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which is all outfide. With him the face is not the index of the mind, nor the tongue the interpreter of the heart. There is a lie in his right hand. He is perpetually acting a part, and under a mask he goes about deceiving the world. He turns himfelf into a variety of fhapes; he changes as circumftances change; he goes through all the forms of diffimulation, and puts off one difguife to put on another. He does not hesitate to counterfeit religion when it ferves a turn, and to act the faint in order to gain his ends. Hence the fpirit of the world hath often paffed for the fpirit which is of God, and Satan under this disguise hath been mistaken for an angel of light. Such is the fpirit of the world.

The fpirit which is of God is a fpirit of truth, fincerity and opennefs. The citizen of heaven esteems truth as facred, and holds fincerity to be the first of the virtues. He has no fecret doctrines to communicate. He needs no chofen confidents to whom he may impart his favourite notions; no private conventicles where he may diffeminate his opinions. What he avows to God he avows to man. He expreffeth with his tongue what he thinketh with his heart. He will not indeed improperly publish truths; he will not prostitute what is pure and holy; he will not, as the Scripture fays, throw pearls before fwine; but neither will he on any occafion, partake with fwine in their husks. He is what he appears to be. Arrayed in the fimple majefty of truth, he feeks no other covering. Supported by the confcioufnefs of rectitude, he holds faft his integrity as he would guard his life. Such is the difference between these characters. The man of the earth turns afide to the

crooked paths and infidious mazes of diffimulation; the citizen of heaven moves along in the onward tract of integrity and honor. The fpirit of the world feeks concealment and the darkness and the shade; the spirit which is of God loves the light, becomes the light, adorns the light.

Thirdly, The fpirit of the world is a timid fpirit; the spirit which is of God is a bold and manly fpirit. Actuated by felfifh principles, and purfuing his own intereft, the man of the earth is afraid to offend. He accommodates himself to the manners that prevail, and courts the favour of the world by the most infinuating of all kinds of flattery, by following its example. He is a mere creature of the times; a mirror to reflect every vice of the vicious, and every vanity of the vain. His fole defire is to pleafe. If he speak truths, they are pleafing truths. He dares not risk the difapprobation of a fool, and would rather offend against the laws of Heaven than give offence to his neighbour. To finners he appears as a finner, to faints he appears as a faint. In the literal fenfe he becomes all things to all men, without afpiring to that faith which would fet him above the world, or to that fpirit which would enable him to affert the dignity of the rational character. He is timid because he has reafon to be fo. Wickednefs,

condemned by its own vileness, is timorous, and forecafteth grievous things. There is a dignity in virtue which keeps him at a distance; he feels how awful goodness is; and in the presence of a virtuous man, he shrinks into his own infignificancé.

On the other hand, the righteous is bold as a lion. I fear my God, and I have no other fear,"

is the language of his heart. With God for his protector, and with innocence for his fhield, he walks through the world with an erect posture, and with a face that looks upwards. He defpifes a fool, though he were poffeffed of all the gold of Ophir, and fcorns a vile man, though a minifter of ftate. The voice of the world is to him as a founding brafs or tinkling cymbal. The applaufes or the cenfures of the high or the low affect him not. Like diftant thunder, they vibrate on his ear, but come not to his heart. To him his own mind is the whole world. There fits the judge of his actions, and he appeals to no other tribunal upon the earth. He poffeffes the spirit which refts upon itself. He walks by his own light, he determines upon his own deeds. Supported by the consciousness of innocence, and acting with all the force of Providence on his fide, he has nothing to fear; knows that he can no more be hurt by the rumours of the idle, impious, and hypocritical, than the heavens can be fet on fire by the sparkles that arife into the air, and that die in the moment they afcend. Animated with this fpirit, the feeble becomes ftrong in the Lord. The Apoftles who on former occafions had been weak and timid, whom the voice of a woman frightened into apoftafy, who deferted their Mafter in his deepest diftrefs, and hid themselves from the fury of the multitude; these Apostles no fooner felt the impulfe of this Spirit, than they appeared openly in the midst of Jerufalem, publifhed the refurrection of Jefus to thofe priests and elders who had condemned him to death, and discovered a boldness and magnanimity, a spirit and intrepidity, which fhook the councils of the Jewish na

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tion, and made the kings of the earth to tremble on their thrones.

In the last place, The fpirit of the world is an interested fpirit; the fpirit which is of God is a generous fpirit. The man of the earth has no feeling but for himself. His own intereft is his only object; he never looses fight of this; this is his all; every line of his conduct centres in this point. He has a defign in every thing he does. As the Prophet Mala

chi fays, "He will not fhut the doors for nought." He deliberates not whether an action will do good, but whether it will do good to him. That generofity of fentiment which expands the foul; that charming fenfibility of heart which makes us glow for the good and weep for the woes of others; that Chriftian charity which comprehends in its wide circle all our brethren of mankind; that diffufive benevolence reduced to a principle of action which makes the human nature approach to the Divine, he confiders as the dreams of a vifionary head, as the figments of a romantic mind that knows not the world.

But the spirit which is of God is as generous as the spirit of the world is fordid. One of the chief duties in the spiritual life is to deny felf. Chriftianity is founded upon the most aftonishing inftance of generofity and love that ever was exhibited to the world; and they have no pretenfions to the Chriftian character who feel not the truth of what their mafter faid, "That it is more bleffed to give than to receive." This is not comprehended by worldly men, and the more worldly and wicked they are, the more it is incomprehenfible. "Does Job ferve God for nought?" faid the firft accufer of the juft. Yes,

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thou accurfed fpirit! he ferves God for nought. Thy votaries ferve thee for lucre and profit and filthy mammon; but the children of God ferve him from reverence and love. Rewarded indeed they fhall be in heaven, while thine are to be tormented, and by thyself, in hell; but they account that to be a fufficient reward which they have even here in their own hearts, the confcioufnefs and the applaufes of generofity.

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