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of all forms of godliness, which are without the power; it is an increasing horror of the mockery of unreal worship, it is a more and more profound reverence for God. I believe there is nothing like the tenderness of feeling, the sensitiveness of conscience, the deep, and unfeigned, and unspeakable awe, which a man of true and growing spirituality and simplicity cherishes. And does it belong to such a man to be indifferent about forms? No; in truth, no man so deeply feels their sacredness. And of all those that he thinks proper and useful, no man so deeply feels the value. He may not think of this and that form as another does. He may judge of one or another, that it is not fitted to promote his devotion. He may feel that it stands in the way; and feeling that he must answer to God rather than to men, he may dispense with that form. He may do it from very tenderness of conscience. He fears to tread, where other men rush in with reckless and inconsiderate haste. This, surely, is not the man to accuse of an indifference about forms. He is not indifferent to any forms. He feels more concerning those he disuses, than many who use them. He feels most of all about those which commend themselves to his judgment and conscience.

Look at this subject upon a large scale. Are forms more negligently observed in the modern world than they were in the ancient? Is the Protestant more indifferent to the rites and institutions of religion, than the Catholic? Without wishing to be uncharitable, I confidently say, no; but the very reverse. The simple services of prayer and meditation in our Protestant churches, though too dull as I feel, and painfully feel that they are, are, nevertheless, not so smitten with the deadly taint of formality, as have been the masses, the genuflexions, the sprinklings of water and burning of incense, in the Catholic ritual. There is a medium somewhere; and rites must not be burdensome, nor unmeaning, nor barely decent or imposing, to take a deep hold of the heart.

It remains to speak, in the third place, of liberality and strictness, and the length to which the previous discussions have run, will oblige me to do so very briefly; and I the more willingly submit to this restriction, because some of the topics, that might be embraced under this head, have already been considered under that of religious liberty. There is, however, a difference. A man may be free in his religious opinions; he may be under no restraint, and yet his mind may not qualify him to be liberal. This state of mind implies a range of observation, an extent of reflection, a discrimination of the relative value and importance of different truths and duties, a wide and comprehensive survey of the objects of life, which suppose not only freedom, but some enlargement of mind. Liberty is, indeed, the very soil of liberality; but that liberality will have expanded, and grown more or less, according to the degree of mental culture. A liberal man discriminates. He sees fewer opinions to be essential to character, than another. He sees goodness under every form of religion. He is not bound by any system of technical and scholastic theology. You know, perfectly well, what is meant by a liberal physician, a liberal jurist, a liberal merchant, or artist, or artisan. He sees into the principles of things, and is not blindly attached to one mode of practice, to one set of technical forms, or to one way of proceeding in the business of life. So it is with the liberal Christian. He will take a wide range in his views. He will think of religion, as he thinks of other subjects. He will discriminate the prin

ciples from the forms of things. He will no more require a man to be religious after one particular and set fashion, than he will require a man to be honest, or industrious, or intelligent, after one particular and set fashion. He will provide, in his system of religion, for the liberal expansion of all the principles and powers of human nature. He will not strive to eradicate the native affections, but to cultivate them. He will speak in its accordant tone to every feeling, to fear and hope, to joy and sorrow. He will instruct, he will warn, he will encourage, he will soothe. He will feel that man was made to be a noble creature, and he will strive to build up in him the noble proportions of a glorious and lovely character. I am speaking now of no party nor sect. I have known liberal men of all parties. I have known illiberal men of all parties.

And now, I ask, must such a man be less strict in conscience for his liberality? If he must, I ask, why? His liberality relates chiefly to opinions, and modes of religious impression; his conscience relates to duties. But if you say, he is more liberal in his view of duties, that he does not account all those things to be duties, which you do; still I answer, he may be just as strict about those things that he does account to be duties. Let us particularize. You say he is more liberal in his ideas of what are to be considered as proper recreations; he does things that you would not do; he goes where you would not go. But does it follow that his conscience is any less strict about those pleasures which he does hold to be wrong? Does he, any less than another man, condemn gambling, intemperance, and sensuality, in all their forms? I appeal to facts. Is it in the liberal communities of this, or any other country, that profaneness, debauchery, gaming, most prevail?

