out of evil, that the multiplication of religious denominations under our free representative government, excludes forever the domination of one sect over others, by a religious establishment—the greatest calamity with which the church of God has ever been afflicted. The idea that any one denomination of Christians is so exclusively perfect as to demand the exclusive patronage of government, or that any one denomination is the exact pattern to which all others are at last to be conformed, is ridiculous. Perfect uniformity in modes and rights is no more to be expected than it is to be desired. That charity which is the bond of perfectness will doubtless increase, and the holy attractions of love will cause all who love our Lord Jesus, to see eye to eye on the subject of doctrine and Christian experience, and to love one another with a pure heart fervently, and to mind each his own, and each the things of others, with mutual complacency and good will. Thus united in Christian doctrine, in Christian experience, and in Christian enterprise, Ephraim will not vex Judah, nor Judah vex Ephraim, but the twelve tribes, if there shall be so many, will, to all essential purposes, become one tribe; while, on those points on which they can differ without harm, their distinctive traits may remain to afford new efficacy to their purified emulation.

THOUGHTS ON REVIVALS OF RELIGION.

(Continued from p. 149.)

The ministry of Christ was at times exceedingly popular. The fame of his miracles, the purity of his doctrine, and the simple majesty of his preaching, attracted multitudes, and produced great effects. At other times, his preaching was exceedingly unpopular, and many who had been his disciples, "went back, and walked no more with him.” This fact may serve as an answer to the objection, brought by some, against revivals of religion-that there are many who experience only a temporary excitement, and fall back to a state of hardened stupidity. This was precisely the effect of the Gospel, as preached by Jesus Christ himself. But was his ministry conducted improperly? Were the excitements under his preaching vain, because all who were excited for a time, did not abide?

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The proper improvement to be made of evanescent religious impressions, is that which our Saviour made to hold up the high claims of religion, to explain its pure and inflexible requirements, and to forewarn those who attend to the subject, of its duties, its temptations and difficulties. He concealed nothing from his followers, of all which they must forego, or do, or suffer. He told the multitudes who followed him, plainly, " If any man come

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to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple. And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple." Luke xiv. 26, 27.

These sentiments are not at variance with the natural affections, or the performance of civil or social duties; but explain the high and decisive course which a Christian must take, when he is called to decide between his allegiance to men, or to God. In a world

of alienation from God, it is not to be expected that habits of business, or arrangements for amusement or pleasure, will always be coincident with the letter, much less with the spirit of the Gospel. The Christian will often be obliged to dissent, or conform, to his hurt, and the injury of the cause of Christ. The difference between selfishness and supreme love to God, between setting the affections on things below and things above, is so great, that such diverse causes cannot produce uniformly the same practical results. What the passage therefore, just quoted, inculcates, is, that whenever any discrepancy arises between the maxims of the world and the precepts of Christ, the laws of Christ must, at all events, be obeyed; that our allegiance to him is above our obligation to gratify father, or mother, or friend; above all regard for reputation, property, or even life itself; and that no man can be a Christian, who does not give to the laws of Christ a practical supremacy, when the competition lies between them and the fashion of the world. We are to resist evil, though tempted by parental authority or persuasion, or allured by all the blandishments of the nearest and dearest earthly affection. We are to recoil from such tempters, as if we had met a serpent in the way; hating them only as tempters to sin. There is one subject, the subject of religion, in which we may, and must, act for ourselves. The child, when arrived at years of understanding, the husband, the wife, the brother, the sister, and friend-each for himself, must adopt his own religious opinions, and choose his own worship, and judge in all things for himself, what Christ requires of him, and what he forbids. Nothing short of this is liberty of conscience. Nothing short of this is entire and absolute subjection to Christ.

This exposition refutes the charge of moroseness, and precision, and austerity, so constantly urged against conscientious Christians who cannot go all lengths with the gay and fashionable. The fact is, that the practical course which Jesus Christ has prescribed for his disciples, and which his religion actually produces, is different from that which emanates from the spirit of the world. No man can be a Christian, and be so entirely conformed to the spirit of the fashionable and pleasure-loving world, as to practise no selfdenial, give no offence, and be in no respect singular.

Our Saviour has forewarned us that it was no part of his design, and that it will not be the effect of his coming, to produce, on all

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points, a practical coalition between his disciples and the world. Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, nay; but rather division: for from henceforth there shall be five in one house, divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." The objection, that evangelical preaching and revivals of religion produce division in families and societies, lies equally against the preaching and the Gospel of Christ. It is precisely the effect which he predicted his truth would produce, when received gladly by some members of a family or community, and rejected and hated by others.

Of such results the Gospel is not the cause, but the innocent occasion. It is the sinfulness of men which makes them oppose the Gospel; and its purity and sanctions which call out the bitter expression of it. It is not the pious members of the family who become petulent, and kindle strife. They become more quiet, and meek, and patient, and lowly, while the fire of opposition rises, and burns furiously around them. Were the entire family converted, there would be great peace, as the event, in such cases, evinces. And whenever a large proportion of any community comes under the saving power of the Gospel, old disputes are laid aside, and there is a great calm. Should a few become converts to honesty among swindlers, there would soon be division; but it would be, not the honest, but the dishonest, who caused the strife. But let them all cease to do evil, and learn to do well, and peace would be restored.

