which take place among the impenitent, if they are sincere, are defective in the qualities of durability and productiveness. The Spirit, according to their idea, is at length withdrawn, when Christians relapse into inglorious ease, the converts many of them fall away, and those who have enlightened consciences among the impenitent, are waiting for another revival to assure them of success in seeking the Lord. Nor can these evils be remedied, till the public mind is imbued with a thorough conviction, that the saving and sanctifying power is always present with a due adjustment of its means; that there is no more capriciousness here than in the laws of nature; and till Christians feel an assurance that the Spirit will help those who make up their minds to obey the truth.

10*

CHAPTER VIII.

AN INCREASE OF MORAL POWER IN THE CHURCH CAN BE EXPECTED, NEITHER FROM BEING GREATLY DEVOTED TO EXISTING ECCLESIASTICAL ESNOR FROM THE CREATION OF

TABLISHMENTS,

NEW ONES.

OUR improvements begin, for the most part, in the two coincident impressions, that our present modes of thought are defective, and that higher attainments are within our reach. Hence, whatever diminishes the strength of either of these impressions in the church, will obstruct the increase of its power of doing good.

And that our sectarian attachments do this, to an enormous extent, cannot fail to have been observed, by those who are at all acquainted with the Christian world. They beget a self-satisfaction, which, as an individual or a social feeling, is alike adverse to improvement; while at the same time, they produce over-estimates of every thing in the organization which has called them forth, and under-estimates of every thing beyond its limits. And hence, they are a palsy upon

the energies of the church, giving her a limping, ambling and unavailable movement. A humiliating sense of present defects, united to glowing conceptions of the degree of virtue, knowledge and holiness which are attainable, and an eager desire to make them our own, is an indispensable condition of advancement. The meek, will he guide in judgment: the meek will he teach his

way.

When Christians in general shall have an abasing sense of their present attainments; when they shall go through a regular process of conviction of present wrong and of conversion to what is better, like an awakened sinner; yea, when they shall cry out for knowledge and lift up their voice for understanding; when they shall seek it as silver and search for it as for hid treasures; then they shall understand the fear of the Lord and the knowledge of God. Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled. If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

But, alas, how difficult is it to beget in the Christian family at large, this lowliness of feeling in regard to what they now are, and this earnest expectation in reference to what they might be, which are indispensable to an increase

of moral power! Each denomination assumes that its own constitution embodies the germs of all religious truth; that the plans of operation sanctioned by its founders contain in themselves all attainable efficiency; and hence, that nothing must be tolerated, which cannot by some construction natural or forced, be compressed within its ancient limits. Its spirit, therefore, is essentially conceited, assuming, prescriptive and intolerant, being as adverse to improvement, as pride and self-conceit are to individual advancement. It is the spirit of Rome, of the Moslem, of despotism, of hell. Rancorous, lying, slanderous and infernal, when arguments fail, it wields the more convenient weapons of appeal to vulgar prejudice, of adroit insinuations or open charges of heresy, acting on the malignant policy of crushing by some means, fair or foul, all who cannot be brought within the prescribed dimensions. Thus, each division of the Christian family, is, to a great extent, wielded by those, who will neither enter the gates of knowledge themselves, nor suffer them that would.

And it is especially unfortunate, that those peculiarities of the party, which are derived from sources independent of the Bible, are more tenaciously adhered to, than those which it draws, in common with the other sects, from that sacred source. I need only refer the reader

to the various phases which piety assumes in the Quaker, the Episcopalian, the Methodist, the Baptist, and the Presbyterian, to convince him that each of these sects depends for its separate existence, on elements and influences, which are not the necessary result of any thing taught in the word of God. Indeed, the proposition must be self-evident, that if they had nothing but what is identical with inspired teaching, their separate existence would cease and they would be merged in one.

The perpetuation of no single party, now competing for the suffrages of the Christian world, considered in all the features of its distinctive existence, is necessary to the integrity and stability of that kingdom which is not of this world. Though it may embody the ordinances and essential doctrines of Christianity, yet, these are compounded with other materials, with a prevailing ignorance of the deep things of God, with an extremely low order of practical excellence, and with various plans of action which have little or no efficiency, all entering in and giving character to the organization as a whole. And, as the advocates of each are determined to uphold all its distinctive features and to maintain its separate existence, their efforts are directed mainly to the propping up of those which are derived from sources foreign to the Bible,