men; He that was in the beginning with God, and was God, assumes our nature, is inanifested in the flesh, and takes on him the form of a servant, is made under the law, bears our sins in his own body on the tree, makes atonement, dies, revives, rises, ascends to heaven, and there at the right hand of the Majesty on high ever lives to make intercession for all that come to God by him. Now is there any thing in this view of the Redeemer and his work, which is not adapted to inspire the christian with elevated and lively joy?

Again; in true religion benevolence is an essential, constituent principle. The christian spirit is always and characteristically a spirit of love. It desires and seeks the good of mankind. To do good, to promote human happiness, to save souls, is to be like Christ is to possess his spirit. Now is not this, in its own nature, a happy spirit? Can a person be truly benevolent; sincerely love the souls of men; truly seek to do good and promote human happiness; faithfully obey Christ and possess his spirit and be like him; and still, as the proper result of his benevolent, Christ-like spirit, be unhappy, or have little, very little peace and joy? Impossible. It is only and forever the tendency of true christian benevolence, in every way in which it can operate, to inspire its possessor with serene enjoyment. What is so full of peace as the inward, heartfelt consciousness of seeking to do good, after the example and in obedience to the will of Christ? When, christian reader, do you ever feel so pure, so sweet a repose stealing over your spirit and hushing all its cares and sorrows to rest, as when you can lay your head on your pillow at night, and reflect, This day through the favor of God, I have been enabled to do something to lighten the load of human suffering and to augment the sum of human happiness ;-to-day I have warned the wicked of his way and entreated him to flee from the wrath to come; and I hope that, through divine grace, I have not entreated and warned in vain. Where is there a peace and a joy to be found on earth like that which flows in upon the good man's soul, from such reminiscences of the past as these? But are not these the proper reminiscences of piety? Are not these the communings which every christian should be able to hold with his own heart in his bed, in taking a review of the events of each successive day?

Again; in true religion there are the hopes and joys of pardoned sin. To a sinful, guilty being, the consciousness of unrenounced, and therefore unforgiven sin, may and sometimes does become a source of the deepest anguish. There is the pain arising from inward perceptions of blameworthiness; the pain of self-accusation, self-upbraiding, and self-contempt; the pain of remorseful feelings; the pain of apprehension and fore

boding for the future; the pain, in short, of looking upon the great and holy God as an enemy and a "swift witness" against us for all our sins. If these feelings do not come in this world, they certainly will in another; and they do often visit the soul with their scorpion stings here on earth. Now in true religion there is the hope of forgiveness, the sweet, sustaining, animating hope that all our sins are blotted out, and this hope is founded on no vague or idle wishes, but in the consciousness,-itself a wellspring of joy to the soul,-that sin, as a governing principle within us, is renounced and forsaken forever!

If, then, there is a single child of God among our readers, to whom the religion of the gospel is not an habitual source of pure and elevated joy, let him know and feel, that he is perverting the best gift of God to man; that he is not only robbing his own soul of that growth in grace which is the natural consequence of religious joy, but putting a stumbling-block in the way of others, over which multitudes may fall to their eternal ruin.

II. Perhaps there is some danger of misapprehending the true nature of christian joy. It may therefore be proper briefly to examine this part of the subject. On this point too much caution can scarcely be employed. The following things here deserve attention.

1. The means of human happiness are numerous; and many of the christian's enjoyments are derived from sources which he possesses in common with other men. In other words, the christian has the same natural susceptibilities of enjoyment with other men, and is placed under the same general advantages for their gratification. Thus the animal appetences, the social feelings, the desire of the good opinion of others, the susceptibility of pleasure from the gratification of taste, of imagination, of the inventive powers, of the love of novelty, of hope, etc. are the same in him as in others. In these and various other respects, there is a happiness, which is not peculiar to the child of God, but may be experienced by him in common with many who are not christians, because the sources from which it springs consist in the capacities of our nature as human beings and not merely as the children of God.

2. The peculiar happiness of the christian, may be greatly affected by those sources of enjoyment which are not confined to himself, but which he holds in common with other men. Thus his joy in God; in the Redeemer; in the good of mankind; in his own hopes of forgiveness; in doing the will of his Father in heaven; in looking forward to a happy eternity before him, etc.; may blend itself with the joy which he derives from other and more ordinary sources; may run into all his innocent pleasures arising from the most common gratifications of life, giving to them

all somewhat of its own pure and holy sweetness, and receiving from them in turn no unimportant modifications. Thus for example, God has given us a natural relish for food; we could not subsist without it, and its gratification, within proper limits, affords an innocent pleasure; but how greatly is that pleasure enhanced, and rendered rational and dignified, when, in receiving "our daily bread," we can mingle, with the common gratification, the peculiar christian satisfaction of reflecting that it is a gift of God, and can present him our tribute of gratitude for it accordingly? God has endowed us with the social principle, and no small portion of our happiness depends upon it. What a solitude would this world. be, with all its busy multitudes, without this principle to bind these multitudes together in the ties of a common sympathy, and in the innumerable enjoyments which result from these ties! The book which you have read with so much delight, would lose half its interest, if you had no one to whom you could tell how delighted you had been in reading it, and to whose heart you could hope to transfer some portion of the delightful impression, which its beauties had made on your own. The prospect, which looks so pleasant from your window, or in your walks abroad, would become comparatively dull or insipid, though rich in all the finest scenery of the summer landscape, if there was in your heart no place for the feeling, that other eyes and other hearts besides your own could see and enjoy it too. Thus it is in every case, in which we derive satisfaction from the ordinary sources of enjoyment which God has scattered so thickly around us. These sources are not closed against us when we become christians. And so far as the pleasure which they furnish is innocent and proper, religion acknowledges them all, and appropriates them to her use. The consequence is, that the happiness of the christian blends itself with all the innocent joys of this life, and is materially modified and augmented by that circumstance.

