would call us off from the world, take away our false dependencies, and make us confess that all our springs,' those of comfort, as well as those of strength, are 'in him." So great is the pride and weakness of nature, that we but deceive ourselves, if we think it safe to have much of the world in our hands. Our glory is to live above it, and to do this is to live by faith on the Son of God,' for this is our victory over the world, even our faith.' Faith puts down the world, by spreading over it the glory of Christ, the bright shadowing of 'better things to come.' But the world, rising up, fastens on our pride, drives us from a throne of grace, and causes us to come to God, if come we do, with greater thoughts of ourselves than of him, and no wonder we go away without comfort; for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace only to the humble." We are thus left to our complaints, without consolation and without freedom, while the thoughts and affections of the truly humble and faithful, escape from the solitude and constraint of earth, like birds released from their cage, and lose themselves in the lustre and expanse of a native heaven. As the shaken tree roots deeper, as the blast that beats down the flame causes it to rise higher, so they, when brought low by adversity, mount upward, and, when

1 Psal. lxxxvii. 7.

2 James iv. 6.

shaken by the storms, bind themselves closer to the rock they are resting on. They have the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ, and come what will, come sorrow and bereavement, come sickness and death, they are never vanquished. He that is in them is 'greater than all.' Such is the reasoning and the operation of faith. It does not estimate the events of life, according to the suggestions of a worldly policy. Nothing more strongly indicates the fatal prevalence of unbelief, than a restless, complaining spirit. Such a mind can hardly have the persuasion there is a God; much less can it have a due impression of his perfections. It feels all the insecurity and has all the trouble it would, if God had made no promises, and exerted no wisdom and power to bring all things to a just and happy consummation. How vain the resources, how dread the comforts of a faithless mind! and that mind is essentially faithless that cannot find repose in the arms of a universal Providence, and rejoice to feel its care and own its control. Hanging our hopes on the Lord, and with affections deeply, sweetly rooted in his truth and perfections, he will be to the soul in all troubles, as a great shade in a weary land, and as the morning upon the face of nature, both its joy and its glory.

CHAPTER IV.

Moral worth of incidental actions and opinions-Their peculiarity with reference to the objects of faith-Proper estimate of worldly interests-Singularity of religious indecision-Its contrariety to reason and analogy-Casual devotion-Its absurdity-Its action considered as the cause and fruit of infidelity-All true faith considered as necessarily influential in proportion to the value of its objectPrevalent inattention to the Scriptures-Connexion between faith and knowledge-Infidelity of those who give but a casual attention to religion-Their hope-Their conduct contrasted with their faith and caution in business affairs-Their singular inconsistency-The faith and practice of a nominal believer compared with those of a professed infidel-What there is to choose between them-Religious pretenders-Their liability to self-delusion from the facility with which they gain credit.

ACTIONS incidentally and coldly performed, opinions which, like the features of the face, are ours without our volition, and to which we are chiefly partial because they are ours, though ours in a way which we cannot account for, have little worth in them. They are merely accidents of the mind. There is neither faith, nor heart, nor reason in them. Neither are they instinctive, for instinctive actions and desires have a suitable end; but these seem to have no end at all; none, truly, which they aspire to with that consistency which should entitle them to the dignity of being designed. Still the religious

acts and opinions of many seem to be of this character. It is no uncommon thing for persons, without any consciousness of the process, to confound truth and error, reason and fancy; to take the flashes of the animal spirits for the light of evidence; to think they believe things to be true or false, when they only fancy them to be so, and fancy them to be so, only because they would have them so, or, what is easier, because such is the fancy of others. Such persons have an accidental faith and religion-conveniences that never stand in the way of their de

sires.

But what renders this peculiarity worthy of particular consideration is, that it respects matters which they confess to be of greater importance than any other, and matters too whose nature and excellency must strongly engage the heart which they engage at all, because the heart will love something strongly and can find nothing else that will bear a comparison with them—nothing, indeed, which they do not make a trifle, or at least convert into a mere hint of the good they contain-causing it, whether by its worthlessness or value, to point to themselves, as the greatest and worthiest objects of our desire and search. That from persons so considering them, these objects so transcendent and inviting that they must needs transport whom they engage, should

receive only a casual attention, a respect so much below what they pay to other things that it seems more like an intentional slight, than a conscious observation of them-is a singularity in the practice of rational creatures, which no philosophy could lead us to presume, and no discretion allow us to credit, if we did not see it daily before our eyes.

A just and rational appreciation of these objects does not indeed hinder our paying to worldly advantages a due regard, neither despising nor adoring them; not slighting their use in the present state nor letting them abate our ardour for the more excellent glory and riches of another; not depending on them for distinction and happiness, but looking to them as means of doing good; not lifted up by the influence and respect which they procure, so as to despise others, or fall into the weakness of esteeming ourselves made regal and absolute by them, as petty princes often are, by the cringing and service of minions, of whom it is hardly a degradation to affect to be their creatures, but still, whose importance is shown to better advantage in the event, than that of their masters who take their consequence from it, and are induced thereby to set an unnatural value upon their smiles and lay claim to that homage from equals which could only be their due as the creators of them. If religion did wholly