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nation. The question to be determined is this; Are the language and representations of the stage conformable to the instructions delivered by Jesus Christ and his Apostles; or, in other words, are they in harmony with the genius, spirit, and tendency of Christianity? If they agree with the plain, obvious precepts which are delivered in the Gospels and Epistles, no objection founded upon the accidental abuse of the drama will prove an attendance on the theatre to be unlawful; but if it can be shown, that a most conspicuous disagreement exists between the compositions performed on the stage, and the unquestionable declarations of the New Testament, no arguments founded on the beneficial effects which may be occasionally derived from them, can be admitted as valid in their justification, or sanction a Christian in his patronage

of the theatre.

"The sacred Scriptures forbid all profanation of the name of God; the introduction of that holy name on light and frivolous occasions; all trivial and unnecessary appeals to the Deity, or wanton invocation of him, combined with curses and imprecations against our fellowcreatures. But plays abound with expressions and declamations directly at variance with this prohibition; they have, consequently, a manifest tendency to teach and encourage profane cursing and swearing.

"The word of God censures all immodesty and impurity of discourse or gesture; it inculcates the duties of self-government, of controlling and regulating the affections and passions; a wise moderation, and a religious reserve, in the indulgence of the most pure and disinterested, as well as of the more selfish and animal propensities of our nature. But plays exhibit pride, ambition, vanity, emulation, revenge, envy, hatred, lying, sensuality, &c. under circum

stances which often divest them of their odious characters, which tend to awaken and invigorate them in the minds of the spectators; and they invest, with a spurious nobleness and brilliancy, many of the worst passions which infest and agitate the bosom of man. The passion of love, with all its satellites good and bad, forms a constituent part of almost every dramatic exhibition; and it is equally the undeniable purpose of the author and the actor, by the most appropriate and impassioned language, by an ingenious arrangement of difficulties and distresses, by those expressive signs in action which all may comprehend, and none can misunderstand, to excite emotion and tumult in the minds of the spectators; to send them home with hearts glowing with all the ardours of the passion which has been represented before their eyes.

"In close connexion with lessons so congenial to the sensual part of the human constitution, the spectators are instructed further in the several arts of simulation, hypocrisy, deceit, unfaithfulness, treachery. By frequently exhibiting the malevolent passions, their odious agencies become familiar; thus they lose much of their deformity, and, instead of exciting horror and disgust, too frequently conciliate the sympathy and kindly feelings of the audience. Men are taught the expressions of uncontrolled resentment, determined hatred, implacable malice, and furious revenge, rendered more forcible by the aid of eloquence, and sharpened with all the asperity that the most rancorous malignity can infuse. Their ears are accustomed to the terms generous pride, noble ambition, honourable revenge, justifiable retaliation, and to hear a train of other immoral tempers softened, or adorned, by specious epithets, calculated to conceal their sinful and detestable character, and consequently to sustain and cherish

them in the hearts of those who delight in the amusements of the stage.

"He who has learned practically to regard murder as an affair of honour, seduction as a piece of gallantry, adultery as an amiable weakness, the successful usurpation of the rights of another as skill and dexterity, may enjoy some consideration in the eyes of his fellow-creatures; but, in the judgment of the holy and righteous Governor of the universe, he is worthy of death. Then the school where these things are imparted, as speculative principles, and impressed with all the power and art of dramatic illusion, is an institution, the direct tendency of which is to sow the seeds of vice, to nurture moral depravity, and to corrupt the manners of the visitants.

"The advocates of the stage have commonly asserted, that it is a school of morality, where exorbitant passions are restrained and corrected, where licentiousness is censured and degraded, and vice and folly receive the castigation of contempt and ridicule. But whatever may have been the good intentions of dramatic authors, and performers on the stage; if it has been proved again and again, that their morality is spurious, and commonly at variance with that taught in the Holy Scriptures; if experience has demonstrated, that the animated exhibition of culpable passions tends to foster them and promote their growth, rather than to blight them and destroy their fertility; if sin be of too serious and awful a nature to be made the subject of wit, satire, and merriment; then the supporters of the theatre have lamentably failed of their purpose; they have diffused and aggravated the malady by the very means which they have adopted for its extinction.

