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 reflections. 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. depend upon it.

XXII.

ON THE IDENTITY OF RELIGION WITH GOODNESS, AND WITH A GOOD LIFE.

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?-1 John iv. 20.

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."

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? "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 much misunderstood 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

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 any thing like it before. Ever since, I have had a hope that I then experienced religion. Not that I trust myself, or any thing 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 forever." 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. And 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.

I

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. 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 combatting. For if I were to say to such persons, "yes, you have 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 long-doomed 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,