SERMON XII.

CONSISTENCY OF CHARACTER.

PROVERBS iv. 26, 27.

PONDER THE PATH OF THY FEET, AND LET ALL THY WAYS BE ESTABLISHED. TURN NOT TO THE RIGHT HAND NOR TO THE LEFT; REMOVE THY FOOT FROM EVIL.

Or the various attributes which ennoble the character, perhaps none has more just claims to respect than what is termed consistency, the quality recommended in the text. It is rare in proportion to its value. What is this consistency of character of which we speak? The text enjoins upon us to ponder the path of our feet; to let all our ways be established; to turn not to the right hand nor to the left. Reflect upon the course of life, which you pursue; examine your actions; weigh them well in their nature, influences and probable results; soberly and intelligently determine the principles by which your life should be governed. Having ascertained your duty, pursue it. Having fixed the principles which should regulate your conduct, adhere to

them; and let your whole character be consistent with them. Be certain to live as you believe. Every art and occupation has its rules and principles. The mechanic or artisan must conform to those which belong to his trade. The navigator, who traverses the pathless ocean, must be guided by the established principles of that science, without whose aid he will attempt in vain to ascertain his course, to proceed in safety, or to reach with success his destined port. The tiller of the earth, if he would find a reward for his toil, must observe the times and seasons, and conform to the established laws of nature. The man, who would have physical or mental health, must follow those counsels of wisdom and safety, which nature inculcates and experience confirms. In regard to every thing valuable, there are certain conditions determined and prescribed, with which we must comply, if we would be successful. All these analogies apply to the moral character. Here as much as any where, there must be a conformity to established principles. A reasonable and moral being certainly ought not to be the creature of mere impulses and caprices; and driven about continually by the innumerable fluctuations to which he may be exposed. He should not be the sport of his passions or imagination, or the many external influences by which he may be assailed. He should have an object; that object should be defined; the means of its accomplishment should be determined; these means must be steadily exerted; and his whole conduct conformed to them, that he may effect his purpose. Such, in the abstract, is consistency of character.

This is a rare quality. often fail in their execution. They make fair promises and break them. They profess good resolutions and

Men form various plans and

pile them up one upon another, and there is the end of them. The energy of the mind seems exhausted in the conception of the resolution; and no strength is left for its performance. It must be admitted that few men live in just consistency with their principles.

We are Christians. We believe that God has sent Jesus Christ into the world to teach men their duty, and reveal a future existence and a final retribution. He has explained to us how this world is related to another; how the future depends on the present; and of how little moment is every thing which belongs exclusively to this world, compared with what belongs to another. Now if we look at the actual influence of such principles upon those, who assume to be Christians, we may ask, is it what it should be? in many cases is it any thing? in what we call the best cases, is it not transient, fluctuating, and partial? Ought we to expect of men, who have a firm confidence of a future life, infinitely better than the present, that they should feel a dread and a painful apprehension of leaving this? Is it to be expected of men persuaded of a future retribution and believing themselves responsible to God for every action and duty, and that in this present life they are laying up for themselves stores of future honor or degradation, happiness or misery, is it to be expected of such men, that they should indulge themselves in the grossest follies and habits of crime; and this too apparently without compunction or alarm? Let a man examine the high and holy principles of the gospel, its injunctions to integrity and purity, its counsels and precepts of equity, benevolence, and disinterestedness; let him observe what it teaches of piety to God, of obedience and resignation to the divine will, of reliance upon his providence and joy in his government; and then

ask himself whether if he did not know the facts, he would think to find among the professors of this religion so much worldliness and selfishness, so much injustice and unkindness, so much formality of worship and insensibility to the goodness of God; in a word, so much of practical atheism. It is often stated that when Christians, rather those, who are bred up under Christian institutions and are called Christians, visit heathen countries, actuated and exclusively absorbed by a spirit of traffic and a sordid love of gain, an impartial observer would scarcely suspect that they have any religion; and the poor benighted children of paganism with great reason demand of those, who would convert them to Christianity, if these are your Christians what are we to gain by such conversion? This indeed is a painful, but I leave it to you to judge, whether it is a discolored picture, of that inconsistency of character, to which we have alluded.

What can be more unjustifiable than that inconsistency of character which we have described! God has given man understanding and revealed to him his duty and happiness. Let him exercise his understanding in discerning and applying the truths, which relate directly to his character and involve the great interests of his existence. These truths, we repeat it, are not changeable like human feelings and passions. They keep their places like the fixed stars to guide man over the troubled sea of human life. One would think from the conduct of some men that nothing is determined. But death is as certain as life. The existence of God is as certain as the existence of the world; the providence of God is as certain as the course of nature; and the moral government of God is as determined as the moral constitution of man. The truths

of revelation, many of which are only the echo, and the divine confirmation of the dictates of our own reason, if they rest not upon the same demonstrative evidence upon which those great truths are founded, to which we have just referred, are confirmed by proofs of a presumptive character, far stronger than that on which we are accustomed with confidence to stake the highest interests of this world. We believe these principles; and when we are once upon reasonable grounds convinced of their authority, reality, and power, let us govern our lives by them; let us be seeking not their evidence but their application; and hold them not in that imperfect, doubtful, fluctuating form, which we do not upon reflection ourselves admit belongs to them; which must defeat their proper influences upon our character; and render them hardly more efficient to our virtue and consolation than atheism itself. It is not a case in which a reasonable mind can justify itself in remaining undecided.

Look again at the inconsistency of man's conduct in respect to present objects, and in relation to what is future; in what belongs to this world and in what belongs to the next. The objects of this world absorb his attention, affections, purposes, and passions. He is buried in them soul and body. He pursues them with an intense interest. The security of his possessions, the farther acquisitions of wealth, where even there is an accumulation beyond his immediate or possible wants, fame, advancement, power, popularity, success even in the humblest competition, pleasure in any form and purchased at any peril, a name, a title, a ribband, a feather; these are the glittering bubbles after which men chase; these are the painted clouds which they stretch out their arms to grasp until