the doctrines of revelation are laid before us with different degrees of light and clearness. Hence we would receive them with the hesitation of partial knowledge, or with the confidence of truth. What is clearly revealed we would treasure up in our minds as of the most essential importance. What is hid in obscurity or is remote from our apprehensions we would regard with an awful reverence, but would forbear to reason on with the assurance of dogmatism. But, alas! this natural order has been inverted--and to this we are in a great measure to ascribe the corruptions of Christianity. Instead of employing their zeal in maintaining that faith and that practice which are clearly laid down in Scripture, and which it insists upon as our duty to God and as essential to our happiness, many have directed their chief attention to those subjects on which it is undecided and obscure. They have attached the highest degree of importance to those doctrines which transcend the limits of our faculties, and to these they have sacrificed all that can inform the understanding or improve the heart. Thus religion is made to consist in dark speculations and unprofitable inquiries. The beautiful simplicity of the gospel is defaced, and a dark vail of mysticism intercepts from our view the light of divine truth. The effects of heavenly instruction are lost on the world, since Christianity thus perverted from its original excellence is unsuited to the natures and capacities of reasonable beings. The corrupters of evangelical purity, in accordance with their zeal for the particular doctrines they have espoused, maintain the absolute necessity of believing in them. Thus in their systems of theological truth, they have had the audacity to heap article on article, and to crown all with this thundering assertion-that eternal misery awaits those who should dare to dissent. What a lamentable deviation from the spirit of the text! Here the rewards of heaven are attached to the exercise of our virtuous affections. And what is the line of conduct which these would lead us to adopt? They lead us to repose an unlimited confidence in the veracity of God, to examine the revelation of His will with humility and candor, and to

keep our minds open to those impressions which the perusal of its contents are fitted to produce. If, therefore, the tenets of these religionists are contained in the Scriptures of truth, it will be a dictate of piety that we acquiesce in them, since it would be an insult on the Divine Being to withhold our assent. But the faith of Christianity is praiseworthy and meritorious only because it is derived from the influence of virtuous sentiments on the mind. Hence the labors of those are grossly misapplied who inculcate the belief of certain religious truths as the method of obtaining the favor of heaven. Let us rather endeavor to inspire men with virtuous affections; let us impress upon their hearts the sentiments of humility and piety; and let us refer the revelations of the divine will to their own examination. They will there recognize the doctrines which it is incumbent on them to believe, and they will discern the sources of this incumbency. Let us tremble to think that anything but virtue can recommend us to the Almighty. True, we wander in the paths of vanity and darkness, and Christ is pointed out to us as our only refuge against the terrors of guilt; but the acknowledgment of our Saviour, that faith in Him, which is essential to our happiness, is brought about by the impulse of moral sentiment, and unless it were so we cannot see how it could insure to us the favor of heaven.

In nothing has the genius of mysticism more displayed itself than in the delineations of that faith which is a requisite to salvation. We recognize the faith of Christianity as that which is derived from the force of reason, and the energy of virtuous sentiment. But the misguided votaries of superstition and fanaticism have involved this subject in darkness. They talk of faith, and their notions of this faith are contradictory and absurd; a faith which consists not in the assent of the understanding, but in some strange undefinable affection of the mind-a faith not derived from the calm exercises of the inquiring faculty, or from the sober suggestions of humility and piety; but a faith which precedes all examination, and is said to be the primary source of all that is good and excellent in the human character.

