our Church, (office for Baptism, and collect for Ash-Wednesday,) pleads for it as well as the Word of God; can we supersede it in the pulpit as an unintelligible tenet, without wounding, unawares, Christ and his Apostles, our Church and the Compilers of her Liturgy? See Rev. xxii. 19.

V. To set up impulses as the standard of our faith, or rule of our conduct; to take the thrilling of weak nerves, sinking of the animal spirits, or flights of a heated imagination for the workings of God's Spirit; to pretend to miraculous gifts, and those fruits of the Spirit which are not offered and promised to believers in all ages, or to boast of the graces which that Spirit produces in the heart of every child of God, when the fruits of the flesh appear in our life-this is downright enthusiasm; I detest it as well as you, Sir, and I heartily wish you good luck whenever you shall attack such monstrous delusions.

But is it consistent with the doctrine of our Church to condemn and set aside all feelings in religion, and rank them with unaccountable impulses? Give me leave, Sir, to tell you, that either you or the compilers of our Liturgy, Articles, and Homilies, must be mistaken, if I did not mistake you.

They teach us to beseech God to deliver us from hardness of heart, whereby I cannot conceive they mean any thing, if they mean not a heart past feeling. They bid us pray, (office for the Sick) that every sick person may know and feel that there is no saving name or power but that of Jesus Christ. In the 17th of our Articles, they speak of godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the workings of God's Spirit. And in the third part of the homily for Rogation week, they declare that when after contrition we feel our consciences at peace with God through the remission of our sin, it is God that worketh this miracle in us, (compare this with Rom. v. 1.) They are so far, therefore, from attributing such feelings to the weakness of good people's nerves, or to a spirit of pride and delusion, that they affirm it is God that worketh them in their hearts.

Yea, they never suffer us to meet together for publick worship without besecching the God of all grace to give us such a due sense of all his mercies, especially of his inestimable love in our redemption by Jesus Christ, as that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful; and if they would have us have a due sense of an inestimable love causing our hearts to be unfeignedly thankful, she is not against our feeling some thankfulness, for the word sense certainly conveys that idea, as well as the Latin word sentire, or the French sentir, whence it is derived, which cannot be Englished more literally than by the word to feel. Therefore, the expression, to feel thankfulness, does not convey a stronger idea than the words of our Church, to be duly, sensibly, unfeignedly thankful in heart, which you daily use yourself, Sir. In condemning feel

ings in general, it would not then have been disagreeable at all to our Liturgy, to have allowed your hearers at least some feelings of thankfulness for the inestimable love of their dying Lord.

But to proceed: You seemed, Sir, to discountenance feelings as not agreeable to sober, rational worship; but if I am not mistaken, reason by no means clashes with feelings of various sorts in religion. I am willing to let any man of reason judge whether feeling sorrow for sin, hunger and thirst after righteousness, peace of conscience, serenity of mind, consolation in prayer, thankfulness at the Lord's table, hatred of sin, zeal for God, love to Jesus, and all men, compassion for the distrest, &c. or feeling nothing at all of this, is matter of mere indifference: yea, Sir, take for a judge a heathen poet, if you please, and you will hear him say, of a young man who, by his blushes, betrayed the shame he felt for having told an untruth, erubuit salva res est.

Does it seem contrary to reason that a spirit should be affected by spiritual objects? If heat and cold, sickness and health, so affect my body as to cause various feelings in it, why cannot fear and hope, love and hatred, joy or sorrow, sin and grace, remorse and peace, so affect my soul as to produce various feelings or sensations there? Can any thing be more absurd and contrary to nature than the apathy of stoics? And what is banishing feelings out of religion but pleading for religious apathy?

