many of distinguished piety and virtue; but this is not the consequence of such principles.

With respect to the religion which we teach, we maintain that its great object is to make men good; that the observance of any forms, or the possession of any faith is of no importance other or farther than as it contributes to this object. We maintain indeed, as a principle of the highest moment, that there exists an indissoluble connexion between our character and condition; that our happiness or misery, in a future life, will not be a matter of arbitrary and capricious sovereignty on the part of God, but the natural and necessary consequence of our virtue of vice; and that men will be happy or miserable in exact proportion as they are good or bad. We call upon men to repent of their sins and to practice virtue, and never to think that they have done enough so long as any thing remains to be done. We maintain that they have the power of doing what the will of God requires of them; and we present them the strongest inducements to exert this power. We maintain, in fine that the choice of life and death, of happiness or misery, of heaven or hell. is presented to every man; and that the momentous decision rests upon his own exertions and attainments; that every action of our lives will be brought into judgment and must pro duce its own proper fruits, We maintain, that religion is in the fullest sense of the term a rule of life, applicable and designed to be applied to all the actions and circumstances of life; which must mingle with all our pleasures and employments, with all our sufferings and trials; which must guide all our steps, counsel us whenever we need counsel, be the constant companion of our waking hours and repose with us on our pillows, assist us in fine, whether we eat or drink, or whatever we do, to do all to the glory of God.

III. It is objected to our views of religion, in the third place, that they have not enough of terror in them; and that they are deficient in those sanctions of obedience, which inspire in the hearts of the guilty, alarm and horror. This deserves consideration; God forbid that we should in any way weaken the motives to virtue or lessen the fears of sin.

We do not hesitate then on this subjest to employ any of the language of the scriptures; though we think no intelligent reader of the scriptures will doubt that much of their impressive language in regard to a future judgment, and the coming of the son of man in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and the sounding of the trumpet of the archangel, and the assembling of the universe at the judgment seat of God, and the separation of the righteous and the wicked as a shepherd divideth his

sheep from the goats, is language of a highly figurative and scenical nature; and that the casting out into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, and the unquenchable fire of hell or the valley of Hinnom, where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched, is language drawn from an allusion to well known facts and customs among the Jews. This language, which addresses itself so powerfully to the imagination, is intended only to impress more forcibly upon the heart the great principles and truths, which it imbodies forth. It was language particularly adapted to the times when and to the people to whom it was addressed.

Further, we are compelled to remark, that as we are not believers in the inspiration of the author of Paradise Lost, and cannot admit the doctrine that God shares the empire of the uni verse with a being as malignant as he himself is benevolent, and as omnipotent in evil as he himself is omnipotent in good, we are not able to employ in our representations of the future consequences of sin all that diabolical machinery, by winch the dis courses of many, who believe in no more dreadful retribution than we do ourselves, are so often bristled and inflamed. We are further of an opinion that in all cases that language is most impressive, which is the language of the times; and that when we venture to use the language of the imagination, and especially on subjects of so serious a character as those to which we now refer, we should have regard to the prevalent state of feeling, sentiment, and knowledge in the community. If we wished to impress an assembly of North-American savages with the pains of hell, we might show them a miserable victim, stripped, facerated and scalped. fastened to the stake, his body pierced with pine splinters, the faggots kindling, his eyes starting with agony, the smoke of his torments slowly curling around him; and in those frightful intervals, when the yell of his barbarous executioners was suppressed, we might call upon them to observe the writhings of his torture and to let his shrieks of horror enter into their souls; it would be to them a picture of distress, in which they would deeply sympathise. But, in a community, which in its humblest departments, is so enlightened and improved as our own, any such representations, though presenting an image of the miseries of hell by no means too highly coloured, would be received with so much disgust and incredulity as to faif entirely of producing the effect at which we aim. But when men are reminded that they are responsible to God, who knows every thing and forgets nothing of all which they do, or say, or think, or feel; that hereafter the whole history of their lives must be disclosed; that they will carry with them the character which they

have formed here; that they must then perceive and feel what they have done, what they have been, and what they are; that conscience aroused, purged, and armed with vengeance will then do its office most faithfully; and they will be made to see in its darkest colours the odiousness, the folly, the infamy, the ingratitude and baseness of sin; and observe that they have gained nothing and that they have lost every thing; that their doom is now sealed; that all is now over with them; regret comes too late; that the disastrous consequences of their sins are unlimited and irretrievable, and that they are now left to feed upon them and upon them alone in all their bitterness;-if they are not moved by such doctrines, it cannot be because these doctrines have no terror in them; for with these mental agonies, these moral privations, what physical sufferings can bear a comparison? If they are not moved by them, it is because they have no understanding to discern between things that differ, and no heart to feel this difference. If such doctrines as these, which are the doctrines of rational christians, have no terror in them for the guilty and impenitent, we know not what is terrible; and these doctrines, being simple, and rational, and perfectly conformable to all their present experience so far as it is applicable to the subject, cannot fail to be more impressive upon every mind, which is capable of understanding them, than any representations on these subjects of a sensible or metaphorical nature.

