be recognized as a Being who desires and determines to inflict punative and remediless retribution upon the irreclaimable sinner, and speedily the baleful influence spreads, like a subtle plague, through all the social, educational, and civil relations. Human laws now begin to substitute expediency-reformation — and protection for immutable morality and absolute justice. The "unfortunate" culprit, pitied more than his victims, now grows bold in sin. Parental authority is prostrated; and preachers, dropping out the terrors of the divine law, begin to mutter and peep about a substitute for their present success, in a possible future probation. Such is the sure result of ignorance of, or inattention towards any of the various attributes of the Divine Being.

There is no restraint upon the mind of man equal to an impressive sense of the omniscience and omnipresence of God. By the truthfulness and faithfulness of God, men come to learn the intrinsic value of uprightness and fidelity. His patience and forgiveness are the highest, if not the only original, pattern and source of patience and forgiveness of man towards man.

In like manner all the great doctrines of grace are beginnings, principles, producing and guiding causes. The fact of man's depravity precedes, and prepares the way for, all appreciation of the Atonement. "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." How superficial to talk of preaching Christ, without thoroughly and effectually preaching human apostasy and ruin! Nor is it enough to preach now and then on the "exceeding sinfulness of sin." Men must be convinced, and made to feel most deeply, that they are exceeding sinful. And this the natural and deceitful heart is very slow to believe and feel. It is sure to rise in rebellion against him who asserts and presses these producing principles.

The doctrine of divine sovereignty is a powerful producing cause of submission and humility in man. And what is more essential to the spirit of Christian meekness, than the rooting out, and slaying, of a haughty and unyielding pride. Where pride begins, all piety ends.

The doctrine of Foreordination and Decrees is calculated to repress the audacity of the rebellious. "God would have the wicked know, that they cannot outreach him—that with all

their malignity, they cannot even sin but he will foil them." Their wrath shall praise him. Moreover, if this principle is rejected or neglected, Christians must suffer great loss in the sustainment of their faith in times of bold wickedness, and in the consolations which they need in their sore inward conflicts with sin.

Thus it is with all the great principles of the Christian system. They are vital to the system, and cannot be separated from it without fatal effects, any more than the vital principle in the human body can be separated from the body without producing death.

What then are we to think of the mental deficiencies of the religious teacher who can call doctrine "the skin of truth set up and stuffed;" most grossly mistaking the mere outward expression and form, for the living, moving thing itself, and who has never yet caught a glimpse of the real meaning of doctrine or principle? I pity the man who can find nothing but husks in corn. He must be, where the Prodigal was once, feeding with the swine.

And those preachers who affect such horror of "dead orthodoxy," how shallow must their philosophy be, if they can only conceive of producing causes as dead things! Do they always think of animals as dead corpses, or things that have ceased to be animals? An animal is defined to be an organized body endowed with life, sensation, and voluntary motion. We feel pity for them, but we must remove from under them their oft quoted and whole Scripture foundation, by telling them that in the passage translated, "Who hold the truth in unrighteousness," Paul evidently means to say, "Who hold back, or hinder, the truth by unrighteousness; " for he is speaking of those whom God had given over because "they did not like to retain God in their knowledge," i. e. they were opposers of doctrines.

But there is lamentable reason to fear that there are greater deficiencies than the mental and superficial in those who can sneer at, or encourage, or even allow others to sneer at, the principles of the Gospel system. Coleridge somewhere says that there is very little difference between men without principles, and unprincipled men. There is a close relation be

tween doctrine and practice, between true piety and the affectionate perception of the vital principles of the religious system. "Put on the new man which is renewed in knowledge." Col. 3: 10. "I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge, and in all judgment!"— Phil. 1: 9. Intelligent piety must be proportionate to the knowledge and love of the distinguishing truths of Christianity. "God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth." - 2 Thesa. 2: 13.

