model? And if there be, do we seriously believe that we obviate the necessity of such an admonition-that we escape the danger of relying on a vapid profession of gratitude and love to God, or a merely speculative, lifeless faith, by barely knowing and confessing our utter unworthiness as sinners; by disclaiming any part or power in the accomplishment of our own salvation; and by ascribing it to the pure grace or gratuitous favour of God? Surely, we may entertain such sentiments without applying them as inducements to do the will of God-as inducements, in particular, to the exemplification of a benevolence towards our fellow-creatures, akin to' that which characterizes the dealings of the Almighty with ourselves. But unless we are making this practical application of such sentiments, it is certain that in uttering them we are but exclaiming Lord, Lord. We repeat, then, that those who would leave the fulfilment of our religious and moral duties, as inculcated in the Scriptures, to the spontaneous operation of our gratitude for the mercy of God in our redemption by Jesus Christ, overlook the important fact, that we are exposed to a most dangerous error in appreciating the strength of our gratitude itself, as a

principle of practical religion: an error of which the inspired teachers in general, and our Saviour especially, have most impressively forewarned us.

Moreover, it were obvious on general grounds to urge the necessity of applying to our corrupted nature, and circumstances of strong temptation, all those various inducements to a devout and virtuous life which are addressed to us in the word of God; and, more especially, those promises of enduring happiness, and denunciations of eternal misery, which make so powerful an application to the hopes and fears of mankind. But it must here suffice to observe, that when we speak of the gratitude of the Christian, as a principle of obedience to the divine commandments, it should be well considered that the Scriptures demand our gratitude to God, not properly for the actual, certain attainment of eternal salvation; but for the means, the capacity of attaining it. There are, indeed, ministers of our religion who are said to preach a full, free, and finished salvation: but if such a phraseology be used to signify that Christians may account their own salvation as actually finished, or as absolutely certain, we are bound to assert that we can find no warrant for such

phraseology in the word of God. The final accomplishment, the certain fruition of salvation, is described, in the Scriptures, as a rest for which we are to labour; a crown of righteousness for which we are to contend with temptation; and, as if for the very purpose of repressing the presumption that our salvation can be reckoned upon as finished in this state of trial and preparation, we are instructed to "fear, lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of us should seem to come short of it ; and we are expressly premonished that it is "he that overcometh" -he" that endureth to the end," that shall be saved. Happily, however, those who use such phraseology, or entertain the opinion which dictates it, are wiser than at all times and consistently to adhere to it, in their views and representations of the Gospel. They affirm, indeed, that our works, our personal holiness, should be left to flow from the gratitude of the believer; but they do not scruple to speak, and are not unaccustomed to hear, of other incentives to a practical obedience of the will of God-of the rewards and punishments of a future state-the momentous alternative which awaits us there the eternal issue of our

*Heb. iv. 1.

doings. Nevertheless, inasmuch as the design of the divine revelation is to stimulate our desire, and to fix our resolution to do the will of God, it must suffer in its efficacy, in proportion as any one of those arguments on which it grounds its claim to our attention, is assumed to comprehend the whole of its import, the entire scope of its appeals and exhortations.

The fact, however, that this partial, exclusive view of the divine revelation should be often adopted, can hardly excite our surprise. Numerous are the instances, in which the mind is so greatly occupied with the contemplation of one truth, and, it may be, so powerfully excited by the feelings which it tends to awaken, as to be scarcely percipient, or, rather, entirely forgetful, of other truths, apparent to the most common observation, in the same department of knowledge. And this is, not unfrequently, a condition even of the most active and capacious minds, which a single truth, seen under its diversified relations, or traced to its remoter consequences, may more than suffice to engage and fill :-" What truth" -is the exclamation of Burke-" what truth is there which does not branch into infinity!" In the investigations of natural philosophy-in

the study of morals, government, legislationin every path of inquiry thrown open to us in the natural, and, more particularly, in the moral world, it is common to remark a propensity to fix the attention almost entirely on one class of facts-the effects of one causethe operation of one principle. We observe a similar exclusiveness in the conduct of the mind with relation to the various forms of sublimity and beauty in nature and art, and, most remarkably, in the admiration of any production of human faculties; which is often accompanied, as though it were intended to be expressed and seconded, by a manifest indifference to other productions of the same nature, and aspiring to the same or an equal excellence, and even by a disposition to disparage and condemn them. The causes of this propensity—that of attaching the thoughts to a single, isolated view of objects demanding inquiry and appreciation-are, for the most part, sufficiently apparent; and it is easy to perceive that it places a powerful engine in the hands of those whose aim is to work upon the feelings, whether good or bad, of the mass of mankind: that it casts some light on the nature of popular oratory, on whatever subject, religious or otherwise; ex