which directly or indirectly dares an antipathy against the claims of God, as might be done against a petty rival ;—to which the folly of the Thracians of old was a prudent warfare, who shot their mad arrows against the high rattling thunders of heaven;-and that submission never to be judged mean which we owe beneath His awful authority. So teaches this faith not to despise religion, by the exalted view of its character,-the wisdom of God at present in a lowly adaptation, but intimately related to all the wonders of the universe and of a great futurity. The sun is a mark in its crown of glory; and so are the stars; and what shall we say of the souls of men? And this moment could the mild Wisdom of Christianity claim an incontrolable sanction from its sister attribute of Almighty Power; and winged with thunder and fires beyond the revelation on Sinai, could war against the world and force a universal homage.

CHAPTER V.

CHRISTIAN PRINCIPLES.

The freeborn Christian has no chains to prove,
Or if a chain, the golden one of love.
No fear attends to quench his glowing fires;
What fear he feels, his gratitude inspires.
Shall he for such deliverance freely wrought,
Recompense ill? He trembles at the thought.
His master's interest, and his own combin'd,
Prompt every movement of his heart and mind.
Thought, word, and deed his liberty evince;
His freedom is the freedom of a prince.

COWPER.

"For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments." ST. JOHN.

Now what principle, or what agency, under a dispensation that borrows no such sensible control, shall yet compel this wide obedience, which is the reasonable service of the nations? Self-love is not that power. It cannot even make allowance for those circumstances that neutralize the power of reason, in a comparative estimate of the future. It is blindly engaged with worldly-mindedness, or pride of intellect,

or antipathy; or is indecision in them all ;— each of these habits in itself enough to prevent the right use of reason; but mingled in their modifications as they generally are in the same mind, how much more than enough! Self-love, whilst it holds for reason the balance, at the same time adds its own weight to the scale of present things, to which it hath become attached; and reason wants her just exercise, or rather her power altogether; and its characteristic perfection to which it naturally grows,

-a faithful estimate of the future, though invisible, high above the present,-can never have existence. Were it enough, then, under the present dispensation of things, for our eventual salvation, might we perform certain duties of action; nay, might the true estimate of that salvation alone be the duty, or earnestness for a future selfish exemption, or for enjoyment, without caring with whom to participate or under whom to enjoy; yet would self-love be weak to conquer the above prepossessing obstructions to reflection and the impulse of faith. A fortiori, when under the present

dispensation of religion, the natural dictate of conscience is anew enforced, that man's chief end is the glory of God; and the revelation of Christianity stamps the same obligation with the peculiar claims of his redeeming and sanctifying office, and enlarges our sphere of duty;-self-love is incompetent as a principle to animate us aright, to break the same obstructions confirmed by a sense of new and difficult requirements, beyond the proportion of additional but unfelt sanctions; more unjust to reason that now advances, less our future interest over our present, than the claims of God beyond all; and more incapable of faith that has now a new application, enlarging our Saviour-God and his claims on our gratitude beyond all other preparation for eternity.

If we examine every other principle from which moralists have thought to deduce the noblest exercises of human nature ;-though we may hold them, against many, independent of self-love; yet are they all at best but "weak masters" over the conduct of men; with little

impulse, and without comprehensiveness.— Even the moral sense is but an improvement on a name; and in the state of the world before the Christian revelation, owns the vagueness of any religious law without this great influence. And though now enforced anew, this natural strength, and aided by new sanctions; yet cannot it conquer indifference, or dislike to the religion of our present great relations; nor animate us with the pure spirit of Christianity.

The Great Principle, under the present dispensation, inculcated by our divine Prophet himself, the purest and most comprehensive, and which experience justifies as alone powerful over our hearts and lives,-the consummation of well-regulated feeling, and the steady motive to action-is our love of God. All other principles of virtue to this subserve; yet, far from being superseded, they derive from it new strength; and, informed with its healthy influence, become particulars of its power in every department of moral and religious life; and the gratitude of man towards