question may be enabled to decide on the positive innocence and safety of such diversions; I mean, provided they are sincere in their scrutiny and honest in their avowal. If, on their return at night from those places, they find they can retire, and 'commune with their own hearts;' if they find the love of God operating with undiminished force on their minds; if they can bring every thought into subjection,' and had all different reasons, none of which appeared, to have any moral turpitude; but they all agree in this, to decline the invitation to the supper. The worldly possessions of one, the worldly business of another, and what should be particularly attended to, the love to his dearest relative, of a third, (a love by the way, not only allowed, but commanded in Scripture) were brought forward as excuses for not attending to the important business of religion. The consequence, how-concentrate every wandering imagination; if ever, was the same to all. None of those which were bidden shall taste of my supper.' If then things innocent, things necessary, things laudable, things commanded, become sinful, when by unseasonable or excessive indulgence, they detain the heart and affections from God, how vain will all those arguments necessarily be rendered, which are urged by the advocates for certain amusements, on the ground of their harmless-consciousness of having avoided in the evening, ness; if those amusements serve (not to mention any positive evil which may belong to them) in like manner to draw away the thoughts and affections from all spiritual objects! To conclude; when this topic happens to become the subject of conversation, instead of addressing severe and pointed attacks to young ladies on the sin of attending places of diversion, would it not be better first to endeavour to exeite in them that principle of Christianity, with which such diversions seem not quite compatible; as the physician, who visits a patient in an eruptive fever, pays little attention to those spots which to the ignorant appear to be the disease, except indeed so far as they serve as indications to let him into its nature, but goes straight to the root of the malady? He attacks the fever, he lowers the pulse, he changes the system, he corrects the general habit; well knowing that if he can but restore the vital principle of health, the spots, which were nothing but symptoms, will die away of themselves. In instructing others, we should imitate our Lord and his apostles, and not always ́aim our blow at each particular corruption; but making it our business to convince our pupil that what brings forth the evil fruit she exhibits, cannot be a branch of the true vine; we should thus avail ourselves of individual corruptions, for impressing her with a sense of the necessity of purifying the common source from whence they flow-a corrupt nature. Thus making it our grand business to rectify the heart, we pursue the true, the compendious, the only method of producing universal holiness. they can soberly examine into their own state of mind--I do not say if they can do all this perfectly and without distraction: (for who almost can do this at any time ?) but if they can do it with the same degree of seriousness, pray with the same degree of fervour, and renounce the world in as great a measure as at other times; and if they can lie down with a peaceful 'that temptation' which they had prayed not to be 'led into' in the morning, they may then more reasonably hope that all is well, and that they are not speaking false peace to their hearts. -Again, if we cannot beg the blessing of our Maker on whatever we are going to do or to enjoy, is it not an unequivocal proof that the thing ought not to be done or enjoyed? On all the rational enjoyments of society, on all healthful and temperate exercise, on the delights of friendship, arts, and polished letters, on the exquisite pleasures resulting from the enjoyment of rural scenery; and the beauties of nature; on the innocent participation of these we may ask the divine favour-for the sober enjoyment of these we may thank the divine beneficence: but do we feel equally disposed to invoke blessings or return praises for gratifications found (to say no worse) in levity, in vanity, and waste of time?-If these tests were fairly used ; if these experiments were honestly tried; if these examinations were conscientiously made, may we not, without offence, presume to ask -Could our numerous places of public resort, could our ever-multiplying scenes of more select but not less dangerous diversion, nightly overflow with an excess hitherto unparalleled in the annals of pleasure ?* * If I might presume to recommend a book which of all others exposes the insignificance, vanity, littleness and emptiness of the world, I should not hesitate to name Mr. Law's Serious call to a devout and holy life.' Few writers except Pascal, have directed so much acute ness of reasoning and so much pointed wit to this object. He not only makes the reader afraid of a worldly life on account of its sinfulness, but ashamed of it on ac. I would, however, take leave of those amiable count of its folly. Few men perhaps have had a deeper insight into the human heart, or have more skilfully and not ill-disposed young persons, who com- probed its corruptions: yet on points of doctrine his plain of the rigour of human prohibitions, and views do not seem to be just; and his disquisitions are declare, they meet with no such strictness in often unsound and fanciful, so that a general perusal of his works would neither be profitable nor intelligible. To the Gospel,' by asking them with the most a fashionable woman immersed in the vanities of life, affectiouate earnestness, if they can conscien- or to a busy man overwhelmed with its cares, I know tiously reconcile their nightly attendance, at no book so applicable, or likely to exhibit with equal every public place which they frequent, with force the vanity of the shadows