If a man may feel sorrow when he sees himself stript of all, and left naked upon a desert coast, why should not a penitent sinner, whom God has delivered from blindness of heart, be allowed to feel sorrow, upon seeing himself robbed of his title to heaven, and left in the wilderness of this world destitute of original righteousness? Again, if it is not absurd to say that a rebel, condemned to death, feels joy upon his being reprieved and received into his prince's favour, why should it be thought absurd to affirm that a Christian, who, being justified by faith, has peace with God, and rejoices in hope of the glory to come, feels joy and happiness in his inmost soul on that account? On the contrary, Sir, to affirm that such a one feels nothing, (if I am not mistaken,) is no less repugnant to reason than to religion.

But let us go to the law and the testimony, and let the point stand or fall by the Oracles of God. Had Adam no feeling when, seeing his nakedness, he tried to hide himself from himself and from God? I believe, Sir, he felt remorse, shame, and fear, to a very great degree; and should I be thought an enthusiast for it, I confess I have felt the same upon conviction of sin.

It is probable enough also, that Jacob felt religious awe and a holy dread, when he said, "How dreadful is this place: this is none other than the gate of heaven!" And young king Josiah contrition of heart, when upon his hearing the Word of the Lord, he rent his clothes and wept, (2 Kings xxii. 11.) Nor did

the Searcher of hearts say that he was indebted to his constitution, and the weakness of his nerves, for those feelings of sorrow. Just the reverse, "Because thine heart was tender, and thou hast humbled thyself and wept before me, I also have heard thee, says the Lord."

Was Job a low-spirited enthusiast, or did he feel something of the terrors of the Lord in reality, when he cried out, (chap. vi. 4,)"The arrows of the Almighty are within me, the poison thereof drinketh up my spirits: the terrors of God do set themselves in array against me."

But let us go to the Psalms, which, in all ages of the Church, have been looked upon as the standard of true devotion.

Can we, without uncharitableness, suppose that David had no feelings, (or which comes to the same sense, no sensation) of joy and thankfulness in his heart, when he sung, Psalm xxviii. 7, "The Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusted in him, and I am helped, therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth?"

Was not he a great dissembler, if feeling no godly sorrow, he said, Psalm xxxi. 10, "My life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing, my strength faileth me because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed?"

Did he feel no happiness in God, taste nothing of the Lord's goodness, when he said, Psalm xxxiv. 8, 18, "O taste and see that the Lord is good, he is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart?" No remorse, no fear of God's wrath, when he cried out, xxxviii. 1, 3, 4, “O Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath, there is no rest in my bones because of my sin, for mine iniquities are gone over my head as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me to bear."

Did he feel no fervour of devotion, no warmth of love, when he said, (xxxix. 3,) "My heart was hot within me; while I was musing, the fire kindled, and I spake with my tongue?" No desire and thirst after God when he sung, (xlii. 1,) "As the hart panteth after the water-brook, so panteth my soul after thee, O God," &c. No dejection or trouble of mind when he expostulated with himself, (xlii. 11,) "What art thou cast down, O my soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?" Did he expect no feelings of joy, no sense of the peace of God when he prayed, (li. 8,) "Make me hear of joy and gladness, that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice: Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation?" Let thy loving-kindness comfort me, when wilt thou comfort me?" &c. Psalm cxix. 76, 82.

Had he no sense, no inward consciousness, that his affections were set on things above, when he said, "My heart is fixed: my heart is fixed, I will sing and give praise?" Did he feel no stirrings of desire, no touches of joy when he cried, (lxiii. 1,) “My soul thirsteth after thee, my flesh longeth for thee, as a dry and

thirsty land where no water is. Because thy loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise thee: thus will I bless thee while I live, and my soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness?"

Had he no sense or feeling of the mercy of God, and of his justification, when he said, (lxvi. 16,) "Come and hear, all ye that fear the Lord, and I will tell you what he has done for my soul?" (xxxii. 1, 5.) "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, &c." I acknowledged my sin unto thee, and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin." (ciii. 1,) "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name, who forgiveth all thy sin, and healeth all thy infirmity?"

