man, that we shall use and apply it according to our opinion of the purpose for which it was imparted, and our desire to effectuate that purpose. If books, for example, be valued for the amusement or occupation of the passing moment, they will be merely read: the eye will run over the pages as it receives the impression of human faces, and other objects, which pass it in a crowded thoroughfare, or as the mind receives the images of a dream: that is, the arrest of the attention, or the excitement of the feelings, will be wholly the effect of circumstances, or purely accidental. But if books be valued as repositories of science and learning, and appreciated for the great and various uses of knowledge, the attention will be deliberately fixed upon the ideas which they express and illustrate; the judgment awakened to approve or reject, and the memory tasked to preserve them. If they be prized yet further as specimens to assist our own research, to stimulate our own thoughts, and to guide us in the communication of our own ideas, it need hardly be added, that a more minute and earnest scrutiny will light upon them; and the mind of the reader receive a more vivid and perfect impression of that of the author. But if books be not esteemed for

any one of these purposes, they will be of not farther use than to disguise the ignorance, or to adorn the mansion of their possessor. Equally and unavoidably palpable is it, that if we account and value our Christian knowledge, our religious faith, as a means of effecting the amendment of the character, or the renewal of the mind after the image of our Maker, we shall apply the contents of the Scriptures as a collection of unanswerable. arguments against the temptations which beset us on the right hand and on the left; entertain the appeals which it makes to the dictates of the conscience, and our aspirations after virtue and true holiness; embrace its promise of everlasting happiness to the righteous; retain a wholesome awe of its threatenings against "those who do evil;" and doubtless, nay, especially, acquiesce in its claims upon our obedience in virtue of the atonement offered for us by the Son of Godresponding to that most touching appeal of the Apostle-"Ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's."*

Inasmuch, however, as we regard our faith as matter for discourse and speculation, or

* 1 Cor. vi. 20.

as a means of approving and signalizing our orthodoxy, we shall be satisfied to arrange and systematize its parts, and to retain them in their order and particularity. If we esteem the substance of scriptural communications rather as grounds of confidence in the mercy of God, than as inducements to an upright and holy life, we shall be proportionately engaged in meditating upon the divine goodness in our redemption, or in contemplating the prospect of future happiness, rather than in seeking, by "patient continuance in well-doing, for glory, and honour, and immortality." If we suppose that the guilt and depravity of mankind have been set forth and impressed upon us in the sacred writings, for no other purpose than to abase us in our own eyes as transgressors, and to exalt our conceptions of the infinite mercy of God, we shall be content-so far as the conviction of our own demerit as the objects of the divine goodness is calculated to influence our feelings and operate upon our character-to perceive and acknowledge our offences against Him; to dwell upon our own unworthiness; and to confide in the abundant grace of God, and the sufficient merits of our Redeemer. But it will be far otherwise, if we contemplate the amazing

Y

condescension and mercy of God, in our redemption by Jesus Christ, as an example for our own imitation in our conduct one towards another: an example which the inspired writers enjoin and conjure us to follow, in the dispositions which we cherish towards the offending and destitute of our fellow-creatures. In a word, if we embrace the Gospel, not only as a proclamation of mercy to the guilty, but as a call to holiness,* and regard its announcement of the former as an encouragement to our obedience of the latter-then our reliance on the help and promises of God, and our hope of immortality, will operate upon us as incessant and stirring motives to the fulfilment of the divine commandments. So manifest is the wisdom of our Saviour in declaring the necessity of doing thus and thus, as well as believing thus and thus, in order that we may be effectually redeemed from our fallen state, and admitted into the kingdom of heaven.

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But, farther and more particularly, such is the opposition existing between the bias of our natural propensities, and the conduct prescribed to us in the word of God, that we have especial need to be admonished-repeatedly and earnestly admonished, of the practical end * 1 Thess. iv. 7.

of the Gospel, and the absolute necessity of regulating our lives by its precepts, in order to realize its great and exceeding promises. And here without dilating on the depravity of our nature, and the acknowledged force of the passions in perverting the understanding, and superseding, for a season, the calm and deliberate conclusions of our reason-it may at once be observed, that were we to forbear enforcing the necessity of personal holiness as conditional and preparatory to life eternal, in the presumption that the gratitude of the believer would spontaneously produce it, we should overlook the specific fact, certain as it is lamentable, that mankind can live in habitual disobedience towards God, evade the proofs of his will, or disregard the nature or extent of his commandments, and, notwithstanding, at the same time, accredit themselves for gratitude, for love to God: in other words, that they are prone to deceive themselves in estimating the sincerity and efficacy of their gratitude towards the Divine Being, as they are prone to deceive themselves in estimating their gratitude towards a fellow-creature.

Suppose a man deeply beholden to some individual, to be touched with a sense of his kindness and liberality, of which he makes