they are pursuing. But even in this work, Law is not a safe guide to evangelisuch precepts as the following: 'Redeeming the cal light; and in many of his others he is highly visiontime; Watch and pray :- Watch, for yeary and whimsical: and I have known some excellent know not at what time your Lord cometh :'— 'Abstain from all appearance of evil :'-'Set your affections on things above:'-' Be ye spiritually minded:'-' Crucify the flesh with with its affections and lusts!' And I would venture to offer one criterion, by which the persons in persons who were first led by this admirable genius to see the wants of their own hearts, and the utter insufficiency of the world to fill up the craving void, who, though they became eminent for piety and self-denial, have had their usefulness abridged; and whose minds have contracted something of a monastic severity by an unqualified perusal of Mr. Law. True Christianity does not call on us to starve our bodies, but our corruptions. CHAP. XIX. if introduced at all into the system, only makes it occasional, and if I may so speak its holyday A worldly spirit incompatible with the spirit of appearance. To bring religion into every thing, Christianity. is thought incompatible with the due attention to the things of this life. And so it would be, Is it not whimsical to hear such complaints if by religion were meant talking about reliagainst the strictness of religion as we are fregion. The phrase, therefore, is: We cannot quently hearing, from the beings who are volun-always be praying; we must mind our business tarily pursuing, as has been shown in the pre- and our social duties as well as our devotion.' ceding chapters, a course of life which fashion Worldly business being thus subjected to worldmakes infinitely more severe. How really burdensome would Christianity be if she enjoin-mind during the conduct of business grows ly, though in some degree moral, maxims, the ed such sedulous application, such unremitting worldly; and a continually increasing worldly labours, such a succession of fatigues! If religion commanded such hardships and self. spirit dims the sight and relaxes the moral prindenial, such days of hurry, such evenings of ciple on which the affairs of the world are conexertion, such nights of broken rest, such per- exercises of devotion. ducted, as well as indisposes the mind for all the petual sacrifices of quiet, such exile from family delights, as fashion imposes, then indeed the service of Christianity would no longer merit its present appellation of being a reasonable service then the name of perfect slavery might be justly applied to that which we are told in the beautiful language of our church, is a service of perfect freedom;' a service the great object of which is to deliver us from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.' But this temper as far as relates to business, so much assumes the semblance of goodness, that those who have not the right views are apt to mistake the carrying on the affairs of life on a tolerable moral principle, for religion. They do not see that the evil lies not in their so carrying on business, but in their not carrying on the things of this life in subserviency to the things of eternity; in their not carrying them on with the unintermitting idea of responsibility. The evil does not lie in their not being always on their knees, but in their not bringing their religion from the closet into the world: in their not bringing the spirit of Sunday's devotions into the transactions of the week in not transforming their religion from a dry, and speculative, and imperative system, into a lively, and influential, and unceasing principle of ac tion. Though there are, blessed be God! in the most exalted stations, women who adorn their Christian profession by a consistent conduct; yet are there not others who are labouring hard to unite the irreconcileable interests of earth and yet are there not others who are labouring hard heaven? who, while they will not relinquish one jot of what this world has to bestow, yet by no not think it unreasonable that their indulging in means renounce their hopes of a better? who do the fullest possession of present pleasure should interfere with the most certain reversion of future glory? who, after living in the most unbounded gratification of ease, vanity, and luxury, fancy that heaven must be attached of course to a life of which Christianity is the outward profession and which has not been stained by any flagrant or dishonourable act of guilt. A worldly temper, by which I mean a disposition to prefer worldly pleasures, worldly satisfactions, and worldly advantages, to the immortal interests of the soul; and to let worldly considerations actuate us instead of the dictates of religion in the concerns of ordinary life; a worldly temper, I say, is not, like almost any other fault, the effect of passion or the consequence of surprise, when the heart is off its guard. It is not excited incidentally by the operation of external circumstances on the infirmity of nature but it is the vital spirit, the essential soul, the living principle of evil. It is not so much an act, as a state of being; not so much an occasional complaint, as a tainted constitution of mind. It does not always show itself in extraordinary excesses, it has no perfect intermission. Even when it is not immediately tempted to break out into overt and specific acts, it is at work within, stirring up the heart to disaffection against holiness, and infusing a kind of moral disability to whatever is intrinsically right. It infects and depraves all the powers and faculties of the soul; for it operates on the understanding, by blinding it to whatever is spiritually good; on the will, by making Are there not many who, while they enterit averse from God; on the affections, by dis-tain a respect for Religion (for I address not the ordering and sensualizing them; so that one unbelieving or the licentious) while they