the reality of your religion is discriminated now; and on the day of reckoning, this is the ground upon which your religion will be judged then; and that award is to be passed upon you which will fix and perpetuate your destiny forever. DR. T. CHALMERS:

Discous on Mod. Astron., Disc. VII. Good works may exist without saving principles, and therefore cannot contain in themselves the principles of salvation; but saving principles never did, never can exist without good works. Men often talk against faith, and make strange monsters in their imagination of those who profess to abide by the words of the apostle interpreted literally, and yet in their ordinary feelings they themselves judge and act by a similar principle. For what is love without kind offices whenever they are possible? (and they are always possible, if not by actions, commonly so called, yet by kind words, by kind looks, and, where these are out of our power, by kind thoughts and fervent prayers!) Yet what noble mind would not be offended if he were supposed to value the serviceable offices equally with the love that produced them; or if he were thought to value the love for the sake of the services, and not the services for the sake of the love? COLERIDGE.

Works without faith are like a fish without water; it wants the element it should live in. A building without a basis cannot stand: faith is the foundation, and every good action is a stone laid. FELLTHAM.

Eternal bliss is not immediately superstructed on the most orthodox beliefs; but, as our Saviour saith, If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them; the doing must be first superstructed on the knowing or believing, before any happiness can be built on it.

are in the mind of men are a transcript of the world. To this we may add, that words are the transcript of those ideas which are in the | mind of man, and that writing or printing is the transcript of words. ADDISON: Spectator, No. 166.

We are prone to engage ourselves with the business, the pleasures, and the amusements of this world; we give ourselves up too greedily to the pursuit, and immerse ourselves too deeply in the enjoyments of them. ATTERBURY.

Though our passage through this world be rough and troublesome, yet the trouble will be but short, and the rest and contentment at the end will be an ample recompense.

ATTERBURY.

The more a man drinketh of the world, the more it intoxicateth; and age doth profit rather in the powers of understanding, than in the virtues of the will and affections.

LORD BACON.

The least unhappy persons do, in so fickle and so tempestuous a sea as this world, meet with many more either cross winds or stormy BOYLE. gusts than prosperous gales.

If the end of the world shall have the same

foregoing signs as the period of empires, states, and dominions in it, that is, corruption of manners, inhuman degenerations, and deluge of iniquities; it may be doubted whether that finai time be so far off, of whose day and hour there can be no prescience. But while all men doubt, and none can determine how long the world shall last, some may wonder that it hath spun out so long and unto our days. . . if we consider the incessant and cutting provocations from the earth, it is not without amazement how his patience hath permitted so long tinuance unto it.

con

SIR T. BROWNE: Christian Morals, Pt. III., xxvi.

The world was made to be inhabited by beasts, but studied and contemplated by man; it is the debt of our reason we owe unto God, and the homage we pay for not being beasts: without this the world is still as though it had not been, or as it was before the sixth day, when as yet there was not a creature that could conceive, or say, there was a world. The wisdom of God receives small honour from those vulgar heads that rudely stare about, and with a gross rusticity admire his works: those highly magnify him whose judicious inquiry into his acts, and deliberate research into his creatures, return the duty of a devout and learned admiration.

SIR T. BROWNE.

Where are now the great empires of the world, and their great imperial cities? their pillars, trophies, and monuments of glory? show me where they stood, read the inscription, tell me the victor's name. What remains, what impressions, what difference, or distinction, do you see in this mass of fire? Rome itself,

eternal Rome, the great city, the empress of the world, whose domination and superstition, ancient and modern, make a great part of the history of this earth, what is become of her now? BURNET:

Sacred Theory of the Earth.

The world was not eternal, or from eternity. The matter of the world cannot be eternal. Matter cannot subsist without form, nor put on any form without the action of some cause. This cause must be in being before it acted; that which is not cannot act. The cause of the world must necessarily exist before any matter was endued with any form; that, therefore, cannot be eternal before which another did subsist; if it were from eternity, it would not be subject to mutation. If the whole was from eternity, why not also the parts; what makes the changes so visible then, if eternity would exempt it from mutability? CHARNOCK: Attributes.