IV. It is objected, in the fourth place, that our religious views are too abstract, in the technical sense of the term too philosophical, have too little to do with the affections to be a religion for the poor.

We are persuaded that it is with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; that any religious belief which ends in speculation only, will be of little use as a practical principle. Our religion, in order to become a rule of life, must be not merely the assent of the understanding, but a deep persuasion of the heart; a principle, and more than that, a sentiment; must rest not on the convictions of the judgment merely, but have its seat among our warmest and best affections. A religion of this character is particularly necessary to the unlearned; having neither the means nor the ability for religious inquiry, we can expect to bring them under the power of religion only as we engage in its behalf their feelings and affections.

Our religious views give no encouragement to mysticism or to fanaticism; but there is a profound sense of religious duty, and a holy and lofty enthusiasm, which connects itself with every thing that is connected with religion, which they are adapted to en kindle and cherish.

When our religion begins, therefore, not with teaching men in regard to the Deity, one of the boldest and most impenetrable mysteries, we need not say we refer to the doctrine of the Trinity; not with proclaiming the divine sovereignty, exercised most arbitrarily and without any regard to the moral deserts of men; not with declaring God's implacable vengeance towards his creatures, which, in order to be appeased, required the sacrifice of a perfectly good being, his dearly beloved son; but in the place of these doctrines, exhibits him as our kind father, cherishing, pitying, loving his creatures with more than parental tenderness; compassionating their frailty, pardoning their sins upon their repentance, going out indeed to meet with open arms and with unmixed kindness the returning prodigal; caring for all, blessing all, dispensing even his severest chastisements in mercy, and providing only for the virtue and the happiness of his creatures; we know of no doctrines more touching, nor how it could make a more powerful appeal to our love, confidence, gratitude, and devotion. Further, when our religion, instead of exhibiting to us a Saviour, under so mysterious, anomalous, and mixed a character, that we are at a loss how to approach him; and of so exalted and divine a nature, that we are discouraged with the thought that the example of a God is to be the measure of our duty; when, instead of such doctrines, it discovers to us a Saviour, who condescends to call us brethren, and who presents an example in human nature of what we ought to be and to do; and who, touched with the infirmities of our nature, and tempted as we are, is able to succour those who are tempted; and who is not represented as dying in an unintelligible and incomprehensible sense as God-man, but sacrificing his life in the cause of truth and duty, for the noblest euds, and in the most disinterested manner, it presents to our feelings an object adapted to call them forth in the most powerful degree; it provokes the deepest sympathy; it inspires the most profound admiration; it enkindles a noble emulation; it excites and enchains our purest and strongest affections. It is in such a Saviour that even children may be early taught to feel the deepest interest; it is to such a Saviour that the poor and uneducated will look as a source of invaluable consolation under the troubles of life, and as an infallible guide to wisdom and virtue, contentment and peace; and it is under the government and providence of such a Father, that they will enjoy a sublime security amidst all the changes of life, an immoveable confidence in a beneficial result of all that they do and suffer here, provided that they are but faithful to themselves; and that even the most desolate and afflicted, to whom the world is only a scene of disappointment and

misery, of privation and hopelessness, will feel that they are not utterly friendless and alone.

We are aware that to a subject of this nature it is impossible to do justice within those limits, to which we are here confined. We present only the outlines of the picture, leaving the completion of it to the reflections of our readers. For the reasons, which we have stated, we think it cannot be said of the views, which we entertain of christianity, that they are not sufficiently definite and intelligible, nor practical, nor serious. nor affecting. But whether the arguments, which we urge on this subject, be or be not such as to satisfy those, who differ from us that our religion in these respects is what it ought to be, it is in our pow er and it is an imperative duty to give an irresistible proof of it in our lives and characters. On our own personal religion we must rest our chief hopes of recommending our principles to others.

We are compelled to hear it often asserted, that the friends of rational christianity are deficient in religious knowledge, in vital piety, in a serious regard to futurity, and in feeling and interest in religion. If it be so, it is not the fault of our principles. It does not become us to repel such reproaches by insinuations against the virtue or piety of those who differ from us-God forbid that we should ever have any satisfaction in thinking or discovering that any of our fellow christians are not so good as we could wish them to be. But it does become us to show by our lives that they have no foundation.. It is an important duty with those, who have the ability and the means of religious knowledge, to settle with themselves as accurately as possible, what they believe, and on what grounds they believe it; and to form such exact views of religion, as to be able to give to every inquirer a reason for the hope that is in them. It becomes us to

make our religion the supreme guide and rule of our lives. It is of no value but as it produces the fruits of virtue and piety. We should live always under a profound sense of the solemn sanctions by which its precepts are enforced; and it should be, as its doctrines are designed to render it, the subject of our deepest interests, the source of our richest consolations, and the centre, around which our affections hover with an unquenchable ardour and an inflexible constancy. Religion is the highest law of our being. Christianity is the only full and exact interpreter of this law. It comes as the equal friend of all men, of the prosperous and the afflicted, the enlightened and the unlearned, the rich and the poor, the exalted and the humble. Let us endeavour that none shall be shut out from its light, its consolations, its privileges and hopes; and especially those of our breth