believe may almost say to those who are under the su- its truths, observe its forms, and would be preme dominion of this spirit, what was said to shocked not to be thought religious are yet imthe hosts of Joshua, Ye cannot serve the Lord.'mersed in this life of disqualifying worldliness? The worldliness of mind is not at all common- who, though they make a conscience of going ly understood, and for the following reason :- to the public worship once on a Sunday; and People suppose that in this world, our chief business is with the things of this world, and that of the church, yet hesitate not to give up all are scrupulously observant of the other rites to conduct the business of this world well, that is the rest of their time to the very same purconformably to moral principles, is the chief suits and pleasures which occupy the hearts substance of moral and true goodness. Religion, and engross the lives of those looser characAs the mortified apostle of the holy and self-denying Baptist, preaching repentance because the kingdom of Heaven is at hand, Mr. Law has no superior. As a preacher of salvation on spiritual grounds I would follow other guides. ters whose enjoyment is not obstructed by any dread of a future account? and who are acting on the wise principle of the 'children of the world,' in making the most of the present state of being from the conviction that there is to themselves a larger capital for their future It must be owned, indeed, that faith in unseen things is at times lamentably weak and defective even in the truly pious; and that it is so, is the subject of their grief and humiliation. O! how does the real Christian take shame in the coldness of his belief, in the lowness of his attainments! How deeply does he lament that 'when he would do good, evil is present with him! that the life he now lives in the flesh, is' not, in the degree it ought to be, by faith in the Son of God!" Yet one thing is clear; however weak his belief may seem to be, it is evident that his actions are principally governed by it; he evinces his sincerity to others by a life in some good degree analogous to the doctrines he professes; while to himself he has at least this conviction, that faint as his confidence may be at times, low as may be his hope, and feeble as his faith may seem, yet at the worst of times he would not exchange that faint measure of trust and hope for all the actual pleasures and possessions of his most splendid acquaintance; and what is a proof of his sincerity he never seeks the cure of his dejection, where they seek theirs, in this world, but in God. Now, 'Faith, which is the substance of things hoped for,' is meant to furnish the soul with present support, while it satisfies it as to the security on which it has lent itself; just as a man's bonds and mortgages assure him that he is really rich, though he has not all the money in hand ready to spend at the moment. Those who truly believe the Bible, must in the same manner be content to live on its promises, by which God has as it were pledged himself for their future blessedness. Even that very spirit of enjoyment which leads the persons in question so studiously to possess themselves of the qualifications necessary for the pleasures of the present scene, that understanding and good sense, which leads them to acquire such talents as may enable them to relish the resorts of gayety here; that very spirit should induce those who are really looking for a future state of happiness, to wish to acquire something of the taste, and temper, and talents, which may be considered as qualifications for the enjoyment of that happiness. The neglect of doing this must proceed from one of these two causes; either they must think their preBut as to the faith of worldly persons, how- sent course a safe and proper course; or they ever strong it may be in speculation, however must think that death is to produce some sudden orthodox their creed, however stout their pro- and surprising alteration in the human characfession, we cannot help fearing that it is a little ter. But the office of death is to transport us to defective in sincerity: for if there were in their a new state, not to transform us to a new naminds a full persuasion of the truth of Revela- ture; the stroke of death is intended to effect tion, and of the eternal bliss it promises, would our deliverance out of this world, and our introit not be obvious to them that there must be duction into another; but it is not likely to effect more diligence for its attainment? We disco- any sudden and wonderful, much less a total ver great ardour in carrying on worldly pro- change in our hearts or our tastes; so far from jects, because we believe the good which we are this that we are assured in Scripture, that he pursuing is real, and will reward the trouble of that is filthy will be filthy still, and he that is the pursuit; we believe that good is to be at- holy will be holy still." Though we believe that tained by diligence, and we prudently proportion death will completely cleanse the holy soul from our earnestness to this conviction; when there- its remaining pollutions, that it will exchange fore we see persons professing a lively faith in defective sanctification into perfect purity, ena better world, yet labouring little to obtain an tangling temptation into complete freedom; sufinterest in it, can we forbear suspecting that fering and affliction into health and joy; doubts their belief, not only of their own title to eternal and fears into perfect security, and oppressive happiness but of eternal happiness itself, is not weariness into everlasting rest; yet there is no well grounded; and that, if they were to exa-magic in the wand of death which will convert mine themselves truly,' and to produce the an unholy soul into a holy one. And it is awprinciple of such a relaxed morality, the faithful to reflect, that such tempers as have the alwould be found to be much of a piece with the practice? The objections which disincline the world to make present sacrifices of pleasure, with a view to obtaining eternal happiness, are such as apply to all the ordinary concerns of life. That is, men object chiefly to a religious course as tending to rob them of that actual pleasure which is within their reach, for the sake of a remote enjoyment. They object to giving up the seen good for the unseen. But do not almost all the transactions of life come under the same description ?