Search, therefore, with the greatest care, into the character of all those whom you converse with; endeavour to discover their predominant passions, their prevailing weaknesses, their vanities, their follies, and their humours; with all the right and wrong, wise and silly springs of human actions, which make such inconsistent and whimsical beings of us rational creatures. A moderate share of penetration, with great attention, will infallibly make these necessary discoveries. This is the true knowledge of the world: and the world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description: one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted with it. The scholar who in the dust of his closet talks or writes of the world, knows no more of it than that orator did of war, who judiciously endeavoured to instruct Hannibal in it. Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in.

LORD CHESTERFIELD:

Letters to his Son, Oct. 2, 1747.

This world cannot explain its own difficulties

without the assistance of another.

COLTON: Lacon.

I have sometimes thought, if the sun were an intelligence he would be horribly incensed at the world he is appointed to enlighten: such a tale of ages, exhibiting a tiresome repetition of stupidity, follies, and crimes!

JOHN FOSTER: Journal.

appointment; and, like pretenders to the same mistress, they can seldom have common charity for their rivals. GROVE: Spectator, No. 601.

However highly we may esteem the arts and sciences which polish our species and promote the welfare of society; whatever reverence we may feel, and ought to feel, for those laws and institutions whence it derives the security necessary for enabling it to enlarge its resources and develop its energies, we cannot forget that these are but the embellishments of a scene we must shortly quit-the decorations of a theatre from which the eager spectators and applauded actors must soon retire. The end of all things is at hand. Vanity is inscribed on every earthly pursuit, on all sublunary labour; its materials, its instruments, and its objects all alike perish. An incurable taint of mortality has seized upon, and will consume, them ere long. The acquisitions derived from religion, the graces of a renovated mind, are alone permanent.

ROBERT HALL: Discouragements and Supports of the Christian Minister.

But the impotence of the world never appears more conspicuous than when it has exhausted its powers in the gratification of its votaries, by placing them in a situation which leaves nothing further to hope. It frustrates the sanguine expectations of its admirers as much by what it bestows as by what it withholds, and reserves its severest disappointment for the season of possession. The agitation, the uncertainty, the varied emotions of hope and fear which accompany the pursuit of worldly objects, create a powerful interest, and maintain a brisk and wholesome circulation; but when the pursuit is over, unless some other is substituted in its place, satiety succeeds to enjoyment and pleasures cease to please. Tired of treading the same circle, of beholding the same spectacles, of frequenting the same amusements, and repeating the same follies, with nothing to awaken sensibility or stimulate to action, the minion of fortune is exposed to an insuperable languor; he sinks under an insupportable weight of ease, and falls a victim to incurable dejection and ROBERT HALL: despondency.

Funeral Sermon for the Princess Charlotte.

To the best and wisest, while they live, the world is continually a froward opposite, a curious observer of their defects and imperfections: their virtues it afterwards as much admireth.

HOOKER

Such are the vicissitudes of the world, through all its parts, that day and night, labour and rest, hurry and retirement, endear each other. Such are the changes that keep the mind in action: we desire, we pursue, we obtain, we are satiated: we desire something else, and begin a new pursuit. DR. S. JOHNSON.

L'ESTRANGE.

This great world which some do yet multiply as several species under one genus, is the mirror wherein we are to behold our selves, to be able to know our selves as we ought to do. In short, I would have this to be the book my young gentleman should study with the most attention; for so many humours, so many sects, so many judg. ments, opinions, laws, and customs, teach us a right to judge of our own, and inform our understandings to discover their imperfection and natural infirmity, which is no trivial speculation. So many mutations of states and kingdoms, and so many turns and revolutions of publick fortune, will make us wise enough to make no great wonder of our own. So many great names, so many famous victories and conquests drown'd and swallow'd in oblivion, render our hopes ridiculous of eternizing our names by the taking of half a score light horse, or a paltry turret, which only derives its memory from its ruine. MONTAIGNE:

Essays, Cotton's 3d ed., ch. xxv.

But the question is, whether, if Ptolemy was therein formerly deceiv'd, upon the foundations of his reason, it were not very foolish to trust now in what these people say and whether it is not more like that this great body which we call the world is not quite another thing than what we imagine. Plato says that it changes countenance in all respects: that the heavens, the stars, and the sun, have all of them sometimes motions retrograde to what we see, changing east into west. The Egyptian priests told Herodotus, that from the time of their first king, which was eleven thousand and odd years (and they shew'd him the effigies of all their kings in statues taken by the life) the sun had four times alter'd his course: that the sea and the earth did alternately change into one another. Aristotle and Cicero both say that the beginning of the world is undetermin'd. MONTAIGNE:

Essays, Cotton's 3d ed., ch. lxix. Quit not the world out of any hypocrisy, sullenness, or superstition, but out of a sincere love of true knowledge and virtue.