Did he feel no concern for God's glory, when he said, (cxix. 136, 139,) "Rivers of water run down mine eyes, because men keep not thy law?" "My zeal hath even consumed me, because mine enemies have forgotten thy words?" In short, had he felt neither sorrow nor comfort, when he said, (xciv. 19,) "In the multitude of the sorrows of my heart thy comforts have refreshed my soul?" Or shall we suppose that the man after God's own heart, in his devotion, was only a well-meaning enthusiast, of a soft complexion, sometimes cast down by melancholy, at other times carried out by the warmth of his imagination, and often led by impulses into the wild presumption of ranters? If you refuse (as I am sure you do) to pass such judgments on David, you cannot help, Sir, allowing the reality and the usefulness of feelings in sober religion, in rational devotion.

But let us leave the penitent king to his feelings, and consider what we can make of the weeping prophet. Certainly, Sir, we must say that Jeremiah was a melancholy enthusiast, almost falling into despair through the weakness of his nerves and lowness of his spirits, or allow that there is such a thing as feeling godly sorrow in religion, and thereby becoming entitled to the promise of our Lord, Matt. v. "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted," unless we run to the other extreme, and account for his rivers of tears, by saying they were hypocritical tears, such as crocodiles are supposed to shed to bring men into their snare; and yet this must have been the case, if he felt no inward sorrow adequate to the outward demonstrations of his grief.

Were the saints of the New Testament more free from these

inward feelings? Just the reverse. At least we ought to judge charitably enough of the Virgin Mary, to suppose that she felt some spiritual joy when she said, "My soul rejoiceth in God my Saviour;" and of our Lord himself, to believe that he felt some trouble of mind, some deep concern when he wept over Jerusalem, when he was troubled and wept at Lazarus's grave, when he VOL. XLIV. JANUARY, 1821. * D *

said, "My soul is troubled unto death," and when, being in an agony, he offered up prayers with strong crying and tears, yea, with a bloody sweat: Surely, Sir, such scenes were transacted, not in his weak nerves, or frighted imagination, but in his inmost soul, and consequently we may conclude that he first felt them there.

If we read the Gospels and the Acts, we find frequent mention made of a peace, joy, and love, which people were strangers to, till they received the unction of the Holy One; and that not among apostles only, but among private Christians and illiterate women. The two disciples cried out, Luke xxiv. "How did our heart burn within us!" The twelve, whose hearts were filled with sorrow, John xvi. 6, return to Jerusalem with great joy, Luke xxiv.

At the day of Pentecost they were filled with power, boldness, and zeal, which are graces common to all believers, especially preachers, (for what have we to do with the miraculous gifts which it pleased God to confine to the apostolic age) at least our Church declares (Homily for Whitsunday,) that the Spirit of God engendereth still a burning zeal towards God's Word, and giveth all men (not cloven tongues outwardly, but) a tongue, yea, a fiery tongue, so that they may boldly and cheerfully declare the truth in the face of all the world.

If we read on, we see three thousand people pricked to the heart by the word, (and consequently feeling the sword of the Spirit in their heart,) Eph. vi. compared with Hebrews, and upon their crying for help, we find them so comforted upon believing the forgiveness of sins through Jesus, that they were enabled to praise God, continue instant in prayer, and breaking of bread, and to eat their food with gladness and singleness of heart; and I presume, Sir, they felt and enjoyed that gladness of heart; yea, not only believers at Jerusalem felt it, but those of Antioch also, who (Acts xiii. 52,) were filled with joy and the Holy Ghost; and the churches of Judea and Galilee, who walked in the fear of the Lord, and the comfort of the Holy Ghost, Acts ix, 31.

Nor was that a privilege peculiar to the primitive Christians, as all those who have been at the pains of making their calling and election sure, experience daily for the promise was not only to them, but to their children, and to us that are afar off. Had our Church been of another opinion, she would never have bidden us pray, as she does in the Collect for Whitsunday, and the Sunday before: "Send us thine Holy Ghost to comfort us, and grant us, by thy Holy Spirit, to have a right judgment in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort;" and in that for St. Stephen's day, "Grant that we, being filled with the Holy Ghost, may learn to love our enemies as thy first martyr;" much