leading me to think on that sameness of principle, and or that superiority of sentiment which belong to a religion like his.

I. The IDENTITY or sameness of its principle.

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What, I have said to myself, is sound religious principle? If it may be discovered by its effects, then, bad as the world is, it is still found passing among us, though too often an unacknowledged stranger. Look at Bacon. He is naturally sanguine: and has exquisite sensibility he is opulent: he can suffer no ennui for want of an object: he has fame to fan his vanity; and a fancy ever on the wing to amuse his taste. What then is it, which, bridling every inordinate propensity, leads him to find his chief employment in ad'ministering instruction to the ignorant, and teaching "the young idea how to shoot?" in conversing with a kindred mind on invisible things, or retiring for the pursuit or contemplation of them? I observe such objects can draw him from scenes of science, and grandeur, and pleasure: I have seen him steal moments from the Royal Academy, though then expecting his assistance, to get one more hint for the religious improvement of his head or his heart.

Perhaps he is an enthusiast. Yes, certainly; if by that term is meant one who strongly feels his art, but more strongly feels the object of his heavenly pursuit. But if by the term is meant one who is led on by a heated but delusive imagination, then let us stay a little, and inquire.

Do such enthusiasts as the latter proceed with humility and fear? Are they rational and consistent in their conduct? Do they explore the ground as they tread; and only advance, as they feel it good? Suspicious of themselves, do they incessantly inquire of the best and wisest they know, in order to be directed? Are they glad of a hint: and, however contrary to their feelings or interest, do they implicitly bow to the plain precepts of their Maker in his word? Yet

this did Bacon. Let us, if we would be wise, learn to distinguish between the sound and rational determination of that man, who, having dug the field and found the treasure, hides it for joy, and parts with every inferior consideration for it: and the man, whose raptures have nothing but the mere figment of a wild imagination for their foundation.

The fact respecting such a strong though rational direction in the mind of man toward heavenly things, however it may raise suspicion in those who have not felt it, is unquestionable among such as have. To illustrate the subject-I see a small bar of steel in the lid of a box now before me. I see it tremble, as if undetermined, yet keep a certain direction. I can cause it to deviate from its point by impulse; but though I can disturb its natural direction, I cannot give it a new one. Nay, this very disturbance will still more fully discover its inclination; it will put it upon labouring to recover its point: if I cease to agitate, it will soon cease to vibrate; and will return to its proper rest. Of this I am clearly conscious: but I am not more conscious of this fact than I am of another, of which the former may stand as an emblem. Thousands, as well as myself, know that the polar direction of the steel is not more a matter of fact in the natural world, than the heavenly direction they feel is a fact in the moral world: and that a disposition often observed in men who were once the most reprobate, to live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world, is the proper effect of this influence.

It is not indeed so easy to describe what passes in the moral as in the natural world. It would not have been possible for Zaccheus to have fully set forth the feelings with which he as readily quitted the gold in his coffers as the tree from which he descended. Saul could not make the Pharisees or the philosophers comprehend the nature of that full conviction, with

which he counted all things but as dross for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord; nor the evidence which he had that it was his highest honour to suffer for his master's sake. Nor could my late friend, after having obtained the approbation of his hearers at the Royal Academy by his observations upon the arts, have clearly conveyed, with those observations, the more interesting ones which he had made, and the perceptions which he had felt, in a superior science.

For the religion, that is vital and experimental, has not only its common faith, but its correspondent feelings not only its peculiar objects, but its proper taste; which, like that for the fine arts, we must actually possess, in order to fully comprehend. From which premises two consequences will naturally follow: 1. That a pious man will have stronger evidence of the truth and reality of his religion than he can fully demonstrate to others who are of a contrary character: and 2dly. That he can no more doubt the superiority of his choice and taste, because scorned by incompetent judges, than one, who had a taste for proportion or an ear for music, would doubt their existence from their being denied by such as had

none.

By this religious principle, therefore, found in all true believers, they not only resemble lines drawn from a wide circumference to a common centre; but, under the operation of an Almighty Spirit, a new and special direction is given to their desires and faculties toward the attainment of their only, their proper, and their appointed rest. By a moral sensation analogous to the natural, they feel the vanity and disorder of their present state-they see one chief good-they hear of one way to it-they savour the heavenly proposal-and, after receiving a taste for THAT, they find every other good comparatively insipid.

But is this chief good, or the appointed way to it

by a Redeemer, an invention of their own? or a mere tradition of their fathers? On the contrary, they have irrefragable evidence that they were incapable of forming such an expectation-that man could not imagine it but, that it is a hope set before them by HIM that cannot lie. Now it is this heavenly INFLUENCE under which they are, working faith and obedience, that constitutes their peculiar character, and identifies true religion, whensoever or wheresoever it is found.

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When, therefore, the enemies of such a profession bring forward the stale objection--"What is true religion? For we find it one thing in England, another in Scotland, a third at Rome, and often twenty different things in the same place. Settle this," say they, among yourselves, before you address us on the subject." We answer, it has long been settled. While you stumble at the supposed diversity, we both discern and admire the identity. We feel the fullest conviction, that real religion in itself, is so far from being a different thing in different places, that it is one and the same thing at all times, and in all places; and that, in those particulars which are absolutely essential to it, it will yield to the impositions of no time nor place, or its martyrs had not bled.

In order to understand this, men should consider what real religion is; namely the heart of fallen man under a divine influence, returning to God through a Mediator. The Scriptures term this LIFE. As the life of the body is one and the same principle in all men, whatever difference there be observed in their respective complexions, habits, and forms: so real religion, which is the life of the soul, is one and the same principle, of a higher order indeed, but which equally identifies the subject: and, like the former, it is discerned by the exercise of its proper faculties and acts-it requires the same almighty power to maintain as to create it-and is quite distinct from and supe

rior to its accidents, and the circumstances among which it may be found.

For God, who, in the first creation, commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath, in this new creation, shined into our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ; and this still continues to perform the most glorious of his miracles, the moral miracle of recovering the heart of an eccentric and exorbitant creature to his Creator.

By this moral change, man is actually recovered to his God, to his neighbour, and to himself. Tell me not of the external forms and petty circumstantial distinctions with which his education or connections may have prejudiced his mind: they are but as his provincial dialect, his dress, or his complexion. The grand inquiry should be-Is the sinner humble and penitent before his God? Is he seeking acceptance only through that Redeemer whom God hath set forth for a propitiation through faith in his blood? Is he found walking in a course of holy obedience? If this be really his case, then call such a man by what term of distinction or epithet of reproach you please, still the man is alive to God, and will join his fellow-believers in serving HIM; if not in the same modes, yet to the same ends: in the matter of their confessions, petitions, and praises, they will agree, however in the form of presenting them they may differ: there will be a unity, though not a uniformity; and thus the divine life of true religion, derived from a union with the one Living Head of the church, will be identified by its essential properties and effects, in whatever age or church on earth it is found.

Strip real religion, therefore, of that which is no essential part of it, or what is only accidental to it; and regard it as described in the Scriptures, and exemplified, though but imperfectly, in the true be