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no element was there before-of which no man's previous experience ever gives him any information, any conception. If this is not a mystery to mankind, it would be difficult to tell what there is that deserves the name. Suppose the same thing to be applied to men's general knowledge. Men know many things; but suppose it were asserted, that, in all their knowing, there is not one particle of true knowledge, and that only here and there one, who has been specially and divinely enlightened, possesses any such knowledge. Would not such knowledge, then, be a secret shared by a few, and kept from the rest of the world? Would it not be a profound mystery to the mass of mankind? Yes; and a mystery all the darker for the seeming light that surrounded it.

How much is there that passes in the bosom of society, unquestioned and almost unknown! It is this which prevents us from seeing the momentous fact, and the character of the fact, which I have now been attempting to strip bare and to lay before you. It would seem that we least know that which is nearest to us, which is most familiar and most certain, which is mixed up most intimately with all present thought and usage, and with the life that we daily live. A thing must become history, it would seem, before we can fairly read it. This is commonly allowed to be true of political affairs; but it is just as true of all human experience. Thus, if there had been a sect among the old philosophers, which pretended to hold the exclusive possession of all science; if certain persons had stood up in the ancient time, and said, "That which other men call science is all an illusion; we alone truly know anything; all other men are but fools and idiots in this matter; they suppose themselves to know, but they know nothing; they use words, and make distinctions, and write books, as if they knew, but they know nothing; they do not even know what knowing is;" such a pretension we should not hesitate to characterize as a strange mixture of mysticism and arrogance. But the same assumption in regard to religion is now put forth among ourselves: it is announced every week from the pulpit; it is constantly written in books; it enters into every argument about total depravity, and regeneration, and divine grace; and men seem totally insensible to its enormity; it is regarded as a mark of peculiar wisdom and sanctity; the men who take this ground are the accredited Christian teachers of multitudes; they speak as if the secret of the matter were in them, and as if they were perfectly entitled, in virtue of a certain divine illumination which they have received, to pronounce all other religious claims to be groundless and false; to say of all other men but the body of the elect, "They think they know what religion is; they talk about it; they make disquisitions and distinctions as if they knew, but they know nothing about it; they do not even know what true religious knowing is." And all the people say, amen. There is no rebuke; there is no questioning; the light of coming ages has not yet shone upon this pretension; and the people say, it is all very right-very true.

I pray you, in fine, not to regard what I have now been saying as a sectarian remonstrance. Nay, and if it were so, it would not be likely to be half strong enough. There is a heavy indifference on this subject of religion, that weighs down remonstrance, and will not let it rise as it ought. If certain shipmasters, or merchants, should say that they alone understood navigation; if certain mechanicians or manufacturers

should assert that they alone understood their art or their business; if certain lawyers, or physicians, should lay exclusive claim to the knowledge of law, or medicine, there would be an outburst of indignation and scorn on every hand. "What presumption! what folly! these people are deranged!"-would be the exclamation. But men may make this claim in religion; a few persons, comparatively, in Christendom, may say, "We only have religion; we alone truly know what religion is;" and the indifference of society replies, "No matter; let them claim it; let them have it;" as if the matter were not worth disputing about. And if some one arouses himself to examine and to resist this claim, indifference still says, "This is but a paltry, sectarian dispute."

It is not a

No, sirs; I answer, this is not a sectarian dispute. sectarian remonstrance that is demanded here; but the remonstrance of all human experience. Religion is the science of man's intrinsic and immortal welfare. What is a true knowledge, what is a true experience here, is a question of nothing less than infinite moment. All that a man is to enjoy or suffer for ever, depends upon the right practical solution of this very question. Everywhere else-in business, in science, in his profession-may a man mistake with comparative impunity. But if he mistakes here-if he does not know, and know by experience, what it is to be good and pure, what it is to love God, and to be conformed to his image, he is, in spite of all that men or angels can do for him, a ruined creature.

