minations were conscientiously made, may we not, without offence, persume 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 acuteness 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 account of its folly. Few men perhaps have had a deeper insight into the human heart, or have more skilfully probed its corruptions, yet on points of doctrine his views do not seem to be just; and his disquisitions are often unsound and fanciful, so, that a general perusal of his works would neither be profitable or intelligible. To a fashionable woman, immersed in the vanities of life, or to a busy man overwhelmed with its cares, I know no book so applicable, or likely to exhibit with equal force the vanity of the shadows they are pursuing. But, even in this work, Law is not a safe guide to evangelical light; and, in many of his others, he is highly visionary and whimsical and I have known some excellent 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.

Christianity does not call on us to starve our bodies, burue

our

corruptions. As the mortified apostle of the holy and selfdenying Baptist, preaching repentance because the kingdom of heaven is at hand, Mr. Law has no superior. As a preacher of salvation on scriptural grounds, I would follow other guides.

[Dr. Johnson confessed that in early life he took up Law's "Serious Call," with a view to laugh at it; but that he laid it down with other thoughts: "Law," added he, "was too hard for me." The book, says the Doctor, is the finest treatise of hortatory divinity in the English language. William Law was a nonjuring clergyman; that is, one of those divines who scrupled taking the oath of allegiance to the house of Hanover. He led a life of great piety and usefulness at Kingscliffe, in Northamptonshire, where he died in 1761.—ED.]

CHAPTER XIX.

A worldly spirit incompatible with the spirit of Christianity.

Is it not whimsical to hear such complaints against the strictness of religion as we are frequently hearing, from beings who are voluntarily pursuing, as has been shewn in the preceding chapters, a course of life which fashion makes infinitely more severe? How really burdensome would Christianity be, if she enjoined such sedulous application, such unremitting labours, such a succession of fatigues! If religion commanded such hardships and selfdenial, such days of hurry, such evenings of exertion, such nights of broken rest, such perpetual 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."

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 acturate 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. If it does not always shew 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 it averse from God; on the affections, by disordering and sensualizing them; so that one may almost say to those who are under the supreme dominion of this spirit, what was said to the hosts of Joshua, "Ye cannot serve the Lord."

This worldliness of mind is not at all commonly understood, and for the following reason-people suppose that in this world our chief business is with the things of this world, and that to conduct the business of this world well, that is, conformably to moral principles, is the chief substance of moral and true goodness. Religion, if introduced at all into the system, only makes its occasional, and, if I may so speak, its holiday appearance. To bring religion into every thing, is thought incompatible with the due attention to the things of this life. And so it would be, if by religion were meant talking about religion. The phrase, therefore, is, "We connot always be praying; we must mind our business and our social duties as well as our devotion." Worldly business, being thus subjected to worldly, though in some degree moral, maxims, the mind during the conduct of business grows worldly; and

a continually increasing worldly spirit dims the sight, and relaxes the moral principle on which the affairs of the world are conducted, as well as indisposes the mind for all the exercises of devotion.

But this temper, as far as relates to business, so much assumes the semblance of goodness, that those who have not right views are apt to mistake the carrying on the affairs of life on a tolerably 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 the Sunday's devotions into the transactions of the week; in not transforming their religion from a dry, and speculative, and inoperative system, into a lively, and influential, and unceasing principle of action.

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 heaven? who, while they will not relinquish one jot of what this world has to bestow, yet by no means renounce their hopes of a better? who do not think it unreasonable that their indulging in the fullest possession of present pleasures 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?

Are there not many who, while they entertain a respect for religion, (for I address not the unbelieving or the licentious,) while they believe its truths, observe its forms, and would be shocked not to be thought religious, are yet immersed in this life of disqualifying worldliness? who, though they make a conscience of going to the public worship once on a Sunday, and are scrupulously observant of the other rites of the church, yet hesitate not to give up all the rest of their time to the very same pursuits and pleasures which occupy the hearts and engross the lives of those looser characters whose enjoyment is not obstructed by any dread of a future account? and who are acting on the wise principle of "the children of this world," in making the most of the present state of being, from the conviction that there is no other to be expected?

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