3. In true christian joy there is not necessarily any excitement of the mind. Great peace and comfort in religion are quite consistent with a calm, unruffled state of feeling. The mind may indeed, and occasionally does, feel the power of religious considerations so strongly, as to experience in view of them, a correspondent strength of delightful emotion. It may, it does, take such views of the perfections of God, of the plan of redemption, of the power of the Redeemer, of the glory that shall be revealed in the saints, and of other objects of a like kind, that it experiences an elevation and an intensity of happy feeling, almost too great to be borne, and such as it could not for any great length of time endure. But in general, christian joy on earth, is a calmer state of mind. It is rather a sweet serenity of soul than a state of

high rapturous excitement. Not, however, because there is not in the objects which awaken it, a tendency to produce strongly excited emotion, but partly because the mind cannot bear perpetual excitement, and partly because these objects are, in most cases, too dimly realized to make an impression on the mind corresponding with their intrinsic excellence and importance. God is too feebly apprehended; the Redeemer and his work are too obscurely seen; and all the great realities of the gospel are too much veiled from the eye of the mind, to allow their full impression to be made on the christian's heart. Hence, though these objects may at times be so apprehended by the believer, as deeply and powerfully to excite the sensibilities of his soul; yet this is not to be looked for as the ordinary state of his mind. Different individuals will indeed, owing to a difference in constitutional susceptibility and other causes, be affected with different degrees of religious feeling. The joy of some christians will be higher than that of other christians, while both have the same exciting causes before them, and that too without supposing any pe culiar strength of religious principle in the former over the latter, as the cause of this difference. Still it is true, that in general, christian joy in the present circumstances of our being, is rather a calm sunshine of the soul, than a more highly excited state of feeling. It is that "peace" of which the Savior spoke, when being about to leave the world, and wishing to comfort his sorrowing disciples, he said, "peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you"-his peace-the sweet serenity of mind which he enjoyed himself, and in the enjoyment of which he went forward in the performance of every self-denying duty, and met with such calm dignity, such entire self-command, such cheerful resignation to the divine will, the overwhelming trials which he had to endure.

4. Christian joy is pre-eminently joy in God as our reconciled Father, through Jesus Christ. It relates to him as its great object. Other things may have a modifying influence upon it; may serve to heighten it; may give to it additional power over the other feelings of the soul; but still, the primary objective cause in calling it forth, is the infinite Jehovah. The thought that such a being lives and reigns and governs all things, in connection with the feeling of love to him, reliance on him, seeking his glory, obeying his will, and looking for his mercy through the blood of Christ, is that which, more than any thing else, awakens in the christian's soul its peculiar joy. It is when he draws near to God that he feels the purest, sweetest comfort. It is when he exerci ses trust in God, and consciously loves him, and commits all to him, and lives upon him, and feels so satisfied with his allotments as to be willing to be any thing and do any thing which he re

quires; it is then, that his joy is full. And why should it not be? Where else can such rational, solid, unfading joy be found? Other sources of happiness are unsatisfying. Worldly good is passing away. Where but on the living God can you fix the supreme affections of your heart, and amid all the revolutions of things here, and especially in view of the coming realities of eternity, feel safe and happy?

5. Christian joy is compatible with repentance, self-humiliation and bearing the cross. What is true repentance? The renunciation of our sins. And is there any thing in renouncing our sins, which is incompatible with peace and joy? What is evangelical self-humiliation? It is ceasing to think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. It is taking our proper place in the great system of God. It is sinking down, voluntarily and cheerfully, to the just level of our deserts. And is there any thing inconsistent with our being happy in doing this? Is not this the way to be truly happy? Pride never contributed to our real enjoyment. Though we are sometimes disposed to "call the proud happy," an undue exaltation of ourselves never led to rational and solid peace of mind. And what is bearing the cross? It is resisting our corrupt inclinations, separating ourselves from improper worldly pursuits and connections, and patiently following the Lord Jesus Christ, through the trials which he may see fit to appoint us. And what is there incompatible with christian comfort in doing this? Is not all this necessary to true comfort-indispensable to the purity and sweetness of true christian joy?

6. Christian joy, though flowing chiefly from a direct regard for God, does not overlook one's own personal good. Christianity requires no stoical indifference to our own well-being. It does not require us, in order to our being truly and in that way happy, to disregard the advantage to ourselves which personal holiness will procure, and in order that we may put on a moral resemblance to our Maker, to cease to concern ourselves about our own happiness in doing so, as if it were necessarily a wrong thing, a mere exercise of selfishness, to desire to be happy. This, we conceive, is not christianity. This is not the will of God concerning us. God requires us to consult our own real well-being. He forbids us to sacrifice our true happiness; and assures us that this is an object on which his own heart is set, as I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn ye, turn ye, from your evil ways; for why will ye die?" God, we see, requires us, in the strongest and most solemn manner, to consult our own happiness. He bids us turn from our evil ways that we may live. And the burden of all his expostulations with sin