I shall here only take notice of that habitual worship and veneration which we ought to pay to this Almighty Being. We should often refresh our minds with the thought of him, and annihilate ourselves before him, in the contemplation of our own worthlessness, and of his transcendent excellency and perfection. This would imprint in our minds such a constant and uninterrupted awe and veneration as that which I am here recommending, and which is in reality a kind of incessant prayer, and reasonable humiliation of the soul before him who made it.

This would effectually kill in us all the little seeds of pride, vanity, and self-conceit, which are apt to shoot up in the minds of such whose thoughts turn more on those comparative advantages which they enjoy over some of their fellowplaced between them and the supreme model of creatures than on that infinite distance which is all perfection. It would likewise quicken our desires and endeavours of uniting ourselves to him by all the acts of religion and virtue.

ADDISON: Spectator, No. 531.

Worship is an act of the understanding, applying itself to the knowledge of the excellency of God and actual thoughts of his majesty; recognizing him as the supreme Lord and Governor of the world, which is natural knowledge; beholding the glory of his attributes in the Redeemer, which is evangelical knowledge. This is the sole act of the spirit of man. The

same reason is for all our worship as for our thanksgiving. This must be done with understanding: (Ps. xlvii. 7) "Sing ye praise with understanding;" with a knowledge and sense of his greatness, goodness, and wisdom. It is also an act of the will, whereby the soul adores and reverences his majesty, is ravished with his amiableness, embraceth his goodness, enters itself into an intimate communion with this most lovely object, and pitcheth all his affections upon him: We must worship God understandingly; it is not else a reasonable service.

CHARNOCK: Attributes.

Our worship is spiritual when the door of the heart is shut against all intruders, as our Saviour commands in closet-duties. It was not his meaning to command the shutting the closetdoor, and leave the heart-door open for every thought that would be apt to haunt us. Worldly affections are to be laid aside if we would have our worship spiritual; this was meant by the Jewish custom of wiping or washing off the dust of their feet before their entrance into the temple, and of not bringing money in their girdles. To be spiritual in worship, is to have our souls gathered and bound up wholly in themselves, and offered to God.

CHARNOCK: Attributes.

Without the heart it is no worship; it is a stage play; an acting a part without being that person really which is acted by us: a hypocrite, in the notion of the world, is a stage-player. We may as well say a man may believe with his body, as worship God only with his body. Faith is a great ingredient in worship; and it is "with the heart man believes unto righteousness." We may be truly said to worship God, though we want perfection; but we cannot be said to worship him if we want sincerity; a statue upon a tomb, with eyes and hands lifted up, offers as good and true a service; it wants

only a voice, the gestures and postures are the same; nay, the service is better; it is not a mockery; it represents all that it can be framed to; but to worship without our spirits, is a presenting God with a picture, an echo, voice, and nothing else; a compliment; a mere lie; a "compassing him about with lies." CHARNOCK: Attributes.

As to private worship, let us lay hold of the most melting opportunities and frames. When we find our hearts in a more than ordinary spiritual frame, let us look upon it as a call from God to attend him; such impressions and notions are God's voice, inviting us into communion with him in some particular act of worship, and promising us some success in it. When the Psalmist had a secret motion to "seek God's face" (Ps. xxviii. 8) and complied with it, the issue is the encouragement of his heart, which breaks out into an exhortation to others to be of good courage, and wait on the Lord (v. 13, 14):

Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thy heart; wait, I say, on the Lord." One blow will do more on the iron when it is hot, than a hundred when it is cold; melted metals may be stamped with any impres sion; but, once hardened, will with difficulty be brought into the figure we intend.

CHARNOCK: Attributes.

Good effects may grow in each of the people towards other, in them all towards their pastor, and in their pastor towards every of them; be tween whom there daily and interchangeably pass, in the hearing of God himself, and in the presence of his holy angels, so many heavenly acclamations, exultations, provocations, petitions. HOOKER.

There must be zeal and fervency in him which proposeth for the rest those suits and supplications which they by their joyful acclamations must ratify. HOOKER.

YOUTH.

Readers who are in the flower of their youth should labour at those accomplishments which may set off their persons when their bloom is gone, and to lay in timely provisions for manhood and old age. ADDISON.