"It might be presumed, if experience did not evince the contrary, that those who consider

themselves to be Christians, who have "promised and vowed in their baptism to renounce the devil, and all his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the sinful lusts of the flesh;” that those who have not only entered into this solemn engagement, but have subsequently ratified it, would require few arguments to dissuade them from frequenting such dangerous amusements. But mistaken or inadequate conceptions of the extent and purity of the divine laws, misconceptions of the nature and requisitions of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and the attractive power of this world on those who live within the sphere of its magnetic influence, combine to render the heart and affections an easy prey to the seductive and fascinating illusions which people its. atmosphere. The predominance of a worldly temper and spirit is inconsistent with the reality of religion, as it implies the absence of a true taste and relish for objects which are spiritual and divine; these are not desired by such persons whose unsatiated cravings lead them to seek refreshment and repose in the harassing amusements and turbulent pleasures of a restless and disordered world. It would be a great mistake, if these votaries of pleasure were to suppose, that a detachment from the tumult of gaiety, and the hurry of dissipation, was the result of a stupid incapacity for such gratifications, that it implied the prevalence of gloomy moroseness, or melancholy, or that the pious man was perpetually doing violence to his inclinations, and exercising a rigorous constraint on his desires and propensities. No; he renounces all these glittering shows as mere inanities, insipid, spiritless, unsuited to his state and condition as a candidate for heaven, as an heir of immortality. The heart and affections of a Christian have received a new direction; his wants,

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his pleasures, and his enjoyments, are of a higher order; those beams which have descended into his soul from the chambers of heaven have impaired and obscured the lustre of inferior objects, by disclosing their emptiness and vanity. His renovated spirit moves through the groups of shadowy and unsubstantial forms which solicit his regard, as the wellinformed traveller crosses the burning sands of Egypt or Arabia; he presses forward, unseduced by those atmospherical illusions which mock the scorched and thirsty passenger with fantastic visions of groves and streams, expecting no shade or refreshment, where he knows that aridity, barrenness, and desolation, have fixed their perpetual residence.

To pretend that the same persons can be devout worshippers of God, take delight in his service, and intend a sincere conformity to his revealed will, who require the gratification of theatrical amusements, is a palpable contradiction, implying a hatred of profaneness and indelicacy, with an eagerness to contemplate those who exhibit these vices as a fund of necessary diversion. If it be urged, that this indulgence is not frequently allowed, but is a rare and occasional amusement; this remark diminishes in no degree the force of the arguments against it. If it be consistent with a truly religious spirit to visit the theatre three times in the year, it is equally consistent to visit it thirty times in the year. To resort thither frequently, or seldom, may indicate the degree in which the passion for dramatic representations exists, but cannot change the quality of the action. Whatever is evil in its own nature, is always evil; whether the number of criminal acts be few or many, the measure of crime may be varied, but the essential character of the sin remains unaltered. Let the professor of Chris

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tianity consider further, that the life of a man ought to have some consistency with his prayers, if he would avoid the guilt of simulation or hypocrisy. Every Christian that uses the Lord's Prayer, requests that he may not be led into temptation, but be delivered from evil; yet he cannot enter the theatre without encountering the most dangerous temptations, and deliberately exposing his virtue and piety, such as they may be, to evils calculated to subvert every good purpose, and corrupt every holy disposition of the heart. If sincerity and uprightness do not require a correspondence of words and actions; if the vocal expression of desires may be unconnected with the internal dispositions of the heart, without any impeachment of truth and integrity; if a prayer be a mere formal ceremony, a mechanical conformity of gestures with words, imposing no moral obligation on the supplicant, then a hungering and thirsting after theatrical amusements is not incompatible with "hungering and thirsting after righteousness;" and there is neither self-deception, nor mocking of God, in offering up petitions, the fulfilment of which is neither expected nor desired.

If any, who profess to lead a devout and holy life, can be comfortable and contented with a course of such pharisaical services, let them seriously and honestly consider, whether a divided heart can be acceptable to God; whether a supreme desire of sanctification can exist in a mind captivated by the blandishments of fashionable pleasures; and whether the incongruous union of piety with the spirit of this evil world, will receive the final approbation of that righteous Judge, who has declared, that, "without holiness, no man shall see the Lord."

"Il faut être uniforme dans la pieté; Dieu et le culte qu'on lui doit, est indivisible."

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ESSAYS ON THE FIFTY-THIRD CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. ESSAY X.-CHRIST's Sufferings and Reward.