But let us take our objector himself to task. Here is a man, who condemns things you approve. He says that you must not be amused with a show, or with wit. He says that you must not laugh--that you must not drink your neighbour's health, or that you must not eat flesh on Friday. Do you allow that this man has a stricter conscience than you? By no means; you say that his conscience relates to different things to things that, in your view, are innocent. Very true; and out of thine own mouth thou art answered.

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But I am not content with answer. I go farther, and maintain, that the liberal man is more likely to be truly and rationally strict. thinks more and more freely. He takes a wider view of the relations of things and persons. He is strict in many cases, where another man is not strict; and cases far more important, too, than avoiding an amusement, or attending meetings. He is more likely to be strict in a meek and charitable judgment of the piety and virtue of his neighbour. He is more likely, also, from his liberality, to be strict in the duty of being agreeable, and kind to those around him, and in the endeavour to promote their happiness; to be strict in the delicate relations of private and domestic life. He is more likely to be strict in the virtues of modesty and self-distrust, of gentleness and forbearance. And for this reason: in proportion as any man lays too much stress on unessential things, does he take it off from things that are essential. If a man makes too much of doctrines, in just that proportion will he make too little of virtues. If he thinks, more than he ought, that his salvation depends on going to meetings, he will think less than he ought of his temper and

behaviour at home. If he makes too much merit of abstaining from an amusement, he will make too little merit of abstaining from harsh reflections on those who avail themselves of it. What does the history of all religion more clearly show, than this? It was when our Puritan fathers could not endure that any man should have long hair, that their conscience was clear for persecuting the Quakers. It is where the ritual of the Romish Church is carried to the greatest length, and observed in every iota, that the virtues of private life are brought into the most serious doubt and danger.

In fine, true liberality and true strictness are things that naturally go together. And so do true spirituality and a true reverence for religious institutions. And the same connexion holds between a pure religious freedom, and the most solemn obligation. No one is so much bound, no one ought to be so strict, no one owes so much gratitude and reverence to the means of religion, as the free, spiritual, liberal man. No one, I repeat, is so likely to feel all this.

In one word, all the qualities of a right and good character, will coalesce and blend into perfect harmony. This is true religion: this is Christianity. Where, or whom, this truth cuts, I cannot pause with any fastidious delicacy to inquire. If our liberality is laxness, if our spirituality is that sort of visionary and irrational speculation, which holds itself to be released from all forms for which there is no verbal command, if our liberty is turned into indulgence, and because there is no church power to threaten us, we feel no fear; then have these boasted qualities of ours a better name than they deserve: then, like the superficial world, are we deceived, and misled with names. Religion is reality; all else is shadow. It penetrates the heart; it dwells there; it is there, the freest, the simplest, the most liberal, but yet the most blessed and cherished, of all things. Without any power but its own power, it moulds and fashions, it subdues and softens, it comforts us, it fills us with joy. It is dearer than a right hand or a right eye; it is deeper in the soul than all the fountains of pleasure; it is stronger than all the impulses of passion. Of such a thing, a good man will not make an excuse, nor a pretension, nor a form, nor a name. No: oh! no. Heaven is not higher than his aspiration after purity. Hell is not so dreadful as the sin he fears. The universe is not so wide as the expansion of his immeasurable desires, and his immortal hope.

ON MODERATION.

PHILIPPIANS iv. 5: “ Let your moderation be known to all men."

No virtue, no one of the Christian graces exists in perfection, unless it is modified and controlled by some other virtue or grace. The measure, the test, the utmost effort, the last finishing touch of the truest excellence, is to be found only in perfect moderation.

The soul is capable of a various action; or, in popular language, it is composed of various faculties. If one of these faculties were to absorb all the rest, if one kind of action were to take place of all others, the result would be, not a soul with the fair proportion in which God made it, but a monstrous deformity of the soul. As with the faculties, so it is with the virtues of the mind. Were any one, however excellent, to swallow up all the rest, it would not be a virtue, but an excess, an excrescence, a deformity. The plant, the tree, or the organized body, where one secretion, one branch, or one limb, should absorb all the vital juices and energies to the withering and decay of every other part, would present a just picture of such moral deformity.