A wit in youth not over dull, heavy, knotty, and lumpish, but hard, tough, and though somewhat staffish, both for learning and whole course of living proveth always best. ASCHAM.

Young men are fitter to invent than to judge; fitter for execution than for counsel; and fitter

for new projects than for settled business: for the experience of age, in things that fall within the compass of it, directeth them: but in new things abuseth them. The errors of young men are the ruin of business; but the errors of aged men amount but to this, that more might have been done, or sooner. Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and,

LORD BACON : Essay XLIII., Of Youth and Age. There be some have an early over-ripeness in their years, which fadeth betimes: these are, first, such as have brittle wits, the edge whereof is soon turned. LORD BACON :

Essay XLIII., Of Youth and Age. A gentleman punctual of his word, when he had heard that two had agreed upon a meeting, and the one neglected his hour, would say of him, He is a young man then. LORD BACON.

Such errors as are but as acorns in our younger brows grow oaks in our older heads, and become inflexible to the powerful arm of reason.

SIR T. BROWNE.

In the morning of our days, when the senses are unworn and tender, when the whole man is awake in every part, and the gloss of novelty fresh upon all the objects that surround us, how lively at that time are our sensations, but how false and inaccurate the judgments we form of things! I despair of ever receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most excellent performances of genius, which I felt at that age from pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible. BURKE:

On the Sublime and Beautiful, Introduction, On Taste, 1756. They were young and inexperienced; and when will young and inexperienced men learn caution and distrust of themselves?

BURKE:

Letter to a Member of the Nat. Assembly, 1791.

To the young if you give any tolerable quarter, you indulge them in your idleness, and ruin them. JEREMY COLLIER.

The excesses of our youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest, about thirty years after date. COLTON: Lacon.

You do well to improve your opportunity; to speak in the rural phrase, this is your sowing time, and the sheaves you look for can never be yours, unless you make that use of it. The colour of our whole life is generally such as the three or four first years in which we are our own masters make it. Then it is that we may be said to shape our own destiny, and to treasure up for ourselves a series of future successes or disappointments. COWPER.

Youth is not like a new garment, which we can keep fresh and fair by wearing sparingly. Youth, while we have it, we must wear daily, and it will fast wear away.

JOHN FOSTER: Journal.

The retrospect on youth is too often like looking back on what was a fair and promising country, but is now desolated by an overwhelm

We would earnestly entreat the young to remember that, by the unanimous consent of all ages, modesty, docility, and reverence to superior years, and to parents above all, have been considered as their appropriate virtues, a guard assigned by the immutable laws of God and nature on the inexperience of youth; and with respect to the second, that Christianity prohibits no pleasures that are innocent, lays no restraints that are capricious; but that the sobriety and purity which it enjoins, by strengthening the intellectual powers, and preserving the faculties of mind and body in undiminished vigour, lay the surest foundation of present peace and future eminence. ROBERT HALL: Modern Infidelity.

This is not the grace of hope, but a good natural assurance or confidence, which Aristotle observes young men to be full of, and old men not so inclined to. HAMMOND.

Youth is the time of enterprise and hope: having yet no occasion of comparing our force with any opposing power, we naturally form presumptions in our own favour, and imagine that obstruction and impediment will give way before us. The first repulses rather inflame vehemence than teach prudence; a brave and generous mind is long before it suspects its own weakness, or submits to sap the difficulties which it expected to subdue by storm. Before disappointments have enforced the dictates of philosophy we believe it in our power to shorten the interval between the first cause and the last effect: we laugh at the timorous delays of plodding industry, and fancy that by increasing the fire we can at pleasure accelerate the projection.

DR. S. JOHNSON: Rambler, No. 111CX

It must be an industrious youth that provides against age; and he that fools away the one must either beg or starve in the other.

L'ESTRANGE.

By safe and insensible degrees he will pass from a boy to a man, which is the most hazardous step in life: this therefore should be carefully watched, and a young man with great diligence handed over it. LOCKE.

Young master, willing to show himself a man, lets himself loose to all irregularities: and thus courts credit and manliness in the casting off the modesty he has till then been kept in.

LOCKE.

love and reverence for the Divine Father, and He had been reared from his cradle in simple the tender Saviour, whose life beyond all records of human goodness, whose death beyond all epics of mortal heroism, no being whose infancy has been taught to supplicate the Merciful and adore the Holy, yea, even though his later life