filthiness of the flesh and of the spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord. Let gainsayers and false brethren say what they will, sanctification is the great Gospel-work, and abhorrence of sin, as that which God hateth, the Christian's special privilege. Let us guard it then as we would our life;-let us exercise a holy jealousy over our own hearts, and, distrusting our own efforts, conscious of our own helplessness, let us look to that grace which is all and alone sufficient for the power both to will and to do.

ships man"-he worships the idols of his imagination, his senses, his carnalized affections-he refuses worship to God alone! Let us not accustom ourselves to think lightly of these things-Let us flee from the contagion around us, and make a throne of grace our refuge. Nor let us forget the misery of our fellow-men, but by all the means and instruments assigned to us, seek to awaken them from their sleep of death; to direct them to the fountain of life; to urge them into the way of peace. May a spirit of prayer be poured out upon the church for the necessities of mankind; and may our Heavenly Father be pleased to hasten on the blessed day when every knee shall bow and every heart shall turn, and every voice shall rise, to Him, as to the "King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only, the wise God"the author and giver of salvation.

ON RECTITUDE OF CONDUCT. EVERY one who is at all acquainted with modern literature, must have perceived the anxiety with which many writers have laboured to detach morality from the principles of religion. The light essayist, and the grave philosopher, aim at the same object, though their genius prompts them to employ different means to attain it. Bayle, that subtle and sophistical sceptic, has hazarded the bold assertion, "that a nation of athiests might live very virtuously and happily." A position so extravagant and mischievous can be maintained only by setting at defiance all reasoning and all experience.

Where shall we find the infidel's code of morals? What are its grounds, rules, and sanctions? "A man," says Helvetius, "born in a desert isle, and abandoned to

What

himself, would remain without vice and without virtue. then must we understand by the words virtuous and vicious, but actions either useful or injurious to the public." "Since," observes Raynal, another writer of the same school," society should be useful to all its members, they ought every one in return to be useful to society: so to be virtuous is to be useful, and to be vicious is to be useless or hurtful: behold the sum of morality." With these French sages, it is well known David Hume, and others of our own countrymen, agree.

Many of the ancient pagans had far more definite and correct ideas on this interesting subject. Cicero affirms, that by superseding the obligation of religions, the greatest disorder and confusion would ensue in human life: and "to

gether with piety, mutual fidelity, and the social ties, which bind mankind one to another, and that most excellent virtue, justice, would be banished out of the world." *

It requires but little penetration to detect the shallowness and inadequacy of those ethical systems which have no hold of the conscience; and without the belief of a superintending Providence and a future judgment, conscience is necessarily paralysed and deprived of all its active power. He who neither honours nor fears God, can with no reason be expected to serve and regard man. The moral theory of an athiest is a baseless fabric; that of the pagan rests on loose and precarious grounds; but the foundations of christian morality are obvious, definite, solid, and immutable. "Could we," observes Mr. Locke, "gather moral sayings from all the sages of the world, sufficient to make an entire body of the law of nature, (which in fact cannot be done,) this would not amount to a steady rule. Did the saying of Aristippus or Confucius give it authority? Was Zeno a lawgiver to mankind? All their dictates must go for law, certain and true, or none of them." But they contradicted themselves, and one another; and what then is to be done? The bulk of the human race, involved in business and care, have neither leisure nor ability to examine the reasonings, and researches, or to sift the maxims and rules of philosophers, "It is at least," adds Mr. Locke, "a surer and shorter way to the apprehensions of the mass of mankind, that one manifestly sent from God, and coming with a visible authority from him, should, as a king and law-maker, tell them their duties, and require their obedience." +

If a man maintain that "adultery when known is a small crime, and when unknown no crime at all;" that "the violent extinction of human life is nothing more than diverting the course of a little red fluid called blood, and merely lessening the number by one of many millions of fugitive contemptible creatures;" he may indeed never actually become a debauchee, or a murderer; but what is to hinder him? What barriers stand between him and these enormities? Considerations of expedience or utility, it will perhaps be said, of which he himself is constituted the sole judge. But I would ask, is it equally safe to trust such a man, as to confide in one, whose fixed principles recognize the guilt and odiousness of nefarious deeds, independently of their being known to the world, or their palpably pernicious influence on society?-one who, when the baits and allurements of sensuality, of avarice, or of ambition, are presented, starts back from the contact of impurity, or the commission of crime, with mingled aversion and horror, exclaiming, "How shall I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?" The case here put is too plain to require any acuteness or uncommon power of discrimination; a small portion of good sense, and good feeling, will suffice instantly to decide it.

If we advert to critical conjunctures, to times of persecution, which bring principle and character to the severest test, the justice of these observations will demonstrably appear. Let the reader of history compare the be

haviour of John Huss with that of his friend Jerome of Prague, or the vacillation and temporizing policy of Archbishop Cranmer with the decision and unbending principle of his companion Latimer.

CONG, MAG. JAN. 1824.

