there is some physical impediment to comfort in their nature, or some moral hindrance to it in their conscience. Their knowledge is perhaps confused, or they are confounding spiritual comfort with a mere excitement of the feelings, and seeking the latter by external circumstances, instead of gaining the former by the knowledge, contemplation, and belief of the truth. It is the favourite notion of some people, that ministers have no need to insist on the necessity of good works, or to go into the details of Christian morality, because faith, where it is genuine, will be sure to produce these. Without treating this position in the way of argument,-for those who advance it are often either beyond or below reasoning, we may most speedily decide it by an appeal to facts. Did our Lord, then, or did his Apostles, thus teach religion? Did they content themselves with merely enjoining faith, and then leaving faith to discover its genuineness and power by all those operations to which it leads? Are there no precepts in the New Testament, no moral duties stated, no details of social obligation enforced? On the contrary, are not the writings of the Apostles full of practical injunctions? Is not Christian morality so interwoven with the whole texture of the Epistles, that they may be called the most practical books in the world? Justification without works, in the sight of God, is everywhere stated in such a way as to produce works in the sight of man. All the

grandest doctrines of revealed truth are brought to bear as motives and as models upon the social character of man. If, then, the Holy Ghost has thus laid down the nature and the connexions of the different parts of religion; if the Author of the inspired volume has thus drawn out the various details of Christian duty, instead of merely confining himself to the enforcement of that faith which involves them all ;is it not a most criminal presumption, as well as an act of insufferable arrogance, in any one, to say that good works should not be frequently and minutely stated and enjoined; but that preachers should confine themselves to an exhibition of those doctrines, which, if truly believed, will evolve in all the beauties of holiness?

On these grounds, my dear friends, I have ever been amongst you a practical preacher of the truth. Now, there are certain general and comprehensive principles which summarily include all the branches of Christian Duty. Our Lord has resolved all piety and all morality into LOVE. This shows us at once that religion has its seat in the heart, and is of a free, and noble, and generous nature. From a persuasion that this view of it is too rarely taken, too little understood, and too imperfectly felt, I was induced to enter upon the exposition of Paul's most interesting description of Christian charity,-a virtue in which the church of God is yet far more deficient than it ought to be.

It is a beautiful remark of a writer, "There is somewhere an account, fabulous, I allow, but yet instructive, of an almond tree, of a peculiar species, endowed, it seems, with this singular property; whatever mark you shall inscribe upon the kernel of the nut, when it is planted, the same will be found visibly delineated on all the leaves and fruit of the tree that spring from it. The stone being opened at first, and the intended character once carefully drawn, the rest follows of course without further application. As the tree shoots up and spreads, that original impression is displayed on every side, and multiplied into a thousand

branches.

"How many rules and maxims of life might be spared, could we fix upon a principle of virtue, break the stony heart, as Scripture calls it, and inscribe the living sentiment of the love of God in the affections, that tender, but powerful part of our frame, from which our whole life, and all our actions, proceed, as the tree, branches, leaves, and fruit, spring out of the kernel of the almond."

The remark is no less applicable to the love of man than to the love of God. It would seem, if we may judge from the conduct of many, as if they had yet to learn in what true practical piety consists. It is impossible to read this chapter without being convinced that the religion of Jesus Christ has excellences and beauties in its nature, which, in consequence of the

depravity of our hearts, have been yet but very imperfectly developed to the world. Unfortunately for the reputation of Christianity, it has been generally looked at, not as it appears, in mild but unclouded effulgence, in its own hemisphere, the Bible, but as it is feebly and dimly reflected from the dull surface of what is called the Christian world; and it is not to be wondered at, that the impression produced upon spectators by this partial and unjust representation of its beauty should be little in its favour: but let it only be contemplated as it is seen in the chapter we are now to consider, and its exquisite charms and rare glory will proclaim its own original, and render it a witness for itself. Were this rule of conduct accurately and universally conformed to by all who bear the name of Christ, what a scene would the church of God present! how striking would it appear, when thus exhibited as the dwelling-place of love, amidst a region of selfishness and cruelty, a verdant oasis in this desert world.

It is by no means my intention to suppose, or to affirm, that you, my friends, are more deficient than the rest of the church of God, in this holy disposition; for all are deficient in it, and have some omission to supply and it is my ambition, and my anxiety, not that you should be no worse than others, but that you should excel them. I meet you, in this plain and unpretending volume, not as an accuser, but as a helper:

and if in any part you meet with the language of reproof, may it be received as it is given-in the exercise of that temper, which it is the design of the book to illustrate and to recommend. It is my sincere and constant anxiety, that you should exhibit the full practical impression of redeeming love; and that you should convince every spectator, by what is seen in you, that true piety is the felicity, not only of its possessor, but of society.

Re

For this end your attention must be more closely fixed upon your temper and spirit than is usual with professing Christians. Most good people are too negligent on this point: they do not attend sufficiently to the moral culture of the heart, or do not go to it with that serious earnestness which it requires. ligion, in the present day especially, is too exclusively a public business-a thing of times and places-an observance of forms, and an enjoyment of public means its efforts are confined to the hearing of sermons, and a voluptuous enjoyment of devotional seasons. These are all important, of course, and necessary to the preservation of the life of religion in the heart; but they are too generally regarded and observed for their own sake, as opportunities of high gratification, but not of sanctification. The state of the temper and disposition is neglected; there is but little retirement, little self-communion, little quietude and reflection, little of the stillness of meditation, and of the