I

ask the man of common sense, if he can form to himself any idea of this faith-the favorite topic of declamation with these famed religionists. But they love to soar aloft; their ears are soothed, their imaginations are dazzled with those highsounding words, those notable phrases which they think can We conexplain all the mysteries of theological science. sider the faith of Christianity to be the humble assurance of an honest mind which grounds its confidence on the consciousness of its own sincerity, on the view of the divine goodness, and on the contemplation of those provisions which the Author of nature hath made for the encouragement of erring mortals. But the perverters of the truth as it is in Jesus have determined that to be the saving faith which none but the presumptuous can entertain; not that faith which worketh by love, which purifieth the heart, and which overcometh the world, but that faith which, according with the pride of their minds, elevates them in their own esteem as the peculiar favorites of heaven. This faith (horrible to relate) they carry about with them as an amulet against the reproaches of a guilty conscience, and thus do they stifle the feelings of nature, and check the sentiments of virtue. Sanctioned by this faith they may oppress the poor, the fatherless, and the widow-they may betray the interests of an unsuspecting friend, while they lay claim to the friendship of heaven. Sanctioned by this faith they may indulge in every excess of sensual voluptuousness, while they have confidence in their hearts towards God, who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. Sanctioned by this faith they may meditate on schemes of robbery and murder, while they exclaim with exultation-Lo, the Spirit of Jesus is in us.-Ŏ my soul come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly mine honor be not thou united. Instruments of cruelty are in their habitations; they bathe their hands in the blood of innocence; they lurk in the dark haunts of villainy; and, good God! they sit secure amidst such enormities, and rejoice in their presumption as the mark of intimacy with the Spirit, and of growth in grace.

O Christianity whither hast thou fled? where hast thou

taken up thine abode? We sought for thy instructions, but counsels were darkened by words without knowledge. We sought for thy beauties, and the picture of horrid deformity was exhibited to our view. We sought for thy consolations, and our souls were appalled with the sounds of horror and despair. Surely thou art despoiled of thy graces and thy ornaments. Surely thou hast resigned the lovely honors of thy head. We took thee for the messenger of glad tidings, for the publisher of love, peace, and joy; but we have seen thee clothed with terror, and striking with dismay thy slavish worshipers. We took thee for the support and encouragement of virtue, but, alas! we have seen all that accords with the feelings of our minds despised and overlooked, and we have seen thy blessings and thy rewards attached to the pride of censorious dogmatism, to the confidence of presumption, and to the unmeaning effusions of false zeal. The soul formed to sentiments of generosity sickens at the prospect, and must either rise superior to the prejudices of the times, or (dreadful alternative) shelter itself in infidel repose.

Let us therefore pray the Father of Spirits that He would dispel those clouds of ignorance and error which overwhelm the nations; that He would enable them to see the religion of Jesus in its native purity; that He would enable them to see it through that vail of mysticism with which the pernicious superstition of men hath invested it; that He would enable them to see it as the offspring of reason and virtue. Then they will leave their dark and intricate speculations. They will learn to relish the simplicity of the gospel-that affecting strain of sentiment which pervades it—that warm spirit of benevolence which it breathes-those sublime precepts of morality which it inculcates. They will learn to admire and to imitate the rational and elevated piety, the ardent charity, the pure and exalted virtue of Jesus and His apostles.

SERMON II.

[No date is attached either to this sermon or to that which immediately succeeds it. The state however of the manuscripts, and the style of the penmanship (which from the marked changes it undergoes at different successive stages is almost of itself a sufficient guide), as well as certain internal evidences, carry with them the conviction that these two sermons were among the very earliest of Dr. Chalmers' pulpit preparations.]

JAMES IV. 11.

"Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge."

It is not calumny to speak evil of another when the evidence of his guilt is undeniable, and when it is necessary to defend the young against the dangers of his example. It is not calumny to deal out to vice its infamy and its correction -to hold it up to the terror and the execration of the neighborhood-to lay open the secret recesses of hypocrisy-or to unmask the dissimulations of injustice. If this is to be denounced as calumny, vice will reign triumphant in the world, public opinion will lose its energy, deceit and profligacy will have nothing to fear from the resentment of indignation; they will lift an unabashed countenance in the face of day, and lord it in insolent security. Some are for carrying the victory of candor to a disgusting and an affected extremity. I hate that candor that would control the risings of a generous indignation, where guilt is open and unquestionable; that candor which can ape Christian charity, while it looks with patience on the oppressions or the triumphs of injustice; that candor which can maintain a regulated composure of aspect, though it sees virtue in disgrace, and vice enthroned in the honors of preferment; that well-bred accommodation which can smile equally on all, and sit in contentment amid the general decay of worth and principle.