Settle it then with yourselves, my brethren, what true religion, true goodness, is. I will attempt, in some further discourses, to lead you to the inferences that follow from this discussion. But it is so fruitful in obvious inferences, that I am willing, for the present, to leave it with you for your reflection. But this I say now. Settle it with yourselves what true religion is. If it is a mystery, then leave no means untried to become acquainted with that mystery. If it is but the cultivation, the increase in you, of what you already know and feel to be right, then address yourselves to that work of self-culture, as men who know that more than fortunes and honours depend upon it-who know that the soul, that heaven, that eternity, depends upon it.

ON THE IDENTITY OF RELIGION WITH GOODNESS,

AND WITH A GOOD LIFE.

1 JOHN iv. 20: "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?"

I HAVE presented, in my last discourse, two views of religion, or of the supreme human excellence; and I have offered some brief, but as I conceive, decisive considerations, to show which is the right view. The one regards religion or the saving virtue, as a new creation in the soul; the other as the culture of what is already in the soul. The one contemplates conversion as the introduction of an entirely new element, or of an entirely new mode of action, into our nature; the other, as a strengthening, elevating, and confirming of the conscience, the reverence and the love that are already a part of our nature. A simple comparison drawn from vegetable nature will show the difference. Here is a garden of plants. The rational gardener looks upon them all as having in them the elements of growth and perfection. His business is to cultivate them. To make the comparison more exact he sees that these plants have lost their proper beauty and shapeliness, that they are distorted and dwarfed, and choked with weeds. But still the germs of improvement are in them, and his business is to cultivate them. But now what does the theological gardener say? "No, in not one of these plants is to be found the germ of the right production. To obtain this, it is necessary to graft upon each one a new principle of life.'

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Now I have said, that, upon the theory in question, this new creation, this new element, this graft upon the stock of humanity, is, and must be to the mass of mankind, a mystery, an enigma, a profound secret. And is not this obviously true? Man, in a state of nature, it is constantly taught, has not one particle of the true saving excellence. How then should he know what it is? 66 "Very true, says the popular theorist; I accept the conclusion; is it not written, the natural man receiveth not the things of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." That is to say, the popular theorist understands by the natural man, in this much-quoted and muchmisunderstood passage, human nature. If he construed it to mean, the sensual man, I conceive that he would arrive at a just exposition. But that is not the point in question now. He does construe it to mean human nature: this is constantly done. Human nature being nothing but one mass of unmingled depravity-having never had one right

motion or one right feeling, can, of course, have no knowledge of any such motion or feeling.

And to show that this is not a matter of doctrine only, but of experience too, let me spread before you a single supposition of what often, doubtless, takes place in fact. A man of generally fair and unexceptionable life, is lying upon his bed of death, and is visited and questioned, with a view to his spiritual condition. Suppose now he were to say, "I have had for some time past, though I never confessed it before, a certain, unusual, indescribable feeling in my heart on the subject of religion. It came upon me-for I remember it well-in such a month of such a year; it was a new feeling; I had never felt anything like it before. Ever since, I have had a hope that I then experienced religion. Not that I trust myself, or anything in myself; I cast all my burthen upon Christ; nothing but Christ-nothing but Christ, is the language upon my lips with which I would part from this world," and would not this declaration, I ask, though conveying not one intelligible or definite idea to the most of those around him, be held to be a very satisfactory account of his preparation for futurity? But now suppose that he should express himself in a different manner, and should utter the thoughts of his heart thus: "I know that I am far from perfect, that I have, in many things, been very unfaithful; I see much to repent of, for which I hope and implore God's forgiveness. But I do trust that, for a number of years, I have been growing in goodness; that I have had a stronger and stronger control over my passions. Alas! I remember sad and mournful years, in which they had dominion over me; but I do trust that I did at length gain the victory; and that latterly, I have become, every year, more and more pure, kind, gentle, patient, disinterested, spiritual, and devout. I feel that God's presence, in which I am ever happiest, has been more abidingly with me; and in short, I hope that the foundations of true happiness have been laid deep in my soul; and that, through God's mercy, of which I acknowledge the most adorable manifestation and the most blessed pledge in the Gospel, I shall be happy for ever." And now I ask you-do you not think that this account, with many persons, would have lost just as much in satisfactoriness as it has gained in clearness? Would not some of the wise, the guides in Israel, go away, shaking their heads, and saying, they feared it would never do? "Too much talk about his own virtues!"-they would say "too little about Christ!"-with an air itself mysterious in that solemn reference. doubtless, if this man had talked more mystically about Christ, and grace, and the holy Spirit, it would have been far more satisfactory. And yet he has stated, and clearly stated, the essential grounds of all human welfare and hope.