We do not forget that religion consists chiefly in the affections, as President Edwards, in his book on the affections, so clearly establishes. Neither do we forget that Edwards says, in the same work: "Truly spiritual and gracious affections ARISE from the understanding being enlightened as to what is taught respecting God and Jesus Christ; so that we clearly discover the glorious nature of God, and obtain new views of Christ in his fulness and divine excellencies. Those things which RELATE to the way of salvation by Jesus Christ, are presented to our minds with a new aspect, in consequence of which we now understand those holy and divine doctrines which before were foolishness to us." "As soon as our eyes

are opened to behold the holy beauty and glory of divine things, a number of most important doctrines of the Gospel, which appear strange to natural men, are at once perceived to be true. As, for instance, the truth of what God declares concerning the exceeding evil of sin, is perceived; for the same light which shows the transcendent beauty of holiness, necessarily shows the exceeding odiousness of sin. A person thus enlightened discovers his own sinfulness; he perceives the dreadful pollution of his heart, and, in consequence, is convinced of the truth of what the Scriptures declare concerning the corruption of human nature, our absolute need of a Saviour, and of the mighty power of God to renew the heart. Upon discovering the beauty of holiness, we perceive the glory of those perfections which both reason and Scripture attribute to the Divine Being. Having a clear view of the glorious perfections of Deity, we are easily convinced of the truth of what the Scriptures declare as to the dreadful punishment annexed to sin, the impossibility of our making any satisfaction to the injured justice of God,

and our need of an atonement of infinite value, for the purpose of making that satisfaction."

As I know of no human authority higher than Edwards, on this very important point, I will venture another quotation. "The mind of man is naturally full of enmity against the doctrines of the Gospel, and this produces a powerful disadvantage as to those arguments which prove their truth. But when a person has the transcendent excellency of divine things manifested to him, his enmity is destroyed, his prejudices removed, and his reason sanctified. Hence arises a vast difference as to the force of arguments in convincing the mind. Hence arose the very different success which attended the miracles of Christ in convincing his disciples, from what they had in convincing the Scribes and Pharisees. The minds of his disciples were not more CULTIVATED, but they were SANCTIFIED."

It is plain, then, that when an educated man, and especially one who has had the advantages of a Christian education, finds "those holy and divine doctrines" to be "foolishness unto him;" if they are strange and unwelcome to him, especially if he finds his mind full of "enmity" towards them, ready to give them a sly thrust, or ready to join in the laugh when others ridicule them, and to run after and praise the treacherous reviler, it is plain that such an one must be yet, like Simon the Sorcerer, "in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity." How can it be otherwise, if the doctrines are, as we have shown, the very Beginnings, the Producing Causes, the Vital Principles of the system of grace!

I know it will at once occur to the reader that many persons, who think very little of doctrinal principles, appear to be very pious and active Christians; they are fervent in prayer, zealous in service, and often all alive to the interests of their church or denomination. I admit that great allowance must be made for mental and educational peculiarities and deficiencies. Some real Christians have in their hearts what they cannot express in language, and what they would not recognize in expression, and even what, in terms, their prejudices would lead them to repudiate. I fully subscribe to the language of Coleridge in his introduction to "Aids to Reflection."

“That a man may be truly religious, and essentially a

believer at heart, while his understanding is sadly bewildered with the attempt to comprehend and express philosophically, what yet he feels and knows spiritually. It is indeed impossible for us to tell, how far the understanding may impose upon itself by partial views and false disguises, without perverting the will, or estranging it from the laws and the authority of reason and the Divine Word. We cannot say to what extent a false system of philosophy and metaphysical opinions, which in their natural and uncounteracted tendency would go to destroy all religion, may be received in a Christian community, and yet the power of spiritual religion retain its hold and its efficacy in the hearts of the people. We may perhaps believe that, in opposition to all the might of false philosophy, so long as the great body of the people have the Bible in their hands, and are taught to reverence its heavenly instructions, though the Church may suffer injury from unwise and unfruitful speculations, it will yet be preserved; and that the spiritual seed of the Divine Word, though mingled with many tares of worldly wisdom and philosophy falsely so called, will yet spring up, and bear fruit unto everlasting life. But though we may hope and believe this, we cannot avoid believing, at the same time, that injury must result from an unsuspecting confidence in metaphysical opinions, which are essentially at variance with the doctrines of Revelation. Especially must the effect be injurious where those opinions lead gradually to alter our views of religion itself, and of all that is peculiar in the Christian system."

While therefore we would yield to none in the importance of discriminate charitable judgment, we cannot allow charity to become a blind fool. We are constrained to see that many persons have naturally amiable and ardent dispositions, combined with a rather obtuse indiscriminating intellect, which may deceive themselves and others into the pleasant belief that they are the veritable spiritual successors of the apostle John. They are very charitable and very goodish. The language of the Scriptures and the views and judgments which God pronounces, sound rather harsh to them, and they think must have been specially intended for earlier and less cultivated ages.

"Love is the great thing. When men come up to judgment,