the sensual and the temperate, between the selfish and the disinterested, between the sordid and the honourable; or if you require a distinction moré strictly religious, between the profane and the decent keeper of all the ordinances? Do not the former do, what, in the matter of it, is contrary to the law of God, and the latter do, what, in the matter of it, is agreeable to that law? Here then at once we witness the two grand divisions of human society, in a state of real and visible exemplification-and what more is necessary than just to employ the most direct and intelligible motives of conduct, for persuading men to withdraw from one of these divisions, and pass over to the other of them? Surely it is just as we occupy the higher and the lower places in the scale of character, that we shall be found on the right and on the left hand of the judge on the day of reckoning: And what more obvious way then of preparing a people for eternity-than just to point our urgency to the one object of prevailing upon men to cross the line of separation, to cease from the iniquities which abound on the one side of it, and to put on the reformations which are practised on the other side of it ? For this purpose, what else is to be done than plainly to tell the whole amount of the interest and obligation which lies on the side of virtue, and as plainly to tell of the ruin and the degradation both of character and of prospect which lie on the side of vice, to press the accomplishments of a good life on the one hand, and to denounce the falsehoods and the dishonesties, and the profligacies of a bad life on the other, in a word, to make our hearers the good subjects of God, much in the same way, as you would propose to make them

the good servants of their master, or the good subjects of their government; and thus by the simple and direct enforcements of duty, to shun all the difficulties of a scholastic theology, and to keep clear of all its mysteriousness.

It is needless to say how much this process is reversed by many a teacher of Christianity. It is true that they hold out most prominently the need of some great transition-but it is a transition most mysteriously different from the act of crossing that line of separation, to which we have just been adverting. Without referring at all in fact to any such line, do they come forth from the very outset with one sweeping denunciation of worthlessness and guilt, which they carry round among all the varieties of character, and by which they affirm every individual of the human race, to be an undone sinner in the sight of God. Instead of bidding him look to other sinners less deformed by blemishes, and more rich in moral accomplishments, than himself, and then attempt to recover his distance from the divine favour by the imitation of them, they bid him think of the awful amount of debt and of deficiency that lies between the lawgiver in heaven, and a whole world guilty before him. They speak of a depravity so entire, and of an alienation from God so deep, and so universal, as positively to obliterate that line of separation which is supposed to mark off those, who, upon the degree of their obedience, are rightful claimants to the honours of eternity, from those, who, upon the degree of their disobedience, are the wretched outcasts of condemnation. They reduce the men of all casts and of all characters, to the same footing of worth

lessness in the sight of God; and speak of the evil of the human heart in such terms, as will sound to many a mysterious exaggeration, and, like the hearers of Ezekiel, will these not be able to comprehend the argument of the preacher, when he tells them, though in the very language of the Bible, that they are the heirs of wrath; that none of them is righteous, no not one; that all flesh have corrupted their ways, and have fallen short of the glory of God; that the world at large is a lost and a fallen world, and that the natural inheritance of all who live in it, is the inheritance of a temporal death, and a ruined eternity.

When the preacher goes on in this strain, those hearers whom the Spirit has not convinced of sin will be utterly at a loss to understand him,-nor are we to wonder, if he seem to speak to them in a parable, when he speaks of the disease,-that all the darkness of a parable should still seem to hang over his demonstrations, when, as a faithful expounder of the revealed will and counsel of God, he proceeds to tell them of the remedy. For God hath not only made known the fearful magnitude of his reckoning against us, but he has prescribed, and with that authority which only belongs to him, the way of its settlement; and he has told us that all the works and all the efforts of unrenewed nature are of no avail, in gaining us acceptance, and that he has laid the burden of our atonement on him who alone was able to bear it; and he not only invites, but he commands, and he beseeches us, to enter into peace and pardon on the footing of that expiation which Christ hath made, and of that righteousness which Christ hath wrought out for us;

and he further declares, that we have come into the world with such a moral constitution, as will not merely need to be repaired, but as will need to be changed or made over again, ere we be meet for the inheritance of the saints; and still for this object does he point our eyes to the great Mediator who has undertaken, not merely for the forgiveness, but who has undertaken for the sanctification of all who put their trust in him; and he announces that out of his fulness there ever come forth supplies of strength for the new obedience of new creatures in Jesus Christ our Lord. Now, it is when the preacher is unfolding this scheme of salvation,-it is when he is practically applying it to the conscience and the conduct of his hearers, it is when the terms of grace, and faith, and sanctification, are pressed into frequent employment for the work of these very peculiar explanations, it is, when instead of illustrating his subject by those analogies of common life which might have done for men of an untainted nature, but which will not do for the men of this corrupt world, he faithfully unfolds that economy of redemption which God hath actually set up for the recovery of our degenerate species,-it is then, that to a hearer still in darkness, the whole argument sounds as strangely and as obscurely, as if it were conveyed to him in an unknown language,-it is then, that the repulsion of his nature to the truth as it is in Jesus, finds a willing excuse in the utter mysteriousness of its articles, and its terms; and gladly does he put away from him the unwelcome message, with the remark, that he who delivers it, is a speaker of parables, and there is no comprehending him.

It will readily occur as an observation upon all that has been delivered, that by the great majority of hearers, this imputation of mysteriousness is never preferred, that in fact, they are most habituated to this style of preaching,-and that they recognise the very thing which they value most, and are best acquainted with, when they hear a sermon replete with the doctrine, and abounding in the terms, and uttered in the cadence of orthodoxy. Of this we are perfectly aware. The point to carry with the great bulk of hearers is, not to conquer their disgust at the form of sound words, but to conquer their resistance to the power of them; to alarm them by the consideration, that the influence of the lesson is altogether a distinct matter from the pleasantness of the song,that their ready and delighted acquiescence in the preaching of the faith, may consist with a total want of obedience to the faith,-and that with all the love they bear to the phraseology of the gospel, and all their preference for its ministers, and all their attendance upon its sacraments, the kingdom of God, however much it may have come to them in word, may not at all have come to them in power. This is a distinct error from the one we have been combating,

-a weed which grows abundantly in an other quarter of the field altogether,—a perverseness of mind, more deceitful than the other, and perhaps still more unmanageable, and against which, the faithful minister has to set himself amongst that numerous class of professors, who like to hear of the faith, but never apply a single practical test to the question, Am I in the faith? who like to hear of regeneration, but never