C

ing difference of their conduct in the last trying emergency. Jerome and Cranmer were both sincere servants of God, but one too eagerly aspired to rank with philosophers and orators, and the other had mingled too much with princes and courtiers. In honest Latimer, whose chief work had been studying and preaching the word of God, we see less learning, but more spiritual wisdomless acuteness and skill in argument, less insinuation and readiness of address, but more simplicity, more fortitude, more true greatness, dignity, and excellence of character.

But to secure rectitude of conduct, it is not enough that we acknowledge the authority and study the meaning of the Holy Scriptures; we must possess the spirit of grace, of power, and of purity. To have the understanding informed can avail little, while the will is perverted. When the faculties of the mind, and the feelings of the heart, are brought under the effectual influence of divine truth and divine grace, a course of virtuous, holy, and consistent conduct, will follow. The man who is thus taught and transformed from above, can adopt, as his own, the language of the Psalmist, "Lord, I have esteemed thy precepts concerning all things to be right, and I hate every false way." Both Scripture and common sense assure us, that the tree must be made good ere the fruit can be made good, and the fountain must be cleansed, before the streams become pure and salutary. Yet the speculative philosopher, and the self-sufficient moralist, are always boasting of the wonders they are able to do by foolish experiments, which cannot possibly reach the root or the spring. They come again and again with new projects and promises. Failure after failure is witnessed, yet flushed with unabated confidence, they

have still in reserve some new processs for pruning the luxuriances of nature, some fresh and marvellous discovery for preventing the blights of profligacy.

From what has been said, it may be fairly inferred, that he is the best teacher and promoter of morality, who explicitly unfolds the great doctrines, and impressively enforces the solemn sanctions, of the everlasting Gospel. These doctrines must be cordially embraced and openly avowed; these sanctions must be deeply felt and revered, before the domination or sin can be broken, or the reign of righteousness commenced. Christian principles only, can ensure uniformly holy and consistent practice. He that would keep his life unspotted from the world, must exercise himself daily to keep a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men. He must learn his own weakness, and trust in divine strength; renounce human wisdom, and follow the guidance of the divine word; be watchful amidst temptation, patient under sufferings and trials, continuing instant in prayer.

་་་་་་་་་

AMICUS B.

ORIGINAL LETTER OF THE LATE REV. WM. ROMAINE, TO THE COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON.

(To the Editors.) GENTLEMEN,-I beg to trouble you with a copy of an original letter of the late Rev. W. Romaine, at present in my possession, and which I have liberty to present to the public. This, however, can only be effected through your approval of it. It is addressed to the Countess of Huntingdon, then at Brighton; and is at once plain, simple, affectionate, and marked by considerable diffidence. The name of his assistant, who had left him, is either Ley or Leg, I am not certain which, nor is it per

from a principle within, which overcomes the corrupt reasonings of the carnal heart, and by which they are enabled to enter into the feelings of the apostle, when he says, “The love of Christ constraineth us."

I am not, however, now about to trace throughout, the beautifully spiritual interpretation which our Lord affords in the 5th chapter of St. Matthew, of those precepts contained in the second table of the law, commonly understood as our duty towards our neighbour. But the preceding reflections have been suggested by a conviction, that in the practice of many professing Christians, a great deficiency is to be observed in the performance of those duties enjoined in the fourth commandment, and that not so much from design as from want of thought. The Sabbath day is spoken of in Leviticus xxiii. 3. in these words, "It is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings." The Sabbath then doubtless was intended for the repose of all, in all our dwellings, for servants as well as for masters, and an awful responsibility is incurred by those heads of families who prevent their domestic servants from hallowing with them the day of sacred rest. It is to be feared that in too many families professing godliness, for want of a little arrangement and self-denial on the Sabbath-day, the servants are kept in almost as constant a state of anxiety and bustle, as on any of the other days of the week, and are thereby either totally precluded from attending the public means of grace, or if able by dint of labour to get through the business of the day in time to reach a place of worrship, are, from the hurry and bustle whence they have just emerged, in a state of mind utterly unfit for the worship of God. The self-denial would not be very considerable, were pious families to resolve, that

once in a week they would be content with a plain or previously prepared meal, by which means much bustle and work would be saved to their servants, and an opportunity afforded them of attending the house of God, without that distraction which must disturb their devotions, when their minds as well as their bodies have been harassed by their attention to the things of this life. We read in Exodus xvi. 23, the following command respecting the Sabbath

"This is that which the Lord hath said, To-morrow is the rest of the Holy Sabbath unto the Lord, bake that which ye will bake to-day, and seethe that ye will seethe," &c. It may be said that directions given to the Israelites whilst journeying through the wilderness, contain no express command to those who are under New Testament dispensations: this literally may be true; but be it remembered, that "all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."And the humble disciple of Jesus Christ will learn, that there are things which in themselves are not unlawful, but are nevertheless not expedient. We may, however, refer to a New Testament example, closely bearing upon this subject. Of the women who embalmed the body of our Lord, we read, Luke xxiii. 56. "They returned and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the Sabbath day, according to the commandment." On this verse an eminent commentator has observed-" Even the embalming of Christ was not so absolutely a work of urgent necessity, as to authorize, in the judgment of these women, (which was certainly just), the interruption of the hallowed rest of the Sabbath."

P.