pretence, they make long prayers. But supposing their motives not to be so blamable as these, the least we can say is, that they proceed upon very mistaken views of the nature of our religion.— They consider not that the most genuine

method of serving the Almighty, and of promoting his glory, is by contributing to the happiness of his creatures. It should seem that there is something too simple and easy in this, to accord with their lofty notions. Religion in their minds appears to be debased by any admixture with so common a thing as morality. Nothing less than the immediate and perceptible influence of the Holy Spirit, is to be the rule of their conduct. If they are called upon to explain this doctrine, that gives them no trouble. They are not concerned (they say) to explain it. "It is revealed to their faith, and not to their reason. This is their language at the present day, but it is not new. "It is a point we chiefly insist upon (says Mr. Wesley, the pillar and ground of Methodism) that orthodoxy, or right opinion, is at best but a very slender part of religion, if any part of it at all. Here we see (says Bishop Warburton) reason is as it were discarded from the service of religion, and from its attendance on grace: though one part of the office of the Holy Spirit is to lead us into all truth. For when reason is no longer employed to distinguish between right and wrong in opinions, religion hath no further connexion with it.—

And yet if we once agree to separate reason from religion, piety will soon degenerate into superstition or fanaticism. But the piety of the first ages had a different essence: it was then the glory of the Gospel to be a reasonable service 1." And so it will ever continue to be when rightly understood. But so long as the enthusiast will insist upon doctrines, which so far from being practicable, are not even pretended to be intelligible, he establishes a line of demarcation between himself and other men, he stops the great principle of universal benevolence in its source, he perverts that Gospel which he professes exclusively to follow, and to whatever. purpose his actions tend, we may safely say, that inasmuch as they do not lead to the benefit of

1 Warburton's Works, vol. viii. 345.-" Though men are unreasonable, God requires not any thing but reason. They exact a certainty of faith above that of sense or science; God desires only that we believe the conclusion, as much as the premises deserve; that the strength of our faith be equal or proportionable to the credibility of the motives to it." Chillingworth's Religion of Protestants, p. 32.-" He will accept of the weakest and lowest degree of faith, if it be living and effectual to true obedience," p. 33.

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mankind, they do not conduce to the glory of God.

Let us, my brethren, be careful to avoid this error. Let us bear it constantly in mind, that Christianity is a practical religion, and not a mere subject for retired contemplation. Points of faith it has undoubtedly of great importance, but our confidence in them will avail us nothing without virtuous conduct. It was objected by an able but deistical writer to the professors of all religions, that their actions did not accord with their principles. "Hear (says Mr. Hume) the verbal protestations of all men: nothing so certain as their religious tenets. Examine their lives-you will scarcely think that they repose the smallest confidence in them'. Let us endeavour to vindicate ourselves at least, from this reproach. Whatever we do, whether it be of little or of great moment, let us never forget what is due from the creature to the Creator. If the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament sheweth his handy-work—if even inanimate and irrational nature, involuntarily

1

Hume's Essays, vol. ii. 468.