Now in all cases of collision between the disciples of Christ and the world, it is indispensable to Christian character, that the laws of Christ shall prevail.

But what are the laws of Christ? This is the debatable ground; and there are few professing Christians who are, in their own estimation, either disobedient or lax. Definite and prominent immoralities they avoid. But between the kingdom of Christ and the world, there lies, they seem to think, a kind of middle ground, a neutral territory, over which the Saviour extends no very manifold inspection, where inclination may safely legislate, and watchfulness, and prayer, and self-denial, be safely dispensed with. And it is here that not a few professors scem solicitous to live, and move, and have their being, fearful chiefly of being "righteous overmuch," and conversant chiefly with cases of conscience, which have for their object the relaxation of the strait and spiritual requirements of the Gospel, in favor of a life of pleasure, and fearless conformity to the world.

It is over this middle ground that I propose to extend the definite legislation of Christ,-hitherto a territory of doubts, only against the claims of duty; and of confidence, only in favor of self-indulgence.

To bring these nominal subjects of Christ under the precepts of the Gospel, it must be remembered that they consist not in specific injunctions and prohibitions for every possible sin and duty, (which might fill the world with books,) but in general principles of easy application, demanding only a moderate share of understanding, in alliance with a holy heart.

Is it demanded, then, how a young Christian, beset by temptation, amid variant opinions and diversities of practice, shall be able, in all cases, to decide how far he may safely go, and where he must stop? I answer,

Let him be willing to know his duty, and to do it. Without this, he will not examine thoroughly, nor judge impartially, nor obey with promptitude his convictions. The biassed judge no man would willingly trust: but every man is a biassed judge in his own case, when he expounds the laws of Christ under the influence of a powerful reluctance to do his will.

1. Those amusements and courses of conduct should be avoided which the great body of the most devout Christians of all denominations have regarded as dangerous or sinful.

Too much strictness is not the besetting sin of even the best; and when we perceive professors of the most undoubted piety and purity of life, who read for instruction, daily, the word of God, and daily pray for the guidance of his Spirit, unseduced by evil habit, or sinister purpose, and wholly without intercourse or concert, concurring in the same opinion of the moral tendency of particular courses of conduct,-it is impossible to believe that they are safe or innocent. We must surrender our confidence in the dictates of common sense, in the indications of conscience, and in the promises of God to answer prayer, and guide the meek in judgment, before we can suppose that the public sentiment of the more pious and intelligent community of Christians is incorrect and without cause. Those professors who choose to take a greater latitude may call them "weak brethren" if they please, and felicitate themselves on their emancipation from such "narrowminded opinions and needless scrupulosity." But death, the great equalizer of human extremes, never brings regret to the bedside and bosom of the most conscientious and careful that may have been too strict; and seldom fails to harrow up the souls of those, with fear and remorse, who have practised the least self-denial, and lived most conformed to the world..

2. Those amusements and courses of conduct should be regarded as inexpedient and sinful, whose manifest effect is to damp. the ardor, and impair the habitual vigor of piety, by divesting the

thoughts and turning the affections from the subject, through the influence of other thoughts, interests, and associations.

While the truth of this position will not be denied, the tendency of certain favorite amusements to damp devotion, and alienate the mind from religious associations, will be denied; and there may not be wanting some who will insist that they can, and do maintain, in 'a ball-room or a theatre, as devout and spiritual a frame as they do in their closets or their church; and we have no doubt of the entire truth of these declarations; their only defect, as facts in evidence, being, that in all such cases, the tone of piety, if it has a being, is too low to admit of any perceptible decline; as in cases of suspended respiration, the body may pass through various temperatures of atmosphere, without any perceptible effect upon the pulsation. Take a Christian, whose spiritual pulsation is such as can be perceived by himself or others, and place him in the chilling atmosphere, which he will be compelled alone to breathe, through all the rounds of fashionable amusement, and, accustomed to a more elastic medium, he will soon perceive the pulse of life to be sinking, and soon be compelled to gasp for breath.

The ordinary daily avocations of life, though they may occasion, for the time, a diversion of thought and feeling, yet, if undertaken from a sense of duty, and preceded and followed by seasons of devout reading, meditation and prayer, do not materially subdue the tone of pious feeling, or impede our growth in grace. But where uncalled by duty, and prompted only by curiosity, or the love of pleasure, we venture out, we never return without loss, only in those cases where piety is so low and languid that any perceptible loss is impossible.

3. Those amusements which are the chosen and especial recreation of irreligious, vicious, and eminently worldly men, are unsuitable for the Christian. The society in which he must place himself in such amusements, is one in which a Christian ought never to be found, until he strikes from his prayer, "Lead us not into temptation;" or obliterates from the Bible, as an interpolation, the declaration that "the companion of fools shall be destroyed." Beside, how can two walk together, except they be agreed.

In civil concerns, and in the sciences, and the fine arts, men may be associated who are exceedingly diverse in the state of their affections. But in moments' of relaxation from the severities of labor, and in those amusements and recreations, in the choice of which the heart dictates, how is it possible that the atheist, the infidel, the libertine, and the Christian, shall find themselves drawn instinctively by their hearts, to the same places, to participate in the same, as their most favorite amusements?

4. Those courses of conduct should never be ventured upon, which we have decided to be dangerous and sinful, when the mind