And

How often in life-to take another instance-does a highly moral and excellent man say, "I hope I am not a bad man; I mean to do right; I trust I am not devoid of all kind and generous affections towards my fellow-men, or of all grateful feelings towards my Maker; but then I do not profess to have religion. I do not pretend that I am a Christian in any degree." Let not my construction of this case be mistaken. Doubtless, in many such persons there are great defects, nay, and defects proceeding partly from the very error which I am combating. For if I were to say to such persons, Yes, you have

66

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some good and pious affections in you, which God approves, and your only business is, to give the supremacy to these very affections which are already in you"-I should be thought to have lulled his conscience, fostered his pride, and ruined his soul. I should be regarded as a worldly moralizer, a preacher of smooth things, a follower of the longdoomed heresy of Pelagius. No," it would be said, "there is no saving virtue in that man; there is nothing in him that can be strengthened, or refined, or elevated, or confirmed into holiness; there is no spark to be fanned into a flame, no germ to be reared into saving life and beauty; all these things are to be flung aside to make way for the reception of something altogether new-as new as light to the blind, or as life to the dead. That something, when it comes, will be what he never knew before, never felt before, never before clearly saw or conceived of; and it is undoubtedly, though that is an unusual way of describing it-it is, to depraved human nature, a mystery."

This unquestionable assumption of the popular religion, I shall now proceed freely to discuss in several points of view-in its bearing on the estimate and treatment of religion, on its culture, and on its essential vitality and power.

In the present discourse I shall consider its bearing on the estimate, and on the treatment of religion.

First, the general estimate of the nature, reasonableness, and beauty of religion-what can it be, if religion is a mystery, an enigma, a thing unknown? We may feel curiosity about a mystery; and I have seen more than one person seeking religion from this impulse-because they would know what it can be. This is uncommon, doubtless; but, taken in any view-can men be in love with a mystery? Can they feel any moral admiration for an enigma? Can their affections be strongly drawn to what is completely unknown? Can they feel even the rectitude of that, of which they have no appreciation, no idea? Certainly not; and in accordance with this view, is the old Calvinistic doctrine concerning the means of grace; which utterly denied the force of moral suasion, and held that there is no natural tendency in preaching to change the heart; that the connection between preaching and regeneration was as purely arbitrary as that between the voice of Ezekiel over the valley of dry bones, and their resurrection to life.

But suppose this view of preaching be modified, and that a man designs to impress his hearers with the reasonableness and beauty of religion, and so to draw their hearts to it. What, let us ask him, can you do, upon the principle, that religion is utterly foreign to human nature an absolute secret to humanity? You have denied and rejected the only means of rational impression-some knowledge and experience in the hearers of that about which you are speaking to them. You have disannulled the very laws and grounds of penitence; for how can men feel to blame for not possessing the knowledge of a secret? In fine, you may be a magician to men, upon this principle; but I do not perceive how you can be a rational preacher. You may say, "This of which I speak to you is something wonderful; try it; you have no idea what it will be to you; you will find you cannot say, you see-but, "you will find that it is something delightful and beautiful beyond all things." And have we never witnessed a preaching which seemed to work upon the hearers, as it were, by a kind of art magic: solemn and

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