Isaiah, liii. 10.-Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

"It pleased the Lord to bruise him." The Lord with his own hand crushed the divine Saviour beneath the weight of his displeasure! Men were permitted to afflict his body, and, so far as he could feel those painful sensations which treachery, ingratitude, slander, and cruelty occasion, to afflict him in his soul. But it was his heavenly Father's hand that bruised him most sensibly, by withdrawing his presence, taking away (for the time) all comfort, and leaving him under the awful feeling of divine vengeance. Christ, as man, was accustomed to look up to his heavenly Father with the greatest delight, and to view his heavenly Father looking down upon him with the highest satisfaction; as when a voice from heaven declared, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

WHEN our Lord Jesus Christ suffered for us men, and for our salvation, his sufferings were inficted not only by the hands of sinful men, who were permitted by divine Providence to carry their enmity against him thus far; but he was afflicted by the immediate hand of God; and what he suffered in his soul from his heavenly Father's hand, was far more intolerable than all that he endured from the hands of men. We find, therefore, that our Lord complained, in the bitterness of his soul, when he felt himself forsaken of his God; whilst all that he suffered from men did not draw from him a single complaint. In the passage of Holy Scripture now under consideration, the Prophet uses a strong expression when he says, that "it pleased the Lord to bruise him;" at the same time it is intimated, that he himself had done nothing to deserve punishment. The preceding verse declares, that "he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth;" and yet (as the Prophet here mentions) "it pleased the Lord to bruise him." There was, therefore, an important end to be answered by the sufferings and death of Christ. The salvation of souls was connected with those sufferings, for they were to be the means of bringing many sinners to God; a numerous offspring was to arise from the Redeemer's expiring groans; and having been made a sin offering, he was to "see his seed," to "prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord" was "" prosper in his hand." ост. 1823.

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Matt. iii. 17. But when "it pleased the Lord to bruise him," all sensible comfort was taken away; he could see nothing before his eyes but God's indignation against sin; he felt himself forsaken of God; a dark cloud overspread his mind. He seemed to have no consolation from his divine nature, and to have felt in his soul even the pains of hell, so far as he could feel them who knew no sin. This bruising first began in the garden, when he fell into an agony; and it ended on the cross, when a little before his death he seems to have recovered his composure of mind, and said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said this, he gave up the ghost."

Thus Jesus was bruised by the immediate hand of his heavenly Father; "He hath put him to grief:" nor was there any grief or sorrow to be compared with that which Christ endured when his Father's hand lay heavy upon him. For the greatest grief is that which

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affects the mind, the anguish which tears the heart. "The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear?" Prov. xviii. 14. If the heart be but supported, the body can bear a great deal. The martyrs who suffered for the cause of Christ were often so greatly supported by the consolations of the Gospel, that the sense of pain was in a measure lost. When Stephen was stoned, he appears to have been under no terror of mind, but with great inward peace to have endured that cruel death, "calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus receive my spirit." Acts, vii. 59. But when the Lord Jesus was put to grief, he endured the anguish of a wounded spirit, the darkness of a soul that felt itself forsaken of God. The expressions in the Psalms well describe the greatness of his sorrow: "The sorrows of hell compassed me about." Psalm xviii. 5.-" Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves."—" Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction."-" Lord, why castest thou off my soul! why hidest thou thy face from me? While I suffer thy terrors I am distracted. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off."

It pleased the Lord to bruise and afflict his beloved Son, because he stood in the place of sinners, to satisfy the demands of his broken law. If the Lord had pardoned sin without satisfaction being made to his eternal justice, his law would have been dishonoured, his commandments broken with impunity, and his authority disregarded. Rather, therefore, than God would suffer this, which would have been an insult on his moral government of the world, he was pleased to bruise Jesus, and to put him to grief. In this, the Lord manifested his truth and faithfulness, as well as his holiness. For, if the Lord had not taken vengeance for sin,

by bruising the divine Saviour when he stood in the place of sinners, his word, which had denounced the punishment of death against sinners, would have been broken. But when the Lord spared not his own Son, his faithfulness was unimpeached, his holiness undiminished, and a way made for his mercy to be exercised consistently with the strictest justice to every returning sinner.

In this awful transaction, the soul of Jesus was made an offering for sin; "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin." Under the law, those sacrifices which were offered to God to make a typical atonement for sin, were called, "sin offerings." They had the very name of sin put upon them, to show that the sins of those who offered them in faith were typically transferred to them. But Christ was the true sin offering, the only sacrifice that was available to take away sin; "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." 2 Cor. v. 21. This was the reason why it pleased the Father to bruise him; for though we cannot suppose that the Father could be pleased with the sufferings of Christ, considered simply in themselves; on the contrary, the divine displeasure was particularly shown against those who crucified the Lord of glory, and repented not; yet as Christ was made an offering for sin, his sacrifice, as the sacrifices under the law, is called a sweet savour unto God." Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God, for a sweet smelling savour." Eph. v. 2.

A gracious recompence was to follow Christ's acceptable sacrifice; "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed." A numerous and spiritual seed was to arise from his being made an offering for sin. Our

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