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imitation unimpaired, and his propensity to imitate unabated, it must readily be admitted, that the caution we have chosen at this time to illustrate, is neither superfluous nor severe. Be not conformed to this world in its spirit and its practices. These are the two topics, on which I shall offer a few remarks.

1. Be not conformed to the spirit of the world. If we look about us, we see the world full of busy beings, some laboring, only that they may be idle, and others enduring the toils of poverty, only that they may be rich, some serving, in order that they may command, others living recluse and solitary, in order to be famous hereafter. The spirit which drives them forward is the same. Their objects are exclusively terrestrial. Suppose that we should be assured from incontestable authority, that the apprehension of another life was all a chimera, and that nothing should be heard of man after his breath had left him, what essential alteration would be required in the present pursuits and employments of the world?

If you think that this censure, proceeding from a recluse and speculative observer, is too severe and indiscriminate, go out into the world, and examine for yourselves. Saunter through the streets, and inquire of the individuals who compose the tide of men, which is ever circulating through them, what is the object which they have now and ever in view; and you will find one acknowledging, that he is in pursuit of some new possession; another is hurrying to secure

what he already possesses; another you will see gazing about in listless vacuity, till some pleasure presents itself; another walking with irregular step, brooding over schemes of dignity and future fame; and another rambling without any object, merely because he has regularly rambled all his life. The ruling passion of the world is something short of holiness and heaven. The peculiar duties of religion are esteemed irksome interruptions, except on the days when no other business can be prosecuted. Men live, as if they were never to die; but it is hard to die, as if they were never to live again.

The spirit of a christian should always betray its divine original. Where he conforms to the world he conforms to its best examples; and where he stands alone, it is because he stands on higher ground than his neighbours, that he may be nearer heaven. The danger of the christian in an age of worldliness is not that he should commit a crime, or indulge habitual vices; but that he should so far insensibly conform to the manners of the age, as to induce the scoffer to insinuatę, that he is capable of committing them. Nothing can persuade the christian to believe, that God would confer immortality upon a man for living precisely as he would have done, if he had known nothing of eternity-of heaven, or of hell. He is persuaded, that if the will of his God, the retributions of another life, and the intellectual pleasures of religion, should make no part of the motives of his actions, that he would

be altogether unfit to enter a state where there will be no riches to be accumulated by the worldly; no offices of emolument to be canvassed for by the proud, no gay sights to be attended by the trifler, no feasts prepared for the palate of the epicure, no wreaths and escutcheons to be inherited by the noble, no acclamations and flatteries made ready for the ambitious.

The christian in the midst of society is never its enemy, though he may sometimes appear to be a stranger. Like an emigrant in a foreign land, he is never entirely familiarised to the language, or reconciled to the manners of the inhabitants; and no flattering complaisanece, no continuance of prosperity, no complication of business, can ever tempt him to forget his native country, even an heavenly. As the foreigner often casts a wishful eye towards the sea, which rolls between him and his friends, the christian is familiar with the contemplation of death, and often stretches his meditation toward the region of the just; and he longs to press that safe but distant shore. A dark flood indeed rolls between, but he is accustomed to the distant roar, and he sees through the mists the everlasting sungilt heights of the land of promise.

2. Be not conformed to the practices of the world. Here it would be in vain for us to at tempt to enumerate the many customs of society, which contradict the spirit and even the letter of evangelical morality. We shall caution our readers against a few of the most established and palpable.

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Who would believe, that among the disciples of Jesus Christ there could ever have been a doubt respecting the unlawfulness of revenge? Yet we suspect there are many, whe would be unwilling to abjure the name of christians, who indulge without remorse the spirit of retaliation, and who are never ready to be reconciled, till satisfaction is made to their wounded honor. If a period should ever arrive, when the pleasing visions of a millenium shall be realised, and the lion lie down in quiet with the lamb, it will hardly be believed, that, in any age of christianity, it was thought not irreconcileable with the character and profession of a christian, to wash out an affront in the blood of the offending brother. Perhaps none of us will be called to this trial of their humility; but it is best for us all to consider what would be our determination, if we should be placed in a situation where the eyes of the world were turned upon us, and the voice of society were crying out, Revenge.

Conform not to the world by encouraging the neglect, into which the duties of piety have fallen. I refer now especially to those family acknowledgments at the throne of grace, which were once esteemed as indispensable a part of the domestie arrangement, as the daily provision of food for the household. But now, alas! palaces rise unconsecrated by devotion, and families multiply, and divide, unhallowed, and unblessed. What! does our thankfulness diminish, as our blessings are multiplied; and in the midst of

greater prosperity have we less time than our forefathers for the offices of devotion? Does the business of the day proceed the more successfully, because it has not been commenced with prayer, or are we engaged in pursuits on which we have not the courage to beg a blessing? Is that repast the sweeter, which is not prefaced with a petition, and that day most free from care, whose worldly course is least interrupted by a recollection of him whose hand upholds us, and whose arm bears the weight of creation? Christians, these things ought not so to be.

Lastly, be not conformed to this world, by neglecting the ordinances of the gospel. It is true, when you are invited to the table, you are promised nothing more, than the satisfaction and

improvement which arises from intelligent and conscientious obedience to the authority of Christ. You are offered indeed no accession of influence, no worldly dignities, no earthly wealth; but you are promised what is better. You are promised opportunities of improvement, opportunities of benevolence, opportunities of worship, opportunities of preserving among men by your example the memory of their Saviour, of encouraging by your presence the tempted or timorous disciple, and of recommending to an inconsiderate and dissolute age a religion of purity, of solemnity, and consolation. Negleet not, then, such institutions; be not in this respect conformed to the world, for the fashion of it passeth away. "The Lord is at hand.”

