tues are peculiarly social. It teaches every thing that is just and kind. It is the false, mistaken, hypocritical, and, above all, the POLITICAL Christianity, which has been the cause of mischief and misery. This has ever been used as a cloak for maliciousness. But where the Spirit of God, the living gospel of immediate grace, goes hand in hand with the written gospel, there every thing lovely, friendly, and beneficial, is the natural and unavoidable result. The root is good, and the fruit delicious and salubrious in the highest degree. May the tree spread its umbrageous branches over the land, and all the people take refuge and seek solace under its expanded foliage! The throne that is established in righteousness is fixed on the rock of ages; and the people who have the Lord for their God and King, shall never know the woes of captivity and desolation.

Christian philosophy purifies society by purifying the fountain of all human actions, the heart of man. Heathen philosophy often consists of nothing more than fine sayings, pleasing to the imagination, but leaving the heart uninfluenced and the conduct unreformed.

Some of those heathens, who wrote the finest morality, it is well known, practised, and even obliquely recommended with all the charms of wit and eloquence, vices which degrade man below the brute.

SECTION XLV.

Of Holiness-its true Meaning, and absolute Necessity.

LET a man's mind be holy, and he will not doubt one moment of the truth of Christianity. It is not enough that it be learned or sagacious; it must be holy; and then the more learned or the more sagacious, so much

the more firmly will its belief be fixed, and so much the better enabled to extend the faith. Bacon, Boyle, Locke, Newton, Milton, Addison, Lord Chief Justice Hale, possessed intellects as vigorous as ever fell to the lot of human beings; but they were educated piously as well as learnedly, according to the manners of their times. They lived holily; the Spirit of Grace took early possession of their hearts, and they became not only believers but defenders of the faith. Not to their learning, but to their holiness, be the glory. They saw God by the eye of faith, not of philosophy.

There is one qualification, without which we shall never be admitted to the favour of God, or to celestial felicity in the mansions of future glory, and it is HOLINESS: without this, we read, no man shall see the Lord. Follow PEACE with ALL men, and HOLINESS, without which, no man shall see the Lord.*

No words can be plainer, and more express than these. A question naturally arises in the mind of every thinking man, in what consists this quality, which is indispensably necessary to securing the beatific privilege of enjoying the divine presence? What is holiness? The excellent Joseph Mede informs us, that “ "tity, or holiness, imports discrimination, or distinc ❝tion from other things by way of exaltation and pre"eminence."t

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God himself is originally, absolutely, and essentially HOLY; man, only by communication.

*Heb. xii. 14.

Thus Kimchi, on Isaiah, Ivi. 2.

קדוש שבה להבדילי משאר הימים

כי כו כל לשיו קדושה הףא עניו הבדלן מאהר במעלה

"To sanctify the sabbath, is to separate it from other days."

"Because all words of sanctity import a thing separated from "other things by way of pre-eminence or excellency."

JOSEPH MEDE.

Holiness I therefore understand to be that state, im which God vouchsafes to man his HOLY SPIRIT, and discriminates him from those who, rejecting his offers of grace, presumptuously adhere to the world and its vanities; who neglect religion entirely, and who live without God in the world, despisers of his grace. To be holy, is to be refined, by the Spirit of God, from the corruptions of the world; to be separated from sin and impurity, like the metal from base alloy.

He, therefore, who would see the Lord, must, by obedience, seek the manifestation of the Spirit, by prayer obtain the divine assistance, and thus be admitted to a participation of the divine nature: according as his DIVINE POWER hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue; whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises, that by these we might be PARTAKERS OF THE DIVINE NATURE, having escaped the CORRUPTION that is in the world through lust".

The happy state of holiness constitutes the true dignity of human nature. This at once purifies and elevates it. The man who possesses it, enjoys this world with calm complacency, while he rises superior to it, and hopes for a better in reversion. He acts rightly, yet never rigidly; he always tempers justice with kindness and mercy; his whole behaviour is gentle, flowing from an internal principle of benevolence. The fear of God and the love of man operate on his heart as the main springs of all his activity. To express his conduct in scripture language, he does justice, loves mercy, and walks humbly with his God.

Behaviour thus amiable and beneficent is the surest proof of holiness. Great pretensions, sanctimonious

* 2 Pet. i. 4.

deportment, a rigid observance of external ceremonies, and a pertinacious adherence to particular doctrines, are all consistent with an unholy state, with self-deceit, and with hypocrisy. But he who is kindly affectioned, to his fellow-creatures with brotherly love; he who is unostentatiously pious, and displays the fruits of the Spirit by good works, he can entertain little doubt of SEEING GOD; seeing the truth of his word, and enjoying his presence in the living temple of his heart, thus consecrated by the influence of the Holy Ghost.

A delightful serenity attends that state of holiness, which arises from an humble confidence in God; such as would render it devoutly to be wished for, if its con- ́ séquences extended only to the pleasurable enjoymentof this life. It causes our journey to resemble a passage through those charming countries, where the air is genially soft, the sky clear, and the prospect varie-gated with every beauty of nature. The cold, shivering, self-dependent mortal, who walks through the world all solitary, who has not God for his friend and companion, may be compared to the forlorn savage, prowling for prey far from the solar beam, in the regions near the pole. How would he rejoice in the warm sunshine and sweet serenity of an Italian climate!

SECTION XLVI.

Of a good Heari.

THE most desirable treasure which a human being can possess, whether he has regard to his own happiness or to those around him, is a GOOD HEART. In every situation, and under all circumstances, this will furnish a store of sweets which the wicked cannot

obtain; and delicious though it is, would not relish, so vitiated is their taste. A good heart communicates liberally the pleasures it enjoys; blessed or blessing in every emotion.

But what constitutes a good heart? The grace of God operating upon it. The mild, gentle, healing spirit of the gospel; or, to use the language of scripture, the UNCTION of the HOLY GHOST, mollifying its hardness, and preserving it from corruption. This it is which forms a good heart, and a good heart is a land of Canaan to itself, a land flowing with milk and honey.

All the irascible passions are, in their excess, diabolical. They are the fruitful sources of misery. They would unparadise the garden of Eden, and turn the cheerful light of Heaven into gloomy darkness, like the shadow in the valley of death. There is in the world much natural evil; there are pains, and diseases enough, to wean the heart from the immoderate love of it; but none of them are productive of wretchedness so great

* Beautiful is the description which Lactantius gives of the effect of Christianity in meliorating the disposition. I will transcribe his words:

"Da mibi virum, qui sit iracundus, maledicus, effrænatus: pau"cissimis Dei verbis tam placidum quam ovem reddam. Da cupi"dum, avarum, tenacem: jam tibi eum liberalem dabo et pecuniam "suam plenis manibus largientem. Da crudelem et sanguinis appe" tentem; jam in veram clementiam furor ille mutabitur. Da in'justum, insipientem, peccatorem: continuo et æquus et prudens et "innocens erit. Uno enim Lavacro malitia omnis abolebitur. Tanta " DIVINE SAPIENTIæ vis est; ut in bominis pectus diffusa, ma"trem delictorum, stultitiam, uno semel impetu expellat; ad quod

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efficiendum, non mercede, non libris, non lucubrationibus opus est. "Gratis ista fiunt, facilè, cito; modo pateaut aures et PECTUS "SAPIENTIAM SITIAT: num quis hæc philosophorum aut unquam "prestitit aut præstare potuit ?" LACT. Inst Lib. ii. C. 26.

Thus appears the superiority of CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY, in a moral view, over all other philosophy. Lactantius had been a heathen philosopher, and speaks experimentally.