-Do we not give up present ease and renounce much indulgence in order to acquire a future? Do we not part with our current money for the reversion of an estate, which we know it will be a long time before we can possess? Nay, do not the most worldly often submit to an immediate inconvenience, by reducing their present income, in order to insure ་ lowed predominance here will maintain it forever; that such as the will is when we close our eyes upon the things of time, such it will be when we open them on those of eternity. The mere act of death no more fits us for heaven, than the mere act of the mason who pulls down our old house fits us for a new one. If we die with our hearts running over with the love of the world, there is no promise to lead us to expect that we shall rise with them full of the love of God. Death indeed will show us to ourselves such as we are, but will not make us such as we are not and it will be too late to be acquiring self-knowledge when we can no longer turn it to any account, but that of tormenting ourselves. To illustrate this truth still farther by an allusion familiar to the persons I address: the draw. ing up the curtain at the theatre, though it serve to introduce us to the entertainments behind it, does not create in us any new faculties to un sole property of the purchaser. Faith does not consist merely in submitting the opinions of the understanding, but the dispositions of the heart; religion is not a sacrifice of sentiments, but of affections; it is not the tribute of fear extorted from a slave, but the voluntary homage of love paid by a child. Neither does a Christian's piety consist in living in retreat, and railing at the practices of the world, while perhaps her heart is full of the spirit of that world at which she is railing: but it consists in subduing the spirit of the world resisting its temptations, and opposing its practices, even while her duty obliges her to live in it. That spirit of prayer and praise, those dispositions of love, meekness, peace, quietness, and assurance;' that indifference to the fashion of a world which is passing away; that longing after deliverance from sin; that desire of holiness, together with all the fruits of the Spirit' here, must surely make some part of our qualification for the enjoyment of a world, the pleasures of Nor is the spirit or the love of the world con which are all spiritual. And who can conceive fined to those only who are making a figure in any thing comparable to the awful surprise of ait; nor are its operations bounded by the presoul long immersed in the indulgences of vanity cincts of the metropolis nor by the limited reand pleasure, yet all the while lulled by the self-gions of first-rate rank and splendour. She who complacency of a religion of mere forms; who, while it counted upon heaven as a thing of course; had made no preparation for it! Who can conceive any surprise comparable to that of such a soul on shutting its eyes on a world of sense, of which all the objects and delights were so congenial to its nature, and opening them on a world of spirits of which all the characters of enjoyment are of a nature new, unknown, sur-versions of her provincial town, if she be busied prising, and specifically different? pleasures more inconceivable to its apprehension and more unsuitable to its taste, than the gratifications of one sense are to the organs of another, or than the most exquisite works of art and genius to absolute imbecility of mind. While we would with deep humility confess that we cannot purchase heaven by any works or right dispositions of our own; while we gratefully acknowledge that it must be purchased for us by Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in his blood;' yet let us remember that we have no reason to expect we could be capable of enjoying the pleasures of a heaven so purchased without heavenly mindedness. inveighs against the luxury and excesses of London, and solaces herself in her own comparative sobriety, because her more circumscribed fortune compels her to take up with the secondhand pleasures of successive watering-places, if she pursue these pleasures with avidity, is governed by the same spirit and she whose still narrower opportunities stint her to the petty di in swelling and enlarging her smaller sphere of vanity and idleness, however she may comfort herself with her own comparative goodness, by railing at the unattainable pleasures of the watering place, or the still more unapproachable joys of the capital, is governed by the same spirit; for she who is as vain as dissipated, and as extravagant as actual circumstances admit, would be as vain, as dissipated, and as extravagant as the gayest objects of her invective actually are, if she could change places with them. It is not merely by what we do that we can be sure the spirit of the world has no dominion over us, but by fairly considering what we should probably do if more were in our power. The worldly Christian, if I may be allowed such a palpable contradiction in terms, must not imagine that she acquits herself of her religious When those persons who are apt to expect as much comfort from religion as if their hearts were not full of the world, now and then in a fit of honesty or low spirits, complain that Chris-obligations by paying in her mere weekly oblatianity does not make them as good and happy tion of prayer. There is no covenant by which as they were led to expect from that assurance, communion with