DR. CAMPBELL ON MYSTERY.

It is presumed, that many of our readers will be instructed and gratified by reading what Dr. Campbell has written on the terms mystery, blasphemy, schism, and heresy. In this and some following numbers will be given an ABRIDGEMENT of his ninth "PRELIMINARY DISSERTATION,"

OF MYSTERY.

"WE all know, that by the most current use of the English word mystery, is denoted some doctrine, to human reason incomprehensible; in other words, such à doctrine, as exhibits difficulties, and even apparent contradictions, which we cannot solve or explain. Another use of the word, which is often to be met with in ecclesiastic writers of former ages, aud

in foreign writers of the present age, is to signify some religious ceremony or rite, especially those now denominated sacraments. In the communion office of the church of England, the elements, after consecration, are sometimes termed holy mysteries. But this use seems not now to be common a

mong the protestants; less, perhaps, in this country, than in any other.

"When we come to examine the scriptures critically, and make them serve for their own interpreters, we shall find, if I mistake not, that both these senses are unsupported by the usage of the inspired penman. After the most careful examination of all

the passages in the New Testa ment, in which the Greek word occurs, and after consulting the use of the term by the ancient Greek interpreters of the Old, and borrowing aid from the practice of the Hellenist Jews, in the writings, called Apocrypha, I can find only two senses, nearly related to each other, which can strictly be called scriptural. The first, and what I may call the leading sense of the word, is a secret, a thing not disclosed, not published to the world, though perhaps communicated to a select num

ber.

"Now let it be observed, that this is totally different from the current sense of the English word mystery, something incomprehensible. In the former acceptation, a thing was no longer a mystery, than whilst it remained unrevealed; in the latter, a thing is equally a mystery after the revelation, as before. To the former we apply properly the epithet unknown; to the latter we may, in a great measure, apply the term unknowable. Thus the proposition, that God would call the Gentiles, and receive them into his church, was as intelligible, or comprehensible, as that he once had called the descendants of the patriarchs, or as any plain proposition, or historical fact. Yet, whilst undiscovered, or, at least, veiled under figures and types, it remained, in the scripture idiom, a mystery, having been hidden from ages and generations. But, af ter it had pleased God to reveal this his gracious purpose to the apostles by his Spirit, it was a mystery no longer.

"The apostle, speaking of the

antichristian spirit, says, the mystery of iniquity doth already work. The spirit of antichrist hath begun to operate; but the operation is latent and unperceived. The gospel of Christ is a blessing, the spirit of antichrist is a Both are equally denominated mystery, or secret, while they remain concealed.

"I shall be much misunderstood, if any one infer, from what has been now advanced, that I mean to signify, that there is nothing in the doctrines of religion, which is not, on all sides, perfectly comprehensible to us, or nothing from which difficulties may be raised, that we are not able to give a satisfactory solution of. On the contrary, I am fully convinced, that in all sciences, particularly natural theology, as well as revelation, there are many truths of this kind, whose evidence, such objections are not regarded, by a judicious person, as of force sufficient to invalidate.

"The foregoing observations will throw some light on what Paul says of the nature of the office, with which he was vested: Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God-dispensers to mankind of the gracious purposes of heaven, heretofore concealed, and therefore denominated secrets. Nor can any thing be more conformable, than this interpretation, both to the instructions given to the apostles, during our Lord's ministry, and to the commission they received from him. In regard to the former, he tells them-To you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven: no secret, re

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lating to this subject, is withheld from you: but to them it is not given; that is, not yet given. For these very apostles, when commissioned to preach, were not only empowered, but commanded, to disclose to all the world the whole mystery of God, his secret counsels in regard to man's salvation. And that they might not imagine, that the private informations, received from their Master, had never been intended for the public ear, he gave them this express injunction, What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light. And what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the house-tops He assigns the reason, the divine decree; a topic, to which he oftener than once reeurs. There is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed, and hid, that shall not be known. Again: There is nothing hid, that shall not be manifested; neither was any thing kept secret, but that it should come abroad. This may serve to explain to us the import of these phrases, which occur in the Epistles, as expressing the whole christian institution, the mystery of the gospel, the mystery of the faith, the mystery of God, and the mystery of Christ; mystery, in the singular number, not mysteries, in the plural, which would have been more conformable to the modern import of the word, as relating to the incomprehensibility of the different articles of doctrine. But the whole of the gospel, taken together, is denominated the mystery, the grand secret, in reference to the silence or concealment, under which it was formerly kept; as, in like manner, it is styled the

revelation of Jesus Christ, in reference to the publication afterwards enjoined.

"I signified before, that there was another meaning, which the term vsng sometimes bears in the New Testament. But it is so nearly related to the former, that I am doubtful whether I can call it other than a particular application of the same meaning. However, if the thing be understood, it is not material which of the two ways we denominate it. The word is sometimes employed to denote the figurative sense, as distinguished from the literal; which is conveyed under any fable, parable, allegory, symbolical action, representation, dream, or vision. It is plain, that, in this case, the term usagov is used comparatively; for however clear the meaning intended to be conveyed in the apologue, or parable, may be to the intelligent, it is obscure, compared with the literal sense, which, to the unintelligent, proves a kind of veil. The one is, as it were, open to the senses; the other requires penetration and reflection. Perhaps there was some allusion to this import of the term, when our Lord said to his disciples, To you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God; but to them that are without, all these things are done in parables. The apostles were let into the secret, and got the spiritual sense of the similitude, whilst the multitude amused themselves with the letter, and searched no farther.

"In this sense, mystery is used in these words: The mystery of the seven stars, which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven

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