est men, that's the danger. God knows in what a manner they frequently manage the matter! You shall see a youth just licensed, assuming the most dangerous positions in all the wide universe of Christianity, and challenging to conflict, single-handed, the most fearful champions that ever the devil sent to hew down the armies of the living God.

If this plain speaking should be received with a sneer, as if it were only the result of the vanity of age irritated by the vanity of youth, let them cry-Go up bald head!-In defiance of what mortal man can think or say of me, I tell the young, and tell the old, and I tell the whole of you, that this everlasting preaching of the philosophy of Christianity by all sorts of men of all sizes, will work mischief. We have got one theorist already, and perhaps some other may be just putting on, and flapping his wings, for an aerial flight. O be admonished, and keep the ground, remember the fate of Icarus. The pinions you have, are borrowed pinions, and they are stuck together with wax ; and assuredly they will melt, and down you

come.

Nititur pennis vitro daturus
Nomina ponto.

If you must have an aerial flight wait till wings have grown on your own shoulders. You tell me you have a new theory which will be of vast service, indeed you dont see the extent of it, it is so large: well go on in secret and unravel the mystery. O that would require a long time, and all that time the world will want the use of it. I will publish it to the church, and improve it by the objestions and suggestions of others and then, if it is found worth nothing, or per

nicious, I shall retract it. Will you? In the name of your Lord, how dare you throw into the midst of his church this unknown thing? What if it should turn out some monstrous hydra, and devour the sons of men? And though somebody, though yourself should at last slay the monster, will that resuscitate those whom it has devoured?

You tell me that you see something dimly twinkling through the mist, on the field of Christianity, and you promise yourself a discovery, but it is difficult. I ask, did you go out to look for difficulties, that you might have the glory of ranking with discoverers? Then the devil must have been your guide. And yonder he is, in that dim light, and as you advance it will grow brighter and brighter, and carry you on farther and farther, now towards this point of the compass, and now towards that, till at last, if divine grace interpose not, down it goes, and down you go in some Serbonian bog. Did you challenge the fiend, or did the fiend challenge you ? If you challenged, mind you must fight the battle without a second. You'll be beaten, and killed too, unless some one comes by, and rescues you out of his hands. But did the fiend meet you at your master's work, and clutch you? then you must buckle to, your master has pitted his own blood against Satanic powers; himself for your second; let no one hear your voice but him; and be cool. And if the field be the philosophy of Christianity, long and dubious will this conflict be and bitterly shalt thou bleed, and mournfully shalt thou groan, and dolefully shalt thou call on thy master for help. And when all thy veins are sluiced, and thou liest wallowing in thy own blood, and all thy joints dislocated, and every bone in thy body broken in the last deadly grasp of desperate deter

mination, just as the film begins to cover thy eye, thy master will give the victory. And thou shalt find thyself far stronger and sprightlier than when thou commencedest the conflict: a very feeble thing in thine own eyes, but thy master will be glorious in thy eyes. Thou wilt never desire such another conflict: though thou wilt not decline it on receiving thy master's orders. For now experience has assured thee that he will stand thy second, and in all his battles bring thee off more than conqueror.

SECTION XI.

But, reader, I must now look to myself, for I am not sufficiently philanthropic to love every body but myself. After this long and laborious day's work, in reaping, and threshing, and winnowing, what have I got to myself, as my wages? Why, reader, here it is! just two pickles of chaff! Mr. M'Chord put them together according to the forms and ceremonies of the metaphysical community, and they have begotten a third pickle; and by and by intermarriages will take place, and marriages such as Cæsar describes in a certain island, and the earth will be replenished with them.

I say I have gotten two pickles of chaff for my share of the spoils—two sophistries of false philosophy, which the devil had mixed in the Lord's field of wheat. Here they are-That Adam's sin is imputed to man, BECAUSE they descend from him by ordinary generation -And that Christ's righteousness is imputable to men, BECAUSE he represented them in the covenant of grace.

The gospel of Jesus Christ teaches, that God does impute Adam's sin to his posterity: and that God does impute the righteousness of his Son to believers : and that he offers that righteousness to all men, promising eternal life to every man who receives it by faith, and threatening eternal death to all who reject it.

This is the gospel; I have added nothing to it. I sucked it from the blessed breasts of the Holy Spouse of God when I was a babe. And now that I am a man, shall I permit any one to stain those blessed breasts with bitter poisonous drugs, to cause the babes to turn away with nausea ? or if in fainting hunger they must have milk, shall I permit the bitter poison to mingle with that milk, and throw their tender bodies into convulsions? And shall any fear of any thing that man can do, deter me from washing it away in the very best manner and most effectual way that I can devise? Oh, no! mother-such is not thy son; No! babes-such is not thy brother!

Reader, thou and I lie chained in the same dungeon, under sentence of death, to be hanged on the same tree; there is no appeal, for the sentence is pronounced by the Supreme Judge of the universe. There is no escaping hence, for our keeper is omniscient and there can be no rescue, for the executioner is omnipotent. And is it not very foolish, and very wicked in us to be thus breaking each other's heads with the very chains which we wear, disputing about how that judge can be just in pronouncing that sentence?

But, reader, here is a strange thing! The Son of the King himself has just come into our dungeon with a lamp which makes it brighter than day. And he tells us that he has given himself to be hanged on the same

own sons; we shall wear the very same robes he wears himself; we shall sit at the same table, and eat the same food with himself; that wherever he goes he will take us with him, that he will give us a share of all his honours, and that when he triumphs, we shall triumph with him; and that this sort of life shall continue through all eternity.

Reader, shall we take him at his word, and go along with him? That open, honest brow bespeaks him no deceiver; that indescribable eye beams only with benevolence; such lips as those never could utter a falsehood; Reader, arise, and let us follow him!

Or say, shall we sit down, and keep him standing, and waiting our leisure, while we cross question him? Let us ask him-What right had you to die for us? Was it just in the King your Father to impute our sins to you, and put you to death for us? How can he impute your righteousness to us, and give us all the fine things you promise, because you died on the tree on which we were condemned to die? Remember, Sir, we are rational creatures, every thing ought to be made visible to rational understandings. And if you can satisfy us on these points, we pledge ourselves to go with you-provided, always, that no new objection should occur. Reader, is this the way to go to work?

O reader, all that is preached from our pulpits is not the gospel. I wish that one half of it may be