God is restricted to an hour or that great peace have they who love the law of two on the Sunday: she must not imagine she God,' and that they who wait on him shall want acquits herself by setting apart a few particular no manner of thing that is good;' when they days in the year for the exercise of a periodical. lament that the paths of religion are not those devotion, and then flying back to the world as 'paths of pleasantness' which they were led to eagerly as if she were resolved to repay herself expect; their case reminds one of a celebrated with a large interest for her short fit of self-dephysician, who used to say that the reason whynial; the stream of pleasure running with a his prescriptions, which commonly cured the more rapid current, from having been interruptpoor and the temperate, did so little good among ed by this forced obstruction. And the avidity his rich and luxurious patients, was, that while with which we have seen certain persons of a he was labouring to remove the disease by me- still less correct character than the class we have dicines, of which they only took drams, grains, | been considering, return to a whole year's carand scruples, they were inflaming it by a mul-nival, after the self imposed penance of a passion tiplicity of injurious aliments, which they swal-week, gives a shrewd intimation that they conlowed by ounces, pounds, and pints. sidered the temporary abstraction less as an act These fashionable Christians should be re- of penitence for the past, than as a purchase of minded, that there was no half engagement indemnity for the future. Such bareweight made for them at their baptism; that they are Protestants prudently condition for retaining the not partly their own, and partly their Redeem-Popish doctrine of indulgences, which they buy er's. He that is bought with a price,' is the not indeed of the late spiritual court of Rome ་ but of that secret self-acquitting judge, which, as a mere form; who dignify with the idea of a tire with unabated resolution to return to the the pleasures they are quitting? Is it not to be This flattering unction to the soul? But the practice of self-examination is impeded by one clog, which renders it peculiarly inconvenient to the gay and worldly for the royal prophet (who was, however, himself as likely as any one to be acquainted with the diffi-serve to set a keener edge on the appetite for culties peculiar to greatness) has annexed as a concomitant to communing with our own heart,' that we should be still. Now this clause of the injunction annihilates the other, by rendering it incompatible with the present habits of fashionable life, of which stillness is clearly not one of the constituents. It would, however, greatly assist those who do not altogether decline the practice, if they were to establish into a rule the habit of detecting certain suspicious practices, by realizing them, as it were, to their And is it not awfully to be apprehended that own minds, through the means of drawing them such devotions come in among those vain oblaout in detail, and of placing them before their tions which the Almighty has declared he will eyes clothed in language; for there is nothing not accept? For, is it not among the delusions that so effectually exposes an absurdity which of a worldly piety, to consider Christianity as a has hitherto passed muster for want of such an thing which cannot, indeed, safely be omitted, inquisition, as giving it shape, and form, and but which is to be got over; a certain quantity body. How many things which now silently of which is, as it were, to be taken in the lump, work themselves into the habit, and pass current with long intervals between the repetitions? Is without inquiry, would then shock us by their it not among its delusions to consider religion palpable inconsistency! Who, for instance, could as imposing a set of hardships, which must be stand the sight of such a debtor and creditor ac- occasionally encountered, in order to procure a count as this:-Item; so many card-parties, peaceable enjoyment of the long respite ?—a balls, and operas due to me in the following short penalty for a long pleasure? that these seyear, for so many manuals, prayers, and medi-verer conditions thus fulfilled, the acquitted tations paid beforehand during the last six days Christian having paid the annual demand of a in lent? With how much indignation soever rigorous requisition, she may now lawfully rethis suggestion may be treated; whatever of turn to her natural state; the old reckoning befence may be taken at such a combination of the ing adjusted, she may begin a new score, and serious and the ludicrous; however we may re-receive the reward of her punctual obedience, volt at the idea of such a composition with our Maker, when put into so many words; does not the habitual course of some go near to realize such a statement ? But ' a Christian's race,' as a venerable prelate* observes, 'is not to run at so many heats,' but is a constant course, a regular progress by which we are continually gaining ground upon sin, and approaching nearer to the kingdom of God. Am I then ridiculing this pious seclusion of contrite sinners? Am I then jesting at that 'troubled spirit' which God has declared is his acceptable sacrifice?' God forbid! Such reasonable retirements have been the practice, and continue to be the comfort of some of the sincerest Christians; and will continue to be resorted to as long as Christianity, that is, as long as the world shall last. It is well to call off the thoughts, even for a short time, not only from sin and vanity, but even from the lawful pursuits of business and the laudable concerns of life; and at times, to annihilate, as it were, the space which divides us from eternity: 'Tis greatly wise to talk with our past hours, Yet to those who seek a short annual retreat Bishop Hopkins. in the resumed indulgence of those gratifications I am far from insinuating, that this literal se- |