That true proportion of the virtues, which I shall attempt to illustrate in this discourse, has never been perfectly exhibited on earth, but in ONE EXAMPLE. The most vaunted models of human excellence have too often been but the splendid excesses of ambition, genius, or learning. And, indeed, the most remarkable piety and philanthropy have often owed their celebrity, in a degree, to their extravagance. In short, some power or passion of the mind, disproportionately developed and exalted to an undue prominence, makes what is often denominated a great man, or a great Christian; but a man, a Christian, nevertheless, of great faults. The passion, that has shot up into a luxuriant growth, has overshadowed other passions, and taken away that strength of the soil, by which they also should have grown. Thus, in the pride of talents, some men have neglected humble acquisitions and offices. Under the impulse of genius others have become wayward, extravagant, irritable, and useless. In the fervour and joy of the social affections, many have forgotten their Maker. In the zeal of philanthropy, men are liable to overrate particular objects, and censoriously to condemn those who do not go along with them. In the confidence of piety not a few have seemed to forget the rights and feelings of society around them. There has never been on earth but one perfect example.

Nay, this state of things, though resulting from human infirmity, not only exhibits many errors, but it has tended to set up maxims of error. The real nature of some virtues, and the proper union of others, are lost sight of, in the common estimates of character. The ancient mistakes,

-by which meekness was confounded with meanness, and humility with debasement of spirit-are not yet done away. We do not look for great things from mildness and calmness, and yet these are ingredients of true power- these are characteristics of the power that is Almighty. We do not yet understand that the mightiest principle in the universe, that which exercises the most sovereign control over rational beings, is kindness. We do not yet understand that pride and courage, in the ordinary sense of these terms, are the most poor-spirited things in the world.

The age full of that crude earnestness, which is called excitement, the time full of religious dispute, the world full of zealots and partisans, is not yet prepared to understand the truth, the well-proportioned, the simple and sublime truth. If a man is called zealous, no one can think of him as being calm. If he is said to be serious, it does not occur to us, that he may be cheerful. If he is meek, then he is not accounted to be resolute; if gentle, then not inflexible; if sound and staid in judgment, then not ardent in feeling. And, indeed, these estimates, it must be confessed, arise from the ordinary and prevailing forms of character around us, though they take for granted an absolute incompatibility of qualities in the character which is not true.

It is desirable, then, to bestow some attention upon a subject so much misapprehended. It is desirable for the purpose of setting up a just standard in our own minds,—it is desirable for our own improvement, that we should consider the entire compatibility in a perfect character of all the qualities that form it-the entire compatibility and harmony of those qualities which appear to be the most opposite and irreconcilable. In the discussion of this point, I anticipate that a part of our labour will consist in connecting, to some extent, new and unusual ideas, with old and ordinary terms. This, however, is not the work of captious criticism. It necessarily results from every step in the improvement of our moral theories and religious conceptions, that we should attach better and brighter ideas to common words. For the want of this improvement, for the want of these lofty conceptions, for the want of a deep religious experience, many of the words, that are commonly applied to religious and moral subjects, are, to most persons, dull words. Show me a people where the words virtue, piety, God, and heaven, mean all that they should mean, and you will give me the strongest possible proofs of the spiritual improvement of that people.

But it is time that I proceed to some details, which may better illustrate the principle for which I contend.

The precept of our text requires moderation. It may serve to show how familiar to the apostle's mind was this compatibility of opposite qualities for which I contend, to observe that the exhortation which immediately precedes our precept is one of a very fervent character— one, indeed, which our precept seems evidently introduced to control and modify. Rejoice in the Lord always, is the exhortation-and again I say rejoice. Let your moderation, this is the controlling principle-let your moderation be known to all men. But is the moderation designed to lessen the joy? Is it designed to restrain the true, legitimate, sacred joy? By no means. Rejoice always, and again I say rejoice; but give not way to a wild, tumultuous, inconsiderate ecstasy. And why? Because a wild, tumultuous, inconsiderate ecstasy is not the

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