but ass beautiful fragments, or well-turned single limbs, which for want of that beauty which arises from the proportion of parts, for want of that connexion of the members with the living head, are of little comparative excellence. There may be amiable qualities which are not Christian graces: and the apostle, after enumerating every separate article Jof attack or defence with which a Christian warrior is to be accoutred, sums up the matter by directing that we put on the whole armour of God." And this completeness is insisted on by all the apostles. One prays that his converts may stand perfect and complete in the whole will of God:" another enjoins that they be perfect and entire, wanting nothing abrogab ein fjor a

Now we are not to suppose that they expected any convert to be without faults; they knew too well the constitution of the human heart to form so unfounded an expectation. But Christians must have no fault in their principle; their views must be direct, their proposed scheme must be faultless; their intention must be single; their standard must be lofty; their object must be right; their "mark must be the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

There must be no allowed evil, no warranted defection, no tolerated impurity, no habitual irregularity. Though they do not rise as high as they ought, nor as they wish, in the scale of perfection, yet the scale itself must be correct, and the desire of ascending perpetual counting nothing done while anything remains undone. Every grace must be kept in exercise; conquests once made over an evil propensity must not only be maintained but extended. And in truth, Christianity so comprises contrary, and as it may be thought irreconcileable excellencies, that those which seem so incompatible as to be incapable by nature of being inmates of the same breast, are almost necessarily involved in the Christian character.

For instance: Christianity requires that our faith be at once fervent and sober; that our love be both ardent and lasting; that our patience be not only heroic but gentle; she demands dauntless zeal and genuine humility; active services and com plete self-renunciation; high attainments in goodness, with deep consciousness of defect; courage in reproving, and meekness in bearing reproof; a quick perception of what is sinful, with a willingness to forgive the offender; active virtue ready to do all, and passive virtue ready to bear all-We must stretch every faculty in the service of our Lord, and yet bring every thought into obedience to Him while we aim to live in the exercise of every Christian grace, we must account ourselves unprofitable servants: we must strive for the crown, yet receive it as a gift, and then lay it at our master's feet while we are busily trading in the world with our Lord's talents, we must "commune with our heart, and be still :" while we strive to practise the purest disinterestedness, we must be contented though we meet with selfishness in return; and while laying out our lives for the good of mankind, we must submit to reproach without murmuring, and to ingratitude without resentment. And to render us equal to all these services, Christianity bestows not only the precept, but the power; she does what the great poet of ethics lamented that reason could not do," she lends us arms as well as rules."

For here, if not only the worldly and the timid, but the humble and the well-disposed, should demand with fear and trembling, "Who is sufficient for these things?" Revelation makes its own reviving answer, "My grace is sufficient for thee.”

It will be well here to distinguish that there are two sorts of Christian professors, one of which affect to speak of Christianity as if it were a mere system of doctrines, with little reference to their influence on life and manners; while the other

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consider it as exhibiting a scheme of human duties independent on its doctrines. For though the latter sort may admit the doctrines, yet they contemplate them as a separate and disconnected set of opinions, rather than as an influential principle of action. In violation of that beautiful harmony which subsists in every part of scripture between practice and belief, the religious world furnishes two sorts of people who seem to enlist themselves, as if in opposition, under the banners of Saint Paul and Saint James; as if those two great champions of the Christian cause had fought for two masters. Those who affect respectively to be the disciples of each, treat faith and works as if they were opposite interests, instead of inseparable points. Nay, they go farther, and set Saint Paul at variance with himself.

1.

Now, instead of reasoning on the point, let us refer to the apostle in question, who himself definitively settles the dispute. The apostolical order and method in this respect deserve notice and imitation for it is observable that the earlier parts of most of the epistles abound in the doctrines of Christianity, while those latter chapters, which wind up the subject, exhibit all the duties which grow out of them, as the natural and necessary productions of such a living root. But this alternate mention of doctrine and practice, which seemed likely to unite, has on the contrary formed a sort of line of separation between these two orders of believers, and introduced a broken and mutilated system. Those who would make Christianity consist of doctrines only, dwell, for instance, on the first eleven chapters of the Epistle to the Romans,

This is the language of our church, as may be seen in her 12th article; viz.

"Good works do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith; insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known, as a tree discerned by its fruit."

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as containing exclusively the sum and substance of the gospel. While the mere moralists, who wish to strip Christianity of her lofty and appropriate attributes, delight to dwell on the twelfth chapter, which is a table of duties, as exclusively as if the preceding chapters/made no part of the sacred canom But Saint Paul himself, who was at least as sound a theologian as any of his commentators, settles the matter another way, by making the Iduties of the twelfth grow out of the doctrines of the santecedenti eleven, just as any other consequence grows out of its cause. And as if he sus pected that lither indivisible union between them might possibly be over-looked, he links the two distinct divisions together byla dogical therefore, with which the twelfth begins off beseech you therefore," (that is, as the effect of all I have been inculcating,) that yous present your bodies a living sacrifice, acceptable to God," &c. and then goes on todenforces on themy as as consequence of what he had been preaching, the practice of every Christian

Virtue This combined view of the subject seems,

on the one hand, to be the only means of preventing the substitution of pagan morality for Christian choliness; and, on the other, of securing the leading doctrine of justification by faith, from the dreadful sdanger of antinomian licentiousness every human obligation being thus grafted on the living stock of a divine principlesalo odtons yd botooido ai 31 soa ob ew dquods- -003_viilimud to banorg avoi es sidmud es stimp tisamid rotosido di on avowis ai foryous ai di CHAPTER XXI. binow ssiq and of 9mczorg of 916 aw as 2opied treoningizni dove

ol bus on the duty and efficacy of prayer.

It is not proposed to enter largely on a topic which has been exhausted by the ablest pens.But das a work of this nature seems to requires that so important a subject should not be overlooked, it is intended to notice in a slight manner a few of those

many difficulties and popular objections which are brought forwards against the used and efficacy of prayer, even by those who would be unwilling to be suspected of impiety and unbelief. 3dgileb stud ed There is a class of objectors who strangely profess to withhold homage from the Most High, not out of contempt, but reverence. They affect to consider the use of prayer as derogatory from the omniscience of God, asserting that it looks as if we thought he stood in need of being informed of our wants and as derogatory from his goodness, as implying that he needs to be put in mind of them. Juo 200 999p

But is it not enough for such poor frail beings as we are to know, that God himself does not consider prayer as derogatory either to this wisdom oro goodness? And shall we erect ourselves into judges of what is consistent with the attributes of HIM before whom angels fall prostrate with self-abasement? Will he thank such defenders of his attributes, who, while they profess to reverence, scruples not to disobey him? It ought rather to be viewed cascadgreat encouragement to prayer, that we are addressing a -Being, who knows your wants better than wet can express them, and whosey preventing goodness cas always ready to relieve them.Prayer seems oto unite the different attributes of the Almighty; fortif the is indeed the God that heareth prayer, that is the best reason why" to Him all flesh should come.??

It is objected by another class, and on the specious ground of humility too-though we do not always find the objector himself quite as humble as his plea would be thought that it is arrogant in such insignificant beings as we are to presume to lay our petty necessities before the Great and Glorious God, who cannot be expected to condescend to the multitude of trifling and even interfering requests which are brought before him by his creatures. These and such like objections arise from mean and unworthy thoughts of the Great Creator. It seems